Timelapse home construction - tips needed

[communityguy]

I'm building a new house and taking Litchi rotations every few days. I'm getting some good raw footage, but struggling a bit with the "art" of how to best put together the time lapse. Anyone seen any great video versions of this technique?

Thanks!

 

[halley]

Are you repeating an identical flight each time? I think a soft wipe transition from February to March with nearly identical drone position should be a really nice cut.

 

[communityguy]

Yep, been flying the same Litchi orbit every few days

 

[Oyibo VFX]

I use Autopilot to do my timeline here (in Nigeria). I recommend to do the flight and copy direct your images to a separate folder so you don't mix up.
Put also your WB in either "sunny" or "cloudy" mode so you'll have a standard lighting setting.
If you use color grading, put on D-Log.
If you use Autopilot and have issues with the Waypoint setting, mail me the track and I'll set it up for you

 

[Frankiev]

I take videos of my clients houses under construction. I do Point of Interest fly arounds. I record my the take off position, my point of interest 'point', my altitude, radius and the angle of my gimbol so that each fly around originates from the same spot. If you were to put your house on a clock face, I start my recordings @7:00 and fly a full rotation plus around the house at various stages of production. i.e. rough grading, foundation, framing, roof stacking, stucco or exterior finish. completed roofing, finish grading, landscaping. My intention is to take the videos and edit portions (say from 6:00 to 3:00) and edits 3 hour positions together so that I end up with a video that shows the house being completed while the video goes around the house.
Frank
ConstructionLoans.com

 

[SupaMonkey]

@Frankiev Thanks - I'm going to do exactly this for my brother who's building his house. I'm still learning so havent experimented with POI and WP flight modes. How does one record the POI take off position and POI itself so that I can just re-use it for every visit?
Sounds like a Waypoint mode thing, but WP mode doesnt do a circular focus on a POI like POI mode does?

 

[Frankiev]

@Frankiev Thanks - I'm going to do exactly this for my brother who's building his house. I'm still learning so havent experimented with POI and WP flight modes. How does one record the POI take off position and POI itself so that I can just re-use it for every visit?
Sounds like a Waypoint mode thing, but WP mode doesnt do a circular focus on a POI like POI mode does?

SupaMonkey,
I have not 'completed' one of these yet (although I am working on 4 of them right now) so I am still experimenting. I physically locate the center of the house, right to left and back to front. I then set a stake and use that as a reference point so that each time I go out I know where I am supposed to start my shot from. I try to make sure that the Mavic is in the same position each time. When you are doing "Point of Interest' you need to be sure that "point" does not change. Part of the POI procedure is to mark your height and the radius you will be using. Ih you have successfully marked your POI and recorded the height and radius all you need to do then is make sure you start the circle from the same place each time and that your drone and camera are pointed in the same position each time. I start my location before I actually 'need the footage and overly my ending point tech time so that I will have sufficient footage to blend together.
I think the more difficult thing will be matching white balance and colorization from video to video.Like I said I am waiting to see how it is going to work out in the end. Good luck tho.

Frank

 

[SupaMonkey]

Thanks Frank - makes sense and sounds easy enough. Only issue is that I can't have said marker as the center of the house because it will get built over. Will also look into this Litchi app to see if I go "stock" like you or try Litchi to get the footage.

 

[idiogenic]

Interesting ideas guys, I'm starting on some home renovations soon.

Does Litchi allow you to program in camera movements in addition to a flight path and repeat it quite accurately?

 

[stratos]

Advice for a cool time lapse:

• yes, use a flying mission in Litchi
• Plan your daily flight with and scheduled, each flight start 15 ~ 30minutes later ( so you can see day time progression)
• Store your files with time date and weather
• you can also take a daily still or shot just video from the same perspective without moving.

 

[JoostGT3]

Advice for a cool time lapse:

• yes, use a flying mission in Litchi
• Plan your daily flight with and scheduled, each flight start 15 ~ 30minutes later ( so you can see day time progression)
• Store your files with time date and weather
• you can also take a daily still or shot just video from the same perspective without moving.

Ohhhh, I Like that!

 

[stratos]

Ohhhh, I Like that!

Then, try to visualize edditing the footage every 25 degrees of so each video, so in you finished videos you can actually circle the house a couple of times, but every orbit contains multiple days.

that would be awesome

 

[GLO]

This is awesome,

How is this coming along?

I’d love to see some of the footage and also some key learnings from this?

As I’m keen to do similar with my home build over a 40week build.

 

[mquinn1963]

SupaMonkey,
I have not 'completed' one of these yet (although I am working on 4 of them right now) so I am still experimenting. I physically locate the center of the house, right to left and back to front. I then set a stake and use that as a reference point so that each time I go out I know where I am supposed to start my shot from. I try to make sure that the Mavic is in the same position each time. When you are doing "Point of Interest' you need to be sure that "point" does not change. Part of the POI procedure is to mark your height and the radius you will be using. Ih you have successfully marked your POI and recorded the height and radius all you need to do then is make sure you start the circle from the same place each time and that your drone and camera are pointed in the same position each time. I start my location before I actually 'need the footage and overly my ending point tech time so that I will have sufficient footage to blend together.
I think the more difficult thing will be matching white balance and colorization from video to video.Like I said I am waiting to see how it is going to work out in the end. Good luck tho.

Frank

Frank, Im not sure the POI mode will work even if you take off from the same location every time? But if you do WAY POINTs those "points" are stored and SHould always be the same no matter where you actually take off from. IT might be difficult to get all sides of the house unless you do a zig zag WWAY POINT program where you have a WAy point at say North, East, South and west where it will look directly at your house. and then in between each way point another way point the moves away and sets up for the next way point shoot. Just an Idea.

 

[GLO]

I've finally picked up my Mavic Air.

I vaguely recall seeing Mavic Air supporting waypoint missions out of the box but cant fins it now.

Anyone else notice the change?

wondering if anyone has used Mavic FPV APP from iTunes?

 

[bushie]

A totally different approach would be to use DroneHarmony or similar to fly a photogramatery mission each day/ week, plot up the maps and overlay them as seperate layers using a GIS program. You cold then use a series of screen shots to pu t together the video.

 

[stairtherefore]

SupaMonkey,
I have not 'completed' one of these yet (although I am working on 4 of them right now) so I am still experimenting. I physically locate the center of the house, right to left and back to front. I then set a stake and use that as a reference point so that each time I go out I know where I am supposed to start my shot from. I try to make sure that the Mavic is in the same position each time. When you are doing "Point of Interest' you need to be sure that "point" does not change. Part of the POI procedure is to mark your height and the radius you will be using. Ih you have successfully marked your POI and recorded the height and radius all you need to do then is make sure you start the circle from the same place each time and that your drone and camera are pointed in the same position each time.I start my location before I actually 'need the footage and overlay my ending point tech time so that I will have sufficient footage to blend together. If you're looking for additional insights on time-lapse techniques, you can check reviews on sites like https://kb-home.pissedconsumer.com/review.html.
I think the more difficult thing will be matching white balance and colorization from video to video.Like I said I am waiting to see how it is going to work out in the end. Good luck tho.

Frank

For building a new house and capturing Litchi rotations, try looking at time-lapse videos from platforms like Vimeo or YouTube for inspiration. These videos often show smooth transitions, good pacing, and how to create an engaging story with time-lapse footage. To improve your own video, focus on steady drone movements, framing interesting angles, and adjusting the pacing of your shots in post-production. You could also enhance the video with appropriate music to match the mood of your project. For editing, Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro work well for fine-tuning your footage.