lol. Thanks! That was one of those ideas, that once you have it you can't NOT shoot it. It was also fun to have the kiddo's take part in some coordinated live action thingie.
I remember my first helping hands - finally my sister caught a break from holding the wires that were getting ever hotter as I learned to solder. Gorgeous video as always. Thank you!
Wow, those are some real helping hands. I've certainly done that with my own fingers, but never though to try and get my sister on board. lol. I'm glad you liked it!
Despite people saying to make more faster I say take as long as you want/need. It's always worth the wait. Your videos always bring a smile to my face. Tranquility in a storm of hurry
🥰 If I can bring someone some Tranquility in all of this, then I have exceeded my goals. That is lovely to hear. The only way I can trick myself into putting in the time to make a video is to have each of the shots be something that I think is kind of fun, and interesting. It's not unusual to spend a whole weekend just putting together some 15 second sequence. There really is no way to do it fast. It's kind of a trick getting it done at all. I have been producing a lot of sequences recently, but still a long way to go. Thank you for the lovely reminder that it's fine that I'm just pottering along at my own speed.
I was just thinking to myself the other day that I was hoping you would release a new video soon, my prayers have been answered! Absolutely love the videos!
@@retrotechjournal must have been lucky logging into youtube when i did. Loved this video and the stop motion parts are alway fun in your vids! I'll be sure to keep up with your channel when i can :)
We will have to see. I never really know what project is going to be the next big thing. I do know I'm going to do a couple of undocumented projects before I start up the next video. (Just because they go so much faster.) I might do a quick Injection Molding update video since I made some additional bits for that. Not sure.
@@ddade11 I do love those circular knitting machines. There’s something so nice about “a wave of interesting mechanical action zooming around in a circle”. :)
some of your considerations reminds me an old episode from Robin Renzetti (ROBRENZ) designing a camera mount with the same ball design. Very interesting for both cases, indeed !
Oh, you're too kind. This is why I don't put out many videos though. Not for lack of effort! 😆 More like: an entire year of effort. I'm glad you liked them! I really should figure out some middle ground.
Oh thanks. I haven't managed to figure out how to make videos quickly. I rather like making all kinds of crazy trick shots and what not, and it just takes a TON of time. So I can't really crank them out. I might be able to do shorter ones at a bit faster pace, but I'm already putting a huge chunk of my free time into this, so it's unlikely be posting super frequently. I do have maybe 1/4 of a videos worth of cutting room floor segments that didn't make it into this video. So I might use them. Not sure.
OMG, I'm so glad you got that reference! I had a longer segment with more lines like "Stop Motions needing saving", etc. And I quickly realized that should NEVER see the light of day. 😆 I am not a person that can pull that of gracefully! I trimmed it down to the very smallest reference I could manage, and just hoped it wasn't entirely gone/not a reference any more. This comment made my day!
@@retrotechjournal i kinda did a double take when you said it, and assumed it must have been from something else, then figured your inflection had to be intentional 🤣
Good idea! I also realized later I could probably use a plastic bag with the corner cut out as a disposable goop applicator. Kind of like those things for adding icing.
The videos on this channel make you think more of cinema than of the usual YT fast video consumption products (disposable)... In the 70s and 80s stop motion was widely used, I would like to remember a good Japanese animator who lived in Italy and made many short films for children, using colored clay, works that still deserve to be seen today for their aesthetic and artistic qualities . Her name is Fusako Yusaki.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh man, this one was right up my alley! Your videos are very relaxing, and you're a natural educator. Also, did I mention I like this topic! :D 19:00 But how did you film the BEHIND-THE-SCENES behind-the-scenes?!? ;)
P.S. This kind of rig is pretty phenomenal for economical purposes, because I've learned that often times you'll want multiple rigs. If you're like me and have just one (Kinetic Armatures, as you mentioned), you'll quickly run into situations where a 2nd, 3rd, 4th... can be used to supplement.
I knew this one would be up your alley! Heck when I filming it when ever I was imagining my target audience I basically would imagine you. Lol. Yes exactly. If you have a number of secondary characters/objects it’s so handy to have enough rigs. I probably should design a version that doesn’t need so much brass cutting. I’m sure a simpler rig could still work, but I’m so used to designing around those little bearings I basically use them by default. I love your work. I have no idea how you do all that in a timely manner and have it be so awesome. Great visually/audio. I’ve made a few videos now and they always take me FOREVER. *sigh*
@@retrotechjournal I can genuinely tell your videos take time because the editing makes that plain. ;) OH... and not to mention, you straight up sprinkled in some healthy STOP-MOTION ANIMATION! :D Certainly a recipe for time expenditure. ;) But you're doing an incredible job - keep it up!!!!!
Very cool build and I really liked the "behind the scenes" view showing how you use the rigs. I know it's not the focus of your channel but I'd love to see the stop motion animations you produce with this setup.
Strangely I did use that setup to do the “nickel stacking” sequence. Even though that sequence seems to be before I finished the rig. lol. I debated showing part of the sequence later without the rig removal. That eventually got cut in favor of my wackier behind the scenes idea. 😆 still the lego guys walking and nickel handing are all managed with the rig.
