Image Quality Question - Stop-Motion Animation

[rcurtisdesign]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum and software, so please forgive my ignorance if this question is common knowledge. I'm running TV Paint 11 - Pro Edition and trying to situate the "Live-Feed" function to create stop-motion animation clips. My question to all of you is:

Is the image that shows up in the video-input box and timeline canvas always going to be mid to low resolution?

Here's my setup:

•Webcam: Logitech C920 webcam (factory installed cable)

•Camera Software: Logitech Controller (tested), Webcam Settings (tested), iGlasses (tested)

•Computer Specs:

iMac 27in 5K Retina (Late 2015)
Processor: 4GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 32 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4060MB
3TB Free Fusion Storage
1TB Samsung T3 Flash Memory SSD (USB 3.01)

To further my troubleshooting, I installed and optimized the Canon Utility software, then initiated a workaround that allowed my Canon T4i to operate as a webcam (which actually worked in TV Paint 11 Pro), but despite the increase in camera quality, the image didn't improve at all. Normally I would question my processing speed, but in other applications that utilize either camera the image quality is crystal clear. After testing multiple setups and settings, I'm embarrassed to say I'm completely stumped. Is this just how it is? I don't have any control to weigh it against so I'm not sure. Any insight, suggestions or answers are welcome.

[schwarzgrau]

I'm not really familiar with the stop-motion-part of TVPaint, but I guess I can tell you, why the output of your T2i looks bad, since I own one too.
I guess TVPaint only uses the live-view of your cam, which only has a resolution of 480p, since it's just meant to give some kind of preview.
Dragonframe for example uses this liveview for setting up the image, but if you capture an image, it also forces the camera to take a full res image and downloads it from the cam. A process which doesn't seem possible with TVPaint, since the stop-motion-feature seems like an abandoned part of TVPaint, which gets dragged along since few years.

[D.T. Nethery]

I'm not really familiar with the stop-motion-part of TVPaint, but I guess I can tell you, why the output of your T2i looks bad, since I own one too.

I guess TVPaint only uses the live-view of your cam, which only has a resolution of 480p, since it's just meant to give some kind of preview.

Dragonframe for example uses this liveview for setting up the image, but if you capture an image, it also forces the camera to take a full res image and downloads it from the cam. A process which doesn't seem possible with TVPaint, since the stop-motion-feature seems like an abandoned part of TVPaint, which gets dragged along since few years.

Here's how I'd do it : Set up your TVPaint project to 1920 x 1080 , 24 fps . Then , with your Canon dslr camera patched in to your computer you can use it to animate with the live-view video feed from the camera (using the onion-skinning function, called "Mix" in TVPaint Video Input, combined with the light-table settings and layer opacity ) , but when you capture each image you will capture it once in TVPaint (the live-view preview image) and capture the same image again on the Canon (as a high-res. image) Click - click : click once (TVPaint) click again (Canon) . Then continue. When you are finished , you'll have a captured image sequence on the Timeline in TVPaint and you'll have the same image sequence on the Canon (but will be in high-resolution on the camera) . Now transfer the high-res. images from the Canon to your computer , import them into TVPaint as a Layer (over the existing layer) , then you can hide or delete the existing layer with the lower-res. images captured from the live-view of the camera , to replace it with the high-res. images from the camera . Make any adjustments to the images in terms of the timing (maybe some images will be exposed ON 2's or maybe some images will be held ) and add any FX to the images from the FX Stack. Then output the final stop-motion animation to a .mov or .avi file.

So to summarize , you're using the live-view video as a preview image to utilize the onion-skinning, but the actual frame captures that you'll use for the final piece will be the high-res. images from the Canon camera.

Use a remote control to release the shutter on the Canon each time, so you don't have to physically touch the camera . (either use the remote which came with the camera if it had one , or you can get a remote control app on your mobile phone that will control the DSLR.) If you could sync the remote control that fires the shutter on the Canon with the Grab Video Input command in TVPaint (keyboard shortcut = Tab ) key) then you'd only have to do one click per image , because the synced remote would simultaneously capture the image to TVPaint (from the live-view feed) as well as capturing the image to the Canon's internal memory to be transferred later into TVPaint.

This is a similar process to using a DLSR with a parallel mounted webcam to provide the live-view feed (for using the onion-skinning) , except in this case the live-view feed is coming directly through your Canon's lens, so you don't have to compensate for the parallax effect (image displacement) from the webcam .



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If I were going to use a DSLR with a webcam mounted alongside of it (so the webcam provides live-view video feed to TVPaint to use the onion-skinning/Mix function) I would use a dual camera mounting bracket like this to mount the webcam next to the DSLR (the Logitech C930, C920, C615 and the Microsoft LifeCam Studio webcams all have a tripod socket built-in to the webcam, so it can easily be mounted on a tripod or a bracket as shown. The bracket shown below allows you to adjust the distance between the two cameras , so you can compensate for the parallax effect.)

https://www.amazon.com/Camera-Bracket-C ... 004HK0RXY/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



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Another set up that might work would be to use one of these flexible arm mounts (intended to mount a flash unit) to mount the webcam alongside the DSLR , so you could fine tune the position of the webcam to compensate for the parallax effect.

https://www.amazon.com/CowboyStudio-Fle ... B00CVWZAW8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



(imagine, instead of the flash , the webcam mounted on the flexible arm )

[schwarzgrau]

Yea, thats basically the same way Dragonframe works, except the hires images stay on your cam and if you need to delete a frame or add in a frame between two existing ones (I guess this happens pretty rarely in stopmotion) you have to do it after you finished the animation.

