Stop-motion wiki
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Animating fire in stop motion Animating fire in stop motion means deciding which evidence of combustion must be controllable frame by frame — visible flame shape,… Published 2026-08-14 Scaling physical effects for miniature stop motion Scaling physical effects for miniature stop motion means treating apparent scale as a designed interaction between model size, material… Published 2026-08-14 Stop-motion animation stage A stop-motion animation stage is the rigid, accessible platform and surrounding shooting space that supports a miniature set, puppet… Published 2026-08-14 Animator access in stop-motion set design Animator access in stop-motion set design is the deliberate engineering of miniature scenery so an animator, camera, rig and lighting crew… Published 2026-08-13 Stop-motion puppet maintenance and on-set repair Stop-motion puppet maintenance is the production work of inspecting, cleaning, repairing and, when necessary, replacing parts of a puppet… Published 2026-08-13 Duplicate puppets and asset replication for parallel stages Duplicate puppets are camera-matched copies of an approved stop-motion character built so more than one stage can shoot that character at… Published 2026-08-13 Lighting flicker control in stop motion Lighting flicker control is the discipline of keeping frame-to-frame exposure and illumination stable when the light is meant to be… Published 2026-08-13 Mixed-media stop motion: designing the boundary between physical and graphic techniques Mixed-media stop motion combines frame-by-frame photography of physical materials or objects with one or more other image-making… Published 2026-08-12 Ball-joint support rig A rigging system distinct from both the tie-down and the flying rig: an articulated arm of stainless-steel ball-and-socket joints, threaded… Published 2026-08-12 Stereoscopic 3D shooting and review tools in Dragonframe Dragonframe's built-in software toolset for shooting and checking stereoscopic (3D) stop motion: an automated "stereoscopic slider" that… Published 2026-08-12 Paper-built puppets for stop motion Paper-built stop-motion puppets use paper or card as the visible character material while retaining the three-dimensional construction,… Published 2026-08-12 Costume engineering for stop-motion puppets Costume engineering for stop-motion puppets is the design and fabrication of miniature clothing that must look correctly scaled on camera… Published 2026-08-12 Rehearsal and blocking in stop motion Rehearsal and blocking in stop motion are deliberately simplified test passes made before the final animation, using selected poses or… Published 2026-08-12 Dialogue Track Reading for Stop-Motion Animation Dialogue track reading is the frame-by-frame breakdown of recorded speech into words, phonetic events, accents, pauses and usable mouth or… Published 2026-08-11 Foley for Stop-Motion Animation Foley for stop-motion animation is the performed recording of footsteps, body movement, props, cloth and other close physical sounds after… Published 2026-08-11 Motion blur and smear techniques in stop motion Motion blur and smear techniques in stop motion are the range of methods animators and cinematographers use to reintroduce the blur that… Published 2026-08-11 Shanghai Puppet Animation Tradition The Shanghai puppet-animation tradition is the stop-motion branch developed within the institution that became Shanghai Animation Film… Published 2026-08-11 Flicker Control in Stop-Motion Capture Flicker control in stop-motion is the discipline of keeping frame-to-frame exposure, illumination and optical response stable unless a… Published 2026-08-11 High-resolution RAW capture and video assist in stop motion High-resolution capture in stop motion separates the image used to animate from the image used to finish the shot. A low-resolution… Published 2026-08-11 Rig removal in stop motion Rig removal is the post-production process of reconstructing the photographed image after visible supports, wires, braces, control… Published 2026-08-10 Bluescreen and Chroma-Key Capture in Stop Motion Bluescreen or greenscreen capture photographs a stop-motion subject against a controlled chroma background so that the background can later… Published 2026-08-10 Motion-Control Camera Work in Stop Motion Motion control uses a programmable mechanical camera rig to move the camera through a repeatable path during frame-by-frame photography. In… Published 2026-08-10 Paint and costume as puppet finishing layers A cast or sculpted puppet skin is rarely camera-ready on its own. Paint and costume are the two finishing layers applied afterward, each… Published 2026-08-10 Multiple-exposure lighting passes Multiple-exposure lighting passes are a stop-motion capture method in which one animation frame is photographed more than once under… Published 2026-08-10 Fluid-frame animation with sand, paint, clay, and carved material Fluid-frame animation is an under-camera stop-motion approach in which the photographed image is made from material that is continuously… Published 2026-08-10 Focus pulling in stop motion Focus