Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with video and animation

Flash CS4 Quicktime Export leaves artifacts and looks like crud. Help!

buriednexttoyou — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 08:03:30 -0800

Flash animators: When I export my flash cartoon to quicktime, moving objects leave behind horrible artifacts. Apparently I am not the only one with this problem. If Flash's quicktime export is so crummy, how do the professionals publish their cartoons to video? I'm working with CS4 on a mac, but I've heard this is also a problem with CS3. I've also heard that you can import SWF files into After Effects and then export to video. As much as I'd like to be able to afford AE, I can't at the moment.

I know there are tons of animators working in Flash. Does this problem exist for you, and how do you deal with it?

What is a great Biblical animation for kids

lynnie-the-pooh — Sat, 30 May 2009 22:39:10 -0800

Looking for a good animated Biblical DVD for my five year old. My daughter loves a DVD called Prince of Peace by Vision Video and it was made in the year 2004. Are there any other good videos or DVD's from that company or another company that make great animated Biblical stories for youngsters?

Thanks,
Lynnie-the-Pooh

HD animated maps for video?

nitsuj — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:54:58 -0800

What's the easiest way to create HD-quality (1080x) animated maps for use with video? iMovie '09 has the nifty little map feature, but I use Final Cut Express and don't want to plunk down the extra cash for another editor. Is there a similar -- perhaps a bit more professional and detailed -- solution for creating animated maps for importing into Final Cut Express?

Ideally this would be a standalone program that creates the maps and outputs them into a format that is easily ingested by Final Cut Express.

(Other details: Final Cut Express 4, OSX.5.6, 2.4GHZ MBP + 4gb RAM)

Help with workflow from Handbrake to Premiere CS4, please

Slothrop — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:49:27 -0800

Art teacher / animation project / OS X 10.5 : I am using Handbrake to rip portions of DVDs into digital files. I would like to edit these files with Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 into 2-12 second segments. I need a little help figuring out how to do this properly, please. I am an art teacher working with a few advanced students on an animation project. I have done lots of work in Flash and figuring that out is no problem. We have begun experimenting with frame-by-frame style animation - where an image is drawn for every frame or every other frame in a sequence, like traditional animation. To help with that we find videos and export them as JPG or TIFF sequences. We can then draw over those image sequences to get a feel for how to draw and capture motion.

I have started using Premiere so that we can focus in on short manageable sequences to animate. With Premiere CS4, I can take a sequence from YouTube and edit it down to 2-5 seconds pretty quickly. I'd also like to take interesting motion sequences from DVDs I have and work with those as well. I downloaded Handbrake and used that to rip files from my DVD. I tried the different codec options (MPEG and h.264) but none of the resulting files will import into Premiere. Video production is a bit of a blind spot for me as a digital artist/teacher, so I need some advice. Handbrake produces AVI and MP4s (I think).

I'd like a freeware-oriented workflow for the short term that allows me to get video from a DVD that Premiere CS4 can open. In the medium to long term my school can probably purchase a more "professional" set of tools, especially once I demonstrate how this process will work.

I should emphasize that I am not pirating or copying movies in any way. We are using very short segments of videos to get a feel for how to draw and animate different kinds of movement.

Thank you in advance for advice and suggestions.

Have a Very Furry Christmas!

katyjack — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:27:25 -0800

I bought some stock video footage of a dog on a green background which I plan to chroma key out. Then I want to morph seamlessly into a graphic - still with the background masked out! And I want to do this all in Flash! For my Christmas Card! Not a total newbie at all of this - details inside. OK, so I do know Flash and Photoshop pretty well and I've got the entire Adobe Suite to use but I've only used Premiere and After Effects a little bit. I've masked out the background from a video before so I think I can remember how to do that with a little difficulty, but what I'd like to do is to use After Effects (I guess) to take the last frame of the image, turn it into a gif or a png and get rid of the background all together so I can take the image into flash and - well - turn it into a talking dog. My lame attempts so far at this have looked far from seamless - my vision of my talking dog christmas card is far exceeding my ability unfortunately. Does anyone have any tips for me on how to best achieve my dream?

How do I guttenberg my digital?

history is a weapon — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:00:08 -0800

[video/printing filter]I want to take video from Final Cut Pro, export them, and then print them on a grid on paper. I know how to do the first part, but am confused about the printing. How do I do it? So I can export an image sequence from Final Cut Pro and get a sequentially numbered set of image files in a folder. How do I take said folder and print them so the pictures are at full resolution (640x480), but not just a single picture per page, but as many of them as can fit (with maybe a small border) on a piece of paper and have the slides be sequential? I have use of an epson stylus photo 1400 if this is helpful to the answer. I basically want to print up 1,440 frames on less than 1,440 pieces of paper.

Help me find the name of a video I saw on Youtube about an animated pig

comfortinsound — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:24:40 -0800

I want to find a video I saw on YouTube about a year ago. It was a short animation about a pig with a song in Spanish. What is it called? I can't believe that I can't remember the name of this video. It was a sad, sad story about a pig being sent off to slaughter, and during the chorus (which I think was describing the pig escaping to safety, although I'm not sure) the pig was running away happily. But it was only a dream.

