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shooting on two's

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shooting on two's

Hi All

I need some advice on timing.
I'm working on a flash animation and I'm not sure what frame rate is best.
Is somebody able to go in to more detail on frame rates for me.
Am I right in understanding that 'two's' means each drawing will fill two frames? And is 24 frames per second the same for flash animation?

I also need to know what field size to be working too if it's going to be shown on a screen.

Thanks very much!!

Thanks for the info animated ape.
I think I'm gonna animate at 30 fps. I know it will be more work, but I want the animation to look polished and flow smoothly.

:)

You don't say what your animation is going to be used for. If it's for the Internet, then I suspect 30 fps is probably way too high, though I have no Internet animation experience myself, so it would be best to get advice from those who have.

I do know about broadcast animation, however, and I can tell you that if your work is for UK broadcast, then the frame rate (PAL) is 25 frames per second.

IMHO you're a million miles better off looking at using Moho if you want to do 2D vector animation for broadcast use. It's far cheaper and has dozens of features Flash doesn't - just for starters, it has a proper "camera".

Cheers,

Jeff aka Old Fart (also in London)

Hi Jeff

Thanks for the feedback. The animation will be shown at a festival on a screen, but it will have to be transfered onto video (PAL) first. So I'm going to work at 30 fps.

I choice Flash as it's the program I felt most comfortable with (I'm a confident artist but I've not so with computer animation). I havn't heard of Moho, but I'll keep an eye out for it. I trying to limit the programs I'm using so I can get really good with 2 or 3 rather than just know 4 or 5 (but not very well). Maybe once I've got really good with Flash I'll move on, but at the moment it's quite easy so I'm finding it comfortable to use.

I appreciate your feedback

If your work is going to be seen in a cinema, it will need to run at 24 fps; if it's going to be video projected anywhere in Europe, it needs to run at 25 fps, though in practice there's little visible difference. Shooting at 30 is a very bad idea unless your film is only for the USA.

All the best.

Jeff

I think I've got a little confussed. I was going to work at 30fps as I was under the belief that more frames created a more fluid flowing animation. But now I understand that it's more of a US standard.

I'm gonna go back to working at 24 fps.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

:)

24 is perfect! The vast majority of animation work that you have ever seen on film or TV will have been made at that frame rate, so you are in good company. By working at that rate you will also avoid hideous problems regarding the soundtrack later on.

Good luck with the project.

Flash has a preset template for TV. Go to File/New from Template, then choose Broadcast from the first column of the dialogue box, and Broadcast Export from the second column. It has an overlay that shows Title Area and Safe Area, which does not show up in your final export.

For wide screen I use 1280 by 720, but I haven't tested it on TV or screen yet.

I guess if you're in London, 24 FPS is good, since I think (?) that's the frame rate for PAL. Over here we use 30. If you're going to do 24 fps and everything will be on two's, you may want to go with 12 fps to keep file size small, make it easier for web use, and simplify your timeline.

Cartoon Thunder
There's a little biker in all of us...

Thanks Jeff, you your advice has been a great help!
I'll post the short up when it's finished.
:)

Thats really helpful, thank you!

If you are going to go down to 12 fps, you'll then have to animate on ones, to compensate. It would be like the same as animating on twos at 24 fps. That was one of the main problems I found durring the internet boom. Flash animation was at 12 fps, and they would animate on twos, in essence animating on fours.

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."