Improving Upon My Previous Smooth Stop-Motion Animation Videos

[@CaptRobau]

NOTE: You will need to watch at 720p or above to see videos at higher framerates. So check your resolution first, if you can't see the difference.

[@BorisBerlin]

Sorry, I did not see an appreciable difference. FX still look tacky and stop-motion-ny. Did you ever try frame blending instead? That may solve the stop-motion issue and introduce its own motion blur as it will have to smooth (= blu) the differences between frames. There are various algorthithms on the market for this. Appreciate your hard work, but don't do any more of this unless you're hired and paid by a studio for a re-release. I do think frame-blending is the solution, not up-framing and adding motion blur.

[@nathantheallosaurus238]

Can u do part two of it next time try valley of gwangi

[@cariosusstudio1460]

1.In some cases the Motion-stoped characters should be rotoscoped. Because there is too much of motion blur in rest of the image that looked originally good, but now is too blurry . 2 . after the rotoscope is done try to use on motion stopped character layer something like Twixtor to fill the missing frames. An it will look smoother. In some frames you can fix it manually. 3.Now add the motion blur to rotoscoped layer 4 . Final video should be resampled back to 24fps. Because 50,60,120 fps looks horrible. It is not videogame . Or don't mess with the original footage and keep it on 24fps and changes mentioned above apply only to rotoscoped layer. And than downsample back to 24fps. But this is going to be lot of work, but still much less work than the creators of that movies originally have had. And rotoscoping isn't that hard than it was back in 2008 for example.

[@mtrivelin]

I have to agree with Cariosus Studio. Increasing the number of frames does not improve the cinematic experience or improve the animation. The artifacts created by the IA ​​are terrible, like swords and arms disappearing. The best option is to create additional frames just for the animated characters, reduce to 24 fps and add motion blur. You would have to rotoscope the characters to achieve that.

[@JinzoCrash]

Man. "Land of the Lost" episodes sure need this tech lol.

[@Del-Canada]

Ray Harryhausen was a legend. He'd go off for months at a time and hide himself in a room to animate all of this stuff. The dedication is almost supernatural.

[@watamatafoyu]

He'd be rolling in his grave seeing it smoothed out at 60fps.

[@roysekulich5763]

I would love to see the entire Jason and the argonauts completed with your updates, what a treat that would be.

[@vallum12100]

Right? It's such a treat, as a project like this lets us modern audiences see as close as we can to what audiences would have seen the film as back in the 50's in theater!

[@LukeLane1984]

The enhanced stop motion actually looks better than a lot of CGI nowadays.

[@mrbungle3310]

CGI is shit...stop motion and partical effects nowdays in Hollywood would be amazing,but they are lazy asses

[@klausbrinck2137]

That´s not difficult: CGI always looks shitty...

[@brandongregori995]

Really makes you wonder, with this technology combined with 3D printers and subtle CGI enhancements, what could someone really do? Sadly the bar for CGI was set really high over a decade ago with movies like District 9, and yet CGI characters still look like crap in most movies today, even AAA movies with massive CGI budgets.

[@jpettltd]

The 60 fps stop motion just looks soulless to me. But thats just my opinion

[@anth636]

@@klausbrinck2137🤐

[@maxanderson8259]

Okay, now resample it at 24fps.

[@familyvideos9895]

This is what I would rather see too

[@mrburns366]

exactly!

[@def2rites686]

That... might actually help it. The weight of the original stop-motion is lost when everything is "too smooth." All the smoothing makes it feel like an uncanny valley effect, to me.

[@jimslim2831]

I think thats the missing piece

[@damy2000]

Right!

[@johnchavis1157]

When I was a boy, I remember being enthralled by Harryhausen's work and i never thought it could get any better. But you've been able to enhance it greatly while stilling retaining the original magic of Harryhausen's animation. I'd love to see how Kali would look with a little motion blur. It's been too long now - it's time for either a remake of one of Harryhausen's movies or produce one of the many films he never got to make. Hollywood is boring the crap out of me with unoriginal CGI movies. i would love to see The Thing vs The Hulk in stop-motion utilizing your motion blur. When will someone somewhere make that 4th Sinbad movie? We fans have waited long enough!

[@Tosslehoffe]

I misread the first few words as "When I was a toy" and thought you were Pinocchio for a second.

