the Scarlet Letters

he might not be perfect, but he's still awesome! congratulations!

Hey! Yep, the first one was the best... Some constructive criticism: - When he slaps his head, it shouldn't take longer than 3 frames till his head goes all the way back (because of the hit). -when something hits near your eyes, you MUST close them, it's impossible not to... -Try adding some sound on the hit, so it's more noticeable

On the walking: It's pretty good, but there are some flaws: -You need to bend the arms (at the elbow) when he walks, and also a bit the wrists. See some people walking and you'll get it better ;) - as you said, the head moving is very distracting, and Percy seems a bit paranoid :D -When he raises a leg, he seems to move to the opposite side. This also happened to me(well, to my puppets).

How many FPS are you using?????

See ya' Ale StopMotion

Everything looks great, man! How much time did you spend on the tests? Any ideas on what we might see Percy5 starring in?

gl. -- Thank you! I appreciate it!

Ale --

Thanks for the input. The head-thwack was problematic from the get-go. Because of the springiness of the wire, and because he has solid hands, I couldn't actually get the hand to connect with the head!

You're totally right about him needing to blink... Unfortunately, I haven't made a second set of eyelids yet! --I wanted to try out the basic puppet before going crazy with making replacement parts. Given the problems I've had with the eyes and eyelids so far, these might be areas where I do a bit of re-designing.

An audible "smack" when the hand connects: I've heard it said before that sound is 70% of a movie. Based on previous experience, I totally agree. These were just quick experiments to see what it's like to actually move the puppet; so I wasn't going to add sound. But if they were anything more than tests, then yeah -- a "smack" sound cue would really add a lot here.

The walk: I see what you mean about the elbows. I was having a problem getting around Percy to see what I was doing -- the camera was in the way. Have you had any experience with this issue?

In terms of him swaying back and forth, that was probably caused in part by using the peg board for convenient tie-down holes -- it may have distorted his gait. Maybe I need to pay more attention to the position of his pelvis when he walks...

I'm using 24 FPS and shooting on ones. Given that my ultimate display medium is probably a 29.97 FPS NTSC television, it might make more sense to be shooting 30 FPS. But 24 is easier to learn on (fewer frames, easier to divide by four)... And I've read a few things that are suggesting video is moving toward a 24 FPS standard.

...I think the question for me is 24 vs. 30.

Ubatuber --thank you!

It took four hours to shoot the clips (9 sec total), and most of the first hour was just getting the stage and computer set up for work.

I have some hopes to premiere Percy in a short for the www.stopmoshorts.com competition. I haven't committed yet (the deadline's March 31), and I'm not set on a story.

...Just between you, me, and every living soul with an internet connection, though ( ;-D ) -- I've been fantasizing a narrative where Percy is in a labyrinth with the Minotaur. Just unwinding a thread, anxiously pressing on... We end with the audience glimpsing the Minotaur around next corner, Percy (Theseus) seemingly unaware -- and then the sudden unsheathing of a sword. Cut to credits.

Sounds awesome! Gotta love mythology! I have a series of drawings based on the Fates that I've been wanting to "convert" to stop-motion, but the Jenny project gets priority 'til she's done....months from now :)

Sven:

I've never had that problem of not seeing clearly the puppet...That's something you NEED to be aware of when designing the set, and checking the camera angles. Imagine how hard it must be for Corpse Bride animators! They got perfectly neat untouchable sets around them!

I'm also thinking of showing my current project in StopMoShorts, in the Myth 'category'....but's not like a mytholigy thing, it's more like the kind of MythBusters (the TV show) myths... I'm also planning to make an old poem (Burton-like) I made some time ago into a stopmo, but it'll be really hard...

Ale StopMotion

You're making excellent progress!

That first clip really lives, in spite of any problems that occurred while shooting it. That's something a stopmoe just needs to learn to live with... every shot (except for maybe a few lucky dream shots) involves difficult leaning at painful angles, reaching around and between things that can't be bumpoed, and unforseen problems like that fly that fell in love with your inner ear and the sweat dripping onto the set floor. Whatever happened with paint getting on his eye, it doesn't show in the clip, so it doesn't matter. And yes, you might want to use a final coat of matte spray or something for a tougher finish. I'm thinking a couple of eyebrows would really bring him to life! But not really necessary. Just the fact that the eyes can move creates the illusion of life.

And about the head-bobbing issue, it's something I dealt with a while back. Nick gave me some of the best advice I'v ever heard on a thread abpout Ahab tests i was doing, and taught me how to really use a framgrabber (which I THOUGHT I already knew).

I'll try to recap:

Paert of the critique happens after the shot is done, when watching the clip. If it's a quicktime, use your left/right arrows to frame advance, and watch everything moving. Check to see that you didn't forget to move something for a frame or two or suddenly move it the wrong way. And yes, the head is always one of the worst offenders... by the time you've moved every limb and the torso, you've usually inadvertently moved it quite a bit. You need to pay special attention to it each frame, scrub through the last few frames or use your onionskin to check its tracking critically. I've started to actually push it back slightly after finishing all my body animation each frame, it seems to work nicely.

