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Topic: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

So I know I've brought up this topic multiple times over the past year and a half but it just keeps coming back to me.

To start off, I began 2013 using a Logitech c910 for my animations along with a capture program called SAM Animation. I was pretty horrified with the quality that the c910 gave me, and thought that upgrading to a better capture program would unlock the full power of the c910. I saved up some money and bought iStopmotion, eager to see the change. Sadly, there was no real change, except for the fact that I pretty much wasted 50 bucks.

In desperation, I decided to upgrade again, except this time I'd get a new webcam. I got a c920 for my birthday last summer and I was enthralled. This time around, I knew my luck was bound to change. I eagerly opened the box, pulled out the camera, plugged it in, started up iStopMotion, and immediately started to animate. The quality was better, but not by much. There was still that deadly film noise haunting in the background of my animations which was and still is the primary reason for my dissatisfaction. After succumbing to the horrible fact that the c920 did all but nothing to help my cause, I felt like jumping into the sewer never to see the light again.

There wasn't much else I could do about it, so I ironically just decided to lower the quality of my animation to get rid of the deadly film noise. It worked, I guess, but since then, I've still felt distressed about not getting the c920's full potential. Probably the most disturbing thing about the matter is seeing other brickfilmers using the c920 or the c910 and virtually getting DSLR quality out of them.

If you haven't figured out my problem yet, then I'm absolutely mind-blown by your comprehension. All I'm asking for is how to squeeze the full quality out of a c920 using iStopmotion on a Mac. Does my footage need to be uncompressed? If so, how do I do that? Am I not encoding my clips correctly when I export them? Am I just being discontent with the whole thing? Do I need to quit brickfilming and do something else??? I'll honestly take any solutions you guys have for me, but I genuinely would like to fix this problem I've had for the past year and a half once and for all. I'm tired of wasting my time figuring out how to get better quality when I should be animating!

I do know that there's a few people here on the forums that have the same general setup as I do and they seem to be perfectly satisfied with what they're getting, so if that's you, if you wouldn't mind stopping to clue me in that'd be great. Thank you guys so much, if I didn't have this forum to turn to for help, who knows where I'd be.

So, start replying! (Sorry for the long post mini/tongue )

-Grant Benson

Last edited by GHB (May 28, 2014 (02:10pm))

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

I've been in your boat before, GHB. It was quite frustrating. Sadly, the c920 does not have as much capability on a mac than it does on a windows machine. That being said, it still has great potential. First off, I use an app called Webcam Settings to control the c920. It was a few bucks in the app store, but was definitely worth it, on account that you can play with almost all of the webcam's settings; exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, focus, etc. 

After you plug in your c920 to your computer and open up iStopmotion, it should show up under devices; I've never had any issues with this. Even before you select your device though, you'll want to select your frame rate as well as choose DV NTSC Widscreen under the Present tab. To reduce the amount of grain, select best under the Noise Reduction tab.

Once all of your frames are captured and you are ready to export your animation, select all of your frames and go to File, Export Selection and select As Movie. Select where you want to save your animation, and then, under the menu bar, select AVI. Next, click Customize and under the compression type, select None. (Also, leave the quality at best).

Once that is all done, hit export and you should be good to go. Don't give up on brickfilming, GHB. It can be demanding on patience at times, but hey, that's what BiM is for, right? mini/wink

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

Willow Tree wrote:

I've been in your boat before, GHB. It was quite frustrating. Sadly, the c920 does not have as much capability on a mac than it does on a windows machine. That being said, it still has great potential. First off, I use an app called Webcam Settings to control the c920. It was a few bucks in the app store, but was definitely worth it, on account that you can play with almost all of the webcam's settings; exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, focus, etc. 

After you plug in your c920 to your computer and open up iStopmotion, it should show up under devices; I've never had any issues with this. Even before you select your device though, you'll want to select your frame rate as well as choose DV NTSC Widscreen under the Present tab. To reduce the amount of grain, select best under the Noise Reduction tab.

Once all of your frames are captured and you are ready to export your animation, select all of your frames and go to File, Export Selection and select As Movie. Select where you want to save your animation, and then, under the menu bar, select AVI. Next, click Customize and under the compression type, select None. (Also, leave the quality at best).

Once that is all done, hit export and you should be good to go. Don't give up on brickfilming, GHB. It can be demanding on patience at times, but hey, that's what BiM is for, right? mini/wink

Willow Tree, I thank you for replying. I do have Webcam Settings, and that's helped me a lot. It seems I can't find devices when I open up iStopmotion. I'm still using iStopmotion 3, and not the latest update. Is that what your using? Or am I completely blind? I've also read a bit about video chips and how they have an effect on noise reduction. Should I maybe look into that and see if the problem is there?

Last edited by GHB (May 27, 2014 (07:48pm))

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

I export in H.264 with full quality and film just a bit bright and colour correcting darker and more contrast.
Also I use white lights.

Last edited by osomstudios (May 27, 2014 (08:05pm))

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

GHB wrote:

I'm still using iStopmotion 3, and not the latest update. Is that what your using?