Oh I'm glad you liked it! I like making the videos but they do take a crazy long time, and the topics are kind of all over the place. I'm glad anyone watches them.
It's always a treat to see a new video on your channel and even though it was 3am I had to watch it right then. I do love stop motion and I even tried this once with my new camera that has some support for this built in. But I never realized the amount of effort and tools needed to make this happen so that got me into binge watching Edu's videos, your videos (the stop motion parts) and some others too. A whole day 'lost' on watching how to do stop motion. Well ... thanks ... No really, thanks a lot for this. I've always wanted to try some stop motion techniques but had no clue on where to start. Yes, of course I have seen all the "making of" stuff, especially from Aardman but did not connect it all in my head. Thanks to this video I do - and have some new goals 😁
Awesome! And I will say that you can do an incredible amount of stop motion just with your phone. I use Stop Motion Studio Pro, and it really provides everything you need. I didn't start using Dragon Frame until this video! (And even then many of the short stop motion parts were shot in video and edited into stop motion just to provide the easy video-stop-motion integration.). I'm excited to have sent you down the Stop Motion rabbit hole, but it really is easy to start doing, and to even get pretty darn good results. One thing you can do with Stop Motion Studio Pro is use your phone as a camera, and an iPad as the monitor/controller. Which makes a pretty pro setup, if you happen to have another device like that. Another thing to know is that it's all about timing. A pro animator can take the frames you've shot in some animation. Fiddle with only the timing, and make your animation 100x better. Now that's a skill that takes time to learn, but just knowing how important the timing is, and that you can/MUST fiddle with it in post will let you make your animations 4x better right out of the gate. Hold this frame longer for some anticipation, etc. I'm not experienced enough to be good at it, but like I said: Just knowing about it can let you claw your way to somewhat better animations. :]. Good luck! Send me a link when you give it a try!
sorry.. seen just second video after the plastic press you made, and one thing must be given - Love your sense of humor. :D Dude continue and feed us more, soon 100K subs and sooner 1m and more. well done
I am working on another video. They take a long time to make! I don’t think I’ll ever reach 100k subs. I think in part because I don’t post a lot of videos my stats just very slowly creep up. Maybe I’ll make it to 100k by 2034. 😅. I’m glad you like the channel!
I'm glad you found it! I think the channel doesn't get very many recommendations because of how slowly I produce content. It's great when someone who likes it finds it! Welcome!
I do love SteadyCraftin. I've even chatted with him a little on Discord/Patrion. You're totally right that we have a lot of similar interests. He is SO great. So kind and so skilled at making videos. I have no idea how he does it. (Well or how he does in in a time frame < 1 year. 😄).
You’re welcome! It’s very nice to have an appreciative audience! If I’ve managed to bring some delight into the world then I consider that mission accomplished!
@@retrotechjournal so much thought had to be put into it, from the design and construction methods, to the animation and gags. By the way, I decided to subscribe right after you started plucking the strings of your air-bass 🤣 and I also agree that gears are fun!
@@retrotechjournal my thought was, oh this guy is fun, he didn’t have to put that in there he’s just trying to lighten up what could have been a dry/forgettable video but that was not the case and then confirming that’s not what you’re about with you actually using the craft to help tell the story/teach the concepts by animating throughout which you didn’t have to do and would have added x amount of time to create the video. You can tell you love the craft and and that spoke to me on an inspirational level. Cringe? Yeah, sure maybe but you committed to it and I think it helped the pacing, you were doing more than just explaining a thing, you’re a storyteller and a bit of a character yourself and that’s a good thing. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 oh and the behind the scenes of the behind the scenes…I was cracking up, was not expecting that. Great stuff.
I had seen those! I never needed them for machining, but they would be quit a bit heavier which would be great. I did see there were some with a single screw hole. That might be the best compromise between weight and ease of mounting to. Otherwise you'd have to glue to the top/or clamp to it in some other way. Doable I guess since the outside dimensions are super consistent as opposed to the holes! I also think folks might want to glue a piece of that flat cork board stuff to the bottoms if you're sliding around on a surface you don't want to risk marking. (maybe less likely to shed threads like felt feet might) Thanks for the heads up! There are always ways to improve these things... Thanks for contributing!
Ja, that could work as long as they have a height adjustment dial, not just a lock + find tuning knob. I haven't priced those in a long time. It's nice to be able to set the friction to "my character doesn't drop" and then you can just twist the dial each frame. It's a good idea. I'll have to look around to see what kinds of price points we're talking about.
I'm thrilled you liked it! That's me the stealth subscription. A year in the depths working on some obscure video, I surface to publish it, and vanish again below the waves. 😆
I feel like a 3d printer itself already would be a pretty good rigging tool with the right software. Obviously that's not what you're aiming to do, but it's interesting that one of the tools in this process already has such traits. Perhaps more interesting would be making a 3 axis device similar to a printer in structure but more optimized to stop motion, since people have made 3d printers with primarily 3d printed parts already! Combining it with your improved helping hands and perhaps even CNC seems like it could have a lot of potential!
