[EOS/DEMO] Animation Quality Test

[fapnip]

the background color of the webtease changes much faster from color so it's a bit distracting

Thanks for the feedback!

Do you think this background color flashing is a deal breaker? Unfortunately, it's something I can't currently work-around.

They weren't loud or distracting/annoying, and you might not notice them if you aren't listening for them. If they happen more often (and in longer animations) they might start to be distracting, though.

Yeah, I'll probably need to find a good workaround for it -- likely splitting the animation up to different pages, but not the audio. This would require frame dropping, so hopefully that's not too intrusive. (See new frame skip test, below.)

Learning a lot from this demo, very nice!

Great to hear!

All of the animations ran for me with no issues at all. Load time felt about the same for each. 480p looked noticeably better than 420p. q6 looked noticeably better than q10/q8. The difference between 8fps and 10fps was negligible to me. So overall I think 8fps - 480p - q:6 seemed like the best option.

The audio synced great in the extra animations. The audio glitches were so infrequent that they were really not irritating at all. If I was not specifically listening for them, they are barely even noticeable.

Hope this helps!

Thank you. And yes, it helps very much!

I did notice the audio go out of sync more and more as the clip progressed, so I assume my phone was struggling to keep up in this test. (the video was lagging behind)

Thanks for this. I've added another test that will skip frames if it thinks things are falling too far behind. Details below.

I have a sneaking suspicion that, at least on low-mid range mobile devices, Eos' incessant background color calculation on image change, given a long enough animation, will eventually heat its processor to the point of thermal throttle.

The audio glitches happened every 8 - 10 seconds, were definitly noticable, but I think I could live with them. Do you have any idea what's causing them?

This happens because I split the animation and audio into segments, each on a different page, with one page calling the next. The different pages allows me to get away with not loading so many frames into memory at once, but has a side effect of a randomly variable delay between pages.

I wonder if you could get away with higher resolution and more compression. In other words, keeping the bitrate about the same, what would look better? I would personally aim for at least 720p if its doable.

Using mozjpeg to compress the images, with its quality set to around 60-65 (default is 75), 720p would probably be possible without compression artifacts outweighing any increase in resolution. Using just FFMPEG, I can get to around 580p @ q:6.5 with a reasonable average bits per frame. (trying to stay around 15kB per frame or under.)

Any documentation I would write on this probably won't go into the use of mozjpeg, so I want to see what I can get away with using just two tools outside the Eos editor: FFMPEG and my tool to inject animations into Eos scripts.

Ooh and closing remark:

Spoiler: show

The "Fine. Be that way." made me giggle

Once again, many thanks to all of you for your constructive feedback and kind words!

As always, any more feedback you're able to provide would be greatly appreciated!

Audio Sync Updates:
I've added a new "Ready, but try harder" test animation under "more" -> "I'm game".

The "try harder" animation will skip frames if it thinks it's falling too far behind. Unfortunately this frame skip check adds more overhead on each frame, so it's entirely possible that on devices where the other animation appeared to play smoothly, the new animation will appear inconsistently choppy. It would be great to get some feedback here.

Edit: Fixed a bug in the "try harder" animation that stopped it from skipping frame on part of the animation.

[Roblsforbobls]

Audio Sync Updates:
I've added a new "Ready, but try harder" test animation under "more" -> "I'm game".

The "try harder" animation will skip frames if it thinks it's falling too far behind. Unfortunately this frame skip check adds more overhead on each frame, so it's entirely possible that on devices where the other animation appeared to play smoothly, the new animation will appear inconsistently choppy. It would be great to get some feedback here.

Edit: Fixed a bug in the "try harder" animation that stopped it from skipping frame on part of the animation.

On computer, first time I tried the new test there was a 1-2 second delay in image showing while the audio played. When the image showed up, it sped up quickly to catch up to the audio. Every other time I tried it, there was no desync but the audio always seems to start just a bit before the first image plays.
On mobile everything seems to work as intended (odd enough, audio and image appear at the same time), though I never had any problems with the original bonus animation so it might not be a fair comparison.