The video was animated simply, and it was in black and white. The song was (I think) in Spanish.

Name this tune

tcobretti — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:24:46 -0800

A few years ago I saw a music video with a female singer whose face had been blue screened into a animated scifi setting. The video was very cool despite its somewhat "Clutch Cargo" (or Johnny Chimpo if you prefer) vibe. Anybody have any idea what song it is?

What software should I use for this very simple animation?

The Dutchman — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:19:07 -0800

Flash? After effects? Maya? Toon Boom? Something else? I want to make some very simple abstract animation videos. The simplest would be just full screens of solid colors fading slowly into each other. Slightly more complex would be the same full screens of colors fading into each other, but not all at once. That is, maybe start the fade in the center or corner, and slowly leak in the new color. Or another slightly more complex: The screen divided into multiple blocks of different color that slowly fade into other colors. Real simple, slow, mellow stuff. So, what's the right software for that? Thanks!

Best software for animated vector illustrations?

thedevildancedlightly — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:44:47 -0800

What is the best software that can be used to create a vector animation of a business process for use in a video? (MI) What is the "gold standard" software for creating animated vector illustrations? I'm creating a one-minute animation of a business process flow that will be used in a video? I have (via software lab) access to just about any imaginable program and (because of my current life status) the time and interest to learn how to do it myself.

The end result will be based on a cartoon storyboard, but I don't want it to look cartoon-y. It should be a slick illustration (and I'll do some post-processing on it separately).

I've seen Synfig in this context, but I'm not sure if it's simply the most popular based on the price (free).

By "gold standard" I mean the equivalent of Photoshop for still pixel images; Photoshop is the standard for that market, what's the standard for this one?

Thanks!

Animating Still Frames with ffmpeg

potch — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 08:34:43 -0800

Could someone show this Linux n00b to use ffmpeg to convert a folder full of PNGs to an MPEG? The system I'm running doesn't have Mencoder, and I don't have root (it's a Dreamhost shell account). Thanks!

Please help me learn a few simple techniques in Blender.

austinlee — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:19:27 -0800

Please help me learn a few simple techniques in Blender. Including outputting an animation to video. I'm working on a website and wanted to put a little bit of water animation into it. I found a great tutorial online ( http://www.pekaro.de/blender/water/water_tutorial.html ). The problem is I'm not very experienced with blender. I'd like to change a few things from what the author has made to fit my needs more closely.

-What I would like to do is change the "color" of the water. I guess this would mean changing the environments color.
-I would also like to change the angle of the camera.
-I would like to output this into some sort of video file that I would ultimately put into flash.
I know these are probably answers I should be able to solve on my own but I have a deadline for the website I am creating and I don't seem to be learning fast enough on my own.
Also, the website is a commercial website. Would there be any copyright issues involved with using the authors 3d water technique?

Also, I've been interested in 3d modeling for a while but haven't dedicated enough time to learning it. I tried learning maya last year for about a month and really liked it. I stopped after I got too busy with work though.... After I am finished with this animation I'd like to spend more time learning again. In your opinion which program should I focus on? I really liked how maya worked and understood it much more quickly than blender. blender seems really promising and is free.... the maya version was the learning version i was using. if i invest the time into one of the two which do you recommend.

On ur laptop, making ur still frames into a movie.

Jimbob — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 03:29:28 -0800

What's the quickest, easiest way to turn a directory of sequentially numbered JPG files into a video file? Linux or Windows. I've got a stack of files, generated by POVRAY, named as such:

frame1.jpg
frame2.jpg
...
frame330.jpg

I want to turn then into a video file. MPEG-1 is fine - anything that's reasonably standard will do. I don't really want to have to specify anything apart from the directory the files are in, and the frame rate.

What's the best way to do this? A solution for Linux or Windows would both be okay. Google-disclaimer: The closest I could find was some ancient 16-bit Windows software that produced AVIs from BMPs (not really what I'm after).

SMIL -> MPEG

DU — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 07:44:52 -0800

How do I convert a (simple) SMIL file into an mpeg (or anything else I can upload to YouTube)? Long story short, I have a bunch of jpgs that I want to turn into a movie on a Linux platform. There are many utilities that will do this; I've used ImageMagick in the past fairly successfully. But now, for the first time, I also have sound I want to add. I can even find a few tools (such as ffmpeg) that will take a wav and a some jpgs and convert them into a movie as long as the wav and jpgs are of the same "length" (at least that's the claim--I haven't actually gotten this to work either).
However, I think it should be simpler than this. The tool I'm using to create the jpgs and assign the sounds is creating a SMIL file. It looks something like this:

<smil>
<body>
<seq>
<img src="image01.jpg" dur="100ms" />
<audio src="snd01.ogg" />
<img src="image02.jpg" dur="100ms" />
<img src="image03.jpg" dur="100ms" />
<img src="image04.jpg" dur="100ms" />
<img src="image05.jpg" dur="100ms" />
<img src="image06.jpg" dur="100ms" />
</seq>
</body>
</smil>

(This is from memory and is only an example--probably not well-formed SMIL. The ogg file would start playing at the same time as the frame it follows and keep playing until the audio runs out, while showing frames all the time. At least that's what the creation software seems to do.) It seems like with all the needed information available, including how to sync the audio and video, some utility should be able to convert this SMIL directly into an mpeg. And indeed, there is a set of utilities call smilutils that claims to work with SMIL. smilutils didn't work, so I dove into the guts, added debug statements and traced it through only to find that it accepts video clips, not jpgs. WTF.