[@Mr.HotRod]

One Million Thumbs UP!!! 👍

[@salvie777]

You said basically everything I am thinking about this topic, cgi is super cool and can open new doors as its own medium but i cant get enough of the tactical mediums! There is such reality and rawness and so many creative directions to take and the techniques you could come up with are endless!

[@all1nerd377]

Makes a subtle but significant difference. Great work!

[@CaptRobau]

Glad the improvement was an improvement for you!

[@PeGeProd]

This is all sorts of incredible. First, your own additions / work on this is great. But even slightly more impressive is how GOOD those effects were already back then. You can only improve so much on them because they are so incredibly well done in the first place. The scene where the skeleton throws their shield had my jaw dropped. It looks soooo incredible. It's amazing how well they did the original stop motion, and how accurate the motions were so that the interpolation makes it look so believable! But yeah, I too would love to see it sampled to 24fps!

[@markparee99]

Well done. You have no idea the feeling of seeing Jason and the Argonauts on a big screen drive-in movie as an eight year old. Wow! Thanks for the memory!

[@eldesgraciado6690]

Makes me happy that in present times, people are giving lots of love to the old masters of stop motion.

[@robinharwood5044]

Harryhausen’s talent really shows in the fight with the skeleton. At 2:40, the skeleton shows shock at losing his sword, but then recovers, looks down at his shield, and then throws it smoothly. Great acting from a model.

[@c0mradec0c0nut9]

Really goes to show how much attention to detail were put into body and face movements back in those days. Fantastic stuff

[@KiskeyaLife]

Interesting. I feel that in shots were the animations share screen time with the actors, especially the skeletons and scorpions, it works very well. The shot footage has its natural motion blur, so adding it to the comps makes them look more natural too. Now, if only the color contrast could be refined. Especially in the scorpion scene I think with the some color correction on the animals and the motion blur, the scene could look almost photorealistic, or close to it.

[@niklasernecke8963]

Great job! No please try to resample it at 25 or 24 fps. I tried frame interpolation with flow frames but than resampled the footage back to 25 fps. It will still look more smooth than the original animation because some interpolated frames will be kept in. In addition the motion blur will make more sense with 25 fps.

[@DerekReznik]

This sounds like it would be very interesting to try. The high-frame rate of the puppets makes it looked awkward with the normal 24fps of the human footage. Lowering the frame rate after interpolation of the stop motion footage would smooth it out even more.

[@creatorsubscriptions7821]

@@DerekReznik That is my glaring observation with all of these videos-- make your smoothed out stuff the same as the surrounding film framerate-wise! It looks just as strange in a different way otherwise

[@stickfigure31]

Fun fact the only reason why the cinema industry settled on 24fps was because any faster and the projector technology of the 1920s-1950s would destroyed the film, it had nothing to do with what looks "good" or "limit of the human eye" the human eye has actually been measured to detect flashes as fast as 1/1000th of a second which would be 1000fps, but putting a frame rate on biological eyes doesn't work every well because they don't see in desecrate time stamps rather continuous motion. However ideally you'd want a frame rate faster then human perception if you want to mimic continuous motion like in real life. Especially now with digital files and high refresh displays (we have displays as fast as 300hz now) we can use whatever frame rate we want, but even during the 20th century we had Showscan. If this video doesn't do it for you, the next logical step would be up-scalling the stop-motion and the actor's footage separate so they both match 60fps before merging them again. Ideally if the original prints before compositing still exist using them, but if not manually separating the stop motion and actor footage by masking and object removal tools fill in the missing background good enough before AI increasing the frame rate of your two separate clips.

[@DoubleMonoLR]

@@stickfigure31 I don't think that was the reason(at the very least not the main one), after all "slow motion" was inherently always filmed faster - the famous "Trip to the moon" movie in 1907 had some slow motion for example. A camera is effectively just the same as a projector, but with light used in the reverse manner. A projector does typically have to manage much bigger reels, but extra speed shouldn't have made any significant difference in relation to those, as cogs and loops prevent the sudden jumps of film at the gate/lens jerking on the reel. If anything it could have made it safer, as flammable nitrate film was used until the 50s - a faster frame rate would've meant less time for each frame in front of the hot projection bulb. Using a higher than necessary frame rate would've simply cost a fortune in film/processing/distribution/screening, along with significantly shortening shot times before changing film. It would've also limited the amount of light the film was exposed to, degrading the image. The stop motion in the films used here was already moved/photographed at 24fps, so motion blur alone likely would've improved the fluidity considerably (while retaining the original frame rate) Artificially increasing the frame rate isn't the same as shooting at a higher frame rate. eg: the actors already have natural motion blur from shooting at a shutter speed suited to 24fps, and of course AI will just never be perfect.

