Welcome to My Claymation Website!

I am currently testing with new things like Stop Motion Pro v6, new animation lights, new DV Camcorder, new desk and set. i will be getting used to all the new things and will shortly beging animating again.

please roam around and discover my site. it is full of imformation about animation clays and softwares. please take the time to look at my youtube channel at ToffProductions.

i am wondering if i should get some Van Aken “Claytoon” Clay?  if you think i should get it. send me an e-mail at chas_afc@live.co.uk i have used sculpey III and currently use newplast. If you have any questions about animation send me a PM on youtube or to the e-mail above.

Some animations to be posted below soon.

Up Coming Projects

i have lots of new idea’s that i can do, i will just have to create them.

i came up with an idea that no one else has done! it is called .. YI Compilation it is a compilation of different people’s idea’s compiled together to make Your Ideas compilation. it will consist of lots of idea’s from different people. no idea’s will be contributed by me.

you are most likely thinking, i will get all the credit? but no … to the people that gave me idea’s and the idea’s i use will be inserted into either the credits o the video or in the video description. this is a way for everyone to get there name in the vido so it can easily be clicked on by viewers.

Ok Now for the Projects:

- Toff’s Claymation Compilation 1

- YI Compilation

- Eating Chocolate

Tutorials

Basic Animation Tutorial

Stopmotion animating is made from lots and lots of still photo’s, with slight movements between each one, creating the illusion of movement.

hope this helps, any further questions post below. i will start where yoiu have already downloaded the suitable software for your animating.

STEPS:

1. brainstorm some idea’s for your animation.
2. once you have thought of some idea’s open your download and installed animating software
3. collect the relavant clay you are going to use and mould it into a clayman
4. plug your webcam/camera into your computer
5. place the clayman infront of the camera/webcam
6. click grab>

7. and move the clayman a small bit each time and keep doing that until you get the basic animation. You can click the black arrow at anytime to play back you animation.

hope this has helped :]

Flying Tutorial

Making something fly is really easy! it just takes a bit of time!

Take a picture of your set without any characters in it. If some of the set is going to be moving you’ll have to take another picture of just the set without any characters (I don‘t recommend this as it causes problems with the placement of the character and can be annoying even with onion skinning). The reason for this is you’ll be editing out the wire in which you make something fly.

Now animate as you would normally. When you want to make something fly, attach some wire to the back of the figure, making sure it doesn’t go in front otherwise parts of your clayman will disappear when editing the images later.

Once you have done this, open an editing software program like Macromedia Fireworks, Adobe Photoshop, Corel Photo Paint or any other you can find. You might be able to download a free 30 day trial of one of these programs. I’m not sure if it will work in paint but you can try.

Next, import the picture of just the set and then the picture with the wire on top of it erase the wire and the set underneath should come through as if nothing was there. Make sure to get rid of any shadows of the wire as it might ruin the illusion. If you’ve bumped or moved the camera you’ll know because the set on top won’t line up with the set underneath. Then put it back into your animation (if using Animator DV or Monkeyjam this should happen automatically, if you rename the file the same as the original image).

Then repeat the process until all frames have had the wire removed and you’re finished!

A Mamshmam TUTORIAL!

Software Talk

Animation Software

There has been allot of discussion about different software programs, how much they cost and so on. So i thought i would contribute to the discussion and tell you about the experience i have had with softwares good/bad.

First of all i would like to anounce that i have Stop Motion Pro v6 available at Stop Motion Pro‘s website. i have the educations version out of the many different versions varying in price. so i will tell you a little bit about stop motion pro. Well stop motion pro EDU is currently priced at £75. which if you ask me is a bargain! Want to know more? read this…

SMP v6 Educational has lots of great, easy to use features. for one it has a chroma key feature which if you dont know what that is watch “this” video for StopMotionPro. there are many many features such as audio sync, time lapse, rotoscop, onion skinning, editor, audio recorder and more. it also includes small features such as shortcut key editing e.g enter key = capture frame and savable projects. for me, this is one of the most brilliant features. because what ever happens say .. you have 4 hours of work and you have a powercut! SMP will automaticaly save your work. all of the versions of SMP allow the use of webcams, DV cams and some other, as the price goes up the more you get. SMP has a unique feature called “Editor” Which in my opinion is the best feature of SMP. the editor is used for many things, you can delete frames, export and import frames, hide (not to delete) and about 5 others that i cannot remember but it is brilliant. e.g say you were trying to create the effect of an object flying, wha you would do it attatch a rigging on the back of the object and export the frames to Paint or PS for example rub out the rigging and import the frame back into SMP. for a Great! Tutorial on this .. Click here. Which of corse brings me on to FREEWARE! sorry about the huge talk just on SMP but its just amazing!

Freeware there are many freeware programs i know of such as monkey jam and anasazi. monkeyjam being the better of the two due to its project save option. before SMP i used to use anasazi because i had not yet discovered monkeyjam. anasazi is a very basic program which allows you to capture and play with an option of onion skinning, this is fine if you create short animations ranging from 5-60 seconds long but any longer than that, your animation will lack care becuse the hours of animation will make you want to hurry the end result.

To be honest i think SMP is the best software out for WIN even thought it is not free, i just got myne for my 14th birthday. and a whole bunch of clay.

Editing Software

This is a much talked about area of animation as well because there are so many editing softwares out there. people just want to find one that does everything. well i have just the thing.

up untill now i have been using movie maker and be breifly looking for a new editing software, when stumbled across Cyberlink Power Director tried the demo and my dad just bought it for me, dont know how much for, so you will have to find that out for your self.  just google it. it is a very similar easy to use program like movie maker but much more advanced and technical, it has the ability to insert audio effects transitions images video’s with several different lines to put them in.