Cheap Software Tools Give New Life To Stop-Motion Animation 111
An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times reports that a wide variety of new stop motion animation tools are making it simpler to create stop-motion movies. The new tools are helping animators run more than three times faster than they did just a few years ago. Some even say that stop motion is cheaper than computer generated animation. Tools like Dragon Stop Motion, Stop Motion Pro and iKitMovie are just a few of the tools that are reinvigorating the space."
Finally (Score:3, Funny)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd0nQE_nw20 [youtube.com]
which has over 6000 shots, and used a combination of webcam shots, digital camera shots and a live action camera.
I will like to venture the opinion that the software for stop motion animation is generally terrible.
I tried out a bunch of software and almost all of them were either :
- Too expensive
- Crashed too often
- Difficult to use
- Had practically no features
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Um...Klay World anybody? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvqjJzuaNSE [youtube.com]
That's the type of stuff young animators want to make, and it is way too hard for a hobby budget. The biggest problem I have with the kids stuff is matching the frames. It's not like we're building rigging and steady cams here. It would be nice if a program let you put some small object just out of frame and match it for size, position, tilt, zoom, etc as well as color and light balance between all the frames. That alone would make things
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Plenty of smartphone apps too (Score:4, Interesting)
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Slightly off-topic, but I'd like an iPhone app to do time-lapse of my kids as they grow up. Does anyone know of one?
I've already been playing around with some stop-motion apps (iMotion and StopMotion Record), and they'll certainly do it. But I'd prefer something with really good correction for lighting and placement, and with a workflow optimized for taking a single photo per app launch.
If not I'll write my own and race you to the app store ;-}
Uhhh... Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Some even say that stop motion is cheaper than computer generated animation
Well yes - that's why when computers were invented we didn't instantly switch to CGI for our movies, it took time to come around - Stop motion has ALWAYS been cheaper.
The problem is: It doesn't look as nice.
Cut out the director's and actors' Salaries from the movies, and guess which one had a higher budget: Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer or Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones.
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I wonder how much he was paid for 'Thriller'?
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And 15 seconds of audio does not take just 15 seconds of time. They couldn't just call up Price on the phone and ask "Hey, can you take a minute to say this line a few times, and let us record it?" Even for just a sample of his voice, you are talking about an hour in a studio, but that requires a day of traveling on both sides of the event, probably a day or two stay before the studio to recover from flying (my voice sounds like crap after a flight, dry air or something.). Figure in the take of the lawyer a
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I never said there wasn't - I'm saying that when you cut out those prices, the rest of the movie production can essentially be considered what goes into CG and Stop Motion - as a Director is uniform across both platforms, as with actors (and voice actors) - but everything else is pretty different. Thats why when you cut out the salaries of the people in both types, you get whats left: whats involved with JUST stop motion, and whats involved with JUST CGI, and you can compare the dollars.
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Rudolph 2: Revenge of the Abominable Snowmen
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Didn't Robot Chicken show a preview of that? A coked-out Abominable Snowman?
The kid's Rudolph (Score:4, Interesting)
The real question is what could "Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer" have looked like if it had the time, modern benefits and budget you mentioned. Not to say it'd look as nice, but I'm sure it'd be better (assuming they don't stay with the kiddie looking format
The "look" persists because Rudolph" has always been a story for kids.
"Rudolph" began as a 1939 coloring book distributed freely to children by Montgomery Ward. Gene Autry recorded the Johnny Marks song in 1949. The Rankin/Bass special for NBC was broadcast in 1964.
Rudolph is my noble steed... (Score:2)
"Rudolph" began as a 1939 coloring book distributed freely to children by Montgomery Ward.
Right. It was Robert L. May who actually created the character, while working at Montgomery Ward.
(forget the iBankers, the College on the Hill does turn out some very creative types... :-)
Apples & apples (Score:4, Informative)
Better CGI-to-stopmotion comparison is SW2 with Corpse Bride, with budgets of $115M vs. $40M respectively, which lines up pretty well accounting for subtracting non-animation costs, and considering they were made only 3 years apart and done within the same general Hollywood system.
Even better would be pure-animation Robots vs. Corpse Bride, made same year with $75M vs. $40M budgets.
Re:Apples & apples (Score:4, Insightful)
...and how many of us know people who thought Corpse Bride had to be CGI?
