View Full Version : Stop Motion


Matthew Roddy
January 1st, 2009, 11:20 PM
I just did a 5 second test of a simple item rotating. I put the item on a tripod and took a still, rotated the tripod a smidg and then snapped another pic, etc. The speed of the anim looks fine. I wouldn't need it to move any faster or slower, but BOY does it look like stop motion (very jittery).
Assembled from a JPEG Sequence in AE CS3 at both 720/24p as well as 720/29.97i.

Are there any sites that talk about stop motion or where might I find advice regarding stop motion with a DSLR?

Thanks very!

Toenis Liivamaegi
January 2nd, 2009, 06:13 AM
Add in some motion blur, AE shoud be able to do that. Frame blending of some sort would help too. Else just shoot more frames of the rotation.

T

Adrian Frearson
January 2nd, 2009, 12:23 PM
Matthew

You could always try experimenting with longer exposure times, this might help smooth some of the motion and make it less jittery.
StopMotionAnimation.com (http://stopmotionanimation.com) is a pretty good resource for all things stop frame.

Adrian

Matthew Roddy
January 2nd, 2009, 02:09 PM
Thanks very much to you both.
My interlaced project was a lot smoother than the 24p project. I also noticed - and let this be a Matthew-learned-lesson to there would-be animators out there - that part of my jitter was me stepping on the carpet near my tripod when I shuttered the camera. There was just enough cush in the carpet that it moved the tripod, making each frame a little different.
Nasty stuff on the brain.

So, lessons learned:
Use Interlacing
Apply Motion Blur Where Necessary
STAY AWAY FROM THE DOGGON CAMERA WHEN RELEASING THE SHUTTER
(Same thing when moving the object)
Seems like no-brainers in hindsight, but hey... I'm a slow learner.

That web site looks awesome! A definite bookmark! Thanks!

Evan Donn
January 2nd, 2009, 07:11 PM
STAY AWAY FROM THE DOGGON CAMERA WHEN RELEASING THE SHUTTER


Best bet is to use a remote, or run remote control from a computer. Boinx Software - iStopMotion 2 (http://www.boinx.com/istopmotion/overview/) is also great tool for this type of thing, a lot more features specific to stop motion than canon's remote utilities, although it gets pricy for the full-res option.

Matthew Roddy
January 3rd, 2009, 12:29 AM
Thanks, Evan. You're absolutely right. Fortunately, I remembered that from my Super8 daze. I had a wired remote, but I still had to step within a foot or two and that was enough to push the carpet.