Simon Edmondson Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 For the next unit on the course I'm doing I would like to use frame rate of 50fps ( Pal x2 ). I think this is possible in AM but, are there complications playing it back afterwards on other peoples equipment ? I don't play games mysef but do know (?) that quite a few play at 50fps or higher, is that dependent on the graphics card fitted, the compression codec, both or something else altogether ? simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Rodney Posted October 3, 2015 Admin Share Posted October 3, 2015 I'm not sure about playback options but we can definitely set our projects to 50FPS in A:M. Just Right Click on the Project container in the Project Workspace (at the very top) and set the FPS to the desired framerate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
largento Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 Most editing apps let you set the frame rates of both the clips you import and the final project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 3, 2015 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 3, 2015 The interactive portion of games can be almost any frame rate because the models are being moved and inbetweened "live" and not pre-rendered as in a movie. The two limitations are the speed of the game engine to update/redraw the scene and the speed of the display device to show new frames that the game engine is showing it. Whichever one is slower is what gets shown. You can create 50fps footage with A:M but I'm not sure if Quicktime or other common video players can truly show that without dropping frames. I suggest you do some simple tests at the res you plan to work with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted October 3, 2015 Author Share Posted October 3, 2015 Robert Thank you for your help. I will try that. The intention is to insert some subliminal frames to bring about the effect they want but using a different method. I had to read the most incoherent, pretentious codswallop this week. so thought I'd get 'revenge' while answering their question. regards simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted October 3, 2015 Author Share Posted October 3, 2015 Rodney, Mark Pardon me I didn't see your replies at first. Thank you for your help. I shall try what you suggest. Its the playback I think that will give the trouble. I'm thinking of the days when, by ill repute, Cinema owners would put single frames in a sequence just before an interval, to encourage the audience to go spend money on expensive refreshments. They might be visible at 25fps but ( I hope ) less so at 50fps. Its to try and upset the tutors on the course... regards simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 3, 2015 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 3, 2015 I'll note that no one has ever been able to demonstrate that subliminal messaging actually works. It may be legend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 The computer needs to be fast enough to decode the movie codec in that resolution most of all. many computers will for instance stutter or drop frames when 4k material at 50 fps is shown on them using h264 codec. that ia why h265 will be used in future. (still a quite fast computer is needed) the fullhd 1080p standard in the USA is actually at about 60 fps (2 x 29.97 fps). in Europe (and other former PAL countries) it is 50 fps. (2x25 fps). For some situations high framerates are needed (gaming, very very fast motions which needs to be slowed down) but in general it is not really helping. In gaming people say they can notice the difference between 50 and 60 fps for instance... i doubt that myself, but it really is like fighthing wind mills to tell them, that their eyes can not see that because they are physically too slow for that... it would mean that the 800 dollars graphiccard they recently bought was a waste of money and you know how people are... they never do anything wrong... Just to mention it: including one frame messages is illegal in some countries and if someone will notice them (really notice them) a shit storm will happen and kick the advertising company in the n****. despite that we do not really know that it really affects somebody to buy more... See you *Fuchur* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 3, 2015 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 3, 2015 Anecdote: When I was in college there was a foreign student from an African SECAM (50 fields per second) country and I asked him what he thought about the NTSC (60 fields per second) that we had here. He said he preferred the NTSC because it was "faster." He could sense the difference in the frame rate and liked the smoother appearance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nemyax Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 In gaming people say they can notice the difference between 50 and 60 fps for instance... i doubt that myself, but it really is like fighthing wind mills to tell them, that their eyes can not see that because they are physically too slow for that Frame rates below your monitor's refresh rate really are noticeable (and I have a dirt cheap video card). That's why game developers shoot for a stable 60 FPS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Rodney Posted October 3, 2015 Admin Share Posted October 3, 2015 It may be worth noting that regardless of the FPS... a second is still a second. That may seem a silly thing to say but with all things considered until the content of that second is either extended or shortened it can be hard to perceive what has been added or taken away. This relates to the findings of traditional animators who on more than one occasion found animation on twos to 'play' better. That is to say the repetition of a frame rather than a replacement of that frame to suggest movement of some object or shape within that frame. As an example; one might gain a 50FPS rate by simply duplicating each frame from a 24 or 25 frame sequence. (as you've mentioned in your