DVDs and cel sequence

kizu · Post by **kizu** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 7:31 am

I was just wondering... Is it possible to tell how many sequences of a particular shot a cel has via the DVD? I just noticed that while trying to episode ID my cels, I paused and hit pause again and it would skip one frame. I've been using this method to find the exact moment for my cel and so I was just thinking maybe if I did then I'd know how many cels are in a particular sequence. Has anyone tried? Is that idea even plausible? Or is it absurd because when I'm encoding vids, there's always frame rates to deal with... Or does that not apply to DVDs?

There are some scenes that I'd want to do it on as I want to know how many are in existence.

usamamo · Post by **usamamo** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 8:43 am

I dunno if it is possible. But I reckon it might take a while to do some scenes. Especially the ones with 60+ cels.

aernath · Post by **aernath** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 10:40 am

It can give you a rough estimate, but it doesn't always work that well.

I tried it a few times with my Bleach sets, but could only come "close".

EternityOfPain · Post by **EternityOfPain** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 12:36 pm

If you buy a complete cut from the scene usually it will come with a timechart. Using that you can actually tell how many and for the duration it was on the screen. This is the only way I know of but I guess you could manually time every frame....

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 3:56 pm

It also depends on the quality of the DVD. If the DVD has more than six episodes on it, chances are that your video quality has been greatly compromised.

It's a lot harder to hunt for a particular cel in a scene with lower video quality, and depending on the technique used while filming it, it can be almost impossible. Recently I went looking through my remastered Toei DVDs from the 1st Sailormoon season to capture a screenshot, however, because the sequence was shot in slow motion, I had some difficulty trying to capture the shot without overlap from another cel.

If you do have a high quality DVD and are willing to hit the pause button ad infinitum, then, I suppose it would be possible to count how many cels are in a sequence, or at least a good approximation.

kizu · Post by **kizu** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:12 am

Thanks all. Most of the one's I am really interested in came with 4 eps on a DVD so I am going to try. LOL. But great points and I shall keep that in mind. For some odd reason I don't mind making my thumb numb for some scenes. So next weekend (can't believe the weekend is over already

) the experimentation begins.

klet · Post by **klet** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 9:09 am

You'll also run into cel layer problems. A sequence may start out just as an A layer, then morph into a multi-layered beast.

Krafty · Post by **Krafty** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:18 pm

EOP's comment about the timesheet reminded me.
Some sequences use the same cels more than once if there's a juddering motion or repeating side-to-side & up and down movement. So a cut that's on screen for 3 seconds could be made up of only 8 frames/cels. Keeping tabs on what's been repeated could cause you headaches.

klet · Post by **klet** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 3:04 pm

Yep, the same goes for mouth layers. There might be a total of four mouth layers, but the character says something that is fifty-eight syllables long.

kizu · Post by **kizu** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 11:39 pm

With regards to layers... I just remembered something, on one of the cels I have I notice they used only the base of the head/neck and on a different layer is the expressions, hair, mouth, wrinkles, etc. etc. Now the base of the head is labelled B1 while the latter is on an A2 layer. Is it possible that with that type of setup, there can only be complete cel setup essentially producing the effect of an A1-end cel? A little off topic from the DVD but now that klet mentioned layers... I am curious.

Krafty · Post by **Krafty** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 8:20 am

kizu wrote:Is it possible that with that type of setup [B1 and A2 etc], there can only be complete cel setup essentially producing the effect of an A1-end cel?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but a complete cel setup- that B1 layer PLUS any sequence from the 'As', makes a setup. An A1 frame would exist but if you have A2, which completes the composition, that's still a 'setup'.

klet · Post by **klet** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 10:53 am

If it's a B1End, then yes. If there's no "E" or "End" or scribbles that look like end, likely there's another B layer cel out there for when the head itself moves as opposed to the expression. There would be fewer set-ups and a lot of extra hair/expression/wrinkle cels--which would either be thrown away or sold with one of the set-ups as "extras." Though, I did once see just an eye layer sold with the layout from the sequence.

Though, it seems a little odd that the base of the head would be the B layer, since it would go under the expression. Usually the bottom layer is the A layer.

kizu · Post by **kizu** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:20 pm

Krafty - Got you. LOL. Sorry I didn't explain myself well there.

Klet - I went back and looked and you are absolutely correct. The base is the A layer. Unfortunately I don't have any of the sketches so I have no idea but I think you hit it on the spot about lots of extra cels and fewer setups. Thanks!