[Rohit Iyer]

Hey Will,

Good points. And also, I hope I haven’t added to your confusion!

I guess the only way to learn is to move forward with something and (hopefully not) make mistakes.

Cheers and all the best for your project!

-Rohit Iyer
rohit.iyer@gmail.com

[Rohit Iyer]

Another thought occurred to me:

Most of the discussions online have to do with interpolated After Effects animation or mixing frame rates from different sources.

If I’m just working with a single hand-drawn, frame-by-frame source and using After Effects only for color and stuff, and I maintain a consistent frame rate… technically, I should be able to use any frame rate, right as long as I can convert to other formats later?

Just a thought. Sorry if I’m stating the obvious.

-Rohit

[Rohit Iyer]

Hey,

Doesn’t hand drawn animation do weird things like draw on “2s” or “1s” or something? Again, quite how this affects a framerate change I’m not sure.

I think it’s similar to what you mention later, here:

But just remember they’re only decimal when talking in a “per second” rate. As in, there’s not a .976th of a frame

I think the same applies when I’m using TV Paint – it distributes frames so that the average is 23.976 per second, as you mentioned.

Of course, since I’m drawing frame-by-frame or every other frame (2’s), this can get a bit confusing where a round number like 24/25 makes it easier to wrap one’s head around. Plus 24 is the classic number that animators always use.

all original 24fps film when scanned in is slowed down to 23.976, then the pulldown is applied

Does this mean that in the film-out the film is sped back up to true 24 frames/sec? Doesn’t this imply that a 24 fps source can always be changed to 23.976 or 25 fps or 29.97 fps afterward with audio adjustments?

I mean if everything is interchangeable in the end, does it really make a difference?

I think this is what is bugging me most. All around the internet people are using 24p and 23.976 fps interchangeably, so it’s hard to know which one is being referred to.

Also I read about 24p and DVDs on Wikipedia:

24p on DVD
DVDs, however, are capable of storing the native 24p frames. Every Hollywood movie is laid to disc as a 24p (actually 23.976p – see below) stream. With a progressive-scan DVD player and a progressive display, such as an HDTV, only the progressive frames are displayed and there is no conversion to an interlaced format – eliminating the appearance of any interlace or de-interlacing artifacts. When displayed on a standard NTSC TV (which only display 60i) the DVD player will add 3:2 pulldown to the signal.

This does imply that 23.976 is the most future-proof. Also do you think this means that for PAL DVDs, the player would adjust the frame-rate, etc. on its own? I think I need to do more research on how DVDs work as well. Perhaps there might not be a need to conform to 25fps manually just to make a PAL DVD?

I hope I’m not boring you with these observations. I’m just really enjoying this thread!

-Rohit

[Rohit Iyer]

Hi Will!

Thanks again for the quick reply.

Think of 23.976 as a lot more future-proof than PAL.

I’m glad the animation software I mentioned above (TV Paint) can play at any frame rate, so this could definitely work. I must admit, I get a bit confused with these decimal frame rates and “pulldown”! 🙂

I’ve started compulsively checking frame-rates of videos that I download. With mainstream HD trailers, as you mentioned, it is typically 23.976. But with independent animation stuff, like on Vimeo, I’ve seen everything from this to 24, 25, etc. So, like you said, it probably depends on me.

Also, this still means that a PAL DVD will be a bit faster, right? I work on Windows, so I don’t use FCP or Compressor. Am I right to suppose that any old DVD software (Nero, Roxio, etc.) can do the conversion?

One thing has occured to me: as your film contains few or no cuts, is it feasible to simply output the project in the various framerates required? That way you’ll have a project at the natural rates for all.

I don’t think I follow this. As I the animation will be synced to music and dialog, will this not cause problems? Do you mean modifying the audio accordingly for each version?

Also, since the animation will be drawn frame-by-frame, will changing the frame rate not make things all the more problematic?

Secondly, aspect ratio.

I’ve read about HD camera settings online, so I’ve been going by that. That might be kinda stupid actually. I’ve not done live-action (yet!) so I can’t say. I was assuming that for the DVD letterbox, I would create an anamorphic DVD version specifically for that purpose, which I’m guessing would actually be 1.78:1. I’d like the online version to not have a letterbox.

