Software, hardware and all things technical

Today has been mostly spent trying to set up the equipment required to capture animation. As I will need to begin animating ASAP, and will need to animate regularly (once or twice each week) my options are somewhat limited.

The animation resource at NUCA is overstretched at this time of year as the BA students are working towards their deadline. This means that we have to make other arrangements if we want to regularly use the resource in between now and when the BA's hand their work in. I have spoken to the workshop manager (Sam) and he has agreed to let me use a room that is currently used as a storage area. I have my own DSLR and laptop so my only real equipment needs are a rostrum and lightbox, both of which are available through the animation resource.

During my BA I opted to just use the Canon remote capture facility that came with my Canon Eos DSLR instead of using any animation software. This process involved using the remote facility to lock the camera settings and capturing straight onto my hard drive. As I didn't use any animation software, I had to use Quicktime Pro to make the stills into a movie each time I wanted to see a shot. This was not too much of a problem as I prefer not to look until I have produced something more substantial than a few seconds.

The issues that I have with my current camera are mostly to do with software. I currently own a Nikon D5000 which comes with it's own software that enables the user to download the images onto the computer from the camera/memory card. Unlike the Canon software, Nikon does not offer a remote capture or 'tethering' facility. Initially I couldn't even get the Nikon software to work on my operating system (Mac OS 10.6.2) but after a bit of fiddling around with updates I managed to get it to work.

I looked at several pieces of tethered shooting software but found that a lot of the free software available was either incompatible with the Mac OS or with my camera. I found one piece of software that I tried called Sofortbild at first glance it seemed that this piece of software might be sufficient but after a few tests it became apparent that it didn't have the capabilities that I had hoped for. When shooting I will need to use a time-lapse function in order to keep my hands free and maintain consistency when using fluids to animate. I found that when using the time-lapse facility on the sofortbild software that it would change the camera settings between shots, altering the light and leading to flickering. Sam and I had a look to see if we could do anything to remedy this but it seemed that the software wasn't capable of locking the settings during time-lapse photography.

I decided to look at the stop-motion software that is available with my set-up and the two main contenders are Dragon Stop-motion and iStopMotion both of these pieces of software are quite expensive. At first I thought that the iStopMotion software might be quite cheap as it said that there were versions available from $49. However, the version available at the lower price didn't support HD formats so wouldn't have been suitable for this project. As shown on the table below, only the Pro version (costing $499 for a single license) had HD capabilities.



There seemed to be no educational discount for the iStopMotion software and paying $499 (£325) is not an option for me at the moment.

Dragon Stop Motion does offer an educational discount, but it is only available when purchased by an educational institution.



Suzie said that there may be some money in the budget to buy a (Dragon) license or two for students to use. I decided to download the trial version of Dragon to check it's compatibility with my camera and OS.

The initial tests were encouraging but I found that using Dragon in conjunction with my DSLR was a bit slow and clunky. When using Dragons time-lapse facility the shutter release seemed to be inconsistent. Even though the time-lapse was programmed to release the shutter every few seconds sometimes it would seem to stall and take longer for some frames. This wasn't too much of a problem as the lighting was looking suitably consistent but I found that the battery on my camera wasn't lasting long enough so I looked at the possibility of buying an AC adaptor. The adaptor would have cost a little over £100, which again is not something that I can afford at the moment.

All of this left me feeling a little disappointed, as I feel that my financial situation is of my own doing. I made a decision that I would only take on a minimum of paid work this year to give me some time and space to work on my MA as I didn't want to repeat any mistakes that I made during my BA when I was working over 30 hours a week on top of my course. Getting the work/MA balance right has been difficult. In the 1st year of the MA I was also finishing of my teaching diploma as well as working, which was too much in terms of workload but it meant that I was better off financially as I was in receipt of a loan and bursary. This year I made sure that the bulk of my workload occurred between September and February, leaving time free during the Masters project. This has been great when it comes to the theory and 'thinking' behind my work as it has given me some much needed space in which to develop my ideas. This is what I have too tell myself when I hit an obstacle that is related to money, if I had the money I wouldn't have the time. As nice as it was to be able to spend money on my BA project it would have been nicer not to have to get up at 5am every weekday morning!

So I will wait.

After spending weeks trying to find a technical solution that works I must admit defeat, wait until the BA students have finished and use the resources available at NUCA instead of using my own equipment.