That's an interesting idea. The great thing is Dragon Frame already released an Arduino Lib that handles the single most difficult part of that kind of build. Namely integrating the motion into to the animation software so you can actually take full advantage of it. They have a lib that lets you hook up Arduino driven stepper motor rigs and connect them to motion curves in the software. So that's a very easy lift for your own custom motorized rigs. (Even a 3D printer if you wanted XYZ Motion) I've always wanted to try my hand at Go Motion. Ever since I saw Dragon Heart. Now it would be even cooler if Dragon Frame released some API so I could write a Fluid NC adapter for it, but the Arduino stuff really just lets you cut out 95% of the painful real-time motion control/key-framing software stuff, and lets you use a lot of off the shelf hardware. I am thinking about trying it out sometime soon. Hell I already have all the hardware I could possibly need for such a rig, and both Go-Motion and full camera motion control are in the running for upcoming projects. There is more to stop motion than XYZ positioning though. Charaters often have a lot of degrees of freedom, that go into a performance and fully automating that would be very difficult, but adding a couple of deg. for something like wing positions that could benefit from Go-Motion sounds super fun. So I'd probably aim for a middle ground of automated motion coupled with more manual stop motion performance.
@@retrotechjournal If working off an actual 3d printer, that kind of library might not even be that difficult. Most 3d printers use Gcode, which includes the G0 move without extrusion command, as well as the G4 wait command and the M66 wait for input command. It does seem like the pipeline from the numerical values to a printer-compatible format is relatively straightforward tho, I just don't know about the animation software to numerical part. You're definitely right tho that you'd want rotational degrees of freedom too, I was thinking that perhaps something like a delta printer arrangement (three linear actuators all in parallel, running through the vertices of a triangle) might be able to be tweaked to sacrifice a spatial DOF for a rotational one. That or an auxiliary DOF might be useful, and I imagine you might even be able to get away with mounting an extra motor on the (not printing anymore)-print head itself for an additional DOF A delta printer style is also structurally not that complicated to make, and while the geometry of positioning the head is tricky, you can find delta printer driver software online pretty readily.
@@sage5296 I guess I could look at Dragon Frame's Arduino lib. If it's serial protocol is simple enough I could adapt it to something like a GRBL gcode sender. Some interesting things could come of that. Still I think just using their native lib is going to handle most of my needs for Go-Motion. Neat. Fun to think about.
As always - great and highly entertaining video! Why didnt you solder the brass spheres to the brass tubes? A heavy soldering iron of 80-100W (aka "Ye ol´ Firestarter") should do the job just fine, a small propane torch would have worked too.
Oh thanks! Well you can certainly do that with the solid brass spheres. That would work great, but for the hollow ones the whole point is to fill them with epoxy so the don’t collapse. I suppose you could try to do that with solder and with enough flux you might be able to fill them but it’s very difficult to clean the insides of those spheres. Also adding any volume of solder is going to add a bunch of weight, so I chose to do it with epoxy. Ye ol’ firestarter. 😂. I tend to use one of those tiny butane torches for that kind of soldering.
@@retrotechjournal I hereby challenge you to try and solder the spheres just for curiosities sake- when you get a good solder connection on both of their open ends they should be able to spread the load of the clamping force. This is hypothetical of course - but a closed sphere is a pretty sturdy thing, no?
@@christiankremer9635 I did have trouble with them crushing but your right that if it’s well bonded at the openings it should be pretty crush resistant. Ok challenge accepted! (After dinner)
@@christiankremer9635 Well, you are right that a sphere is pretty strong as long as the opening in the bead is fully supported. I had some issues with the beads crushing, but I think that was more due to glue failure at the opening + um me brilliantly clamping a bead in the jaws of a drill to clean up the bead at the other end. lol. Challenge accepted! . Ok. Here's the scoop. One issue with the beds I was using is that the holes though them are just under 1/8", so I was using the next smaller brass rod and there was a decent gap around the edge. So that made soldering difficult. Soldering was trivial, but contact would only be at one side. Which wasn't really acceptable. I was trying to keep tools to a minimum in this build, but if you use a tapered reamer to open the holes ever so slightly (so you have a tight fit with 1/8" rod) then it solders very well/is super simple and probably plenty strong. Is if you are up for enlarging the holes, soldering is probably the way to go even with a non-giant iron since the beads are thin. For folks using the epoxy method I'd recommend filing some gashes into your brass tubing before gluing to make sure they have a firm purchase. (I did this, but didn't properly show that in the video...). Great comment!
@@retrotechjournal Ah, I see... yes, a gap on the openings would potentially be a problem. Hm, I guess I would have tried to tightly wrap a thin copper wire (maybe even just some strands from a wire?) around the rod at both openings, thus filling the gap somewhat. The solder should be able to use that as a "bridge". I am looking forward to your next video!
This is great I love how adaptive you got here very clever ... I am currently creating characters for a stopmotion30 FPS One issue They are 3-4 pounds each Ive had to use heavy duty stuff to keep them air born Any tips ???
