• Joined: April 25, 2010

Topic: Animating in Doubles?

Recently I read a comment by Kooberz on this video about how he animates:

Kooberz wrote:

[12 frames per second is basically the same thing but] the human eye catches this and it just doesn't look as good. 2 pictures per movement are called "doubles" in animation, and they shoot Wallace and Grommeit, as well as a bunch of other animated films with doubles. Looks pretty good. I used to shoot at 15fps, but doubles allows me to do 24fps, even if there are only 12 different movements in a second. I know....my brain is spinning too.

I was unaware of this technique, and I was wondering if I could confirm it.

mini/smile
  • Joined: December 27, 2008

Re: Animating in Doubles?

Confirmed in this book, page 22.  Although I don't get why they need to take two pics of the same shot when they can just extend the duration of each frame of a 12 fps shot, thereby just taking 12 pics instead of 24 pics for one second of footage.

Anyways, read here.

Thanks for bringing this up, btw.  /me researches its applicability to CG animation.

Last edited by Lechnology (February 26, 2012 (03:42am))

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Re: Animating in Doubles?

I don't get the point of that method... mini/confused

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Re: Animating in Doubles?

You're filming on 24/30 fps, but take 2 pictures for each movement so it's slowed down to 12/15. That way you can animate walking at 12 fps and other movements on 24.

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Re: Animating in Doubles?

Briks wrote:

You're filming on 24/30 fps, but take 2 pictures for each movement so it's slowed down to 12/15. That way you can animate walking at 12 fps and other movements on 24.

I do doubles but I still animate walking at 24fps.

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Re: Animating in Doubles?

I wasn't entirely aware of this technique but it makes complete since. With my 24fps walk cycle, I take 2 shots without the legs moving whatsoever, but the arms do move slightly in every shot. You might think you'd notice the 2 shots where the figure's legs are not even moving, but you don't, and it looks a lot better. You can see that in most of my videos except the Zero Gravity one. I'd be interested in doing some tests with this technique.

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Repelling Spider's Website

  • Joined: December 26, 2008

Re: Animating in Doubles?

To my understanding, this is just a holdover from when stop-motion was (or is) shot on film that has been mistaken as having some sort of advantage in digital film-making. I can't see why there would be any perceptible difference between 12fps and 24fps on doubles if you were working digitally, and any practical benefits that would be garnered from using the technique on film (easily modifiable frame-rates and meeting a standard projection rate) are already possible without shooting on twos.

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Re: Animating in Doubles?

I thought the reason of shooting with doubles was not to make it look better, but to have it synchonize properly with regular 24fps film back in the olden days

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Re: Animating in Doubles?

In this day and age animating in doubles does seem rather pointless, and @Repelling Spider, what you described with your walk cycle isn't technically doubles, since you move the arm in the frame when the leg doesn't move.

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Re: Animating in Doubles?

backyardlegos wrote:

In this day and age animating in doubles does seem rather pointless, and @Repelling Spider, what you described with your walk cycle isn't technically doubles, since you move the arm in the frame when the leg doesn't move.

Oh I wasn't saying what I did was doubles at all. I was merely saying that what I do is similar in the sense that the legs only move every two shots. So every two shots the legs do not move at all.

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Re: Animating in Doubles?

I think I kind of understand the concept;

When the picture refreshes 24 times a second, even if things in the picture are slower, it appears smoother than 12 refreshes. Your brain picks up on the 24 frames a second because each picture is slightly different, even if it was taken moments after the other. I'd like to test this out though.

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Re: Animating in Doubles?

The method was born out of taking individual frames with film cameras back when hand-drawn animation was widely used.  Most cameras filmed at 24 fps or 30 fps.  It was probably too costly to animate at 24 fps, so they decided to take each frame twice to make it 12 fps.  But fast movements at 12 fps come out choppy.  So they took each frame once for faster movements, while having more drawings for the movement, so it'll be smoother.

With 15 fps, this isn't neccesary because fast movements at 15 fps still look smooth.

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