This article was taken from the September 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Want to emulate Aardman Animations?
Here's how to make your own stop-motion film on your computer.
You'll need imagination, a tripod, a camera, patience and probably the charmingly named GIMP software.
Assemble your kit
You will need a camera, a computer and a tripod (or another way to hold your camera steady). You'll also need to download a copy of the free GNU Image-Manipulation Program (GIMP) from gimp.org, or a similar program capable of creating animated Graphics Interchange Format (.gif) files. And you'll need time. A film uses 24 frames per second. For most animators that's too time-consuming. But if you use anything less than ten frames per second, the results won't be ideal.
Take some pictures
Choose how many frames per second that you think is a good compromise between the usual rate of 24 and how much time you have.
Ten frames per second might be a good place to start. If you use fewer, your film may look like too much like a flickerbook. Plan your action and set up your camera. Take one photo, then move your object a little bit, take another one, and so on. Eventually you will have compiled enough footage to combine into a short film.
Combine and animate
Once all the photos have been taken and copied on to your computer, open GIMP and load each picture as a separate frame.
Animations start from the bottom layer in GIMP, so your shots might have to be rearranged. Once this is done, save the image as a .gif file. When prompted, select "save as animation". Hit export, then select the delay you'd like between frames, and then save. If you've done it correctly, you should have an animated .gif file that you can open in most browsers and image-preview programs.
Go further
Now you have an animated .gif, you can turn it into an actual video format to upload. If you have Windows XP, Movie Maker will allow you to natively import animated .gifs, but most other operating systems require additional software. A similar technique can be used for combining time-lapse photos, but an interval-ometer or other method of timing your shots will be necessary. There are also several smartphone apps such as Stop Motion and iMotion HD that help with time-lapse photography if you need to use one.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
