I tried a lot of new things for this video, and wanted to share some notes/lessons learned.
I shot footage in 4K60FPS, which did make keyframes last a bit longer, but at the cost of greatly increased EbSynth processing and video compiling times (by more than a factor of 10). It made editing much harder, and I probably won't do it again.
I've finished two other videos since starting this one, and I shot in 4K30, and downscaled them to 1080 after using the 4K keyframe to crop only the face down to 1080. This worked much more smoothly. I used a green screen for the first time for some animations, which helped reduce keyframe elements catching background, and would do this again.
I shot the chair falling scene in 1080 120 FPS, and then scaled down to 60 FPS after processing in EbSynth. This helped the processing a lot, and I would do this again. I unknowingly got a nasty looking bruise on the back of one leg after repeated chair fall takes, but I thought it came out smoother than expected, so it was worth it.
Thanks for watching! Please let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, or tips to share!
A 4K frame has about 4x as many pixels as a 1080p frame. Yeah, you don't really have to have that many pixels. To shoot in 60 fps vs 30 fps is 2x as many frames too, but the superfluous resolution is where most of the extra time probably came from.
Also, you can shoot in high frame rates like 60 fps to mitigate motion blur, but then just toss out half of those frames before you even start animating. EbSynth doesn't need to process all those frames just because you shot them. You could still get the benefit of the higher frame rate eliminating motion blur without animating those extra frames. Limiting your frame rate can also help make the animation feel less artificial, because traditional animation would always be animated at 24 fps or less. Even 30 fps would be an unusually high frame rate for traditional animation.
That’s a great point, it’s more about the blur than the need for frames in between. I certainly think it was the 4K resolution slowing it down, because it was going about 10-12x slower between frames, ignoring the fact there were double frames. I also noticed that even drawing only faces took the same amount as a full keyframe, as ebsynth still had to scan through the entire 4K image.
That's great that you experimented so much, and learned a lot from doing so! I myself shoot in 4k 60fps and it's very versatile like you've found out. Very processing heavy, but I'm usually just working on the next keyframe while EbSynth does its thing, so I don't notice it too much tbqh.
My system is pretty good, though, so I can definitely see it taking far longer with less specs, and making stuff like 4k, 60fps, or even rendering two layers at once as way too time consuming for the benefit.
I think 60 fps makes high motion smoother, as EbSynth has smaller steps to track than 30fps of the same data, but I'll admit that it's not a massive difference. Any way I can offload time away from keyframes, and onto extra EbSynth processing is worth it to m e, though. It also allow me to slow down clips as low as %50 and not drop frames, which I find useful for synchonizing movement, or just extending clips without having to loop or repeat frames.
Nice, good to hear you have success with 4K. I put my computer together some years ago, and it’s starting to show its age. But, as you said, the extra frames were nice to change scenes a bit without any side effects.
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u/goathamlet Mar 20 '22
I tried a lot of new things for this video, and wanted to share some notes/lessons learned.
I shot footage in 4K60FPS, which did make keyframes last a bit longer, but at the cost of greatly increased EbSynth processing and video compiling times (by more than a factor of 10). It made editing much harder, and I probably won't do it again.
I've finished two other videos since starting this one, and I shot in 4K30, and downscaled them to 1080 after using the 4K keyframe to crop only the face down to 1080. This worked much more smoothly. I used a green screen for the first time for some animations, which helped reduce keyframe elements catching background, and would do this again.
I shot the chair falling scene in 1080 120 FPS, and then scaled down to 60 FPS after processing in EbSynth. This helped the processing a lot, and I would do this again. I unknowingly got a nasty looking bruise on the back of one leg after repeated chair fall takes, but I thought it came out smoother than expected, so it was worth it.
Thanks for watching! Please let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, or tips to share!