My second Storify attempt...what do you think?
Showing posts with label secondlife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label secondlife. Show all posts
Friday, October 07, 2011
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Our Camp Got Finished for Burn2
We got finished. Whoo. Three levels with graphics and some freebies
Problems...there are a few
1. lag lag lag...takes a while for the textures to load, it's hard to move around, and music streams can't be heard by everyone at the party. SL has got to do something so events can attract more than a couple of people without everyone being stuck in lag soup.
2. Most people so far have been paying attention to the artists and scheduled music. I understand that attention..the art is gorgeous and well worth seeing. We had fun building...and that's all that's really important.
The second level is rites of commendation...items and images of things we do to help the dead move on to or have a happier afterlife. There is voodoo and a senet game and images of the weighing of the souls by Anubis.
The third level is rites of commemoration...celebrations in honour of the dead. We have a family ancestor altar and images from the Day of the Dead and Asian festivals honouring the dead, including the Japanese Obon festival's ceremony with lit floating lanterns. There's a reincarnation wheel - click on it to see what you will come back as.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Brewery Build-Off
Today was the second annual Build-Off at the Builder's Brewery in SecondLife and I did the first heat (out of four). They judge on MOnday & Tuesday and (hopefully) the winner is announced on Wednesday. And all the entries will be featured on http://primbusters.com/
Here are some pictures from my heat. I took them...so mostly my stuff *chuckles*
Here's a big overview of all the building platforms. I had the platform at the bottom of the picture. I like not having people too close as I zoom around checking out the build
And this is the basic sculpty shape they gave us. Each heat gets a different shape so it's always a surprise. Last time mine looked like a vertebrae. This year...it's like a twisted column, twisted piece of toffy...twisted something or other.
See the clock...i was mostly done with an hour to go...and it took me an hour to finish up - dinking with textures and adding the "park"...and I came up with the idea for the "puddles"
The mostly finished product..long view and closer view. The time zoomed by..it's amazing how fast 2 hours disappears. I called it Puddles in the Park.
I popped over to look at Heat 2 - here's a pic of the sculpty they got..kind of looks like a fireplace. I like the sculpty we got in the first heat better. This is the same platform I used...hopefully their project won't be as cool as mine.
Here are some pictures from my heat. I took them...so mostly my stuff *chuckles*
Here's a big overview of all the building platforms. I had the platform at the bottom of the picture. I like not having people too close as I zoom around checking out the build
And this is the basic sculpty shape they gave us. Each heat gets a different shape so it's always a surprise. Last time mine looked like a vertebrae. This year...it's like a twisted column, twisted piece of toffy...twisted something or other.
This was the second or third idea...I threw out those ideas and went with a sort of prim fountain. At one point I tried adding water like a regular fountain..but it looked kind of silly and in the time I had I didn't want to dink around with it.
See the clock...i was mostly done with an hour to go...and it took me an hour to finish up - dinking with textures and adding the "park"...and I came up with the idea for the "puddles"
The mostly finished product..long view and closer view. The time zoomed by..it's amazing how fast 2 hours disappears. I called it Puddles in the Park.
I popped over to look at Heat 2 - here's a pic of the sculpty they got..kind of looks like a fireplace. I like the sculpty we got in the first heat better. This is the same platform I used...hopefully their project won't be as cool as mine.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Playa Aesthetics
Burning Man takes up a big chunk of the playa. 50,000+ people, trucks, supplies, porta-potties, stages, radio station...it's a town..a city. That can be seen from space! Check out this image from the GeoEye satellite. Volunteers lay out roads, camp boundaries. They put up lantern stands for night time illumination. They lay cable for sound systems. They set up generators for electricity to keep the ice cold and the coffee hot.They have this concept at Burning Man - MOOP which stands for Matter Out Of Place. I love that word. We've been playing around with it in between building cars and finding images for our camp. And we came up with the phrase..don't be a party mooper. Mostly because I always forget to clean up after myself when I'm building - bits of cars, stray prims with images are always left laying around when I am working. Would ya believe...I'm an artiste? hmmm..no didn't think you would. I'm just messy.