Wow, sounds like a neat project. I haven’t had to deal with that much weight. I’m sure you’ve noticed that as the weight goes up the size/cost of the rigs go up. Not sure what a hacky cheap solution might look like. Depending on the shapes/range of motion you need you might be able to suspend some of the weight with a line/pulley/counterweight but that won’t work if the object is doing ninja flips. :). I’d love to hear what you come up with!
This looks fantastic! Just wondering if you've tested the weight limits for it? Even if it can only handle a light load I think I'm going to try to put one together.
Well exact weight capacity really depends a LOT on how much stick out there is/the angles etc. even if you are doing larger/heavy figure work it’s very useful to have a bunch of these smaller rigs for secondary objects/characters. I haven’t tried using this with large heavy armatures but if they can have a foot down to support the weight this kind of rig could still help support/position parts of them. I did try hooking one to my 125lb anvil to get some shots I never used so I can report the rig is of zero use for that! 😄
@@retrotechjournal awesome! Looks like I'll just have to make one for myself and mess around with it. I do have a rig from animation toolkit but nothing with a winder yet. Have you thought about doing one with vertical and horizontal movement? Now that Edu Puertas has put winder production on hold while they make their movie this is the best option I've come across.
I probably should try making an XY rig like that. I was a bit worried that puts a lot of stress on the vertical rack, so it may need a somewhat different profile/a heavier base/etc. I probably should model one but right now I’m in the middle of some other projects, and the vertical only version of the winder handles most of my needs. Good luck with your animations! Let me know if you build and use the winders!
@@thebrownhat1 Well, the build uses 1/8" as the smallest size, and then then next two bigger sizes. I'll have to look up the exact cut list/metric equivalents. In terms of general use around the shop, those three sizes are certainly the most common one's I use, those and maybe 2 squire tube sizes for non rotating connectors.
Oh! Ja I think it's only downloadable if I had the paid version of Fusion. Hang on and I'll put a version on DropBox that you can fully download/mess with. I forgot about that. Oops. I'm at work right now, so I can't do it until tonight. I'll comment here with the link/update the description later tonight.
The download worked as I thought it would. Thanks ever so much. I just like to see the details how things are made in Fusion for learning purposes on my own projects. Thanks again. @@retrotechjournal
Here's a tip paint your rig bright green or blue and just key it out in the video software. literal weeks of a project with this method. green screen your rig.
I planned to have this playing in the background while I work on my own project but it was so engrossing that I ended up watching all of it and now my project is somehow overrun with LEGO construction workers. This is all your fault.
Love the shooting of the behind the scenes recursively
lol. Thanks! That was one of those ideas, that once you have it you can't NOT shoot it. It was also fun to have the kiddo's take part in some coordinated live action thingie.
@@retrotechjournal It was fun seeing the kiddos take part!
I remember my first helping hands - finally my sister caught a break from holding the wires that were getting ever hotter as I learned to solder. Gorgeous video as always. Thank you!
Wow, those are some real helping hands. I've certainly done that with my own fingers, but never though to try and get my sister on board. lol. I'm glad you liked it!
I'm amazed you have such a daring/caring sister!
Despite people saying to make more faster I say take as long as you want/need. It's always worth the wait. Your videos always bring a smile to my face. Tranquility in a storm of hurry
🥰 If I can bring someone some Tranquility in all of this, then I have exceeded my goals. That is lovely to hear. The only way I can trick myself into putting in the time to make a video is to have each of the shots be something that I think is kind of fun, and interesting. It's not unusual to spend a whole weekend just putting together some 15 second sequence. There really is no way to do it fast. It's kind of a trick getting it done at all. I have been producing a lot of sequences recently, but still a long way to go. Thank you for the lovely reminder that it's fine that I'm just pottering along at my own speed.
I was just thinking to myself the other day that I was hoping you would release a new video soon, my prayers have been answered! Absolutely love the videos!
Woot! I'm glad you liked it!
Welcome back! Always love seeing your new videos, can't wait to see what interesting project you'll put out next :D
Wow, you are lighting on the draw with the comment! I haven't even finished posting around that I made it yet! Let me know what you think.
@@retrotechjournal must have been lucky logging into youtube when i did.
Loved this video and the stop motion parts are alway fun in your vids!
I'll be sure to keep up with your channel when i can :)
You make great content, thanks for putting all the effort in to share with us all.
You're welcome!
EVERYBODY SHUT UP; THIS IS IMPORTANT! There's a new RetroTech Journal video!
🥰 Love this! 😄
This absolutely made my Friday afternoon!
I wish I had a friend like you. This looks like so much fun. I'm so glad I found your page..
I'm glad you found it to! It's nice when the videos find their audience. Welcome!
Love it! If you have time, I would love to see a revision or update to the loom!😀
We will have to see. I never really know what project is going to be the next big thing. I do know I'm going to do a couple of undocumented projects before I start up the next video. (Just because they go so much faster.) I might do a quick Injection Molding update video since I made some additional bits for that. Not sure.
Came here for the 3d printed content video. But now I have to check out this loom as I am in the process of 3d printing a circular sock machine.