(I also knew some thinking the same thing about Sony Bravia San Francisco bouncy balls commercial; and refusing to accept otherwise until linked to "making of")
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...and how many of us know people who thought Corpse Bride had to be CGI?
I always thought "Coraline" had a real CG look to it.
Of course, there's a reason for that: they designed the facial animations on a computer, and used the CG version of the faces to 3-d print a large number of interpolated expressions.
Corpse Bride took a different approach: mechanical heads with rubber coverings. Kind of a complicated approach, and personally I thought the faces wound up looking kind of stiff...
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Even better would be pure-animation Robots vs. Corpse Bride, made same year with $75M vs. $40M budgets.
Robots:
Run time 91 minutes
Corpse Bride:
Run time 77 minutes
55 week shoot.
Corpse Bride was the first stop-motion feature to be edited in Apple's Final Cut Pro.
The puppets used neither of the industry standards of replaceable heads (like those used on The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)) or replaceable mouths (like those used by Aardman Studios in Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Whoever Wins - We Lose (Score:5, Funny)
Robots vs. Corpse Bride
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And then there's Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus [imdb.com].
Off subject.... (Score:2)
> "Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?"
Yes, but you'd get a "All comments below your viewing level" condition.
Re:Uhhh... Yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
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"Go motion" (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_motion
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It's possible to simulate motion blur by moving the models while photographing each frame
It's trivial to simulate realistically in digital images with simple algorithms. I don't see how it's an issue.
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IOW, using CGI....
Then it's a hybrid of stop motion and computer animation that goes beyond things like simple color correction and aligning misaligned frames.
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IOW, using CGI....
Only under the broadest definitions of "CGI." The imagery is not so much generated by the computer, but interpolated by it. Is a photograph from a digital camera "CGI" because it is processed and interpolated digitally?
Then it's a hybrid of stop motion and computer animation that goes beyond things like simple color correction and aligning misaligned frames.
Under your strict sensibilities, how is digital color correction or alignment not CGI? Interpolated motion blur is basically just color correction for motion rather than hue.
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I guess it's just a lot more intensive, including tracking motion and doing many of the same calculations for motion blur that it would do with computer animation.
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Stop motion will die out completely in a decade.
You think?
I would have thought so, but it seems stop motion is seeing a bit of a renaissance in the years since "Nightmare Before Christmas". Technology has been streamlining the process of animating physical models: from digital capture with live preview to computer-aided manufacture to assist with production of models (for instance, the faces of the Coraline puppets) - and a wealth of software to help with planning the animation and cleaning it up after it's shot.
The question of whether stop motion will
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That's like predicting that people will stop painting because we have applications like Painter.
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Yeah. Who'd bother drawing a picture when you can just take a photo?
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Yeah, but which one had better *acting*???
Gotta give *that* one to Rudy....
Re:Uhhh... Yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
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I love cg but tell me why do 99% of 'photo-realistic' models have the 1000 mile stare? never mind conveying any emotion. It seems only the simpler models (e.g. toy story) can convey emotion. Yes there are some examples, but they are still so few and far between.
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Bukimi no Tani Gensh, aka The Uncanny Valley [wikipedia.org]
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I love cg but tell me why do 99% of 'photo-realistic' models have the 1000 mile stare?
Because good CG is VERY HARD. 'Average', 'good enough' CG is something that you can learn by reading online tutorials and playing with blender. Good CG is very hard, and requires a lot of work both on the creation and animation of CG models, but on all aspects of cinematography.
It's no good spending weeks on a high-poly model of a robot, building a motion capture rig and compensating for the increased inertia by lowering the speed, and developing a new particle rendering system for realistic smoke and dust
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Attack of the Clones wasn't stop motion??? (Score:2)
Some even say that stop motion is cheaper than computer generated animation
Cut out the director's and actors' Salaries from the movies, and guess which one had a higher budget: Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer or Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones.
I'm confused. I thought Attack of the Clones was stop motion.
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Some even say that stop motion is cheaper than computer generated animation
Cut out the director's and actors' Salaries from the movies, and guess which one had a higher budget: Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer or Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones.
I'm confused. I thought Attack of the Clones was stop motion.
It was. It stopped the motion of my hand reaching for my wallet to buy tickets.
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Not necessarily the best comparison.
