by apodman » Sun Dec 21, 2008 6:48 pm
carmen wrote:What camera can you use to do old fashioned paper and pencil animation? I want to do traditional animation (NO FLASH), and I understand some aspects of it (24 frames per second, one frame is one picture, yadda yadda yadda), but I really don't want to use Flash. To me, doing the normal pictures with pencil and paper feels more natural.
But how do I make these series of pictures...move? How do I put all these bits and frames into an animation just using paper and pencil? What camera do you use?
Not my field exactly, but let me try: One way or another, you have to get your drawings digitized. Your choices are camera or scanner. Scanners are cheap, available built into printer-copier-faxes, and make it easy to align each sheet identically. If you really want to go with a camera, you have to go a long way with fixing your drawings and camera in space to equal the accuracy (size, focus, position, lighting) of a scanner. You can come close with a tripod and not touching the camera between shots and pinning your drawings carefully on an easel, but the pros keep a fixed camera in a fixed frame aimed at a rig where the drawing is clamped securely under glass (non-reflective with side lighting). The setup is more important than the choice of camera, and accordingly an important selection feature for your camera is its adaptability to the setup. Once you get all your digitized views together, then you're off to choosing software to assemble your movie. I have no advice about movie assembly software and its use, but save your scanned (or photographed) drawings in a format (file type) that the movie-making software you choose will accept. No doubt the desired file type is one of the usual suspects - I would guess jpg with 100% quality as a default.
[quote="carmen"]What camera can you use to do old fashioned paper and pencil animation? I want to do traditional animation (NO FLASH), and I understand some aspects of it (24 frames per second, one frame is one picture, yadda yadda yadda), but I really don't want to use Flash. To me, doing the normal pictures with pencil and paper feels more natural.
But how do I make these series of pictures...move? How do I put all these bits and frames into an animation just using paper and pencil? What camera do you use?[/quote]
Not my field exactly, but let me try: One way or another, you have to get your drawings digitized. Your choices are camera or scanner. Scanners are cheap, available built into printer-copier-faxes, and make it easy to align each sheet identically. If you really want to go with a camera, you have to go a long way with fixing your drawings and camera in space to equal the accuracy (size, focus, position, lighting) of a scanner. You can come close with a tripod and not touching the camera between shots and pinning your drawings carefully on an easel, but the pros keep a fixed camera in a fixed frame aimed at a rig where the drawing is clamped securely under glass (non-reflective with side lighting). The setup is more important than the choice of camera, and accordingly an important selection feature for your camera is its adaptability to the setup. Once you get all your digitized views together, then you're off to choosing software to assemble your movie. I have no advice about movie assembly software and its use, but save your scanned (or photographed) drawings in a format (file type) that the movie-making software you choose will accept. No doubt the desired file type is one of the usual suspects - I would guess jpg with 100% quality as a default.