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15 fps to 30 fps solutions?
I did an animation for a client who said he wanted an animated GIF for his website (I know, I know) and an MPEG movie for his videos. Since I know it better than Flash, I decided to do both in After Effects. Unfortunately, I think I did them backwards.
I created the 15 second animation for the GIF at 15fps to maximize it for the Web, rendered no problem, and sent it off. For the video, I thought I could just change the composition settings to 30fps, but I get some weird stuttering and vanishing when I do that.
The animation is of balls rolling along a series of tracks inside a wheel. I have some of them disappearing (opacity change) and being replaced (position change) by another ball so I could reuse animations and didn’t have to animate each one doing a full rotation. At the point where the replacements come in, though, I now have weird stutters and disappearing balls. Not sure if I’ve explained that well, so here are the animations:
Animated GIF @ 15fps (smooth):
https://jc3creative.com/videos/pmpLogo_aniGIF_01.gifAVI @ 29.97fps (weird):
https://jc3creative.com/videos/wheel30fps.movI know I did this backwards, but now I’m stuck, so I’m hoping there’s some kind of workaround that doesn’t involve re-animating. Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer!
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5 Replies
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yep, you would have been better off going the other way around… but adjusting the frame rate up to 30fps seems like it should still workout.
since it sounds like the main problem is a frame skip from the end on one ball clip to the next. my guess is that going form 15 to 30 added an extra frame in between (kind of makes sense). you need to adjust the timing of those clips by either sliding them together or by adjusting the in/out points so you don’t have a one frame gap.
as far as stuttering… if you had any pre-rendered footage that was rendered at 15 fps, the you’ll want to go into those comps, set them to 30fps and re-render them (or just bring those comps into the main comp). if the animations were not rendered (just nested comps) then ae should retime them correctly unless in the comp settings>advanced tab the option to maintain comp’s frame rate when nested is checked.
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Kevin, thank you very much for your suggestion. I went into the composition to see about sliding the different layers around and discovered something VERY interesting: when After Effects added the extra frames to go from 15 to 30 fps, the keyframes were suddenly set on fractional values. So, instead of a key at frame 19 or 20, I have one set at, like, 19.85. (no actual value is given – I’m judging from the keyframe indicator’s position on the timeline) I would never have noticed if I hadn’t zoomed the view into its maximum level of detail.
Is there a function that will allow me to force these keyframes to snap to a whole frame value? Ideally I’d like that to happen when upping it from 15 to 30, but I’m willing to do it manually if it means I don’t have to reanimate 30 balls. I know how to do this in Maya when switching between 24 and 30 fps, but I’m not familiar enough with After Effects to say for sure. Thank you again for the outstanding detective work!
P.S. – Dave, I did try Andrew Kramer’s FPS converter, and although I didn’t know it at the time, I believe the fractional frame issue noted above prevented it from being effective. I may also be suffering from an inability to interpret the original footage because there is none; it’s a bunch of PSD files whose rotation, position, and opacity I’m manipulating.
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interesting that it’s a fractional difference, you’d think that 15fps to 30fps is just 2x the number of frames… or did you convert to 29.97fps?
if you converted to 29.97fps, then i’d try going to the even 30fps. if you needed to output 29.97, then render as 30fps, import and choose file>interpret footage>main and conform the frame rate to 29.97. then drag the footage to a new comp and render that.
if you are getting the fractional keyframe placement going from 15 to 30 fps, i can’t think of a way to easily fix that… maybe try setting it back to 15fps, then bring that comp into 30fps comp….
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Thanks again for helping me see something new! That was it: I’d chosen 29.97 so I could provide the best framerate for the client’s video presentation. This caused the keyframes to land on fractions. I made a new comp at 30fps and all I had to do was slide the keyframes for each of the layers by one to make up for the extra frames.
Kevin, you suggested rendering at 30fps, importing that, and then interpreting the footage as 29.97. The client’s final output will be HD 1920×1080 at 29.97. Would it make a difference if I left it at 30fps or should I attempt to maximize compatibility by making it 29.97? I’m pretty sure his final distribution method will be DVD. That’ll be my last question – thanks once more!
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i would conform it to 29.97fps… it’s the broadcast standard frame rate, if they burn a dvd it will need to be either 29.97 or 23.976… plus they seem to be asking for 29.97, so i would definitely give them what they are asking for.
outputting the 30fps, importing it, then conforming that file to 29.97 (via the interpret footage window) then rendering to 29.97 is the most sure-fired way to get to 29.97 without any issues and it’s the way i’d go at this point…
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW
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