Subject:
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A more detailed review of Lego Studios
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.reviews
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Date:
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Thu, 9 Nov 2000 16:45:14 GMT
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(details)
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Hello everyone,
This past weekend I picked up Lego Studios here in the US for $180 USD. After
playing with it for a while, I can now give a pretty detailed review.
First, what you get:
1. A "Quickcam" encased in a LEGO sheath. It has areas on the top and bottom
for attaching the cam to LEGO studs. On the side, it has technic holes for
attaching it to a brick or to technic pins. It is very lightweight, and can be
positioned by using simple turntable/hinge/crane creations. It also has a USB
cable coming from it. One end plugs into the computer, the other is
permanently attached to the camera. Also, the focus ring is manual (more on
this later).
2. Several minifigs. Most of these are movie specific (e.g. they have names on
their back like "Director" and "Grip". 3 of them are general, and all are nice
additions that I have not seen yet.
3. A dinosaur and mini-dinosaur. IMHO throw away fluff. Basically
they are one piece molds and the ultimate Juniorization ripoff, but your
opinion may differ. Identical to the T-rex included in the "dinosaur"
Adventurers theme.
4. Several miscellenous LEGOs. Some of these are technic (worm gears and such
for creating a rail to mount the camera on). Most are for designing a small
city set. The coolest parts are the 3 big picture-windows. I don't know if
these are available elsewhere, but they have a great modern city feel.
5. The Lego Studios software. Used to take the pictures then edit.
Ok, so how is it? Overall, I would say worth getting if you are interested in
stop-motion animation but have never done it, and are looking to just dive in
and create. You will NOT be producing professional looking movies with this,
(at least the camera) though. Be forewarned.
Some specifics:
* The camera has a manual focus ring. If you are looking at the set box (or a
scan of it) it is the little yellow ring. What this means is that you must
manually focus each shot you take. Because the camera is so cheap, this is a
major drawback. I had trouble focusing because you must gauge whether
something is focused by looking at the image on your computer screen. The
image quality is terrible. For anyone who has done some SLR or video camera
work, this can be frustrating. You can never really tell whether it is focused
or not. The other problem is that when making stop motion animation, having to
re-focus will ALWAYS move the camera slightly, and cause the picture to jump.
The action (ability to move) of the plastic focus ring is not smooth, so you
have to work it a bit to focus. All of this is offset by the fact that the
image
quality is not the best, so you can get away with slightly out of focus shots.
* The formats/software. There are two modes to the camera, stop-motion and
real-time. When you are using stop-motion, you take a frame, take a frame,
take a frame, until your "scene" is finished. Usually this means you are
changing camera angles. Regardless of which method you use, when you hit
FINISH, it saves it in mpeg2 format in a folder under your "movie" name.
I have not tested this, but I believe what this means is that you could take
other mpegs and add these to your finished movie. You probably have to match
the resolution, but I'm not sure. The resolution of both captured movies and
the final, compiled output is something like 120x100. I will try this and
report back.
* Sounds effects are stored as .wav files. This means you can import your own
sounds, or get them off the internet and put them in the "sound effects"
folder.
* Special effects are VERY poor. Essentially special effects are .bmp "masks"
that go on top of several frames. So if you wanted to say, create an explosion
or a laser bolt, you would have to create several successive .bmp files and
attach them as "masks" on top of the .mpeg you are working with (the software
lets you do this). Remember in the sample movie where someone is looking
through binoculars at the t-rex? That is a .bmp mask. For something that moves
across the screen, this becomes MUCH more complicated, but possible. It WOULD
be possible to import your final .mepg into somethine like Adobe Premiere and
add special effects, if you were really dedicated.
* Music is handled fantastically. You can use LEGO's music, which is not too
bad, or record off a CD. This is also stored in .wav format, so you can
convert all those Napster MP3s to .wav and go at it.
* Both music and sound effects can be increased or decreased in volume. So,
you could have a scene where the music starts out soft, rises to a dramatic
crescendo, then gets soft again as dialog or key sound effects happen.
Remember that all sounds are .wavs, so dialog is basically a sound effect (or
background music). I THINK you cannot have more than one sound effect at the
same time, but I am not sure about this. There is only one "track" for sound
effects while editing, but they may be able to overlap.
* Lighting. The quickcam is VERY sensitive to light. It overexposes a LOT.
There are controls to decrease brightness and contrast in the control panel but
NOT (as is stated in the manual) exposure. All this can be overcome with
proper lighting.
* Tutorial/tips. A very nice addition, and enjoyable. They show you how to
use, for instance, a plastic wrap divider to make things appear to fly in the
air. There are also a few tricks where they build sets upside down or sideways
to combat gravity.
Overall, this set is hard to describe. I came into it knowing a good bit about
how cameras work and how different formats would work together. Overall, I am
pleased at the open-source nature of the software. I am a bit disappointed at
two things: the quality of the final movies (resolution), and the lack of real
special effects software (you CANNOT, for instance, draw directly on the frames
of your movie). You also cannot edit frame by frame. In fact, once your video
is captured, you cannot edit it at all. If you make a mistake you must
re-shoot.
But ........... it is REALLY fun to work/play with. The set is VERY enjoyable.
I finished my first movie (sound effects, music track, etc.) about 10 mintues
after I opened the box. It is VERY easy to use. Creating sets is fantastic
fun. You can use all kinds of movie tricks to fool the camera. When you leave
to go do something else and come back, you really feel like there is movie
making going on there. For instance, in one shot I built several facades of
buildings, had minature lampposts, and had the minifig in a fishing line
harness that could move (it was wheeled) down the street. This made it look
like he could fly. If you add the director and cameraman figs, it looks just
like a movie set. This is the most fun I have had with LEGOs since Brickfest
2000. :)
So, should you buy it?
Weigh:
* The expense (kind of pricy at $180, but WAY less expensive than a high
quality digital stop motion camera and software (probably $1000 or more).
*What you get: Low quality but very easy to use cam, lots of cool elements and
figs, easy to use and fairly nice software
*Your level of interest in making stop-motion movies with LEGO. You might
decide that stop motion animation is not your thing. You might find it too
frustrating and time consuming, or just not very fun. Better to find out at
$180 than at $1000. On the other hand, you might REALLY like it.
Ok, that's it for now. Man, that was long.
Jason
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: A more detailed review of Lego Studios
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| "Jason" <jasonrowoldt@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:G3rnvE.Hqq@lugnet.com... (...) LOT. (...) panel but (...) The camera settings can be adjusted by using "file-capture" in a graphics program like PhotoEditor. You can get a little window with a (...) (24 years ago, 9-Nov-00, to lugnet.reviews)
| | | Re: A more detailed review of Lego Studios
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| Hi there, I agree with most of your review, but there is one that you stated incorrectly. when you said: (...) video (...) you are correct that you cannot edit frame by frame (a shame) BUT you can edit clips but splitting them (the icon that looks (...) (24 years ago, 9-Nov-00, to lugnet.reviews)
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