Legomation and Stop Motion Videos built with Web Cams

I read an article in the November edition of Wired magazine on how you can build stop-motion animation films using Legos and fairly cheap Web Cams (many of which -- including the Logitech Quickcam -- come with built-in stop motion animation software). 

The idea with stop-motion animation is that you move the objects on your set a fraction, take a picture, move them a fraction more, take another picture, and so-on (the goal being to have 15 frames or pictures taken per second to simulate smooth movement).

There is now a whole community built up around doing these types of movies with Legos.  http://www.brickfilms.com/ is a great resource to learn more on how it is done (there are several great articles about the techniques, software to use, etc).  There are also a number of cool (and some downright weird) movies that people have posted.

I bought a cheap webcam and spent an hour or two over the weekend animating a Duke Blue Devil mascot (complete with soundtrack).  I have to admit it was pretty fun.  Here is my Oscar winning contender: http://www.scottgu.com/movies/bluewithmusic.zip

10 Comments

  • Hey! None of this "playing with legos" stuff, Scott. Don't you know you guys have got software to ship? There's millions of us waiting for Whidbey, don't'cha know? ;-)



  • OK, so it wasn't legos, and it was pretty funny...but, still...

  • heh... I bought a vhsc video camera a few years ago that had this capability. A couple friends and I made an Oscar-contender movie about a stress ball, a 3-inch high stuffed armadillo and a spoon. There was a short fight scene, and in the end, they all drove away in a shoe. I really should dig that out and digitize it.

  • It's so wonderful to know my big brother is still using the artistic talents that delighted me during our childhood :)

  • i am realy lucky that your job is to develop asp.net and not to build media featurs of longhorn ;-))

  • How about using directx 3d features to simulate one of these movies. Legos cannot be hard to model, and the rules for placing them together are not too difficult. Ideally, the program would import an existing piece of real video, and the program would generate a closest match in 3d legos that looks like the movies being made ( you would have to limit the amount and color of legos).

    If MS came up with that for a demo, I would be impressed.

  • I found 'The Dr. J Animation Show' It is online at www.doctorj.tk Most of the episodes use Lego bricks, and i like to watch them

  • This is where the real films are. I actualy got paid for one of these, so I am a professional legomation film director.



  • somewhat disapointed that you didn't remember to spell LEGO with capitol letters :P

  • I would like to satrt doing LEGO movies, but the original LEGO software doesn't seem to run on my pc, how can I shoot those freakin' films with a regular camera?

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