Dave Presents
Little known fact: I'm an award-winning animator. Really! I won second place for animation at the FAME Jim Harbin Media Festival. I did a stop-motion short movie with Lego castle system figs back in junior high. I've also mucked about a bit with using webcams to animate. So when we interviewed Living Legend Ray Harryhausen, I wanted to get back into this. What better way then by show you how to do it yourself! Just a quick word of warning. This is not how to be Nightmare Before Christmas. This is a good way to kill a half an hour or more while playing with toys.
So in this first part, I'll go over the hardware that you'll need:
You need an action figure. For the demonstration I've chosen my Mobile Suit In Action!! series MS-14C Gelgoog Cannon. I like working with Mobile Suit Gundam figs for this sort of thing. They've got joints that are easy to move, but generally hold their postion. They've got a good amount of articulation, but not so much that you can get lost. If you don't want to use an MS, try to use something well-balanced and about 4 to 6 inches in height. You can use toys with lousy articulation, such as the old Star Wars toys, but you'll be best served having at joints at the neck, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees, and feet.
You need a webcam. I got a cheap one at Target. This one goes up to 640x480, and that's more than enough.
You need a stand to put the webcam on, so it can be raised up to eye level with the toy. My webcam has a clip designed to attach to a laptop screen, so I clip it onto a CD spindle. If yours just stands, throw it on some CD jewel cases.
So there's your hardware. This is an open-ended article, so I'll update it randomly, sometimes with new stuff by me, sometimes with more instruction. as I muck about with my stuff.
Well, it'll be a bit `till you get more instruction, so in the meantime, behold some videos!
And no, you're not tripping. These were my experiments with using some of the transition effects from JASC Animation Shop to smooth out the movement. I'm still working on it.