Subject:
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Re: Stability of cars/rails?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:35:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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2326 times
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In lugnet.trains, Mike Thorn wrote:
> At 04:14 PM 10/14/2003, Jan-Albert wrote:
> > The arm on the outside, which has some weight on it, will prevent the car
> > from waggling on the bogies, thus keeping it 100% steady on the track. See
> > http://www.vanree.net/brickpiles/camcar.jpg for a sample...
>
> That's a nice design, a good idea. Even though I can't use the LEGO track,
> I can adapt that method to use with my current setup. Thanks!
>
> Even though that method does require a perfectly level area (which I don't
> have), I've added crosshairs to the LCD viewer on my camera. Between that
> and the outrigger I think I ought to be able to keep this pan pretty
> smooth...I'll post the video clip here when I've completed that shot.
>
> Thanks,
> ~Mike
Mike, If I can be of any help, e-mail me. I've got experience doing stop-motion
set and camera work. If you check out www.gwarbco.com and look at "Crusade
Wars", I was responsible for all the set work and even built the camera dolly
used for the "walk down the hall" going to the Death Star chamber. For camera
work, we did 30 fps, but we found a useful trick...since we had digital
capabilities tied directly to the computer, we could do it easily. We had
discovered from watching MTV's "Celebrity Death Match" (24 fps) that every
fourth frame was acutally animated (i.e. they took one picture, copied it three
times, then took the next picture...so, for 24 fps, they really only took six
shots. We did 30 fps, and took every third shot. So, for 30 fps, we really
took 10 shots. I think 20 fps might look a little choppy, but this technique
might help you cut down on the shots needed.
For some other stop-motion techniques--do a real-time animatic. It will help
you space out motion. We found this out one time when we animated a person
jumping up and down--when we ran it afterwards, the person moved a whole lot
faster than we thought.
Another thing that will help--take your total distance, divide the distance by
the nubmer of shots, and put a mark next to your camera dolly--that will also
ensure smooth motion (at least for linear motion of your camera dolly). We did
that technique where we had to have two objects hitting each other in a set
amount of time. One of our team is good with physics, so we were able to mark
out time and distance markers on the set where to place our objects (of course,
we filmed backwards from point of impact to the 'start' of the video to
guarantee the hit, and we just sequenced the pictures in reverse.
Also, mark your floor with the exact position of your table legs. Don't use
natural light, and also, mark the position of EVERYTHING. This way, you can
reproduce it if you have some problems.
Regarding your cross-hair solution..if you have a second monitor you can hook up to your camera (we used a mini-DV camera, not sure how you are doing your filming), but a clear piece of acetate taped to the monitor will allow you to mark your monitor where train tracks are. That way, you will have the reference of the last frame to work with, to reduce your camera "bounce" from frame to frame. Also, the use of shims under train tracks are useful as well. You can use paperboard (cheap) or foam board (also relatively cheap) found at Wal-Mart. I would expect some "bounce"--nothing in the world is that naturally flat.
Adobe Premiere works really well for editing all the pictures together.
Don't expect your first run to be perfect. Go for about 2 seconds and see how
it works. Doing stop motion is like painting a house--the prep work will take
just as long as the act of painting. Remember--Home Depot is a great choice for
cheap equipment (clip lights work beautifully for lighting, by the way).
Styrofoam and a hot-wire Tippi Cutter, a bit of creativity, and some paint make
for some great set design... you can also do quite a bit with foam board, white
glue, sewing pins and an x-acto knife. (hint..if building sets with foam board
and seqing pins, push the pins in halfway, clip off the heads with a clipper or
needlenose pliers and push the pin all the way in with the back of the handle of
the X-acto knife. That will eliminate the appearance of the pin in the set.
Also, use Acrylics! They don't smell near as bad as enamels, and they also
don't "craze (i.e. melt)" the styrofoam.
Scott
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Stability of cars/rails?
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| (...) That's a nice design, a good idea. Even though I can't use the LEGO track, I can adapt that method to use with my current setup. Thanks! Even though that method does require a perfectly level area (which I don't have), I've added crosshairs to (...) (21 years ago, 15-Oct-03, to lugnet.trains)
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