#Animation Speed
27 messages in this thread
I would like to put cartoon style animations to video tape. I have an
A4000/40 equipped with 10 Meg RAM, a TPC plus, Drawing Board II, and Glock.
I'm currently using DPaint1V to draw the Anims and AnimWorkshop (latest
version) to play them. Thinking I was all set, I started creating away.
I was drawing in NTSC Hi Res – Lace, using "Max" overscan so I wouldn't have
the unsightly boarders when playing to tape. However, I can't get even a
fairly simple, 32 color (although using only 8 colors), anim to play any faster
than about 20 fps. I find this painfully disappointing. I switched to an
A4000 because my stock A2000 played 2 color hi-res anims at only 20 fps. I
doesn't seem that I've gained very much if using overscan and adding six colors
will drag an A4000 down that much.
Is this normal, or is there a way to speed things up without going to an
expensive accelerator? I would like to use a 64 color pallette with overscan
and play about 24 to 30 fps. Thanks in advance for any assistance or advice.
Bruce
PS I also have Brilliance and ADpro (latest versions), though I haven't dived
into how to use them yet.
"Is this normal, or is there a way to speed things up without going to an
expensive accelerator?"
You are not taking advantage of the A4000's graphics speed if you are
using Dpaint for playback. The true difference is in the Chipset, not the
CPU, so even a faster CPU wouldn't help you. What you need to do is
convert your ANIMs from level 5 (which is only 8 and 16 bit) to ANIM-7 or
ANIM-8 which takes advantage of 32bit Chip RAM. Look for a utility called
"makeanim7" which I believe is also included with the ViewTek viewer
program; They should be here in AmigaArts or in AmigaUser. ADPro will
generate ANIM-8 files, although ANIM-7 is supposedly better.
-Chris
Thanks for the education Chris, I've converted my files with a nice increase
in speed. It went from about 20 fps to 25 fps. I'm still a little curious
though about the normal ceiling rate for an A4000/40; is 25 fps normal for 32
color, Max Overscan animation (Op7)?
Bruce
Is that lores or hires 32 color? It makes a difference. For reference, the
Toaster 4000 uses lores HAM8 in order to get 30fps will full-motion (i.e.
most of the screen changes from frame to frame); Higer resolutions restict
you to 1/4 screen area in motion at any one time.
-Chris
Load them into Brilliance and save them as anim-8. Brilliance in much
faster than DPaint.
Jim R. Ollick
Using AP from Bergenfield, NJ
Thanks Jim for the tip. I've converted my test animation with AnimWorkshop and
will try loading them into Brilliance and compare the playback speed. I'm now
getting about 25 fps playback using Op7, 32 color in "Max" overscan. I'd still
like to be able to do better. Since the only part of my animations that will
make use of many colors is the background, perhaps I should get an RGB/NTSC
converter for my old stock A2000 and run them through a Genlock to combine it
with a simpler forground animation. Maybe I can pick up some speed that way.
Bruce
I have used that method using my 2000. I am lucky to have 2 SuperGens. I
have also used the PAR card in my 4000 to do overlays. Let me know how you
make out.
Jim R. Ollick
Using AP from Bergenfield, NJ
I've just recently test driven CLARISSA which is a proprietary
animation compiler. I've only tried it with DCTV but it is FANTASTIC
!!!. A free early version of it was given away in one of the Europe
mags. I strongly suggest test driving this $125 competitor to the
PAR.
I've also tried clarriSSA, in HAM8 hires mode, and average just under
30fps on a friend's A4000. I think I might still prefer Magic Lantern
though, since it supports sound syncing.
I'm not familiar with Magic Lantern, tell me more. I would be nice to
sound sync, that's why I've been using the Animation Workshop
software.
ML has had really good reviews in the Amiga mags.
Here's what my brochure says:
Magic Lantern is a program designed to create, edit and display delta
compressed animations in realtime. It takes as input IFF picture and sound
files created from other sources (such as DPaint, Imagine, LightWave,
Real-3D, etc) and creates animations that run on various frame buffers in
up to 24 bit color.
Magic Lantern plays sound effects through the Amiga sound chip.
Once the animation is created, it can be edited; such editing might
include adding or removing sound effects and frames, or moving frames
around. All of these functions are accessible through a very friendly,
Workbench 2.0 compliant GUI, and/or an ARexx port. Lantern also provides a
means to create animations that are larger than available memory, and a
separate utility to play them back from disk.
