How to import every frame of an external animation?

[gabriel.schroll]

Hi,

I'd like to experiment with manually increasing the frame rate of some existing animation by drawing the in-betweens of something like Batman the Animated Series, Akira, Thundercats, etc

I've successfully extracted a few seconds of animation, and played with the frame rate until it played back at what appears to be the correct speed - 18fps in this case.

Once I've created a clean background plate, how can I insert that between every existing frame so that I can then add a layer and begin the in-betweens?

Or is there a guide somewhere that can help me with increasing the frame rate of an existing animation by hand? That AI-assisted stuff does not do anything for me, but it's a cool idea.

[slowtiger]

I'm not sure it 18 fps is the correct speed - those series where done on 35mm film with a standard projection speed of 24 fps. But you only have a video source, which can be corrupted in many ways ...

One way to insert blanks is to use the animator panel to set each original frame's exposure to 2, then clear that last frame of each.

[D.T. Nethery]

I'd like to experiment with manually increasing the frame rate of some existing animation by drawing the in-betweens of something like Batman the Animated Series, Akira, Thundercats, etc

I've successfully extracted a few seconds of animation, and played with the frame rate until it played back at what appears to be the correct speed - 18fps in this case.

How did you arrive at 18 frames per second ? Almost all animation for theatrical release or television broadcast is animated at 24 fps (technically 25 fps in countries that had PAL video , but effectively the difference between 24 fps and 25 fps is so minimal it can't be noticed). The other option would be "30 fps" (actually 29.97 fps) done for direct-to-video broadcast. (and even so, most animation for television series and commercials was timed for 24 fps and the conversion to 29.97 fps accomplished with the "3:2 pulldown" system )

You can't arrive at a frame rate by counting up the number of drawings per second and averaging it out because some productions may use shortcuts such as animating ON 3's or ON 4's instead of ON 2's , which cuts down on the number of drawings per second , but it is still running at 24 fps.

[gabriel.schroll]

Thank you!

No matter the actual FPS, I did figure out how to do what I was trying to do.

I went to Image --> Select All Images. Then Image --> Exposure --> Add Exposure. It exposed every frame twice, which will let me draw a new frame in between each existing frame, essentially doubling it.
It may not work as I intend, but it's all in the name of experimentation.

[slowtiger]

One source of confusion might be that bit I've read years ago (don't know where) that Disney animation happens at an average of 18 drawings per second. Still this is not the same as FPS - those two concepts should be strictly separated.

That number is meaningless anyway, since it doesn't count actual drawings - there might be a separate drawing for each character in the scene, and even multiple drawings for one character, like a held cel for the feet and multiple drawings for the body, or a held face and several mouth phases.

Even a concept like "animating on 2's" seems to lead people down a wrong track. "How many drawings does it need?" can only be answered with "as many as you need to create the motion you want, depending on your chosen style of animation".

[D.T. Nethery]

One source of confusion might be that bit I've read years ago (don't know where) that Disney animation happens at an average of 18 drawings per second. Still this is not the same as FPS - those two concepts should be strictly separated.

That number is meaningless anyway, since it doesn't count actual drawings - there might be a separate drawing for each character in the scene, and even multiple drawings for one character, like a held cel for the feet and multiple drawings for the body, or a held face and several mouth phases.


Even a concept like "animating on 2's" seems to lead people down a wrong track. "How many drawings does it need?" can only be answered with "as many as you need to create the motion you want, depending on your chosen style of animation".

Exactly, this. Well said.