Convert normal rate video to Time Lapse look

[Bella Gavelin]

I just have to say, to save ppl time when they are searching for a helpful and easy answer to this (as I just was) that posterize time, setting to 1fps and then speeding the clip up works just fine!

bella

[Stephen Curry]

Thanks Bella I think your suggestion was exactly what I was looking for.

Dave….I appreciate your input but I really dont think you understood the question and your posts only confused the matter and frustrated people.

For those looking for a final answer I used Bella process in this way.

STEPS (sorry dont know all the tech names for the various ‘area’ of AE)
(the settings may differ on video shot at higher or lower frame rates. My example is from a 60/fps video clip)

1. brought/imported/dragged my video into AE. [Project window]
2. from the [Project window] I clicked and dragged the icon of my video clip down to the ‘film clip icon’ (otherwise known as the comp icon) at the bottom of the [Project window] and had AE create a new comp with the default configuration of the video itself.
2b. the video is now listed as a line item in the [comp timeline window] (most people have this as the bottom most window within AE)
3. from the [comp timeline window] I selected and highlighted my video
4. then went to the [Effects and Presets window] and searched for ‘Posterize Time’
5. from the [Effects and Presets window] I click and held on the ‘Posterize Time’ effect and dragged it onto the view of my video in the [playback window] OR you can click and drag the effect to the line item of your video in the [comp timeline window] (in this case line item #1) and release.
6. Once the effect is applied I went to/opened the [Effect Controls window] and set the Frame Rate option to 1.0fps
7. then went back to line item #1 in the [comp timeline window] that contains my video and clicked to highlight it
8. with the video highlighted, I RIGHT clicked on the ‘column header bar’ and from the drop menu I selected Columns>Stretch.
8b. This should created a new column labled ‘Stretch’ above you line items in the [comp timeline window]
9. then from the new column of Stretch I double clicked the 100% and changed it to 50% (or lower if need be) to speed up the clip

you may need to tweak things for your own preferences….

I found this to work very well in doing what I was after.

Thanks Bella…Wish you had answered long ago…..

[Khursheed Fateh]

1) Select Clip in timeline
2) Use following method (a) or (b)
(a) From Menu (on top of after effects window) select “Layer / Time / Time Stretch…”
(b) Right click on clip and from Shortcut Menu select “Time / Time Stretch…”
3) A window will pop-up with title “Time Stretch”.
4) Here you can change length of clip in two ways.
(I) By entering value for “Stretch Factor” in %. Give value less then 100 for “Fast forward” and value more then 100 for “Slow motion”.
(II) By entering value for “New Duration” in actual time. Reduce time for “Fast forward” and increase time for “Slow motion”.

**In your case try giving value of 3.33 %.

(f/nf * 100) %
f = No of equally distant frames required from nf (I am using 1)
nf = No of frames per second (I am using 30)

=>(1/30*100) %
=>3.33333 %

[Stephen Curry]

Thanks for the post Fateh but all that does is slow down the footage…its doesnt give it the choppy time lapse effect.

[Khursheed Fateh]

No. I do not think so. I posted my answer after testing and I just tested it again 🙂
If fps of input and output clip is same you will get the required effect using method described by me.

If fps of input clip is 30 and fps of output clip is 60 and you shrink your input clip to 50% using time stretch method then you will get all frames of your input clip in your output clip and get fast forward effect. etc.

kFateh

[Alyssa Barrett]

I got bored of reading through all the comments, so maybe someone said this already, but you can also put this expression on time (after enabling time remapping):

nthFrame = 2;
fps = (1.0/thisComp.frameDuration) / nthFrame;
posterizeTime (fps);
value

In this case I had it skip every other frame, but you would change nth frame to get your desired result. Pretty sure this does the same thing as posterize time which people have mentioned above, but just another option. I found this online after some searching after a sequence of over 2000 images were only labeled in even numbers. When I brought that in as an image sequence I would get the “missing media” error for every other frame since I had no odd numbered images. I understand the question here is related to video and not image sequences, but I’m thinking this would work pretty much the same. I’m no expressions expert, so I’m not 100% positive what’s going on here, but it worked for me for my problem. Maybe it will work for someone else on here! Just thought I’d share!

[Matthew Tallman]

Wow. According to the time stamps in this thread, you all have been arguing for 3 years….does anyone see the irony in that, as it relates to “time lapse”? 🙂

[Scott Bethel]

This is not correct. Speeding up your video is NOT time lapse nor will it look like time lapse – try it side by side and you will see.

Time lapse is missing frames – usually a LOT of them. Speeding up footage that contains ALL the frames will look very different. There is just no way around that.

Have a COW, man.

[Darby Edelen]

How is speeding up footage without frame blending any different temporally speaking?

If you speed up your footage playback without frame blending then you are literally doing the same thing: throwing away frames.

I wish I’d seen this thread when it started, could’ve put the fire out then 🙂

Darby Edelen

[Ray Sadler]

THIS! This is the answer to the question. Up vote. Plus 1. Promote this.