Anyway, I’m not planning on building an automatic tracking system (would be too unstable, and my programming isn’t that good anyway); I was thinking on tracking a predefined (by software) moving point, so I can get a smooth approximate of the camera movement (and, more importantly, make fast camera tests before each take, since it would be really, really bad if the camera moved unexpectedly after 2 hours of moving the puppet around). Another idea I have is making a system to record the manual movement of the camera, so it can later reproduce it exactly but step by step (optical encoders FTW!).

very very cool stuff!

I built a cnc machine (three of them, actually), and I’m planning on using what I’ve learn with it to make a camera control system for stop motion. I suck at programming, so it will probably take more time to make a decent “moving point” tracking system (so I can, for example, rotate the camera around a moving character while he’s moving) than to actually build the rig.
The possibilities are endless. Most independent animators can’t afford to buy a complex camera control system like the ones used in “big” movies; it’s good to be a CNC hobbyist :D

He obviously had two cameras. If not, what was he using to film the ‘making of’ vid? Maybe he was using a still cam and I missed it.

I suspect this is as much a ‘can it be done’ type of project. But either way, he did it. He had his own reasons for doing it the way he did. If you are going to judge, judge on the fact that IT WORKS! He set out to do something that was non-trivial, and stuck with it until it did what he wanted. THAT is the point of this site, to celebrate [success | tinkering | learning | what ever you want to call it].

I will continue to feed the trolls: I have been a near daily visitor to this site for years. Back when there were few comments, and even fewer posts (less than one a day on average) I felt the site’s comments were almost worthless. Then H.A.D. Experienced a surge of growth. At that point the comments approched the intelectual level of slashdot comments. Sure, there were people who did not fully understand the subject of the post, but their comments were posted in good faith and it helped spur discussion. Now the comments are truly worthless. I am very close to ignoring the comments much the way I ignore Digg comments.

If you don’t agree with the project or the way it was done, or even if you think you could do better, I think I speak for many others when I say, I DON’T CARE. It it isn’t meant to continue the conversation (and no, putting a project down for any reason does not help advance the conversation. Now if you were to offer a solution to a precieved problem that would be different) I don’t want to read it.

This was typed on my iPhone. Please ignore any spelling errors.

I’m loving these comments, you trolls are becoming more entertaining than the posts. When it’s too simple, you cry about it, when its overly complicated, you cry about it. There’s no winning with you chumps.