@@ddade11 I do love those circular knitting machines. There’s something so nice about “a wave of interesting mechanical action zooming around in a circle”. :)
Muchas gracias por todo tu trabajo y dedicación, lo más importante Gracias por compartir
You are welcome! I always hope that the things I dabble in will at least help a few others.
some of your considerations reminds me an old episode from Robin Renzetti (ROBRENZ) designing a camera mount with the same ball design. Very interesting for both cases, indeed !
Oh, I'll have to check Robin out.
The amount of love, attention and creativity that goes into these videos is mindblowing.
Oh, you're too kind. This is why I don't put out many videos though. Not for lack of effort! 😆 More like: an entire year of effort. I'm glad you liked them! I really should figure out some middle ground.
@@retrotechjournal Thank you so much for sharing these! The amount of effort definitely shows.
You should try to do more videos, they're very good. I really enjoy how you narrate. The enthusiasm is refreshing.
Oh thanks. I haven't managed to figure out how to make videos quickly. I rather like making all kinds of crazy trick shots and what not, and it just takes a TON of time. So I can't really crank them out. I might be able to do shorter ones at a bit faster pace, but I'm already putting a huge chunk of my free time into this, so it's unlikely be posting super frequently. I do have maybe 1/4 of a videos worth of cutting room floor segments that didn't make it into this video. So I might use them. Not sure.
I appreciate the mc frontalot reference massively.
This was a super fun video
OMG, I'm so glad you got that reference! I had a longer segment with more lines like "Stop Motions needing saving", etc. And I quickly realized that should NEVER see the light of day. 😆 I am not a person that can pull that of gracefully! I trimmed it down to the very smallest reference I could manage, and just hoped it wasn't entirely gone/not a reference any more. This comment made my day!
@@retrotechjournal i kinda did a double take when you said it, and assumed it must have been from something else, then figured your inflection had to be intentional 🤣
These edits are way too nice. The quality of your content is really setting the bar high, really enjoyable to watch
Oh thanks! I do enjoy the process of filming/editing. I'm pleased you liked the results!
15:10 you could use a food syringe for injecting the epoxy goop.
Good idea! I also realized later I could probably use a plastic bag with the corner cut out as a disposable goop applicator. Kind of like those things for adding icing.
Great video❣️
The videos on this channel make you think more of cinema than of the usual YT fast video consumption products (disposable)...
In the 70s and 80s stop motion was widely used, I would like to remember a good Japanese animator who lived in Italy and made many short films for children, using colored clay, works that still deserve to be seen today for their aesthetic and artistic qualities .
Her name is Fusako Yusaki.
That sounds interesting. I'll have to look her up. Thanks!
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh man, this one was right up my alley!
Your videos are very relaxing, and you're a natural educator. Also, did I mention I like this topic! :D
19:00 But how did you film the BEHIND-THE-SCENES behind-the-scenes?!? ;)
P.S. This kind of rig is pretty phenomenal for economical purposes, because I've learned that often times you'll want multiple rigs. If you're like me and have just one (Kinetic Armatures, as you mentioned), you'll quickly run into situations where a 2nd, 3rd, 4th... can be used to supplement.
I knew this one would be up your alley! Heck when I filming it when ever I was imagining my target audience I basically would imagine you. Lol.
Yes exactly. If you have a number of secondary characters/objects it’s so handy to have enough rigs. I probably should design a version that doesn’t need so much brass cutting. I’m sure a simpler rig could still work, but I’m so used to designing around those little bearings I basically use them by default.
I love your work. I have no idea how you do all that in a timely manner and have it be so awesome. Great visually/audio. I’ve made a few videos now and they always take me FOREVER. *sigh*
@@retrotechjournal I can genuinely tell your videos take time because the editing makes that plain. ;) OH... and not to mention, you straight up sprinkled in some healthy STOP-MOTION ANIMATION! :D Certainly a recipe for time expenditure. ;)
But you're doing an incredible job - keep it up!!!!!
@@TheCrafsMan Thank you so much! That really means a lot coming from you!
Very cool build and I really liked the "behind the scenes" view showing how you use the rigs. I know it's not the focus of your channel but I'd love to see the stop motion animations you produce with this setup.
Strangely I did use that setup to do the “nickel stacking” sequence. Even though that sequence seems to be before I finished the rig. lol. I debated showing part of the sequence later without the rig removal. That eventually got cut in favor of my wackier behind the scenes idea. 😆 still the lego guys walking and nickel handing are all managed with the rig.
Wonderful. So good to see another video from you. Thanks!
Oh I'm glad you liked it! I like making the videos but they do take a crazy long time, and the topics are kind of all over the place. I'm glad anyone watches them.
It's always a treat to see a new video on your channel and even though it was 3am I had to watch it right then. I do love stop motion and I even tried this once with my new camera that has some support for this built in. But I never realized the amount of effort and tools needed to make this happen so that got me into binge watching Edu's videos, your videos (the stop motion parts) and some others too. A whole day 'lost' on watching how to do stop motion.