Yes, the Star Wars prequels had a tonne of CGI, but a very large amount of scenery, sets, etc were built or sculpted as models, photographed and composited into the scene. Most (not all) of the space stuff is obviously CGI, but most of the rest was practical elements, even if the actors were shot on greenscreen.
As an aside, both lead Mythbusters and 2/3 of the build team worked on practical effects for the prequels.
How can it be cheaper? (Score:2)
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What is a computer going to do, move the model for you? Snap the frame for you?
Um, yes. That's the idea behind setting keyframes: you only specify where things are at certain points, and the computer interpolates for you.
It also means that if you messed up a shot in some way you don't have to go all the way back and reshoot: you can just fix it and rerender.
It also means that you don't have to build physical models or buy a camera.
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Re-render? Do you even know what stop motion is?
Yes; I'm just dumb and badly misread my original parent (i.e. interpreted it as "how could CGI be cheaper than stop motion" in response to the summary's "Some even say that stop motion is cheaper than computer generated animation").
Ignore/mod down my post; false alarm.
Go motion (Score:2)
Re-render? Do you even know what stop motion is?
Yes, and I know that ILM developed a robotic variant of stop-motion [wikipedia.org] that allows the counterpart to CGI re-renders.
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it works good for things like spaceships that don't actually change much, and because it uses master-painted models and practical lighting allows really complex shots. But not so well for many moving things... like a bunch of dancing monsters.. you're still back to moving each one by hand.
Re:How can it be cheaper? (Score:5, Funny)
Speaking as someone who's heard of Ray Harryhausen, that's not stop-motion. That's some kind of half-assed CGI mashup.
Now get, in a slightly jerky fashion, off my lawn.
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Keyframes, interpolation, rerendering, not building physical models - what you are describing is not stop-motion animation.
Keyframes + physical models (Score:3, Interesting)
Keyframes, interpolation, rerendering, not building physical models - what you are describing is not stop-motion animation.
Take out the "not building physical models" part and you have go motion animation. The animator sets the keyframes, and then a robot moves the models.
Re:How can it be cheaper? (Score:4, Informative)
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That part of the process -- synchronizing the shots -- was what made it difficult for amateurs to make a good movie.
I think that goes a little too far.
It will never be easy to bridge the gap between your basement production of Lego Star Wars and the sophisticated puppetry of Corpse Bride and Coraline.
For the character of Coraline, there were 28 different puppets of varying sizes; the main Coraline puppet stands 9.5 inches high.
At one point in the movie, Coraline shows 16 different expressions in a span of
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How do you plan on composing all your snaps into a film ready format?
Thats what the computer does. (Which is entirely what they're talking about)
Interpolation (Score:2)
How can it be cheaper to do stop motion on a computer? Without a computer it is a process of move the model, snap a frame. What is a computer going to do, move the model for you? Snap the frame for you?
In addition to the features cited by MeanMF from TFA, would interpolation be feasible? Ya know, so the animator doesn't have to make such minuscule changes.
What is the matrix? (Score:2)
Might require, in many cases, an ability of setting up in software at least some rough "understanding" of how the model moves.
But it wouldn't be that much harder than the interpolation seen in the BULLET TIME® effect shots [wikipedia.org] in a decade-old action film called The Matrix.
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But isn't it hard enough to not really be used in amateur / indy productions? All I've seen looked rather rough...
Perhaps even a slightly simpler problem - whole scene shifts / nice smooth arc of cameras / etc.
(yeah, the ease of clicking "post anonymously" in new /. discussion system, above)
Toonloop (Score:1, Informative)
Free python software: Toonloop [pygame.org].
Plug: iStopMotion (Score:5, Informative)
iStopMotion is mentioned in the article, barely (Score:2)
And it is a great entry-level stop-motion program (from another long-time customer).
Lego stop motion (Score:5, Interesting)
He uses 25 pictures per second of film. It is a hobby of his and he spent two years making it. Every evening during the week and the complete day on weekends. In my opinion it nearly looks as good as rendered.
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That's not shot at 25fps
And hardware... (Score:2)
It seems we are so used to inexpensive (but of very good quality) digicams that TFS doesn't even mention how connecting them to a PC running said software is what ultimately enabled this renaissance?
