Frame Rate and Motion Blur Guess

[Tero Ahlfors]

[Jerry Smith] “Is this a successful animation at that frame rate? Would you submit it to a client?”

Well it is an actual channel bumper so it has been approved by/paid by a client.

[Jerry Smith]

Thanks Dave for your response.

No, I’ve tried a lot of different things. Part of the problem is that I am/was trying to use the same settings across multiple projects despite different shape speeds.

Here’s a brief bio:

1) Never ever gave motion blur any thought despite having many many many opinions on many many things.

2) Within the last year or so, discovered that sometimes it doesn’t look good despite using the default settings.

3) Realized that frame rate plays a big role. I got stuck with 25fps long ago.

4) Realized that animators approach the issues with a more blase attitude (“experiment”, “see what you like”) than film purists (See the debates over some of the Tolkien movies).

5) I have a lot of stuff like this Italian TV thing and I don’t like it. And I think that the frame rate is what really bothers me.

6) I’ve actually been going with 360 open shutter more and more under the probably mistaken assumption that it is more like what things would look like if you saw the square post it notes on your table start moving around like this Italian TV bumper. (Is it still a matter of “personal taste” if your taste involves mistaken background beliefs??)

7) Can I just take a 25fps project and convert all compositions to 25fps assuming there is no 25fps footage in the project? Will extra divisions just appear in the timeline and all keyframes and layers remain where they are? Or will the world end?

[Tero Ahlfors]

There’s no rules when it comes to how/much to use motion blur because you can set the shutter to insane numbers in the comp. You’re not restricted by actually exposing the image so you can set it to what you like.

If I remember correctly you’ve done a lot of posts about getting smooth animations and that bumper is actually a pretty good example on that. Some motion blur and bounce to the animation make even faster motions smoother.

[Walter Soyka]

[Jerry Smith] “4) Realized that animators approach the issues with a more blase attitude (“experiment”, “see what you like”) than film purists (See the debates over some of the Tolkien movies).”

The Hobbit/HFR debate is more complicated than just motion blur.

When you have complete creative control over every single pixel on-screen, I think experimentation is the only proper thing to do.

[Jerry Smith] “7) Can I just take a 25fps project and convert all compositions to 25fps assuming there is no 25fps footage in the project? Will extra divisions just appear in the timeline and all keyframes and layers remain where they are? Or will the world end?”

I assume you mean to change a 25fps comp to some other frame rate, like 29.97 or 30 or 50. In your example, the world will not end. After Effects actually thinks about time in seconds (with decimals), not truly in frames. The keyframes will stay where they are (but they may not precisely align with frame boundaries).

Personally, the two things that most often keep Ae motion blur from looking natural are low sampling and blending with non-linear gamma. If your motion blur looks kind of gross, with well-defined steps and dark edges, crank up the sampling in your composition’s Advanced settings (this will make your renders slower, so don’t do more than you need), and enable “Blend colors using 1.0 gamma” in your project settings.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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