A Comparison of Water Mods

[TechAngel85]

Just to let everyone know, I'm working on the final compare between Water and Realistic Waters 2. It took a while to get the video going because I've switched from Adobe Premiere Elements 10 to Adobe Premiere Pro and had to relearn the interface and how things work. I've got it smoothly now so it should be released later today.

[TechAngel85]

Thought I'd tease with a shot of my current computer screens... 10 points each to those that can name the location on the video editor and/or can name the anime I'm watching (via HDMI on my flat screen).

 

[phazer11]

Ghost in the Shell: SAC and you are 2 minutes 28 seconds and 6 frames (of 30?) in to your video out of 7 minutes, 52 seconds and 24 frames.

[TechAngel85]

Close...

[TechAngel85]

I'm still not happy with what YouTube is doing to the video when they process it...the rendered file on my computer is sharper and more smooth, but it is what it is. Here's the video:

 

 

Video in OP.

[phazer11]

You could always upload it to dropbox and stream it from there. Anyways nice video it's a really close one but I'd have to say RWT2 wins (even if judge solely on the cell edits)

[TechAngel85]

Already ahead of you! lol. But it's going to take a good while to finish uploading. It's 700+MBs

[TechAngel85]

I've updated the OP to include the YouTube video and a link to it in my Dropbox.

 

The quality might be better on the YouTube video, actually. This must be due to the media player on the sites. Download the file for the best quality (assuming Dropbox didn't re-render the video like YouTube does...heck, I'll download it to find out.).

 

Confirmed...download for best quality.

[Aiyen]

RW2 wins for me because the textures just have a more finely tuned set of details. Most noticeable when the sun is shining down I think.

 

It just helps make it much harder to notice the repeatable pattern the especially vanilla suffers from on larger bodies.

 

The only location what I think that water looks better and the texture fit more is in riften.

[phazer11]

If you really wanted to see what it looks like on a site (so people can stream it) you could make a Vimeo account and have it upload from your dropbox (as long as it's not more than 500mb)

[TechAngel85]

If you really wanted to see what it looks like on a site (so people can stream it) you could make a Vimeo account and have it upload from your dropbox (as long as it's not more than 500mb)

I thought about that but it's over 700MBs, plus the good stuff on Vimeo cost money...of which I don't have. lol

[phazer11]

700MB? What export settings did you use in Premiere? For 720P you'd need a max of ~5000 kbps bitrate for live action and less for game content from what I've seen (I'm a video editor)

[TechAngel85]

Target bitrate was set at 13Mbps and maximum at 15Mbps (i think). This is still half of what YouTube states...for 720p they state the standard bitrate is 30,000Kbps for enterprise accounts. Of course normal accounts is 5,000Kbps. That's probably why those music videos on YouTube are such high quality. lol

 

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en

 

I also have notes from various sites when I did my research to use this when rendering for YouTube:

 

Video Codec (streaming video): H.264

Video Bitrate: =

Audio Codec: ACC for H.264

Audio Bitrate: => 192Kbps ; 320Kbps = CD Quality

 

EDIT:

I asked Hodilton (does a lot of videos on YouTube for Skyrim) his settings and he told me this:

 

Quicktime 1080p 24bit Depth with 30000kbps

[phazer11]

Well for Youtube (and Vimeo) I know for a fact that the minimum for 720P is 5000 kbps (from their sites). I used Final Cut Pro for my last submission and exported to a lossless format (apples ugh) and then took it into StaxRip (an open source encoder) put the settings in  (I can give you them) using CRF=18 with x264 and got the ABR to 5000 and both sites accepted it at 720P (looked great). What makes those music videos look so good is their post processing and their filters.

 

For example if they had some mosquito noise in the frame they'd zone that section off selectively increase the RF and if that didn't fix it they would use a filter along the lines of fluxsmooth low or vaguedenoiser (to give an example of the AVISynth filters preloaded in StaxRip) depending on the scene. It's what I did and their tools are even more specialized.

 

Now for AAC you can go crazy if you like, most people won't be able to tell a difference of anything higher than 128 VBR 16-bit depth Nero HE-AAC V2. Those figures they were saying were for uploaders and users with enterprise connection upload/download speeds. They are just making recommendations. IE if you want 720P and you want your file to look good in the case Youtube converts your 720P before making the lower quality version then make sure your bit rate maxes around 5k as a rule of thumb since that's what their encoder looks for anyways. 

 

I'm going to provide some examples from Youtube.

 

 

CBR or Constant Bitrate. VBR or Variable Bitrate and CRF (a subtype of VBR).

 

[Neovalen]

Realistic Water Two :) Winner no doubt.