How low can my frames be?

[Nogert]

Hi I'm making a detailed animation frame by frame, as each frame will be detailed and painted I can't be doing something like 30 frames per second.. is it possible to do something like 5 frame per second animation? Or is that too slow?

I've tried 15 frames per second but for my 5 frame walk cycle even that seemed too quick. Also when I exported it as SWF it was fine, but the second I exported as an avi file it seem to compress my 15 fps into 30fps doubling the speed of my footage..

Any help is appreciated. If you're interested this is a quick animation test as I'm new to animation.
http://imageshack.us/clip/my-videos/267/
rm4.mp4/

[fluffkomix]

the two fps rates to use are 12 or 24 for basic animating. anything else is stupid for timing

[Creator-Sama]

It really depends on two things.

1) Whether or not you're using sound

2) How you want it to look.

If you're using sound, you kinda need to have it going at the same rate as the audio or there will be problems. If you're going for a soundless animation, you can just mess with it until you find what looks best.
Take these for instance.

10 frames at 8fps
[IMG]http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a 386/midnightpanther/Animations/ac93fd03.
gif[/IMG]

13 frames at 5fps
[IMG]http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a 386/midnightpanther/Animations/012cef24.
gif[/IMG]

I made these avatars myself. The smaller one for my DeviantArt page, and the bigger one I did as an animation test just to see if I could get it to look like I wanted.

In my opinion it doesn't matter how many fps it "should" have, since there's not really a set standard. As long as it looks good, nobody will care how fast your frames are going!!

Good luck, dude!!

[fluffkomix]

At 10/13/11 12:22 AM, Creator-Sama wrote: In my opinion it doesn't matter how many fps it "should" have, since there's not really a set standard. As long as it looks good, nobody will care how fast your frames are going!!

wrong.

Set standard is 24 fps and for basic animations that's what you should go with. 12 fps works because sometimes animators put a single space between their keyframes to change the look of the animation. basically, 12 and 24 are the industry standards for animation

[Joeylicious]

Ew, 5FPS would look like ass.

I would recommend 18FPS if you don't want too many frames or are on a tight schedule.

[fluffkomix]

I hope you all take an actual animation course someday

[turtleco]

At 10/15/11 06:46 PM, fluffkomix wrote: I hope you all take an actual animation course someday

animation courses make people act pretentious

every person at my school who has taken one thinks they know everything about animation. While I'm the only person at my school who actually makes complete animations on a regular basis.

[fluffkomix]

I'm sorry, i should elaborate

The reason people use 24 fps in their animations is not about efficiency or smoothness, it's about timing. Timing is one of the most important factors in animation, and when using 24 fps, things are easier to time, especially if you're animating on twos or making inbetweens.

The problem with weird numbers like 30 or 18 is that when trying to space things out, you end up with a lot of thirds. Thirds are when you have two spaces between each keyframe, and when trying to put inbetweens in there you have to think about where the drawing would be in each third, instead of making a standard halfway point like you would tend to do at 24fps.

Let's take a walk cycle for example. On average, people walk around 2 steps per second, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. If we were to animate this at 30 frames per second, we would start off by making a halfway point, which is frame 15, the point where the legs are switched. Then we would make another halfway point between 15 and 30, where the legs are passing by each other.

But if you've noticed, the halfway point between 15 and 30 is on 22.5, which means we already have to deal with thirds, and we want as few thirds as possible

so now lets try 18fps. 1 and 18 are the contact points, where the feet are just touching the ground, halfway is 9 frames, but we end up with the same problem, which is a halfway point on a decimal, 13.5.

So finally we try with 24fps. Halfway point is frame 12, from there, frame 18, easy as pie. and when you're trying to space things out, you end up with fewer thirds and more halves. Meaning instead of trying to figure out the third of something, you just have to figure where the lines are halfway inbetween the first and third frame.

This is just one example, with a walk cycle, but this kind of thing happens all over the place. Animators animate on 24fps because it flows with real life more commonly, and gives the animator less to think about, because if you're good enough at animation, you're already doing nothing but thinking.

[fluffkomix]

At 10/15/11 07:56 PM, turtleco wrote:

At 10/15/11 06:46 PM, fluffkomix wrote: I hope you all take an actual animation course someday

animation courses make people act pretentious

Also it's not that animation courses make people act pretentious, it's more that a real animation course will teach you all the fundamentals, and all the reasons why we do things. Animation is full of possible creativity, but there is always a set formula to it, and if you don't follow that formula, animations tend to look wonky and weird.

There are ten principles of animation, and reasons for why animators use specific tools or frame rates. Other than that everything is just pure creativity.

Also there might also be a chance that the people at your school are just pretentious at heart :P