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Techbrick LEGO Photos: Feb 23, 2007
Friday Night Club Does Stop-Motion Animation of the story of
Jonah
Using LEGO Characters to Do Animation:
2007 Update
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What we Did |
On Friday
night about 40 kids and parents gathered for our Friday night meeting. The activity was doing stop-motion
animation using LEGO characters. We divided the attendees
into three groups to tell the story of Jonah which divides
nicely into three scenes.
Using a basic a home video program, Pinnacle Studio, Amy
put the videos together in about 10 minutes and we all
watched them before heading home. She then went back and
cleaned the up, added some additional effects, and here they
are for your viewing pleasure. |
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How to do it. |
Using any
basic digital camera, you shoot a series of stills that are
combined into a movie. Commercial animation is done at 32
frames per second which is WAY to many for an exercise like
this. Four frames per second should be quite adequate. With
a little experimentation and patience you'll get a feel for
it. Key Points:
- Set the camera to 640x480 or the next higher
resolution. You don't need super hi-res pictures.
- Setup some basic, consistent lighting and watch out
for your own shadow.
- Setup a scene and make sure your elements can be
positioned so they will stay in place.
- You can animate anything.
- Have fun.
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Software |
There are
numerous free programs that will combine your stills into
video, however, the following two products are inexpensive
and full-featured.
- Pinnacle Studio products
- Adobe Elements Series
- This package is typically priced at $150 with
frequent rebates. It provides a very capable video
production suite with a powerful version of
Photoshop as well.
- The main page on Adobe is at this link.
http://www.adobe.com
- You can buy it BestBuy as well.
Click here for info.
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Sample Videos |
Amy
demonstrated two animations she produced earlier.
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| WAX: By Amy
Ciavolino Produced with wax modeling sticks.
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Noah's Ark: by Amy
Ciavolino Created with a combination of wood
blocks and LEGOs using Adobe Photoshop element to
create the water sequences.
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