I think you're also having a lot of problems because of the loose clothing, and possibly the thick fleshy nature of the puppet. With Buster I don't have any of those problems, but I did with Ahab in his leather jacket.

Keep up the fantastic work and great progress! Buster wants to know if he can hang out with Percy at Stopmoshorts on the 31st.

Thanks for the words of encouragement, Mike -- it means a lot to me.

...Maybe the folks on Corpse Bride have the luxury of working with 16" puppets and sticking Nikon zoom lenses on their $3650 cameras (see "'Bride' Stripped Bare") -- but man, I gotta fight for my close-ups.

The advice about how to correctly use a frame grabber is excellent! ...Unfortunately, I'm not using a proper framegrabber at present. I have a digital video camera, and I have a digital still camera -- and I just can't let go of the still camera's image quality.

I've tried out FrameThief and iStopMotion (FrameThief rocks!), and neither will work with the still camera. (iStopMotion claims to work with my PowerShot G5, but won't let you try it in the demo. >:-( ...AND it won't let you access anything more than 640x480 unless you buy the pro version. Bastards!) ...What does work is AnimAide -- although it's got the strangest interface I've probably ever seen.

The AnimAide window has a rectangular hole in it; you position the hole over your Remote Capture program; Animaide displays your previous frame at half-opacity in that hole; thus, when Remote Capture shows you your live feed, you effectively see an onion skin. It's fussy, and you can't flip back and forth -- but it's a step up from animating without any assist at all, which is what I've been doing previous to these clips of Percy.

Kurt DeWitt over on SMA a while back was showing a few clips that he did with a 3CCD DV cam... Man, the color depth on that tempts me. I think if I upgraded to one of those, I'd probably move over to FrameThief in a heartbeat.

I think you're also having a lot of problems because of the loose clothing, and possibly the thick fleshy nature of the puppet.

...Yeah -- you've got that right! The clothes are driving me nuts. And I feel like I'm trying to animate a pillow sometimes, the guy has so much squish to him. Arg! It shouldn't have to be that every character is a Jack Skellington! I want characters with some heft to them...

I'm thinking ahead to my next puppet: I think I'm going to try a "open hole double ball joint" armature using brass. I know aluminum and steel would be better (hm... maybe I should listen to myself) -- but I've had some initial success with K&S rod and hollow brass beads. (Since they're hollow, you can actually slip the solder inside, and then just heat the outside of the ball with a small butane torch.)

...And on top of the armature, I'm thinking of putting sculpted pink insulation foam. Susannah Shaw, Jurgen Kling, and Marc Spess all describe plug-in armatures -- but I've been wondering: how do you build a plug-in musculature? We can make limbs that can be replaced when they break -- but how much good does that do if we have to tear everything open to get to them?

Anyway...

I'd love to get Percy into Stopmoshorts... Just to do it -- and cuz I'm salivating over the Caprino's Anniversary Box Set ;-) ...But the reality is that I might have to be a no-show this time.

Inside scoop: I may be buying the house we're living in from our landlord. It's hard for stopmo not to be my top priority -- but this is a case where I really should be keeping my focus on the bigger picture.

Ahhhh.....

You have a DV cam and a still camera? You should most definitely be using the DV camcorder for tests at least, just to learn your animation chops with the framegrabber. Just doing that will make your kung fu stronger, and afterwards you'll be much better even animating blind. But I think I'd just set them up side by side, run the camcorder through a 'grabber and then shoot the beauty shots on the still camera. Make sure to shoot a few test images before each new shot to see exactly what you'll be getting, check the edges in particular to make sure you're not capturing anything off the set. Of course if you do it can be cropped.

To answwer a couple of your other questions.....

It's not necessary to go Skellington thin with a puppet... in fact it makes things extremely difficult in other ways. The idea i think is to avoid those extremes if possible, or just be willing to deal with the consequences. You might have better luck with the more 'zaftig' puppets if there wasn't so much foam on them. Maybe make most of the thickness from wrapped newspaper or epoxy putty or something solid, and then just a thin layer of foam to give that fleshlike effect.

Also, I think yu could benefit from making more stylized clothes. A lot of times I notice in puppet shorts they're clothes are made very differently from normal clothes, and now Iunderstand why... it's not just because they can, but because it helps in various ways. I love using stretch fabric and making it tight. It subverts a lot of problems. Also, I think you could solve two of your problems with one stone.....

You asked about how to flesh a puppet for a plug-in armature? You're familiar with my tube method for making foam limbs... a single tube for each limb. Well, don't glue anything to anything. That way you cna slip off the entire limb, slip out the broken wire, slip a new one in, and plug it right back in place. And the clothing must be made to work along with this plan.... sleeves/pantlegs aren't attached to the main body of the garment, but they slip into custom-made holes in them. Of course you'd have to use extra meterial, make the sleeves/legs extra long to when they bend and stretch the gap doesn't show.

Or possibly make limbs in molds, using flexible urethane foam (with a latex skin or use self-skinning foam) that fit into a hole in the main body part.

I'm sure there are other ways, just conjecturing here. But it's important to realize that puppets can't move the way people can, and their clothes should be made differently. It would be nearly impossible to show a puppet dressing itself, unless you designed and built it specifically for the purpose.