I've only been even aware of the existence of SMIL for a couple days. Does anyone more familiar with this stuff know where I should look next to solve my problem? Maybe my best bet is to write my own program that will read the SMIL, convert the the oggs into a single wav file of the right length and then run ffmpeg myself?

Another idea is to use separate video editing software to combine them, but I'm wary of this. For one thing, video editing on Linux? For another, I'd like the toolchain to be as short as possible, so I don't have have discrepancies between what the creation software thinks is going on and what the editing software thinks.

What was that video I saw?

Milkman Dan — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 16:03:57 -0800

Name that animated internet meme My design studio is working on a film project for a client. I want to refer to a piece I saw online for inspiration, but I can't find it.

I watched it once in Fall 2005. It was about 9/11, it was political, maybe about gas prices too. It had a damning, conspiratorial tone. It was a really trendy animation. I don't think there was narration, but there were printed words, with music. And lots of arrows. And I think the main background was brownish coloured. I believe it was posted on Metafilter, but searching through the archives, I couldn't find it.

It was being praised as a great video piece, not necessarily because of its content. The animation might have been put together by a notable person/studio in the industry, but no names are in my head.

Ring any bells? I know my clues are useless, but I believe in you, Internet.

Cant get that animated music video out of my mind!

Binliner — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:32:13 -0800

I am looking for the title/artist/director of a 90s animated music video that takes place in space. The video features a cigar smoking hero and a gorgeous heroine. I believe a 'space' motorcycle or car of some sort was involved and that there was a fighting of the bad guys mixed in with a love story. I havent seen the video in ages and cant seem to remmember much more.

The artists name would be great, a link to the video would be awesome!

A beautiful, Mexican song of death --help me find it?

MasonDixon — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 07:24:40 -0800

Music/VideoFilter: Looking for the name of a music video with a Mexican Day of the Dead theme. I saw this late at night on PBS. Although I couldn't understand the Spanish, the gist of the video was of a man who had refused to accept the fact that he had died and was now among the dead. Eventually the man relents and finds peace in joining the community of the dead.

Its music was fairly traditional, a woman's voice and maybe couple of guitars, no pop overtones. The video was done very well in a claymation/Corpse Bride type style, and the underworld and its characters were all rendered in what I call traditional Mexican, Day of the Dead style. Although the music was quite sad, the video was light and whimsical.

Simple animation tool as an alternative to Flash

soplerfo — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 11:20:00 -0800

I used to make little movies in Flash. Nothing big, just fun little projects. I'd like to start making them again, and was wondering if there are any alternatives to Flash. Ideally the alternative would be free or very cheap. I don't particularly mind if the end result is an mpeg, mov or avi file. I don't care about file-size at all.

I like how Flipbook works and there's even a downloadable version. But it's too basic. I want to do larger projects, particularly ones that incorporate audio. I'd also like to be able to use images (jpg/bmp/etc) in the animations, though this feature is somewhat less important to me.

Really, I think I just want something simple that will let me draw frame by frame and uses onion-skinning.

What resolution and framerate to use?

garethspor — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:12:00 -0800

Video question: I'm working on some homebrewed video animation pieces on my mac. Basically, using matlab to output a stack of images that I then use Quicktime to turn into a movie. The final product of which will be burnt onto a DVD using iMovie and iDVD. Question: what resolution and framerate shoud I be outputting to prevent these apps from having to resample my movie, in either space or time? I'm guessing that TV resolution is something like 600*800 and quicktime has 29.97 as a framerate option, which is such a strange numbe rthat it has to be right. Am I on the right track?

Video Information Design Examples

signal — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 06:52:21 -0800

I am looking for short videos | animations that show good information design. They could be scientific, engineering, educational or even artistic, as long as they provide clear demonstrations and explanations about dynamic processes, and do so with some graphic / 3d / animation flair. I am trying to teach 100 architecture students how to use 3d-animation as something other than eye-candy, and am preparing a lecture on the use of video and other media to illustrate complex dynamic processes. The talk will start by presenting some of Tufte's principles, chartjunk, data density, layering, small multiples, etc. I am looking for examples of these (and other) principles as they relate to moving images.
They don't need to be contemporary, in fact I'm using Melies' "Le Voyage Dans La Lune" as an early example of Animated Narratives. The media should be online, as I have no funding for this. Good 2d representations of multi-variate phenomena are welcome as well.