pulling in stop motion is the planned change of lens focus through an animated shot, divided across frames and coordinated with… Published 2026-08-10 Rapid prototyping: 3D-printed replacement faces Rapid prototyping is the fabrication process, pioneered by LAIKA starting with Coraline (2009), of building a puppet's replacement-face… Published 2026-08-09 Puppet maintenance Puppet maintenance is the production discipline of inspecting, repairing, re-tensioning, cleaning and preparing stop-motion puppets so that… Published 2026-08-09 Performance reference for stop motion Performance reference for stop motion is recorded acting, movement or timing material used to communicate a shot's dramatic intention… Published 2026-08-09 Sound design for stop motion Sound design for stop motion is the deliberate construction of the audible world around images that were largely photographed without… Published 2026-08-09 Mechanical facial controls Mechanical facial controls are miniature internal mechanisms that let an animator reshape a stop-motion puppet's face between exposures… Published 2026-08-08 Recording the voice track before the puppet moves In a scripted stop-motion feature, actors record their dialogue in a booth against the finished script before a single frame of the… Published 2026-08-08 Palestinian stop motion Palestinian stop motion is best understood not as a single studio style but as a distributed practice made by filmmakers and educators… Published 2026-08-08 Crochet and yarn as a puppet skin material Hand-crocheted wool or yarn used as the visible outer body of a stop-motion puppet, wrapped directly over a wire or metal armature so the… Published 2026-08-07 Camera and animator access on miniature sets Camera and animator access is the production-design problem of making a miniature set photographable while leaving enough physical room for… Published 2026-08-07 Camera movement in stop motion Camera movement in stop motion is the frame-by-frame design and execution of a changing camera position or orientation during an animated… Published 2026-08-07 Depth of field in miniature cinematography Depth of field in miniature cinematography is the controlled range of distance that appears acceptably sharp when photographing puppets and… Published 2026-08-07 Forced perspective for miniature sets Forced perspective is the deliberate arrangement of camera position, subject distance and set scale so that objects appear larger, smaller,… Published 2026-08-07 Lens breathing in stop-motion cinematography Lens breathing is the apparent change in image size or field of view that occurs when a lens changes focus. In stop motion it becomes… Published 2026-08-07 Lighting miniatures: motivation, movement and continuity Miniature lighting is the design of illumination for a frame-by-frame physical set where scale, long exposure, animator access and… Published 2026-08-07 Straight-ahead performance and key-pose planning in stop-motion How stop-motion animators plan a performance despite the medium's straight-ahead constraint: because a shot photographs one physical state… Published 2026-08-06 Art-department scheduling for a stop-motion TV series Art-department scheduling in stop-motion television is the system that converts an episode order and shooting plan into timed deliveries of… Published 2026-08-06 Digital previsualization before a physical stop-motion build Digital previsualization, in a stop-motion context, is the practice of modelling a set, camera move, or rig entirely in software --… Published 2026-08-05 DMX lighting control in Dragonframe (DDMX-512) The DDMX-512 is Dragonframe's hardware interface for the DMX-512 lighting-control protocol: a USB-to-DMX bridge that lets the capture… Published 2026-08-03 Vox pop dialogue: animating to real, unscripted speech Vox pop dialogue is a stop-motion sound technique in which real, unscripted speech -- an interview, an overheard conversation, a member of… Published 2026-08-03 Practical fire effects in stop motion Practical fire effects are in-camera combustion events -- flames, sparks, embers, glowing trails -- photographed frame by frame in the same… Published 2026-08-02 Multiplane in stop motion Multiplane is a set-and-camera technique that separates artwork, cutouts or set elements onto distinct planes at different distances from… Published 2026-08-02 UV-ink tracking for CG face replacement A technique for driving a CG-generated mouth or face replacement on a stop-motion puppet without physically altering or marking it in any… Published 2026-08-01 Production notes and metadata in Dragonframe The set of Dragonframe tools -- the Notepad, and per-take/exposure/frame notes stored in a metadata text file -- that record why a take was… Published 2026-07-31 Storyboard and animatic A storyboard sequences a script into individual drawn shots before a single frame of animation is exposed; an animatic times those drawings… Published 2026-07-30 Light-source spectrum for stop-motion Light-source spectrum for stop-motion is the distribution of wavelengths a fixture sends onto puppets and sets, and therefore the range of… Published 2026-07-29 Camera-body