And since this is /. - what about OSS tools? (I was thinking about something basic to display neighboring frames via transparent overlay, useful for one pet project I keep postponing; but something tells me some tools are out there already)
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And since this is /. - what about OSS tools?
http://developer.skolelinux.no/info/studentgrupper/2005-hig-stopmotion/ [skolelinux.no]
Available from a ubuntu/debian/etc repository near you.
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I've been doing the odd stop motion stuff for years w/ webcams, linux, and hte mjpeg tools from Berkeley. Things like an empty conference hall being set up for a large education conference, building construction, etc. Set up a cam on a tripod or other fixed mount, take one pic every minute or 3, save w/ sequential file names. Slam 'em all together at the end using the mjpeg tools.
My New show (Score:2)
I will either name it:
Cyborg Swan
or
Android Duck
Any ideas?
Made a stop-motion movie with my kids (Score:4, Interesting)
One boring Saturday, my kids and I made a couple of stop motion movies using their toys, our crappy point and shoot camera, and iMovie. We put the camera on a tripod and moved the toys around in front of it (it was a chase scene). Take a picture, move the toys a bit, take another picture, etc... After taking hundreds of pictures, we had iMovie make a slide show with them, showing each picture for 1/10 second (at the time, that was as fast as iMovie would go), then burned it to a DVD. The movies were only a minute or so long, but it was fun and easy.
For time-lapses (Score:2)
http://www.ecogito.net/anil/2010/09/howto-create-a-time-lapse-movie-from-a-sequence-of-images/ [ecogito.net]
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Then he'll read the fine print above, find out who you are and also punish you.
SCIENCE!
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Meh. Seems like google does not index anonymous coward entries anyway. It's not a ploy, I'm just a random dude who did his homework (10 minutes effort for me) in order to get some + karma on DarkWarez, but he did not + me, so I sure as hell am not going to let him cheat for free.
next obvious question... (Score:1)
Can anybody recommend some FOSS or at least free-as-in-beer equivalents?
The Caliris (Score:2, Insightful)
I know something of Jamie and Dyami, the brothers behind Dragon Stop Motion. Jamie and I were introduced by our sons on a bike ride in 2004.
Jamie has a long history of directing award-winning stop-motion animation, from music videos to Super Bowl ads. On top of his visual aesthetic skills, he has a long history of craftsmanship (builds his own camera motion systems, creates beautiful stereo-optical systems of glass, wood, and brass). I think the artistry runs in the family.
By the time he started working on
Stop Motion tools for Time Lapse? (Score:2)
The process of producing stop motion video is very similar to producing time lapse, which I have much more interest in. I wonder if these tools would work well for time lapse as well ...
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The process of producing stop motion video is very similar to producing time lapse, which I have much more interest in
Not really. All you need for time-lapse is an intervalometer (timer) whether an external unit, or one built into your camera; and some way of stitching the shots together into a movie (video editing application).
The tools are common and easily accessible, and in little need of improvement. You just need to go out and do it.
Toonloop is a free software for stop-motion and + (Score:1, Informative)
Hello,
You should try Toonloop, it's a free software I wrote with the help of other talented developers such as Tristan Matthews. I currently works on GNU/Linux, but should be easily ported to other platforms as well. The main difference between Toonloop the software you list is that Toonloop constantly displays the resulting animation is a constant loop.
Find out more at http://toonloop.com/
Best regards,
Alexandre Quessy
http://alexandre.quessy.net/
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I am interested in stop-motion animation and committed to doing the animation work on Linux... I look forward to trying your software!
(...There's a way to get a DV camera to appear as a V4L2 device, right?)
About the software (Score:1)
iAmNotAMacApp (Score:1)
free software alternatives (Score:2)
Perhaps not unexpectedly TFA doesn't mention licencing of the software but there are several free software stop motion applications [sourceforge.net] available. I've not tried them all but I've posted that link here if people are interested.
You can see it too.... (Score:1)
You can see it too, when you look at how crappy some of the cartoons being pushed out for tvshows on Teletoon, and such....quicker garbage spewed out, is still garbage. ..it just means you pay less for it as a tv station.
I can not see any real difference in the kids attention span from the old shows from hanna barbara,
you still capture the kids imagination, so how come we need to push so hard for an industry that is really never changing.
The bucks saved by the big cos never really end up seeing the employee
Maybe this will help realize one of my dreams... (Score:1)
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"IT'S A TRAP"
They both have their naughty bits molded into permanent undershorts... They can only "bump" the bits.