College

Aaahh! It's April already! Time is moving so fast it's scary. College is really hard.

Why must the nicest weather of the year coincide with exam study time?

I wrote this up a while ago, and am just now posting it in between studying for exams. I've been doing nothing but math for the past 6 hours, and I need a brain break or I think my brain will break.

I realized the other day that I haven't really posted any pictures from college, so I'll make an attempt to rectify that from now on. First though, new computer setup!

Never seen that error before...

It's working pretty nicely. The main reason I'm running Windows is that the free version of Davinci Resolve (Davinci Resolve lite) only runs on Windows. From what I can tell, the paid version runs on Linux, but I don't have $1000 to spare, and since I'm a student, I get Windows for free, so...

I'm really excited for DaVinci Resolve 12, I'll probably move to that as my primary video editor. (except on Linux...) Resolve can even do real-time optical flow interpolation, which is the coolest thing I've seen in a while.

New system specs: (Subject to change fairly often)

CPU: 2.5 GHz Xeon x8

RAM: 20 GB ECC DDR2

GPU: Nvidia GTX 590

1 TB 7200 RPM SATA drive (Windows 7)

256 GB SATA SSD (Linux Mint)

So now I've got a good setup for CG and video editing, if only I had time to use it... I'm hoping to put it to use for the CRU VMA's next year. There are some nice computers in the video editing department at GMU, (i7 3770 with 16GB RAM), but they're rather lacking in terms of the GPU. (At least the ones I've tried, the mac pro computers may be better)

Anyway, photos!

Spring is beautiful.

 

 

 These are all raw, completely unedited, and some of them were taken with my phone. I did see enough good photo opportunities I've started bringing my camera. The Canon PowerShot G series is a really great all-around camera. It's small enough to bring easily, and still gives me all the control I need, and good photos. The new ones have HD video too. I'm very happy with my G10. I've put it through a lot, and it still delivers. I need to clean the lens though, as you can see in the photos above.

That's all for now.

Me and VMA shooting

Getting started on VMA's early this year...

Mostly generic guitar shots that could be used on various projects. I didn't realize until this project how nice the full frame sensor is on the 5D. I should have put magic lantern on it for this project, I'll try to do that for next time. It makes video shooting so much better. We didn't check focus except on the built-in camera screen for the first round, so we had to shoot that all again. 

Note to self: bring HDMI monitor next time, even if it's only a 5" screen, almost anything is better for checking focus than the 2" camera monitor. Magic lantern's focus peaking would have been very helpful.

We also did some other shots, I'm not sure how many of these will be used, they were more specific, but it was a very interesting shoot. Without revealing too much;

That is snow in the background, and the stick was an essential piece of equipment :)[]

Vangelis

There is only one person in the world who can make movie soundtracks like this:

V.A.T.J.T.I. (excerpt) from Red Baron on Vimeo.

RedShark article

Amazing!

Blender

Blender is amazing! Here's their 2013 demo reel which should serve well as inspiration:

Every year it just gets better!

More good advertising

This is good advertising, at least in concept. The video is somewhat sub-par.

I guess this reduces the possibility of a leaking liquid cooling system ruining your motherboard/CPU.

My first thought is that the coating will trap heat, but I guess some silicone based coatings have decent thermal transfer.

It also makes open air cases more attractive, though I like the ASUS Sabertooth armor too.

Now I'm just waiting to hear of this for laptop motherboards!

Why Atheists are Irrational

This was another video I liked on YouTube.

Global Warming

The whole global warming thing is pretty ridiculous. I think people are starting to realize that, and it's quieted down some, I don't hear about it as much as I did a few years ago.

I think they've also labeled it 'climate change', which is more believable. A few years ago we had two snowstorms back to back that each dropped about two feet of snow, and the next year the temperature hovered around 50 most days. Still, trying to mess with the climate is rather pointless.

Good advertising

I was looking through my likes on YouTube, and noticed that I hadn't posted some of them here, so the next couple of posts will just be some of those.

Here's one that was interesting, this is also good advertising.

For when you really have nothing better to do...

This is really pretty cool.

Ice cream!

I've been pretty busy, and I really need to start posting here again. Here's a snippet from some of what I've been working on. (Take Back the Land video)

How do people think of things like this on the spot? Amazing! (And funny)

Project London

Project London is now on Kickstarter!

Haven't heard of Project London? Click here, or watch the trailer below!

Project London: Official Trailer from Phil McCoy on Vimeo.
(made with blender)

It's really amazing how this was made, and the graphics and sound effects are amazing!
Here is the speech from the screening: http://projectlondonmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/PhilsProjectLondonCastCrewScreening-speech.pdf

Here is the kickstarter page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/philmccoy/project-london-help-us-release-this-movie

And here is the official website: http://projectlondonmovie.com/

YouTube view counter

This is a really well liked video...

I wonder when YouTube is going to fix their view counter problem?

(Really awesome video by the way)

Even more impressive is that they filmed it in less than 24 hours!

New Project!

As if I don't have enough projects already, I had to go and start another one (again). This time though, it's something I've wanted to do for a long time. In fact, I think it's something that I think almost everyone has wanted to do at some point in their life: film a movie! I've wanted to film a movie for a long time now, as have a number of friends that I know. I finally gave up waiting for a good script or idea to come along and made a script myself. (actually it's still in the works) I have also been learning how to use Blender, and all in all I think that at this point it will be possible to get some good looking videos together. I also got an audio recorder relatively recently, and as good audio is a very important part for me, that would have been a killer. Right now there will be two main actors, (one of them me), and it looks like someone will have to play two parts. Things are coming along nicely though, and other than some scheduling issues, it's looking promising. The main purpose of the movie is for me and two friends who are working on it too to improve our skills. (other than just making a movie for the sake of making a movie, after all, it's a lot of fun)

For more information and updates here's the production blog:
http://blenderproject26.blogspot.com/

KJ4BXT K

Ace Wonder!

Ace Wonder Movie - Teaser Trailer HD #2

Visit http://www.acewondermovie.com for information

From the producers of The Widow's Might.

More Blender object tracking!

So many possibilities!

Object tracking

I can't wait until Blender 2.61 comes out!

Video

This video shows some neat video editing. I hope I can get to this level!


AsylumArtists.com Show Reel 2010 from Asylum Artists on Vimeo.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory play is now on YouTube!

Video Editing

Well, since I have access to two HDSLR's with a manfrotto video tripod/head, and a 24bit/96KHz four channel audio recorder, I figure that if I'm going to be putting them to good use I needed some better software. I can use apple's imovie, which is pretty good for most basic things, but if I wanted to do chroma keying, DVD menus without the imovie logo, 3D transform, etc. I needed something else. I've looked around for a good free video editior, Linux or Windows, but without much luck. I found a few that look promising for linux, but either they are too hard to use, or don't have enough features. One works nicely, but puts a running timestamp over the top quarter of the video. I decided to just buy a video editor for windows. The one I bought was from Magix. The software was their Movie edit Pro MX Premium bundle with Red Giant Magic Bullet Quick Looks, NewBlue FX light blends, and ProDad Vitascene 2. The Red giant and ProDad effects work great, but I'm having trouble activating the NewBlue FX. The rest of the program is working very nicely, and the simple addition of chroma keying adds so many more possibilities! Another program that looks like it would be worth getting is their Reallusion iClone 4 Standard + Virtual Studio Vol.1. (FYI not happening anytime soon) I think I can do all the same things in Blender, but it will probably be a lot more work. If I remember I will post more about blender later. It's an amazing program.