Motion blur

August 1, 2012 8:48 PM

There was a blog (tumblr, maybe?) posted a while back that had screenshots of cartoon frames that compensated for the lack of motion blur by multiplying the image onto itself. The only one I can recall was Spongebob with three or four faces. Anyone remember what it was?
posted by griphus to MetaFilter-Related at 8:48 PM (19 comments total)

Was it http://animationsmears.tumblr.com/?
posted by Mizu at 8:58 PM on August 1, 2012

This post, presumably!
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:01 PM on August 1, 2012

balls
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:01 PM on August 1, 2012 [4 favorites]

Hooray, got it in one.

(cortex gets a certificate for participation.)
posted by griphus at 9:02 PM on August 1, 2012

omg I pre-empted cortex I feel like a French swimmer
posted by Mizu at 9:02 PM on August 1, 2012 [11 favorites]

Like a French swimming cat? There were two cats, One Two Three Cat and Un Deux Trois Cat and they had a swimming race from England to France. Who won?

One Two Three Cat because un deux trois quatre cinq.

I also know why six was afraid of seven.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 9:11 PM on August 1, 2012 [39 favorites]

Mrs. P, that joke is fantastic. My husband is going to love it.
posted by Night_owl at 9:38 PM on August 1, 2012

I also know why six was afraid of seven.

But six asked seven, "Didn't you huit et neuf?" and talked him down.
posted by fleacircus at 10:23 PM on August 1, 2012 [14 favorites]

What I get out of all this is that Four-Face Spongebob is in the center of a smear campaign. (Why do I keep thinking of Assange? This isn't fair)
posted by Namlit at 12:17 AM on August 2, 2012

Do CGI cartoons do this too? They could, by automatically rendering high speed movement areas multiply before saving the frame. But do they? Or do humans go in a fix them up? Or do they just not have that hilarious "powpowpow" thing in CGI cartoon karate?
posted by DU at 4:13 AM on August 2, 2012

Do CGI cartoons do this too?
I suppose it depends. I just picked two random Pixar snippets and single-framed some quick action and it seems like they don't do much of it, only the occasional blur, which could also symbolize dust or water spray.
posted by Namlit at 4:39 AM on August 2, 2012

Do CGI cartoons do this too?

Yup.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:52 AM on August 2, 2012

As I recall, motion blur is a render setting that CGI producers can choose to use when rendering the final frames. The result is usually less noticeable than a smear because the CGI frames look closer to what we recognize from photographs with motion blur. Pixar is credited with inventing CGI motion blur for their first film back in 1984 The Adventures of André and Wally B.

Smears and multiples generally are an older, manual technique (often credited to early work by Chuck Jones), where the artist manually interpolates multiple additional frames that would occur in 1/24th of a second. Part of what makes them interesting is that the artist makes choices about what part of the action the eye will follow, and those parts are usually drawn much sharper than you would see in a more photorealistic motion blur.

In context where the brain applies common-sense algorithms to ambiguous sensory data, we see a face in rapid motion. Out of context, as still frames, we see mutant characters with a half-dozen eyes.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:16 AM on August 2, 2012 [3 favorites]

One Two Three Cat because un deux trois quatre cinq.

So there was this grizzled old Ardennes pig farmer who claimed his special pig could count in French. A local journalist interviewed the guy and asked to see the pig in action. So the farmer asked his pig what is four plus five. Answers the pig: neuf. 6 + 3? Neuf. 25 - 16? Neuf.

And so on.

The journalist, cynical, says that all the pig can do is say neuf, that's not counting and sarkastically asks, so what's four plus four than?

Quick as a flash, the farmer jabs the pig in the backside: huiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

(To make up for that, take a look at Bernie Krigstein's Master Race, where on the last page you see the same sort of technique used for a comic, rather than an animated cartoon.}
posted by MartinWisse at 2:06 PM on August 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

Why wouldn't you have two eggs for breakfast?
Because one egg is un oeuf.
posted by unliteral at 4:38 PM on August 2, 2012 [2 favorites]

What do you call a francophone ant that's strong enough to lift an elephant?

Fourmidable!
posted by Lexica at 4:43 PM on August 2, 2012

Thanks for highlighting this post, it was interesting and I would have never seen it otherwise.

Also, thanks for the bilingual jokes. Who knew?
posted by Scientist at 8:15 PM on August 2, 2012

I first came across the pig who knows how to count joke as told by this bloke.
posted by Wolof at 12:12 AM on August 3, 2012

Mrs. P., jokes like the one you posted are pretty much the reason why my mother exists. She lost it when I told it to her. Thanks!
posted by King Bee at 5:48 AM on August 3, 2012