Stop Motion + Live Action Test

Experimental animation is one of my most favorite subject. During the preparation of Stop Motion animation seminar for TekhniX Studios, Jitendra (MD) came up with an Idea of merging Stop Motion Animation with Live action footage. Using live action background in Stop Motion Animation is very commonly used, as well as Live characters with Clay Characters. We wanted to come up with something new and unique which can provide us with technical challenge.

Keeping that in mind, we planned to make clay models with Eyes and Lips shot in live action. So here was the first trial. We used one of our very basic creature as the model and captured eye & lip movements with a HDV cam keeping the lighting condition same in both plates. The result seemed pretty neat (the live action eyes and lips shot looks very weird and funny separately).

To add more realistic nature, we animated the character a little bit in Y and Z directions; and again shot the eyes and lips in live action. Checking the result, eye movements were very impressive. But, the lips didn't go quite well on the clay model because of the tracking issues. So, we shot the lips and eyes separately again and merged it over the clay model with rotoscopy. Thats the exact thing what we wanted.

Now on we will be coming up with new projects made in the same way, which will include Live action eyes and lips tracked; and later merged over the clay model.

The most challenging part in this process is to track the clay model's movement to match the live action footage of eyes and lips. As well as the acting takes more time, because the actor can not move his/her head during the shoot; as it may result in nothing but extra tracking and stabilizing of the live action footage.



Here is the Trial Output:

Clay Animation + Live Action Test from Chetan Thaker on Vimeo.

Live Action Eye Test:

Clay + Live: Eye Test from Chetan Thaker on Vimeo.

Live Action Mouth Test:

Clay + Live: Mouth Test from Chetan Thaker on Vimeo.

Clay Test:

Clay + Live: Clay Test from Chetan Thaker on Vimeo.

We are going through more test projects, will be posting the entries soon!

Thanks to all the artists who became a part of this test and made it available on screen ;)


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