This software seemed like the answer to all my problems.

But I couldn't get it to see the camera I had attached to it.

Please help me!

It is a Panasonic HDC-HS9PC. It did come with a disk called "Hd writer", but it was not compatible with my operating system.

I still think the interface is overly complicated, which is why I won't be using it.

Probs for me:

1. Confusing as to what the buttons do.
2. How do I start a new project if I mess up?
3. How do i change my camera settings like white balance and focus?
4. Its hard to distinguish whether you have pressed the buttons or not, because they don't do anything when you click them.
5. What do the up and down buttons do?

I really want to use this because it saves me buying stop motion pro because this has onion skinning, and i dont like ADV.

I know what the sliders do in the picture, but it would be nice to have some sort of visual feedback from the sliders that lets me see how far I have slid the thing.

The software is faster than last time slightly which is good.

You've made a nice software, but its just not very user friendly, not to me anyway.

Last edited by Rsteenoven (February 24, 2009 (10:30am))

Do you mean my quickcam software? That pops up, but shouldn't there be a way to change the settings in this software so I can easily change the focus etc.

Yes it does, monkeyjam lets me change all my settings.

In answer to your questions:- (Sorry for the long post!)

Camera settings. I chose not to put them in the software as this restricts the possible source devices too much and also would mean that some devices would not be supported. I have a QC 9000 and I like the way you can have the Logitech source bar up at the same time and alter the settings in real time.

Starting a new project is easy, just go to the settings window and change the project name. Helium Frog recognises its a new name and asks you whether you want to start an new animation. (This is explained in the documentation)

The buttons dont jump up and down as I wanted to keep the skin simple. This way it makes it easier to reskin it at a later date. A lot of animators use hotkeys anyhow or the mouse. My keyboard and mouse make a click, so I know when I have pressed a button.

The up and down button flips you between Live and Playback view. The program tries to be intelligent to recognise which view you want, ie hitting the capture button flips it to live view, but this enables you to overide this. (This is explained in the documentation)

I chose the interface to have symbols as much as I could as not everyone speaks English.

The software is a little slow at capturing, because it does frame averaging to improve picture quality from webcams. You can set this in the settings window at the expense of picture quality The settings I chose as default give the best quality as Most animators want this above all else. If you turn on frame averaging on Animator DV for example capturing takes a long time, but you do get a nice diggey-do sound whilst you wait!

Helium Frog produces an .avi file as it goes along. Most programs dont do this but save individual frames to disk. This is a quicker method, but when you want playback you have to wait for the program to build the animation. I thought I would do it the first way because I hate waiting to see a preview.

I agree a visual feedback on the sliders would be a good thing. I will put this on the ToDo list.

There is no way to delete a single frame yet, I'm working on a "delete last frame /undo button" I got the routines working last night. It will be in the next release. I'm also working on a simple editor, where you can do this and a little more.

Thanks for the feedback , positive or negative , it is invaluable to the development

Last edited by martinprice2004 (February 25, 2009 (01:35pm))

Double Post Bump.

Martinprice2004, please stop ignoring me. Can you help me with the camera issue?