Original Resolution?

[Anton]

I have a few questions and I wondered if anyone knows this information:

What resolution are computer generated movies rendered at? Movies such as Cars, Finding Nemo etc.

What resolution are special effects in live action movies rendered at? Star Wars etc.

Do movie studios have to re-render special effects/CG movies for HD releases?

I'd really like to understand the process involved in regards to making a HD release, I've done a few searches but I've not come up with anything terrifically solid.

Thanks in advance.

[Sinner]

thats a good question and as a follow-up, with standard def. versions of computer animated flicks already so detailed, does it really benefit that much on HD? thanks...

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Sinner

thats a good question and as a follow-up, with standard def. versions of computer animated flicks already so detailed, does it really benefit that much on HD? thanks...

Well this are not exact size renders (I don't have one with me right now) but these will give you an idea how detailed a Blu-ray size render could be:

Sally and McQueen



Detailed enough?

[Deciazulado]

I'm CES busy but here's a quick answer...mmm... usually Movie digital resolution is specified as 1.25K, 1.5K, 2K, 3K, 4K, etc

Which means K =1024 pixels across the full Camera Aperture width of the film (the Projector Aperture (the intended projected image) is about 5% narrower).

Toy Story was rendered as 1.5K, A Bug's Life at 2K, for example.

the new Digital Star Wars digital SFX final resolution must been 1920 pixels wide to match the 1080 x 1920 format the live action was shot.

Originally Posted by Anton

Do movie studios have to re-render special effects/CG movies for HD releases?

If the pixel count doesn't match the inside of the 1080 x 1920 dimensions it either has to be re-rendered, or resized (upscaled/downscaled) or cropped.

For example Toy Story if the render was 1.66 (for being compatible with the European 35mm print image area requirements) would be about 925 x 1536 pixels. The intended 1.85 projected image would be approximately 788 x 1460 pixels.

(Since there's more image height rendered for filling the European 1.66 height, you could use about 820 x 1460 pixels to fill 1.78 too)

So a new from scratch render could be done to 1080 x 1920 from the original digital data (Best results), or the original 820 x 1460 pixel image be up-scaled to 1080 x 1920 (Not as good results).

Also you could fudge a little with the cropping (less than 1% loss of the original projected image in this example) and do a more exact mathematical (4/3) upscaling to 1080 x 1920 (Slightly better upscaled results)

Apply to other resolutions accordingly.

[Anton]

Is there any word from the studios as to how they are going to release their CG movies? I would imagine Pixar already had a HD release for Cars in mind when they rendered it originally.

I'd love to see the movies re-rendered in 1920X1080 (- whatever cropping has to be done to fit the original aspec ratio of the movie), but I'm also aware that this is a lot of number crunching.

Do studios even have a complete render script of a movie?

[Deciazulado]

If they don't have the original data, or even the final Digital Intermediate file prior to printing the film, they would always have a high resolution fine grained film interpositive they made from it.

But hopefully they all still have their digital files!

If they have, well they even reformatted and re-rendered things like Scope shaped A Bug's Life (2.39) for the 4:3 Fullscreen DVDs (both PAL and NTSC), so doing renders for Blu-ray should be a given.

In the specific case of A Bugs Life, all they have to do is crop the 2K, approx. 1940 pixel wide image, to 1920 and they're done.

I'm not sure what resolution they rendered Cars or the Incredibles (I have 2k , 3k, ad 4K screenshot renderings) but as this rendering resolution is as big or larger than the 1080 x 1920 resolution needed there should be no problem either resizing them down or re-rendering them if needed.

Since you mentioned it, films like Toy Story, Monster's Inc., Finding Nemo would be around 1040 to 1080 tall x 1920 wide on Blu-ray, and films like Cars, Incredibles, A Bug's Life, and Happy Feet would be around 800 to 820 tall x 1920 wide.