An animation is a sequence of still images.  I use the convention anim0000.bmp, anim0001.bmp, anim0002.bmp........etc.  This allows for 9999 frames or 330 seconds of NTSC 29.97 fps video.  My main processing device for animations is TMPGenc.exe which can create an animation sequence from a video and encode a video from a sequence of video frames.

Animation tutorial: 2009.10.03

I have recently created a disk containing all my animation programs and sample out put to illustrate the various programs use.  This is the text file which accompanies the disk. This tutorial describes the procedure for processing animations using several software packages. To make it easier to follow the instructions I have used the following conventions. Bold text signifies files found in the animation folder. Text in quotes is the on screen text in the program being described.  I do a significant amount of video work and I often have need to manipulate the frames of a video piece. This is the technique I use.  An animation is a sequence of frames which can be in numerous image formats. For the sake of convenience I usually use .bmp as all my software packages recognize this format.

Note: For this presentation I have rendered several of the animations to .jpg format. This is not a good procedure unless you have limited hard drive space. In this case I did this to keep the presentation size to that of a DVD disk.

Most of the animations I create are from video and an animation can be created from most video types by using TMPGenc.exe. This program I have been using for many years now and the $36 investment has repaid itself thousands of times over. I have included the TMPGenc install package in this folder. It is a Freeware version and has MPEG2 output limited to 30 days but the work outlined in this text will be possible even after that time. I personally think that an investment of $36 to have unlimited MPEG2 usage is a good investment.

Note: For those of you that have flash memory cameras like the Cannon HF series which produces .mts files TMPGenc.exe's file loader does not recognize .mts. TMPGenc.exe will however load .mts files but it is necessary to enter *.mts under “Filename” in the “Load File” requester and press return to display the .mts files.

The process is initiated by loading a piece of video into TMPGenc.exe using “Video Source/Browse” and rendering the video to frames. I have included an example video from my Canon HF camera entitled ligu.mts which is a short 20 second video of Ligularia Dentata (A plant) from which I created the DVD compliant video MIanimpan_out.mpg. You will find the animation output under “File/Output To File/Sequence”.   TMPG creates video frames with a name padded to seven digits test-0000526.bmp. I have made all my programs recognize and load these files but I prefer using a more compatible file name with my programs so the output of my programs create an output with a file name followed by the frame number padded to 4 digits such as OUT0000.bmp, OUT0001.bmp, OUT0003.bmp etc. Using four digits allows for animations of 9999 frames which is over 5 minutes at standard frame rates.

The frames you create must take into account the final output use of the files. I usually output my frames to standard DVD format of 720x480 for files going to DVD. For files that I intend to play as MPEG'S on my HDTV which I encode to 1360x768. The use of TMPGenc.exe is a subject of considerable complexity and it is beyond the scope of this tutorial but the program is exceedingly powerful and capable of resizing, cropping, video conversion, color correction, mpeg joining, addition of sound tracks, and much more.

Another program I use is my program MIpicpan.exe which creates an animation sequence from a still image. This has become to be known as the “Burns Effect” as it is used often by video producer Ken Burns when creating his documentaries which incorporate still images that are panned and zoomed to create video. In the program there are two rectangles. A green rectangle which defines the cropping of the start of the animation and a red rectangle that defines the end of the animation. The number of frames created can be set to anything you desire. You should keep in mind that the standard 29.97 FPS is approximately 1800 frames per minute. Also the higher the resolution of the image the smoother the pan or zoom will render. There are presently two output formats in this program 1360x768 for HDTV and 720x480 for DVD compatible files. In this folder there is an image stone.bmp which is a 3000x2000 camera image which I doubled the size to 6000x4000 for processing with MIpicpan.exe. I have included a screen capture of the MIpicpan.exe interface MIpicpan_gui.jpg so you can see the settings I used to create the 900 frame animation. The 900 frames are stored in \animation\stone. These 900 frames were then rendered to the 720x480 DVD compliant MPEG stone.mpg with TMPGenc.exe.

After using MIpicpan.exe for several years in various versions and incarnations I often thought that it would be nice to have a program that worked in a similar manner with animations rather than still images. It is with this intention that I started working on MIanimpan.exe several months ago. I think I have most of the bugs worked out now but the screen mathematics involved in incrementing crop locations and resizing through a series of frames was a real nightmare. In the folder animation/Ligu you will find two sets of animation images mts-0000000.jpg... and mts--00OUT0001.jpg... The first set of images is the single frames from a camera MTS file rendered with TMPGenc.exe to a full sized 1920x1080 .jpg animation image frames.

MIanimpan.exe is best used with .bmp images but to keep the size of this presentation manageable I have used .jpg images instead. If .jpg images are loaded into MIanimpan.exe the output will be .jpg also. This is a usable strategy if you do not have a lot of hard drive space but not the best way to work.

The second set of images is the output of MIanimpan.exe where the the output was panned and resized to DVD compliant 720x480 output. The files were then rendered to the file

MIanimpan_OUT.mpg.

Okay you have created an animation by one of the methods above and now you want to convert the animation into video. You accomplish this also by using TMPGenc.exe.

Select “Video Source/ Browse on the TMPG main screen and go to where you created you animation output and load the first frame of the animation.

You must now determine the format of your output. If you are going to create a DVD there is a template under “Stream Type/Load” called DVD(ntsc).mfc which sets the output parameters to a DVD compliant output of

“DVD NTSC (MPEG-2 720x480 29.97fps CQ 65, Layer-2 48000Hz 384kbps)”.

Each time you load a new file it is necessary to reset these parameters as they change upon loading a new file. This I find to be a real annoyance that I have complained about on numerous occasions in the past 10 years but it remains unchanged. There is a feature however “Stream Type/Save” which allows you to create a set of custom settings and save a “mfc template” of the settings. I have for example a template for the format which I use to create MPEG files for playback on my HDTV

MPEG-1 1360x768 29.97fps CBR 7000kbps, Layer-2 44100Hz 192kbps

These files also control the output of “File/Output to File” so an AVI or animation sequence will have the same size and aspect of the loaded .mfc file.

You are now ready to render the video. If I am going to further edit the clips I render to an uncompressed AVI and use MGI Video Wave IV for further processing like titles and fades. If I am not going to process the clips but just want to join them into a production I render them directly to MPEG and then use the TMPGenc function “File/MPEG Tools/Merge and Cut” to edit and join the clips. This feature is important as it is the only way I know of to join MPEG clips without re rendering the MPEG which incurs losses each time the files are processed. I often create the body of the video in this manner and then create video for my titles and end screens as AVI's add the titles, text to an uncompressed AVI, and then render the AVI's to the same MPEG format as my production. I can then use Mpeg tools to add the titles and end to my production without re rendering any compressed files.

Anyone interested in a copy of the disk which is still in the beta development stage let me know.