Hi everyone!

Sorry about the delay on the animation tests, I've been busy with work and life and whatnot. Anyways, here is the link. The primary purpose of the tests was to practice some key elements that I intend to use in An Otherwise Uneventful Sunday. Particularly, the use of camera motion, which is something I have never done before in a stop motion film. Also chroma keying and color correction are fairly new to me, and I want as much trial-and-error as possible before the real filming begins.

The blinking light was done by rigging a simple circuit behind the set, composed of a 2-position switch, and two resistors. Here is a quick schematic of how I did it:

Because LEDs have zero internal resistance, you must use a small resistor whenever the LED is connected to power, even on the "full" brightness setting. The actual value will vary, but most LEDs will be destroyed by more than a few volts across the leads. In order to create the slight dimming effect between the on and off positions, make sure that R2 is significantly greater than R1. Again, the actual values will vary, but I believe the two I used were around 100Ω for R1 and 1kΩ for R2. For the off position, I just rested the switch in between the two positions, so that no power could flow. The use of two different on-positions is very necessary in selling the blinking effect. I first experimented with a simple on-off circuit using only one resistor, and the blinking effect was jarring and unnatural.

Thanks for the feedback!

Which parts in particular seemed to fast? I feel like the pacing seems a bit quicker than I'd intended (for the dialogue I was imagining) but I'm also going for a rather quick pace for comedic timing throughout.

Also, I will be posting pictures of the new sets starting very soon!

It's been a while since my last update, since I've been very busy with work. But now I've built most of the sets for part one, and I'm getting ready to start shooting soon. I've received all the lines for episode one, and other than a few minor corrections, we should be ready to move into the production stage soon.

I've been working on new lighting tricks recently, and I have been experimenting with programmable LED strips to create more interesting subtle lighting effects. The LEDs can vary significantly in brightness, which makes for some really nice fading effects.

I bounced the LED light off of some wax paper, and lit both the foreground and the background with an additional lamp + diffuser. This made the color a little bit more subtle. Here's a picture of the setup.

I think you're right that the actions could use a little more smoothness. I usually try to ease but I always get too excited and animate the action too quickly...

Last edited by Geouug (August 30, 2016 (05:44am))

I have finally started animating sequences, which means the project is now in the Production Phase. I've finished animating the title sequences, which are more or less static shots of the sets with minimal animation. I have also recently finished shooting about 20 seconds of action. Depending on how long the titles end up being, I am nearing the one minute mark of content.

Here is a sneak peak of the beginning of the film. It needs color correction still, but I'm so happy with how it turned out I wanted to share it immediately. The two shots (mittens, and the mug) are unrelated, and some important things happen in between the shots, which I have left out.

edit: Here are some frames from the video, with color correction.

Last edited by Geouug (October 3, 2016 (10:14am))

Those frames look really good.

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Alright, so the QC 9000 came, and it works fine with DragonFrame, but I'm really not very happy with the picture quality. It also doesn't have any optical zoom abilities, so its uses for this project will be limited to say the least. Fortunately, I'm not quite ready to shoot the opening dialog yet anyway, as I wrote the original script in May and I've decided to re-write a good bit of it. I'll have to wait until after we've finished recording the edits, which should give me time to figure out how to connect my T3i with DragonFrame without using the USB connection. I ordered an eye-fi mobi, which DragonFrame recommends for cameras without USB connectivity so I'll get to play around with that in the mean time.

I also ordered a small handful of minifig heads that I can use for Bob's facial expressions. I really enjoy seeing head swaps for expression in brickfilms, and I should be able to acquire a pretty good emotional range for Bob for cheap. Overall, I'm really happy with where the project is right now. I've finished almost everything required for the intro, which is just over a minute or so. I've only got a couple scenes left to do at Bob's house, then it's off...to SPACE!

The USB port on my camera was loose and didn't  connect properly when I bought it, but I never bothered to get it fixed since I always just use the SD card to connect to my computer. Only now that the warranty is long expired do I actually need the port. This one is definitely on me for not bothering to get it fixed when it would have been free . Fortunately, a 4GB Eye-Fi Mobi is only $20 on Amazon, so I am not too upset. It would be nice to have remote control over the shutter though. Taking frames by physically pushing the shutter button stresses me out...

Geouug: thats no fun, If you can get it fixed animating in Dragon Frame is supper nice, and way easer to get a nice shot. But if not good for you for making a video without it.

Last edited by osomstudios (October 27, 2016 (09:29am))

I am happy to report that I am finally animating the first dialog scenes. I am very happy with the lines I have to work with, thanks to my lead actors Brick7 and Willow Tree, who have both been incredibly helpful with their talents. I have a few other characters that I was planning to voice, but if anyone else would like to help, I am always open to more voice actors! The sequence isn't finished, but wanted to share anyway. Here is a frame that I animated today.

I also took a bonus shot of the Lighting Rig Mark II (a.k.a. half of a cardboard box, and wax paper) from the previous shot. This is how the lighting has been done for all of the shots so far.

Also, the Bob heads came in the mail, which is going to allow for a lot of fun animation. I hope to acquire as many faces as possible that could be an extension of a simple black, eyebrowed smile. I believe he exact position, thickness, shape, etc of the eyebrows is not as important, as long as they show expression and don't change color. However, I haven't done any animation tests with these new heads, so I won't know how smooth the transition will appear when animated. The only face not pictured here is the original Bob face.

School is keeping me from giving this project as much attention as it deserves, but the results that I am getting from the little progress I am making are making me very happy. It's going to be a long haul, but so far I am able to achieve the exact pacing and tone that I am going for. I will update again when I have finished the first dialog scene.