The ARexx port was designed to allow the user to do anything that he/she
could do through the GUI; this allows the user to create powerful,
automated scripts for batch processing or other uses which the developers
did not forsee.
Magic Lantern includes highly optimized assembly language routines for
playing back animations on supported display devices, including frame
buffers which store pixels in chunky format. The program also provides
numerous compression options which allow the user to optimize animations
for size, playback speed or both. Due to its modular nature, Magic Lantern
can be updated to support new display devices as they become available.
Features:
– Supports the Retina, Picasso II and OpalVision in 8, 16 and 24 bit
modes.
– Supports the GDA in 8 bit mode.
– Supports the Amiga custom chipset, including all AGA modes, DCTV, HAM-E,
etc.
– Over 10 different compression algorithms.
– Syncronizes sound to the animation.
– Can enforce a playback rate.
– Hard drive playback of animations.
– ARexx port, assembly language animation routines, breaks up animations
into IFF components, much more.
Requirements: Workbench 2.0 or greater. 1mb of memory.
Recommended: Hard disk and more memory.
Magic Lantern is available from:
Terra Nova Development
PO Box 2202
Ventura CA, 93002-2202
… for $95 (US funds, check or money order), postpaid. CA residents add
$6.89 state sales tax.
-= Vance =- Image Master
Flying high on Imagine and Imagemaster R/t!
Vance and anyone else
Do you know if ML or any other product will help get high quality animations. I
am not sure how you define that exactly. I have an Amiga 4000/40 and just
bought a warp engine. I eventually will get a SSCI drive to go with it. Should
I be able to generate high quality almost professional animations with this
system or do I need a PAR or single frame controller VCR. Would ML or Clarissa
or anything else help?
Any advice would be appreciated?
Thanks
Michael
clarriSSA is not as flexible or as fast as ML, and does not appear to have
sound support. A review on ML in AW was extremely favourable of the
product as a low-budget alternative to PAR. PAR is better overall, but
considering ML is under $100 and all software, makes it a must-have.
-= Vance =- Image Master
Flying high on Imagine and Imagemaster R/t!
Vance
Thanks for your thoughts on Clarrissa.
Michael
I see that Creative Computers, Safe Harbor and other mail order shops are
advertising Magic Lantern for between $50-60. Hard to go wrong at that
price. I wonder if perhaps BigAnim or MainActor — shareware enhanced-anim
alternatives — might measure up.
Both clarriSSA and Magic Lantern are superior to BigAnim and MainActor for
playback.
-= Vance =- Image Master
Flying high on Imagine and Imagemaster R/t!
Ron,
Yup. At those prices got to try it out. Thanks.
Michael
Michael,
If you can afford a PAR buy it. I've never talked to anyone who had
one that was unhappy with their purchase. The PAR is one of the
easiest ways to go for broadcast quality with no limitations on
camera movements or images changing from frame to frame. Even if you
decided to get a PC down the road the PAR in an 020 or 030 Amiga can
act as a digital disk recorder. (just add an ethernet card to each
machine to get frames in) If you can't afford the PAR I guess talking
about the quality doesn't help. One of the problems that you'll find
with programs like ML or Clarissa is that as you move the camera, or
have large parts of the screen move or change color, the playback
rate slows down. That's because there's a fixed limit to how fast you
can get information off the drive and it takes more information to
describe the changes from frame to frame. For an animation where a
small character moves against a still background (like most Sierra
games) it works fine. If you tried to keep the character in the
center of the screen and move the background you'd be changing 20 to
30 times as many pixels per frame and the animation would slow down
accordingly. I guess the big factor in deciding on a PAR is how good
you want your anims to look and how much you're willing to spend.
;^) Ham8 looks nice but you won't get anything that looks like
Seaquest or Babylon 5 without a PAR.
Jeff H…
I agree with your intent to recommend a PAR, however, there are a few other
considerations…
>The PAR is one of the easiest ways to go for broadcast quality with no
>limitations on camera movements or images changing from frame to frame.
Easy, yes, but not inexpensive. There are single frame alternatives starting
at under $200. The advantage to non-PAR based alternatives is they do not use
lossy compression schemes.
>Even if you decided to get a PC down the road the PAR in an 020 or 030 >Amiga
can act as a digital disk recorder. (just add an ethernet card to each >machine
to get frames in)
I looked into doing this here, but I did not have a server setup so I declined
to do this at this time. I don't know about anyone else, but I have been
unable to find a peer to peer ethernet solution for an IBM and an Amiga. I
found an null modem setup to be extremely slow.
