Smooth transition between frames in after effects

Question

Hi everyone!I'm working on an animation, which is made of paintings, created at 12 fps. I'm importing png sequences at 12fps (by interpret footage>conform to frame rate: 12) in 24 fps projects and maintaining 12 by pre-comping sequences. Because of the rough and grungy brushstroked art style, the animation (if imported as standard png sequence in AE) looks really noisy and uncomfortable for an eye. So I decided to create a smooth transitions between the frames by performing the following steps:- I'm importing the sequence frames as separate layers (Import > File... > Import As:Footage)- Dropping the full selection into the canvas. Picking the still duration, checking the sequence layers and overlap and setting the transition type to 'Dissolve Front Layer'.I have 2 problems:1. Although on some scenes it works perfectly, on the ones where there are more dynamics it looks terrible...If let's say objects are changing their position a bit fast or if there's a closeup scene of a character, which is running, walking and so on, then because of an overlap and a front layer dissolve, there are too many in-between frames visible at the same time (which are transparent). What can be done? Any better of ways of doing this? Maybe some other methods I'm not aware of? Cause the only thing I could think off currently is to paint in-between frames to fill up scenes to become 24 fps and convert them to 12 after that... Though, will appreciate if some of you smart guys knows any other easier ways of solving the problem...2. When I Import > File... > Import As:Footage and asked about still duration and overlap duration, because my animation is played at 12fps I'm picking as the still duration 0:00:00:08 (as 1 sec consists of 12 frames, 1 frame should be played for 0.08 secs) and an overlap duration to 0:00:00:05. There's no way I can match the actual sequence duration, other than using a time remapping and matching the standard png sequence... Even if I don't check an overlap, I tried to set still duration at all parameters from still duration 0:00:00:01 to 0:00:00:08 and the duration is never the same as of a png sequence (import>multiple files>png sequence). It's always either longer or shorter...What am I doing wrong?

Rick Gerard · Answer

What you are doing is cell animation. 12 for 24 is the standard technique that has been used for this type of work, animating drawings or stop motion animation. I think two of the biggest problems with your workflow is that you don't have enough experience in drawing the individual images to make them work using frame doubling and that you are over complicating things. Back in the days of painting on acrylic animation cells, animators did pencil sketches first and filmed them to make sure the motion worked. I had a friend that worked for Hanna Barbera for a lot of years. When he first started doing the pencil sketches I asked him how things were going and he would say something like well only about 20% of my sequences worked this week. I had to redo the rest. I hope they don't fire me because I don't know what I'm doing. A couple of years later he was having a better than 90% success rate with the first pass at an animation. If the pencil tests didn't work they never went to ink and paint.

The workflow problem and over complicating things happen when you try and sequence layers and do dissolve overlaps. For some movement, this might be a kind of successful, sort of works solution, but for most motion, if you want to generate in-between frames, you should be using some kind of frame blending. The best option depends on the motion in the frame. Nothing but redrawing the original artwork will work if you have motion judder (stroboscopic effects) based on motion and frame rate.

If you are importing the sequence as footage and sequencing the layers then your math is wrong. If the imported footage is 8 frames and the overlap is 5 then a transition starts every 4 frames. Why 4 frames? You might think 3, but what you need is every 2. Here is now that works. If a layer is 8 frames long and you go to the out point you will be at the start of the eighth frame, not at the end of the eighth frame. When you sequence layers that are 8 frames long and set the overlap to 5, the layers start every 4 frames because the overlap lasts to the end of the last frame above, not the start. If you want the duration to match the12 for 24 standards, and you want to blend 8 frames (I would probably just blend 2 or 3) then the overlap should be 7 frames, not 5.

Your assumption "0:00:00:08 (as 1 sec consists of 12 frames, 1 frame should be played for 0.08 secs)" is also incorrect. At 24 FPS one frame lasts .4 seconds. You don't need to think fractions of a second, you need to be thinking frames, not time.

I hope this helps.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded