Anyone here ever play with stopmotion?

[shardian]

I was at the Clay Center (Like co-sci, and other hands on learning museums) this past weekend, and one of their hands on "toys" was a stop motion lesson. It was a full setup in which you could make a stop motion video with legos.
Me and the wife had a frikkin blast doing that! I found that there are several neat software packages available that let you hook your video camera up to the computer and make your own stop motion stuff. They make it so easy a 3 year old can use it. Anyone else ever try it, or have your little ones play with it?

BTW, I'll upload a video I took showing our creation in a bit. I think you all might get a kick out of it.

[ChadTower]

I messed around with it in college back in '97.  I imagine it is a LOT easier now with digital cameras and software that helps out. 

[shardian]

I messed around with it in college back in '97.  I imagine it is a LOT easier now with digital cameras and software that helps out. 

I figured it would use digital cameras also. Actually, the software does not work well with digital cameras. If you hook up your camcorder thru the dvi port, you have a direct digital link to the camcorder to grab from. You just hit the space bar to click a frame.

[ChadTower]

That does sound about a billion times more efficient.  We used VHS and capture software.  Took forever to do a few seconds of end video even before you cleaned it up.

[RayB]

I think Lego had a product to make movies, out a few years ago.

[somunny]

In the early eighties, my friend and I made quite a few stop-motion "movies" with Legos, Star Wars figures and clay.  We used an 8 mm camera my Dad had.

Man, I wish I still had that film.

[shardian]

This vid is all sorts of awesomeness! I want to do this sort of thing.
http://www.break.com/index/stop_motion_lego_counter_strike.html

[patrickl]

I took pictures every 15 minutes while I was building a shed. Made a movie from all the pictures. Does that count?

[shardian]

I took pictures every 15 minutes while I was building a shed. Made a movie from all the pictures. Does that count?

That would be time-lapse.

[BradC]

If you hook up your camcorder thru the dvi port

I assume you mean Firewire. Do you have the name(s) of any of these applications? I have always thought this would be fun.

[shardian]

Yeah, firewire. I thought the names were interchangeable?

Anyways,
Stopmotion pro is the best pc based software.

If you have a Mac, you can get istopmotion. They are Mac snobs and will only release for Mac.

[SithMaster]

i thought dvi was different than firewire.

anyway so shardian are you going to make a video for us?  i can envision some great robot chicken like videos being made by the byoac.

[dstone]

My sister's done quite a bit with stop motion, clay figures, etc. I set her up with an old video camera, a USB capture device, and some freeware called Stop Motion Animator (SMA). It's available here: http://www.clayanimator.com/english/stop_motion_animator.html
Great stuff, it even does onion skinning so you can see your changes from the previous frames.

I'll try to find some of her stuff to post.

(BTW, DVI is Digital Visual Interface, it's primarily used for video output. I've not seen any DVI capture devices. Firewire seems to be the standard for high speed I/O, for external hard drives, digital cameras/camcorders and such)

[ChadTower]

Yeah, firewire. I thought the names were interchangeable?

They are physically different.

[shardian]

Yeah, firewire. I thought the names were interchangeable?

They are physically different.

Oh yeah! Duh!

[shardian]

Here is the video I shot while there.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmAZg8brjGY[/youtube]

Consider the cleavage shot a bonus.

[boykster]

not available?

Oh, and HDMI and DVI are interchangeable (well mostly) but physically different.  A simple adapter works, but firewire, yeah, different thingie

[ChadTower]

Holy crap now we know you're from West Virginia.   

[protokatie]

Back when I was a teenager, I used my Amiga 1200 and the VIDIAMIGA12 and or DCTV to capture images from my camcorder for stop motion stuff. Its fun for awhile, but I lost interest after about 6 months or so. It really is a tedious hobby, but is neat when it comes together.

[ark_ader]

Back when I was a teenager, I used my Amiga 1200 and the VIDIAMIGA12 and or DCTV to capture images from my camcorder for stop motion stuff. Its fun for awhile, but I lost interest after about 6 months or so. It really is a tedious hobby, but is neat when it comes together.

When I was growing up our entire family were photographers.  My Dad had a shop, so I would be able to get free film and developing for my Super 8mm.  We played around with stop motion, mainly for titling, I made rudimentary starwars effects by scratching the film with a fine needle to make the lasers look real.

Now I can use Premiere and rotoscoping to make lightsabres.   

Its crazy to think of the time it took to make these films come alive. 

Unfortunately we lost the entire family stock of film in an incident. 

I'm making up for it gradually.

[shardian]

Holy crap now we know you're from West Virginia.   

  I hate hearing myself on tape. I swear it doesn't sound that way to me when it comes out.

[ChadTower]

You're right about that being so much easier - it would have taken us a week to get that when we were doing it.