Light Pen Animation

August 4, 2006 8:14 PM

If you have a lot of time on your hands and a deep love for animation and LEDs, you might put together something like this. [via]
posted by absalom (17 comments total)

that's wicked! it reminds me of some of the el-wire creations that are often photographed at burning man.
posted by clyde at 8:17 PM on August 4, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

That's pretty awesome. I suspect we'll see it in a music video in the near future.
posted by sixacross at 8:32 PM on August 4, 2006

quite wonderful!
posted by jonson at 8:38 PM on August 4, 2006

Awesome. Thanks for posting!
posted by DakotaPaul at 9:12 PM on August 4, 2006

Neat!
posted by drezdn at 9:24 PM on August 4, 2006

That's just amazing. Thanks!
posted by gamera at 10:23 PM on August 4, 2006

Wowee!
posted by dbiedny at 10:28 PM on August 4, 2006

the final image (with the duck and the little green worm) also gives away the secret to how they did it.
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 11:29 PM on August 4, 2006

Care to elaborate Strasbourg?
Cause I still don't get it. Does it have to do with the monitor on the right?
posted by sour cream at 4:57 AM on August 5, 2006

Ahh, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. New tech meets old. Tex Avery would be proud.
posted by eriko at 6:56 AM on August 5, 2006

beautiful, thank you.
posted by namagomi at 7:49 AM on August 5, 2006

This is amazingly cool. How great an animator do you have to be to be able to animate something where you can't see the previous frame? Or the frame you are working on?
posted by quin at 10:08 AM on August 5, 2006

Pentastic!
posted by Zombie Dreams at 11:57 AM on August 5, 2006

sour cream writes "Care to elaborate Strasbourg?
"Cause I still don't get it. Does it have to do with the monitor on the right?"

Yeah. Looks like she's using some sort of stop motion software. Something like this, although I doubt it's precisely the same program. You can see the frames filling up across the top of her screen.

quin, I would say that they can see the previous frame (or multiple previous frames, as these programs often have onion skinning) and can see the current frame after the exposure is finished and thus can decide whether they want to do it over.

Not taking away from the skill on display, of course. This is really, really awesome.
posted by brundlefly at 12:14 PM on August 5, 2006

FYI, the link doesn't go to the top level; it's just one page among many. People just skimming the link might not realize that and miss some cool stuff!
posted by Eideteker at 12:58 PM on August 5, 2006

Yes, indeed. Copy/pasted the wrong address.

I am shamed.
posted by absalom at 1:28 PM on August 5, 2006

I did a roundup here. (self link)
posted by absalom at 1:38 PM on August 5, 2006