[Samuel]

Anyone know of a filter that can be used in compositing to achieve a realistic subtle film grain? The stock photoshop filters for this purpose arent very good and too unrealistic. Some of the various 3rd party filters and/or techniques I have found are quite good for stills but I havent found one used for animations.

[Elizadolots]

When you say "animation" what exactly do you mean?

[martok2112]

Some animation/film editing programs actually come with a "film grain" filter that can be adjusted according to how old you want the movie to look. I think Magix Movie Edit Pro series comes with such a feature.

[Zardoz]

Originally Posted by martok2112

Some animation/film editing programs actually come with a "film grain" filter that can be adjusted according to how old you want the movie to look. I think Magix Movie Edit Pro series comes with such a feature.

I use mine in Pinncle to match my titles and "previews" to match the film I'm converting.

[Samuel]

Things like the typical 30 second tests of flags blowing in the wind... or for a Trek centric example... a rotating ship. Basic ones like the PS 'film grain' filter do a decent job but are still obviously computer generated. iMovie has a stock filter also but suffers from the same problem. Yes... I know more specialized software for Macs are harder to come by. But considering how much Macs are pushed as the best at A/V I would think there is.

[martok2112]

Although Macs are obviously superior when it comes to video/audio production, this is why I stick with PC's. There's just more stuff out there for it.

[Elizadolots]

So, this isn't anything like a .gif animated file, it's a video? (sorry to be dense)

[Samuel]

Originally Posted by Elizadolots

So, this isn't anything like a .gif animated file, it's a video? (sorry to be dense)

Nah not dense at all.

Eventually I will be rendering an animation, probably through Blender (or something else), and I am checking out various ways to add film grain to it. Not sure about the size yet. Probably the original will be rendered 1920x1080 and then downsized to whatever format needed. Im not nearly there yet but just thinking about the future.

[Elizadolots]

I ask because I only know how to do .gif animations...and, if I were doing one and needing "film grain" I'd make a layer of film grain myself and then duplicate it and rotate it randomly...merge one "film grain" layer with each layer of the animation. I suspect what bothers you about the photoshop filter is it's consistency....by creating a separate layer, you could make sure the grain seemed to bounce around as film grain is wont to do....If I get the chance, I'll try to make a sample for you.

[Samuel]

The best film grain example I saw was actually a high resolution scan of a 35mm negative of a perfectly blue sky. The color was removed and it became a great grayscale noise field. Noise itself is random in its size in addition to its gray value. There are other things but I am looking at the possibility of using the various techniques to create a large number different noise images then combining them into a repeating video. A bunch of extra work and limits fine tuning in the editor but it should work.