October 28, 2009
Direct Timelapse Video Export from Lightroom
As regular readers of this blog will know, I have an interest in Timelapse photography. I’ve had Jeffrey Friedl write a panning script (thanks yet again, Jeffrey!) and I’ve even gone as far as writing a plugin that uses ffmpeg to create video from exported files. But now thanks to Andy Rahn, Lee Jay Fingersh and Matt Dawson, I’ve achieved an even better goal: Timelapse video straight from Lightroom.
Even with the advent of Video Export in Lightroom 3 Beta, it seems that the 0.1sec minimum duration for a slide would help thwart any hope of getting the 24fps needed for timelapse video. Andy Rahn suggested looking deeper into available preset/template files. So I did. 24fps is 1/24 sec per frame or 0.041666666667 duration. I manually entered this inside the template file.
The next step is to get a working Video export file that gives both the right frame rate, size and bit rate. After lots of fiddling round with the inbuilt presets, and trying many different values, I opted for quality over reduced size. I created a 24fps, 720p, 8Mb video preset. The files average 1Mb per second, but the quality is excellent. Yes 1080p is also possible but initially I’ve gone with 720 as that is the highest any of the video sharing sites allow.
To install these 2 files, first open Lightroom Preferences (Lightroom menu on Mac, Edit menu on PC). Click the Presets tab, then click ‘Show Lightroom Presets folder.
The Slideshow Preset goes in the User Templates folder in Slideshow Templates, while the video preset goes into the User Presets inside the VIdeo Presets folders. Now the Video Presets folder may not be there, so you may need to create it, and a User Presets folder within it. Once these are in place, restart Lightroom.
Download Timelapse Preset and Template.
To use, put your image sequence into a Collection and open it in Slideshow. Next select the ‘24fps Timelapse’ Template. Note that the ‘Slides’ duration appears to say 0.0s. Ignore this. The setting is below 0.05, so Lightroom is rounding down the visible figure. Don’t change it either! Next click on the Export Video button at the bottom of the Left panel. From the Preset list, choose ‘720P TL’. Name your file and click Export. Congrats, you now have a video timelapse created in Lightroom.
The video file linked at the top was created using this method, and was originally a 10.21MB file. Exposure Room have compressed it to a 3Mb file, so there is a loss of quality from this. The original is pristine however.
Update: I’ve added a version that uses a straight h.264 codec also, for those that have issues with the AVC codec. http://lightroom-blog.com/presets/720ptl.zip
Looks very cool Sean. I’ve never done any time lapse, but I plan to soon and I love that this will simplify my workflow. Great stuff!
Thank you very much, very nicely done. I tried three days ago to make a time-lapse using LR3 and ran into the problems that you solved here. Thanks very much, this worked well for me.
Nice job, Sean. I’ve always had an interest in time lapse as well, and this will let me do it right inside my favorite app. Thanks for your work with this.
Sean, how did you go about creating the Video template? Through your knowledge of Lua and plugins or are the built-in presets stored somewhere for tweaking? (Working on Vista, so it might be somewhere different on the Mac that I’m not seeing).
Jason,
I dug about inside Lightroom to find the video presets and examined each of them. Knowing a bit of video, I was able to judge which codec might work out for me and then edited the previously commented settings to work as a new file.
Knowing Lua helped know what information was being used, and what to ignore.
As to where the internals are on Vista, no idea.
Sean,
Thanks for putting this together. I tried the templates and was not able to get it to run. The result I get is an all black movie about 14 seconds long (length is about what I expect).
I have a few questions. I took 320 jpg shots 4 seconds apart of my son playing with Legos as a test. I am running Snow Leopard on a Mac.
Do the files need to have a sequential number in them? Mine began with the “_JPB2937″ and sequentially increased from there. I normally shoot raw but I shot in jpg, does it matter on the file format?
I chose both the 24fps… template in the slideshow module and the 720P TL on Export Video.
Any suggestions on getting my test to work?
Thanks.
Names don’t matter, file format doesn’t matter.
Try rendering standard previews, this can sometimes help.
I’ve done a few timelapses with this, including many versions of individuals ones as I tweak the colour and the music.
Sean,
Thanks for your comments. I reloaded your presets and re-rendered preview as standard. I’m still not able to get a movie created using your 720P TL video preset. I am able to create the movie using the default 720 video preset. What is the difference between your 720P TL and the default 720 preset? Any other suggestions?
