Bricks in Motion
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a small test I did with after effects I know it has some glitches but this was my very first try;)
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Last edited by LBF Productions (May 27, 2017 (01:49pm))
Very nice, Sebas. The effects look good, and it really makes the cycle look natural.
That doesn't look natural, therefore, the effect isn't good, don't use Frame Blending, Sebas.
I'm in the same boat as Lech and Brickcrazy, frame blending looks weird and is not necessary for smooth animation.
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Last edited by LBF Productions (May 27, 2017 (01:48pm))
Ok, I may be in the minority, but I don't believe frame blending is necessarily evil. It's a stylistic choice. Perhaps akin to black and white, a super high contrast, or various aspects ratios. However, as such, it must not only be appropriate for the film, but also well done. Sadly, this was not entirely the latter, as seen by Lech's screencap. But there is hope!
Besides fixing the effects to not generate those odd glitches, is there anything else that can be corrected? Sure.
If you look closely at the timing of the movements, his arms don't follow usually easing in and out speeds. They slow down as they get closer to his side, then jerk forward and back as they rise up. That's the opposite of what you want, and lies with how the underlying frames were timed. I suggest making sure they ease in and out correctly in the raw animation before trying to apply any frame blending.
Looking at your other films, it seems like your animation is a bit rough. Don't worry, things get easier and better with practice and experience. Instead of potentially using frame blending to smooth over that roughness, perhaps your time would be best invested in improving your animation itself, which will yield a far higher quality, and ultimately fulfilling, final product.
If the underlying motions are smooth, then the frame blending will look better, and have less glitches. This only comes with precise easing, as well as perhaps increasing your frame rate. But then, of course, as those get better, there will be less need and less of a difference with the frame blending.
In short, I like the look, but it still needs a few wrinkles ironed out.
I largely agree with Pritchard on this one. The sort of "morph" effect between frames has an interesting look to it, however, does distract from the animation unfortunately... (At least, it stands out more-so than the plain old onion skinning/opacity frame blending technique). However, I wouldn't totally discourage from trying out this morph effect.
If you can push it to be a bit more subtle, and hide the digital artifacts that pop up around the edges of the minifigure, like Lech pointed out, I'd be really interested to see the end result!
Also, smoother animation should always be an animator's first concern. Adding frame blending over animation should only be the cherry on top... and even at that, the less noticeable, the better (and less distracting) the effect will be.
so in short, should I focuse more on ease in and out and stop using frame blending?
I have to fully agree with Lechnology on this one. The effect looks super "glitchy" and unnatural. Reminds me of a poor masking job. The walk cycle would have been perfectly fine without it.
Honestly,the walk cycle with out the frame blending looked really choppy, I wasn't getting the fluid motion I wanted
Brickcrazy wrote:I have to fully agree with Lechnology on this one. The effect looks super "glitchy" and unnatural. Reminds me of a poor masking job. The walk cycle would have been perfectly fine without it.
Honestly,the walk cycle with out the frame blending looked really choppy, I wasn't getting the fluid motion I wanted
I'd love to see the original clip. Maybe we can help you figure out why the motions weren't fluid.
Just to clarify (and this is nothing personal of course), I'm not a huge fan of any frame blending in any brickfilms I see. It usually warps stuff because it's not made for stop-motion or blocky things. It's made to help smooth motions in live action footage, generally.
I would 90% agree with the argument that says stay away from frame blending. You should definitely put the work into learning proper animation techniques.
BUT, on the other hand, if it is the look you're going for, and you have your animation techniques mastered, I'd say go for it. It can create some really realistic looking animations. That is, if the animation looks good prior to adding the effect.
Use it to compliment your animation, not make up for sloppy animation.
so in short, should I focuse more on ease in and out and stop using frame blending?
I would practice improving on both animation and knowing when post production effect can be used effectively. Frame Blending in After Effects generates frames to fill in the gap between frames. I think your animation's fps is different from your output with Frame Blending. And because there's such a difference in changes between frames, it creates those warping distortion in those generated frames. Make smoother animation and match your output fps to your animation fps, be it 15 fps or 24 fps or at least be a multiple of each other (15 fps to 30 fps or 12 fps to 24 fps) and using Frame Blending shouldn't create as much distortion artifacts. Not that I've done it myself so I'll challenge any After Effects animators to animate at 12 fps and output at 24 fps on After Effects using the Pixel Motion frame blending setting and see if this makes an improvement.
I think your animation's fps is different from your output with Frame Blending.
Yep I think that explains alot
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