Each plane in Multiplane stack can have it's own Speed Profile

[D.T. Nethery]

If the Speed Profile is used to set the ease-out/ease-in on the Multiplane Camera move , it will apply the easing equally to all layers. For a simple camera move with all the planes consisting of still artwork this works fine. But in some cases it is not desirable to have the Speed Profile applied equally to all layers ; for example if one layer is an animation layer which has a character moving across one plane as the camera is pulling out (or pushing in) , if the speed profile applies to the anim layer then it will make the animation appear to slow down or speed up depending on the curve set in the Speed Profile. This has an unnatural effect on the animation , which has it's own spacing apart from the ease-out/ease-in of the camera move Speed Profile.

Here's an example: In this scene the camera pulls back from a close shot to a wide shot. There is an ease-in at the end of the shot as the camera finishes pulling back . The character running across the background from left to right should run at a constant rate of speed (the source animation is at a constant rate) but notice how the character slows down near the end , because the character layer is being affected by the ease-in Speed Profile of the camera move. The character is running faster as he enters from the left , but is moving slower by the end. The animation of the character running should maintain a constant rate of speed with the same spacing , not getting closer together (easing in) near the end.

https://youtu.be/NEqeRlobIto



My request is for an option to allow each Plane to have it's own Speed Profile. For example, let's say you have a Multiplane shot with 10 planes and 8 of those planes should move in unison with the same speed profile, but 2 of the planes need to have a different Speed Profile , you can copy and paste the same Speed Profile in the Bin to 8 of the 10 planes, but the 2 other planes can have a unique Speed Profile generated (or no Speed Profile) so the spacing of the animation is not changed by the Speed Profile of the camera move.

[D.T. Nethery]

At the risk of being redundant , here is another example of the issue mentioned in the previous post:

The Multiplane Camera would be improved with the the ability to give layers a different Speed Profile, instead of all layers (planes) being linked to the same Speed Profile. Most of the time you want the layers to be on the same Speed Profile for consistent speed and start/stop marks , however, in the case of animation layers that are working within the Multiplane scene sometimes it would be better for the animation layer to have it’s own speed profile, so the timing of the animation is unaffected by the Speed Profile of the Multiplane Camera Move.

Here's another example of this issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa67TMqE7Z0


Notice that in this scene as the Camera pulls back to a wider shot the Speed Profile has a slight ease-out and ease-in on the camera move , however, the motion of the swan moving laterally left-to-right across the water should not be easing-out/easing-in , but should be a constant rate of movement (evenly spaced , not easing-out or easing-in). But you can see that as the camera eases-in and comes to a stop at the end of the move , the animation of the swan is also easing and coming to a stop , rather than continuing to move forward with a constant rate of speed to the end of the scene.

This may seem like a small thing , but it has an effect on the spacing/timing of the animation to have the animation layer tied to the same ease-out/ease-in Speed Profile as the camera move.

This is why it would be useful to have a feature where some layers could be disconnected (or “unparented” to use AE terms) from the Speed Profile , or the ability to have multiple Speed Profiles linked (parented) to different layers. The default would be that all layers share the same Speed Profile , unless the user specifically creates a new Speed Profile for a layer or layers that are linked to the new Speed Profile. Potentially each layer could have it’s own Speed Profile , but that would not be the usual case. In most cases each layer (plane) is following the same Speed Profile, but in some cases such as the Swan animation layer , it would have a separate Speed Profile , so it is unaffected by the easing-out/easing-in spacing on the main Speed Profile.

Here is how it should look:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPtbcq0g_TI


To get it like this I had to render the Multiplane move separately for the background planes from the Swan plane. It was a bit tricky to make them match up. It would be better if each plane could have a customized Speed Profile , instead of all planes controlled by single Speed Profile. In After Effects all layers can be parented to a single Ease-In/Ease-Out speed profile , but each layer can also have it's own Ease-in/Ease-out profile (or no Ease) if desired.

[Peter Wassink]

yes, this brings back memories, and also illustrates why i gave up using the multiplane camera.
having to split up and render stages in multiple passes just to be able to have some control over the layers with animation quickly became very complex and confusing.
I consider the multiplane FX to be unfinished.

l

[D.T. Nethery]

I'm returning to this topic with some additional examples showing the problem.

I originally posted this in this topic by Soom: Motion effects desperately need interface improvements , but then I felt guilty for "hijacking" Soom's topic with my lengthy posts on the Multiplane Camera , because Soom's topic is really more concerned with discussing the KeyFramer instead of the Multiplane Camera (although in my mind the two tools are closely related and both could use some of the same improvements to make them easier to use). So I have edited and deleted my posts on that other topic and re-posted here.

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Actually, the whole UI needs improvement !
But agree that advanced functions like the KeyFramer require urgent efforts.

And as you know from my numerous inquiries and requests , there are many things that could be improved with the Multiplane Camera, too.

One of the major improvements would be if each Plane in a Multiplane FX could have a it's own Speed Profile (or have Speed Profile turned off for that plane, so it is unaffected by the main camera move Speed Profile) , so the rate of speed on certain animation layers is not influenced by the Speed Profile of the Camera Movement (for example if the camera move has a Speed Profile set to gradually Slow-Out at the start of the move , pause briefly in the middle of the move, and Slow-In to a stop at the end , this camera move Speed Profile will have an effect on any animation layers in the scene, causing the animation to appear to gradually start by slowing-out at the start and slowing-in at the end , but in fact the animation plane(s) should be at a constant speed , with the Speed Profile Slow-Out/Slow-In only applying to the Camera Move. The way it is now , TVPaint treats each of the separate Planes in the multiplane stack as if it is the same as the Camera , so the Speed Profile of the Camera Move is applied to all the layers the same , but doing this will make animation layers within the main Camera Move appear to speed-up and slow-down unnaturally if they are moving up or down or side to side across the screen (for example a character walking or running across screen while the camera trucks-in or trucks-out ... if there's a hold or a slow-out at the start of the camera move the character will appear to be walking or running in place on a treadmill , not making any forward progress). By contrast, in an app like After Effects the speed profile of the camera move keyframes (start and stop positions) are applied to the speed of the camera move , but other layers within the scene have their own speed profiles which apply to the keyframes on those layers. All layers are not having the same speed profile from the Camera Move applied equally to each layer. I hope this makes sense ? Anyone who has tried to use the Multiplane Camera in TVPaint for advanced camera moves with animation layers will understand the problem I am describing. (especially if they have also worked with After Effects and can compare the two programs).

If on the other hand the Camera Move is at a constant linear rate (no Speed Curve adjustments, just a straight line) moving from Point A to Point B there is no problem, because the animation layer (character walking or running across screen) will not be influenced by the Speed Profile. But it's rare for a Camera Move to be at a constant linear rate , with no Slow-In or Slow-Out adjustments on the speed curve.


I will post more examples in my next post.

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[D.T. Nethery]

With reference to my post above, here's an example :

Let's say I have a Multiplane shot where a character is running from left to right as the camera tracks alongside , parallel to the character , then the camera stops and the character continues on as he exits to screen right. In this first example there is NO SPEED PROFILE on the Camera. It's a straight linear move from the Start position to the Stop position:

https://youtu.be/QWLcA0l1B2c


Ok, it's not bad, however the camera movement lacks finesse , the stop at the end is rather abrupt . Needs more work.

But now let's say I want to have the camera hold for a few frames at the starting position and the camera move eases-out of the starting position and then at the end it eases-in to the stop position. For that I set the Speed Profile curve on the camera . Here is what the camera move looks like now (without the character animation) -

https://youtu.be/0bQpKPeUMtI


That's better for the camera move ...

But now with the Speed Profile enabled on the Camera move let's add our character animation layer back to the scene.
Uh-oh ! ... look what happens to the animation !

https://youtu.be/2I759kEz5SA


You see the problem , of course. Because the Speed Profile on the Camera Move is held briefly at the start and eases-out of the hold , our character appears to be stuck , jogging in place at the start , and then suddenly accelerates as the camera move starts. This is because the Camera's speed profile is being applied to the X position of the animation layer, making the running character appear to be stuck in place at the start. But the character's action is supposed to be constant, the character is not easing-out of a hold , the camera is easing-out. Also, notice that where I added another keyframe on the character's layer near the end to have the character exit all the way off screen it messed up the ease-in as the camera comes to a stop ... in this version the camera kind of slams to a sudden stop instead of easing-in.


The speed profile curves and keyframes that define the CAMERA's movement should not have an effect on animation layers. , but of course the planes with the animation layers still need to maintain consistent size relationship and distance from the camera with the still artwork planes. It's a tricky problem.


Camera Speed Profile OFF doesn't have any adverse effect on the position of the animation, but the camera move lacks finesse with no Ease-Out/Ease-In.

Camera Speed Profile ON makes the camera move look better , but messes with the position of the animation

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There is a way to work around this when you have this kind of scene set up where an animated character is moving across screen from left to right or right to left , to keep it from being adversely impacted by the Camera Move Speed Profile . Instead of using the looped animation of the character walking or running as one of the source planes (as I did on the first versions of this above) , I worked out the left to right movement of the character running across the entire length of the (still) background , using the KeyFramer to position the repeating looped animation of the run so it animates all the way across the background, like this:

Then I turned off all the other layers (except for the character running animation layer) and used this project as the Source layer for the character running in the Multiplane project.

All the other Source layers in the Multiplane project were from still artwork layers stored in the Image Library .

BG Elements in the Image Library.jpg (86.18 KiB) Viewed 3762 times

Here's how it turned out:

https://youtu.be/CJ1ajiXgW0U



In this version the Multiplane Camera's Speed Profile is not impacting the placement of the animation of the character running. It just takes an extra step or two instead of trying to composite all the layers with the Multiplane camera only. The thing is , there's really nothing like this procedure covered in the User Manual or the official TVPaint Multiplane Camera tutorial. Learning how to make this work took many hours of trial & error testing. (which,frankly, most people will not have the patience to do , so they give up in despair and switch to Toonboom Harmony or at the very least they give up using TVPaint for complex camera moves and move everything over to After Effects to composite camera moves. It should not be like this , TVPaint Development Team ! As Peter Wassink said above: "I consider the Multiplane Camera FX to be unfinished." )

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