Animating text on a spiral, and I’m having a render issue

[Todd Jacobsen]

No dice. Still stuttering.

The new QT movie, using the Animation codec, wasn’t that large (75 mb); it played fine by itself. (I’m hoping this wasn’t due to an error on my part in your “New Precomp” instructions.)

HandBrake settings…

Output Settings
Container: MP4 File
Large file size (box unchecked)
Web optimized (box checked)
iPod 5G support (box unchecked)

Picture
Source: 960 x 540
Anamorphic: Strict
Cropping: Automatic

Video Filters
All options set to “Off”
(Detelecine, Decomb, Deinterlace, Denoise, Deblock)

Video
Codec: H.264
Framerate: Same as source (29.97)
Quality set to “Avg Bitrate (kbps)= 600”
2-Pass Encoding (box checked)

Audio, Subtitles, Chapters
N/A

Advanced
Encoding:

Reference Frames=4
Maximum B-Frames=2
CABAC Entropy Coding (box checked)
8×8 Transform (box unchecked)
Weighted P-Frames (box checked)
Pyramidal B-Frames: Default(Normal)

Analysis:

Adaptive B-Frames: Default (Fast)
Adaptive Direct Mode: Default (Spatial)
Motion Estimation Method: Default (Hexagon)
Subpixel ME & Mode Decision: 6: RD in I/P-frames
Adaptive Quantization Strength, Psychovisual Rate Distortion: (Sliders set to 1/2 by default)
Partition Type: Default (most)
Trellis: Off
Deblocking: Both windows set to Default (0)

[Kevin Reiner]

Is it the entire frame that is juddering or just the moving text? Would you be able to share the video. Might help to see it. Moving text is tricky. Maybe use a higher degree of motion blur?

-Reiner

Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
32GB Memory
Dual-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Dell Display (23″ flat panel)
ATI Radeon HD 5770
AJA Kona LSi SD/HD capture card
Rourke 16 TB
Flanders 2460

SOFTWARE
Mac OS X 10.6.5
FCP 7
After Effects CS5
Boris Continuum
Sapphire Plug Ins
All Trapcode Plugs
Zaxwerks Invig

[Todd Jacobsen]

First off, thanks so much for all your help on this. Much appreciated.

To answer your question(s): It appeared as though it was just the text being affected. I did notice some horizontal banding happening in spots that caused the entire frame to be affected, but I know that’s something completely different.

There’s a new version up here on Vimeo for a very limited time (only 12 hours–let me know once you’ve seen it so I can take it down). This incorporates a new methodology that might have solved the issue. I’m not entirely sure yet.

When I created the original I was ecstatic–after what seemed like days of experimenting–that the result finally worked even remotely close to my initial concept. The big problem? The spiral was so far away in frame that I didn’t want to move the camera any closer and take a chance on mucking the whole thing up. So I precomped everything, and repositioned and rescaled in the new comp so the words appeared to be emerging from the same spot in the frame. That new comp was then imported into another “final edit” project/timeline, where all the clips from the entire project reside.

Remember that the juddering seemed to happen about 80% of the time in the same spot? It was where a couple of scaling/positioning keys were in the new comp. Took me while to even think about looking there. (Like I said in my first post: “Duh.”)

So last night I went back into the original composition–not the new comp, but the one off in the distance–and rendered out a full-res .avi. I brought that into QuickTime and Exported to QuickTime Movie (mostly to bring the size down from 4.5gb), and imported the new .mov into the final edit timeline. Using the scaling/positioning keys from the old “new comp,” I repositioned everything. Then I rendered out a 1/4 size test, and the issue seems to have disappeared.

This morning, I rendered out a full-res 1920 X 1080 .avi and used HandBrake to generate a 1/2-sized 960 X 540 .mp4, the results being linked above. After viewing this more than a dozen times on Vimeo, I notice it judders only sometimes, but really only once or twice in the original offending spot. There have also been a few times where it doesn’t judder even once throughout the length of the clip. Same thing with the original .mp4 on my computer.

How does it look on your end?

[Kevin Reiner]

Looks pretty good on my end. Movement like that will often introduce judder. You could increase the motion blur to help with that. The only other red flags that I see would be your bit rate on the .mp4 file. Youtube and vimeo are going to compress your file again, so you want to feed them as good of quality as you can get. Vimeo recommends 2000 kbps for standard definition or 5000 kbps for high definition video (not sure about youtube, but I’m sure its similar). So bumping up the bit rate might help the overall look and movement.

Check out vimeo’s file settings here:

https://vimeo.com/help/compression

But overall it’s looking pretty good. You’re looking at it much closer than anyone else will, which is what you should do.

Good luck,
Reiner

Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
32GB Memory
Dual-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Dell Display (23″ flat panel)
ATI Radeon HD 5770
AJA Kona LSi SD/HD capture card
Rourke 16 TB
Flanders 2460

SOFTWARE
Mac OS X 10.6.5
FCP 7
After Effects CS5
Boris Continuum
Sapphire Plug Ins
All Trapcode Plugs
Zaxwerks Invig

[Todd Jacobsen]

Thanks again for all your help and advice, Kevin. I really appreciate it.

Todd

[Peter Berdovsky]

I am having the same issues with text animated along a path.
Somehow I think it might be AE struggling with an ultra long text path (it’s about a paragraph… a long one). I compress it real nice, and my fps reads solid 30+ on playback, but the text stutters. Nothing else in that composition does, just the text.

I’ll have to take a look to see if there are any rebel keyframes in there… but I somehow suspect a flaw in the animation algorithm.

[Peter Berdovsky]

Found this post, about AE video JUDDER
Avoiding Judder in Motion Graphics

Will try some of the suggestions here.
Sadly enough, the author seems to think that some of it is just plainly inevitable 🙁

https://kb2.adobe.com/community/publishing/908/cpsid_90843.html

[Kevin Reiner]

Hello Peter,

That article you posted pretty much touched on all the causes and possible solutions. Its less of an AE problem than it is a physics problem. You just have to understand the problem and know how to best apply the fixes.

Can you post the video or a stripped down version of your project, and we can take a look? Does your animation have to be at the exact length you have it now? Sometimes just stretching it out a handful of frames can help.

-Kevin

Mac Pro 2 x 3 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
32GB Memory
Dual-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
Dell Display (23″ flat panel)
ATI Radeon HD 5770
AJA Kona LSi SD/HD capture card
Rourke 16 TB
Flanders 2460

SOFTWARE
Mac OS X 10.6.5
FCP 7
After Effects CS5
Boris Continuum
Sapphire Plug Ins
All Trapcode Plugs
Zaxwerks Invig

[Peter Berdovsky]

Will try to record a tiny sample / post it over here tomorrow. I stretched it by 2 already… it’s not helping at all. It’s a 4,500 pixels wide video (as a master) for a mapped video installation where text crawls along the wall tiles. I think the fact that the text path is so long adds to the stutter (personal feelings, totally not grounded in reality). And, as the article said, the physics of it all. But it’s really dizzying to the eye, almost like it goes back in time one frame then jumps forward. I tried motion blur / etc.

But yeah, will bite into it tomorrow full on and send you a small playable sample.

[Peter Berdovsky]

Crap 🙂
I just reviewed the entire sequence on a fast computer… And it looks fine and smooth enough on my LCD monitor viewed at 100% size. I thought I saw it skip on this display as well, but not this time…

BUT – viewing it on a different compression / platform brought the judders back.
Check out this vimeo upload:
https://vimeo.com/49865328
password: judder

It totally stutters on playback for me in a similar way it did during the install test.

So I am just kind of confused… really confused 🙁

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