Thanks.
The framerate is 24 fps, to correspond with the frame rate of the slide show. The normal one is 29.97 and not a true HD rate.
Sean,
First let me say. I appreciate your help. Any other ideas on how I might get the 720P TL to work? Also my movie jumps a little bit. That may be because I put the camera on a wicker basket vs. a tripod unless that is a byproduct of not being able to use the preset you put together.
One thing that puzzles me is: why wouldn’t the slideshow preset (24fps time lapse) you put together that sets the frame rate at 1/24th of a second when you save to video?
Thanks for your help.
Because the video is independent of the slideshow.
Timelapses do need to taken from a stable point. Note I didn’t say fixed, because there are panning heads available.
I’ll be working on further versions.
jbransfield,
I think your issue may be that you don’t have a codec installed that’s needed. Here’s a preset using a straight h264 codec.
http://lightroom-blog.com/presets/720ptl.zip
hi, im running LR 2.5 not seeing the video export option in slideshow- just jpeg and pdf-
thanks!
The 2nd paragraph does state that video export is part of Lightroom 3 Beta.
ah missed that part that you had to be in LR3 for this to work-ok will give it a try there
I have LR 3 Beta running on an iMac with snow leopard and tried exporting video with both codec and it did not work, both mp4 files only played a black screen in quicktime….What can I try?
Have you tried VLC or Mplayer?
Thanks Sean!!
Just downloaded VLC and it worked!! Can anyone explain why quicktime plays every other MP4 file except this one?
VLC has many more codecs than Quicktime. One of these codecs is Divx, which is not a native codec, but I’m surprised the 2nd one doesn’t (the one at the end of the post).
Sean – Thanks for modification. It now works.
Hi Sean,
I have downloaded the template, and am wanting to create HD (1920 x 1080) timelapse clips. I needed to modify to suit my country, PAL 25fps.
Changing those setting it worked, but when I tried to get the size to 1920 x 1080 it would come up with a h264OutVideoChkSettings error. which says “Level 3.1 does not allow given frame_size and frame_rate. Level must be 4.0 at least”
Which I think is linked to the bit rate;
bit_rate = 9216000,
max_bit_rate = 13824000,
would you know what I need to change these to? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
The 1080p preset (the default one) looks like this:
s = {
title = ZSTR “$$$/AgVideoCodec/Template/1080P=1080P HD”,
internalName = “1080P”,
type = “audio_video_encoding”,
version = 1,
value = {
example_uses = ZSTR “$$$/AgVideoCodec/Template/1080P/uses=High bit-rate HD video at 1920×1080″,
sort_order = 1080,
video = {
encoder = “H.264″,
– width = 1920,
– height = 1080,
– frame_rate = 30000 / 1001,
– bit_rate = 8000000, — use default value provided by MCPROFILE
– max_bit_rate = 1750000,
level = “DEFAULT”,
video_standard = ‘VM_NTSC’,
video_type = ‘MCPROFILE_AVCHD’,
color_space = ‘FOURCC_BGRA’,
interlace_mode = ‘DEFAULT’,
bit_rate_mode = ‘DEFAULT’,
hrd_maintain = ‘HRD_MODEL_ENABLED’,
performance = 15,
– muxer settings
file_format = “MCPROFILE_AVCHD”,
stream_compatibility = “DEFAULT”,
},
audio = {
transfer_format = “16LE”,
audio_profile = “MCPROFILE_AVCHD”,
}
}
}
If you change
– frame_rate = 30000 / 1001,
to
frame_rate = 1/25,
It may work as a new preset if you also change the title and internalName.
It looks like it AVCHD though.
It worked but it is still coming out at 29.97fps, even after I changed the frame rate.
Did you definitely remove the — from in front of frame rate?
That comments out the line otherwise.
Yes that was removed. For some reason, I couldn’t save the new 1080 file so it would show up in Lightroom in the Video Preset drop down box. Even tried saving as Unix Format/ Win Format/ ANSI/ UTF8 and all the combinations.
720P TL works at 25fps.
Also the LR3Beta download version seems only to be NTSC format, and I don’t see any settings to change it.
Got it. After trolling through the video codec I found settings that work. I modified the H.264 720ptl file
Changed width to 1920
height to 1080
level to 4.1
video standard to VM_PAL
Video type to H264_HDTV_1080i
Cool. I did add a reply here, but it seems to have been eaten.