I found these entries on the Burning Man blog - their Moop Map - so you can check out their efforts to control/eliminate MOOP - http://blog.burningman.com/2011/09/news/moop-map-live-2011/
and
http://blog.burningman.com/2011/09/news/moop-map-live-how-the-map-is-made/
Turns out the playa gets inspected by the Bureau of Land Management and if it isn't MOOP-free, there will be problems with getting permits in the future.
So clean up after yourselves people. No party moopers allowed.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Got Distracted
I'm supposed to be researching ideas about the afterlife and death in different cultures, looking for images and artifacts. I found a Senet Table in SL (whooo...Thanks Rowena) which the Egyptians used as sort of a model for their afterlife. Marc took some pictures of a tomb and some marble memorials in England. But I need some ideas for what to put in the 2 levels above our tomb cave. Any ideas you can pass along?
But..I got distracted making bikes. Marc had an idea for a rocket car and made a great sculpty before he went on vacation. So I made a texture for it, added some sparks shooting out the back, and made a pose that makes ya look like you're hanging on tight to the rocket. Then I made one that's a surfboard. I put one of our Elvis poses (yes we made poses based on famous photos of Elvis) on it for the driver. They are a hoot to make and I have to admit that they look pretty cool too. I will clean them up, double check all the permissions this weekend and pass them on to the Dept of Mutant Vehicles, the DMV.
Here are a couple of pictures
Check out the galaxy tires..they spin as you ride the bike.
This bike holds two people..the standing driver and a passenger who sits all stretched out on the rear of the bike. It just has regular bike tires...maybe a little retro?
But..I got distracted making bikes. Marc had an idea for a rocket car and made a great sculpty before he went on vacation. So I made a texture for it, added some sparks shooting out the back, and made a pose that makes ya look like you're hanging on tight to the rocket. Then I made one that's a surfboard. I put one of our Elvis poses (yes we made poses based on famous photos of Elvis) on it for the driver. They are a hoot to make and I have to admit that they look pretty cool too. I will clean them up, double check all the permissions this weekend and pass them on to the Dept of Mutant Vehicles, the DMV.
Here are a couple of pictures
Check out the galaxy tires..they spin as you ride the bike.
This bike holds two people..the standing driver and a passenger who sits all stretched out on the rear of the bike. It just has regular bike tires...maybe a little retro?
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Art Cars for Burning Man in SecondLife
Well, it might be a little presumptuous to call my efforts art cars, but there ya go..that's what i'm going to call them. They are art cars for the SecondLife Burning Man (http://www.burn2.org). I hope they will be anyway; I have to submit them to be checked for script errors and terms of service violations.
I built 2 so far...The first, the coffin car, goes with the theme of our camp..death as a rite of passage. My machinima and research buddy, Marc, built a coffin car too; his looks like a 50s souped up drag car with some cool chrome exhaust.
Here are some pictures of my coffin car..that's me laying inside it. There's no steering wheel ..guess you're just "thinking" it around the playa.
My second car is a big teapot on a tray with 2 cushions for passengers to sit on. I got the teapot sculpty files the other day from a Midnight Mania board give away..whoo hoo. I used textures from Chipaholic and Sick Bubblegum. Think about it - a person size teapot = the ultimate never ending cup of tea. And instead of steam (which looked pretty cool), big yellow daisies come out of the spout occasionally.
Here are some pics of this car - i have got to learn to take close up..but check out that playa texture, with dusty car tracks to follow.
I built 2 so far...The first, the coffin car, goes with the theme of our camp..death as a rite of passage. My machinima and research buddy, Marc, built a coffin car too; his looks like a 50s souped up drag car with some cool chrome exhaust.
Here are some pictures of my coffin car..that's me laying inside it. There's no steering wheel ..guess you're just "thinking" it around the playa.
