Want to stop-motion animate, do I have a good cam/software setup? Advice?

[Matthew Woods]

No one has talked much about software. It has been awhile since I have done Stop Motion, but AE is not the best software for the actual animating. (Compositing/Rig Removal Yes) To get really fluid animation you want something with onion skin capability, capable of grabbing frames and overlaying them in an onion skinned sequence with your live frame, and playing back quick bursts of them to test your motion.

The software I have used in the past is called DragonFrame: https://www.dragonframe.com.
This was great software, and allowed me to do a rough chroma key on my frames over a background plate (my stop motion was being composited with live footage).

If you have a mac, and are on a budget, you might try boinx stop motion: https://boinx.com/istopmotion/mac/
I have not used it, but it is inexpensive, and has been on my radar.

Both pieces of software have lists of supported and recommended cameras.

Lastly for the budget conscious if you have an iOS device, check out Stop Motion Studio: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stop-motion-studio/id441651297?mt=8
I haven’t done anything professional with it, but it has been great to play around with with my 5 year old son. It has a nice apple watch app for remote shutter on the iPhone, so you don’t bump the camera when taking a picture.

Good luck,
-Matt

Check out my plugins for AE, Premiere, Motion and FCP.

https://monadnock.org/plugins/

[Kell Smith]

Ok I’m back in the thread. Busy week.
Thank you so much everyone for your suggestions and insight. Much appreciated.
I am going to start playing around a bit. Will be pretty rudimentary but I just want to work out the kinks.

For a little Inspiration:

The Breakbot video contained over 2000 watercolor paintings https://motionographer.com/2010/06/21/baby-im-yours-qa/

Making of Mindscape (too much to summarize here but trust me it will blow your mind): https://blog.nfb.ca/blog/2018/07/25/animation-techniques-pinscreen/

Here’s another one I thought I mentioned – an amazing piece of work- Mary and Max:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVdivjF-9nw

Making Of Mary and Max, interview with Adam Elliot. I remember seeing an amazing fact sheet somewhere that listed some of what went into making this – but don’t see it now. Crazy amount of detail went into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUVzPaBANkw&t=623s

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