Animation

Overview

ArtMatic Engine can create astounding high-quality animation in addition to still images and sound. Not only can ArtMatic Designer create high quality movies, but it can also be used as a special effects and video processing tool for existing video content. When animation is rendered, every single frame has the same level of detail and anti-aliasing as still pictures. ArtMatic animation can be breathtakingly beautiful and complex, and it can even be modulated by the sound track of your choice. Artists, VJs and musicians use ArtMatic animations both directly as video content and also as alpha (transparency) masks that are used to create extraordinary wipes, fades, and dissolves in their video projects.

In main UI Real-time animation preview is done with adaptative resolution to ensure a framerate of at least 12 fps. Altenatively you may use the preview button in the Animation & Camera setup dialog (a) for a fixed resolution in small playback or use the Full screen preview with space bar at the preview resolution set in preference. When rendered to movies or list of images, the animation is done at high-resolution and each frame is fully anti-aliased.

ArtMatic users interested in animation and video effects should explore V-Quartz that expands ArtMatic’s flexibility and power by several orders of magnitude.

Using External Movies in Animation

Existing movies compatible with mac OSX AVFundation can be used as input sources in animations via the pict/movies components. When movies are used as input sources, ArtMatic will process each successive frame in the infinite possible ways which makes ArtMatic a very powerful effects and video editing tool.

Animation and Sound

Sound can be used to modulate ArtMatic animations when they are rendered, and a soundtrack can be added or generated (using the sound algorithm last used on the Sound page) when rendering. Audio modulation is a powerful technique to use for creating video for music videos and multimedia compositions. To modulate ArtMatic animation with audio, audio input must be routed from the Global Input Matrix into the structure tree.

Wipes/Masks

In addition to creating content that will be used directly in movie and video projects, ArtMatic animations can be used to create astounding transition effects (wipes, fades and dissolves). We have provided many examples of transition effects in both the examples library and in the examples folders. Search the libraries directory for files whose name includes ‘wipe’.

Animation & Camera setup…

The Animation & Camera setup dialog provides access to the Camera Path and other animation settings. The rate at which the camera moves and how time flows from keyframe to keyframe can be adjusted as well as the type of animation. The camera’s trajectory can also be fine-tuned with the camera path envelope editing tools. The Camera Path refers to the path the camera takes over the course of an animation, that is the succession of various Canvas View zoom (scale) and position settings.

Preview

Use the preview button for a small preview of your animation. Unlike the main UI animation playback this preview doesn’t adapt resolution and the frame rate may vary according to the system speed. You can enlarge the resolution by simply enlarging the dialog size. The duration of the preview will be the given file duration even if the mode is “Free Run loops”.

Duration in MSF

These 3 numeric fields allow a precise duration setting in the minute second and frame format. This is the duration that will terminate the movie when saving a movie regardless of the mode.

Mode

ArtMatic Engine 8 provides 3 modes for animating the keyframes:

• Keyframes: Time interpolates between the Keyframes parameters with first keyframe mapped to time 0 and last to 1 which represents 100% of animation duration.
• Looped keyframes: In this mode last frame is interpolated with first frame at the end of animation. It is generally not advised as it will change the motion direction at the end and won’t produce a seamless loop. More sophisticated technics shall be used for seamless looping that won’t require this particular mode.
• Free Run loops: This mode is mainly used for sound generation but can also be used for cyclic animations. In this mode the set of keyframes will loop as long as the animation goes on and last keyframe will blend back to the first. mode. The time taken for each Keyframe to blend to the next is constant and can be set (in Hertz) in the Animation set up dialog once “Free run loops” is chosen. By default it is set to 0.5 hertz which correspond to 2 seconds. The fastest would be 16 hertz which is 1/16. of seconds. Animation playback will run forever in main ui and in Full screen preview when using “Free Run loops”.

Speed modes

The Speed modes affects not only the Camera Path motion speed but also the rate at which parameters stored in the keyframes are interpolated.

• Normal: Times flows lineary from 0 (first keyframe) to the given duration (last keyframe). Note that the global time input w will be independent of the keyframe time and always flows at the same rate of 60 seconds per minutes.
• Decelerated: Times flows using the square root of normalized time. This deccelerate the perceived speed over the course of the animation.
• Accelerated: Times flows using the square power of normalized time. This accelerates the perceived speed over the course of the animation.
• Ease In Ease Out: Times flows using a cubic blend curve of normalized time. The perceived speed slows near the end and beginning.

