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Where the Magic Comes In
And when I say magic, I'm talking about the magic of taking a photograph, moving the model a little bit, taking another photograph, and moving it a little bit more. Stop-motion animation, in other words. Which, when you play it back again, is about as close to real magic as you can get. It's alive! Right there on my table!
Here you can see a typical animation setup. Pretty simple, right? The camera is my trusty old EOS D30, which is linked up to the computer via USB - hit the spacebar and it takes a picture. Also notice the black background. That's not to make the models easier to cut out (I like to do that by hand, for best results) - it's to stop reflected light from the flash from tinting the models. Also notice that, because this is a game, each model needs to be photographed seperately - they will be put together later by the game program. In this shot, only the cow is being animated - all the other models are just watching. Yes.
The photographs are then cut out, adjusted, tweaked and laid out on the computer using Adobe Photoshop. Then the resulting files are loaded into the game. And that's really all there is to it. Except for, you know, the whole skill and artistry thing.
For some slightly more detailed information on my working methods, you can read this earlier piece I wrote on the subject.
If you want to know more about the techniques of stop-motion animation in general, I recommend you pay a visit to animateclay.com.
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