Also, as stated before, there appears to be a quality difference between the
IBM and Amiga versions of the PAR.
Sorry to jump in…
Sean Howard
PMFJI, but what sort of under $200 single frame solutions are there?
Jeff,
ML lets you lock the frame rate. When locked it will drop frames rather
than slow down (just like quicktime 😉 ). This makes sure that sounds are
properly synced.
An additional note. Combined with a DCTV ML has no problem maintaining
30fps regardless of any camera movements or large deltas (on my 4000 with
Warp Engine). That FAST fast memory access makes all the difference.
Now DCTV is not broadcast quality. But since its specs exceed that of
VHS tape it is fine at the educational or hobby level.
…Warp Engine Engaged…
-Paul-
Here are another couple of tips for making better anims:
<1> Although DCTV uses a hi-res format to store data, the detail accuracy
is low and you also have chroma artifacts and improper colouring.
By using HAM8 in resolutions such as 368×482 and using the improved
anti-aliasing available in either renderers or image processors, you can
achieve a very clear animation with detailing and colour that is better
than DCTV and one that will run more easily at 30fps on an accelerated
machine. Imagine 3.0, for example, has greatly improved anti-aliasing to
achieve this for me.
<2> By using image processing software, you can merge every 2 frames into
one and combine each new frame into an animation. When played back, you
can have a smoother looking animation when run at a comfortable 15fps. The
idea is similar to motion blurring, and we all know how well that works in
LightWave.
Using this technique, you could more easily use hi-res HAM8 frames.
Give it a try.
*8^)
-= Vance =- Image Master
Flying high on Imagine and Imagemaster R/t!
Vance, how would you compare playback quality between clarriSSA and Magic
Lantern, running the same resolution/palette anims?
clarriSSA uses only one technique to create animations which are
generally faster and smoother than the ANIM formats. Magic Lantern
has over 10 algorithms to ensure fast playback. ML has the ability
to 'mix cocktails' (algorithms) to find the best way to achieve
speedier results.
This does not mean that clarriSSA is too slow to use, but you don't have
very many options to try and get better speeds. On the plus side,
clarriSSA has a bunch of built-in effects to add zip to the anims. It also
has built-in support for VLab control. The special SSA format that it uses
is also dramatically smaller than standard ANIM7/8 formats. I made one
animation that came out at around 6 mb, when it was over 12mb in ANIM7
format. The GUI has multiple windows with many features, but it takes
awhile to get to learn about all of them.
ML has one general GUI, and the options are pretty much straight forward
for editing animations and adding sound effects.
clariSSA is selling for $150 in the US mail order houses, while ML can be
had for less than $100. Personally, if I could afford it, I'd get both
programs. For now, I have a UK disk magazine's earlier version of
clariSSA.
Are they both worth the money? Absolutely. Try and get that performance
out of any 486, and you'll come away rejuvinated that your Amiga is still
an IBM *ss kicker. Not only that, but ADOS 3.1 should really help alot,
also.
-= Vance =- Image Master
Flying high on Imagine and Imagemaster R/t!
Thanks for all the info.
You may have sold me on Magic Lantern, I've had my eye on it for a while.
Since eqipping my A1200 with 50 mhz 030 I've been doing mostly 386×480
Ham8 anims. They play back quite nicely and seem to look better than what
I was getting from DCTV. Maybe I should do a proper comparison. Which do
you prefer?
I'm currently happy using Anim Workshop 2.0 for creating anims and Scala
MM300 or VeiwTek for display. Will Magic Lantern compliment this s/w or
mearly duplicate features?
Lately I've been getting anxious to add sound to my anims. One thing at a
time if you know what I mean :^)
….John
Magic Lantern is a very different program from Anim Workshop.
Read my anim tips to Jeff, also.
You should continue to use HAM8 and use DCTV only for digitizing, and
maybe some retouching (although I don't recommend that part). And by all
means, buy ML. I don't believe you'll be sorry you did. *8^)
-= Vance =- Image Master
Flying high on Imagine and Imagemaster R/t!
Arthur,
Sounds great, it gives hope that I can actually turn out some real animations
<g>. Which mag was the disk in? I haven't heard of clarrissa, but wouldn't
mind reading up on it, or try to purchase a demo version.
Bruce