[@harlow2047]

It works well in the dimmer scenes but in brighter ones, it highlights the matting artifacts and inconsistent lighting of the models. Quite reminiscent of last-gen gaming graphics.

[@BeeDub57]

Good job! The motion blur definitely makes it smoother and more natural-looking.

[@CaptRobau]

Glad you think so!

[@terryloh8583]

Amazing! A subtle but definite improvement! Really helps the stop-motion integrate with the live action. This is such a great way of honoring the work of Harryhausen in these classic films. Thanks for your hard work!

[@Stilton_Steak]

I want to watch the full movies now, but with you improvements. They look amazing you have done an impressive job.

[@michaelmarcel1894]

Fantastic! Another great movie to do would be the endoskeleton scene from the original "Terminator"!

[@TheRealNormanBates]

I concur. 😎👍

[@Martin-hb4il]

2:50 The OG Captain America.

[@jesterspawn]

The skeleton scenes work the best, in my opinion, because they were already incredibly well-animated with a great sense of weight and timing. The reason it is hard to perceive as much improvement on some of the other shots is because the limitations of the original (with all due respect to the pioneers who created them) often lie in the timing, "acting," and inconsistent arcs of the overall motions, rather than the framerate. Simply adding more frames and motion blur cannot fix those kinds of fundamental problems. (Though, interestingly, such fixes are likely already within the reach of a properly-trained AI focusing on kinesthetics.)

[@KeefyKat]

I'm surprised by how the weighting and movements feel more like the puppets they are. I feel like I can see what the animators were doing more clearly.

[@jmssun]

The blur does make it look better 🎉🎉

[@bensilva9842]

Maybe it's just me, but I prefer many of the 'before' clips. The motion blur removes more detail than the smoothness can make up for

[@JackWolf10]

Props for taking the feedback onboard and experimenting with it! I think it definitely helps add a more natural quality to the motion. I’m glad you tried this one out! It would be nice to see the motion blur applied to the raw 24fps footage. I just personally find the 60fps look a little distracting for these films.

[@CaptRobau]

Thanks. I will so some more variations

[@nocillis]

It's great, some of the scenes it works so much better, like larger and further away objects. The final major challenge would be to add proper acceleration and deceleration in body part movements, rather than seeing arms go from full stop then to sudden full speed movement, but what you done is all a heck of a lot of improvement already. Fantastic work, keep it up. On a lighter note, now i don't have to worry about watching the latest Kong V Godzilla, the one you remastered is better Cap.

[@falsehero2001]

The Kong clips took stop motion puppets and turned them into hand puppets. I could almost imagine Jim Henson's hands inside the monkey controlling his movements, they were so smooth and lifelike.

[@RODDERZ1983]

Very cool, i remember watching these as a kid thinking it was janky,it would be awesome if they hired u to integrate in the actual films. Awesomeness

[@ThiloAdamitz]

The addition of motion blur is definitely an improvement. How would the smoothed out footage look when you reduce the framerate down to the original again?

[@RootinrPootine]

This

[@NRubric]

Indeed the higher framerate give it the sope opera effect.

[@Taramushi]

I want to see this too. If the goal was to smooth out the stop motion, then great, but the smoothed out everything else is distracting.

[@1337billybob]

Motion blur is something video editors put in they think the public can't see and it generally looks terrible to me. The videos are nearly identical except the one this person worked on is slightly fuzzy at times.

[@ThiloAdamitz]

@@1337billybob You must have a very hard time, then, watching any movie shot on film... right? Motion blur is - and always has been - present when footage is shot and recorded on filmstock. Digital media can record footage without motion blur. But that's where the higher framerate needs to come in; the footage would otherwise look "stutter-y" to the human eye at the usual 23.976 - 25 fps movies are filmed at. In short: You are wrong. Motion blur isn't just something that is added in post.

[@annfrank5959]

It's crazy but wonderful that this type of old school animation is being appreciated to me it needs to make a serious comeback Seth Greens Robot Chicken is a good example. It really has a wow factor that CGI can never match. If not what was the last current movie that used stop motion . That blue snake woman was by far the freakiest thing in the whole video

[@DrakeNS42]

The motion blur I think really helped. Related side note, I know at least one movie, Dragonslayer, had the model on a special platform that shifted as the picture was taken, to give dragon some motion blur.

