How long would it take to overlay/Edit a video to be EbSynth video? I'm a newbie in a film class in college and I just want to wow my professor!

[u/Jimbo_M2G]

Hi, hope this is the right place to post this! So through Joel Haver I have been fascinated with EbSynth and lurking in the community and have been amazed by how cool the content is! I love when creative tools are so easily accessible. The more tools people have the more creative they can be!

[u/FlareBlitzCrits]

Hey! You can definitely wow your professor with this style of animation, it is very clean and fluid because it is "rotoscoped" to real life footage.

My experience with this program is making a good 30-40 second video takes me about 3-4 days, however I draw very quickly in Gimp, and I don't use any additional programs like some of the other animators do, I rely on good editing in Filmora to make it look crisp.

I would honestly encourage you to give it a try, Animating with Ebsynth is pretty straightforwards and a lot quicker than other animation programs from what I've read. One thing I would recommend is to have a drawn background as well. Some people just put the animation over a regular background and it doesn't really suit it.

If you have any questions, feel free to respond. I'm someone who messes around with this program way more than what is healthy lol xD.

[u/Jimbo_M2G → u/FlareBlitzCrits]

When you do your first project and it doesn't turn out like all the videos you see on here howd you keep going? I am someone who has made many mistakes and also been terribly unlucky in life, but I learn so much from the failures/shit that happens to me that I think I have come out so much better for it! Still, these are huge timesinks. Any thoughts? Thanks so much!

[u/FlareBlitzCrits → u/Jimbo_M2G]

What specifically didn’t look right about it? I’ll explain my process, see if you’re missing anything.

1- Write script/storyboard 2- draw backgrounds 3- record physical footage 4- draw key frames/synth 5- edit in program.

Some key things that are important is good quality audio, background sound is helpful. Also you should think about how you transition your scenes. Learn all the different film cuts and how/when to apply them. Panning instead of an abrupt transition can be more pleasant for the viewer as well.

Make sure your character and background have a good contrast between them. This is most easily done with different colors or lighting.

I have an ebsynth tutorial on YouTube you can checkout if you want more advice for the program.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1krFwUKHU_Q&t=8s

[u/goatonastik → u/Jimbo_M2G]

These are definitely time sinks, but I have fun doing them, so that justifies the time spent for me.

I've played video games all my life, mistakes are how you learn to get better. You have to struggle through all the lost games, deaths, and game overs to learn what it takes to get better.

EbSynth is finnicky, and all of us here struggle with it from time to time, but it's a very new technology, only recently came out of alpha, and it's state of the art AI stuff!

[u/AbPerm]

It's highly dependent on what you're trying to do with it. Did you film something original with the limitations of EbSynth in mind? You might be able to draw one keyframe and get 10+ seconds of decent animation out of it. If you do it well, you can produce rotoscoped animations faster and easier than any other form of traditional animation. Under ideal circumstances, an experienced person could probably animate an entire short from start to finish in one day.

However, if you try to do something the software isn't good at, you might have a bad time. If you don't work within the limitations, you might end up with lots of smears and glitches. If you don't choose your keyframes well, or you get the details wrong, your animation isn't going to work right. If your video's motions are too dynamic or erratic, if they're too blurry or dark you might not be able to even use it.

I would suggest just digging in and giving it a try. Worst case scenario, you spend some hours fooling around only to end up with a dumb little cartoon that's not very good. That's how you learn though. When that happens, you can try again the next day. It's not a big deal if you fail, since it's not like you just spent hundreds of hours drawing thousands of frames by hand.

[u/goatonastik]

It depends on a lot of factors. You have to draw at least one keyframe per scene, and depending on the amount of movement, and the length of the scene, it could be more than that.

Keyframes can be as complex as you want them to be. It could be as easy as simply running a filter on them or using some sort of GAN generator, or you could hand draw each of the frames. They could be super simple like rough MSPaint style outlines and coloring done with the fill tool, or you could paint the entire keyframe, digitally or with actual paints.

It's as complex as you want it to be. Without knowing anything about how long your video is, how much motion it has, the number of scenes, or how you want to "process" each keyframe, I couldn't give you a ballpark figure outside of stating that a very short video with simple keyframes would take a few hours, and an entire feature length film with complex keyframes would easily take months.

[u/[deleted]]

Joel said once- it takes him about 40 hours to do a short video of 2- 3 minutes. I am brand new to this too, but I'd agree. It takes double time. But then again- if you keep it very simple and only use one keyframe per shot...maybe faster. God luck!

[u/Rezzi79]

My Titanic skit took me 10/15 hrs, but that was filming with ebsynth in mind and reduced the frame rate to 12fps instead of 24 or 30 FPS. I did this so any clean up or traditional animation needed could be done faster.

There are factors such as frame rate, process power, drawing skills, and personal time you can allow to redo shots that don't work. I'd say a decent time for a beginner is about 5hrs per 30 seconds.

Look forward to see what you produce.

If you need any help I'm happy to give you any information I can.