Field rendering and motion blur

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Thu Oct 15, 2009 9:31 pm

SpaceBoy64 wrote:
J. Baker wrote: Yes, your sound would be off if you already started your project at a fps other then 60 fps. It best to start a new project at 60 fps.

When you render at 60 fps, you then blend the upper lines of frame one with the lower lines of frame two and so forth. Giving you 60 fields per second and 30 frames per second.
If I animate 60 fps and play back at 60 fps, it would be in sync, but if I change it to 30 fps, it would no longer be in sync, would it?

I am trying this out right now on a previous project. I changed the fps from 29.976 to 59.95. I did notice that the animation is now half the length of the sound file. Now, maybe I see what you're talking about. If my animation is 120 frames long, it will remain 120 frames long no matter what I set the FPS at. Is there a way to scale the entire animation length?

Now I'm wondering if I should be using whole numbers, 30 and 60 fps, when I'm animating and let Final Cut Pro convert to the proper NTSC frames per second in edit.

Correct, use whole numbers in Anime Studio.

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Thu Oct 15, 2009 9:38 pm

Is there a way to scale the entire animation length? Since changing the FPS doesn't do it?

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Thu Oct 15, 2009 9:50 pm

SpaceBoy64 wrote:Is there a way to scale the entire animation length? Since changing the FPS doesn't do it?

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it. I'm having troubles finding my source. But I'll keep looking for it. When I did my test between interlace and progressive, the results were about the same.

The easiest method is to render at 24 fps in Anime Studio. Then in your video editor or when converting to dvd, do a 3/2 pulldown to get 29.97 fps or just leave it progressive at 24 fps. Dvd players usually automatically do 3/2 pulldown if needed anyway.

Even when sending animation to Nickelodeon, they're fine with progressive video at 24 fps.

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Thu Oct 15, 2009 9:58 pm

I don't want 24 fps. I'm doing standard NTSC video for a TV commercial.

I was going to try doing the interlacing in After Effects.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Thu Oct 15, 2009 11:18 pm

SpaceBoy64 wrote:I don't want 24 fps. I'm doing standard NTSC video for a TV commercial.

I was going to try doing the interlacing in After Effects.

The broadcasting company would be able to play your 24 fps animation just fine. The have the equipment that would play it back fine over the broadcast. There's no need for you to really interlace it.

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Fri Oct 16, 2009 2:13 am

J. Baker wrote:
SpaceBoy64 wrote:I don't want 24 fps. I'm doing standard NTSC video for a TV commercial.

I was going to try doing the interlacing in After Effects.
The broadcasting company would be able to play your 24 fps animation just fine. The have the equipment that would play it back fine over the broadcast. There's no need for you to really interlace it.

Well, it's very questionable that they would be able to play it. They couldn't even unzip a zip file.

Regardless of that though, that wasn't my purpose. 60 fields per second looks smoother than 30 frames per second progressive. I am trying to eliminate the strobing that's distracting when things move too quickly.

I'm not trying to achieve a film look. Throwing in 3/2 pulldown is just adding complication.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:28 am

If this is a paid gig, you're best advised to follow the delivery guidelines of your customer or the specifications of your broadcaster. Usually they don't like anything they still have to convert in any direction.

For worldwide marketing, HDTV 1980p 25fps seems to be the de-facto standard. For US television, 30fps.

Generally broadcasters prefer progressive material over anything fielded because in too many cases there's something wrong with the fielding.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Fri Oct 16, 2009 1:38 pm

slowtiger wrote:Generally broadcasters prefer progressive material over anything fielded because in too many cases there's something wrong with the fielding.

That's very true, as interlace can be either top field first or bottom field first.

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Fri Oct 16, 2009 8:38 pm

slowtiger wrote:If this is a paid gig, you're best advised to follow the delivery guidelines of your customer or the specifications of your broadcaster. Usually they don't like anything they still have to convert in any direction.

For worldwide marketing, HDTV 1980p 25fps seems to be the de-facto standard. For US television, 30fps.

Generally broadcasters prefer progressive material over anything fielded because in too many cases there's something wrong with the fielding.

I discussed this at the beginning with the client. They asked for standard definition video. If I gave them 24 fps they might not like it, unless I used 3/2 pulldown to bring it up to 30 fps, which I think would be unnecessarily complicated. I wouldn't do that unless specifically asked to.

I've been doing this sort of work for 15 years. Usually I'm asked specifically to use interlacing, unless it's supposed to be more film-like. I view my work on an NTSC monitor when editing, so I can tell if there's anything wrong with it.

The spot is already done and airing, but there was a portion that really could have benefited from interlacing, so it would be nice to know how to do it. I still think this should be an option in Anime Studio Pro.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 12:49 am

Everyone has their own ideas on what's best. So I won't argue that with you. Now I'm just a little upset that I can't find my code that interlaced images. But I'm still looking for it. If all else fails, I'll recode it.

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 3:53 am

Like I said, I think I can get After Effects to do this if I double the speed, but what really bugging me is how to get double the number of frames, true in-between frames to give me 60 fps.

I tried setting the FPS to 60 and rendered out an image sequence. It gave me the same number of frames as I when it was set to 30 fps.

I tried another clip earlier rendered out to a Quicktime movie, and it seemed to take twice as long to render, it's difficult to tell how many frames I have in there. I saved an image sequence from QuickTime at 60 fps, but I haven't checked it yet to see if there's movement from frame to frame, or if it just doubled every frame.

Has no one else ever done this? I mean I know traditional animation was never fielded, but this is a common thing in television graphics.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 4:07 am

Go to the menu and select "Animation, Rescale Keyframes". Then change the fps and end frame in project settings. I'm not sure if that will help or not.

EDIT: There seems to be some issues with "Rescale Animation" in AS v6.1. But all seems fine in AS v5.6.

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Wed Oct 21, 2009 12:56 am

J. Baker wrote:
EDIT: There seems to be some issues with "Rescale Animation" in AS v6.1. But all seems fine in AS v5.6.

Yes, there is I have discovered. I tried it, and it appeared to work, but didn't exactly work correctly.

The camera keyframes were scaled correctly to twice as long, however the character's animation was scaled to four times as long. Very strange.

Is there a fix for this?

The interlacing works well as expected otherwise. I doubled the speed in Final Cut Pro and it gave me the interlacing. Now if I can only get the scaling right.

SpaceBoy64 · Post by **SpaceBoy64** » Sun Oct 25, 2009 8:44 am

Is there a way to re-scale keyframes accurately?