[@cookdrewcook]

For some scenes there is a notable improvement without losing the original artistry too much. I will point out that, for me, the scenes like Talos where he is lumbering and stiff (a bronze statue come to life) it feels more realistic as Harryhausen's original than the sped up and smooth version. for wings or animals & perhaps Kali etc the improvements are noticable.

[@brandongregori995]

I just can't agree with that. The choppiness really takes me out of it. It reminds me that I'm watching a stop motion puppet, which is the opposite of intimidating

[@cookdrewcook]

@@brandongregori995 fair enough, but I don't see it that way. A corroding bronze statue come to life weighing probably hundreds of tons wouldn't be as fluid and organic in its movement as a regular sized animal person or even, in my imagination at least, a construct of a smaller size. As a TTRPG player It is how I see it. I prefer the original in the case of Talos. However the frame rate changes are generally an improvement. (Like it is believable the skeletons & harpies as magical monsters demonstrate more alaricity)

[@cookdrewcook]

@@brandongregori995 like, he is literally freaking as the metal rubs against itself or bends.

[@Kousaburo]

That's astonishing. The creatures I'm seeing are real, tactile, this really makes them come to life.

[@shafiqlee3348]

The lighting is what by far makes the stop motion animation feels life-like. Half of the creatures are actually terrifying because of the lighting.

[@MANNY100123]

Really cool! Never thought about adding motion blur.

[@osvaldoprado9906]

If did it look better? Seriously? Ofc is amazing, gorgeous. Motion Blur effect is something that really adds quality to the animations. Splendid.

[@windowbreezes]

Man i would love to rewatch the full movies with these improvements

[@TheRealNormanBates]

I was a kid in the 70’s, so I grew up with a lot of these. I would _love_ to see these with the motion blur added!

[@brantime90210]

These were my favorite movies as a kid. Most of my toys were monsters and skeletons, I would love to see all these classics remastered with the improved smooth stop motion.

[@thechrishaley]

This is a really cool experiment and it definitely makes for an interesting look, but I think I prefer all the "Before" shots if I had to choose. Keep up the great work!

[@fmphotooffice5513]

Agreed. It was a good idea to try but I prefer the clarity. My guess is that the suggestion was aimed at improving perception in positioning of the original transitions before the tweening. Actually motion blur just gets in the way of all the new information.

[@CaptainHarris-ip2kg]

I proposed this idea years back after a popular cameraman website got started, and got a lot of heat for it, but all I was suggesting was to smooth out the SFX, not alter the film at all. I really don't like movies anymore, but I'm glad someone came up with the same idea and ran with it. Good to see.

[@winsomehax]

I don't see anything wrong with enhancing it. Harryhausen did incredible work with the tools and techniques he had available then. You can be sure he would have jumped on anything available to make it better. If anything it interests a whole new audience.

[@CaptainHarris-ip2kg]

@@winsomehax Precisely. The people who got angry with me saw it as screwing with artistic integrity. Harryhausen said you don't want things to look too real, but you're right, he would have grabbed any tool to improve his work.

[@knytrydr73]

I can't see the difference between your original improvements and the motion blur improvements. Regardless, your work is awesome!

[@00Resev]

You can't see it...........because it was done right! Motion blur is only there to smoothen the transition between frames. If the motion is slow, there is barely anything to notice, but once any motion is fast, it becomes noticeable (for the better). If it was overdone, the blur would be prevalent, and ruin the picture, but because its only really there in fast transitions, your brain compensates for the janky low frame animation. Go back, and on those side by side examples, pause the video whenever there is a fast movement of the models. That's when you will notice how the motion blur is affecting the picture.

[@keithfulkerson]

I think it looks awesome. Curious about what it would look like if you then converted it back to 24fps.

[@Sirinava]

This. it would be great to see it as an actual movie as opposed to a drama series lol

[@Scdny]

Great job! The stop-motion animation is definitely smoother. 60fps makes film look like video, though, and is totally unnecessary.

[@mayomonkey3810]

I still love the stop motion, it's like the brush strokes in a painting!

[@elizabethtanter8824]

I mean it looks great it 480p 30fps but I don't really like 60fps smoothed stuff. I'd love to see it at high resolution 24fps with motion blur.