Well ... thanks ... No really, thanks a lot for this. I've always wanted to try some stop motion techniques but had no clue on where to start. Yes, of course I have seen all the "making of" stuff, especially from Aardman but did not connect it all in my head. Thanks to this video I do - and have some new goals 😁
Awesome! And I will say that you can do an incredible amount of stop motion just with your phone. I use Stop Motion Studio Pro, and it really provides everything you need. I didn't start using Dragon Frame until this video! (And even then many of the short stop motion parts were shot in video and edited into stop motion just to provide the easy video-stop-motion integration.). I'm excited to have sent you down the Stop Motion rabbit hole, but it really is easy to start doing, and to even get pretty darn good results. One thing you can do with Stop Motion Studio Pro is use your phone as a camera, and an iPad as the monitor/controller. Which makes a pretty pro setup, if you happen to have another device like that. Another thing to know is that it's all about timing. A pro animator can take the frames you've shot in some animation. Fiddle with only the timing, and make your animation 100x better. Now that's a skill that takes time to learn, but just knowing how important the timing is, and that you can/MUST fiddle with it in post will let you make your animations 4x better right out of the gate. Hold this frame longer for some anticipation, etc. I'm not experienced enough to be good at it, but like I said: Just knowing about it can let you claw your way to somewhat better animations. :]. Good luck! Send me a link when you give it a try!
Great to have you back!
sorry.. seen just second video after the plastic press you made, and one thing must be given - Love your sense of humor. :D Dude continue and feed us more, soon 100K subs and sooner 1m and more. well done
I am working on another video. They take a long time to make! I don’t think I’ll ever reach 100k subs. I think in part because I don’t post a lot of videos my stats just very slowly creep up. Maybe I’ll make it to 100k by 2034. 😅. I’m glad you like the channel!
I love this guy! I wish he would post more!
Sorry, the creation process is SO long, I can't really crank these out. :[
I love this channel, can't believe it was only recommended to me today.
I'm glad you found it! I think the channel doesn't get very many recommendations because of how slowly I produce content. It's great when someone who likes it finds it! Welcome!
Very impressive! Now I want to see the next video because I'll remember how you did the stop motion.
You need to do a collab with SteadyCraftin. You guys would really hit it off.
I do love SteadyCraftin. I've even chatted with him a little on Discord/Patrion. You're totally right that we have a lot of similar interests. He is SO great. So kind and so skilled at making videos. I have no idea how he does it. (Well or how he does in in a time frame < 1 year. 😄).
I have never seen one of your videos
I'm Amazed
I’m glad you liked it.
The Film-ception! haha loved it
That was fun to shoot with my kids. When I thought of it I knew I had to film it. Lol
This video was absolutely delightful, thanks for all the work that went into making it!
You’re welcome! It’s very nice to have an appreciative audience! If I’ve managed to bring some delight into the world then I consider that mission accomplished!
@@retrotechjournal so much thought had to be put into it, from the design and construction methods, to the animation and gags. By the way, I decided to subscribe right after you started plucking the strings of your air-bass 🤣 and I also agree that gears are fun!
@@RaptorPrinter lol. I was a bit worried about that shot. I was worried folks would find that too cringe 😬. I’m glad it was ok. Phew.
@@retrotechjournal my thought was, oh this guy is fun, he didn’t have to put that in there he’s just trying to lighten up what could have been a dry/forgettable video but that was not the case and then confirming that’s not what you’re about with you actually using the craft to help tell the story/teach the concepts by animating throughout which you didn’t have to do and would have added x amount of time to create the video. You can tell you love the craft and and that spoke to me on an inspirational level. Cringe? Yeah, sure maybe but you committed to it and I think it helped the pacing, you were doing more than just explaining a thing, you’re a storyteller and a bit of a character yourself and that’s a good thing. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 oh and the behind the scenes of the behind the scenes…I was cracking up, was not expecting that. Great stuff.
@@RaptorPrinter That’s very kind. I do labor over trying to make the story work as a whole which is tricky. I’m glad it was working for you!
I squeaked when I saw the thumbnail with you and your beard on it. Squeaked. So excited for this video!!!
High praise. Thanks. I hope you like it!
You can get solid 123 blocks too!
I had seen those! I never needed them for machining, but they would be quit a bit heavier which would be great. I did see there were some with a single screw hole. That might be the best compromise between weight and ease of mounting to. Otherwise you'd have to glue to the top/or clamp to it in some other way. Doable I guess since the outside dimensions are super consistent as opposed to the holes! I also think folks might want to glue a piece of that flat cork board stuff to the bottoms if you're sliding around on a surface you don't want to risk marking. (maybe less likely to shed threads like felt feet might) Thanks for the heads up! There are always ways to improve these things... Thanks for contributing!
always happy to see a new video from you!
Thank you for the nice comment! Always happy to make people happy. :]
@@retrotechjournal Of course! You have a very charming personality and I learn a lot from your videos!
@@EonMon Oh good.
Love what your doing here..