Hello
Thank you for your awesome article on timelapse.
Can you tell me how I can export to Apple ProRes 422
Can I rewrite the code?
Thanks
ProRes is not one of the available formats in the Presets. I suspect using it requires a license too. Ultimately it’s an editing codec, rather than a viewing codec.
OK, How about a 1080 version uncompressed.
Can I just rewrite the code, can you tell me where to find it.
Thanks
Hey Sean
Now all I get is a Green screen after full render
in your 720TL setting.
I had success with the first one I did.
Help
You need whatever codec you used in the preset in your playback app. Try VLC or mplayer.
I love it! Timelapse video straight out of Lightroom.
Do you know of a way to ensure that the luminance values of all the photos are the same so that you don’t have a flicker problem in your final video?
You can use ‘Match Total Exposures’ to get the same base exposure.
The real problem is that flickr is caused by the microvariances in aperture per shot. Basically the blades don’t go to the exact same position every shot, meaning there are subtle light differences, that become noticable when in movie form. The only real solution is to use a lens with manual aperture.
Thank you Sean for sharing this video export. I will surely experiment further as soon as I am using LR3.
Would it be possible to write a plugin for LR that “Match ‘Curve’ Exposure” instead of “Match Total Exposure? Any expert interested?
This tool would be great to deflicker night-day-night time-lapse series of photos.
I am currently writing a script in php that reads all the exif data (aperture, shutter speed & iso) of a series of photos shot in aperture priority mode, apply a log curve from when the values start changing progressively and then over-write the values in the image files.
Of course it would be much better to have that tool within LR.
Do you know anyone that can do that?
Hi Paul,
The SDk allows no access to Develop functions. Also as I noted in my previous reply, the flicker is caused by mechanical issues, so reading the EXIF won’t lead to a perfect fix.
Shooting Av can lead to even more flicker, because you can get subtle metering changes from shot to shot.
The only realistic option is to use a deflicker tool on your exported file, or as mentioned, use a manual aperture lens.
TJ, can you post your working 1080p template, please?
Also, if the exported TL is going to be used in FCP, what would be the best format to use for 1080p with the least compression and highest quality as possible?
Sean, what deflicker tool would you suggest working on Mac with FCP?
Hi Sean,
Very nice work. I was able to use your first template to process my first timelapse video, but I am having trouble with h.264 template. I am getting the following message:
Invalid settings, h264OutVideoChkSettings failed.
error: C056:H.264 Validation Error: Illegal bit rate, frame rate and CPB size combination. CPB should be able to hold at least 1 frames (331776000 bits).
error: C001:H.264 Validation Check: 1 error(s) found.
Have you installed any specific codec, or is it comes with LR? I am using Vista not Mac.
Thanks.
You need to use the new ones over on Lightroom-Blog.com
http://lightroom-blog.com/presetsmain#timelapse
Thanks Sean. It works great. I will probably sit down and modify them for 25fps PAL format.
Hi Sean,
I just saw this great post, it work great for 720 24p, but I do my final editing in Final Cut Pro, is posible to ask you for a template that permit to get this in 1080-24p in mov format uncompresed or not to much?
Or just 1080-24p what ever you can.
Please.?
Thanks
Hello Sean
Quoting your words above
“The Slideshow Preset goes in the User Templates folder in Slideshow Templates, while the video preset goes into the User Presets inside the VIdeo Presets folders. Now the Video Presets folder may not be there, so you may need to create it, and a User Presets folder within it.”
I have managed to put “SS 24fps Timelapse.lrtemplate” into Slideshow templates OK and it can be seen in the Template Browser. But I did not have a “Video Presets” folder, so I created one as suggested with a sub folder (User Presets)in which I put the “Video 24fps 720p Timelapse.lrtemplate” file. However I don’t know where to to put the Video Presets folder?
I have tried a few places ie, Lightroom, and Slideshow Templates, but these don’t seem correct as when I look to export, I have a choise of either Export JPEG or EXPORT PDF. Please advise me where to put the Video Presets folder I created.
Thank you.
Video Presets go inside the Lightroom Presets folder.
This only works with Lightroom 3, which has video export also.
I’m using LR 2.7. That being the case then, time lapse is just not going to work?
Correct. Video export is a Lightroom 3 feature.