The website overhaul is continuing which has mostly involved my trying to troubleshoot problems with CSS and PHP code and Javascript elements, most of which I know nothing about(!). Been rather frustrating but I seem to have it all working now.
The challenge now is to update the whole site with the new look and layout in as simple a way as possible. This is somewhat simpler using CSS but as most of the old code is all over the place (I was basically learning HTML as I was originally building the site!), it’s not entirely straight forward.
Still, I’ve been having fun creating some new graphics for the various pages and check out the new Javascript photo browser that pops up when you click on the thumbnails on these pages ;0)
I began updating my website today as I’ve recently been learning CSS. As I basically learnt HTML from scratch there’s a fair few things out of date or just plain wrong in the coding so it was due an update.
I’ve spent most of today playing with the code but I do at least havea page that displays well in both Firefox and IE(!)
So this animation has kinda been put on hold so I can work on the Measure of a Man Vid, however it is still being worked on, albeit abit at a time. I had a problem whereby the set was pretty much taking up my entire front room. This meant I hardly had any space to work in and as the set was raised only about 10cm above the floor I couldn’t get any low shots as the lowest my tripod could go was about 40-50cm. This meant I could only ever get shots of the puppets from above which was somewhat limiting.
I’d also encountered a problem with depth of field; basically my plan was to photograph the puppets in front of the set so I didn’t have to worry about green screen, however the models appeared as though they were only a few feet in front of the set. This is because they were ; the puppet and set were both built 1/6th scale, so if they were full size they’d be a couple of hundred meters apart, however the camera isn’t fooled in the same way as the human eye and the effect was that they appeared as though they were very close together. You can see this in this short trailer I produced:
In miniature photography, smoke is often added to help with depth of field, this wouldn’t work in my case however as the smoke would not look convincing when photographed for stop motion animation – it would move and disperse and so the end result would appear to flicker as the smoke moved between photographs.
In order to get around this problem I decided to photograph the set separately and then use green screen to composite in the puppets at a later date, the same method I used for my previous animation Real 10.
This means I can dismantle the sets and actually get my flat back! Here’s some of the pics I’ve took. I’ve used photoshop to extend the sets beyond where they oiginally ended and also to add artificial blurring to elements that are further away. This lets me fake the depth of field effect. I can also then blur the background elements seperately whilst keeping the puppets in focus.
Been screwing around with some promo shots of my brothers band and have inserted the robot behind them, presumably about to kill them with machine guns.
Mostly just a practice to try compositing the model into a photo. I’m beginning to wish I’d put less wires on it…..!
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