I think a used or cheapo hight gauge would work pretty well too for this
Ja, that could work as long as they have a height adjustment dial, not just a lock + find tuning knob. I haven't priced those in a long time. It's nice to be able to set the friction to "my character doesn't drop" and then you can just twist the dial each frame. It's a good idea. I'll have to look around to see what kinds of price points we're talking about.
I LOVE THIS CHANNEL
Out of nowhere...THIS!!! THANK YOU!
I'm thrilled you liked it! That's me the stealth subscription. A year in the depths working on some obscure video, I surface to publish it, and vanish again below the waves. 😆
I feel like a 3d printer itself already would be a pretty good rigging tool with the right software. Obviously that's not what you're aiming to do, but it's interesting that one of the tools in this process already has such traits. Perhaps more interesting would be making a 3 axis device similar to a printer in structure but more optimized to stop motion, since people have made 3d printers with primarily 3d printed parts already! Combining it with your improved helping hands and perhaps even CNC seems like it could have a lot of potential!
That's an interesting idea. The great thing is Dragon Frame already released an Arduino Lib that handles the single most difficult part of that kind of build. Namely integrating the motion into to the animation software so you can actually take full advantage of it. They have a lib that lets you hook up Arduino driven stepper motor rigs and connect them to motion curves in the software. So that's a very easy lift for your own custom motorized rigs. (Even a 3D printer if you wanted XYZ Motion)
I've always wanted to try my hand at Go Motion. Ever since I saw Dragon Heart. Now it would be even cooler if Dragon Frame released some API so I could write a Fluid NC adapter for it, but the Arduino stuff really just lets you cut out 95% of the painful real-time motion control/key-framing software stuff, and lets you use a lot of off the shelf hardware.
I am thinking about trying it out sometime soon. Hell I already have all the hardware I could possibly need for such a rig, and both Go-Motion and full camera motion control are in the running for upcoming projects.
There is more to stop motion than XYZ positioning though. Charaters often have a lot of degrees of freedom, that go into a performance and fully automating that would be very difficult, but adding a couple of deg. for something like wing positions that could benefit from Go-Motion sounds super fun.
So I'd probably aim for a middle ground of automated motion coupled with more manual stop motion performance.
@@retrotechjournal If working off an actual 3d printer, that kind of library might not even be that difficult. Most 3d printers use Gcode, which includes the G0 move without extrusion command, as well as the G4 wait command and the M66 wait for input command. It does seem like the pipeline from the numerical values to a printer-compatible format is relatively straightforward tho, I just don't know about the animation software to numerical part.
You're definitely right tho that you'd want rotational degrees of freedom too, I was thinking that perhaps something like a delta printer arrangement (three linear actuators all in parallel, running through the vertices of a triangle) might be able to be tweaked to sacrifice a spatial DOF for a rotational one. That or an auxiliary DOF might be useful, and I imagine you might even be able to get away with mounting an extra motor on the (not printing anymore)-print head itself for an additional DOF
A delta printer style is also structurally not that complicated to make, and while the geometry of positioning the head is tricky, you can find delta printer driver software online pretty readily.
@@sage5296 I guess I could look at Dragon Frame's Arduino lib. If it's serial protocol is simple enough I could adapt it to something like a GRBL gcode sender. Some interesting things could come of that. Still I think just using their native lib is going to handle most of my needs for Go-Motion. Neat. Fun to think about.
That was entertaining and inspiring!
Oh good! I spent a year working on it, so it's hard to have any perspective on it.
Great video!
Thanks! I’m glad you liked it!
very helpful explaination ❤
I’m glad it was useful. There days with more and more people having access to 3D printing it makes it easier to share designs.
Heck yeah. New vid!
Tienes un karisma estupendo
Fantastic ! (as usual)
[Tips hat in your direction] Thank you sir.
very cool.
As always - great and highly entertaining video! Why didnt you solder the brass spheres to the brass tubes? A heavy soldering iron of 80-100W (aka "Ye ol´ Firestarter") should do the job just fine, a small propane torch would have worked too.
Oh thanks! Well you can certainly do that with the solid brass spheres. That would work great, but for the hollow ones the whole point is to fill them with epoxy so the don’t collapse. I suppose you could try to do that with solder and with enough flux you might be able to fill them but it’s very difficult to clean the insides of those spheres. Also adding any volume of solder is going to add a bunch of weight, so I chose to do it with epoxy. Ye ol’ firestarter. 😂. I tend to use one of those tiny butane torches for that kind of soldering.
@@retrotechjournal I hereby challenge you to try and solder the spheres just for curiosities sake- when you get a good solder connection on both of their open ends they should be able to spread the load of the clamping force. This is hypothetical of course - but a closed sphere is a pretty sturdy thing, no?