My second car is a big teapot on a tray with 2 cushions for passengers to sit on. I got the teapot sculpty files the other day from a Midnight Mania board give away..whoo hoo. I used textures from Chipaholic and Sick Bubblegum. Think about it - a person size teapot = the ultimate never ending cup of tea. And instead of steam (which looked pretty cool), big yellow daisies come out of the spout occasionally.
Here are some pics of this car - i have got to learn to take close up..but check out that playa texture, with dusty car tracks to follow.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Burning Man update
We'e started working on some ideas for the camp for the SecondLife version of Burning Man. We're also getting involved as volunteers - communication, making clothes, building vehicles, being a ranger. We want to tie in the idea of death as a rite of passage. Hopefully we can collect some data for our research project on virtual memorials. We're going to ask people to leave pictures or written memories of folks that have passed away, put them up on the metal tree, and see how people respond.
Here's the tree - my first idea for it anyway. It has to be made out of stuff that we could conceivably truck to the playa and erect there. I found these trusses in my inventory. Originally there were rusty metal, but i'm thinking wood might be better, lighter. The idea is that there is a central trunk - the vertical truss. And the roof trusses are the branches..right now there are 2 of them. My burn buddy Marc, who I made machinima with, thinks he can write a script to let people "touch" the branches and they will rock for a little bit. I'd like that - interactive is cool (so are bow ties and fezzes, but that's another show)
We've been looking at images of death and funerals and the afterlife...trying to get some ideas for the camp. We may put some of these images around at the burn camp..to get people talking and to sort of seed the idea of leaving memories.
Here are a couple of coffins from Ghana
And some other images I found looking around the Smithsonian website
Here's the tree - my first idea for it anyway. It has to be made out of stuff that we could conceivably truck to the playa and erect there. I found these trusses in my inventory. Originally there were rusty metal, but i'm thinking wood might be better, lighter. The idea is that there is a central trunk - the vertical truss. And the roof trusses are the branches..right now there are 2 of them. My burn buddy Marc, who I made machinima with, thinks he can write a script to let people "touch" the branches and they will rock for a little bit. I'd like that - interactive is cool (so are bow ties and fezzes, but that's another show)
We've been looking at images of death and funerals and the afterlife...trying to get some ideas for the camp. We may put some of these images around at the burn camp..to get people talking and to sort of seed the idea of leaving memories.
Here are a couple of coffins from Ghana
And some other images I found looking around the Smithsonian website
Monday, June 13, 2011
scary new hair
Not related to machinima or my teaching...I just got a gift of some crazy scary big hair and was moved to take a picture.
and to share it with you all.
and to share it with you all.
Burning Man in SL
I bought a plot with my machinima buddy, Marc, on the playa for the SecondLife version of Burning Man. We're also in the lottery to win a couple of additional plots. You can check out their webpage at http://www.burn2.org. The image is from their blog to announce the theme...Rites of Passage.
Marc & I previously discussed studying memorials in SL - so one idea for our camp is to look at rites of passage involving death. This idea, of course, put new life in the machinima I was making about death of the human behind the avatar. If we can finish it, we hope to show it at our camp. It depends on how the plots are set up...we might not be able to control the media settings, especially on a little plot. It's a good idea tho.
For me, being in this event is kind of a rite of passage. I've been moving from content consumer to content creator in SL.
- I used to make sculptures for me; now I have a store where I put them up for sale along with houses that I build. I'm learning about communicating in different ways in world.
- I used to watch machinima, laughing at the Divas and marveling at the art. Now I'm acting in them, recording voices, and writing and directing.
- Last year we visited the camps, watched them burn the man - we went as spectators. This year we will be part of the action. This camp will be something we create. We will make things to give away. We will share the "death machinima" , as we call it.
It's still a long time till the event. We don't even get our plots assigned till the end of August! Arggghhh. We need to decide if we're going to volunteer for one of the departments to help during the event. It depends on our plot idea develops. One involves a lot of updating throughout the day and interacting with the people who walk by - that might cut down on the volunteering.
