Stop Motion questions

FredK wrote on 1/7/2009, 7:04 AM
I'm trying to fool around with stop motion animation using my HF100 by taking still pictures.

What is the lengh of time each photo should be? How can I apply that to the entire sequence of photos?

I imported about 30 photos just to experiment, I was able to get them imported as a sequence, but I had to adjust each image's duration manually, took me awhile, and what happens when there are hundreds of photos? I adjusted each photo to 0 seconds and 5 frames. So in one second, I used 6 photos. I'm thinking maybe it shoud be 30 photos in one second of time?

Thank you.

Comments

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 1/7/2009, 8:49 AM
This is easy. In the options menu, go to preferences and select tab 'editing'. Look for 'new still image length'. Standard is 5sec, but for animation, it must be much shorter of course: 1/24 sec equals 0.04166 So that is the number you have to fill in. Click ok.
Now drag your pictures from Vegas's explorer to the timeline. Each picture will have a duration of 0.04166 seconds
Good luck!
FredK wrote on 1/7/2009, 9:22 AM
Thank you, that is easy.

I did some more research, it seems stop motion is anywhere from 10 fps up to 30 fps, and more for different effects. I guess it depends on what you want it to look like. My experimental video at 6 fps looks choppy.
Chienworks wrote on 1/7/2009, 9:45 AM
I wouldn't even limit it to that range. It's whatever is appropriate and possible for the project and hardware. If you're working towards TV in the western hemisphere then you want to get as close to 29.97002997fps as possible which would be 0.033367 seconds per frame, but you can't enter that many decimal places. If you're shooting for the European market then you want 25fps, 0.040 seconds per frame. If your destination is film then 24fps is appropriate.

On the other hand, if you're lazy and only want to shoot every other frame then halve the frame rate or double the frame duration.

I think for cases like these it would be superb if Vegas had the ability to set the still image duration to the current project frame length.*

*Vegas Pro has this after a fashion. It's called 'import still image sequence'.