Position:Home>Visual Arts> Stop Animation tips/tutorial?

Don't use iMovie to actually shoot or compile your animation together!. You should use a program specifically designed for stop-motion animation purposes to actually compile your movie, then edit your larger clips afterwards in a video editing program like iMovie!. An animation program will make it easier to arrange, re-arrange, add and delete single frames!. Typically, playing around with multiple single frames is kind of difficult and bothersome in video editors since they weren't designed with frame by frame animation as a primary function in mind!.

Some of the better commercial 2D animation programs such as Digicel Flipbook, Toon Boom, TVPaint, TAB, and PAP, have Student or Express versions that are fairly inexpensive!. However, you might be disappointed by how crippled these stripped down programs are compared to their more expensive Pro versions!. But if you look hard enough you should be able to find them cracked online (rapidshare, bittorrent)!. There are some free alternatives!.

If you're doing old school drawn on paper frame by frame stuff or stop-motion or 2D, I'd suggest MonkeyJam!. It's free!.

http://www!.giantscreamingrobotmonkeys!.co!.!.!.


If you're on a Mac, use Pencil(there's PC and Linux versions as well)!.

http://www!.les-stooges!.org/pascal/pencil!.!.!.

Any of the programs listed above would be able to import drawings that are on your computer that were scanned with a scanner!. However, scanners are usually only used once the animation has been finessed and finalized, since the process of scanning your drawings is supremely slow!. For pencil tests, Using a webcam or camcorder that is hooked up to your computer and pencil test software to capture frames, preview the animation quickly, and easily make changes is the quickest solution for line testing your animation!.

If your videos are only ever going to be up on the web, you can create movies with a frame rate as low as 12 frames per second!. However, if you want your videos to be able to be put on DVD and/or played on TV, then you'll need to work at a frame rate of at least 24 fps!. The frame rate of video is closer to 30 fps, but you can apply a 3:2 pulldown to a 24fps project in iMovie when exporting your final film!. This saves you the trouble of having to animate those extra 6 frames a second!.

When working at a frame rate of 24fps, you can reduce your amount of work by working on two's, meaning making sure each drawing is onscreen for two frames!. (12 drawings X 2 = 24 frames!.)

Here are some online resources about the basic principles of animation!.

http://www!.idleworm!.com/how/index!.shtml
http://www!.awn!.com/tooninstitute/lessonp!.!.!.
http://www!.animationarchive!.org/2006/05/!.!.!.
http://www!.animationarchive!.org/2006/05/!.!.!.
http://www!.karmatoons!.com/drawing/1a!.htm
http://www!.animationarena!.com/principles!.!.!.
http://w ww!.animationmeat!.com/notes/notes!.htmlWww@QuestionHome@Com

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