We also discussed making some machinima there at the SL Burning Man. It would be interesting to see what you could record in one take with no editing. Or play around with a news format and have "man on the street" interviews. There will be live performers and street theatre and avatars dressed in their best weird outfits. So a lot of opportunities to shoot and practice editing (for me...Marc is already experienced)
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Cool location for a machinima
I have a sculpture garden on the mainland and while flying around the other day looking at my neighbors to see what was new or at least stuff I'd never noticed because I had my draw distance turned way down. I noticed an island off in the distance. I flew over and it was the cutest little coastal town with cobblestone streets and a wharf and a light house and a town square. It was built by the Linden Lab Department of Public Works. The build quality is very high. If you're looking for a machinima set..this might be something to check out. You'll have to watch your camera angles so you don't get the stuff on the next sim, but that shouldn't be too difficult. Here is the SLURL and some photos.
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Barneys%20Bay/142/216/29
Photos
Town square with wishing well and assorted small shop buildings, including Mole & Mole Travel Agency for your virtual vacation needs. (people who work with the Dept. of Public Works use avatars with the last name of Mole - hence the company name)
A view of the sim from the light house end. There's a little beach there too with a row boat pulled up. Notice from this high angle you can see the mainland sims behind Barney's bay.
A view from the wharf. From this angle you can't see any other land. There are other sims to the right side of this picture. Check out that sea wall and the row of little houses. It was cute. There are stairs to run up and down and alleyways to pop out of.
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Barneys%20Bay/142/216/29
Photos
Town square with wishing well and assorted small shop buildings, including Mole & Mole Travel Agency for your virtual vacation needs. (people who work with the Dept. of Public Works use avatars with the last name of Mole - hence the company name)
A view of the sim from the light house end. There's a little beach there too with a row boat pulled up. Notice from this high angle you can see the mainland sims behind Barney's bay.
A view from the wharf. From this angle you can't see any other land. There are other sims to the right side of this picture. Check out that sea wall and the row of little houses. It was cute. There are stairs to run up and down and alleyways to pop out of.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Learning to make poses and Animations
We bought the Animare HUD the other day to play around with in SecondLife. Hopefully now when we need certain poses for our machinima, I can whip them out fairly quickly...well faster than I edit video since that seems to be taking me forever.
I spent some time today making poses and trying my hand at animations. The HUD is easy to use, tho not easy to understand sometimes. The HUD has a picture of the body with the joints. You click on a joint, then you can rotate it, move it forward or back, move it in or out...in a range of set increments that aren't always as small as you'd like for some tiny refinements. Here are pics of two static poses I made for a standing avatar and a lounge position that i'm pretty happy with.
Lounging poolside..that's me. The lounger is ugly as sin I know...it's 2 prims i pushed together quickly to put the pose into to test. I need to look for some modifiable full perm furniture I guess. I was actually thinking this would be good in a window seat. But now I really want to see it in a pool side beach chair. ANd I want to make it into an animation...with tapping foot, maybe an arm waving away a bug.
I called this one Whooops...since it looks like the avie is falling
I called this one Happy to See You...it kind of looked like someone jumping into the arms of another person they were happy to see.
A note added on Saturday evening
It is really tough to find info on animations and poses for SL. I'm trying to figure out the layout of the data in teh .bvh file that gets imported into SL. I found one source that said it starts with the hip..but not sure what is the order of the other joints. I want to be able to tweak the .bvh file in case i mess up the animare pose or in case i want a little finer movements.
I spent some time today making poses and trying my hand at animations. The HUD is easy to use, tho not easy to understand sometimes. The HUD has a picture of the body with the joints. You click on a joint, then you can rotate it, move it forward or back, move it in or out...in a range of set increments that aren't always as small as you'd like for some tiny refinements. Here are pics of two static poses I made for a standing avatar and a lounge position that i'm pretty happy with.
Lounging poolside..that's me. The lounger is ugly as sin I know...it's 2 prims i pushed together quickly to put the pose into to test. I need to look for some modifiable full perm furniture I guess. I was actually thinking this would be good in a window seat. But now I really want to see it in a pool side beach chair. ANd I want to make it into an animation...with tapping foot, maybe an arm waving away a bug.
