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Every Frame Perfect

tonsky.me

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Re: Every Frame Perfect

#161

Post by inatreecrown2 »

m132 wrote: post #151

I still have Sonoma on some of my devices. All I can say is: wow, steady regress. The save dialog, albeit a little shakey, is nowhere as chaotic as in your example. The buttons in Notes move between panes in a perfect seamless manner. Albeit the animation occasionally glitches out when you repeatedly focus and deselect the Safari bar, the cursor is perfectly timed with the text, only fading in after the text is done…

The animations in your short video do in fact look more orderly and less chaotic. Could it be that Apple was using AppKit in Sonoma and switched to SwiftUI now?

Re: Every Frame Perfect

#162

Post by toast0 »

Kiro wrote: post #147
lynndotpy wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you can back that up, "Majority" is something you're making up. It's a guess. It also doesn't matter whether it's true if the majority or not- "Instant transitions are only good in theory" is not a true statement. Instant transitions are good in practice for many people and that has been true for decades.

Most people with that opinion keep using apps and devices with animations, but thinking it would be better without them. Very few actually torture themselves like that in practice.

I thought I had disabled animations on android, but it looks like I have it set for half duration.

Probably because I had run into some apps with bugs when animations are disabled, and making them run twice as fast as normal is more compatible and reduce the annoyance enough that I forget its enabled. Apps that animate at normal speed in defiance of my settings get deleted.

But I also set windows not to show window content while moving or resizing, because I find that to be annoying too.

Reducing duration or eliminating animation is one of the first settings I do on a new install.

Re: Every Frame Perfect

#163

Post by dagmx »

I have a lot of thoughts about this:

I think this is a weakly presented argument. The article doesn’t actually present stronger alternatives or even why anything shown is negative to the user. It might be negative but otherwise this is the same vacant critique that is levied by pointing at smear frame or transitional points in media to critique it.

The user also has an untenable maxim. Every frame must make sense? I would posit this is impossible, or I’d ask the author how they’d handle window resizing while keeping every frame perfect.

I also think the author themself finds it easier to point out flawed frames (again without actually explaining why they’re issues) than doing as they say. Tap the header links on their blog and see the animations play after the click is complete. Or go see their own UI projects and see how text and objects don’t stay within their containers. Surely someone saying that this is a tenet that should be followed could demonstrate it themselves.

I think this is just a very hollow critique on their end.

A more competently written article would have focused on why anything shown is bad for the end user, and how they might handle it instead. A good critique should actually include some substance and point to more than just the what, but the why and how.

Re: Every Frame Perfect

#164

Post by tsunamifury »

voidnap wrote: post #58
tsunamifury wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motion is critical for reorientation after transition. Often with out it your brain has to rescan the entire page on each refresh.

This isn't true generally. I am personally far more comfortable with disabling smooth scroll. It has more to do with your mind's expectations. Which can vary between people. Some people expect smooth and others don't. Motion itself isn't necessary. The only time I have to "rescan" is if I input a scroll and anticipate a scroll and it doesn't scroll. It has nothing to do with motion. In fact, in that case, I "rescan"…

“This isn’t true generally”

Proceeds to give a self only data point

Come on guy. Think a bit.

Re: Every Frame Perfect

#165

Post by ilsubyeega »

Curious is there most efficient&precise(SOTA?) way to create animations/transitions(like theorem), I've written some of these and really hard to figure and fix out(e.g like the zoom animation from last section of page).

