More Wire Removal Testing

I had the concept down on wire removal, but I didn't really try it yet. Today I tested out the theory, and it seems to work pretty well. The only thing that is messing me up right now is flicker problems from not constant lighting that shows where the wires were. I tried concealing it somewhat using a plug-in in Virtualdub and while it fixed the flicker problem there are other abnormalities that happen because of it. Other than that and some bad masking, it looks pretty good. I may need to try to fix it by using the plug-in first and then masking out the wire, but I'm having some problems with using footage in Blender that has been exported from Virtualdub. Once I can figure that out, I'll do another blog post to update you on what's happening.

LSW: The mad project

Here's a link to a site I think you should check out about a guy with a goal to remake StarWars Episode 4 using Lego animation. I first saw it quite a while ago, I don't remember when, but I thought it was neat back then and still do. Sadly, it seems that this site has been dead for quite a while now though, but it still has some cools stuff in it about how he did some of the effects that he did. Even though this is not claymation, it is still stop motion and I found it interesting seeing some of the techniques he used to complete part of his goal. He uses blue screen to do some of his space scenes, tracks, and other neat tricks to make things look like they're flying and stuff. So check it out, even if you don't watch the videos, take a look at the "making of" page.

http://www.lswproject.com/

Chroma Keying - Part 2

Image taken from Flickr.com, taken by Sou Patinador

Well, as I promised, here's part two of chroma keying. Seeing as I've learned most of the stuff I've learned about chroma key off the web, there's really no point in trying to explain it when I can just direct you to articles and video that would explain 10 times better than I could. It also saves me the work of writing out a bunch of stuff, so that's nice. Anyways, here are some of the links I've found during my research.

The Art of Keying
This here is a really nice article on chroma keying by fxguide called the Art of Keying. It has more information than I really want to know about the subject at the moment. It tells about the process, how it works, why you use blue and green, and much more. So if you want to learn more about what chroma key is exactly and some other odds and ends about it, check out this article.

You Tube Video 1
This is a good video done by Mark Apsolon on Youtube.com that covers chroma key nicely. He explains a little bit about chroma key, tells you where you can get the supplies to make one, some common errors people do and how to prevent them, and a number of other things. Below is his description of the video.

"This is a new updated video that goes into more detail about chroma key (green screen). We go over what chroma key is and how it works, chroma key muslins (cheap and expensive) and how to light your green screen background.

This is a two part video and one of a series of how to video production training videos."

You Tube Video 2
This is another good video by Mark Apsolon. He talks about some different chroma key materials and how to set them up and stuff. His description is below.

"In this part one of a three part tutorial we show a basic chroma key setup with lighting and chroma key backgrounds (plastic, muslins, Chroma key suit and paint). I tell you where I found affordable green screen Chroma key products on my search of the web."

Tube Tape
Last but not least is a place you can buy some chroma keying materials - Tube Tape. Just check out some of their stuff yourself by viewing their site.


And that's all I really have for you. These materials should give you a nice start on chroma keying, what it's about, and how to do it. If you want to learn more, just search and I'm sure you'll find lots more stuff out there.

Back to Part 1 Here

Wire Removal Studying

I haven't gotten around to posting the rest about chroma keying yet, I think I'll do that later within the next few days, but I have done some studying and research on wire removal. I'm trying to figure out how to do it a couple ways and give options to programs like I did with the chroma key, but I think I'll probably mainly stick to blender since I've had pretty good quality results. I should probably animate something with wires as well instead of using still images to see if it really works too. I'm not sure how I'll share this yet, maybe as a video tutorial but I still need to get a time to record. Now onto a couple more tests.