[@JonathanReichel]

This exactly! The motion blur doesn't work at 60 frames per second. Because it doesn't make sense. Motion blur looks great at 24 frames per second in particular. Cinema standard. Slow it down from the smooth version to 24 frames and increase the motion blur slightly and you've got probably a perfect scenario in combination with some color grading. I almost want to try myself

[@chincemagnet]

motion blur on for the enhanced frame rate is a game changer, looks waaaaay more realistic

[@GordonWulfman]

Amazing upscaling work. The motion blur is icing on the cake. It still astounds me to this day just how incredible those skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts really were. "For it's time" be damned, even. They are just awe inspiring. Kudos, Mr. Harryhausen.

[@merrillmilner8717]

I've been spoiled by ILM, I'm sorry to say. I almost crapped my pants as a child when I saw the creature from The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms on a small TV, then watching Jason and The Argonauts in a theater - but to see that T Rex in Jurassic Park simply blew them all away. I've done some animation work in Blender, but it's primitive compared to these others. Honorable Mention: Revenge of the Sith Battle opening scene and Guardians of the Galaxy opening scene Baby Groot dance. Both great. Still, Ray Harryhausen deserves a lot of love and credit for the work he had done all those years before, when cinema was still in it's infancy - it must have been a magical time.

[@truthandreality8465]

Have you tried increasing it to 240FPS and 480FPS and higher? That would smoothen it out much more. Try adding any subtle blur after the transfer back to 24/30FPS as well as before when subtle motion blur at the higher frame rates will make it subliminal. Maybe very subtle to both for the complete effect. Perhaps try the higher FPS blur for the overall motion blur and the subtle 24/30FPS motion blur for the moments of quick acceleration by the characters. Hey, thanks for all these videos and all your work. Always fantastic stuff from you.

[@CaptainHarris-ip2kg]

Excellent stuff. It looked 1000 times better. Good job.

[@CaesiusX]

I love this. And I really am please with what you've been doing. After reading some of the comments, apparently it's not as beloved as I would have expected. I am wondering if that's a generational thing. If we had high-frame-rates since the start of Cinema, we might not know any better and motion blur might look strange. But instead, at least for most of us, it's the reverse. Without motion blur films can look like 80's soap operas filmed on videotape, or modern football games. Perhaps because I'm older, having motion blur is simply far more aesthetically pleasing *to me.*

[@CaptRobau]

Happy to hear you like it. Compared to the originals the response has been better than to those. A lot of people can't see it there. But with millions of views there are always going to be some. I've had a lot of good, long responses to this improvement. Good, as it took a while to edit and record. I agree with you about HFR. It's all what you're used to. Similar to games. Once it's all 60 fps or higher it's be hard to go back to 30 fps.

[@tinyspecks]

not sure I understand what you're saying here. High framerates + motion blur are exactly what causes the soap opera effect. Did you mean as opposed to the framerate shift alone?

[@michaelkantner6420]

Your editing of those movies made them look 1000 times better than the original. No offense to the master Ray Harryhausen and whoever animated the original King Kong.

[@lloyddobler2227]

That's amazing looking! Much improved.

[@Rich4098]

I love this! It might have been herky jerky when I was a kid, but the way I saw it was as the improved version. Heh.

[@flomojo2u]

Really amazing stuff! I don't really notice the motion blur, however the smoothing is on another level. Having it run at 60fps also seems to make it look like a video game, where everything is perfectly smooth already.

[@Ryandotsvg]

You’re fucking killing it, dude!

[@markc.7984]

The difference is certainly noticeable; I don't know that it's particularly "better," from a movie-watching perspective. The miniatures seem more crisp and with smoother movement, but it's almost all the more obvious they aren't real. I'd love to see you throw some film grain back on top of your smoothened versions, or down-res them somehow, to help the models stand out less from the background. Thanks for doing this experiment, it's been fun to watch.

[@PhonePhone-sf8te]

it look really good

[@regibson23]

The problem is going to be the differential between the live action elements and the stop motion. If you use motion smoothing on a frame containing both, they'll both just get smoother and the stop motion will still look more stilted than live action.

[@FrankEBailey]

Yeah ideally you'd have to rotoscope out the FX plates and work on them separately, but luckily these days there're also really good tools to automate that, too. And then you'd have the added bonus of being able to re-composite the plates much more cleanly without matte lines while paying attention to black levels, light direction, and color grading, so it'd be a win-win situation.

