Motion control... working!

Hi! I started working on my motion control project again!
In May 2011 an article about a DIY motion control caught my attention. I was especially interested to try it with the Dragonframe software. I followed the idea of Martin Koch but replaced the wire with a steel threaded rod and two nuts, to make it more suitable and reliable for stop motion animation.
Because I was working on other things as well I only started ordering the materials in 2013. After assembling everything, the rail movement worked when testing a few scripts, but I couldn't control it with Dragonframe.
 Now, after two years (and again, working on other things), I decided to give the prototype another go. And for some reason it works! I uploaded the provided script (without the kill switch line in the code) and the Arduino Uno connects and works perfectly with Dragonframe :)

I made a little video to show you the MC in action!
I'll do some more tests later to find out how well it can return to it's original position and such.

 
Motion Control - First test from Maarten Van Rooy on Vimeo.

New website & showreel

I recently have a new portfolio-website! There is a new showreel on there too!

www.maartenvanrooy.com

 

Drums commercial

Here's another commercial I did for Groove Music Shop:

New Groove saxophone commercial

Another commercial appeared online!

Groove statue

Here he is again! Besides the three commercials, the shop owners had the idea to have a statue to put in their store. To create this I have made three molds. A two-piece silicone mold for the character, a one-piece latex mold with a plaster mother mold for the guitar and the same kind for the statues base. As you can see the color is different than the original model. This I did to match the store's logo color.

Because I wanted to be able to animate the pupils on the original puppet after the mold making, I didn't glue them on. Instead I added some latex eyes onto the cast model.

 Because the original puppet was made out of Plasticine, I used a softer kind (Play Doh, yes, the kid's toy) which doesn't stick to the puppet that easily.

 The first part finished. As you can see the surface of the mold is rough on several spots. This is because this kind of plasticine is more difficult to smooth out.

 The guitar mold. I removed the head of the guitar, because it is in angle onto the neck. This would otherwise require a two-piece mold. The iron strings were added later.

More musical commercials coming up

I'm currently working on two more commercials for Groove Music Shop. The first one featuring a drumkit is finished. Right now I'm doing the last bits of preparation for the second one, which will be about a saxophone. Tomorrow it's back to the animation set! I'll put links to the commercials here as soon as they appear online.

Groove commercial online

Hi again! Here's the commercial for Groove Music Shop I've been working on last month:

This is the first out of a series of three commercials. The next two will be finished in the Summer season.

Groove commercial stuff!

In the near future I'll post the short commercial I did for Groove Music Shop.
For now, here is already a bit of extra stuff! Some pictures I made during the making of the commercial.

These are the two versions of the guitar, for the biggest part made out of balsa wood.

Almost ready for shooting!

In mid-air! The wires and the strap were very véry annoying :)

Before shooting I made a little test for the explosion of the amplifier. This one is done at 24fp (in the commercial I did it on 12fps). I changed some stuff for the final animation, like the way the piece of wood falls down.

Because I had some issues with the 'flickering' on the images, I will use a brand new flicker-free Nikon lens for the next commercial. Hurray!

'Groove' stop motion commercial

Hi there! At the moment I'm working on a short commercial for a music store called 'Groove'. For now I just have this picture but I'll be posting some more photo's, video's and details soon!

Stop Motion Again

I've been doing some tests with liquid latex on snipping foam to see how well it works. The results are quite nice, and it's the process is not too complicated. So I decided to try this on a puppet!
It's a green monster, inspired by the one from the movie The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

It is a alluminium wire armature. I used wooden blocks for the chest and the feet, epoxy putty and alluminium tube for the arms, legs and hips. The eyeballs in the skull are wooden balls and are animatable. The jaw can go up and down and I also added some wired piece of loose skin at the back of its head, which makes it also animatable.

As soon as my computer likes me again, I'll upload some test animations I did. 

Animoko at Anima

Last Thursday, I was asked to animate in front of an audience at the Anima Festival to demonstrate the capabilities of the Animoko, a motion control rig designed for stop motion animation. The presentation was done by Animoko designer Kommer Kleijn and Vincent Gilot.

Vincent Gilot and Kommer Kleijn

Cleaned Out: 2nd for the Animex Stop Motion Award!

Yesterday, it was announced that Cleaned Out was runner-up for the Animex Stop Motion Award! Hurray!

Cleaned Out screens on Anima 2010 Festival

Cleaned Out will be shown this month at the Brussels Animation Film Festival!

Screenings are:
Sunday February 14th at 18h00 in Studio 4, large screen,
Saturday February 20th at 17h30 in Studio 5. It's in the programme 'It's Belgian 2'.

http://www.animatv.be

List of all known festival screenings

Animation Festivals - Cleaned Out & Yakkety-Yak Selected

There are some filmfestivals out there where my films are shown!

Cleaned Out
No-Festival, Chelyabinsk, Russia*, 05/11/2009
Holland Animation Film Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 6/11/2009
Het Grote Ongeduld!, Brussels, Belgium, 18/11/2009
Expotoons, Buenos Aires, Argentina 25-28/11/2009
International Shortfilmfestival Leuven, Belgium, 12/2009 3th place
Future Film Festival, Bologna, Italy, 01/2010
Animex Festival, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom, 02/2010 Stop Motion Award runner-up
Anima Animation Festival, Brussels, Belgium, 14/02/2010
Ciné Privé, Gent, 02/2010
De Langste Nacht Van De Korte Film 2, Overijse, Belgium, 27/02/2010
Salento Finibus Terrae International Short Film Festival, San Vito dei Normanni, Italy, 07/2010
Les Nuits Magiques, Begles, France, 3/12/2010

Yakkety-Yak
International Film Festival Ghent, Belgium 11/10/2008
Animex Festival, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom, 02/2009
Klik! Amsterdam, The Netherlands 09/2009
No-Festival, Chelyabinsk, Russia* 05/11/2009
Future Film Festival, Bologna, Italy 01/2010

*Openingsscreening: Presentation of new animation from Belgium.

If I find out some more, I'll let you know.

Showreel online!

It was already online for a couple of weeks, but forgot to tell you! Hopla!

From under the dust

As the end of my school carreer is approaching, I was thinking about the first short animated sequence I did in stop frame technique. It was a chance for me and Andreas to be able to use an old Bolex 16mm, which would be replaced by digital camera's (the ones we use now).

Enjoy!

(there is no sound)

They can talk

Today I recorded the voices! They were done by Flemish actors Sven De Ridder and David Davidse. I'm very pleased with the result! It's interesting to see how characters come to life with the addition of sounds.
This sunday it's back into the studio for the recording of the music track!

Animation finished!

Last week I did my final shot. Now it's on to the post-production. Still a lot of work there, but it'll be nice to see it come together.

The Hallway

I finished the first two shots of the hallway! Hurray! Now it's nine shots to do and the animation is finished!

I'm in a bit of a delay updating this blog. I started animating a while ago and the animation for the office part is almost finished now. This week I'll set up the hallway.
The orangered sky you see behind the set is from another students project.