I called this one Whooops...since it looks like the avie is falling
I called this one Happy to See You...it kind of looked like someone jumping into the arms of another person they were happy to see.
A note added on Saturday evening
It is really tough to find info on animations and poses for SL. I'm trying to figure out the layout of the data in teh .bvh file that gets imported into SL. I found one source that said it starts with the hip..but not sure what is the order of the other joints. I want to be able to tweak the .bvh file in case i mess up the animare pose or in case i want a little finer movements.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
A new version of the 2nd episode
We're having fun...in this episode you get to hear my voice! And we have a great fight scene
More action planned for the next episode..I hope to whack Percy the Pliers with a bottle (why..because it's int he wrestling HUD we're using and it just sounds like it would look cool)
More action planned for the next episode..I hope to whack Percy the Pliers with a bottle (why..because it's int he wrestling HUD we're using and it just sounds like it would look cool)
Monday, April 11, 2011
Sound Ideas
So I"m working on my machinima with Marc, my machinima buddy. I gave it a title..a working title, but one I like...It's called "Till Death Do Us Part"
It's not a comedy...duh!
Anyway..all machinima needs sound effects and voices and background music.
Here are some resources. Some I found, some Marc found, and some were suggested by the people at Machinima Monday. BTW, If you're making movies in SecondLIfe, you should join this group and come to the meetings on Mondays, usually at 2pm SLT and 7pm SLT.
Wikipedia page about copyleft and out of copyright music - mostly classical music. On the Mac, you ALT left click on the file name to download it. Not sure what you PC folks do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sound/list
Freesound.org - database of Creative Commons licensed sounds/sound effects (not music). You enter keywords and get lists of sounds so tagged. You can see the other keywords used to help you find what you want. Then ALT left click to download
http://www.freesound.org/
ccmixter.org - database of Creative Commons licensed music remixes.
http://www.ccmixter.org/
Music Discovery Center - the search tool for ccmixter. I don't see keywords listed on selected songs like i did for freesound.org so it's a little tougher to find what ya want. Maybe just a matter of me playing with it some more.
http://dig.ccmixter.org/
Free Music Archive - you can sort by genre and then listen to selected tracks. Be sure to check the licenses but it seems that most are free to use for non-commercial projects
http://freemusicarchive.org/
Actors' Sandbox - voice actors hang out here. They're running a workshop for voice actors. If you need people to speak in your movie, this might be a group/place to check out. I just found out about this at today's Machinima Monday. As I find out more, I'll update this.
https://sites.google.com/a/schoolhouseearth.org/tutorial--sites/Home/actors-sandbox
It's not a comedy...duh!
Anyway..all machinima needs sound effects and voices and background music.
Here are some resources. Some I found, some Marc found, and some were suggested by the people at Machinima Monday. BTW, If you're making movies in SecondLIfe, you should join this group and come to the meetings on Mondays, usually at 2pm SLT and 7pm SLT.
Wikipedia page about copyleft and out of copyright music - mostly classical music. On the Mac, you ALT left click on the file name to download it. Not sure what you PC folks do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sound/list
Freesound.org - database of Creative Commons licensed sounds/sound effects (not music). You enter keywords and get lists of sounds so tagged. You can see the other keywords used to help you find what you want. Then ALT left click to download
http://www.freesound.org/
ccmixter.org - database of Creative Commons licensed music remixes.
http://www.ccmixter.org/
Music Discovery Center - the search tool for ccmixter. I don't see keywords listed on selected songs like i did for freesound.org so it's a little tougher to find what ya want. Maybe just a matter of me playing with it some more.
http://dig.ccmixter.org/
Free Music Archive - you can sort by genre and then listen to selected tracks. Be sure to check the licenses but it seems that most are free to use for non-commercial projects
http://freemusicarchive.org/
Actors' Sandbox - voice actors hang out here. They're running a workshop for voice actors. If you need people to speak in your movie, this might be a group/place to check out. I just found out about this at today's Machinima Monday. As I find out more, I'll update this.
