Keyframe animation - DVX100a quality.

[Cieonatechori Michelieve]

Hello friends,

I have a question regarding the keyframe animation. Would you all like to share how do you go about implementing the keyframe animation within your footage?

I'm going to be working on this particular project in which I need to show some paintings in detail(like exploring different parts of a painting by camera and then editing the footage).

I have this software from imagematics(Still motion creator) which can be used to pan/zoom into a still photograph and create the animation shots of a still image. I want to use this software for the animation shots instead of moving the camera over the paintings. The camera for rest of the shooting is going to be DVX100a.

My question is, at what resolution do I need to scan the images so that the quality of those shots done using the software is equvilant to the image quality of footage from DVX100a?

Here's what this software has to say about resolution -

"StillMotion Creator can create movies on images with resolutions up to 4000 by 4000 pixels. An 8 ½” by 11” photograph scanned at 300 DPI yields a file that is 2,550 by 3,300 pixels. True color and grey scale images may be used together in a movie."

Now you know the resolution this software can use, can anyone please give me idea about what size of photographs to scan at what resolution to get the results that are equvilant to the quality of DVX100a.

Thanks

[Rob Lohman]

What is keyframe animation? I only know keyframes either with
3D applications or 2D applications when animating sections
moving. It has nothing to do with the quality of your DVX100.

Or are you talking about stop motion (animation)? Where you
pose something in front of the camera, take a snapshot and
then slightly change the scene and take another picture and
so on to create an animation in the end?

If that is your goal it should work fine. You can also use a high
quality photo camera for this to get HD movies and/or have
some more choices etc.

[Cieonatechori Michelieve]

Yes, actually I ment stop motion but due to my limited knowledge about it, I refered to it as keyframe animation.

Can you please give me some more details when you say I can use a high quality photo camera for this to get HD movies!!! And what are some more choices I have?

Thanks

[Rob Lohman]

Well that's easy. Keep in mind that stop motion consists of
*individual* frames. Whatever can take an individual frame
will work to create such a movie, from low cost webcams and
camera's in phones all up to 11 MP digital still/photo camera's
and everything inbetween including video camera's.

I can imagine you would want a high quality digital still/photo
camera with manual controls and a tripod mount so you can
mount it rock solid. An external trigger might be handy to have
as well to not change the position of the camera slightly when
you trigger the shutter manually.

Plain DV is 720x480 for NTSC and 720x576 for PAL. My Canon
digital camera is 2 mega pixel and takes images at 1600 x 1200.
That an easily be used for 1280 x 720 HDTV. If you go up in
resolution to 3 mega pixel you will get 2048 x 1536 which can
be used for 1920 x 1080 HDTV.

Ofcourse this will involve more work since you will need to
crop resolution etc. etc., but it can definitely work for stop motion.

Keep in mind that each camera looks different and you need to
keep everything the same (like lighting etc.). Again the more
manual controls (and things like changing lenses would be
great as well) the better since you really want to control the
picture with a photo camera and be able to keep everything
the same from picture to picture.

Lot's of ways. If you have a camera lying around or can loan
one from a friend I would give it a try!

[Cieonatechori Michelieve]

Thanks Rob, this was pretty informative. I'll get this 3MP digital camera from my friend and see how it works...