I will be curious to see it.

i remember when prime-time comedies on TV in the US started moving from shooting on film to taping on video.

Logically, it ought to have looked better with the higher frame rate and not losing a generation to the film/video transfer, but they it looked so much like a regular daytime soap opera (either live or taped video) that it just seemed cheaper.

I'll bet you a dollar that the 3D-headache complainers will not be any less numerous for this process.

StefanLipsius wrote:

Just because the framerate goes up, doesnt mean you have double the animation to do. Yes, double the frames, but that doesnt automatically mean double the key frames.

I'm a 2D animator. Double the frames = double the animation. No computers to fill in any gaps.

If "blurriness" is really the issue they can reduce the open shutter time per frame for sharper images.  i just watched "The Pacific" a miniseries about WWII and that's got tons of fast-moving stuff in razor sharp frames with very obvious strobing.

But it's the blur that's part of the "film look" we all have gotten used to.

Could be good. I'm pretty anxious to see how Peter handles these next two films. If it works out It'll be a pretty big change in cinema. As far as animation, It'll be interesting to see how studios such as ILM handle it with compositing into Live action that's shot at 48 (would they cheat it and run it on 2's?). I can't see wholly animated films really changing anything anytime soon though.

In the reality of things I don't see 48fps catching on. Then again, look at how many people doubted talkies back in 1929/30.

I've read, in the very early days of film, Edison was experimenting with many frame rates sometimes as high as 90fps before settling on the 12-16fps range.

During the silent era frame rates crept up as theater owners sped films up to get more showing in in one day and film makers countered by shooting films faster.

When sound came in, 24fp was deemed to be a convenient average of what was in use at the time.

And that's how 24fps came to be the law of the land.

I doubt VFX will be done on 2's in 48fps productions.  That would be a very noticeable difference in appearance and for a film like Hobbit that has a VFX in nearly every scene it wouldn't leave much to show at 48.

If they double the frames, doesn't that essentially double the cost of rendering? That screams "bad idea" to me.

Last edited by Strange0range (05-01-2012 10:55 pm)

@JKR, you could animate on 4s in 48fps and it would look the same to most everyone. Frames are a division of time, the human mind doesn't see frame it just perceives change over time. So if the incrememnts get smaller, the motion gets smoother but it's like animating on 1s is smoother than on 2s, and no good animator says 'well I will never use 1s', you use it when necessary.

Look, TV animation has been done at 30fps for a while(depending on country). 48fps just makes it POSSIBLE to have smaller increments, it doesn't mean you have to take advantage of that if you don't need to. It will register the same. Just like an animation on 1s at 12fps is the same as an animation on 2s at 48fps, the difference being you lose out on 12 possible slots you could have used.


Especially CG animation, frames are just a fascimile for time. 3D packages don't care what's going on, everything is continuous time (like audio). We just happen to make them sample at every 24th of a second, but there is motion between those frames(render anything with inter-frame motion blur and see).

24fps was a cost/feature compromise. There's nothing magic about it, other than people are used to it.



48fps will eliminate a lot of issues, like strobing and ghosting that plague 3D. CG hasn't had it so bad because we animate simplified forms, but it's noticeable in live action. I can't even watch a lot of pans at 24fps because of the strobing.


Just saying: there is no argument. 48fps and higher is the future. Whether you take advantage of those extra increments is up to you.



and yes rendertimes, data management etc are all major issues, but if you avoid issues rather than tackle them, you go nowhere. SSS adds rendertime, motionblur, AO, smooth deformations, blendshapes...all add time, but where would we be without someone pushing that frontier? AO incidently was pionered at ILM for Michael Ba during Pearl Harbor. A movie I'm sure noone could care about, but it still pushed the industry forward.

+1 for Dgovil ! I was to say that to reply to JKR..

Alle

It's possible this will appeal to people who have spent most of their eye-to-screen time playing games, where the push has been for higher and higher frames rates.

But I'm reminded of a test that was done regarding HDTV.  Shown an SD and an HD screen of the same size and imagery, most subjects couldn't identify the HD one any better than chance.  The extra res was unnoticeable to most people.

Last edited by robcat2075 (05-04-2012 6:45 pm)

robcat2075 wrote:

But I'm reminded of a test that was done regarding HDTV.  Shown an SD and an HD screen of the same size and imagery, most subjects couldn't identify the HD one any better than chance.  The extra res was unnoticeable to most people.

I remember when HDTVs were just starting to hit their stride and video game message boards erupted with that argument. The people who could see the difference flipped out at the people who couldn't (or didn't care enough to look that hard).

Truth be told I see the difference between SD and HD, but you show me 720 vs. 1080 and it looks totally identical to me when watching a movie.