Your First Animation
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a new iStopMotion document and how to create a simple animation. By following along you will get to know the most important tools of iStopMotion.
1. Create a new iStopMotion project

Upon opening, iStopMotion creates a new movie and presents a dialog, requesting a file name and a preset for the movie. (If this does not occur, it has been disabled. You can create a new document by selecting
> at any time.)/ul>- Enter a name for your movie or keep the default name, “iStopMotion Clip”.
- Select a folder in which to store your project from the popup menu labelled "Where:". By default this will be your “Movies” folder.
- Choose the “Default” preset, as this is generally suitable for display on a lot of devices such as Apple's iPod, iPhone, and AppleTV.
- By clicking your settings are stored and an empty movie is created.
2. Choose an image source.
In order to record frames in iStopMotion you need to choose the device (video camera, webcam, still camera) to be used for capturing. A live preview of that device will be shown in the preview area. In case the content of the preview area is not what you expected, you need to select the correct camera:/span>
- If your computer is equipped with an built-in iSight / FaceTime camera or if you have already connected an external video camera, a live video feed will be displayed in the preview area. Otherwise you should connect a camera now.
- In case it is not already visible, open the Source module in the sidebar by clicking the button labeled “Recording” in the toolbar.
- If there is no video, click the the pop-up menu next to “Source” and select your camera here. All connected cameras should be listed here, including iOS devices running iStopMotion Remote Camera.
- Your camera will now be displayed as the video source.

As most still cameras are not able to transfer a live preview, you will only see an image from a still camera after creating a preview manually. Create a preview by clicking the left record button in the toolbar. If your camera supports live preview you have to turn it on with the Life button next to the overlay slider. To find out if your camera supports live view, please check the list of supported cameras on the iStopMotion support website.
3. Position your camera and objects
- Position your camera to capture the target scene. Make sure you have enough space for your ‘actors’.
- It is recommended to keep the camera position fixed and only move the objects being filmed.
- Put your object(s) in a suitable position to start the sequence.
4. Capture your first frame
If you are working with a video source you can now just click the capture button to insert the current preview into the movie. If you are working with a still camera, first press the left capture button (as described above) to generate a preview. Take multiple previews until you are satisfied with the result. Now, using the right capture button insert that preview image into your movie.
5. Bring life to your objects
A movie consists of a lot of single images. Two images of a movie usually only differ a little. Playing back lots of images in a rapid fashion will result in apparently fluid motion to the human eye.
- Move your objects by a small amount in one direction.
- Capture another image by clicking the record button. Repeat these two steps until you have at least captured one second of movie.
If you selected the preset “Default” for your movie, you need to capture 12 images for each second of movie. Please note that there are only very minimal changes required to achieve fluid movement.
- Just in case you captured a frame you don't like, you can simply delete it. Selecting the frame in the timeline at the bottom of the window and choose > .
6. Play your movie
Once you have recorded enough frames, you can make a movie. Clicking the play button will play back the movie in the preview area.
In order to smoothly play back the images, iStopMotion needs to create a playback movie. This may require some time to complete.
Congratulations, you just created your first stop motion movie!
More control over your animation
iStopMotion offers various tools to give you better control over the movement of your objects.///span>
Using the overlay slider you can crossfade between the last captured image and the real-time preview of your camera. This helps you to inspect the the resulting image in the movie, the live preview or compare those two images.
- The “Blinking” function in the “View” sidebar switches the live preview of the selected source on and off at a selectable rate. In combination with the preview slider in the toolbar you can evalate the movement between the last and the next frame.
This function also helps you align objects that have been moved accidentally. Move the object in question until you no longer see a difference when blinking.
- An even better overview is provided by the “Onion Skinning” function that you can also find in the “View” section of the sidebar. With this feature you can track the lapse of animation stills on up to five frames. Use the slider to set the number of frames to look back.
- The “Grid” function, again located in the "View" sidebar, helps in creating steady linear movements. You can, for example, set up 20 columns and move an object exactly to the next column in each frame.
Further processing of your movie
When you are done capturing frames, you can export your movie to it's final state or for post-processing in another application, such as iMovie or Final Cut Pro.
Select
> menu and choose a setting. To distribute the movie via email, MPEG-4 (at 320 by 240 pixels), would be quite suitable. If you prefer to edit it in another application first, you should export your movie in full size with as little compression as possible.To edit your scene in iMovie just select
> . iStopMotion will convert your movie in a format suitable for iMovie and launch iMovie automatically.