Animation question

[Dpendleton77]

What is the one second increment on the timeline in animation master? I feel that if I know that I can animated a bit better. I know it in Maya it is I am just not familiar with A:M's animating features yet. Thanks alot.

[robcat2075]

"the one second increment on the timeline in animation master"

 

I'm not sure what you mean.

 

The value of "time" is displayed along the top of the timeline panel (A)

 

In Options>Units ( B ) you can choose it to "Show time as" ... "SMPTE" which is mins:secs:frames or you can choose "Frames Elapsed" which shows a continually escalating single number starting with zero.

 

(Cel Number does the same but starts with 1)

 

"Frame rate" or FPS is how many frame A:M divides one second of time into.

 

When you begin a new PRJ A:M gives the PRJ a "Default Frame rate" from the value in the Options window, but you can set (almost) any frame rate in the PRJ properties under "FPS" ( C )

 

That number is one second worth of frames. You can make it anything you want. 24 or 30 are typical numbers. 24 comes from film and 30 comes from video.

 

The exact current elapsed time can be seen in the frame counter (D) which also obeys the "Show time as" setting you have chosen.

 

Does that answer you?

 

[Dpendleton77]

Yes and thank you. I know I ask the hard questions.

[Dpendleton77]

Here is some timing I worked on. I just had to understand the timeline more.

fist_pump.mov

[DZ4]

The default frames per second can be tricky as well, but related. I think it is in the Customize menu, but saving a project in which choreographies initialize at 24fps rather than 30fps is a bit buggy as I have found. I usually get a project to work and then just copy it for things that need to be at a 24/12/6/4/3 frame timing as 30fps doesn't work with some things I'm trying to do.

 

If you're going to use Quicktime or Flash as a final output, I don't think it matters, but for timing things, you would be looking at the frame and not seconds ie. frame 6 this happens and frame 12 that happens (we're at 1/2 second!), but that may look too fast or too slow. That's where dragging keyframes in the timeline editor is extremely handy, I have found.

 

Ex. Setting a keyframe for a dancing character at frame 6 then one at 12, but it looks slow when rendered. drag the keyframe from 6 to 4 and 12 to 8. Now you're at 1/3second instead of 1/2s, but it looks better...and you have a use for that Least Common Multiple and Greatest Common Factor education!

 

Also rendering at Step 2 is invaluable to me to make things at 12fps because you don't need to change the animation already done. If it's at 24fps and timed well, but you want to use half the memory at 12fps...just final render at step 2 and you'll be at 12fps. I usually use an image sequence and compile (nice) it into a single sheet of images but that's beside the point yet related as what would be the best format if you're stuck with square image files. That last part has more to do specifically with my own projects so feel free to ignore.

 

You can always check by clicking one frame at a time and it should go 22,23,1:00 or 28,29,1:00. 1:00 is one second, although your mind will associate it as an hour, as will your actual effort.

[DZ4]

And of course you'll want to look ahead to timing the music...

At 120 beats per minute, that's 2 beats per second and a measure would be (?)...?

No matter...

A 1/16th note would be 16 notes per beat, right?

So a quarter note would be 4 notes per beat or 8 notes per second, right?

So... one quarter note per how many frames? I'm thinking...

Duh!

...

Depends on how many frames per second, I slyly buy time with... but at 12 frames per second...

3 frames per quarter note. Ding,3frames,Ding,3frames,Ding,3frames,Ding! 3 frames! ...wait? Was that right?

What about sound effects?

 

One could try a song at 137bpm and 32fps and time the animation to the music. But I think they would tie that back to a general format.

 

Then, there are 10 semitones and 7 notes per octave, if I'm not mistaken. How does that relate to animation?

 

It's all based on simple logarithmic math...natural harmonic stuff. One interval is like the square root of 12 or something....and that's in hertz which is one over a second (ha!).

 

Focus on making money first is my suggestion...as disheartening as it is.

[Fuchur]

Just set default-framerate and FPS in the Project-properties before you do anything... that should do the trick.

OR you just ignore all of that and use only frames.

 

If you try to change the FPS in the middle of the project it can become tricky, depending on what you want to do...

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[DZ4]

Here's a 2 second video that loops well. And .mov's you quickly. I think it's at 30fps, yet has a big file size. I like your video, it has the character animation direction I like, like Christina Aguilara singing "Let's get dirty!".

[DZ4]

Right..

I see you've got some link to Unity. I have no problem or competitive conflict with Unity (really, who am I?!), but what has come from that? They make making games easy if I'm not mistaken. But I have no motivation to make a game. I don't see anyone here wanting to pursue that either,,,unless they could make money there.

 

"Depending on what you want to do" ... Picture the earth and a baseball bat...now...nobody gets hurt!, but...at min 6fps on duh smirtfone, u git enterdainment! Blowin tings up and such on StarPlayer. Just fur fun! Now how do we make that happen?

 

You could go with a 30/15/10/5 fps format as well, but it wouldn't gel well with music (in the future). Or, like me, you could say f#$%@$%& it!

[DZ4]

regardless, it's a matter of rendering to an image sequence rather than a preformatted video format, same as a camera.
Why snap photos at a 10fps image sequence unless you want to put it on...well...And why the 12fps .raw footage gap? And why not just go straight from camera to app at 12fps, I dunno! But what is the one second increment was the question!