Stop Motion Animation

Created by John Park

Last updated on 2018-10-09 04:20:04 AM UTC

 Guide Contents

Guide Contents 2
Overview 3
Parts 3
Tools and Materials 5
Optional Upgrades 5
Stop Motion Animation Basics 7
Frame Rates 8
Capture and Edit 8
Stop Motion Apps 9
Animate a Shot 10
Set Build 10
Characters 10
Lighting 11
Camera Setup 11
Pose the Characters 12
App Setup 12
Frame Rate 12
Shoot the Frame 13
Repeat until Finished! 14
Exporting and Share Your Movie 15
Full Body Posing 17
Tie Downs 18
Rigging 18
Resources 19
Guides 19
Books 19
Puppets/Armatures/Pose Figures 19
Software 22
Behind the Scenes 22
Films 22

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Overview

Stop motion animation is lots of fun to watch, and maybe even more fun to make! Using a tablet or smartphone with
inexpensive or even free software, it's very easy to make your own stop motion films.

This guide covers the basics to get you started, and includes resources and links for further learning.

Since Halloween is a terrific subject for stop motion animation (go watch The Nightmare Before Christmas if you've
never seen it!) we'll create a Halloween-themed shot using our beloved Adafruit characters!

Parts
You can use nearly anything you like to create sets and characters for stop motion! A cardboard box and a couple of
LEGO figures or a lump of clay are more than enough materials to begin!

Here are some simple accessories to use if you want to make an Adafruit-themed Halloween stop motion animation.

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1 x Adafruit #ElectricHalloween Cards
set of 5
ADD TO CART

1 x Adafruit #ElectricHalloween Sticker Sheet

Set 1 of 2
ADD TO CART

1 x Adafruit #ElectricHalloween Sticker Sheet

Set 2 of 2
ADD TO CART

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Tools and Materials
In addition to cardboard or foam core to act as a set, plus some figures, blocks, clay, stickers, or other materials for
characters, you'll also need:

iOS or Android tablet or smart phone

Stop motion app, such as Stop Motion Studio (https://adafru.it/CGx)
Tripod or other tablet/phone holder to keep it steady
Many devices can use the inline button on a pair of earbuds to trigger the camera shutter without touching the
screen, so if you happen to have a set of those, great!
A lamp or two for even, controlled lighting

Optional Upgrades
If you want to bump up the quality of your stop motion animation at some point, consider getting dedicated lighting
and helping hands to hold set pieces and characters:

1 x Camera-Mount LED Photography Light

CIE Ra 95 - 3200K to 5600K
ADD TO CART

1 x Hobby Creek Magnetic Helper Hand

Two arms on one magnetic base
ADD TO CART

1 x Hobby Creek Magnetic Mag Hand Professional Workstation

with four arms and heavy steel base
ADD TO CART

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Let's get started!

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Stop Motion Animation Basics

The key principal to understand for any kind of animation, including stop motion, is persistence of vision. Our brains
are very good at filling in the blanks and imagining continuous motion when we see a series of still images displayed
in quick succession.

This is how motion pictures/film/movies/videos work, as well as mechanical illusions, such as zoetropes and flipbooks.
Traditional animation methods such as hand drawn animation, and puppet- or clay-based stop motion animation work
the same way. Create a single frame by drawing a pose, or posing a figure, and then shoot a frame of the image onto
film, or, more likely these days, a digital photograph. Then, create a new pose, shoot a second frame, and repeat this
on and on.

When you then rapidly review those images you photographed, suddenly your subject starts moving and comes to life!

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Frame Rates
Motion picture films and digital projections you see at the local cinema are most commonly played at a frame rate of 24
frames-per-second (FPS). Video displayed on NTSC televisions in the U.S. and Japan runs at 29.97 FPS while the PAL
standard in much of the rest of the world is 25 FPS. Most videos online run at 30 FPS.

Does this mean you need to pose and shoot 24 individual frames per second of animation? Thankfully, the answer is:
No!

While the highest quality hand drawn and CG animated features are typically animated on ones (one pose per frame),
plenty of animation is shot on twos, which means you pose the characters, then shoot two frames of film, and then
repeat, meaning you only create 12 unique frames of animation per second. These are then played back at 24 FPS and
our brains do enough "smoothing" that things still look great, even though each pose is being held for two frames.