Re: Every Frame Perfect

#166

Post by amavect »

Lalabadie wrote: post #96
mrob wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games are entertainment products, not tools. It's acceptable for a game UI to draw attention to itself for artistic effect, but I don't want to have to put up with this when I'm trying to get work done. Instant state transitions become imperceptible as you learn how they work. An instant UI effectively functions as part of your body, just like hand tools do. Animations make this impossible. Compare an ordinary pencil…

For UI purposes, sub-150ms animations can be very effective as "pro" interface behaviours. That's close to our best reaction time [1]. Good UI personality doesn't have to get in the way of pro-level efficiency. One of the ways to achieve this is to not actually transition between states, but simply animate the "end bounce" of an introduced element, as if it was eased into position. So not actually slid from the left,…

Perceptible latency goes well below 10 ms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOvQCPLkPt4

Re: Every Frame Perfect

#167

Post by Terr_ »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #120
jchw wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are taking it a step too far. First of all, unlike film, we are not recording reality in any way, every pixel that appears on screen is there because we put it there . I'd argue a closer parallel is a cartoon. And something like cartoon inbetweening is not an example of imperfect frames. These are in fact, perfect and even carefully crafted frames. It's one thing if the frame halfway through an animation…

We do this in cartoons as well. Check out this Spider-Verse animator breaking down a shot of Gwen drumming. [1] If you look at individual frames, there are all sorts of details that make no logical sense. In one frame, she actually has three hands! But it looks great if you see it in motion. [1] https://xcancel.com/hf_rosa/status/1089675426312552449

Or "squash and stretch" [0] frames cartoons and 3D modeling, where people prefer the final result even though individual frames can be grotesque.

That said, I think it's fair to hold most practical UIs to a different standard. Prioritizing amusement leads to a lot of strange non-ergonomic places.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash_and_stretch

Re: Every Frame Perfect

#168

Post by numpad0 »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #120
jchw wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are taking it a step too far. First of all, unlike film, we are not recording reality in any way, every pixel that appears on screen is there because we put it there . I'd argue a closer parallel is a cartoon. And something like cartoon inbetweening is not an example of imperfect frames. These are in fact, perfect and even carefully crafted frames. It's one thing if the frame halfway through an animation…

We do this in cartoons as well. Check out this Spider-Verse animator breaking down a shot of Gwen drumming. [1] If you look at individual frames, there are all sorts of details that make no logical sense. In one frame, she actually has three hands! But it looks great if you see it in motion. [1] https://xcancel.com/hf_rosa/status/1089675426312552449

GGP's point is that broken in-between frames are everywhere, in films and animations, and this is a total nothingburger.

GP's point is that those frames aren't broken, but they're intentional and calculated, and so they're not even relevant here.

Re: Every Frame Perfect

#169

Post by Normal_gaussian »

dagmx wrote: post #163

I have a lot of thoughts about this: I think this is a weakly presented argument. The article doesn’t actually present stronger alternatives or even why anything shown is negative to the user. It might be negative but otherwise this is the same vacant critique that is levied by pointing at smear frame or transitional points in media to critique it. The user also has an untenable maxim. Every frame must make sense? I…

I think your critique is actually the hollowest thing here.

The article is presenting an idea, not a solution. You've failed to see this and have constructed several strawman arguments in order to critique it.

Most importantly the article does not present itself in a definite sense - it is written with care to say "I think", "Next thought:", "Probably", "So yeah.". This article is a person sharing what they are thinking, and unlike many of my thoughts - it is a fairly complete thought which is clearly sparking many other reasonable people to think along similar lines.

The author doesn't present the solution - but there is no reason they should have to. What an odd and unreasonable bar you set.

I also don't find your attacks on the authors site particularly endearing. The taste gap is well known, and punishing someone for their conceptual contribution outstripping their practical skill is quite... distasteful.

A more competently written critique would have been more charitable and in the spirit of this community.

Re: Every Frame Perfect

#170

Post by jdiff »

naet wrote: post #25

I think it's not uncommon for good animations to cheat a bit while in motion, rather than look perfect on every frame. Like how cartoons can use smear frames that look bizarre when paused at the wrong time but when viewed as part of a larger animation help sell the motion visually.

Smear frames are not something often applicable in this kind of animation. Smear frames are just about specific to frame-by-frame animation. No smear frames are demonstrated in this article.
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