Why the jitter?

[jason1025]

Why the jitter?

 

Is the jitter from the BVH?

 

FCP_jump.mov

[robcat2075]

a 1280x720 render is overkill for a quick post. I can barely play it on my PC so I couldn't see any jitter.

 

Edit: I tried re compressing it to half size to see it. Yeah, I'd guess the jitter is error in the original file. Capture isn't perfect.

[itsjustme]

The jitter at the end on the head? That would probably be in the BVH due to the person having to support themselves with their arms the way they did. If you want it steadier, you should be able to edit that head movement out.

[jason1025]

Hey Guys

 

Thanks for the feed back. WHat do you guys think about this feature request.

 

In Apple's MOTION they have approached the concept of animation from a different paradigm. However they do allow you to use a key frame editor if you want to. But most Animators dont use it and for good reason. Here is an example and this specifically is the feature I would like to see in AM.

 

In apples motion an artist had an object that had been tracked and it had a key for its translate and rotation the axises it used. So lots of keys. It too jittered just like the BVH file in my example. My instinks would be to go into the keyframe editor and delete every other key or something like that to smooth out the curve between the keys. That would take alot of time though. in "motion" you simply asign an "AVERAGE" filter to the Axis with the keys you want to effect. Then the Average filter has a slider that lets you set how many key frames you want to Average. It defaults to 10 which works perfectly.

 

Moral of the story, in just a few clicks you solve the problem vs many clicks with little room for error.

 

If I had this filter in AM the problem would be solved like that.

[John Bigboote]

FIRSTLY- That animation is pretty DANGED sweet! I like it alot!

 

SECONDLY- I'd like to hear more about this 'new and different paradigm' that Apple's Motion uses in it's approach to animation. ( I hope it's not nodes...) What you've thus described sounds like After Effects 'smoother' or 'wiggler' feature... which is nothing new. Apple has a way of 'borrowing' existing features, giving them a high design interface and a snappy new name- marketing the piss out of them with words like 'new' or 'better'...marketing 101, consider yourself 'sold'.

 

THIRDLY- You can always drag a lassoo around the keyframes for the head bones BVH parent (in the part that's giving the trouble) and scale (s-key)them vertically so there is less activity about them...I would also do as you mentioned and delete many of them. BVH is by no means a perfected science... you will get unwanted artifacts...especially if you look really closely. You got WAY more than you paid for on the BVH... you got WAY more than you paid for with A:M... but it all evened out when you bought Apple's Motion. (Just giving you a hard time... I'll probably be using Apple products soon too... they are very aggressive in the graphics computing department and Final Cut Pro is THE standard video editor today. I recently filled in for a fellow graphics animator on his mac...that machine proceeded to make a danged FOOL out of this PC user. Please don't take offense.)

 

AND- It's not 'all or nothing' with a BVH... you can always add your own animation into the mix... don't like how the head moves? Animate it yourself at the point you want to. Then let BVH take back over...

 

FOURTHLY- That animation is pretty DANGED sweet! I like it alot!

[jimd]

way dang cool

[jason1025]

FIRSTLY- That animation is pretty DANGED sweet! I like it alot!

 

 

Thanks for the nice comments guys. Its part of a much bigger picturethat I will reveal have I progress. I also plan to make video tutorials of many of the esoteric AM features I have learned. Because I am using these features in context of a real world end goal I think the tuts may be useful.

 

FIRSTLY-SECONDLY- I'd like to hear more about this 'new and different paradigm' that Apple's Motion uses in it's approach to animation. ( I hope it's not nodes...) What you've thus described sounds like After Effects 'smoother' or 'wiggler' feature... which is nothing new. Apple has a way of 'borrowing' existing features, giving them a high design interface and a snappy new name- marketing the piss out of them with words like 'new' or 'better'...marketing 101, consider yourself 'sold'.

 

Its not node based. Apple only uses nodes in color and the discontinued shake. Its a kind of hard to describe. it works the same as in "Pro Animator" I am not familiar with After effects smoother or wiggler. Unless the wiggler is based on an expression that I have used. I will have to check that out. I agree with what you say about Apple. But I kind of like that about them. That is one of my complaints about AM. In fact that is the missing link with AM in my opinion. I remember getting a letter from Has saying upgrade to to Version 14. And that's all it said. I wrote them back and said Why? Whats new, where is the enticement? The new buzz words? I learned along time ago this business is all about presentation. Its funny After I wrote that letter Martin or someone sent a mass email. Saying that they are gun shy of that sort of stuff. You may remember the email, but they did take some of my advice and alter their presentation to include the more advanced features for that release. Not that I had much to do with it.

