A friend of mine has closed the loop between maya and his system for doing IK track compensation moves. Ideal for multi-scale moves. Having looked into this myself years ago I know that this is non-trivial. Impressive work Gerald Thompson!


Demo showing creation of animated camera in Maya with export to Mantis Motion Control from Gerald Thompson on Vimeo.

The Lindy Dolly + Kflop + BFG

Gerald Thompson continues to show us how it's done with his new light weight lindy rig. Driven by his modified kflop board and his own animation software. It may not look all that different to the timelapse dollys out there. But I can assure you it's a big step up from a timelapse rig to a true realtime repeatable system. Can't wait to build one of these myself!

BFG + GAMEPAD

Another quick video demonstrating the use of a Game Controller with the KFLOP and BFG Animator Software.

Two Motors Are Better Than One

Progress has been slow lately. I've been very busy at work. But I managed to make some time to solder together a proto-board with two easydrivers on it for testing. Here's a quick video showing them in use. I have a more heavy duty Leadshine Stepper Driver and a bigger motor to test for high speed applications. But I need to save up for a suitable power supply first.

KFLOP + BFG SOFTWARE

A new toy arrived this week. It's a modified KFLOP motion control board. Gerald Thompson is a Motion Control Operator who has set out to create his own software for the board with all of the features (and more!) he has come to expect over the years from using industry tools such as Kuper and the like.

I am very interested in his ventures. Coming from the post production side of the film industry, I have always been interested in repeatable motion control photography for use in visual effects. For the last couple of years I have been tinkering with the Arduino as an introduction to electronics and it has taught me a lot. But I have decided that a full featured dedicated motion control board is the way to go (for me) if I am ever going to make some images before I grow tired of the pursuit.

Gerald has shown me a relatively affordable way to do this. I am hoping to be able to consolidate some of the ideas previously mentioned on this blog for use with the KFLOP.