15 Frames per second

[Matt Sugden]

i got to thinking, in days gone by, when people used to hand draw cartoons it was my understanding that they used to do these at about 15 frames per second, and I remember reading somewhere that this was the threshold to fool the eye and brain of convincing none jerky motion.

 

With that said, has anyone experimented here with rendering animations at settings around 15fps, rather than the obligatory 25-30fps? it would sure make a difference with rendertimes!!

[Pyke]

Ive never gone to 15 FPS, but I have dropped to 20 and blended the fames without a 'massive' loss.

I always get this guilty feeling tho, like I'm cheating my client.

[hughie]

Classical animation is usually shot at 12 FPS, the expensive stuff is shot at 24fps and some of the really cheap stuff, (have a look at the old transformers cartoon) is shot at 6 FPS, It is a lot easier to get away with it on hand drawn because your eye fills in a lot of the lost information, And kids don’t really care they just want to see their favourite characters and explosions.

In medium and high budget animation than they shoot a lot (not all) camera moves at 24fps, as this is where it is easiest to spot jerky motion. This is the part that reflects most on our industry.

Really 24fps should be the lowest you are aiming for; anything lower starts to look cheap even to the untrained eye.

30fps is better as it gives you flexibility between PAL and NTSC, and can let you re-time a certain amount without too much loss in the postproduction.

[louis.cho]

hand animators usualy draw between 12 - 15 fps. 12 fps is currently use on internet or flash movies.

 

24fps is the projection standard for cinema and give you really good quality.

 

25(PAL everywhere) / 30(NTSC in america) is the boardcast standard. This is due to the electric frequency of the distributors. Here, we use 120V at 60hertz. when you interlaced 50% of the frames to refresh the image you divide 60 hertz by 2 and it's give you 30 fps!!! In europe, you use 220V at 50 hertz so its 50/2=25. When you add the drop frame tricks for some reason that i don't remember its give you 29,97 or 24,97 fps.

 

correct me if i am wrong but i thnink that If you are sure that your animation will not be boardcast, you can make it a 24. Less than that will not be as fluid.

[Ernest Burden III]

The standard conversion of films at 24fps to the 30fps of NTSC video was 4 frames then repeat the last one, on and on. Not ideal, but we've been watching it all out TV lives.

 

What's making things better now is progressive scan (non-interlaced) and the fact that DVDs now usually have a built-in pull-down so they playing at the correct frame-rate.

 

I recall that Nils of Neoscape explained all this in another thread in much better detail (and accuracy probably) than what I just wrote. As I recall, he said NS usually works at 24fps.