https://sites.google.com/a/schoolhouseearth.org/tutorial--sites/Home/actors-sandbox
Saturday, April 09, 2011
iMovie coolness
I just discovered I can crop clips. My machinima buddy, Marc, sent a clip with black bars on the side and of course I managed to ruin a few takes filming underlying window edges. Now I can maybe use all that footage! Thanks iMovie
and maybe I should read the documentation....nnnnnnaaaaaawwwwww
and maybe I should read the documentation....nnnnnnaaaaaawwwwww
Thursday, April 07, 2011
My turn as Director
We - my machinima buddy and I - started a new project today, one based on a story idea I had. This is the first time I"ve been the editor and director. I made a lot of mistakes but fortunately my buddy was patient while i got the software working. He was trying to be nice when he said my project was ambitious. I'm sure he was thinking...that girl is nuts...gonna crash and burn...but he didn't say it. Thanks!
Anyone in RL will tell you..i am a slow still photograph taker. I like to line things up just so and try different angles and amounts of zoom..all before I take a picture. Maybe why i take so few people pictures in RL...trees and rocks and the sky sit around and wait for me. I digress.
I laid out a list of the scenes I want in my video, in 2 column format. And we started shooting...and my well thought out scenes fell apart. I needed some transitions. Some scenes needed changes to be more logical in the flow of the movie.
I've been trying to pick out places to film. One was a plaza with an awesome fountain. When I'm places normally, i don't notice things like advertisements and tip jars and store windows. It took time today to lay out the camera angles and think where the actor could move. At the Machinima Monday meeting the other day someone mentioned putting up transparent walls to keep the actors in the shot; now I see what they were saying. It's difficult to explain what you're seeing on your screen to the actors; walls would stop them before they got out of the shot.
Here's some footage i started editing. It's from an early scene. There's no audio yet. Just to give you an idea of what i did today
Mistakes I made today
- filming away..and then noticed i was in the shot in the background
- managed to make the filming window in Snapz not as big as the window of Secondlife
- managed to move the SecondLife window but not the edit window, so i filmed some windows that were under SecondLife...that is really irritating because I got a good shot..and don't think i can trim that line of garbage off the left edge
- filmed things before they were completely rezzed
- realized without an external mic, I can't do voice to give directions to my actors when i have the SecondLife interface turned off
- realized i need to think more about motion...moving the actors, moving the camera.
Anyone in RL will tell you..i am a slow still photograph taker. I like to line things up just so and try different angles and amounts of zoom..all before I take a picture. Maybe why i take so few people pictures in RL...trees and rocks and the sky sit around and wait for me. I digress.
I laid out a list of the scenes I want in my video, in 2 column format. And we started shooting...and my well thought out scenes fell apart. I needed some transitions. Some scenes needed changes to be more logical in the flow of the movie.
I've been trying to pick out places to film. One was a plaza with an awesome fountain. When I'm places normally, i don't notice things like advertisements and tip jars and store windows. It took time today to lay out the camera angles and think where the actor could move. At the Machinima Monday meeting the other day someone mentioned putting up transparent walls to keep the actors in the shot; now I see what they were saying. It's difficult to explain what you're seeing on your screen to the actors; walls would stop them before they got out of the shot.