selection for stop-motion Camera-body selection for stop-motion is risk management over a shot that may remain physically locked for weeks: the useful body is not… Published 2026-07-29 ABS as a brickfilm material Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) is the injection-moulded plastic that LEGO and other construction-brick systems are made from -- the… Published 2026-07-27 Guide layers: onion skin and reference footage in Dragonframe Dragonframe's Guide Layers panel blends the live camera feed against an already-captured frame (onion skin) or an external reference still… Published 2026-07-27 Cast clay over a floating armature: the Gumby method A cast-clay puppet-building method, distinct from the sculpt-clay-onto-a-rigid-skeleton approach used on most later ball-and-socket… Published 2026-07-25 Object animation A sub-type of stop motion in which everyday or found objects serve as the animated subject rather than a purpose-built puppet or clay… Published 2026-07-23 Dragonframe camera and lens support The bounded set of camera hardware Dragonframe can drive directly from its capture timeline, organised by connection type (USB-tethered… Published 2026-07-23 Colour management in Dragonframe (OCIO) Dragonframe's built-in colour management, added in software version 2024.05, uses OpenColorIO (OCIO) -- the open-source colour-pipeline… Published 2026-07-23 Dragonframe Industry-standard stop-motion animation software for Mac, Windows and Linux, widely used by major studios including LAIKA and Aardman… Published 2026-07-22 Animating water in stop motion Animating water in stop motion is the design of liquid shape, surface motion, droplets, spray, waves, reflections and underwater light as… Published 2026-07-22 Stop Motion Studio (Cateater) Stop Motion Studio is a consumer and education-market stop-motion app from the US developer Cateater LLC (founded 2010; app first released… Published 2026-07-18 Dialogue and lip-sync planning in Dragonframe's X-Sheet The workflow, built into Dragonframe's Audio Workspace and X-Sheet, for breaking a pre-recorded dialogue track into per-frame phonemes… Published 2026-07-17 Brickfilm A brickfilm is stop motion shot with a mass-produced construction-brick system and its companion minifigures instead of a bespoke sculpted… Published 2026-07-15 Rig removal Rig removal is the post-production work of digitally erasing everything a stop-motion animator needed to support and pose a puppet during… Published 2026-07-15 Silhouette animation A stop-motion sub-type in which figures are built and photographed as flat, fully opaque black shapes rather than visible line drawings or… Published 2026-07-12 Stereoscopic (3D) stop-motion capture Shooting a stop-motion frame twice from two known, fixed-offset camera positions -- one per eye -- so the finished film carries real,… Published 2026-07-12 "Two Lineages of Stop-Motion: Eastern European Puppet Cinema and American Creature Effects" Stop-motion history is best understood not as one technological ladder leading from crude puppets to digital effects, but as several… Published 2026-07-11 "A World Map of Stop-Motion Traditions" A global history of stop motion is not a ranking of countries or a single chain of inventions. It is a map of production systems that made… Published 2026-07-11 Go motion Go motion is a stop-motion variant in which a rod puppet, rigged to a motion-control system, is driven a small amount during the exposure… Published 2026-07-11 Wood as a puppet material Solid or carved wood used as the visible outer material of a stop-motion puppet -- distinct from the wire/metal armature and silicone or… Published 2026-07-11 Arc: motion control and robotic arms in Dragonframe Arc is Dragonframe's motion-control workspace: it maps external hardware -- stepper-driven sliders and pan/tilt heads, and now six-axis… Published 2026-07-08 Stylization versus craft convention in stop-motion cinematography Stop-motion cinematography carries an inherited convention -- harder, more sculptural, carefully motivated light that keeps a puppet… Published 2026-07-07 Lens selection for stop-motion capture Choosing a lens for stop-motion capture is governed by two constraints Dragonframe enforces rather than merely suggests: the lens must hold… Published 2026-07-06 Lighting miniature interiors Lighting a miniature interior means fitting a working lighting rig inside a set built at puppet scale, often fully enclosed on some or all… Published 2026-07-06 Cutout animation A sub-type of stop motion in which flat figures and set pieces -- cut from paper, card, fabric or photographs, then jointed at pivot points… Published 2026-07-05 Miniature cinematography Miniature cinematography is the discipline of photographing small physical subjects so that they read as intentional screen space rather… Published 2026-07-04 Claymation: Clokey, Vinton, and the Road to Laika "Claymation" is not a generic synonym for clay stop motion -- it is a trademarked name Will Vinton coined for his own studio's process in… Published 2026-07-04 Foley and sound design for stop-motion puppets Foley in stop-motion is the performed recording of