<li class="Bulleted"><a href="23-Video7.html#1005881">Frame Rate-A Matter of Time</a></li><br/>
<li class="Bulleted"><a href="23-Video7.html#1005899">Movies and File Size</a></li><br/>
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<blockquote>
<h2 id="1005868" class="Heading1">
<a name="1005868"> </a>Animation Considerations
</h2>
<p id="1005869" class="Body">
<a name="1005869"> </a>This section provides more information on creating animations. These topics can give you ideas about how to work with animation files.
</p>
<h3 id="1005871" class="Heading2">
<a name="1005871"> </a>Color
</h3>
<p id="1005872" class="Body">
<a name="1005872"> </a>You might want to create a color set for the animation. Creating a color set helps you better control the use of color. For example, you wouldn't want the colors of your characters shifting between frames. Using a particular color set prevents this from happening.
</p>
<p id="1005873" class="Body">
<a name="1005873"> </a>Not all colors are video legal. For information about converting colors for use in video, refer to <a href="15-Effects7.html#999636">"Video Legal Colors"</a>. For more information about using color, refer to <a href="05-Color3.html#998992">"Working with Color"</a>.
</p>
<p id="1005877" class="Body">
<a name="1005877"> </a>You might want to set up an image of each character with annotations to specify which colors to use in which areas.
</p>
<h3 id="1005881" class="Heading2">
<a name="1005881"> </a>Frame Rate-A Matter of Time
</h3>
<p id="1005882" class="Body">
<a name="1005882"> </a>Frame rate describes the number of image frames displayed per second (fps). The frame rate can determine not only how big a file your animation is, but also how smooth the motion appears.
</p>
<p id="1005883" class="Body">
<a name="1005883"> </a>When you save a movie as a QuickTime or AVI file, you can specify the rate of display. This doesn't necessarily mean that what you specify is what you'll experience. Factors like frame size, compression method, and computer speed can prevent some movies from achieving their set rate.
</p>
<p id="1005884" class="Body">
<a name="1005884"> </a>If your animations are going no farther than the computer, frame rates of 8, 10, and 12 fps are good choices.
</p>
<p id="1005885" class="Body">
<a name="1005885"> </a>If you intend to create your work for NTSC video, 15 fps is a good choice. If you're less concerned with quality, you might use 10 fps.
</p>
<ul>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="1005886"> </a>The frame rate of film is 24 fps.</li>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="1005887"> </a>The frame rate of NTSC video is 30 fps (29.97 fps in broadcast video). This is the video standard used in the United States.</li>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="1005888"> </a>The frame rate of PAL video is 25áfps.</li>
</ul>
<p id="1005889" class="Body">
<a name="1005889"> </a>These frame rates are sufficient to produce smooth, continuous motion with filmed or video-recorded subjects.
</p>
<p id="1005890" class="Body">
<a name="1005890"> </a>Animation drawings contain far less detail than live-action images. The difference in the level of detail allows animations to be produced at frame rates significantly below those designed for live action. Because of the smoothness of color fills and continuity between images, animations can look quite nice at rates between 10 and 15 frames per second.
</p>
<p id="1005895" class="Body">
<a name="1005895"> </a>You must consider frame rates to know how many drawings are needed to make actions smooth, natural, and consistent throughout the project.
</p>
<p id="1005896" class="Body">
<a name="1005896"> </a>The computer can display frames at any reasonable rate. You'll define the rate after creating the artwork. The Frame Stacks palette does not provide control over frame display rates. For more control over display rates, save the movie as QuickTime or AVI.
</p>
<p id="1005897" class="Body">
<a name="1005897"> </a>You can't display different sections of a movie at different rates. What you can do is create sections separately at different rates, then modulate them to the same rate before joining them. This is the kind of work you'll do in your video-editing application.
</p>
<h3 id="1005899" class="Heading2">
<a name="1005899"> </a>Movies and File Size
</h3>
<p id="1005900" class="Body">
<a name="1005900"> </a>Keep in mind that video and animation can produce huge files. When planning a project, be careful you don't over-estimate your available disk space. To get an idea of disk requirements, consider this example: Each 640 by 480, 24-bit color frame is 1.2 MB. At this size, a 12 fps, 30-second animation would consume more than 400 MB of disk space.
</p>
<h5 id="1005901" class="ToDoHead">
<a name="1005901"> </a>To calculate the disk space required for a frame stack
</h5>
<ol type="1">
<li class="SmartList1" value="1"><a name="1005902"> </a>(Frame Width) X (Frame Height) X (Bytes per Pixel) X (number of frames)= Bytes required to save the frame stack.</li>
<li class="SmartList1" value="2"><a name="1005903"> </a>Divide by 1024 to convert to kilobytes.</li>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="1005904"> </a>Bytes per Pixel is determined by the storage type. For example, 24-bit color with an 8-bit alpha channel uses 4 bytes per pixel. For more information about storage types, refer to <a href="23-Video5.html#1005663">"Creating a Movie"</a>.</li>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="1005905"> </a>When you save a movie as QuickTime or AVI, the file size can be reduced by compression. For more information on compression, refer to <a href="23-Video10.html#999824">"Saving and Exporting Movies"</a>.</li>