Chroma Keying - Part 1

Image taken from wikipedia.org

Chroma Keying, the act of taking out green, blue, or whatever color you want from an image and replacing it with another image of your choice. It's used often in weather reports, movies, and a number of other video productions. Some know it as blue or green screening. People may think this process is something beyond their own grasp, something they have to purchase a program or shell out a lot of money for. That is not the case however. Over time, I have found a number of free programs that you can use to chroma key with. Some are simpler than others, while some work better than others. Although I haven't tried them all, I'm going to bet that the more complex the program and the more available functions you have, the better the key will be (meaning no jagged edges and color spill and such). You'll have to learn to work them though.


T@B ZS4 will be the first on the list. This is the first free chroma key program I ever found, using Google. At the time, I thought it was a little complex, so I never really got into it. I didn't have this tutorial however, so go ahead and watch this if you feel like giving it a try.


Blender 3D is the second free program I found. Although some people may think that this program is mainly for 3D modeling and animation, you can do much, much more with it. Chroma keying is one of the extra bonuses of it. You can do this two ways in Blender. One way is by using a plug-in for the sequence editor found here. Another way is to use nodes. There are actually a number of ways to use nodes and you can get a better result over time with them depending on how you use them. Like I said earlier though, it takes a bit more knowledge and time to get it looking right. Good places to see some tutorials on how to do chroma keying with nodes are found here and here. A couple other Blender chroma keying resources are listed below.

Tutorials/Compositing/Chromakey
Tutorials/Compositing/Compositing

Some of this stuff may be hard to understand how to do if you've never used Blender before so you may want to try some other programs first. You can however get some pretty professional results using the Blender node system however.


Wax is another program of choice. I haven't used it before, but I think it's probably one of the easiest out of the batch. The quality it produces however isn't top notch. If your standards aren't high and you just want do some quick and easy chroma keying, this is probably the way to go. Here's a video tutorial from Instructables.com that you can watch to learn how to use it.


Cinegobs Keyer is the last of my free list. I'm sure that there are others out there, but I have yet to find them. This program I don't know much about. From the features displayed on the site, it looks like it has potential and may be better than Wax. You'll have to check it out for yourself however. You can probably figure out how to use it from the manual found here.


A couple of programs that you can pay for that I know of that have chroma key features in them are Adobe After Effects and CompositeLab from Fxhome.com. Both have more features than the average program other than chroma keying and are pretty high quality so you'll have to pay some money to get them. Stop Motion Pro also has some chroma keying functions for use in animation. You can find out how to use it here.

Now that you've read this, how is chroma keying stop motion related? Well, in your animation you can have the ability to use a green/blue screen behind your animation and put in an actual image to show the setting, you can use green/blue screen as a T.V. or screen and put actual information and stuff on it in post process, and do many other useful things with a green/blue screen. Why do we use green and blue for chroma key and how can we make it so that it's easier to chroma key? We'll save that for another post.

Thanks for reading and hope you learned something.

Go onto Part 2 Here

Custom Kramer Klaymation Armatures and Props

Hi,

I've been hard at work over the past week or so, creating web pages, ads, and setting up for my very own armature service. So I proudly present Custom Kramer Klaymation Armatures.

We currently will be offering to make custom wire armatures, you design them, we'll make them. All you have to do is email us to let us know by email and we will figure out cost and everything that goes along with the process. So, if you need an armature or know someone that needs one, check it out here.

We are also going to be offering a limited prop service meaning that we'll make props for you depending on the difficulty of them. If we don't have the ability or tools to make the prop, sorry, but we won't be able make it. All you'll have to do is email us telling us what you want and we'll tell you if we can do it. You go through the same process to order it as you do the armatures.

Last but not least, we are selling some armature wire in 20 feet rolls. This is so that you can buy the wire to make the armature yourself if you think you have the ability to or want to save a little money. You can purchase that here.

We may not be doing this very long due to traveling overseas and such, so order soon!

Remodeled Front Page

Today I remodeled the front page. I wanted to give it a fresh look, but I also wanted to adapt to the change in the update system. If I would have kept the old look, there would have been wasted space that used to be taken up by the old update areas. Also, since I also took off the old update links, I'm going to post them here if any one is interested.

Old Web News
Old Claymation News