Objects At Rest

explorations in audio and moving imagery

Category: Video

  • Vitruvius Project Update

    Slowly I am getting back into the Vitruvius project. Most of the puppet filming is done and now begins the task of creating the assets for post-production compositing. The Flash animation below is a test for the various line drawings that are planned for the film.

    The idea is to export animations such as this (running at 24fps) as image sequences for compositing with the stopmotion footage.

    In addition to the line drawing animations, I have been assembling portions of the Latin and Italian texts of Vitruvius and Serlio for the script. Finally, I will be revisiting the audio portions of the project including the music score in early 2008.

  • UPDATE PART 2 – Philips Webcam vs Zigview S2

    Breaking news! Nellybob has posted a complete solution on Stopmotionanimation.com for using the Philips with a DSLR camera. He has addressed the specific issues I had with the webcam and attaching it to the camera and it looks really good. The only issues that remain for me at this are specific PC config problems for the cam. I may be doing a second look at the Philips once I resolve my PC/USB issues. Thank you Nellybob!

    —-ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS—-

    There have been some posts at the stopmotionanimation.com forum about the new Philips SPC900NC webcam. The specs looked good for use as a video assist so I got my hands on one and did some quick tests. Here are some side by side shots of the Philips and the Zigview (click on the pics for the full resolution version which shows the size and quality of what I’m seeing on my monitor in my screen cap software).

    pic

    pic

    The shot is lit with incandescent bulbs, one 60 watt and one 20 watt fill with a desk light on the other side of the room. The Philips pics are darker (to me it looks more natural and similar to what I’m seeing through the Nikon viewfinder) but keep in mind that I did not adjust the image settings very much. I could boost the brightness and contrast on the Philips if needed. The Zigview, as far as I know, doesn’t offer these subtle controls outside of the on screen menus.

    I’ve had white colors blowing out the picture in the Zig when animating so the Philips would work better in those situations. To me they are both about the same quality…blurry…but the Philips costs hundreds less and with the option to go 30fps or greater the picture appears smoother. The Zig has noise in the image like a cloud of mosquitoes compared to the Philips. Also, I have to plug the Zigview up to the electrical outlet since the battery life isn’t long but the Philips is USB powered which means less cords and electricity.

    I used the digital zoom to get the Philips image to fill the screen but the Zigview is running at the default. Considering the zoom and the small size of the viewfinder the Philips is doing a pretty good job. I’ll need to test it some more.

    UPDATE

    I did some testing with the Philips in my animation workflow and ran into some problems.

    • The Philips knocked out my ability to run my external USB sound card
    • The USB capture from my Nikon and the Philips USB didn’t get along well — it slowed my system down to a stop
    • My screen grab software started becoming unresponsive
    • My Zigview runs without any problems and all other systems are unaffected by the Zigview.

    I suspect most of the problems are related more to my system than to the Philips but I’ll be sticking with the Zigview for the time being since I need to finish my animation instead of troubleshooting PC configurations.

  • Death of a Matriarch

    Takuro Masuda, a filmmaker and stopmotion animator in Atlanta, has posted his animation “Death of a Matriarch” on YouTube. The film was made for the Center for Puppetry Arts XPT series.

  • Curtain Test Video: Updated

    Update. I did another test tonight and got the motion smoothed out. This is more of the effect I was aiming to achieve.

    Here is my original post and first test:
    Another test clip. I am finishing the assembly of the stage curtain and wanted to see how it would animate. The answer…not as smooth as I would like. But at least I got to test some lighting, framing, and curtain behaviors to adjust for the real shoot.

  • Armature Test Clip 2

    I did another test tonight. I am thinking that this armature is a bit unstable and has some spring to it compared to a wire armature secured with epoxy putty. I may have to make an epoxy version of the same proportions and try similar tests to confirm which is more stable for movement.

    With this armature, when you move any limbs or the head the torso starts trying to move with it and then springs back. The epoxy armatures for Vitruvius and Damocles felt more solid in that respect.