Looking for advice with file settings for best quality concept art for our immersive animation

[Hel5F9C]

Hi all!

Me and my partner have received funding to create an animation projected across 4 walls, each with a length of 6m. The height is around 3m.

We are creating the animation in 11:9. 

I wondered if anyone has any advice to make the concept art the best quality possible whilst also having a 'workable' file. I've never done anything on this scale and the files I've been making him been pretty unworkable once the layers start building. My partner keeps telling me he wants it to be MAXIMUM quality so once we finish the project we can maybe project it in larger spaces or create a vr experience, however I wonder what is a necessity in achieving this. I don't understand the settings well enough, I did a bit of research but im so worried about the quality being lost when we project it. It also needs to look good on a tv.

It could be possible to break up the file into 4 walls with separate files, however this could be a challenge in the continuation of the image, so I'd probably just have to draw some of the assets on separate canvases? One scene is a magical forest, so I could draw trees on separate files?

At the moment I have a canvas 15360px x 2160px. (note, there are 4 walls). 16bit colour. 300 pixels per inch. 

I really appreciate any advice, thanks for your time. 

[kglad]

what app?

[Hel5F9C]

Will be drawing in photoshop, animating in after effects. 

[kglad]

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.

<"moved from cc desktop">

[Hel5F9C]

Ok then thankyou! I appreciate the guidance. 

[kglad]

no problem.  you posts are now in the ae forum https://community.adobe.com/t5/after-effects-discussions/looking-for-advice-with-file-settings-for-b...

[hellopaul4]

It depends entirely on what you'll be using to project that video. If you'll be using a 4K projector for each wall, then create your animation as four 4K comps - one for each projector. It seems incongruous that you've said each wall is 6m long, 3m high, but you're creating an 11:9 animation. Do you want the projection to fill each wall? In which case, surely each wall's aspect ratio is 2:1? In which case, yes - your canvas/comp size of 15360 x 2160 would be perfect for four 4K projectors. Ignore "pixels per inch" - that's irrelevant outside of the print world. Can you projectors handle lovely 16-bit colour? If they're only 8-bit, set your AE project/PS file to 8-bit.

You will probably end up creating many separate LAYERED Photoshop files rather than trying to draw everything in one huge file. As you suggested, draw a tree as one file, a background as another one, a character as another one, then bring each one into AE and drop them all into a nice big comp.

If your system can handle it, you could work at a higher resolution (maybe you'll get your hands on some 8K projectors in the future??). You'd be creating stills in Photoshop at a gargantuan size (30720 x 4320 = a 132 megapixel image!) and you could "cheat" and create a comp in AE that's 30,000 x 4320 (because - as far as I know - 30,000 is AE's max comp size) but ALWAYS work/preview at half res. or lower. Then you can render your exports at whatever output you like, eg. 4x 4K for now, but 4x 8K in future (from my limited experience of seeing 8K TVs, even big ones showing 8K content, there is very little advantage over 4K).

Again, this is assuming you have a VERY powerful PC/Mac, and your animations aren't effects-heavy. You will certainly run into memory issues and crashes!

Hope that maybe helps a bit!