I'm actually using iStopmotion 2 Express, but I believe the interfaces are relatively the same. The Devices tab should be in the top right corner of iStopmotion.

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

I don't use it anymore, but I used iStopmotion 2 (home), the c920, and the Webcam Settings app for a while (until I got a DSLR).  I'll recall what I usually did...

I believe I always chose "DV NTSC Widescreen" when starting iStopmotion, and just clicked "save" to save the video file, I never exported in anything besides the automatic clip type, .mov I think.  I never did anything with the noise reduction inside iStopmotion.  I didn't usually change any presets within iStopmotion when exporting.   
I do remember the noise being my biggest issue, but I eventually worked it out for the most part.  I used Webcam settings for almost anything like that, without that everything would have been horrible.  Lots and lots of messing with the settings in Webcam Settings, iStopmotion use was minimal (besides obviously taking the frames and stuff). 

I remember some problems with having the webcam be recognized in just iStopmotion, or just Webcam Settings, or working in one and showing up in the other but not being available.  The only way I fixed that was quitting the program, disconnecting the webcam, and starting over.  Trying to plug it in first, then start the programs, certain programs first, etc.  I never found any pattern to which actually worked, just a lot of trying it every time I wanted to film. 

So yeah, I think most of what I did to get rid of the noise was all in Webcam Settings, iStopmotion was just kind of 'there'.  Maybe something has changed for the worse with iStopmotion 3; I'm not familiar with it.  I assume it's not that, but you never know.

Here's most of what I did with that setup, I switched to a DSLR right before filming any actual scenes from Perpetual Twilight, I just did a test with the webcam for the lighting.

Iron Man 3 trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFDQt6kqAsQ

Perpetual Twilight test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kn5qpBvJG8

Hope this helps a bit, but I think Willow Tree's on top of things!

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

Willow Tree wrote:
GHB wrote:

I'm still using iStopmotion 3, and not the latest update. Is that what your using?

I'm actually using iStopmotion 2 Express, but I believe the interfaces are relatively the same. The Devices tab should be in the top right corner of iStopmotion.

The iStopmotion 3 equivalent to the Devices tab would be the sources tab. I also can't find the noise reduction tab, which sounded very nice to me. I believe 3 doesn't have that feature anymore mini/sad . To show you what I mean by all this, here's a screenshot of what I see when I first open up iStopmotion 3.

https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/10170829_452942191516697_4795269669315888502_n.jpg

As you can see, iStopmotion 3 doesn't have everything you speak of in 2. The only things I get to chose when iStopmotion opens is one of the available presets, and the framerate. I've never found a DV NTSC Widescreen option. What would you suggest for me now?

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

Guys, sorry for the double post, but I don't want this thread going into the depths quite yet. I really have appreciated everyone who's replied so far. Unfortunately, my problem is still quite alive, and I am pretty much unable to animate because of it. I mean, I could animate, but the the film would turn out absolutely horrible because of the grain and the quality. I've tried a ton of things so far, but none have really worked. Is there any other solutions you guys may have for me? (See first post) If I am unable to fix my problem in the next few weeks, then I'll stop with this thread, but as of now, I'm not planning to make that happen.

Once again, thank you guys!

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

Hmm, I downloaded the trial of iStopmotion 3 and after playing with it for a while, I can safely say that I prefer iStopmotion 2. These are the resutls I came up with: under the Presents tab, I choose HD1080. After capturing your desired frames, go up to File and then Save As. This will save your animation as a MOV file and I feel the results are pretty decent.

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

Willow Tree wrote:

Hmm, I downloaded the trial of iStopmotion 3 and after playing with it for a while, I can safely say that I prefer iStopmotion 2. These are the resutls I came up with: under the Presents tab, I choose HD1080. After capturing your desired frames, go up to File and then Save As. This will save your animation as a MOV file and I feel the results are pretty decent.

Alright, thank you. I'll try this next time. Would you recommend me switching over to iStopmotion 2? I did download the demo and it seemed pretty good, especially the noise reduction feature.

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

GHB wrote:

Would you recommend me switching over to iStopmotion 2? I did download the demo and it seemed pretty good, especially the noise reduction feature.

If you're going to stick with iStopmotion, I would definitely recommend switching to iStopmotion 2. In my opinion, it's quite a bit better than version 3.

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

That's interesting to hear, I have iStopmotion Express and was rather annoyed I'd have to spend another £35 for an upgrade to software I'd already spent £90 on. Is the Express version still better than 3?

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

Jayem wrote:

That's interesting to hear, I have iStopmotion Express and was rather annoyed I'd have to spend another £35 for an upgrade to software I'd already spent £90 on. Is the Express version still better than 3?

Well, from what I've heard and seen, it must be a lot better, particularly for a guy who films with a webcam.

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Re: How do I get the best out of a Logitech c920 using iStopmotion 3?

Do you have a video of the bad quality that we could see......... I watched all your new films and the quality seems as good or better  than any thing I've seen with the c920.

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