footsteps, handling, cloth, body movement and other physical sounds that are… Published 2026-07-03 Dynamation: from Willis O'Brien to Ray Harryhausen Dynamation is the composite-photography process Ray Harryhausen developed out of Willis O'Brien's stop-motion effects work, letting a… Published 2026-07-02 Flying rig A flying rig is a rigging system -- typically fine wire or a rod running to an overhead track or off-camera stand -- that suspends a… Published 2026-07-02 Replacement face systems A replacement face system is a fabrication and performance technique in which a puppet's face is built as an inventory of interchangeable… Published 2026-07-01 Exposure sheet An exposure sheet (X-sheet, or dope sheet) is a grid-format planning and record-keeping tool used by animators to map the timing of a scene… Published 2026-07-01 Puppet animation A sub-type of stop motion in which articulated puppet figures — typically built over a poseable armature — are moved incrementally between… Published 2026-06-30 Animating on twos Animating on twos means holding each distinct stop-motion pose for two frames of the finished timeline instead of creating a new pose for… Published 2026-06-30 Animation table An animation table is the raised work surface or shooting stage on which a stop-motion set, puppet, tie-down system and camera composition… Published 2026-06-30 Comparative production practice Comparative production practice describes how stop-motion working methods differ between countries, languages, studios and workshop… Published 2026-06-30 Stop-motion glossary The glossary is the expandable index of stop-motion terms, job names, tools, materials, workflows and regional expressions that are needed… Published 2026-06-30 Stop-motion production map A production map is the working table of contents for stop-motion craft: it follows the film from idea, research and design through puppet… Published 2026-06-30 Stop motion Stop motion is a capture method in which a physical subject is changed between individually photographed frames. When those frames are… Published 2026-06-29 Clay animation A sub-type of stop motion in which animated subjects are built from malleable materials — typically plasticine or oil-based modelling clay… Published 2026-06-29 Lighting continuity Lighting continuity is the practice of making the light in a stop-motion shot repeat frame after frame unless the shot deliberately changes… Published 2026-06-29 Pixilation A stop-motion technique in which live human actors are used as frame-by-frame subjects instead of purpose-built puppets or clay figures.… Published 2026-06-28 Miniature set A scaled-down physical environment built for stop-motion or special-effects photography. Miniature sets provide realistic lighting… Published 2026-06-28 After Effects compositing Adobe After Effects used as the primary compositing and finishing environment for stop-motion post-production: painting out in-frame rig… Published 2026-06-28 Tie-down A system for anchoring a stop-motion puppet to the animation set between frames, preventing the figure from falling or shifting during… Published 2026-06-27 Capture technique Capture technique is the umbrella term for how a stop-motion production actually records its frame-by-frame movement: which family of… Published 2026-06-17 What is being animated? In stop-motion, the subject is the physical thing whose position, shape or configuration is changed between exposures. The subject may be… Published 2026-06-17 Background A background in stop motion is the photographed environment around the animated subject: physical set architecture and dressing, practical… Published 2026-06-17 Materials The physical substances a stop-motion production builds with -- armature metal, skin silicone or foam latex, hair and fur, wood, oil-based… Published 2026-06-17 Puppet A poseable figure built for incremental movement, often with an armature, body padding, costume, surface skin, replacement face parts or… Published 2026-06-17 Clay Clay, in stop motion, means an oil-based, non-drying modelling compound -- plasticine, not ceramic clay -- sculpted, reshaped and… Published 2026-06-17 Replacement animation A technique where expression, mouth shape or body parts are swapped between frames instead of deforming a single continuous object. Published 2026-06-17 Mechanical puppet A puppet with internal mechanisms, linkages, paddles or controls that let animators adjust eyes, brows, mouths, fingers or other small… Published 2026-06-17 Skin materials The materials layered over a puppet's armature and core to give it a finished outer body -- usually not a single substance but a… Published 2026-06-17 Hair materials Materials and construction methods for hair, fur, feathers and other fine, individually-applied fiber surfaces on puppets or miniature… Published 2026-06-17 Armature The internal structure that holds poses between frames, from wire builds to ball-and-socket metal skeletons and printed/mechanical… Published 2026-06-17 Lighting Lighting a stop-motion set means building a light rig that can hold its output dead steady across hundreds or thousands of individual… Published 2026-06-17