• Joined: April 10, 2014

Topic: The importance of motion blur

Recently I moved from 15 FPS to 24 FPS, but when I wanted to convert back to 15 FPS to save time, it seems that my movements are too slow and choppy but works well at 17 FPS (a strange rate).
For my own tests and animations, I am able to view them, in my eyes, as a lot of frames following one another (sort of flashing(but that could be because of the light flicker)), but not really as a motion. Motion blur (I'm pretty sure) would be able to make my test and animations look more fluid and smooth.

However, like Twickabrick and the LEGO Movie doesn't have any motion blur done in post-production.

Twickabrick on BRAWL 2015 wrote:

Maybe I'm just really picky, because while I was animating this, I didn't really think I was doing that good of a job. I think this during most BRAWLs, and then once some time passes and I watch the video again, it seems like I just forget everything I didn't like about the animation, because it usually looks fine then.

It could be possible that I'm a bit picky though.

All in all, I am wondering if motion blur is important because live action video has motion blur. Should it be done in camera, post production, or completely avoided (unless if it's brick-built) ?
Please share your experience with it. And if you do use motion blur in post-production, could you share a before and after comparison?

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Re: The importance of motion blur

I go both ways with motion blur. In some situation, mainly large jumps in movement, (i.e. a character goes across the entire screen in two frames) I think motion blur, whether post production or brick built, can make the motion much smoother.

While not the most noticeable, I think motion blur can help in some situation, for example: Before and after of a car driving. (the car is moving around four studs per frame at 15 fps)

Here is a brick built example of motion blur: Again, at 15 fps.

P.S. sorry about the quality of the shorts, they were just quick tests that I did a while ago.

EDIT:
Rioforce pretty much summarized what I was thinking and was not able to translate into words.

Last edited by Rivvm m (December 28, 2015 (07:43pm))

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Re: The importance of motion blur

Motion blur usually implies fast motion. In every day life, we don't actually notice motion blur except in fast motion. Animation works without motion blur because of that weird brain anomaly that translates fast moving pictures into videos.

That being said, motion blur isn't really needed in stop-motion. I find it actually makes the animation look worse, rather than helping it. People think that it covers up mistakes, but it doesn't. It's not a magical thing that equalizes the movements in the animation. If the frames of movement aren't there, they can never be there.

The best (and only) way to make animation look real is to actually do just that: Animate it. Bring it to life in the best way possible, to the best of your abilities. The reason professional stop-motion works (Aardman, LAKIA, etc) is not that they have motion blur, in fact, most do not. It is the fact that the characters are brought to life by talented animators who use practice, references, and specific rules/theories which give the illusion of life to inanimate objects.

Sorry, that turned into a rant, but long story short, I don't like motion blur unless it's used in fast-movement.

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Re: The importance of motion blur

I share rioforce's opinion.

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Re: The importance of motion blur

I agree with Rio as well

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Re: The importance of motion blur

Yeah, I'm gonna go with rioforce as well. Using motion blur really detracts from the actual movement and makes it feel weird, at least in my opinion.

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Re: The importance of motion blur

I think the lack of motion blur is part of the style/charm of stop motion.

I do like the look of stop motion footage treated with Reelsmart Motion Blur, though, which the project is suited to it; we did that for our Force Awakens trailer to emulate the look of the original more closely.

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Re: The importance of motion blur

60 FPS in 4k is the only way to go.

(No, not really)

Every once in a while I use motion blur, but usually only for particularly fast movements. If an object is moving really fast, then sometimes it can really help.  For instance, if an object moves past the camera so fast that the object is only in view for three frames, the object will appear in completely separate parts of the frame each new frame, and that does sometimes break the illusion that the object is in a fluid motion.

So I do think that sometimes some motion blur can be nice if used effectively, but for regular movements I don't use any, and when I do use motion blur, I prefer to do it in shot by actually moving the object as the frame is taken.

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