 

FIRSTLY-THIRDLY- You can always drag a lassoo around the keyframes for the head bones BVH parent (in the part that's giving the trouble) and scale (s-key)them vertically so there is less activity about them...I would also do as you mentioned and delete many of them. BVH is by no means a perfected science... you will get unwanted artifacts...especially if you look really closely. You got WAY more than you paid for on the BVH... you got WAY more than you paid for with A:M... but it all evened out when you bought Apple's Motion. (Just giving you a hard time... I'll probably be using Apple products soon too... they are very aggressive in the graphics computing department and Final Cut Pro is THE standard video editor today. I recently filled in for a fellow graphics animator on his mac...that machine proceeded to make a danged FOOL out of this PC user. Please don't take offense.)

 

I don't fallow you here "THIRDLY- You can always drag a lassoo around the keyframes for the head bones BVH parent (in the part that's giving the trouble) and scale (s-key)them vertically so there is less activity about them..." Can you give a screen grab of what you mean?

I agree AM is very powerful. Its kind of like our little secret. When I show people in the biz my work they are very impressed and always assume I used one of the big 3 or tiny 4rth. lol. If you ever need help with Apple products just give me a call or email. I just got finished teaching 50 ABC editors the new final cut 7, Color and associate hardware like AJA, Matrox, Blackmagic.

 

 

FIRSTLY-AND- It's not 'all or nothing' with a BVH... you can always add your own animation into the mix... don't like how the head moves? Animate it yourself at the point you want to. Then let BVH take back over...

 

FOURTHLY- That animation is pretty DANGED sweet! I like it alot!

 

 

Here is a video tutorial that illustrates the average filter I was talking about. Its funny the guy acts like there is never a reason to use the keyframe editor. Go about half way in the video to see what I mean. http://motionsmarts.com/tutorials/matchmove1/mm1.html

 

Thanks again your work is some of the best I have seen.

[jason1025]

a 1280x720 render is overkill for a quick post. I can barely play it on my PC so I couldn't see any jitter.

 

What res works for you? 720X405 or 960x540? Because I value your feedback from now on I specifically create a version just for you. I dont want this to come off like I am being a smart ass. This is genuine.

 

I on the other hand would prefer it if the community would step it up a notch. We live in an HD time. I wish there was a way to default AM so that it started every new Chor with a cameras resolution to 1920x1080 or 1280x720 because that is the resolution my clients request. The fact that Am defaults to VGA resolution really dates it. Just an opinion and I know its just mine. And I know I could be way off base. It should atleast default to a 16x9 aspect ratio. I havnt seen a Standard def TV in a while and am on my 3rd HD TV. I only point this out because in my opinion for AM to survive and keep growing it has to change with the times. And changing the default from VGA to 720p, 1080p, 2k, and 4k screams cutting edge.

 

With that said some people with laptops may have troiuble working in that high of a resolution so it may not be practicle to do so and I take the hole thing back lol.

[Fuchur]

A:M has an algorithm like that implemented since I am using it (about 9 years)...

Try using "Reduce Keyframes" on your animation. This should kill unnecessary keysframes from your files and make it much smoother.

 

Higher resolutions like 720p or even 1080p are just not useable on the web in many situations... people have faster connections today, but that doesnt mean that anyone can really stream a 1080p-video without using a very well suited codec with lots of work on that part. Youtube doesnt use anything like 720p or 1080p... even the "HD"-file you can get by clicking on the button is much smaller than 720p. It is only slightly over SD.

 

You can render to high-resolutions in A:M without a problem. Just change to whatever you want. 720p and 1080p are presets which are available. Even 4k is available...

I am rendering my previews in 640 x 480 or the 16:9-equivalent to see how it works out and after that in final-rendering you can still increase the resolution.

 

I dont have a bigger problem with increasing the default-resolution, but it has one big drawback: Rendertimes for such resolutions are just much longer.

 

*Fuchur*

[robcat2075]

This res thing is something I've been debating with people for 15 years now.

 

My theory is that given the choice between quality and ease of access, the mass audience chooses ease of access.

 

That's why VHS won over Beta and Laser disc. That's why DVD won over VHS and is still winning over Blu-ray.

 

And that's why crappy web video is winning over broadcast TV.

 

For my PC a regular SD render is pretty much the limit. My display is 1280 wide but a 1280 movie chugs along at 1 fps and usually freezes the player.

 

I'm glad A:M defaults to SD because a new user doesn't need to be waiting for anything larger to render and it's easy enough to set it to anything else once they know what they are doing.

