• Joined: February 17, 2010

Topic: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

I use Anasazi Stop Motion Animator, and it has been proving horribly unreliable lately. Here is my problem: mini/madhead

When I onion skin, it shows me the wrong frame. I could be about 40 frames into my project and when I onion skin the program will show me what looks like frame #1, or in some cases the the transparent image of my current frame flickers; it randomly bounces back and forth between first frame and my current frame.

When I preview my clip, the playback stops before the preview is finished playing. Often when it does this, it does not save the clip I have filmed; or on the rare occasion the program does save, it also takes double frames on some parts where I only took one frame, making the video play kind of choppy and weird looking. mini/eek

Does anybody know what on earth is wrong with the program? Could it possibly be a motherboard problem or an issue with my video card? One of those two may be acting up, seems as I have had some other computer problems. mini/rolleyes

I have absolutely no way to know when it will do this, so I can't restart until I am well into my animation. I try to make a regular practice of taking test frames to make sure the program will cooperate, but even when the test frames work, it starts acting up again when I start doing a serious video. mini/confused

If nothing else, can anyone recommend me some freeware that I can trust?

  • Joined: February 25, 2011

Re: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

I would suggest MonkeyJam or HeliumFrog. I used to use SMP, but it's horribly in my opinion. MJ and HF are probably the two best free stop-motion programs.

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Mighty Wanderer's Website

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Re: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

MonkeyJam has always been reliable for me (I've used Stop Motion Pro in the past, but it isn't free). I'm using MonkeyJam after not animating for five years and it is really simple to use. It doesn't have onion skinning, however. I never liked onion skinning anyway, you can easily flip through the frames to see how your animation is going. Plus, MonkeyJam saves each frame individually the moment you take it, so if you lose power or your computer locks up, you at least have your previously shot frames saved and ready to be easily re-imported.

Mighty Wandering, just curious, what did you find to be "horribly" about SMP? Missing a word, or did you mean "horrible"? And why do you think it's horrible?

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Nathan Wells's Website

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Re: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

Anasazi Stop Motion Animator isn't that great (low quality videos) MonkeyJam is ok but it doesn't have onion skinning and you have to make the preveiw window realy big for hd. I would recomend HeliumFrog you can change video quality without changing window size and it has onion skinning and instant play back (in MJ you have to wait for the prveiw to render.) also when you close HF your frames and an .avi file of your video is automaticly saved unlike MJ where you have to wait awhile before the film renders. Hope this helps.

Last edited by END films (September 5, 2013 (07:38am))

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Re: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

Sorry, I did mean horrible. I said that because I never really could get it to work. I don't remember the specifics, because I think it's been almost 4 years since I've used it. But yeah, I didn't like it at all.

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Mighty Wanderer's Website

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Re: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

Helium Frog has been surprisingly kind to me in my first year of brickfilming, although I would have the occasional problem where it'd skip every other frame on playback. However for being a free program it has been great.

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Re: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

I've only expeirienced frame skipping when I had the preveiw at a lowwer frame rate than the animation. (but I did have problems getting to start when I used a slow, old laptop)

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END films's Website

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Re: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

END films wrote:

MonkeyJam is ok but it doesn't have onion skinning and you have to make the preveiw window realy big for hd.

The 1:1 preview limitation of MonkeyJam is definitely an annoyance that I wish I didn't have to deal with.

Personally I find onion skinning to be a crutch, but that's merely personal preference.

Sorry to hear you didn't like Stop Motion Pro, Mighty Wanderer. I liked it just fine when I used it.

I've heard HeliumFrog has frequent issues with crashing. Has anyone experienced any issues with it?

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Nathan Wells's Website

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Re: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

Ohhhhhh.....   I was talking about Stop Motion Animator (SMA). I typed in the wrong inintial mini/tongue Sorry about that.

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Re: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

Ooohhhh... Suddenly everything makes a lot more sense!  mini/tongue

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Nathan Wells's Website

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Re: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

Nathan Wells wrote:

I've heard HeliumFrog has frequent issues with crashing. Has anyone experienced any issues with it?

I haven't havn't had it crash and many others use the program. You don't have to worry about loosing unsaved files because it automaticly saves your photos and the film. You will still need a program like monkeyjam to turn edited frames or other frames into video. The topics I've seen (wich are less than monkeyjam topics I've seen) with issues had to do with a computer problem or a problem with file destination or codec being used but I have seen no complaints that turned out to be the programs animation ability (pritchard studios metioned issues sometimes arise when you use more than these: settings, frame capture, onion skinning,exporting, and play back which all work fine)
hope this long response helps.

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END films's Website

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Re: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

Yes and no, in HF issues ALWAYS arise when you try to go into the rotoscoping, settings, frame editing and whatever the other one is. It'll work right about once out of one hundred tries. BUT, the onion-skinning works fine, playback is perfect, the actual frame-capture works fine, as does the exporting, but not much else. So yeah, it's for animation ONLY, and you'd better be happy with the default settings, which are pretty good anyway.

And it does crash randomly, but it's usually only one or two (Or sometimes exactly six) frames in, and doesn't happen that often.

MonkeyJam has always worked fine for me, except for a hiccup that messed with the live feed. But since that seemed to be an isolated issue, you shouldn't worry about it. In fact, were it not for the 1:1 preview thing in MJ, I'd be using that. It saves the frames, is more stable, and all the settings work right.

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Re: Stop Motion Software Problems: HELP PLEASE!

I've changed the settings (folder saved in, fps, file type) before animating and it hasn't crashed. Also how long ago did you download it? When I first used it and it kept crashng I downloaded the new version from sourceforge.net less than a year ago and it hasn't crashed since (it was last updated in april)

Last edited by END films (September 7, 2013 (06:16am))

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