[D.T. Nethery]

Stop motion animator Nick Hilligoss has an elegant solution for webcam video assist feature for Nikon DSLR (no live view in TVPaint) . The same could be done with a Canon DSLR . This eliminates to parallax (off-set) effect you have to deal with if you use a parallel mounted webcam alongside your DSLR (the webcam providing a live-view video feed to TVPaint so you can utilize the onion-skinning/Mix) .





https://www.youtube.com/user/StopmoNick/videos" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[D.T. Nethery]

I installed and optimized the Canon Utility software, then initiated a workaround that allowed my Canon T4i to operate as a webcam

Another thought about the Canon T4i DSLR : when you see the live-view from the Canon T4i in the Canon Utility does it let you see a previous image superimposed ("onion-skinned") ? If it does, then you could just animate your stop-motion while viewing the camera feed in Canon Utility , then transfer all the captured images from the Canon T4i to your computer and import into TVPaint to make final timing adjustments to the images (exposing images on 1's or 2's as needed and adding any holds , plus adding FX , color correction , etc. from the TVPaint FX Stack , then output the finished animation from TVPaint to .mov or .avi .

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In ye olden days when stop-motion animation was shot with film cameras , there was no "live-view" preview or onion-skinning . Animators used a tool called a surface gauge to assist in positioning the puppet or object being animated . Some stop-motion animators still prefer to use a surface gauge instead of onion-skinning or alongside of the onion-skinning .

See : https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... top+motion+" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uPLtaujG-U" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laWiX-8MoB8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

.

[D.T. Nethery]

I wanted to follow-up on this to report that I've been emailing with rcurtisdesign regarding his issue with the image quality in TVPaint Video Input and the issue is now resolved with regards to getting higher resolution image quality from the Logitech C920 webcam.

The other issue with the low-res 480p live-view feed from the Canon T4i DSLR is ongoing ... it really would be nice if someday TVPaint could be improved to interface with modern DSLR cameras to capture high-res. images from the DSLR into TVPaint. I realize that the focus of the TVPaint development team is not on the stop-motion market, but TVPaint really is a good application for stop-motion (so much can be done with tweaking and post-processing captured images using the various drawing modes and the FX Stack) , but the major impediment is that the user is limited to using a HD webcam as the capture device if they want to have a "live-view" which allows for using the Mix (onion-skinning) function in TVPaint Video Input. HD webcams are capable of capturing very good quality images , but not in the same league as DSLRs.

The workaround of using a webcam mounted parallel to a DSLR (with webcam providing the live video feed to TVPaint) is an "ok" workaround , but not ideal because of needing to adjust the framing of the images to compensate for the parallax effect of the webcam being slightly offset from the DSLR , plus the user must always remember to take TWO identical exposures for each position of the stop-motion puppet -- 1.) capture to TVPaint (click the Tab key), 2.) then also make a capture to the DSLR's memory card (push shutter release button on the camera , or better use a Remote control to fire the DSLR's shutter, so you don't risk jarring the camera by touching it) ... then finally you have the extra step of transferring the high-res. images from the DSLR's memory card to the computer and importing the image sequence into TVPaint. The process works , but it's a bit cumbersome.

-DN

------

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum and software, so please forgive my ignorance if this question is common knowledge. I'm running TV Paint 11 - Pro Edition and trying to situate the "Live-Feed" function to create stop-motion animation clips. My question to all of you is:

Is the image that shows up in the video-input box and timeline canvas always going to be mid to low resolution?

Here's my setup:

•Webcam: Logitech C920 webcam (factory installed cable)

•Camera Software: Logitech Controller (tested), Webcam Settings (tested), iGlasses (tested)

•Computer Specs:

iMac 27in 5K Retina (Late 2015)
Processor: 4GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 32 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4060MB
3TB Free Fusion Storage
1TB Samsung T3 Flash Memory SSD (USB 3.01)

To further my troubleshooting, I installed and optimized the Canon Utility software, then initiated a workaround that allowed my Canon T4i to operate as a webcam (which actually worked in TV Paint 11 Pro), but despite the increase in camera quality, the image didn't improve at all. Normally I would question my processing speed, but in other applications that utilize either camera the image quality is crystal clear. After testing multiple setups and settings, I'm embarrassed to say I'm completely stumped. Is this just how it is? I don't have any control to weigh it against so I'm not sure. Any insight, suggestions or answers are welcome.

[slowtiger]

Sounds nice, but I think most studios would like to keep their RAW images from the camera instead of the 24bit TVP images because of the greater range to tweak contrast etc?

[schwarzgrau]

Sounds nice, but I think most studios would like to keep their RAW images from the camera instead of the 24bit TVP images because of the greater range to tweak contrast etc?

Good point! And you have to consider the price of Dragonframe. 295 € isn't much for a software which can handle nearly everything for you, except of the actual animation. Sure if you only want to do a short stopmotion-animation and already own a copy of TVPaint it's one thing, but 295 € is really a fair price, even for smaller projects.