@@christiankremer9635 I did have trouble with them crushing but your right that if it’s well bonded at the openings it should be pretty crush resistant. Ok challenge accepted! (After dinner)
@@christiankremer9635 Well, you are right that a sphere is pretty strong as long as the opening in the bead is fully supported. I had some issues with the beads crushing, but I think that was more due to glue failure at the opening + um me brilliantly clamping a bead in the jaws of a drill to clean up the bead at the other end. lol. Challenge accepted! . Ok. Here's the scoop. One issue with the beds I was using is that the holes though them are just under 1/8", so I was using the next smaller brass rod and there was a decent gap around the edge. So that made soldering difficult. Soldering was trivial, but contact would only be at one side. Which wasn't really acceptable. I was trying to keep tools to a minimum in this build, but if you use a tapered reamer to open the holes ever so slightly (so you have a tight fit with 1/8" rod) then it solders very well/is super simple and probably plenty strong. Is if you are up for enlarging the holes, soldering is probably the way to go even with a non-giant iron since the beads are thin. For folks using the epoxy method I'd recommend filing some gashes into your brass tubing before gluing to make sure they have a firm purchase. (I did this, but didn't properly show that in the video...). Great comment!
@@retrotechjournal Ah, I see... yes, a gap on the openings would potentially be a problem. Hm, I guess I would have tried to tightly wrap a thin copper wire (maybe even just some strands from a wire?) around the rod at both openings, thus filling the gap somewhat. The solder should be able to use that as a "bridge". I am looking forward to your next video!
This is great I love how adaptive you got here very clever ... I am currently creating characters for a stopmotion30 FPS
One issue They are 3-4 pounds each Ive had to use heavy duty stuff to keep them air born Any tips ???
Wow, sounds like a neat project. I haven’t had to deal with that much weight. I’m sure you’ve noticed that as the weight goes up the size/cost of the rigs go up. Not sure what a hacky cheap solution might look like. Depending on the shapes/range of motion you need you might be able to suspend some of the weight with a line/pulley/counterweight but that won’t work if the object is doing ninja flips. :). I’d love to hear what you come up with!
please give us more :)
I'm actually working one one right now! (in another window). lol. No idea how long it's going to take. It won't be done soon. Sorry!
This looks fantastic! Just wondering if you've tested the weight limits for it? Even if it can only handle a light load I think I'm going to try to put one together.
Well exact weight capacity really depends a LOT on how much stick out there is/the angles etc. even if you are doing larger/heavy figure work it’s very useful to have a bunch of these smaller rigs for secondary objects/characters. I haven’t tried using this with large heavy armatures but if they can have a foot down to support the weight this kind of rig could still help support/position parts of them. I did try hooking one to my 125lb anvil to get some shots I never used so I can report the rig is of zero use for that! 😄
@@retrotechjournal awesome! Looks like I'll just have to make one for myself and mess around with it. I do have a rig from animation toolkit but nothing with a winder yet. Have you thought about doing one with vertical and horizontal movement? Now that Edu Puertas has put winder production on hold while they make their movie this is the best option I've come across.
I probably should try making an XY rig like that. I was a bit worried that puts a lot of stress on the vertical rack, so it may need a somewhat different profile/a heavier base/etc. I probably should model one but right now I’m in the middle of some other projects, and the vertical only version of the winder handles most of my needs. Good luck with your animations! Let me know if you build and use the winders!
I have to pick up some of that nested brass tubing. What diameters would you suggest?
@@thebrownhat1 Well, the build uses 1/8" as the smallest size, and then then next two bigger sizes. I'll have to look up the exact cut list/metric equivalents. In terms of general use around the shop, those three sizes are certainly the most common one's I use, those and maybe 2 squire tube sizes for non rotating connectors.
But... who was behind the LAST last camera?
Dang it, I thought I covered all the questions. 😆
@@retrotechjournal Somebody call casting, we're going to need more turtles!
@@timothyschumann 🐢🐢🐢🐢
I thought I'd try to make one but was unable to download the Fusion file. Or I just didn't know how.
Oh! Ja I think it's only downloadable if I had the paid version of Fusion. Hang on and I'll put a version on DropBox that you can fully download/mess with. I forgot about that. Oops. I'm at work right now, so I can't do it until tonight. I'll comment here with the link/update the description later tonight.
Also if you just wan the STL files to print you can get them through that printables link.
Here is the link to the dowloadable cad: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g5q3w4b3qq6b7kw20rk1z/StopMorionWinderV1.step?rlkey=qtw55ju07dwnm10za1tolio72&dl=0
Let me know if it works. I hope I have the permissions set correctly...
The download worked as I thought it would. Thanks ever so much. I just like to see the details how things are made in Fusion for learning purposes on my own projects. Thanks again. @@retrotechjournal
Here's a tip paint your rig bright green or blue and just key it out in the video software. literal weeks of a project with this method. green screen your rig.
I should look into that. I'd still have to manually mask shadows and thing, but it could really help with some of the keying.
❤
u and this old tony😁
I do love TOT.
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Grandpa did you forget chanells password ?
جميل
Thank you!
I planned to have this playing in the background while I work on my own project but it was so engrossing that I ended up watching all of it and now my project is somehow overrun with LEGO construction workers. This is all your fault.
lol. I take full responsibility! I'll have to have a talk with the team, they can be a little enthusiastic. Love this comment!
Молодцом!
We need to add one more rule no made in china, no amazon, no ali express only hand craft and 3d print (recycled plastic no china made plastic)