• Joined: October 11, 2011

Topic: Individual Frame Editing in Helium Frog. Help?

Hey guys, I am currently using Helium Frog and I really enjoy it. My animations are smooth and the onion skinning helps me animate. There's this one thing that is bothering me, it's how do you manually edit each frame? I am trying to mask objects in Lego to make it look like they are doing a spin heel kick/flying. I just want to import the frame or picture inside Helium Frog.
My plan is to:
Take the pictures for my animation
Take an extra picture of the background to mask my person in
Close helium frog
Edit the pictures by masking in photoshop
Inserting the edited pictures in Helium Frog and getting the .avi file with the edited effect.

My question is how? How do you edit the certain picture frame? I can't find an option where you could import a certain image. I tried extracting frames and editing it, and putting in Monkey Jam but it renders out not smooth like Helium Frog. Please reply with a detail explanation, I have seen replies from this but I don't understand what they are saying. I would appreciate it, thanks.

  • Location: Nemus
  • Joined: January 1, 2010

Re: Individual Frame Editing in Helium Frog. Help?

Not quite sure what you're asking, but I'll try to answer; let me know if I'm not understanding your problem.
You go to the settings and click the "Import as individual frames" option, then you can edit the individual frames in whatever editing program you use. Monkey Jam is mainly a picture capture program, and if you're putting images into it, I would expect it to be laggy, whereas videos are simpler (but generally you want to import as individual frames anyways so you can edit the length and whatnot of them if need be). So if you're having a problem with Monkey Jam lagging when you try to run pictures in it, then you should probably try using a video editing software.

kcirb-- its brick backwards.
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kcirbfilms's Website

  • Joined: October 11, 2011

Re: Individual Frame Editing in Helium Frog. Help?

I'm trying to add the picture that's edited into helium frog. Could you import .jpg files into your current animation is all I am asking.

kcirbfilms wrote:

Not quite sure what you're asking, but I'll try to answer; let me know if I'm not understanding your problem.
You go to the settings and click the "Import as individual frames" option, then you can edit the individual frames in whatever editing program you use. Monkey Jam is mainly a picture capture program, and if you're putting images into it, I would expect it to be laggy, whereas videos are simpler (but generally you want to import as individual frames anyways so you can edit the length and whatnot of them if need be). So if you're having a problem with Monkey Jam lagging when you try to run pictures in it, then you should probably try using a video editing software.

  • Location: Nemus
  • Joined: January 1, 2010

Re: Individual Frame Editing in Helium Frog. Help?

I don't believe you can get edit frames back into Helium Frog, no. HF saves the project and exports the video file and picture files, but when you open up the project it opens the saved file, not the pictures. So there is as far as I know no way to get edited files back into HF, you just have to put them together in a video editing software.

kcirb-- its brick backwards.
Youtube

kcirbfilms's Website

  • Location: In front of a norwegian pc
  • Joined: June 9, 2011

Re: Individual Frame Editing in Helium Frog. Help?

You'll have to film normally, export it as individual frames, then edit them and load them back into helium frog.

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Briks's Website

  • Joined: February 25, 2011

Re: Individual Frame Editing in Helium Frog. Help?

How do you load frames back into HF Helium Frog?

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  • Location: Nemus
  • Joined: January 1, 2010

Re: Individual Frame Editing in Helium Frog. Help?

That's what I was saying, there is no way to do so. As far as I know.

kcirb-- its brick backwards.
Youtube

kcirbfilms's Website

  • Joined: October 11, 2011

Re: Individual Frame Editing in Helium Frog. Help?

Well what a shame mini/sad

  • Location: gone
  • Joined: November 27, 2010

Re: Individual Frame Editing in Helium Frog. Help?

Stop Motion Pro is the only program I know that can rig remove and paint on frames in-program.

Not literally dead, just no longer interested in Lego or animation.
  • Location: Bedfordshire UK
  • Joined: January 7, 2009

Re: Individual Frame Editing in Helium Frog. Help?

Have a look in the utilities menu. there is a facility to import frames. Read the documentation of the website for information.

It seems a little troubling as to why you need to edit frames then load them back in. Do all your animation first. You can save the frames individually whilst animating or extract them later (use the utilities menu). Edit the frames in photo shop, then combine them back using windows movie maker when you are compiling your finished animation.

Working the way you are can ruin video quality. You are decompressing the image, editing, then recompressing then decompressing before finally recompressing again in your editor.

If you can export the frames in .png format, edit them in photoshop and join them in your editor at the last stage. This way you avoid image quality problems. Watch this video for a way how to do this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUNgJsLutbA

Last edited by martinprice2004 (October 17, 2011 (05:03am))

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martinprice2004's Website

  • Joined: October 11, 2011

Re: Individual Frame Editing in Helium Frog. Help?

martinprice2004 wrote:

Have a look in the utilities menu. there is a facility to import frames. Read the documentation of the website for information.

It seems a little troubling as to why you need to edit frames then load them back in. Do all your animation first. You can save the frames individually whilst animating or extract them later (use the utilities menu). Edit the frames in photo shop, then combine them back using windows movie maker when you are compiling your finished animation.

Working the way you are can ruin video quality. You are decompressing the image, editing, then recompressing then decompressing before finally recompressing again in your editor.

If you can export the frames in .png format, edit them in photoshop and join them in your editor at the last stage. This way you avoid image quality problems. Watch this video for a way how to do this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUNgJsLutbA

Oh, I see how it works now. Thanks brother! You helped a lot, I'll be sure to try it out soon in Helium Frog.