Bricks in Motion
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In monkey jam, when I click export movie as avi, the menu appears, but i can't see half of it. Even if I try expanding or changing the size of the window, I can't see much. I can't even tell if i am using a compressor or not. I tried changing screen resolutions but that didn't change anything. 
Any suggestions??
And if it helps, I run Windows 7 professional.
Dunno dude,
I dowloaded monkeyjam 3.0 beta just recently, but i never had that problem. Tell you what though, I'm runnin with the new windows movie maker. I like it a lot more. It's just so much simpler, unfortunately you can only run at 8 frames per second but it's worth it.
My suggestion, windows movie maker (not windows live).
P.S: does anybody know how to stop the audio in monkeyjam from stuttering to be in time with the video? just curious.
Using Windows Movie Maker to animate is a big no-no. Any framerate under 10 fps=choppy animation. But, you can import your clip that you made in Monkeyjam into WMM. I don't know if you have to export it as an avi file of not, but see if you can. Maybe you can give us a screenshot so we can understand your problem better.
Well, the deal is once I create the avi, I import into Pinnacle Studio to add audio and edit it in general. The thing is, i dunno if I am getting the quality I should be cuz I don't know if I am compressing the movie or doing other weird things to it in the export avi window.
yeah here is a screenshot:
http://i.imgur.com/VYOsd.png
and another one, just to show you how it doesn't matter how big I make the window.
http://i.imgur.com/S7072.png
Did you try clicking the expand button?
you mean fully maximize? Yeah, i tried that too. Nothing working.
Same thing happens to me. That's why I now animate with the Logitech Webcam Software. I find it way better than MonkeyJam.
Webcam software=great.
but i can't use the software to make a movie out of it right? I still need to import the pictures directly into pinnacle?
1. Take the pictures in the Webcam Software.
2. Import the pics into MonkeyJam.
3. Export avi.
4. Edit your film.
And it surely won't be compressed since when you download MonkeyJam it automatically chooses the non-compressed option when you open it up for the first time.
ahh, excellent. I'll try that. Thanks 
Hey minifig051,
No offense, I'm not critisizing, but WMM is really quite good. I dunno if you've got the new one but I like it, if you fade the images into each other just a little it gives you twice the quality that you would get if you didn't.
I watched a coupla tutes on animating minifigures walking on youtube the other day and they were played at 8 frames per second on WMM.
they were really good too! seriously it's better than it's made out to be.
Using Windows Movie Maker to animate is a big no-no.
That's not true. It definitely isn't the best software out there, but it's free, can go up to at least 16 fps, and can add some simple effects. Most brickfilmers move on to better programs sometime in their "career", but it's not a bad way to start. As Nathan Wells put it: "WMM is not the MS Paint of movie-making."
On topic: I haven't experienced this problem when I used MonkeyJam (which was only once, to see how it works). You could try switching to another frame capturing software.
Last edited by StudioL30 (May 13, 2011 (03:40am))
The only reason minifig051 is saying that because there are programs like MonkeyJam, which are also free and better than WMM.
WMM and MonkeyJam are different kinds of programs. MonkeyJam is for frame capturing, and WMM is for editing.
What I meant was it's possible to animate in, but it's hard to do it. When I used it for a (badly animated) short I made 2 years ago, I had to manually shorten every frame so I could get it to the framerate I wanted (about 5 fps. Yeah, I know. Too slow). That was a mega pain. Maybe I missed something where you can change the framerate of all the frames. Well, it doesn't matter now that I've got Stop Motion Pro.
minifig051,
I know what you mean about WMM bein slow and that, but if you go into...somewhere...it has an options menu and you can make the default frame length 0.125 seconds, in other words, 8 frames per second. makes it a lot easier! 
As stated in the other thread, to make your videos 16 fps on a Vista, you have to manually make each frame shorter. This takes quite a bit of time in my opinion. On an XP, you have to plan your film in 8 fps, then publish it, then add the "speed up double" effect, then publish it again. This also takes quite a bit of time, and it loses quality. Monkey Jam is a frame capturing program, but it can also edit. The problem is that it can't import multiple audio tracks, so you have to render each line/animation with line, as a video file, then string them all together in WMM. If you publish once in WMM, it shouldn't lose quality, but 2+ usually does. So, if you don't mind quality loss, use WMM, if you don't mind better quality, but more time, use Monkey Jam. That's our opinion. 
i guess we digressed a little here, but thanks for all the input. I think I'll use monkeyjam just to frame capture and then input the pictures into pinnacle for audio and whatnot. Or just hit export directly in the avi window and hope that the default is uncompressed. 
EDIT: now this may sound really stupid, but how do I select multiple frames in the xsheet? like to move them all up one frame?
Last edited by elrelster (May 13, 2011 (06:53pm))
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