HUE Animation Studio: Complete Stop Motion Kit (Camera, Software, Book) for Windows/macOS (Red) with Carry Case

I bought this for my Lego-crazy nephew for his birthday. It must have been a big hit with him because he's making movies with his Lego sets all the time these days. He used to be glued to his XBox but he's doing something creative and providing lots of laughs for our family. I had a go last weekend and the software is pretty intuitive and just right for this age group. It's got all the features like onion-skin, green-screen, importing music mp3s and you-tube upload. Once he'd grasped the basics he figured the rest out without even looking at the instructions and there was no stopping him! The camera is cute and funky....maybe I'll buy an animation pack for myself too!

Back in 1974 I remember being glued to a BBC programme called The Do-It-Yourself Film Animation Show. Well, in those days, such a hobby was frighteningly expensive, elaborate and laborious so all most of us could do was dream we would one day emulate Walt Disney. If only this little bit of kit had been available then! It really is so easy! I was inspited by visiting the 'Animate It!' exhibition in Bristol's @Bristol museum. This does everything you could do at that exhibition. You can pick it up in minutes and soon you'll think you're the new Nick Park. Top tip: toy cars and engines of the Thomas and Friends variety are excellent objects to animate - really simple and you can make them do all sorts of things when you're first starting out. No more twiddling your thumbs on the long winter nights - and kids will absolutely love the results! A truly amazing hobby in a box.

Very nice product, super easy to use. The software is a bit clumsy here and there, but works. Biggest gripes I have are that you can't resize the picture and film views even on larger monitors, and that it doesn't allow for non-English characters in texts. No biggies, though.

Great camera and software for making simple animations, this was bought as a Christmas present for my 10 year old daughter and she's really enjoyed making and editing her own animations. As a word of warning, the camera might not work with other software, I tried it as a webcam for some business meetings but it crashed repeatedly, stick to the animations!

This was my youngest son's Christmas present, as he's an avid modeller and wanted to make stop motion films himself. It was easy to set up (slightly tipsy and stuffed on Christmas afternoon) and he mastered it within seconds (he's 9 years old) without any assistance from an adult. He'd made his first film within a couple of hours. Well, well worth the money and I am probably going to invest in a second one for my other son. Many thanks.

Not impressed with the software at all. Took several attempts to install it, still not quite sure how I achieved it. Resorted to the free Monkey Jam software after the Hue software wouldn't play more than 20 frames. Trying again tomorrow. Extras are nothing to write home about either, for example, there could be more mouth positions, rather than just three. Same can be said of the sound effects. Wish I'd just purchased the camera now and saved myself £10.

Just received this kit today and it is absolutely brilliant! Took a little bit of setting up as had to install the more recent software from the website, but the tech guys were very helpful with this. Once I had it going I was making short videos in no time at all. Great fun and so easy to use. Anyone will enjoy this. If you can use the basic settings on a camera and a computer, you can use this. Highly recommended.

EDIT: I've downgraded this to 3 stars as the software insists on reducing the image capture to 640 pixels, which is quite ridiculous given that it's supplied with a far better camera than this! This downscaling is acceptable for absolute beginners, but these days even kids will be sharing their creations online, and the software doesn't even allow for wide-screen format. The camera is still worth getting especially cas it allows for interesting shots and angles, but I ended up buying a copy of the ZU3D animation software to use it with. HUE say that the limitations of their software is for performance reasons, but their website is choppy in terms of content with a fair bit of out of date information. It seems as though the company was taken over at some point, and I've a feeling that development of the kit has stalled. Original review follows I bought this as a Christmas gift for my 9-year-old who's been making movies for a year or so now, mainly using my DSLR and camcorder. I really wanted to get her her own camera plus (most importantly) editing software that was simple enough for her to use on her own but with key features. This set really does the trick. The camera is good for the price - it's kind of a trade-off between image quality and (literal) flexibility. It's basically web-cam quality but on it's base it is adjustable to be able to film within whatever environment has been set up, making it ideal for dolls houses, lego towns, etc. The camera has it's own manual focus. There is a HUE HD Pro camera available to buy, separately but the included one seems the better set for beginners as it comes with the design software. I'm also not sure that even that the pro camera (costing a little under £60) could rival a proper camera such as a DSLR for colour and focusing. The software is good. It allows for any camera input - some users may be frustrated that it defaults to whatever the default camera on the computer happens to be - meaning that you can swap out the supplied camera for any other should this be required. The software includes the basic required functions which I'll go through in turn. Capture : Dual views are provided - the previous frame and the current frame being captured including 'onion skinning' (basically a 'ghost' image of the previous frame is overlayed onto the new shot allowing you to correctly adjust the amount of movement of whatever you're filming). Timeline : Allows adjustment of frames per second (either be the whole animation, groups or individual frames) Sound : Two audio tracks are available and you can record sound within the studio or import it Chroma Key : I wasn't expecting this, but it's included. Provided you're shooting against a high-contrast background, you can do greenscreen effects. I'd recommend good lighting to offset some of the grainyness of the camera. Frame editing : allows simple drawing over the frames, including adding text. Overall the software is kid-friendly, although for special effects, transitions, proper titles, etc will require a proper editing kit. I'd definitely recommend this for youngsters wanting something that'll get them quickly producing their own films.

Gioco che permette di apprendere la tecnica dello stop-motion divertendosi. Regalo per i figli, molto gradito e usato per alcuni anni. Ideale se collegato ad un computer portatile. Collegato ad un fisso il cavo ne limita l'area di utilizzo.

I did a lot of research before buying this for my 11 yr olds birthday (which was yesterday so I missed the return window). The camera does not have an auto focus and the focus on the front of it is impossible to use. Even I struggle with it as its hard to grip, and then it moves and you need to start over again. I would return it if I could. Keep looking!!

Heute bekam es der Nachwuchs zum Geburtstag (9.). Nach dem Softwareaufspielen konnte es auch sofort losgehen. Einfach und unkompliziert. Ein Riesenspaß, der sich trotz englischen Menüs recht intuitiv bedienen ließ. Heute entstanden schnell 3 Minifilmchen. Die Bildqualität ist nicht die allerbeste und mit 10 Bildern pro Sekunde ist natürlich keine fließende Bewegung möglich. Dafür kann der Nachwuchs gut alleine alles bedienen und der Frustfaktor ist gleich null, der Spaßfaktor 100%. Das Weiterleiten des ersten Films war auch ganz unproblematisch und natürlich ein Riesenspaß. Unbedingt zu empfehlen, wenn es um umkomplizierte Ergebnisse, gerade für Kinder geht.

This was a Christmas gift and we had issues with the license while setting it up. We’ve sent the contact request and have not heard anything. So we may be returning it which is a real bummer because I thought this was going to be something new and cool for our 10yo.

Perfect animation works really great even for a web camera