BTW, is 2048 a bit excessive in terms of dimension?

Regarding the resolution, again, I just thought I’d go by what I’ve read. I’ve also read that with animation sometimes even 1280×720 is good enough as the film grain tends to absorb pixel edges. Also, my thinking was that 2048×858 any way has much fewer pixels than 1920×1080, so the amount of memory and processing power required would be similar and I’d get a Cinemascope look in the bargain!

I realize this might appear naive. So I’d love any further insights on this.

Can you sync an image sequence to sound in Quicktime Pro alone

I discovered this when I got frustrated with the endless recycling and compression stages in my past projects. That basically involved ripping the DVD and making an MOV and finally compressing in H.264 in Quicktime Pro.

So to remove all the various stages in between, I figured out that I could just take the final image sequence, open it in Quicktime Pro, Copy-Paste the audio (again opened in a separate Quicktime window) and render out with H.264 at the best settings.

I did this with my last project and got more-or-less what I would call a master. Since my projects have usually been one minute or less, the size is also pretty good.

I would personally render it out to a ProRes of some kind first

I’m not familiar with ProRes, but from what I’ve read, isn’t it an intermediate format? Like I said my definition of a master isn’t particularly great, which is why I’m being such a stickler this time.

In fact, I generally backup the PNG sequence and have considered that to be the best quality, basically due to my own ignorance.

It is sad that there doesn’t seem to be a hard and fast way to do these things. From design school onwards, I’ve seemed to be the only one in my class trying to discover all of these things. I guess that’s what makes it kinda fun too! 🙂

It would be nice to stay in touch during our production process.

Best,
Rohit

PS – Are you British (hence, PAL)? I’m an Indian and so we’ve always been trained to stick to PAL.

PPS – And sorry if I seem to be over-thinking this. I’ve invested a lot of my time and effort in this particular project and like any child, I’d like the absolute best for it. I guess it’s the same for you. 🙂

[Rohit Iyer]

Hi,

This is to both Dave and Will and is a continuation of the conversation I was having with Will here: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/967828#967867

I’m also having a hard time deciding between 24p and 25p for my short animated film which will be about 3-4 minutes long.

I won’t actually be taking a film-out, but I have the romantic notion that some day I might. So in practical terms, this project will be either uploaded online on a site like Vimeo or written to PAL DVDs/tapes.

So I suppose my question is, in this situation, is it better to go with 24p or 25p?

Will there be any difficulty with a film out if I go with 25p?

Is the 4% change in speed really noticeable?

My intended workflow is the following:

1. Animate in TV Paint Animation Pro (a raster-based animation software) at 2048 x 858 (2.39:1) and export as PNGs. The animation would be mainly on a single layer and the whole film has only a few or no cuts. So no separate shots.

2. Composite and edit the PNG sequence(s) in After Effects at full res and export the final film as a new set of PNG sequence(s).

3. Put the video and sound together with Quicktime Pro and render an H.264 MOVs at highest quality.

I don’t know what formats are usually used to future-proof this kind of stuff. But this is what I had in mind. What do you guys think?

Sorry if I’m asking too many things at the same time.

Best,
Rohit Iyer

[Rohit Iyer]

Dear Will,

Thanks once again for your response. So I guess I’ll go ahead with the current settings. It’s good to have someone back me up!

Cheers,
Rohit

[Rohit Iyer]

Hi Will!

Thanks so much for your response. Regardin, PAL-outs then, is it as simple as letting the DVD-writing software compress it for the format? That would make things much easier.

Also, I only recently learned about 23.976fps and I assumed it has more to do with video cameras than with frame-by-frame animation. Do correct me if I’m wrong.

The advantage of 24fps for animation seems obvious when it comes to timing and cycles/loops, etc.

But I would love some definitive conclusion on this!

Thanks again,
Rohit

[Rohit Iyer]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your response. You’re probably right – what you suggest is the best way to work. I’ve only been doing some tests before actually starting production on the project and this idea got me a bit excited.

I’m still sure there must be a way though. Its one of those irritating “What if…?” type situations.

But I guess you can’t have your cake and eat it too! 😉

Cheers,
Rohit Iyer