I don’t tend to be very gregarious or self-promoting
so I managed to miss the submission deadline for the
Suzanne awards, , but for what it’s worth the rough
cut of my latest vignette “Trick and/or Treat” is online
till 5 November at http://www.smoos.com/video/show.htm
It was almost all done in Blender, with a liittle support from
Corel Paint and Gimp for building alpha masks and image textures.
Original score for the soundtrack in Cakewalk, and final audio mixdown
in Adobe Premiere (although the bulk of the video sequencing is Blender).
Presentation format is RealVideo.
My plan is to produce one of these a month for the next year as part of a
long term effort to build all the props and set libraries I’ll need for a much
larger project…
%|
Typical. I forgot to include the real reason for my
original posting.
I used a Harry Potter typeface which I got from some
Blender-related site but didn’t bookmark at the time.
I’m sure they don’t mind my using it, but I’d have lliked
to have given them a mention, since that typeface
really made the titles and the treatbag logo work.
I don’t particularly mind Real player but I’d avoid using it if you can…quality is not great.
The video seemed to last much too long. Unless the smoos are going to speak a lot of that footage doesn’t really mean a lot. And the absolutely my-god-that’s annoying soundtrack didn’t help ! PLEASE don’t use it !!!
Sorry…the music just REALLY got on my nerves.
The other thing I couldn’t understand was the ending. It’s hard to see what’s happening in Real Player format.
As for blending, I’d say the models are fine but lighting needs a lot of work. Maybe try to do toon shading.
I appreciate your desire to use non-evil components. In this case
my service provider is kind enough to give me bandwidth which
they have to pay for, so I’m reluctant to consume more than I need
to get my message to my primary audience.
Besides, when I was bringing up the Helix Server I had to reinstall, since my shareware license had expired. It’s now at least partly open sourced. That goes a long way IMHO, to removing commercial taint. I have no philosophical objection to right livelihood (aka turning a buck) per se… only to sytems that seek to enslave their users to ensure a revenue stream.
I don’t want to start any flame wars, but for my money, Linux is the best
thing to have happened to the computer world since the bubblesort. I use the tools which burden me the least (and all tools weigh something) in
getting the job done. I currently run 5 boxes – 3:2 Linux:MS and advocate
hybrid systems as a strong reason to bring linux into the home.
Is there a better compromise a/v format to mediate purity/bandwidth/accessibility factors for presenting my work?
Lighting never was my strong point, and I’m trying to simulate the
light of early evening darkness combined with mercury vapour streetlights
and a standard bare 100 watt porch light – not a trivial combination to
pull off.
And the piece is too long. That is why it’s called a “rough cut”.
Most annoying to me, was the way Real butchered my nice slow
Blender fades up at dawn into a few shades of black. Compression
exacts its toll.
As for the music… I guess there’s no accounting for tastes.
I was trying for a humorous/spooky mixed metaphore in the
idiom of the silent film / player piano era. I think I’ll keep it.
Sorry can’t play it. Realplayer starts up but gives me an “invalid url” message. could be server/connection related, then again, could be a linux realplayer problem.
I’ll be switchin’ to helix player soon. perhaps I’ll give it a try then.
Its 54 MB though, for 5 min of 160x120, so if you don’t have bandwidth
to see RV properly, its probably too much trouble to grab. Its almost pure
Blender (and silent – I havent figured out how to make audio work in Blender yet – I still like the music).
It will stay around for a week or so, and its an island url… you have the only
link to it above. (I don’t want my feedback from kids to consist of "My player wont read avi-jpeg. It takes too long to get, etc etc) , but I guess it at least
fair if I post for comments that you be able to see something…
Anyway… no more work on this project till next Halloween. For November I’ve set myself the theme of Remembrance… and I’m no where near on
schedule…
"
People say I’m crazy, dreaming my life away
And they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me
…
I don’t mind, I’m watching shadows on the wall
"
54 mb for 5 minutes ??? :o :o :o I see you have not heard of DivX… go get it ! You can’t add sound with Blender, you have to composite sound and video together with an external program like VideoMach (google search will find it). Or you could even use windows movie maker, which makes reasnoble quality files at much better file sizes.
If you like the music, keep it, but I’m turning my speakers off !
, but for what it’s worth the rough
Sorry…the music just REALLY got on my nerves.
