Bricks in Motion
We are a friendly filmmaking community devoted to the art of stop-motion animation using LEGO® and similar construction toys. Here, you can share your work, join our community of other brickfilmers, and participate in periodic animation contests!
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I don't want to create moving cloud/fog effects anyway. The point is really just to have something in the air for the light to hit and make visible beams in the air. I'll probably try the underwater technique on my next film and see how it goes.
You can always do it in After Effects.
Andrew Kramer explained something like that in this tutorial:
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/ancient_titles/
Well, light beams are an easy effect for sure. Perhaps I should consider that option more, but the purpose of doing it in-camera is so that I could get the characters / objects to cast realistic shadows and interact with the light beams in a way you couldn't do in post. It'd also give the air a thickness to it that looks nice.
I agree with you about the shadows, and it will work for one frame, but to make it look steady and constant in every frame, will get hard. The problem is that you need to move your hand into the water.
I agree with you about the shadows, and it will work for one frame, but to make it look steady and constant in every frame, will get hard. The problem is that you need to move your hand into the water.
Perhaps you could do small body and arm movements with a long instrument of some kind?
It will touch the water, and what about your minifig? How are you going to move without let the minifig fall or something like that?
Do the aquarium thing, but don't put water in the tank. Put smoke, and a lid on top to keep the smoke in.
That doesn't solve the problem of animating it, though. You'd have to take the lid off to animate unless you're filming in one of these:
And then the smoke would seep out. Anyway chemical smoke solutions seem to tend to have residue problems as discussed previously. Not that milky water wouldn't, but I imagine they'd be less problematic.
The problem is that you need to move your hand into the water.
I'm not entirely sure how this is a problem; the water in a small aquarium should settle down fairly quickly. But yeah, you'd be reaching into the water for each frame.
One of my other concerns is that to get beams like these you might need some kind of ceiling; I don't know how you'd work around that from an animation standpoint.
You could make a low ceiling with holes in it covering the part where you want the light to shine through, and then the other half is uncovered. Put a larger ceiling a foot or two above the other part, covering the previously uncovered half so that there is only light coming through the top holes, but you can put your hands in through the sides and move the minifigs.
One of my other concerns is that to get beams like these you might need some kind of ceiling; I don't know how you'd work around that from an animation standpoint.
Get an aquarium (or whatever) with a tight-fitting clear lid and glue/tape a sheet of black card with holes cut out onto it. In theory, every time you close the lid, the beams should be in the same place. In theory.
For this test shot, I had a removable lego ceiling that attached firmly to the walls so I could get the grille shadows. The walls had to be about 6 studs thick to avoid wobble, but it worked.
Intriguing. I was always concerned about moving the walls around a bit if I had to remove then replace the ceiling between each frame, but I guess if they were reinforced and thick and such maybe that wouldn't be an issue.
Is it possible to put those light-ray-like effects on the video withe software in post-production? I'm not very eager to animate underwater. (Not me in the water...just the legos:lol: 
)
VanderFlame Studios, you've recently bumped a number of old threads. Before posting, check when the last post was made. The last post in this thread was over a year ago, which means you should probably refrain from posting and making a gigantic bump.
Ok I really wanted to do this though. I hold off from now on.:) 
I, for one, am gald that this was rediscovered. The possibilities intrigue me. If I haven't tried it, I haven't lived.
Basically, it's friggin' awesome.
Just to reiterate here, it's fine to bump a thread if you have a worthwhile contribution to make to the discussion, such as VanderFlame's question.
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