Camera Path Options

ArtMatic has several different modes of camera path motion that can be used to adjust the camera’s zoom response in order to compensate for the non-linear response of many systems. Without these modes, zooms into or out of some systems could have undesirable acceleration or deceleration which would be difficult to work around. For more control on the animated canvas view you may not use the Camera Path at all but animate the motion procedurally using components like the various motion components or the 22 Maths tools # Affine modes. When using procedural view motion keep the Camera path still at the Default view. Most of these modes result in adjustments to the time between keyframes. The options are: -Constant Displace Speed. ArtMatic tries to maintain a constant perceived zoom/motion rate. In order to do this, the time is recomputed in respect with the distance travelled so that speed appears more stable. -Use Inertia. This checkbox turns ON added inertia in camera zoom/motion which results in a smoother motion. -Use logarithmic zoom. Use logarithmic rather linear movement when zooming. This mode is needed when zooming deep inside of a fractal for example. Alternatively you may use the 22 Maths tools # component with ‘Affine exp’ that provides both displacement and scaling with the addition of rotations.

Camera path envelopes

Choose a Camera Path parameter (zoom level, x curve, or y curve) from the dialog’s popup menu to edit that parameter’s envelope. (An envelope is a graph of the parameter’s values over the course of the animation.) The envelope is displayed graphically and can be edited with the mouse : click and drag any envelope points to move it upwards or downwards. The current numeric values for the camera Canvas View are displayed at the right of the envelope and can be edited directly. The Camera path parameters are:

• Zoom curve: The various zoom (scale) values stored in the keyframes.
• X curve: The various origin x values stored in the keyframes.
• Y curve: The various origin y values stored in the keyframes.

Ramp

Will blend linearily each keyframe values from first to last value.

Reverse

Will reverse the time for the particular parameter.

Smooth

Will smooth the particular parameter envelope. The smoothing is mostly meaningfull when many keyfraes are present.

Amplitude

This (left-right) drag button will scale the particular parameter envelope.

Offset

This (left-right) drag button will offset the particular parameter envelope.

Send to all

This text button forces current value to be stored for all keyframes.

Keyframe parameter Envelope dialog

Available in Designer CTX only this dialog helps to visualize and edit parameter animation envelops. Envelops are made from the parameters values stored in each keyframes. Each component parameter has its own envelop editing area with the following features :

Mode

The “Mode” pop up menu sets the way values are interpolated while time flows. It provide a finer control of percieved motion. Most of the time the Bezier default mode will behave just fine but at times it may be useful to have a more abrupt change or a percieved acceleration to increase the impact of the animation.

• Bezier: The default mode uses continuous bezier curve interpolation. This mode requires at least 3 keyframes otherwise it reverts to linear.
• Linear: Linear interpolation is used which will create abrupt change of slope (when slope changes).
• Smooth linear: Based on linear interpolation this versions smoothes abrupt changes in the slope. The keyed values may not be reached to achieve continuity.
• Smooth step: This mode creates successive fixed-valued plateaux smoothed out to avoid discontinuities.
• Fast smooth step: Like the previous one this creates successive fixed-valued plateaux with a faster smoothing resulting in longer plateaux. This mode is handy when you need more sudden jump from one state to another.
• Constant step: This mode doesn’t interpolate at all and creates successive fixed-valued plateaux for each keyframed values.
• Cubic: Uses a cubic interpolator to interpolate from param N to N+1. When only 2 keyframes are present this will create an ease-in, ease-out effect. When many keyframes are present this mode makes the keyed value to stay longer than in default mode as the slope will be horizontal near each time corresponding to keyed values.
• Accelerated (Power): More useful when only 2 keyframes are present “Accelerated” mode uses the square power of normalized time. This accelerates the perceived parameter change speed over the course of the animation. When more than 2 keyframes are present the Accelarated mode will create discontinuities at each keyed values.
• Decelerated (Sqrt): Same as above but with a square root function to obtain a decelerated effect.
• Oscillate: Uses a sine wave to create oscillations while interpolating. 4 oscillations takes place between peaks given by the parameter value at that keyframe. This mode is handy to create bouncing effects or quasi periodic parameter animation.

Smooth

Will smooth the particular parameter envelope. The smoothing is mostly meaningful when many keyframes are present.

Offset

This (up-down) drag button will offset the particular parameter envelope upward or downward.

Amplitude

This (left-right) drag button will scale the particular parameter envelope.

Ramp

Use “Ramp” button to blend linearly each keyed values from first to last value. That will create a constant motion from start to end of the animantion for the target parameter.

Reverse

“Reverse” button will reverse the time for the particular parameter. For example if an animated ‘phase’ paramter creates the illusion of left-right motion this will reverse the motion direction.

Send to all

This text button forces current value to be stored for all keyframes.

Vertical Zoom

“Vertical Zoom” only affects the view scale of the envelop.

Duration

These 3 numeric fields allow a precise duration setting in the minute, second and frame format. It sets the total duration of the animation.

Insert keyframe, delete keyframe

Echoes the Main UI keyframes functions for convenience.

Play

Button to preview the animation in the dialog thumbnail.