Here's some footage i started editing. It's from an early scene. There's no audio yet. Just to give you an idea of what i did today
Mistakes I made today
- filming away..and then noticed i was in the shot in the background
- managed to make the filming window in Snapz not as big as the window of Secondlife
- managed to move the SecondLife window but not the edit window, so i filmed some windows that were under SecondLife...that is really irritating because I got a good shot..and don't think i can trim that line of garbage off the left edge
- filmed things before they were completely rezzed
- realized without an external mic, I can't do voice to give directions to my actors when i have the SecondLife interface turned off
- realized i need to think more about motion...moving the actors, moving the camera.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Another Green Screen Attempt
Image via Wikipedia - not me or my avatar!The only thing i could find online about the sort of xray look some of my green screen videos had was that iMOvie didn't like perfectly flat green screens, which was exactly what i had in SecondLife. So I redid the green screen, changed the surface to be kind of a rough plaster look to add a little variation to the. And I"ve been shooting me walking. I used an animation that i had so i walked in place, that way i didn't have to worry about the edges of the green screen.Now i have to figure out the whole size thing...how far away to shoot the avatar to make them look normal size in the video. And where to put the camera. The hard part..but at least I think with experimentation I can figure this part out.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
A TIp picked up at the Machinima Monday meeting
Machinima Monday is a group in SecondLife tath meets most Mondays at 3pm SLT. Lots of folks there, all interested in making movies using platforms like SecondLife and World of Warcraft. People show off current projects and ask for help. Sometimes Chantal Harvey puts updates about the group on her blog - http://mamachinima.blogspot.com/
My machinima buddy asked yesterday and Fraps and screen size. We learned that some software like Fraps and Xfire (both PC products that record the screen) record the whole screen. There's a preference you can set in SecondLife to make SL run in a window and hten you can set the size and resolution. You can pick one that's a 16:9 ratio when you're recording in HD.
On the Mac I use Snapz and i can draw a box with that software and it records only what's in that box. I haven't played around with that much. Not sure what it looks like in playback if you record just a little box recorded.
My machinima buddy asked yesterday and Fraps and screen size. We learned that some software like Fraps and Xfire (both PC products that record the screen) record the whole screen. There's a preference you can set in SecondLife to make SL run in a window and hten you can set the size and resolution. You can pick one that's a 16:9 ratio when you're recording in HD.
On the Mac I use Snapz and i can draw a box with that software and it records only what's in that box. I haven't played around with that much. Not sure what it looks like in playback if you record just a little box recorded.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Continuity
As we start to edit the 2nd episode of our spy thriller we discovered we need to reshoot a scene (because we forgot to move the mouse out of the way...see the checklist I posted earlier). The problem is I can't remember exactly what i was wearing.
In machinima, just as in RL video productions, continuity is important. There are at least three ways to deal with it. I'd say consider a combination of steps. I"m going to be doing steps one and two frm now on.
1. Take still photos. That gives you a sense of where things were in the shot, where th ecamera was. You can save them to the hard drive (costs nothing) and share them with the crew on flickr or in a google doc.
2. Save the outfit in your inventory. Give it a name like name of production, name of scene or location, maybe the date of the shoot. The new viewers just put links to the clothing into the outfit so it doens't increse the size of your inventory. Be sure to include any props or specialized HUDS you have attached to you in the shot.
3 Create a notecard and write down the names of things you were wearing and any notes about the scene. This is a good technique especilaly if you're using a viewer that doesn't use the new folder structure. This wil keep copies of clothing from cluttering up your inventory.
In machinima, just as in RL video productions, continuity is important. There are at least three ways to deal with it. I'd say consider a combination of steps. I"m going to be doing steps one and two frm now on.
1. Take still photos. That gives you a sense of where things were in the shot, where th ecamera was. You can save them to the hard drive (costs nothing) and share them with the crew on flickr or in a google doc.
2. Save the outfit in your inventory. Give it a name like name of production, name of scene or location, maybe the date of the shoot. The new viewers just put links to the clothing into the outfit so it doens't increse the size of your inventory. Be sure to include any props or specialized HUDS you have attached to you in the shot.
