Frame Tweening for the 1960's Anime (A.K.A. Manual Frame-rate Increase)
Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 12:34 am
So this is something I just wanted to touch on for now, and maybe I'll do more of this when I have more time. But anyway, I thought it'd be cool to try smoothing out the animation of some of the sections that had a rather low frame count used to represent the movement. While I'm sure that in some cases, a movement completed in a single frame was used for comedic effect, there are other cases that probably did this due to budget constraints or other reasons than aesthetics.
The example I'm going to show is from the beginning of the Frankenstein episode, where Astro watches some horses through a fence and says that he wishes he had a mother. He turns away from the fence in a single frame.
click for spoiler
Given the context of this scene, I'm sure it's safe to say that it was not for comedic effect, and a slower movement seems more natural. I loaded both of these frames into Paint Shop Pro and drew some reference lines to figure out a rotation about halfway between the two.
[img]https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B1Hi2w90qu0ZWHJwaDhpdUtMLVE[/img]
Over top of the reference lines, I drew a vector object for Astro's head at the in-between rotation. I also edited the background to hide where his head was showing from the other frames.
[img]https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B1Hi2w90qu0ZMWNyQ3VnRXN6MHM[/img]
After that, I rasterized the vector drawing of Astro's head, duplicated it, and adjusted the blur on each layer to get it to match the original 2 frames.
[img]https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B1Hi2w90qu0ZdzRXYjJ1b0dsMnM[/img]
Looking at the still frame, it's not a perfect match, but close enough that you probably can't tell that when it's animated. ...Except for the fact that I forgot to add the shiny spot on the back of Astro's head. Whoops. :d oh:
Anyway, here's a GIF of the result:
click for spoiler[img]http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f20/KittyLue/TweeningExample_zpsssjn64ez.gif?t=1489796748[/img]
(Leaving this here in case attached images still work but the others stop displaying through Google Drive)
click for spoiler
The example I'm going to show is from the beginning of the Frankenstein episode, where Astro watches some horses through a fence and says that he wishes he had a mother. He turns away from the fence in a single frame.
click for spoiler
Given the context of this scene, I'm sure it's safe to say that it was not for comedic effect, and a slower movement seems more natural. I loaded both of these frames into Paint Shop Pro and drew some reference lines to figure out a rotation about halfway between the two.
[img]https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B1Hi2w90qu0ZWHJwaDhpdUtMLVE[/img]
Over top of the reference lines, I drew a vector object for Astro's head at the in-between rotation. I also edited the background to hide where his head was showing from the other frames.
[img]https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B1Hi2w90qu0ZMWNyQ3VnRXN6MHM[/img]
After that, I rasterized the vector drawing of Astro's head, duplicated it, and adjusted the blur on each layer to get it to match the original 2 frames.
[img]https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B1Hi2w90qu0ZdzRXYjJ1b0dsMnM[/img]
Looking at the still frame, it's not a perfect match, but close enough that you probably can't tell that when it's animated. ...Except for the fact that I forgot to add the shiny spot on the back of Astro's head. Whoops. :d oh:
Anyway, here's a GIF of the result:
click for spoiler[img]http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f20/KittyLue/TweeningExample_zpsssjn64ez.gif?t=1489796748[/img]
(Leaving this here in case attached images still work but the others stop displaying through Google Drive)
click for spoiler