[@bentleyaudio]

Before I offer my comments regarding the before and after clips, I think it’s important to give you an honest preface: I am a major Ray Harryhausen fan, and have been my whole life, so I’ve studied these frames countless times. I completely respect the hands on approach, and although CGI and modern technology in general has finally advanced to the point of being capable of believable animation and effects, When it comes to classic animation - I believe the flaws inherant in the stop-motion technique are just as important to the final product as the puppet animation itself. I also firmly believe that it's not the tools (either traditional stop-motion, or CGI animation) as much as it is the creative application of the tools which has the biggest impact on the final result. When it comes to CGI, more often than not it's a "miss" rather than a "hit", but with some notable exceptions in recent years in particular. So, I went into this with curiousity, but with a good dose of skepticism. I have to be honest with you, when I saw the title “What if...” I was already slightly biased and ready to dismiss the attempts before I even saw them, or worse, post a highly critical review. Boo! (to me!), for I am happy to be the first to say "Shame on me" for my initial bad attitude! Observing your tests was both interesting and impressive, and they may have caused me to rethink the current state of video manipulation (effects), and my attitude regarding the potential use of tools like these. To my surprise, I was kind of blown away by your test results, in a good way. I knew simply going to 120fps would do nothing at all, by itself. But aha.....but frame nterpolation... now that should be interesting, I thought to myself. I must admit that the algorithm that your application is using is quite remarkable, indeed. It was far more subtle than expected, and therefore far more effective than I anticipated. Not only were you successful in smoothing out the animation (even before the motion blur was added - which offereed a distinct benefit, but only to certain scenes, or actions within a scene (in my opinion, of course) but not necessarily all scenes - more on that later), but it had the unexpected effect of increasing the perceived resolution of the animated images themselves (the image clarity). Now that could be a good thing, but in the case of older footage, like Harryhausen's, not necessarily. Whether the increased clarity is a benefit or not is for the most part dependent on how well it “sits” with each particular live action plate, and also how visually cohesive it is when taken in context with the scenes that immediately preceeded it, as well as those that immediately followed it. Does it "belong", or does it suddenly jump out noticeably, with the clarity simply beling lowered to being a distraction, rather than a benefit? But just to make a general point: I am incredibly impressed with the software, and no doubt your specific manipulation of it. However, I wonder if you had control of that clarity (via dedicated parameters) and if you made use of those parameters when preparing for the render, or if the increase in clarity was a direct result of the interpolation algorithm? It's a pretty cool effect, for sure, but ideally the clarity effect should be cointrollable (dialed IN or OUT as needed, or as appropriate) in order to better match the background plates in any given scene. In otherwords, for the software to offer that kind of control would be of huge "artistic" benefit to the stop-motion animation filmaker (or the remastering technician, as the case may be). Any comments in that regard? As far as the effectiveness of your technique - Generally speaking, I can not deny its effectiveness. it was completely noticeable in every scene, but it was more impressive and truly added something special in certain scenes more than in others. For example, I noticed that the more complex the animation, or the faster and more elaborate the model’s movements, the more effective the improvment of the frame-to-frame motion smoothness was. I was already duely impressed by most of the before and after scenes, but by the time you got to the the 7 skeleton sword fight from Jason and the Argonauts….. my jaw had hit the floor. WOW! My God that was quite astonishing. Just incredible smoothness AND increased detail overall, almost as if the movement had been motion-captured! The increased detail was a little too much, however. That is to say, when comparing the skeletons directly with the background plate. The live action plate, of course, had already been re-filmed by Harryhausen (so Ray couldn't avoid adding both some general graininess, as well as losing a little sharpness of focus during the refilming process). So after running it through your process: if you look ONLY at the skeletons, they look absolutely sublime! But once I zoomed-out my gaze and looked at the entire frame as a whole, I found the skeletons to be very noticibly distinct and seperated from the background plate. This was due mostly to the skeletons overall clarity (which were sharper than the background plate to begin with, and which now stand out quite a bit from the background live action place. Again this is a consequence predominantly due to more to their heightened clarity, than to their improved smoothness. This is an example of where a "less than ideal quality" of a live action plate, may well demand a conscious application of technology to "roughen up the edges", or lower the "pereceived resolution" of the newly "smoothness improved" skeletons so that their overall clarity "sits" within, or is matched and integrated more naturally within the background. A couple of other interesting observations.... On the negative, regarding a failing in both the interpolation and the motion blur: Slow movements did not seem to benefit much, if at all, from the smoothness process. Such as during the Kraken's slow vertical decent in frame. Ie: With the Kraken is shown in a side view, facing the left of the screen, and his body, very slowly, begins to lower within the frame. It's Interesting that with such a simple movement, the software offered no improvement to speak of. The movement remained noticably jerky. On the positive, regarding the 120fps interpolation smoothness along with the additional motion blur: As I mentioned, in my opinion, the addition of the motion blur only sometimes added an improvement. One area where it added a stunning improvement, again in my opinion, was in the Harpies flapping wings! Bravo! Magnifico! They've never looked so beautiful! There is one aspect to all of this that seems to consistently shine through. Whenever there was a marked improvement in smoothness, there was a direct correlation with the quality, or the INTENSITY of the animation. The "artistry", if you will. We already knew that the skeleton fight scene from Jason, was one of, if not THE best single piece of animation EVER attempted by Ray, or possibly any individual. And smoothing it out even further, and noticing just how effective the smoothing effect was on THAT particular scene, really just confirms to me what a BADASS Ray was. The improved smoothness, for me, did NOT diminish my appreciation for what Ray achieved - it only intensified and reaffirmed it! No one could have been more surprised by that, than ME, I assure you! What you have done here is remarkable, and I would be a fool to dismiss it. But, like anything, it's just a tool and it's not the tool itself, but how the artist chooses to use that tool that matters, in the end. I think that - when applied judiciously - it can be a VERY powerful tool. There's no doubt about it. Good job!