[indyc]

For me I noticed the background flicker but it is not a dealbreaker in the slightest. ALL audio matched up for me somehow and the far right option had the best appearance on my setup. (but all were smooth/clear enough to enjoy)

[asubmalefortraining]

10 fps - 480 - q:6 was the best for me
Everything else worked fine as well.

[pinksly]

the background color of the webtease changes much faster from color so it's a bit distracting

Thanks for the feedback!

Do you think this background color flashing is a deal breaker? Unfortunately, it's something I can't currently work-around.

It's much less noticeable on a monitor than a phone but I think I won't mind too much if I focus on the visual

[fapnip]

On computer, first time I tried the new test there was a 1-2 second delay in image showing while the audio played. When the image showed up, it sped up quickly to catch up to the audio. Every other time I tried it, there was no desync but the audio always seems to start just a bit before the first image plays.

What browser were you using? So far, I've only been able to replicate what you described in Firefox -- and then, only once in a blue moon -- so it's tough to track down exactly what's going on. Also, were you in private/incognito mode?

I just pushed out a small change to the "try harder" test that adds a small delay before the animation starts in hopes that it lets the Eos preloader settle down a touch before kicking things off.

Also, I added a short, silent, intro. That one runs @12fps, though will drop frames to 6fps if it falls behind. Also used mozjpeg to compress it and a slightly higher resolution.

For me I noticed the background flicker but it is not a dealbreaker in the slightest.

I hope that's a mostly universal position. I really wish I could shut off/lock that background color.

ALL audio matched up for me somehow and the far right option had the best appearance on my setup. (but all were smooth/clear enough to enjoy)

Thanks!

It's much less noticeable on a monitor than a phone but I think I won't mind too much if I focus on the visual

Good to hear. Thanks!

Edit:
Oops! Looks like I had swapped x & y in my resolutions. Demo has been updated to more accurately reflect the actual resolution of the clips. (480p was actually 320p, etc.)

The new intro clip is actually 480p, but that resolution really shouldn't be used for anything but short (~100 frame) clips like that.

Sorry for any confusion.

[fapnip]

Before I go through the effort of writing a how-to, documenting how to create animations like this demo in your own tease, I'd like to know:

1. Are there any show-stoppers any of you have run into in the current demo?
2. Is it irresponsible of me to release tools/instructions to help build these animations in Eos? (I'm a little concerned it could be abused, with authors uploading far too many images to Milovana. This is meant to augment teases with short clips -- not full length videos.)
3. Would you use it? (Is it a waste of time for me to release such instructions/tools?)
4. A rough overview of the steps are:
   1. Extract frame images from video with FFMPEG. (Detailed examples will be given.)
   2. Upload those frame images to new gallery in Eos. (This is the longest step, waiting for all those tiny images to upload.)
   3. Use my tool (it's a web app -- no download) to configure and inject a new page that animates that gallery into your tease's JSON. (As long as you kept your images in order when selecting for upload, should take you less than a minute.)
   4. Download and restore that new tease JSON over your tease.
   5. Use that new animation page as you'd like, or copy/paste the animation group (contained in a single IF action) to somewhere else in your tease.
   Knowing these rough steps, would you still use it?

[Triple Alfa]

10 fps - 320p - q:6 was best.
All options above q:6 were choppy.
Sound sync test was fine, but "try harder" is better.
Sound error test was not noticeable.

[Roblsforbobls]

What browser were you using? So far, I've only been able to replicate what you described in Firefox -- and then, only once in a blue moon -- so it's tough to track down exactly what's going on. Also, were you in private/incognito mode?

