I think I've complained about BOXSTR.com before. I selected it to host files because my web hosting service 110mb.com made it clear that I shouldn't put anything but web page code, gifs and the like there, and they recommended BOXSTR for file hosting. At first it seemed to work ok 90-95 of the time, but then it eventually went downhill. Today I found there will be no more complaining. It's dead, taken over by OpenDrive.com. And yes, reinstating your files is up to you. Evidently I was not the only one taken by surprise.

I'm now working on three video projects simultaneously, the Holiday For String Theory music video mentioned many times before by myself, and two others - one collaborating with Doctroid and another with my new video partner Gweepr. Fortunately I have some vacation time coming up. Unfortunately, there are so many other things to do this time of year....

Just finished watching the new Pris6ner miniseries. As often happens with second-rate drama, the first 80%, as the plot thickens, is entertaining, but the failure to resolve it satisfactorily has the viewer walking away muttering "what the...?" True, this is better than the original that didn't even try to make sense of it all. But the "explanation" is something I would expect from a grade-B '70s New Wave SF story. And the naturalistic ending was not to my taste.

More details about how I put together the (solidly progressing) Holiday For String Theory video.
Part 3: GIMP

GIMP, or "GNU Image Manipulation Program" is the open-source answer to Photoshop. I started using it when I migrated to XP and my old creaky Photodeluxe started acting funny. And I'm glad I did, 'cause this app rocks!

"But where does a photo manipulation program come into play for making videos?" I hear you ask. "D'oh, titles," I hear you answer yourself. Yes titles, but more interestingly, masks.

In combining four distinct videos into one, masks allow control over how much of each video is visible. Recall in the CamStudio discussion I mentioned that there was some video capture of areas outside the visualization window. Masks will make that invisible. But also, masks allow some creativity in "blending" portions of each video together.

On to the gory details...
( Read more... )

Generally, I applaud ice cream manufacturer's attempts at new flavors. And I don't expect much, because, hey, given the history of ice cream, how can you expect to come up with something that beats what's already there? But once in a while, I have to wonder - why did this make it out the door? The latest example is Turkey Hill Farms Dynamic Duo At The Movies. Specifically, one half of the two-sided pairing. The OK half is caramel-vanilla. I could eat that all year. No, the problematic half is POPCORN. Now, it's bad enough that you scoop this yellow stuff into your mouth and you get a distinctive popcorn flavor. Disconcerting, but not too bad. And there's pralines in there, too; I like that. But then, eventually, your molars mash on a real piece of popcorn. Yuck.

More gory details about how I put together the (still unfinished) Holiday For String Theory video.
Part 2: CamStudio

CamStudio records screen and audio activity on your computer and creates AVI video files. It is the open-source answer to Camtasia Studio. If you've seen YouTube videos of computer demos incorporating live-motion screen/mouse action, most likely one of these two was used.

I thought this would be a good way to capture Milkdrop visualizations.
( Read more... )

I promised ?!Charlie I would divulge gory details about how I put together the (still unfinished) Holiday For String Theory video. (Not that he asked for too much.)
Part 1: Milkdrop
( Read more... )

Got to play with a WACOM PTK 440 at Best Buy. I was surprised at how unimpressed I was. I tried drawing circles and found I could do just as well with a mouse. Maybe it was because it was a slick surface with no frictional drag. Back home, I discovered my Dell's tiny touchpad maps to just about the same area on-screen (if you move slow). In contrast, the tablet imposes absolute positioning, so is less than 1:1 in terms of mapping to the screen. So is there really any reason to blow $69 for a Bamboo? Maybe the pressure sensitivity. I was playing with MS Paint which didn't sense that.

...somewhat. Being a rookie, when I first put MajorZed.com together some of the image links were absolute references. Then 2 years ago I had to move it to a new host. Ooops. Finally got around to fixing those links yesterday, one fussy little edit at a time. There are plenty of other out of date links and material on the site, but at least now it doesn't immediately scream "abandoned site!"

Winamp comes with several "visualizations" of which IMO Milkdrop2 is by far the best. (I'm not bothering with links because you can google/wikipedia this stuff easily enough.) This is going to make great material for videos, both motion and still.

Here are some screen grabs on my flickr account:
The Dome by Martin
When Monopolies Were The Future by Flexi
The Drain To Heaven by Cope

My current project is a music video of Holiday for String Theory and the real power comes in making use of 4 separate visualizations running on 3 audio tracks that make up the audio portion. It would be infinitely time consuming to try to create the elements myself.

Did I mention that there are over 550 of these .MILK "presets" that came with Winamp? The challenge is to understand what I have on my hard disk here. ( This is what I did )
Update: Done! I now have 998 JPEGs representing 557 presets.

... so where's the link? I'm not happy with it and will redo it almost from scratch. The video quality wasn't what I had hoped for (this is even before uploading it to Youtube), the format (4:3) wasn't the best for Youtube, the codec wasn't the preferred one, and worst, the audio and video did not synch up well. So back to the shooting script. I've learned a few things and the next version should come out better.

This probably cannot be done with Windows Movie Maker.

Ironically, however, I did use WMM in the process. Here's how it worked. ( Read more... )

... adj., tending to overwhelm or intimidate.

This describes my reaction to Blender. I'm just interested in the video editing part (for now!) and thankfully there are some good tutorials on the web. Hopefully in a few days I can demo something that can't be done in Windows Movie Maker.

Here's a proof-of-concept

It is private because it does not meet my artistic standards, especially since L'Heure du Poisson is one of my best pieces and deserves a lot better. I'll be working my way up to that. ( Read more... )

I'm investigating video screen capture so I can do something like this with my music. It's looking feasible....

(1) Listened to a loop I was working on while browsing the songs on Bad Coelacanth Part Deux to see what it might work with. I think one of the following: Ignore The Furlax, Stand On One Foot In The Eepi Department, or I Skipped Lunch For This. ?!Charlie: until further notice, reserve these for me. Now if only I knew what an eepi was.

(2) Traded emails with Doctroid about potential collaborations.

It's an Old Skool thing - somehow it seems better to write lyric ideas down with pen to paper than it does to type. I put my new song ideas down on the same page that had ALL of 2007 and 2008 ideas on it. Sheesh. The previous page and a half was 2006. The previous 11 pages were 2005. Admittedly, most of the 2005 pages were devoted to Waiting For The Voodoo Dolls. But still, the pattern is troubling.

Today I installed SONAR 8.5. Gawd, the installer is 1.7GB - oink, oink.

I've done nothing, musically, lately.

There's no excuse - I have the tools. Finally upgraded to the full=blown SONAR 8 (actually 8.5, but I haven't installed the update yet) with all the bells and whistles. Barely touched it. Celemony sent me a beta of Melodyne with "DNA" - lets you access and modify separate notes within a chord, one of the most exciting things to happen in music tech in years. Haven't installed it. Finally got RealStrat so that realistic programmed electric guitar sounds, without (ab)using my "real" Yamaha guitar, are finally within my grasp. Played with it for a few minutes.

Okay. It's time to come back. I have an idea for a song, and the pathetic start to a riff (in SONAR 8, using RealStrat). And vacation time is coming. I will get back to music. As a first step, I'm printing out the 43-page RealStrat manual as I'm writing this.

We needed a replacement part for a piece of furniture we bought recently. It arrived extremely well packaged via USPS. The box measured 12 x 10 x 6". Inside, between layers of crumpled brown paper, was an 8 1/2 x 11" bubble-lined envelope. Inside that was a 7 x 10" bubble-lined envelope. Inside that was the object: a foot/tip consisting of a plastic disk about the size of a nickel with a nail projecting out of it.