FPS output questions

[Animaker]

I've been reading the comments on the Forum about conforming film speed from start to final output and I'm still a little confused. This is my process: I set the original project at 12fps and animate in ones. All sound tracks are then imported into that project. When the animation is finished I make a copy of each drawing using a 2 from 1 script button. I combine all layers I want, copy the composite single layer and "undo" all layers as backup. I then make a new project set at 24fps ,paste my copy of the composite which I've just made. I then have to re-import the sound track into the new project at (24fps) and I'm done. I can now export an avi at 24 or 30fps as required. Is this likely to get me in trouble or can I easily export my project to a film at 24 or 30 fps as may be required or do I need an extra step? I'm asking this because I want to enter my latest film in a festival and a bit concerned that the resolution or sound might be compromised.

[slowtiger]

Don't you use a video editor to put the final scenes together with the sound?

[Animaker]

I use a music and efx composer to write and sync the track to the pic. (like me he's new at this ). On my last project I mistakenly exported the film at 12 fps (the rate I animate at) before adjusting the number of FPS to 24. He composed music to that speed. This means that his sound tracks won't work in a project exported at 24 or 30fps. Is there any way I can fix that without having him re-record and sync all the music to a 24FPS project.

[slowtiger]

If I would start a project at 12 fps, I'd do it this way:

1. Animate.
2. Select "Modify Project". This always creates a copy of your current project. Settings: 24 fps, no Stretch to Framerate, no Time Interpolation.
3. Now you double your frames and import the soundtrack. Continue work until it's ready for export.
4. Export with 24 fps both in the export window as well as in the AVI export settings.

I usually avoid this trouble by always starting a project at 24 fps. I can set the playback to 12 fps when needed. But even when I animate on two's I throw in the occasional 1 or 3, so it's better to start with the final 24 fps right away.

[Animaker]

OK, thanks for the advice. I'll remember that next project=.
But I'm still wondering if there's anyway to "fix" this sound track now that we have recorded it at 12 fps speed. Or do we have to re-record everything again at the faster frame rate? In other words, the film is 24 FPS and the sound track was recorded at 12FPS.

[slowtiger]

Uhm, I think you have to really understand the concept of "frame rate" in digital video.

If I create a video file, it will have as many images in one second as the frame rate specifies: 12, 24, 25, 30, whatever. Each image is one frame, like a drawer in a cupboard, all of the same size. If you play 12 frames (24, 25, 30...), one second is over.

Now sound is different. Because sound is continuous, it can't be sliced and put in drawers. Instead, you have a continuous soundtrack in your video file. If you record 1 second of sound, it will stay 1 second long.

Now you could change sound speed as well, recompute it so it plays faster or slower - but you don't do that, because it's clearly audible and not nice. Besides, if you du a music video at 120 BPM it wouldn't make sense to change it to 240 BPM - nobody dances that fast.

So if you have a problem syncing sound to image, what you do is to change the distribution of images to the sound. 1 second of sound will still be 1 second, and the overall length of the sound will not change. What you change is the frame rate. Instead of having 12 frames per second, you will have 24 or 25 or 30, whatever. Basically we build a cupboard of the same width, but with more drawers. And now you need to put your images, your animation into these drawers again: by duplicating each instance in TVP, you make sure that all drawers (frames) hold an image, but the speed of your animation stays the same.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Or to put it simply, you can have a one second piece of music composed to a single frame, which you'll have to watch for the entire second, or you can show 12 pictures or 24 pictures in that second and have more things to look a t for the entire duration of the composition: still one second.