OK, time to go crul up in bed with a Pepsi and cry now.
I am not happy right now. I don't know if you noticed it or not. I spent the majority of the day working on the TMBG stop mo mentioned in the last post. I have been using Windows Movie Maker. I was in the middle of editing when it stopped working and insisted I get an update before I could continue. Before I could save and continue. Yup...I wasn't allowed to save what I had already done. So I complied. Because with Microsoft there is nothing else you can do. Now I can't use it for stop mo. I have been breaking it down into bits to allow me better control over certain spots. If I do that then try to edit the sections together it jumps. Majorly. Black out for a second, no sound then continues. No options to fix it. that is how I did the Douglas Adams video. So apparently they changed something and now it is useless to me. This made me frustrated, but whatever. I still have my copy of After Effects C4. One reason I don't use it is because I am having a hard time getting consistent and unpixelated results from it. But I still wanted to get the video done, so I tried it. 4 hours and 600 pictures into a 925 pictures set, and I find out I didn't give myself enough time in the timeline. And I can't get it to change. It won't let me add any more. So basically, my whole day has been flushed down the toilet. If my roommate's dog wasn't already upset by the fireworks, I would be screaming at this point. The string of expletives going through my brain at the moment would make a hard core biker dude blush. THIS is why I need an income....so I can afford the real equipment. I need to get a better computer, a camera that can be triggered from the computer, and a full paid version of stop motion software. Well, all those things and a place to live....but shit I am tired of this kind of thing happening. I waste so much time unsuccessfully trying to get things to work. It would also help if I had the money to get someone to teach me how to use these things properly.
OK, time to go crul up in bed with a Pepsi and cry now.
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I have been contemplating my camera problem. Seriously, using an unreliable point n shoot that runs out of battery quickly has to be the least efficient way to make a stop mo. Due to the Canon point n shoots not allowing remote triggering or triggering from a computer, stabilization has been a bitch. Just when I think i have it I look back and see all my videos jumping around. They aren't shakey cam, but they aren't as smooth as I like. I also have problems with consistent color and focus, as it likes to auto focus even when that feature is turned off. So what? Well, I have been thinking. I won the Douglas Adams animation contest sponsored by the Literary Platform. First prize is the new iPad. I have been researching it online, and it looks like the new iPad has a great camera on it. I don't know how much control it has, but the pictures would be better quality than what I get with the point n shoot. It might be easier to stabilize as well. The aperture also goes to f 2.4, where my point n shoot only gets f2.6. And as far as control goes, I wonder if there is an app that would give me that control? Everything I am reading about it touts it's auto features - autofocus, auto face recognition (which totally messes up a shot by focusing on what I don't want to focus on), auto white balance, auto exposure (which is a bitch when I want to overexpose for effect), and autofocus lock. I guess it may be too much to expect SLR control with a cheap built-in device. Most of the time they make those things to be idiot proof. Meaning you don't have to know how to take pictures to get good pictures. Still, I am excited about playing around with it to see what I can get. As I haven't had a working Mac in years, I am excited to check out the app store and see what is available to help me override auto-itis. I wonder if I can get remote trigger as well for it. Hmm.... It may be a week or so before I get the iPad, so I have time to plan and write and build to be ready for it. Also, I hope it comes in black. Edit: OMG! I completely missed the editing and compilation possibilities for this. I wouldn't have to use Windows Movie Maker. Avid has a $5 iPad app that says it is built with the new iPad in mind. Now I am even more excited. It's crap, but it is done. I wish the rendering had gone better. It is really choppy. But the more I played with it the worse it got, so I just rendered it ans submitted it as is. I will play with it more and see if I can get it less choppy, but now you can go vote for it at Eddie Izzard's Youtube Channel. Whew. that was quite the journey, and it was a great learning experience. Several things I learned:
#1. Go through audio in Audacity first, and get your audio bits placements down to the .25 of a second BEFORE shooting the pictures. #2. Have a more specific plan. Know how many frame you need, how many pictures it will take, and over plan. It is easier to take out then to add in later. #3. Make all pictures the same size. that way when you get them into Afer Effects you can resize them all at once and it doesn't look as jumpy cause they aren't all the same. #4. Watch the little things (like set peeling) while you are shooting. You can't fix everything in post, and it is a pain in the ass to do when you don't have professional grade equipment. #5. Don't skip sleep. that was a BAD idea. All last weekend I got maybe 6 hours of sleep. Last night about 6pm I crashed. And slept until 9:30 this morning. Probably contributed to some of the choppiness of the final product. It was a FUN project, and I plan on working more on the One Tiny Thing video this week. I so love doing this. Now I just need to find a way to get paid for it.... :) I finally figured out how to get After Effects to do what I want. Whew. Now that I am on a roll, I am taking a short break then plan to work through the night till I am at least done with the pics I have now. I still have some to take, which will happen tomorrow, then I will finish the movie and put it up on You Tube for the voting. My goal is Monday. I am kind of getting excited now. Ok, I am REALLY getting excited now. This is so FUN! I wish I had the skills to match my ambitions. :P
And as I need to get back to work, I will leave you with one of the pics that amuses me: And in other news, the sky is still blue and the grass is still green. :P
Yeah, I spent the majority of the day yesterday trying to get the damn thing to work. GGRRR. So that is not an option...still. I got a friend's copy of Dragon Stop Mo, which is pretty rad, except you have to be able to capture to your computer, whcih my camera does not allow. I tried to jailbreak it using CHDK, which creates a bootable SD card that will run short scripts and allow your camera to do stuff you normally can't. That didn't help either, as I can't get Dragon to recognize any of my USB ports. So until I win the lotto and have enough money to get real equipment, it's back to the drawing board. I got Windows Live Movie Maker to work....sort of. It is really jerky, no matter how incremental the pictures are. I can't really control how much time there is between each pic. Unless I add an effect, which makes it jerky anyway. So now another friend gave me her old copy of After Effects. I am going to give that a try and see if I can at least get each scene sorted. And it isn't helping that I have been blessed with a huge allergy attack the last few days. Even with my medication I was finding it hard to function yesterday. I chugged Benedryl before bed last night, which at the very least helped me sleep last night. Still feeling it today, but not as itchy. Will report back with results of After Effects Experiment..... |
AuthorEleanor...nerd, musician, stop motion animator, techy, crafty. But not in the crafty crafty way...I just like making things. You can find me on Twitch & Twitter @TeaWeaselStopMO & Tiktok. If you feel like contributing to help me upgrade equipment or pay for building supplies, feel free to click this button. Anything you contribute is appreciated muchly.
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