[@michaelm6867]

Looks amazing

[@CaptRobau]

Thank you!

[@michaelm6867]

@@CaptRobau I may have shared it on reddit.com/r/videos

[@arbaguincci7591]

the animation on those skeletons is pretty crazy, it translates well into the edits since they were animated so good to start with

[@wormglow]

Fantastic work. And yes it looked much better in my opinion and I am a lifelong harryhausen fan. Good job.

[@DMDvideo10]

Another noticeable difference is the film grain of the live action vs the stop motion. The stop motion elements are very focussed and detailed. The film however has a certain grain and blur to it. It was a limitation of that era of film making.

[@homemaderamblings1457]

This is so very cool! 👍👍

[@DavidRTribble]

Definitely the winged flying sequences look a lot better.

[@nintendoangel2478]

Amazing. You make these stop motion creatures feel even more alive. Film makers should do this more often. Instead of relying purely on CGI. > >

[@BatmanSeRiedeTi]

Harrihausen was a true genious! Those skeletons look alive.

[@ExceptionalPleb]

Wow man. This would be worth a re-release

[@marvinnation]

this is fantastic

[@Jaytee.]

I think Willis and Ray would be astonished and delighted with what you've achieved.

[@WinstonWilliamsofficial]

Way better than CGI.

[@bellofbelmont]

Very pleasant to watch in 1080p

[@harem137]

i love these movies while growing up..i wish all of them where remastered like this

[@billthetailor]

It's a thing of beauty.

[@vegassims7]

What an incredible difference

[@Plumfan_]

With the smoother animation you get a better feeling of the volume of the characters. The only thing perhaps is for some of the bigger monsters it lacks a bit of weight inertia

[@reginaldooliveira7345]

Congratulations technology! Congratulations on the video! 👍🏽

[@dmsdrumcovers9506]

Super cool! I think the treated clips look great! I think they would have used this if it was available back then.

[@robertadler4354]

So good, amazing work!

[@bozoclown2098]

I so love those movies. VERY MUCH

[@frogoat]

Incredible work!

[@CaptRobau]

Glad you think so!

[@alanbernal5599]

Absolutely amazing.

[@Masamatt90]

CaptRobau: "you know what? fuck it." *unstops your motion*

[@rogerstalder7184]

AAAAnd you hit the nostalgic trigger lol.. Sindbad was one of my favourite as Child. The monsters are still frinking awsome. 2 headed vulture, a cyclops, a dragon, skeletons and a 4 armed dancing snake-god women. what the heck did you wanted more. Michel Bay movies? 🤣🤣

[@MatthewBaileyBeAfraid]

