Problems creating an animation in PS and FCP

[Mark Suszko]

Could you set these up in photoshop to be re-made using a batch action, or is there too much that would have to be hand-re-done? I have made re-sizing droplets and batch jobs in PS for re-sizing and trimming some folders of files. Though it is always easier to scale down and up, and I was scaling down from files that were too large. Ideally, if you had worked on these in vector format, scaling would be cake.

I don’t think there is any way to get around having to re-make the png’s in a higher rez. Just zooming into them will get too aliased. This was not a technical problem, but a managerial/client one: you built based on assumptions of tiny web stuff, then they changed the deal. Don’t beat yourself up that they increased the scope after the fact. Rather, bill them the time to do it over, instead of time to do it right.

[John Russell]

Thanks for that Mark. Yes I have come to terms with the fact that I will have to re-make them at a higher size/ratio! There are however a couple of issues it would be good to get feedback on.

1] Looking through the forums it seems a good idea to import the images into FCP at twice the final resolution to get the best results. Is this correct?

2] Are there any problems with importing the images as animated gifs into FCP? This is my preferred solution given that I understand this process and it produces the required effect? Are there any technical problems with this?

best

J

[Jiggy Gaton]

Hi, u might want to check this out:
https://www.ononesoftware.com/
Genuine Fractals 6
We use it when we get into tight spots like that, or we r just plain lazy. It works well with line drawings, but u can just download a trial and see if it works on yours. If it does, charge the client for that too:)
jigs
ps.it does batch, so the entire job can be done in a few clicks.

Phoenix Studios Nepal: A small A/V Production House in Kathmandu.

[John Russell]

Dave

Thanks a lot for that.

So would it be OK to import 1500+ TIFFs on that scale into FCP, and then play with the timings/transitions etc once they are imported. Can FCP handle this? Sorry if this is a dumb question? The animation is simple there are no effects really, it all works through the drawing.

And would 1920×1080 be enough? Reading through the forums it seems some people suggest importing at twice the size required to ensure high quality out put.

Thanks again for your help.

J

[John Russell]

Jiggy – cheers yes I’ve used genuine fractals before. I’ll give it a try but I think it may be too big a jump. I’ve already tried the enlarging using PS in 10% increments trick and it doesn’t look good.

[Jiggy Gaton]

2] Are there any problems with importing the images as animated gifs into FCP?

To answer this, no. dropping animated gifs on the FCP timeline preserves the animation. I was shocked when I first tried that:)

Phoenix Studios Nepal: A small A/V Production House in Kathmandu.

[John Russell]

Thanks for all the advice – very helpful!

OK re-sizing images TIFs as suggested.

A couple of issues are still worrying me – any answers?

1] Will 1920×1080 pixels be big enough? Reading through the forums it seems some people suggest importing at twice the size required to ensure high quality out put for projection/DVD?

2] Any suggestions of what settings/ codec I should use for line drawing animation? Or any suggestion of tutorials?

[Jiggy Gaton]

not to dilute this thread, but web gifs to the side of a house? that’s gotta look bad. but seriously, we just watched the world cup here on the side of a house, and that looked bad too.

what is the deal on projectors. clients come here, we give them a DVD that looks great on TV, and then they call and say it does not look so hot on new HD projectors. should I also give these folks a high-res computer file and tell them to play from a laptop or what? this is a new phenomenon, and not sure if projector technology has changed dramatically, as we don’t have HD projectors here…

Phoenix Studios Nepal: A small A/V Production House in Kathmandu.

[John Russell]

Dave

Thanks again.

Sorry this is confusing. The situation is that I don’t want to repeat my earlier mistakes (in fact they were my mistakes not the clients)- so I want to lay out the animation in FCP in as high resolution as is necessary to be able to output for high quality projection and DVD as well as for streaming on the web.

I am assuming 2178 x 3840 is sufficient – probably overkill?

I am also assuming 16 x 9 is a more workable format than 4 x 3 these days as long as I keep the main action in the centre of the shot (after reading about the various options). I would therefore be able to output for projection, DVD, and web streaming. Is this correct.

Sorry if these are dumb questions – maybe i should be over in the beginners section?

[John Russell]

Dave

Thanks again for this help – its a life-saver! I’ve a few more questions then I’ll try and leave you alone!

To recap: So I’ve remade my images as TIFS scaled down from the original scans to 1920×1080.

The images are hand drawn, pen drawings and I’ve worked on the transitions in PS. These transitions are usually just simple fades between images. The transitions are not meant to be smooth the intention is that you see the gradual layering of one image over another. Maybe 7 images to fade from one image to another in 1/2 seconds

As you suggested I will then import these image sequences into AE and work on them there. And then import into FCP.

Questions:

1] If in FCP, I use ProRes 422 as the codec in my edit timeline, again as you suggested, will there be any problems exporting from AE to FCP?

2]Should I render the sequences in AE using the codec above and then export?

3] You it be a good idea to render short sequence 1/2 minutes and then export to FCP or render and export the whole sequence (about 15 minutes)?

Thanks again

John