3 Create a notecard and write down the names of things you were wearing and any notes about the scene. This is a good technique especilaly if you're using a viewer that doesn't use the new folder structure. This wil keep copies of clothing from cluttering up your inventory.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
FIlming Checklist
Image via WikipediaThis is a post that will probably be edited many times as I learn more about making machinima in SecondLife - a checklist for things to do before you start the cameras rolling. Hopefully if I follow these steps I won't have to reshoot so many takes.CheckList as of 3/17/11
- Check for other avatars on the radar - maybe warn them you're filming
- Turn off HUDs - ALT-SHIFT-H
- Turn off interface - CTRL-ALT-F1
- Move the mouse out of the shot
Monday, March 14, 2011
Green Screen
I decided to try to do some green screen clips...film my avatar in SL before a green screen and superimpose her on some real life footage. I filmed the beach when we were in Florida...waves rolling, seagulls squawking. It's nothing exciting but thought it was plain enough i could easily put my avie in there without worrying about walking over people in the RL footage.
I built a green screen studio in SecondLife. It's a big cylinder and floor *didn't put a roof but may need to because sometimes the camera moves up sometimes as you walk and the shot of blue sky messes up. Here are a couple of shots of the studio with my avatar in it. I"m the little tiny dot since my camera is pulled way up. I used a megaprim to make the studio and colored the cylinder and the floor prim *another megaprim* just basic green.
Here's a closeup of me in the studio. You can see the seam where the cylinder meets the floor.
I played around with the windlight settings and found that one called Nam Optimal Skin1 completely wiped out that line. I took a couple of pictures with that setting. No Seam! I gotta tell ya tho - makes walking hard because there's no clue where the walls are. And sometimes you'll run into the wall and your camera will go outside. Not sure how to deal with that yet.
Here's a bit of the footage i shot in the green screen. It's not very exciting. Remember I mentioned the fact that there are no clues to where the walls are? Well that means it kind of looks like my avatar is walking in place.
Why isn't there a clip of the final product? iMovie seems to make it very very easy to do green screen..there's an option in the menu for goodness sakes. I'm doing something wrong...and yes, I can boil water and I can walk and chew gum. But. at this point i keep getting xray looking results for my avatar. The two clips individually look just fine. I drop the avatar footage on the real life footage, pick green screen..and wham...xray. Not what I wanted at all. So hopefully I'll figure it out and add a paragraph and a clip..very soon..*fingers crossed*
Here's a clip with problems..that xray issue I mentioned and fuzzy footage. Not sure what happened.
ANd here's a clip that worked..strange content I realize but I got these great wrestling action figures from my machinima buddy and wanted to play with them. No I wouldn't play with them on the beach normally. But I haven't found any good old school wrestling footage yet.
I built a green screen studio in SecondLife. It's a big cylinder and floor *didn't put a roof but may need to because sometimes the camera moves up sometimes as you walk and the shot of blue sky messes up. Here are a couple of shots of the studio with my avatar in it. I"m the little tiny dot since my camera is pulled way up. I used a megaprim to make the studio and colored the cylinder and the floor prim *another megaprim* just basic green.
Here's a closeup of me in the studio. You can see the seam where the cylinder meets the floor.
I played around with the windlight settings and found that one called Nam Optimal Skin1 completely wiped out that line. I took a couple of pictures with that setting. No Seam! I gotta tell ya tho - makes walking hard because there's no clue where the walls are. And sometimes you'll run into the wall and your camera will go outside. Not sure how to deal with that yet.
Here's a bit of the footage i shot in the green screen. It's not very exciting. Remember I mentioned the fact that there are no clues to where the walls are? Well that means it kind of looks like my avatar is walking in place.
Why isn't there a clip of the final product? iMovie seems to make it very very easy to do green screen..there's an option in the menu for goodness sakes. I'm doing something wrong...and yes, I can boil water and I can walk and chew gum. But. at this point i keep getting xray looking results for my avatar. The two clips individually look just fine. I drop the avatar footage on the real life footage, pick green screen..and wham...xray. Not what I wanted at all. So hopefully I'll figure it out and add a paragraph and a clip..very soon..*fingers crossed*
Here's a clip with problems..that xray issue I mentioned and fuzzy footage. Not sure what happened.
ANd here's a clip that worked..strange content I realize but I got these great wrestling action figures from my machinima buddy and wanted to play with them. No I wouldn't play with them on the beach normally. But I haven't found any good old school wrestling footage yet.
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