Capturing Animation with Eclipse

Capturing Animation With Eclipse

Eclipse is the newly released version of Stop Motion Pro, an animation capture and sequencing package designed to work with a camera to record traditional animation techniques such as stop motion, (or puppet) animation, cut out methods, and sand or ink on glass.

You may also choose to record hand drawn or image based animation in Stop Motion Pro.

All of the above approaches to animation capture use the same basic technical set up, but fall into two distinct groups, depending on the position of the camera.

Each of the still images above was captured in Stop Motion Pro with the camera positioned above the flat artwork.

These animated sequences were shot with the camera facing forward and positioned in front of real 3D objects.

Step 1 – Getting started

Your camera should always be plugged into a power socket, with the USB cable attached to the computer via a blue extension lead. Make sure that your lens cap has been removed, and that the selector dial is switched to M for manual.

Double click on the Eclipse icon on the desktop. Your project window will launch. (You may have to close down a camera guide)

You can open any project on your computer from here, but usually you are setting up a new project. For your first workshop session please select the SAND ON GLASS project already created. You should now see the main project window.

In the top left hand corner of the screen you will see a file menu. The drop down list from this will offer you a “settings” tab. If you click here you will see the window below, where you can change the language if you wish.

You will notice a series of tabs just above the USA and UK flag icons. Click the one that looks like a little tool box to access your time code settings. This window will allow you to view your filmed sequences in terms of the number of frames taken, or in terms of the amount of time need to play those frames – in other words, how many seconds of animation has been taken. Experienced animators will always chose to work in frames, but for a beginner, it is helpful to know how many seconds and frames have been shot. Click on the dot over the number 26.17 to change to a timecode reading, or deselect it to read your shots as frames only.

The camera settings are quite complex, as they vary depending on the type and intensity of the lighting, the position of the aperture on the camera lens, and the aesthetics of your sequence. We will be dealing with the settings more fully in a later training session. To connect the camera to the software just make sure that you select ‘Canon DSLR’ from the drop down list, and initially use the settings recommended by the instructor.

You would now usually spend time deciding on your camera settings which involve adjusting a range of variables, including:

• Lighting and composition – by moving the camera, adjusting the lights.
• The exposure – by changing the shutter speed and adjusting the iris and ISO
• Offsetting any changes – by matching the low res images to your full def frames.

In the window on the right of the screen make sure that you have selected the icon with the little yellow dot, and picked 16.9 in the drop down menu. This will ensure that your final film will be the right shape. If you forget this step your final film may be square or distorted.

Directly under this is your frame rate. Make sure that this always reads 25 fps. ALWAYS

Sometimes the camera can be positioned the wrong way around so you may need to flip the image the right way up (Especially when shooting flat work). The little arrow icon to the left of the live view window will correct the image.

When you are ready to shoot the settings windows can be hidden by clicking on the tiny arrows at the extreme left and right of the screen. If you are not using multiple audio tracks the main capture window can also be dragged down to give you a nice big live action window.

As soon as you are ready to begin to animate you will turn your attention to the main capture toolbar.

The most important tool on your tool bar is your capture button. You click on this with your mouse when you want to take a frame. You will hear a very satisfying click and a little beep when you have taken your shot.

If you hover with your mouse to the right of this a small arrow and drop down menu will appear. This will allow you to set your software to capture multiple frames. This is most useful if you are shooting a 2D technique, as shooting in two’s is standard practice in order to produce smoother action and cut down on the number of frames you have to draw. If given a choice however, most puppet animators will opt to work in ones as the extra frames will allow more subtle movement, although this requires more skill in controlling your puppet.

Your loop button will play your animation back in a continuous loop. A drop down menu to the right of it will allow you to set a number of frames, and a number of loops. This is useful if you are animating a cycle, such as a walk or a run. The play button will switch your animation from the live view to the stored frames, and play them back at 25 frames per second. When this happens, the eye icon to the right of the red capture button will change to a film strip icon, indicating that you are no longer seeing the live camera view but the stored frames that you have already captured. This can be a little confusing at first, but switching over and back soon becomes second nature.

LIVE VIEW CAPTURED FRAMES

Your Frame counter will tell you how many frames you have taken while shooting, and also which frame you are viewing in playback. You have already seen how to set this in your “file-Settings” menu.

As you take more and more frames you will see your icons advancing along the timeline, and the frame counter will indicate how many frames you have taken. The little white block represents the last frame taken. The red block indicates the “live” frame before you take the next shot.

You can resize your timeline, or zoom in and out of your timeline by using the track tools to the right of your timeline. This is a most useful tool when you are working with audio.

Grab the square toggles to expand or reduce the visible area of your timeline, and move the entire slider up and down the bar to scroll through an audio or video track. You can also use the magnifying glasses to achieve the same result. The drop down button to the left gives you some advanced commands for re-ordering your images, and these can be useful as you gain experience and become more ambitious.

The onionskin tool is exceptionally useful, and is located between the eye icon and the play button on the main capture toolbar. This small sliding selector will allow you to see a “ghost” image of the previous frame in the live view window. When you animate your object, you can clearly see how far you have moved it, which is critical to the speed of the action.

The level of translucency on the onionskin frame is determined by the position of the slider. In other words, it will be more translucent when positioned to the right, more opaque when set to the left. This is an “assist” function only, which means you will not see your onionskin in the final export.

How do I delete a frame if I make a mistake?