It doesn't stop there, either. Lower budget Saturday morning cartoon animation and much anime is shot onthrees, so
only 6 poses are required per second.

We'll work at low frame rates, which really helps speed things along, especially when you're first learning. Typical stop
motion apps will let you choose your working frame rate, such as 5 FPS, and will preview your animation for you and
export movies at 30 FPS.

You can move to higher frame rates later on if you like, but to start we'll work at 5 FPS.

Capture and Edit

Besides a set and characters, the most important thing you'll need is a device to capture and edit your frames. There's
a wide range of options here -- tablets/smart phones, laptops with web cams, full DSLRs tethered to computers with
remote shutter releases, automated lighting, and motion controlled platforms!

We'll focus on using tablets or smart phones because they are inexpensive, small, simple, and do a great job when
paired with the right app!

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 Professional stop motion animators working in commercials and film generally use DSLR cameras connected
to a computer, and controlled with Dragonframe software. They often use motion controlled rigs for their
cameras -- Dragonframe's motion system can even control DIY Arduino-based motion control rigs and sliders!

Stop Motion Apps

It's certainly possible to create stop motion animation using only the regular camera app on your device, and then
separate editing software, but there are some huge advantages to using a dedicated app.

Three key features to look for in a stop motion app include:

Separate capture vs. playback frame rates

Onion skinning
Manual camera controls

I found that everything I need is in the free Stop Motion Studio app on iOS (https://adafru.it/CGy) and
Android (https://adafru.it/CGz) (they also have Windows and mac os versions). iStopMotion (https://adafru.it/CGA) is
another very popular app on iOS for iPad and mac os.

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Animate a Shot
It's time to animate a shot! First, we need to build our set, and add lighting and characters.

Set Build
Find a good spot to create your set -- a big table or workbench is best, especially if you can put it up against a wall to
serve as your backdrop.

You can lay down some cardstock or foamcore board as your ground plane and back wall in the set.

We'll use some poster putty or tape to place one of the Adafruit Halloween cards in the background of our set.

Characters
A couple of Adafruit Halloween character stickers seem just right for this! You can peel them off of the backing and
stick them to a small stack of LEGO bricks so they'll stand upright.

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Lighting
You may notice that natural shifts in lighting while you're creating your film become very noticeable when playing back
the shot at speed. To minimize this, try to control your lighting by placing a couple of lights above and to either side of
your set.

Camera Setup
We want to avoid any wiggle in our frames by locking down the camera. You can use a tripod mounting case for your

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device or simply wedge it in place with rubber bands and some hard back books! Anything that works so long as the
lens is clear, you can see and use the screen, and it isn't going to move around while you're animating!

Pose the Characters

Pose the first frame of your shot. We'll start with a very simple setup, using our Crickit trick-or-treater near the center of
the frame, and our Bat-AdaBot flying in from off frame upper right using a support of some kind. I am using a helping
hand arm.

App Setup
Specific steps will vary depending on the software you use. In Stop Motion Studio, we'll first create a new project by
pressing the plus sign.

Next, point the camera at your subject and tap the camera icon to lock in the setting we want. If we don't do so, the
focus, exposure, shutter speed, and white balance will tend to vary from frame to frame.

Use the manual mode and pick the settings you want to lock in for the shot.

Frame Rate
Choose your frame rate for the shot -- I am using 5 FPS, which means for every frame I shoot it will be played for 1/6th
of a second.

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Shoot the Frame
Now, press the record frame button (or use the button on a pair of earbuds plugged into the headphone port). Your
first frame is in the can!

Next, adjust the characters slightly to they'll meet up an a couple of seconds. You can see by the overlaid onion skin
transparency what the positions were for each character on the previous frame. If these are very nearly overlapping,
you'll make slower final movements in the animation; if these are farther apart, the motion will be rapid.

We want Bat-AdaBot to move quickly, so you'll want bigger spacing between frames. Shoot your next frame of
animation.

Here's a section from my John Park's Workshop livestream where I added some animation to a shot. Also
note how I've oriented the whole scene as a down shot, which really helps your characters to defy gravity!

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Repeat until Finished!
Keep posing and shooting each frame of animation until you're done! You can use these images as a guide.

