Beginning.

Stop-motion is the concept of taking an inanimate object and making it appear to move by itself, without any human hands in the picture. The way it works is this:

*Many pictures are taken of an object, with a little motion in between each one. The more pictures you have, the smoother the object’s motion will seem to be when playback begins.

*You must have a digital camera which can import pictures onto a computer.

*When taking your pictures, make sure your hands are NOT in the frame. Take a picture of your object, with the camera in one place. After taking your picture, move in (without bumping the camera) and slightly move the object in whatever way you want it to go. Then, take your hand out of the frame, and take another picture.

*Repeat this process until your character is at their destination.

*Then, import your pictures onto your computer. Depending on what type of computer you’ve got (Mac or PC), you will have to have a frame-capture software. (free)

*On a Mac, I highly recommend using ‘FramebyFrame’, a free software available here:http://web.mac.com/philipp.brendel/Software/FrameByFrame.html

*On a PC, I would use ‘Windows Movie Maker’ available here:http://download.cnet.com/Windows-Movie-Maker-Windows-XP/3000-13631_4-10165075.html

Each of these softwares will be able to import your pictures into the software, and then they can be played back at a quick speed.

*MAC USE--With FramebyFrame, you will have a choice of ‘frames per second’. Frames-per-second , also known as ‘FPS’, (no, not ‘first person shooter’), is just how fast your pictures are going to play. You can animate at 1fps all the way up to 30fps. When starting out, I recommend animating at 10fps.

In FramebyFrame, you will need to set the little slider bar to ‘10fps’. Then, go to ‘Edit’--up at the top of your screen, and click ‘Import Images’. Then, select the images which you want to import. When they load, click the first image in the picture bar. Then, slide the little bar which shows a video camera at one side and a little reel of footage on the other (in the lower right-hand corner of the screen) all the way to the footage reel’s side. Then, click the play button. Your images will play, and you will have created a stop-motion animation.

*PC USE--In Windows Movie Maker, you will need to bring up the folder which holds your images, and select them all. Then, click ‘Import’. Your images will appear beside the video box, but the playback section and timeline will still be blank. Go into ‘Tools’, and then into ‘Options’. You will need to turn down ‘Image duration’ or ‘Video Duration’ as far down as it can go. Then go back to your main screen and select all your images and bring them into the timeline. When they load, click play and you will have created a stop-motion animation.

---posted by Noah Master