Jumpy or Judder Animation ?

[samy86146750]

Hey guys , appreciate everyone who come to this discussion.

Composition settings are :-

25fps

1920 x 1080

So I'm creating this animation which is a walk cycle and client wasn't pleased with it , as the camera pans to the right it seems like the character is judder or jumpy or some kind of flickering. I animated the walk cycle on photoshop and import it to After Effect. I have gone through this page Avoiding Judder in Motion Graphics to figure out the causes but I just couldn't understand it.

I'm completely uncertain whether that the in-between in the walk cycle are not enough or it's occur the problem which I'm mentioning now , judder.

Here is the full animation                                                                         

[Andrew Yoole]

Nice animation.

I think the issue is one of mismatched frame rates.  All your background elements are animating smoothly and constantly.  There is visible change in every frame.

Your walk cycle, however, has quite inconsistent frames.  There are a lot of repeated frames, although I can't detect a specific pattern.  Sometimes there will be two frames of consistent movement before a repeat frame, sometimes only one frame before a repeated frame.   I'm guessing that you have retimed the walk cycle using Time Remapping or Time Stretch?

The result is an inconsistency in movement.  The background is moving smoothly, while the walk cycle is moving intermittently.  It creates a stepping or judder, almost like the walker is "bouncing" forward every few frames.

The solution is to refine your walk cycle so the movement is consistent.  Either add frames so that it changes every frame, or even out the repeated frames so they are consistent, and posterise the timing of the background so that the frame rate matches.  Every frame that changes in the walk cycle should correspond with a change in the background.  Every static frame in the walk cycle should be a static frame in the background.

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

You are running into critical panning speeds. It is caused by the stroboscopic effect of moving images and frame rate. You know how stagecoach wheels appear to turn backward or the blades of a helicopter look weird on film. Same thing. Your options are to increase motion blur or change the speed of the movement. I even wrote an article about it. It happens all the time with rolling titles, but it also happens with horizontal movement. Any DP worth his day rate knows about critical panning speeds. You even have to watch out for them when you are filming at 24fps. It's a little easier at 29.97 and it is really difficult to foul up a camera movement at 60fps.

Here's the link to the article from the FAQ section of this forum: FAQ: Why does horizontal motion stutter (judder) in my movies, such as during pans?            

[Kris5FA4]

Does this account for some of the graphics being smoth and others not?  I have an ai graphic and when I move my camera, most of the graphic is smooth, but a few pieces wiggle.  I've done nothing else.  It seems to be a linking issue for me with an eps file...

[Kris5FA4]

I'm experiencing this. It's just anti-aliasing for me.

Go to the file in the project (eps or ai), right click > interpret footage > main, click more options at the bottom, change antialiasing from "Faster" to "More Accurate."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53vHdaiRRJ8

[Joshua T.23749838ve33]

This was long ago solved but I wanted to add that after trying many frame rates in After Effects and still having jutter, I finally took a 60fps rendered version of my AE comp and put it into a Davinci Resolve 23.98fps timeline and exported. It came out smooth. I didn't have to do motion blending or anything special. It's possible my raw rendered AE Comps had such large files that the playback was choppy on my computer, but I think a lossless render to a slower framerate can help.