Chrome, not in incognito mode, both devices. I use a separate account to log in to Chrome for all my private things lol

Before I go through the effort of writing a how-to, documenting how to create animations like this demo in your own tease, I'd like to know:

1. Is it irresponsible of me to release tools/instructions to help build these animations in Eos? (I'm a little concerned it could be abused, with authors uploading far too many images to Milovana. This is meant to augment teases with short clips -- not full length videos.)
2. Would you use it? (Is it a waste of time for me to release such instructions/tools?)
3. A rough overview of the steps are:
   1. Extract frame images from video with FFMPEG. (Detailed examples will be given.)
   2. Upload those frame images to new gallery in Eos. (This is the longest step, waiting for all those tiny images to upload.)
   3. Use my tool (it's a web app -- no download) to configure and inject a new page that animates that gallery into your tease's JSON. (As long as you kept your images in order when selecting for upload, should take you less than a minute.)
   4. Download and restore that new tease JSON over your tease.
   5. Use that new animation page as you'd like, or copy/paste the animation group (contained in a single IF action) to somewhere else in your tease.
   Knowing these rough steps, would you still use it?

Holy crap you made a tool to add images and timers automatically? Doing God's work, of course I would use and abuse that shit lol I've spent hours upon hours doing all that manually.

Is it irresponsible? Can't speak to that, would need to ask admins if their site can handle a potential influx of uploaded images. I'm sure you recall there used to be a 1-2 minute eos tease that was nothing but a high frame rate animation with sound. The tease has since been deleted, though who is to say if it was deleted by the author? This kind of thing is pretty niche at the moment so I'm not personally worried about it.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22876&p=279729#p279729

[cafe18]

10 fps - 320p - q:6 was what worked best for me. Others were ok and a little choppy. Sound test worked fine for me and I didn't notice a huge difference for "try harder". I didn't notice anything during the sound error test. Oh also, the background color changing color super rapidly was pretty distracting for me. Really awesome work though love your stuff.

[fapnip]

Not that I expected people to rate it at all, since it's not really a tease, but it looks like some prick just gave my demo -- created to help other authors -- a ~1 star rating.

Sorry, but giving 1 star is a slap in the face, so I do take it personally.

How about you not be such an f'ing coward and step up and say why? Seriously, what about it offended you so? Could you have done better?

Edit:
You know what... This isn't a rewarding experience.

Here's the partially completed tool used to create the animations in the demo:
https://codepen.io/fapnip/full/abLOyPE

Have fun. I think I'm done.

[cafe18]

Not that I expected people to rate it at all, since it's not really a tease, but it looks like some prick just gave my demo -- created to help other authors -- a ~1 star rating.

Sorry, but giving 1 star is a slap in the face, so I do take it personally.

How about you not be such an f'ing coward and step up and say why? Seriously, what about it offended you so? Could you have done better?

Edit:
You know what... This isn't a rewarding experience.

Here's the partially completed tool used to create the animations in the demo:
https://codepen.io/fapnip/full/abLOyPE

Have fun. I think I'm done.

Don't let just one malcontent get you in a tizzy like this. I think 99% of folks are very receptive and are excited for the things you're doing.

[Sisyphuster]

Both of the ones that said "q6" worked the best for me!

And regarding the 1-star rating you got.. there's apparently some kind of bug or bot situation that gives those out to every single tease. That's why there are actually zero teases rated 5 stars. Actually your tease is right now to me showing as the highest-rated tease OF ALL TIME, which is crazy for a test! So I hope you don't let it bug ya too much, because you're doing great work!

[fapnip]

Both of the ones that said "q6" worked the best for me!

Thanks

And regarding the 1-star rating you got.. there's apparently some kind of bug or bot situation that gives those out to every single tease.

The actual problem are members here that, instead of giving fair ratings, try to curate the top 10/20 list by rate-bombing teases they personally don't think belong there. I'm simply fed up with the behavior. It's consistent and predictable. And, in the context of teases like this that are meant to help other tease authors here, I take it very personally -- especially knowing that some of those doing the bombing are tease authors themselves.

(To the ass-hats that rate-bombed me again, you've made your point. This is the last thing I'll ever publish here.)

[RemiHiyama]

(To the ass-hats that rate-bombed me again, you've made your point. This is the last thing I'll ever publish here.)

I can understand being discouraged by this, but I think the fact that the demo's rating is still holding strong, plus the positive comments from, AFAICT, everyone who has commented at all in this thread, suggests that the community as a whole is probably on your side in this.