[NancyGormezano]

My theory is that given the choice between quality and ease of access, the mass audience chooses ease of access.

 

This mass takes one look at the size of the download for any animation - and I usually won't bother if I see greater than 7-10+mb, but it also depends on who posted. I especially won't look at a 3 sec animation that weighs 20MB...AND especially if I have to wait for it to download completely before it starts (can recompress in qt pro for quick start options)

 

My screen rez is 1162 x 864 for a 19" crt. I use 320 x 240 (or 480 x 360) when I render my tests & will rerender to 640 x 480 or 720 x 405 when I post

 

That said, I liked your animation, and it played without a hitch on my system - but the controls were off the screen. This is a pain if you are doing tutorials, and render these huge formats - I will download first (if it's not monster weight) and resize it in qt pro so I can view it. Youtube sizing is good enough.

[jason1025]

This res thing is something I've been debating with people for 15 years now.

 

My theory is that given the choice between quality and ease of access, the mass audience chooses ease of access.

 

That's why VHS won over Beta and Laser disc. That's why DVD won over VHS and is still winning over Blu-ray.

 

And that's why crappy web video is winning over broadcast TV.

 

For my PC a regular SD render is pretty much the limit. My display is 1280 wide but a 1280 movie chugs along at 1 fps and usually freezes the player.

 

I'm glad A:M defaults to SD because a new user doesn't need to be waiting for anything larger to render and it's easy enough to set it to anything else once they know what they are doing.

 

 

 

Good point well said.

[jason1025]

My theory is that given the choice between quality and ease of access, the mass audience chooses ease of access.

 

This mass takes one look at the size of the download for any animation - and I usually won't bother if I see greater than 7-10+mb, but it also depends on who posted. I especially won't look at a 3 sec animation that weighs 20MB...AND especially if I have to wait for it to download completely before it starts (can recompress in qt pro for quick start options)

 

My screen rez is 1162 x 864 for a 19" crt. I use 320 x 240 (or 480 x 360) when I render my tests & will rerender to 640 x 480 or 720 x 405 when I post

 

That said, I liked your animation, and it played without a hitch on my system - but the controls were off the screen. This is a pain if you are doing tutorials, and render these huge formats - I will download first (if it's not monster weight) and resize it in qt pro so I can view it. Youtube sizing is good enough.

 

 

 

SOLUTION: WHen ever you open a quicktime, as soon as it loads in the quick time player even if most of the picture and controls are off screen, hold down the "control Key and the Zero key" on a pc or on a mac "Command key and Zero Key" this will make the player lower its resolution and controls to 1/2 its original size and give you the ability to stretch it back out if you want to.

 

Alternate solution: Hold down "Control and F key" on Pc or on mac "Command and F key" this will always no matter what constrain the players size and resolution to the size of your screen.

 

Hope that helps.

[jason1025]

A:M has an algorithm like that implemented since I am using it (about 9 years)...

Try using "Reduce Keyframes" on your animation. This should kill unnecessary keysframes from your files and make it much smoother

 

 

This is very interesting, SO what your saying is AM has a tool that will tool what I want. How do you use it? I should have known The Hash team would have already thought of that.

[robcat2075]

A:M has an algorithm like that implemented since I am using it (about 9 years)...

Try using "Reduce Keyframes" on your animation. This should kill unnecessary keysframes from your files and make it much smoother

 

 

This is very interesting, SO what your saying is AM has a tool that will tool what I want. How do you use it? I should have known The Hash team would have already thought of that.

 

AFAIK "reduce" can only be invoked on a single channel at at time.

 

 

And it gives weird results

 

[robcat2075]

p.137 of the Technical reference manual explains how to do more than one channel. I haven't tried it yet.

[John Bigboote]

864 X 486 for YouTube HD... thats the resolution I had everyone make their 'Pass The Ball' entries at, and it worked quite well and looked good.

 

PASS THE BALL 2009

[mtpeak2]

You can set the reduction, in the options menu, before you capture the sequence.

 

[EDIT] This does not appear to work. Though the reduce channels from the edit menu does.

[robcat2075]

Hey, Mark, you're back!

 

You can set the reduction, in the options menu, before you capture the sequence.

 

[EDIT] This does not appear to work. Though the reduce channels from the edit menu does.

 

I can't see that those options are doing anything at the capture stage. I still get multiple keyframes per A:M frame and no "reduction".

[mtpeak2]

As I said in my edit, The options menu does not appear to work when capturing the sequences, but reducing the channels fron the edit menu does, after capturing the sequence.

[robcat2075]

As I said in my edit,

 

I gotta read both sentences?

[mtpeak2]

?