Bricks in Motion
We are a friendly filmmaking community devoted to the art of stop-motion animation using LEGO® and similar construction toys. Here, you can share your work, join our community of other brickfilmers, and participate in periodic animation contests!
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As most of you who watch my films, my lighting is crap. I need to know how people create such wonderful lighting ):P Please help me!!!!! I have two odinary(!@#$) lamps that are fairly articulate, tracing paper, art paper, printer paper and i still cant get the diffusion right!? so please tell me how you get yours done by either taking a pic and uploading it or explaining in text.
yours painfully
kris
Kriz, you're missing an important number of steps!
1) No windows
2) No Ambient Lighting
3) Wear Dark Clothes
4) BLACK LEGO PARTS REFLECT LIGHT
Hope it helps.
Contrary to what fib said, I do use some ambient light in the room I'm filming in. I also use two basic lamps, each with a sheet of paper taped to them to create very soft light. This usually works pretty well. Other than that, just play with setups that look natural. Also make sure that your camera settings are tweaked for the best results. Even with all that, I usually color correct my footage in post-production.
~ Amanda
Contrary to what fib said, I do use some ambient light in the room I'm filming in. I also use two basic lamps, each with a sheet of paper taped to them to create very soft light. This usually works pretty well. Other than that, just play with setups that look natural. Also make sure that your camera settings are tweaked for the best results. Even with all that, I usually color correct my footage in post-production.
~ Amanda
Its really not good to use Ambient Light, as its uncontrolled and can cause flicker.
As for covering your lamps, any sensible brickfilmer does that. It's called "Diffusing" your light.
If you were to diffuse your lights by putting paper over them, I recommend that you make sure that the paper doesn't touch the lamp. You could 'bubble' the paper so that the middle pops out and doesn't touch the lamp/light bulb. Just tape the corners of the paper to the head of the lamp.
It has helped me tremendously. Hope you get what I mean.
On the subject of diffusion of common luminaires (whether they be articulated desk lamps or cheap clamp on work lamps), I prefer to use Parchment Paper as the diffusing screen. I like the way it throws light (it lets more light through than your standard printer paper), it's designed to be more thermal resistant than standard papers so I'm less concerned about possible fire hazards, and you can find rolls of it pretty cheaply at most grocery stores.
I find the problem with natural light is that most of my animating sessions go for many hours, and the lighting changes.
Its really not good to use Ambient Light, as its uncontrolled and can cause flicker.
You know, I've heard that, but have never had much trouble with it. (It seems to be the classic new brickfilmer problem, but I guess I missed class on the day when they teach you how to put light flicker into your films. 
)
If I do get a little bit of flicker, I usually just run the clip through Virtualdub's MSU Deflicker plugin. It works very well.
~ Amanda
i use two 15-20 dollar desk lamps that clamp to the sides of my desk (this offers more animating room) with white light bulbs.
i once put black out material (purchased from the local art store) over my windows but i found out that you could get almost the same effect with a little mini studio. The mini studio is a cardboard box with holes on the sides to control the lighting. It doesn't offer much room to animate though but the result is very good.
heres more on it http://www.stopmotionpro.com/index.php? … temid=126/
my box is bigger, about a foot or two around each side with a hole on either side to brighten it up more
Maybe your camera? 
Thank you for all your help, ive improoved lighting dramatically now 
. I have also mastered frame averaging....
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