Timelapse - How to create TL Movies w/ still images

[www.marcinkro.com]

I have thousands of images I've taken in the anticipation of creating timelapse movies, yet I can't can't make

them look good. I have Sony Vegas (don't know anything about it). I need to play 24 fps, and I just don't know

how to do it.

 

ANY HELP...PLEASE..

 

Marcin

[MichaelChang]

Marcin, the thousands of images you have taken - are they of a single event such as cloud movement or

construction? or random shots you want to stitch into a time-lapse? <br><br>

It's going to be a steep learning curve if you want to use Sony Vegas but don't know anything about it. The only

advantage of using Vegas is if you have high resolution images and you wanted to pan and zoom during the

time-lapse sequence without losing resolution. Otherwise you can use any number of utilities such as Quicktime

Pro or MovieSalsa. <br><br>

To make a movie in Vegas from stills, drag and drop your sequenced images into the timeline. It will create a

default length where each frame occupies a certain span that is typically much longer than you want. To shrink

it, say you have 2400 images you want to run at 24 FPS, that would mean a movie length of 100 seconds. Span the

timeline accordingly by following the tutorial below:<br>

<a

href="http://www.videoforums.co.uk/sony-vegas-media-studio/18906-how-do-i-create-timelapse-video-sony-vegas-movie-studio-7-0-a.html"

>link</a>

[www.marcinkro.com]

The photos are of the same scenes, taken over an hour or two. I'm going to try that tutorial tomorrow since I already have Vegas, but would Quicktime Pro be a lot easier and create the same effect (I'm not planning on doing any zooming, just adding some music)?

 

You're the bomb, I'll be posting any updates later.

[william l. palminteri]

Marcin, Sony Vegas is an easy program to use once you get involved a bit.

Here's a piece I did using Vegas and all still photos, and I think it might inspire you.

 

 

In Vegas 4, to set up 24 FPS, go to

 

File / Properties / Video / Frame Rate / 24.000 (Film)

 

Bill P.

[MichaelChang]

Marcin, here's a tutorial on how to make time-lapse movies with Quicktime Pro:<br> <a href="http://www.bmumford.com/photo/TimeLapse/tl.html" >link</a>

[www.marcinkro.com]

Michael and Bill

 

 

I figured out how to get the images on the timeline and how to change the length of time each image stays on the

timeline. What I'm having trouble with now is actually setting up the movie, the resolution, the rendering, the

saving, the aspect ratio...

 

 

I've only been able to save it to my "hard drive" (my desktop), either for viewing on MS Media Player or Quick

Time Player. I couldn't bun a DVD (from the "make movie" function, it asks for stuff I don't understand. Also,

when I play it in QT or MS players, I loose a lot of the quality. It almost looks like the software compresses

each image individually, and since no two images are ever compressed identically, each image looks different, and

so when you play it at the 29fps, it actually looks like the still object in the movie are vibrating.

 

 

I'll keep working on it.

[MichaelChang]

That's the tricky part, Marcin, deciding the rendering format and quality. I have Vegas 6.0 which allows uncompressed AVI down to thumbnail size covering most formats and compression levels - yours should offer similar setting choices depending on requirement. <br><br>

A safe bet is MPEG2 which will give you DVD quality and reasonable file size. You were probably rendering at a setting which keeps file size low at the expense of quality. If your Vegas package contains DVD Architect, the utility will facilitate burning to DVD. <br><br>

As for vibrating still objects, and without having seen it, I would guess that it is normal considering it's a time-lapse sequence - the camera is fixed, the scene will change over time, and you're playing back at a very rapid rate - for example, tree branches and leaves being blown in the wind will appear to vibrate if time-compressed.

[Karim Ghantous]

You can use iMovie if you're using OS X or a little app called VideoMach if you're using Windows. I can e-mail you VideoMach as it's not a big file. More details happily supplied upon request!

[elyone]

This probably wont help anyone, but it's interesting to know these things exist:

 

If you have access to a scientific image acquisition and analysis program like ImagePro or MetaMorph (these are very expensive, institution level programs), it can be done easily. You merge all your photos (they need to be TIFF's though -maybe also JPG? not sure, I never tried) and they are put into a stack. Then export/save as a movie (you can determine FPS etc in options). Once in a stack, these programs let you manipulate all the images at the same time, live, no batch needed. You can preview the movie with a slider, etc etc.

I do this all the time using time-lapse microscopy. I actually DO use QT pro to re-export them as smaller files. Cool stuff.