I have been working on something similar, but with Traditional Animation, to update things to be more faithful to the original works, or to simply improve the animation. But with AI being what it is, I realized that we are likely to see this occur, such as with Ray Harryhausen VFX to update the movies to be more “accurate” in the depiction of either History or the VFX applications. Eventually you could probably even get AI to re-cast an entire movie with actors from any era, such as Star Wars with Humphrey Bogart as Han Solo, or Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick in Casablanca. Or, using the original actors, create entirely new scenes so that Classics like Casablanca could be expanded to become an entire Series that explores the Backstories of each Character up to the end of the War (trivia: In Casablanca, Rick signs the order for a Casino Payout of 20,000Fr on Dec. 2, 1942. This date is interesting, because, unbeknownst to even the filmmakers at the time, that was when the Imperial Navy High Command sent the orders “Noboru Niitaka” or “Climb Mount Niitaka,” which was the order to “Begin Hostilities, Dec. 8 - Dec. 7th, our time - against the Designated Targets,” which would include Pearl Harbor). But we could see classics like Jason and the Argonauts, classics that they are, turned into even more compelling features or series, with little effort. Kind of scary when you think of what that means for “Reality.”

[@ian2057]

Some of this is seriously impressive, some of it is limited by the original work, all of it is still great with or without the improvements, i feel like the stuff that looks the best is the stuff that looked really natural in the first place, not just in the manipulation of the stop motion elements, but in how it actually moves on screen, the harpies for instance would look a lot better smoothed out if they didnt move so erratically in the original film, whereas the skeletons dont move across the screen a lot and look incredible with the high framerate and motion blur, i dont think theres much you could do without completely recreating the shot from scratch but this would be insane for modern stop motion animation to make use of, could be an entire new form of stop motion

[@Jay-yy9ol]

Hi.how do u actually produce the smoother version? U say AI. But how specifically? I would really like to learn the tools but I don’t know what they would be. Thank you.

[@madmanthepope6448]

The scorpions looks really good

[@TelcomTransmissions]

Excellent work!

[@faissalo]

I think one of the main problems with the stop motion is that it looks like its moving in slow motion and the unnatural stationary parts of the body! I know its impossible but if the stop motion was played at 1.5x with motion blur and x8 quality it works better giving a much more natural reactionary movement and shortening the stationary intervals and can suspend disbelief. Great work

[@platzhalter2581]

The only thing missing in stop motion is motion blur. So just interpolating frames will not add this. You have to interpolate frames by maybe a factor 1000 and then down sample (blend a selection of this 1000) to 24. The blending will result in a kind of motion blur. And if you want it right, you have to rotoscope the puppets only, because the composited life action footage already has motion blur you don't want to damage.

[@m3c4n0]

*Saludos desde Caracas, Venezuela.* Hay una película _"vintage"_ como de la década de los 50 o los 60 que, es acarca de *Medusa;* pero no es la típica Medusa mitológica mitad mujer, mitad serpiente... Es una Medusa con forma humana... Esta Medusa puede cambiar *a voluntad* su cabellera normal a una cabellera que es un amasijo de serpientes... Esta Medusa vive en una zona rural, muy boscosa... Hay muchos árboles de tronco muy grueso y frondoso... y en ese bosque de árboles gigantes, hay animales tipo _Triceratops_ deambulando por allí y en una de las escenas, Medusa está dando un paseo con una persona que no es de ese pueblo -está sólo de visita-. Esta persona visitante no sabe que Medusa es un monstruo que convierte a los seres en piedra... en un momento dado, ellos van paseando y de repente se topan con el Triceratops y Medusa le dice al visitante: _"Mira al dinosaurio, pero por nada del mundo se te ocurra voltear hacia atras"_ Medusa estonces aprovecha y convierte su cabellera normal en una melena de serpientes y el Triceratops al verla, de inmediato queda convertido en una enorme roca con forma de dinosaurio... *¿¿¿Te recuerdas una película así... Cuál es el título de ese filme???* Saludos. ...

[@Ryuuken24]

If we were to integrate into the movie, we need to motion track, right, so everything else doesn't get a speed boost?

[@ezeppelin1]

Terrific improvement. With som little light correction they would be really great to watch. Btw, +1 for "The Thing" defibrillator scene.

[@Raziaar]

You know these are far more iconic as stop-motion than smooth, right?

[@eneasgascaleon8564]

you did an excellent work , even at 30fps the movement seems more natural and fluid

[@ChillBuddies]

Love it!👍

[@contentunwanted9228]

are there any other visual improvements that could be made? lighting? or colours sorry this whole videos got me super interested in the possibility of making these old movies look new or as new as they can be