Animation Frame Rate
marble
Posts: 7,500
I like to play with animation but am discouraged from attempting anything more than a 2 second looped clip because of all the frames that need to be rendered. I know some people set it going and wait days for the result. God knows what they do if they spot an error in the final rendered output!
Anyhow, I was browsing something else and came across an application called Smooth Video Project (SVP) which uses AI interpolation to double (or more) the frame rate of any video (say from 30fps to 60fps). Now that could be a time saver so I searched more and found that while SVP comes at a cost ($20) there are free alternatives such as one called RIFE.
Has anyone tried these apps and, if so, do they work well?
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Comments
For most purposes 30 frames per second is sufficient for smooth video output.
24 frames per second were the standard for most movies til about the 90's
I save to image files but even at 30 FPS it seems a little jumpy on my PC. Probably something I'm doing wrong - I have very little experience with animation.
Your best bet would be to go with FlowFrames, as it's a lot quicker than Topaz video enhance, and does not have the horrible wavy artifacts with SVP as I have all three programs and there's pros and cons for them, as TVE is excellent at AI upscaling model, and their frame interpolation solution is quite new (Chronos) so it's much slower for the calculations but the results are excellent...
But if you don't want to spend money on a solution then FlowFrames is the way to go; and yeah, both progs are 100x better than SVP's optical flow method, but SVP too has a new, limited RIFE algorithm that they use as an alt to the wretched optical flow!
TLDR: FlowFrames is the best free version alt to Topaz Video Enhance and SVP, but for AI upscaling you would love TVE, and as a beta tester their Chronos model will only get better!
The best thing about these progs is that they work the same way as puppeteer, in that it interpolates missing animation frames but unlike puppeteer, it uses an AI model method!
EDIT: You can have a 10 FPS video interpolate into a 60 FPS one with no noticeable interruptions of the animation!
I only came across this concept today but the web sites do look interesting. I've used DaVinci Resolve (free) to interpolate frames before and that seems to work well so I'm interested to compare. Does FlowFrames include RIFE or do I need t install that first?
You do not need to install RIFE in any of the programs I listed, it's already ready to go!
That's just people directly porting open university research so the chance of the developer imparting some mind blowing wisdom into the original research is pretty small. I'd go with the free one called RIFE or another free one.
You can also render at 480p and upscale to 720p then to FHD using DLSS as I believe I remember you stating you have an RTX capable video card.
Unfortunately, I will not be much help with your main question, but I did want to make one quick point that I think migh help but I hope isn't too far off topic...
If you wanted to check to ensure that your animation looked good before waiting a day or whatever for the final render, you can render out the viewport mode in OpenGL and it renders each frame in less than a second. It's helpful for plablasing out sections as your working so you don't commit too much time to something that needs to be re-done.
I'm interested in the software you describe, however I'm sorry but I have no experience with that.
That free and paid for both AI SW the OP was posting about uses DLSS with some other AI enhancements. That's why I recommend he use the free version.
Ditto (other than I don't play games).
Yes, I do check with OpenGL but there are always things I miss. Same with static renders - I often render a still scene 5 times or more before I am happy. As has been mentioned, I now have a decent GPU (RTX 3090) which has completely changed my workflow but a few hundred frames, even with a 3090, will take a long time. I'm thinking about how to extend my animation projects but I will have to learn a lot of new skills. Ideally I would like to animate in Blender but I am not happy with any of the methods of getting DAZ figures into Blender and also I find the Blender way of posing a PITA compared to DAZ Studio. It's merely a case of comfort zones and courage, I must admit.
I tend to agree. One problem is... certain OS and multi-tasking issues may pop up (I have found) on low-to-mid-level machines, causing temporary or even repeated jerkiness in your UX.
My understanding is that Peter Jackson tried 40 (and maybe 60) fps with 'The Hobbit' and other... more recent content. Apparently a few people were barfing IIRC and suing the cinema etc., etc. Haven't heard much about what the current standard is.
No offence to the barfers btw, and happy sailing and lots of Gravol - I've always been fascinated by the idea of double-deck trains (like in the Rocky Mountains) until I actually tried one. I STILL FEEL SICK, just remembering!
Sometimes jerky is good. IIRC, R.O. Blechman, and to perhaps a lesser extent Jules Feiffer (screenplay for 'The Graduate' starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft et al; the Playboy interview with him is required reading) made sizeable careers out of it.
I shared a bit of studio space in college (doing 16mm film animation) with a guy who a few years later won an Academy Award for his relatively jerky featurette 'Every Child'. I just about fell off my chair when I read about it in the newspaper! Sort of obscure for a few decades as computer graphics took over, but viewable now on Youtube.
Lots of luck and best wishes.
24fps with a bit of motion blur is what our eyes/brains are used to. Rendering without motion blur will make things look a little jerky. Of course you can't render with motion blur using Iray in DS, so you'll need to add it in post. The free version of DaVinci Resolve does a good job (just Google for motion blur in DaVinci Resolve free and you'll find a couple of good youtube videos on how to do it).
Thanks for that tip - I do use Davinci Resolve so I will check out those videos.
I have yet to find a free one that doesn't need to be compiled.
well I do have the DAINapp alpha but that is terribly limited,
just had a look at the waifu2X Extension GUI trial that uses them all including RIFE but what a piece of "nag"ware that is
I honestly don't mind paying but NOT SUBSCRIPTION and they all love Patreon, I would even pay per video over that as I would never use it enough to ever justify a subscription.
I can always render more damned frames for free too.
Good old Slomovideo is often sufficient too, no AI just blurry interpolation but the few times I need such a thing it does fine.
Now the upscalers, those interest me more and you can pay per use.
OK - so I tried FlowFrames and it works nicely (if somewhat slowly). No compile required just download and install (if you can get your AV software to let you install it).
I tested on a 1 minute 30FPS video which I set to double to 60FPS and it took just over 6 minutes. I think that setting the DAZ Studio timeline to 60 FPS instead of 30 for the same clip would have taken much longer to render, so this could be useful.