Claymation Question

MovedbyFilm wrote on 12/4/2007, 2:40 PM

Hello dear Forum,

I am new to the movie making world. For fun I created a claymation movie. Well actually. i took 500 digiatl photos which I want to trun into a movie.

Any tips would be really helpfulI. have the Vegas Movie Studio 8.
I have been able to figure out how to get teh photos into the time frame, but thats about it. I cant figure out how to increase the speed at which it plays through the time, or the speed at which it plays it as a movie.

Your suggestions are really apprecaited.

thx

Comments

Eugenia wrote on 12/4/2007, 3:14 PM

Create a vimeo account and email this guy http://vimeo.com/user286663 He is a friend of mine and he uses VMS Platinum for stop motion animation. He should be able to help out a lot. One of his tricks I think is to disable resample, or to export in 15fps I think.

Chienworks wrote on 12/4/2007, 7:27 PM

I'm not sure if Vegas Studio has this option, but look for this ... File / Open, find the first picture of the series and single click on it. Is there a checkbox in the lower left corner that says "Open still image sequence"? If so, check it. Now when you click open Vegas will grab the entire batch of stills as if they were a single video clip, one still per frame. This does assume that all the pictures are named with sequential numbers like pic0001.jpg, pic0002.jpg, pic0003.jpg, etc.

If you don't see it there then look under File / Import.

If it's not there either, go to Options / Preferences / Editing and see if there's an option for New still image length. If there is you can set it for a very small value, such as .033 for 30fps.

Failing that option, as a last (dangerous resort), you can go to Options / Shift-Preferences (hold the shift key down) / Internal. In the search box at the bottom type in "still" and then look for an option for still image length in the grid. This value is ten-millionths of a second, so for 29.97fps enter 333667, for 24fps enter 416667. Click ok, etc.

Changing settings in Internal Preferences can really mess up your installation. Do so at your own risk! Sonic Foundry will not save your butt if you change something here. To recover the original settings, exit VideoFactory, then hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys while starting it again. This will reset ALL preferences to their default values.

dibbkd wrote on 12/4/2007, 7:29 PM

Do this:

Click on Tools / Preferences / then the Editing tab.

Change the "New still image length" from 5 seconds to something like 1 second, or whatever works for your video.

Should do the trick.

Post the video on YouTube or somewhere so we can see it!

:)

dibbkd wrote on 12/4/2007, 7:31 PM

Looks like Kelly beat me to it by a minute or so, but with much more detail!

Anyway, let us know how it comes out.

MovedbyFilm wrote on 12/5/2007, 10:48 AM

Thanks you all so much. I've tried your ideas.
I can actually load thepictures as a sequence as suggested, but i can not edit them on the time line that way. The entire sequence appears as a tiny line. I can not see the pictures. Likewise, if I shorten the new still image length, they appear in the time line as a sliver and i can not see the images. Any otehr ideas for a lost soul?

Also, it looks like I can change the play back rate (or slow it down) by dragiing the "Rate" button to the left of the play button for the time line. But this only effects the speed at which I view it, not at which it will appear in a movie version.

Chienworks wrote on 12/5/2007, 11:11 AM

Ummm, do you know how to zoom in on the timeline? Try pressing the Up arrow and watch what happens.

dibbkd wrote on 12/5/2007, 2:55 PM

You can also use the scroll wheel on your mouse to zoom in and out of the timeline. That's my personal favorite way.