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At any time you can scrub the timeline images left and right to get a sense of the motion, or press play to preview the
shot at full speed.

Exporting and Share Your Movie

You can now choose the back button in the app to complete your shooting and then export the animation. You'll have
choices for exporting still frames (great if you want to do more editing) or a movie file. Export the movie file and share it
with your friends!

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Full Body Posing

In our previous example, we posed our characters as one unit each. Using a LEGO minifig or typical action figure/doll
will give you a few more parts to work with and you can then explore arm moves, head turns, and walking.

If you use clay, wire, or a jointed figure with a high degree of freedom, you can do more elaborate posing of the
character itself. This is a great time to study how things move in real life!

Here's a test I did using a StickyBones posing figure. You can see how the emphasis here isn't on moving the
character around a set as much as it is rotating the character's joints in place to convey a certain pose or attitude.

This is a stop motion armature that uses hinge joints, ball joints, and wire fingers. It's highly poseable, yet holds poses
well. Typically, a foam puppet is built around this type of armature.

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Tie Downs
One thing you'll notice with larger poseable characters is that is can become important to tie down one or both feet to
prevent the character from falling over in more extreme poses! Some armatures have threaded or smooth holes for
attaching them to the set with tie down screws. Other's may have magnets. Here you can see my straps forward shrug
animation test where the feet are attached to the metal base plate with magnets to prevent the character from falling
over (the straps aren't actually supporting the figure much, it's mostly the foot magnet strength).

Rigging
In some cases, a character simply cannot hold a pose without extra help. Jumping into the air, for example, is
impossible without some kind of support rigging. Here you can see an animation done using a flying rig, as well as the
shot after roughly matting out the rig using post-production software, in this case Premiere Pro.

As you can imagine, it's possible to layer on more and more layers of detail and complexity as we consider facial
animation, secondary animation of clothing and props, and so on! With practice, it's possible to achieve incredibly
complex, dynamic, nuanced, and emotional performances with stop motion.

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Resources

Here are some resources for going into greater depth in stop motion animation, armature/puppet making, set building,
and more:

Guides
StopMotionAnimation.com Handbook (https://adafru.it/CGB)
Stop Motion Animator's Handbook (https://adafru.it/CGC)

Books
Aardman Book of 3-D Animation (https://adafru.it/CGM)
Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation (https://adafru.it/CGN)
LEGO Animation Book (https://adafru.it/CGO)

Puppets/Armatures/Pose Figures
You can use all kinds of things to build stop motion characters -- clay, foam and wire, LEGOs, action figures, you name
it! If you want to do more dynamic or fluid animation, you'll want a character with a high degree of freedom on more
joints than your average action figure.

ModiBot (https://adafru.it/CGD) can be purchased (https://adafru.it/CGE) or 3D printed (https://adafru.it/CGF)

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 StickyBones (https://adafru.it/CGG) are highly poseable figures with magnetic feet and palms for extremely
dynamic positions that hold their poses well (can be pre-ordered (https://adafru.it/CGH) now, shipping in
December)

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 Stop Motion Store (https://adafru.it/CGI) sells metal jointed and flexible wire-based armatures meant to be built
inside of puppets

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Software
Stop Motion Studio and Pro (https://adafru.it/CGx) for iOS, mac os, Android, and Windows
iStopMotion for iPad (https://adafru.it/CGA) or mac os (https://adafru.it/CGJ)
Dragonframe (https://adafru.it/CGK)for Windows, mac os, or Ubuntu Linux (this is pro grade software, but they
offer a discounted price for students, so may be worth trying the 30 day free trial if you get really into stop
motion!)

Behind the Scenes

Some of the best stop motion animation being created is from Laika Studios. Here's a wonderful look behind the
scenes on one of their full-scale features, ParaNorman.

Films
Here are some places to watch examples of stop motion animation, including commercial work, TV and feature films,
and fan-made LEGO brick films:

Aardman Short Films (https://adafru.it/CHi)

Brickfilms (https://adafru.it/CHj)
Bricks in Motion (https://adafru.it/CHk)
StopMotionAnimation.com (https://adafru.it/CHl)

This guide only scratches the surface of the rich, limitless world of stop motion animation. We hope it inspires you to
take your first steps and start animating!

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