![]() ![]() IStopMotion 2.0 is available immediately from. ![]() Animators can configure their own keyboard commands or attach a programmable keypad to create a control console. Keyboard and Voice commands are customizable. Non-Square Pixels, Keyboard and Voice CommandsĪs video pixels are not square in many video standards like DV, support for non-square pixels ensures that a circle remains a circle regardless of video source or destination format. A pro customer requested this feature for quickly and easily creating zooms and pans with a motion controlled camera that they use to record cartoons. Sometimes it is handy to be able to record a sequence of a specific number of frames in real time. Before this, one of the biggest challenges was to animate dialog and get the mouth movement right. This video is displayed alongside the animation window or composed into the animation video transparently. Instead of painstakingly planning your animation and creating an “x-sheet”, simply load in a cue video to guide your animation. Meanwhile the flexibility of the feature brings ambitious movie ideas into the reach of the ambitious hobbyist and the pro. Kids can have their toys walk on the moon or explore a coral reef deep down in the ocean. An example for this is the chroma keying that provides a virtual stage. It was an ambitious goal, but we think we achieved it with iStopMotion 2”, says Florian Albrecht, responsible for iStopMotion’s development at Boinx Software. “Our goal was to add new capabilities that appeal to professionals while keeping it so easy that kindergarden kids love to use it. A special education edition with a multi-user license key is available for educational institutions. The Pro edition is for the animator who makes money (or plans to) with stop motion animation. The Express version is for the serious hobbyist animator, with all the great stuff appreciated by pro animators at a reasonable price. The Home edition is for the family, where the parents want to spend a great weekend with their kids. IStopMotion 2 comes in three flavors, targeting different users. Features such as virtual stages, which allow an animator to place the objects into a prerecorded background, rotoscoping, where the animator loads in a video that guides him in the animation, the ability to record a certain number of frames in real time and support for HD cameras, take stop motion animation on the Mac to a whole new level. Once done, the handy Send To iMovie (or Final Cut Pro) option allows for easy export to YouTube, MobileMe, iPhone, and other presets from those applications.After over 2 years of development and a lengthy public test phase, iStopMotion 2 is ready for prime time and of course, Mac OS X Leopard. User adjustable grids and title/action safe overlays also aid production. Markers allow you to plot out your events on the timeline, and the movie overlay and soundtrack functions allow animating to audio for lip synch and/or rotoscope work. The onion-skinning feature makes seeing what you’re doing (even replacing a middle frame) much easier. There are plenty of keyboard shortcuts to keep your workflow humming, and you can even use the Apple Remote for various capture and playback tasks. Once you are set up and working, the software is quick and easy (at least with video sources). Also not supported are FireWire based DVCPRO HD cameras nor popular AVCHD cameras. This means you can’t get live video feedback on screen as you move your props around, which hugely slows down your animation process. Note, however, that under OS X 10.6.5 and 10.6.6 support for most Canon DSLRs was lost for iStopMotion Pro, although the company says it is working on a fix. Disappointingly, while many Nikon and Canon DSLRs are supported, the modern Live View feature that works over USB is not supported with iStopMotion Pro. Boinx’s Website has a long list of cameras that have been tested, but not all of them work. Video capable cameras attached over SDI (Serial Digital Interface), HD-SDI, or HDMI connections are also supported if you have an appropriate video capture card. You can use a variety of cameras with iStopMotion Pro-it supports FireWire DV/HDV cameras, as well as many webcams, point and shoots, and DSLRs. I’d rather use better tools later in the process that I can edit and tweak rather than lock in a look at acquisition. A serious limitation, however, is that these filters have to be, and can only be, applied at the moment of capture-no changing your mind later. As you animate, there is a very rudimentary on-capture color correction tool available that applies only to the frame you are about to capture (but not prior frames), as well as a Tilt Shift filter that can be used on the current frame to give larger sets a miniaturized look. ![]()
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