View

Zoom

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By default the preview movie is always scaled to fit the window. You can alter this setting by switching to "Fixed size" and then enter the desired value.

This only affects the on-screen display, not the project video dimentions.

Grid

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To align objects exactly, iStopMotion offers an overlay grid. With this, you can adjust the horizontal and vertical divisions of the grid, which are then blended over the live preview.

Overlay

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Most camcorders record in 4:3, still cameras even in 3:2. To simulate a 16:9 source or another aspect ratio you may like to use, you can choose to display the live preview cropped down to another aspect ratio.
“Action safe” and “Title safe” includes the corresponding markers used in TV production.

Blinking

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When blinking is enabled, iStopMotion switches (at an adjustable speed) between live preview and the previously captured image. This makes it easier to compare differences between the two images. To tell which image is the live preview, iStopMotion will add a red dot to the image if the “Mark source image” option is checked.

Onion Skinning

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Onion Skinning is very handy to realize motion. Depending on the value of the “Skins” slider, a certain number of recent slides will be shown under the live image.
By altering the “Display” value you can switch between different modes: “Maxiumum” brings the object to the front if it is very bright. If the target object is rather dark, the value “Minimum” will show it more clearly.

Rotoscope / Lip-Sync

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To make an animation of inanimate, anthropomorphic objects (such as clay men) more realistic, it's very helpful to record the motion using a real actor first, and then building the stop motion movements according to this reference movie.
iStopMotion includes this function, called rotoscoping. It adds a view containing the reference movie next or overlaid upon the live preview.
Clicking the action button lets you choose a rotoscoping movie file that will then show up in the timeline. The same button also let's you remove that movie.
If “One frame ahead” is checked, the reference movie is shifted one frame ahead relative to the animation.
“Show in separate window”, “Show in main window” and “Blend over preview” changes the position of the rotoscope inside iStopMotion.
“Play sound” activates playback of the rotoscope soundtrack.
By setting an “Offset” you can temporally position the rotoscope movie relative to your animation.

You can only use one rotoscope track per project. In case an imported rotoscope movie contains more than one video track, iStopMotion only displays the first video track of the movie. This also applies to sound tracks contained in this rotoscope movie.

Soundtrack

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Movies gain liveliness by using sound, so one of iStopMotion's capabilities is that of importing a soundtrack. With the handy waveform view it is possible to visualize distinctive parts of the audio, such as beats and silence.
If “Play soundtrack” is checked the soundtrack will be played back as soon as the playback button is pressed.
The “Offset” time can be set to shift the soundtrack relative to the video frames.

You can only use one soundtrack per project.

Related Topics:  View menu