M1: Assignment 1 - Section B; POV

POV is the foundations of animation (or any video), without POV animations would not work, since every animation when outputted is a sequence of images (or pages for animation types such as flip books). There are techniques like Tweening which don’t necessarily use frames (and use calculations), but when outputted and viewed it is still shown on frames.

POV is the theory of which when you view images rapidly in a sequence your mind interprets those images as movement (a video). For your brain to experience POV images need to be changed at 24 fps (frames per second), normally for broadcasting and in general it is outputted as 30fps (due to the 60Hz line frequency).

There is the theory that POV is not real, and instead there is the theory that Beta Movement is to blame for animations working. The subtle difference is that with POV that your brain (retina) remembers the previous image. With Beta Movement the theory is that you do not remember the previous image, but your brain experiences an optic illusion when images are changed.

Although they are both different, and contradict each other, I believe there’s a bit of truth in both. I agree that the retina retains an image a split second, since it is capable of perceiving it for longer, an example of this is a Jesus optical illusion.

But I don’t think Beta Movement is 100% wrong, I do disagree that the retina does remember images for a split second, but the idea that in images your brain can experience optical illusions, especially between to images, isn’t to be drawn out.

Another example of where POV can be seen working is in novelty POV clocks, this proves he existence of POV even more since for it to work your retina would have to remember it (where the LED lights were) to perceive it as a fleeting image (in this example as the time).


This is not just used in novelty clocks though, LEDs or lights moving fast can create the optical illusion of a shape, even though if you were to only see one instance (and not remember to past few fractions of the second) the light/s would only be in one location or blurred stopping you from experiencing POV working.

Although POV can be seen working in some optical illusion, there are many optical illusions that would not come under POV though, and prove Beta Movement partially, ones that prove Beta Movement are ones that have a stronger impact, such as the one below:

Optical illusions like these prove Beta Movement partially due to the sole premise of the theory, if the brain experiences an optical illusion in certain images, the idea of an illusion happening when images are flicking (usually takes 10 a second, but normally is 24-30) is more plausible.

As I have mentioned above, there is merit to both POV and Beta Movement, but if I were to have to choose one theory, the sole theory of POV is one that I believe is entirely accurate, since one of the parts of the Beta Movement theory entirely contradicts POV.


Interesting POV explanation: http://www.autorestore.ucoz.com/f.html