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.

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 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. 

Cleaned Out - Short Preview

As promised, here is a short preview of Cleaned Out!



Greets!

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!

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.

Puppet dress-up

The heads are cast in 2-component polyurethane (PU). I filled the holes (caused by the air bubbles) with Milliput.



For the cops' armatures I used a mix of ball 'n' socket parts and souldered kns with twisted aluminium wire. This armature doesn't have a spine, but these characters don't need it that much for the movie. It also makes them more durable.

Snipping foam or mattres foam, which I got from my grandfathers attic, is an easy and fast way to give the characters volume. The feet you see in the picture are also cast in polyurethane, directly onto the armatures feet.
And then it's off to the fabric store! This was harder then I thought. If there is one advise I can give you, it will be this: buy THIN fabric! Puppets don't like thick clothes.

Finished Sets

Finally, the finished sets. For some reason, I forgot to take a picture of the hallway. I'll post some pictures of it later on.

The exterior set has a halogen lamp in it, which will be the main light source.

More set building

Here are some more pictures of the office.
I'll start building the exterior set soon, of which I finished the dumpster some time ago.

Props and backgrounds

Besides just the 'popkes maken' it's also the set- and propmaking that is a big part of the preproduction. These are already older pics, I'll post some new later.

Puppets in the making!

Pictures!
Already a few of the heads. I started making the moulds of the baked heads last week and, this week I made a first plastic head. It all went pretty well, I think (except for the ears).