first post... that of 50FPS being double that of the PAL frame rate. I suppose the question to ask might be, "What is changing from frame to frame that benefits from or requires the faster frame rate"? This relates to the observation traditional animators had with panning backgrounds and character walk cycles. They found that animating on twos resulted in noticeable slippage as the background moved. If attempting to move the background at the slower pace of twos the effect was a stutter/strobe which was very noticeable. So, animators began to form a rule of sorts that where a character interacted with a background animation would be drawn on ones. If no contact was present the shots could be animated on twos. How does this approach translate to higher frame rates? I'm not entirely sure but I'd guess that many of the same general rules/theories apply. Of course it does help that by their very nature computers animate everything on ones... BUT... that doesn't mean actions/activity within the shot isn't technically still on twos... threes.. whatever. How fast is the object moving? How much is the object changing? How long does the action need to be held (or put into a moving hold) in order for the audience to 'see' what is there? In Richard William's book 'The Animator's Survival Kit' he talks about a young animator that tried to animate a character yawning. He drew all the poses correctly but the timing... that rate of presenting frames... was ZIPPPP! entirely too short and didn't get better with his attempts to fix the animation. The underlying reason was that he was trying to present the animation in too short a time frame. So, a final set of questions might be; what will be animated in those frames and given that information how long will that whole shot/sequence then be required to be? I would think that of interspersing odd frames (subliminal message types stuff) and using subtlety/similar shape/themes (illusory visuals) the latter would yield the more effective results. A classic example of a problem with subliminal messages is that they may be too subliminal; ex: the gorilla walking amongst a bunch of people playing basketball that no one in the audience perceives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted October 4, 2015 Author Share Posted October 4, 2015 Robert, Gerald, Rodney Thank you for your help. I'm just kicking the idea around at the moment really. 50 fps give you a lot more to play with but a bit worried about he overall file size too. Big enough now but with twice the frames ! The overall thing was intended to use a lot of interplay with positive/negative shapes and, if I do using the 'interupt insertions the idea was to drop it into one of the negative shapes as a small part of the overall to try and keep it as subliminal as possible. No intention of taking it anywhere near external media, just to 'wind up' a particular tutor. Inherent politeness will probably get the better of me in the end. This hasn't got any subliminal bits ( honest ) but was a test towards one of the sections. The shapes are cut from packaging foam. I was thinking of using a similar technique using AM and cookie cutter decals. regards simon walk.mov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted October 4, 2015 Share Posted October 4, 2015 Anecdote: When I was in college there was a foreign student from an African SECAM (50 fields per second) country and I asked him what he thought about the NTSC (60 fields per second) that we had here. He said he preferred the NTSC because it was "faster." He could sense the difference in the frame rate and liked the smoother appearance. ...which was bought with worse color spectrum... it really was all about bandwich these days and one death you had to die... PAL and SECAM had better colors, NTSC had better frame rates... both valid points. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted October 4, 2015 Author Share Posted October 4, 2015 ...which was bought with worse color spectrum... it really was all about bandwich these days and one death you had to die... PAL and SECAM had better colors, NTSC had better frame rates... both valid points. The joke (?) is that NTSC stands for Never The Same Colour... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 4, 2015 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 4, 2015 I expected him to say he preferred his SECAM since everyone always complains about NTSC color so it was surprising to me to find out the frame rate was noticeable I guess the advantage is that 60Hz is faster enough that most people won't notice the flicker but 50Hz is slow enough that most people will notice it. I don't think I've ever seen an actual PAL or SECAM CRT display and probably never will now that it's all gone digital. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 in general most people didnt notice it. some ultra sensible people did. (interestingly most of the very few i heard of only did when they heard that there was a higher framerate available... but i did never see secam... i only know pal and ntsc in real life.) the most interesting for me is, that our last crt tv had 100Hz technique but of course only 25 fps from the tv program. i never noticed a problem with that and it was a big feature to have 100Hz back then. maybe it is more important that the fps is evenly splitable into the Hz of the display than the actual framerate. see you *fuchur* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted October 5, 2015 Author Share Posted October 5, 2015 Going to test the process on the kit at college later in the week. In the meantime here are two little tests. The first is a QT file set at 50fps and rendered out at that from the start. 50fps.mov The second is the same chor but rendered out as jpg's but with frame burn added ( it causes a crash if you try to frame burn a QT file ). Then the frames "Save Animation As" in the PWS. 50jpg.mov Simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 5, 2015 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 5, 2015 My Quicktime Player reports that it is displaying about 50fps so that much works. However, I did not notice a subliminal message. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted October 6, 2015 Author Share Posted October 6, 2015 Robert. Thank you. No subliminal message included.Honest ! But if you suddenly feel the need to transfer all your funds... Don't blame me ... regards simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted October 28, 2015 Author Share Posted October 28, 2015 I found this today relating to subliminal messages in film and animation. Its part of a chapter in a book called " A reader in Animation Studies", edited by Jayne Pilling. simon xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoLhLn9hVkE Don't know if it relates to the short above or the feature (?) Mod Edit: Fixed the link and enlarged the image to make it a bit easier to read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Rodney Posted October 28, 2015 Admin Share Posted October 28, 2015 Interesting article although I'm pretty sure frame by frame analysis and subliminal messages don't equate to the same thing. The whole point of a subliminal would be that the audience subconsiously picks up the message without having to resort to the viewing of individual frames. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 28, 2015 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 28, 2015 I tried watching "The Wizard of Speed and Time" once. It's available for free now, but an hour and a half is a lot of frames to step through on the "Steenbeck" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted October 28, 2015 Author Share Posted October 28, 2015 Rodney, Robert I watched the trailer and that was probably enough for me. I didn't know if they were referring to that or the full movie in the article ? The implication was that they watched it and picked up the subliminal bits and went to the frame by frame stepthrough to confirm the impression. My idea was a bit juvenile as I was seriously brassed off with a book we had to read,which was the worst bit of academic writing I have ever encountered. The idea was to put quotes from the book as part of the work but subliminally place rude comments about it in the background.. We were tasked with showing emotion and I chose anger. I should add that normally very placid person, last time I came close to losing my temper was about 30 years ago. regards simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nemyax Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 I'm finding that in exported .act files a second is always 30 frames, no matter what FPS you set in the project properties. So frame 0 will be exported as 0, 17 as 17 and 54 as 1:24. Is that by design to make actions project-independent? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fae_alba Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 It may be worth noting that regardless of the FPS... a second is still a second. In Richard William's book 'The Animator's Survival Kit' he talks about a young animator that tried to animate a character yawning. He drew all the poses correctly but the timing... that rate of presenting frames... was ZIPPPP! entirely too short and didn't get better with his attempts to fix the animation. The underlying reason was that he was trying to present the animation in too short a time frame. Timing has been the bane of my existence. I've taken to using a stop watch on my phone, and doing the action to get it straight. I suppose part of the problem is when working in a chor, getting a character to walk up a set of stairs and you look at the timeline, you see all of these keyframes for say two seconds, my brain says, "that's a lot of work, so 2 seconds MUST be long enough!" Ok, back to the topic of the thread.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted September 12, 2016 Hash Fellow Share Posted September 12, 2016 I'm finding that in exported .act files a second is always 30 frames, no matter what FPS you set in the project properties. So frame 0 will be exported as 0, 17 as 17 and 54 as 1:24. Is that by design to make actions project-independent? Project independent, yes, although the time keeping is more exact than frames. from a previous discussion... "...It turns out A:M stores time in "ticks", not seconds or frames, and A:M counts 135000 ticks per second. Every keyframe you make is stored internally as a number of ticks elapsed from zero. This makes it possible to change your PRJ from 24fps to 30 fps, for example, and not have your animation run 25% faster. A:M can count up to 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 ticks which is somewhat more than 4.3 million years. 135000 was chosen because it is evenly divisible by all the common frame rates and further divisible beyond that for most multipass intervals. For example, at 24 fps, each frame is 5625 ticks apart...." A:M files writes those time values as Seconds plus 30ths of a second to 4 decimal places An action you made at 24fps and import into a 30fps PRJ will not place its keyframes at 30 fps intervals. It will preserve the actual time relationship between then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nemyax Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 Yes, I thought as much, thanks. It's weird though that action files present frame numbers as 30-frame chunks plus remainder instead of plain decimal fractions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted September 12, 2016 Hash Fellow Share Posted September 12, 2016 Here's what is stored in an action that was created at 24 fps MatchName=X1 0 0 ( 0 seconds)1 1:0 0 ( 1 second + 0 30ths)1 1:7.2250 0 ( 1 second + 7.2250 30ths equal to 1 second + 6 24ths)1 1:15 0 ( 1 second + 15 30ths equal to 1 second + 12 24ths)1 1:28.3375 0 ( 1 second + 28.3375 30ths equal to 1 second + 23 24ths) I presume that writing the time as seconds + 30ths was deemed to be more human readable than a pure seconds and decimal number. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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