Build Movies - How do you do it?

[sreinmann]

I was complimenting Spacerunner the other day about the volume of pictures he's taken while documenting his build and I commented that they'd make a nice movie when stitched together. Upon reflection I took that as a personal challenge. So during my current build of Ton's Voyager, I've been taking pictures of my progress. A kind of a step-by-step assembly. I'm using my iphone and showing the parts laid out on my cutting board as I go. That process is cumbersome and I have no idea how it will actually look once stitched together ... probably pretty disjointed.

Have any of you ever done this? There are lots of youtube videos in this style - the assembly of a thing (I haven't seen any paper models though). Either sped up video or stop motion. If you've done it, what's your setup? Tripod or desk mount? I can't imagine a straight video being very attractive since I fumble around the assembly so much. But maybe you have an opinion that might help me.

[SCEtoAUX]

Here is a stop motion video I did of an articulated hand paper model I built many years ago.

The animation is of the hand in motion, not being built, but it will give you an idea of what can be done.

As I recall I used a tripod to mount the camera and took many pictures, manipulating the joints in the fingers and wrist after each shot.

You need to make sure the camera is in the same spot each time and the object you are trying to animate is in the same position relative to the camera. As you can see in the video even slight differences in the relative positions of the camera and placement of the object after it is manipulated can cause a jumpy looking animation. That probably is not as important if you want to show a bunch of parts going together to make a complete model.

I used AnimationShop 3.11 which is, or was, part of the Jasc PaintShop Pro stable to string the individual frames together to get the animation.

[akula06]

I can't speak for the current version of Quicktime, but with Quicktime 7 Pro I once made a cool timelapse using frames from a webcam in the Panama Canal -- it refreshed every 3 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dSQ...ature=youtu.be

Yes, I was bored at work haha.

[airdave]

I use Windows Movie Maker.
Its got a lot of cool features and its free.
The transitions between clips or images is extra cool.
With one click you can apply fades, dissolves, rollouts, etc to the entire movie.
Anyway, thats what I use.

[mbauer]

Many years ago I did a build thread of a stomp rocket. Used a digital camera that had the capability to do short 1-minute videos. Used a small tri-pod for support, started video and then worked on the model real quick.

Uploaded some of them to youtube and then linked the whole build thread to here: Youtube Saturn 1B Build Thread

No Sound and kind of old fashioned.

Might try it again in the future with my camcorder.

Mike

[Figuer]

Offtopic:
Are there a free template of that articulated hand?
I saw another poseable hand in deviantArt but it is not so good.

[michael dazzo]

have you tried thewaybackmachine yet?