What program should I use to animate my stop motion?

[Zakodia]

I'm working on a stop motion animation which will be about 5 minutes long using a digital camera with a set, characters are made from plasticine. Can anyone give me advice on what program I should use to compile the image into an animation?

I made a small stop motion before which was only around 15 seconds long and was able to take all my images off my digital camera and have them uploaded onto the program and made into one single animation to save but I can't remember the name of the program I used. This is part of a college project so I would be very grateful for fast suggestions what to use.

Thanks!

[Zakodia]

* Also I want to edit some of the photos in photoshop for lip syncing and also put in background music, sound effects and the character's voices so i'm imagining I should use some type of video editor for this? I'm looking at having 10-12 fps.

[Razorleaf]

The first one that comes to mind is ImageReady. It is a lot of work but it will allow you to capture each picture numbered chronologically and put them into an animated .mov or .avi for you.

When you mentioned stop animation with plasticine characters I immediately thought of Gumbie but I suppose thats to old for you hahaha. Anyway, I'd love to see it when your done so I hope you post it. Good luck! :)

[vayne108]

There are two programs that pop into my head which are ether adobe after effects, istop and heck even photoshop. If you going to use after effects,

#1. go to the file - import file

#2. A dialog box should appear and if you highlight (make sure you label all the files with the same name and in the oder that you want it to import, for example cat #1, cat #2, etc ). All the files in the corner of the dialog box there should be a little check mark box that asks if you want to import a psd sequence ( this depends on your file type, it takes jpeg, gif, png, tiff, and psd)

#3. another diabox should appear, depending what file type you use the box will differ (since I used psds it is asking if I want my layers maged) but essintentally it is asking you if you want all the files composed into footage and then click ok.

If you are going to use photoshop:

#1. Highlight and and select all the files you want.

#2. Organize all the files into one psd and layers.

#3. Go to window and open the animation window.

#4. the way the animation window is setup you can adjust how many frames you want that image on screen. Like as if you were shooting with an actuarial lunchbox sync.

#5. Once you have organized your layers and set your frames in the animation window you have to go to - file- export- render video.

#6. An dialog box opens and here is where you set your videos render settings and what the file should be exported too a quick time or etc..

#7 There you go images to video !!!!

I hope this helps you and that I wasn't to vague on the steps. (steps go in oder of the images)

I hope you get your project finished !!!!!!!!!!!!

[Razorleaf]

If you use Photoshop there is a much easier way .....

1. Prepare your photo images in sequence starting with 001 in a separate folder
2. Open Photoshop
3. File>Open Click on the first 001 in the folder
4. Then click on Image Sequence at the bottom of the same window>ok
5. Another window will come up asking you for the fps (frames per second) I'd start with 12>ok
6. Then "poof" it comes back to you already in animation sequence (click on Window at the top menu, then click on Animation to get the operating window that will let you stop/go/pause the movie)
7. Then click File>Export>Render to Video to save in a .mov or .avi format
8. You're done!

Good luck! :)

[Zakodia]

Thanks for the advice! Very much appreciated :)

I'll post a link to the animation when I'm finished with it.

[vayne108]

Awesome I can't wait to see it !!!!!!

[Zakodia]

I've finished the animation for my project, as it's only my second stop motion I've tried the frame rates are very sketchy.

The project is making an animation for an issue Greenpeace cover so I looked at how humans have an impact on the world according to their research. The main stop motion animation part is about a polar bear and her cub, the weather gradually gets worse until their ice habitat melts, a news reporter states there will be storms and floods coming and then the city gets flooded which unfortunately didn't work the way I wanted but using 17 tubs of hair gel created an awesome water effect!

Well see what you think, it's been great fun to make and has definitely made me want to learn more about stop motion animation to include in other projects.

http://zakodia.com/animation/
*click Lisa in the link to download the video*