If you make an error on a live frame (such as catching your hand in the shot) you can “hide” that frame, which is essentially deleting it from the project. You may also at times wish to select, copy and paste frames, reverse the order of frames, or copy key frames to a clipboard to record production or editing notes. All of this can be achieved in the editing window, which can be reached by clicking the small “landscape” icon to the left of the live view window.

The slider at the bottom of the frame will allow you to increase or decrease the size of your captured frame icons. Identify and select the frames you wish to delete. Clock on the icon to the top right hand side of the screen, and a red line will appear through the frame. This frame is now hidden, and will not play back or export from your project, but it can be “unhidden” at any point.

The other icons in this window are pretty easy to figure out, but I would advise against using them to enhance or correct poor animation. Stop motion is a lively and organic technique, and sequences which rely on copied or reversed frames have a static quality which is easy to spot and which will take away some of the life and charm from your piece. Click on the “circles” icon in the bottom left to return to your capture window.

Importing and syncing Audio

Stop Motion Pro allows you to import multiple audio tracks to your timeline. This is a critical tool when animating, as it allows you to anticipate and respond to audio cues as you are animating. Firstly, have your audio files selected and named well. It is best to keep them short, as the software will get slow if it is attempting to sync to a three minute long track. For this demonstration, I want to begin to sync my audio track at frame five, so I shoot up to that frame as normal.

I then click on the folder icon to the right of the first audio track (by the red dot) This will open a browser window which will allow me to select a local file (in this case, “smp_timpany_hits”)

This file will be dropped on to my timeline at the same position as my current frame, in this case frame 5. I can trim the clip, or slide it up and down at this point, but it is best initially to work with pre trimmed clips, and place them exactly where you want them to stay.

As we have just started a sequence, our view is very zoomed in, and we see the clip as a very expanded waveform.

If we use the track zoom tools to zoom out, we will begin to see the audio as a much more readable image. Here, you can see the audio as a series of waveforms. This one represents a slow drumbeat.

By clicking on the little lock icon, you can lock your audio to your current frame, which prevents you from losing audio sync. It is also a really good idea to make note of which video frame you have synced up with.

This close up gives you a better sense of how this works. The green line indicates the frame visible in the live view. The white block shows me the position of the last frame captured, and the red shows me the live frame. As I click on the capture button, the red frame advances, and I will begin to “see” my audio peaks approaching. I can then anticipate the oncoming sound, and have the puppet or image respond accordingly.

Here, for example, I have responded to the first beat by placing the larger doll in the frame (the onionskin is showing me the previous smaller doll) as I click through the frames I have also moved the doll slightly, and replaced her with the smaller doll as the sound diminishes. I have done this for three beats. You can view the final sequence here. (The password is bower)

Clicking and dragging on the green play bar in the timeline will allow you to scrub through the audio. The small arrow to the right of your timeline will expand and hide the audio track. The larger play arrow to the right of that (indicated by the blue arrow) will play your entire audio track only, regardless of how many frames you have taken. The play button under the live capture window will play both audio and animation together.

Working with a DSLR camera

Settings, shooting and capture mode and exporting high res frames.

Stop motion Pro works very well with Canon DSLR cameras and manual Nikon lenses. These lenses have a manual focus ring at the front, and an “iris” ring at the back, which allows you to control the amount of light entering the lens during each capture.

When setting up your camera, these settings are selected according to the type, position and intensity of the light, and point where you want the camera to focus.

While the software does allow you to view and export high quality frames, it can’t manage the high definition image in the live timeline. Therefore, in order to allow you to see a live image, and to onionskin and toggle between live and captured frames, Stop Motion Pro essentially “steals” the image which you would normally see on the LCD screen at the back of the camera. It uses this frame as an “assist”, while storing the high definition frames for later use. While the LCD screen (sometimes called the external viewfinder) WILL update its image when the focus and aperture has been adjusted (because these functions are managed through the lens) it will not update when changes are made to the still image through the software controls (when adjusting the shutter speed and ISO for example.)

We have just upgraded to a new camera model (the 700D) and we have encountered an interesting new problem. As these cameras are capable of shooting video as well as still images, the LCD screen has a high refresh rate, which essentially means that it is strobing at a super fast rate all the time. (A function not necessary in our old Canon 400D’s, as they only shot in still frames. This means that you may get the odd dark frame when capturing. This will be the low def frame only, and will not affect the high res images, but it will be frustrating at times if you are trying to see the onion skin. If it is a real nuisance, delete that frame and have another go. We are working really hard to resolve this issue, and will update you as soon as we have a resolution.

So what does this mean?

Essentially, when setting up a shoot in Stop Motion Pro, you will need to shoot a test frame every time you adjust the shutter speed and aperture, and check the high resolution files.

Low Res images to High Quality images Live camera view to stored frames

This is tricky to begin with, but you do get used to it. If you don’t balance up your high and low res images, your picture will look great on the timeline, but appear bright or really dark when you export it. Everybody does this wrong a few times, so don’t panic if it happens in a workshop. A way to avoid wasting time is to try a test export of five or six frames to make sure that you know that it will look good when you have 400 or 500 frames in the sequence. This is called a “PIPELINE TEST” and it is the best habit you can pick up as an animator, in every technical process.

Where you find that the low res frames have not updated the changes made in the software, you can manually balance this by adjusting the Exposure Offset button to the right of the capture window.

Your image may appear dark in low res live view, but when you take a test frame the image may appear lighter (or sometimes darker)

This is the same frame in high res stored view. As this is well exposed and well focused, I can balance or offset the low res images by adjusting my “Exposure Offset” selector To balance up the images as much as I can.