Zu3D Complete Stop Motion Animation Kit For Kids Includes HD Camera, Handbook, And Two Software Licenses Works On Windows Apple Mac OS X And iPad iOS

This was bought as an Xmas present for my 9 year old daughter and without a shadow of a doubt is the best present that she gotStraightforward to set up on her laptop.We have encountered one small technical glitch but contacted the team and they gave the instructions how to fix it very quickly.It is a great kit and would thoroughly recommend to anyone who is interested in art or animation or just looking to have funWe are learning something new each time we are using it so I feel it is something that will keep her entertained for a long time to come

My 9 year old son had being showing an interest in making stop-motion movies for quite some time. His first efforts involved Lego people and a camera to take a photo, then move the Lego person a little, take a photo, and so on. He was getting quite creative and producing some imaginative movies. With Christmas 2014 on its way, we therefore bought the Zu3D Animation Kit. On Christmas morning, the present was unwrapped and this was the gift that got played with first. Setting up the software on our laptop was a doddle and with the supplied camera plugged into a USB Port, the first Zu3D Movie was quickly made.It is now the end of September 2015 and over the last nine months the Zu3D kit has been and continues to be used regularly. Mostly my son uses the Zu3D on his own, but every so often, he and I will use it together, one of us moving the characters and the other one clicking to take the shot. We have used Lego people, as well as the Hamster Ball (spaceship) and clay (plasticine) figures.It is fun planning and preparing to make a movie, although as you can imagine, depending on how serious you are about your movie, the planning and preparation can be just a very quick thought process, then away we go. The quality of the movie you make does to a large extent depend upon your patience. To achieve a realistic character movement on screen, requires many small movements and frame captures during the making. If patience is not one of your virtues, then you will find that the on-screen movements of your characters will be jerky instead of smooth and gradual. Quite honestly does this really matter? If you are serious about making semi-professional stop motion animations, then yes, it does matter. If you are having fun with your movie making, but you and your son or daughter don’t have the patience to invest the time into each small progression of movements, then I don’t think it matters. You’ve just spent some fun time together working on a short movie and have a great result to show for it. With the Zu3D kit, you can do either.The software is very easy to use and you can move or delete frames. This is quite handy when there are two of you. Your itchy trigger finger makes a too quick click which captures a frame with the other persons hand still in the shot. Just delete the frame and click again.The customer service provided by Zu3D is excellent. We swapped laptops and needed to install the Zu3D software onto the new machine. My email to Zu3D support was met with an extremely quick response from Francesa, who reset the registration code for me. Much appreciated.Does my son like the Zu3D kit. No, he loves it. It is fun, creative and easy to use. Do I like the Zu3D kit? Yes, for exactly the same reasons.

The kids love the animation software. It is really helpful and sufficiently feature rich to make super short films.EDIT- it seems that the original camera was faulty. A similar camera was sent by the super ZuLogic team, and although it looks almost the same, it works beautifully. The colours and sound are now much, much better. The new camera only uses a USB connection - the faulty one had a separate connection for the sound.[original text..]Some things were less good - like the Voice recording. It does not let you test to get the volume correct.And getting the camera settings correct was quite difficult...The camera itself was ok - but* colours burnt out in good lighting, meaning that most movies were made in dull lighting. This may be controlled by one of the many settings - but I could not figure it out. You could not immediately see the effect of changing a camera setting.* the led lights, over a shorter distance at least, results in spots of light. Nice idea, but less useful than expected.* the focus ring works - but it is easy to move the camera when you do so. Would be even nicer if the focus could be controlled on the computer [though I guess that that type of camera would cost much more]* for an HD camera, it seemed moderately low quality (grainy and poor colour matching) - though I tried different fps vs quality settings. The green-screen cloth looked quite grey on the computer, even in good light.* the built-in microphone is not very sensitive - you have to shout at it to pick up. Tried all settings and twiddled knobs, but never got really good results. The best bet is to complete the movie first, then hold the camera close to your mouth to record any voice-overs.Not bad enough to be upset - as I said, the kids love it!

Great software with a basic camera.I recently bought this kit for my seven year old daughter to use. She has had no trouble getting to grips with it, the software is quite straight forward. I use a Mac and needed to upgrade to Yosemite OS before I could install the software. However, this was long overdue anyway and the upgrade is free so no problems there.The first kit contained a faulty camera, it worked but there was a constant white line running through the screen shot. Rather than request a refund/exchange from Amazon, I emailed ZuLogic directly via their own website. They responded immediately and sent a replacement camera free of charge to me in the post. Fantastic support service and the second camera works fine! The camera is rather basic though (as to be expected for an all inclusive price of £49.99) but my daughter hasn't noticed/mentioned it. It's just me being fussy and noticing that the image isn't immaculately pristine.In conclusion, you are mainly paying for the software with this kit. But the software is good and I would recommend it.

Excellent for both young and old creative minds.

A great product that was easy to set up and use. Our daughter has had much fun with this animation product. Highly recommended!!!!