Friday, September 20, 2013

Dragonframe Check List Ahoy!


Over the past two days I've re-set up our Defiance ship, roughly lit it and plopped our old puppet Ruble into the scene. Yes, he is missing his mustache. He's also a bit melted from the heat of our last garage, not to mention animation damage - so he's in really poor shape.

That's ok because what I did here was use Ruble to set up our new Canon 60D and Dragonframe (now version 3.5) and create a new shot check list. Before each animated shot you create, check lists help you to remember all your camera and software settings. Have you ever accidentally used your camera with the auto exposure set to "Yes"? If so, you're in a world of trouble. The entire color of your scene will vary depending on what your camera senses. So you definitely need a check list or hours of work can go to waste!

One thing I discovered is that you can set your exposure many different ways in the camera itself. From florescent, tungsten, full sun etc. I set it to tungsten for the frame I took above in the camera. However each time I took a test frame, it first reverted to "Auto Exposure" and then took a frame. Not good! Then I realized Dragon took over this setting because it needs to be set in Dragons camera settings.

There were many things to jot down. Even Dragons web site has a check list, but it's all out of proper order according to the menu screen you see on your camera. You can't even use batteries when using the AC adapter because it goes into the battery compartment. So re-organizing and removing the incorrect info is was what I started with.

Each camera and system will be a little different. So if you're new to stop motion, make check lists even if all you have is a web camera. You won't regret it!


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