[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]Reality isn't shown in infinite FPS. FPS is digital. The human eye is analogue. It's different. Furthermore, there's a limit to how much we can see (varies widely, depending on the person). I don't know where most people reach their limit, but an equivalent to ~60 to ~240FPS seems like a likely range.[/citation]
/reposting my relevant comment from another forum on the same subject:
The point at which frames go from looking like a series of still images to something that is perceived as motion by the brain can be as low as 10 FPS. And starts to appear smooth and fluid at around 25. We use 24 fps in film for purely financial reasons. Hollywood wanted a smoother standard than the 12 fps being used up until that point, but because film was so expensive to produce they basically did the bare minimum they could get away with. Unfortunately we have since built our standards around that.
You are right though, that our eye can distinguish very high framerates. Basically, the more information your brain can use to interpolate a sequence of images, the better. There was a study done by a big time effects guy in the 60s, where he shot scenes at varying framerates up to like 200, and measured peoples brain activity as they watched. And right around 100 fps peoples brains started reacting to the footage as though it was real. So truly convincing motion probably doesn't occur until around 100 fps.
Theres also something I recall being referred to as the "picket fence" effect. Imagine a shot panning across a white picket fence with mountains behind it. As the camera pans across the fence, a section of screen will "jump" from fence in frame 1 to mountains in frame 2 and so on from one frame to another. At 24 fps this is a huge problem, our brains dont have enough information to fill in the gaps between frame 1 and 2 and so we end up with a choppy, checkered sequence of frames and we have real trouble defining the shape of the mountains in the background. The problem is alleviated the more frames we add, but doesn't seem to go away until about 96 fps. Just about the same framerate for convincing motion in the study mentioned above. There is a similar problem for stereoscopic 3D filming. Which is why James Cameron wants to shoot Avatar 2 at a higher framerate than standard.
Sorry I dont have any sources for this stuff, I am just repeating some stuff Ive learned in animation classes.
But yeah, when people say the human eye/brain cannot perceive anything above 24/30/whatever fps, they arent taking into account numerous phenomena that can occur with image sequences that don't happen with continuous motion. And all of those phenomena are prevalent in gaming. //and film!
Facebook
Twitter