The light and the end of the tunnel!

ok, so I’ve got the edit together now. Gonna put a little intro screen and end screen as well… sort of a beginning and end to it… then hand it in… then go home and sleep. trying to get the audio sorted was a nightmare, getting anything useful off the net, then trying to edit it, and getting it in sync with the vid took a lot longer than I was planning. Well, I think I’ve got something to hand-in now, which is the main thing.  A lot of things on it could have been better, but I’m not that skilled in 3d, and have had a few glitches along the way. Methinks from now on, I’m going to try and aim for well before the deadline to have things completed, as I’ve put myself through a lot of difficulty by leaving this project for so long before really engaging with it, to the extent that I should have. 

a bomb’s hit!

ok,well not a real one, but it looks like my flat’s been hit by one… due to another metaphorical bomb. I’ve lost my sound editing program.  I’ve torn my flat apart lloking for the cd with it on, but it’s no-where to be found. I’ve looked in all the places it should have been, then in all the places it might have been, then in all the places could have been… and then everywhere else. This is not good timing. I can use that program fluently, and could have had all my sound done in an hour or so – it’s that good. with the re-format I’ve not got it on either of my machines, and I’m going to have to try to use the sound mixer in premiere… something I’ve not done before… I’ve always done my sound in a seperate dedicated program. And to boot, I can’t find any of the sounds that I made in it before, that I was going to re-use in this piece. I think I must have lost them somewhere in the cross-over. How come is it you don’t realise what you’ve not got til you really depend on it? Right, I’m off to wrestle with premiere’s sound editing thing. wish me luck. I’ll need it.

drawing near

Ok well rendering, avi output, and video clip merging complete. time to start seeming it all together… The animation isn’t spectacular… all that wheels do is spin round… and round… and round, but it is 3d animation, and it’s readyto get thrown together.

presumtion is the mother of all…

ok, so maybe I shouldn’t presume so much… premiere doesn’t like flv files! I rather hastily found some free software that converts various types of media for you though. It’s a program called Prism, made by nch software. It was the only one I could find for free on the net – I’m skint, and don’t like buying things over the net yet anyways. The thing is… it all seemed to be going so well, but it doesn’t like converting the files very well.
Right enough, the little windows movie clip thing comes up and you can play the files… but the video and sound aren’t synced…This wouldn’t have been an issue though, as I was thinking about taking the sound out anyway (now I’ll have to!).  This wasn’t an obvious problem at first though, as playing them through  the system’s video player, it simply played the vid correctly at the speed it thought that should go, and the sound continued on after the video had stopped. Premiere however decides to try and sync them back together, and in doing so, jumping and repeating of the video to try and stretch it to the same length as the audio. I thought it may have been a problem converting from flv to avi, I tried outputting to mp4, (to then convert again if Premiere doesn’t like them either) but this had the same problem. Grr. I’ve now got to go through all the clips I’ve got, take the sound out and then go through them frame by frame, find the jumps, find out where they start and stop, and edit each video back together as seamlessly as possible.

When I’ve got all the videos back to the way they’re supposed to be, I’ll then have to look at time scaling and importance of the clip, and edit them all to fit within the piece’s timescale. Just when I thought the end of the woods were in sight as well!

201

Hmm, rendering on my machine (which has only got one gig of ram, and is running vista) is fun. Ok, so I know some others have longer render times, but considering how basic my wheels are, with no effects on them… oh well, as long as they look how they should, that’ll be fine with me.

slight shift

The more I’ve been thinkning about it, the more it seems obvious that this wheel that I’m making is the utter example of the theme that I’m trying to get at in this piece. By creating a digital wheel, I’ve created the very essence of dependancy on the previous technology for the next generation to be possible. It’s somewhat of an irony that I’m deliberately trying to show the fundamental core of all modern technologies by making it virtual, and therefor utterly revoking its place as the most grounded technology, and making it the most fragile. I think I’ll put my wheel at the end of the piece, as opposed to dispersly fading it throughout the piece, as I had intended, and have it as the end result; something so utterly removed from practicality (what’s the practical reason of a 3d dimensional computer generated wheel?) that it confounds reason. 

I think I’ll call my piece Irony!

the portal

yes. once AGAIN the portal’s dowm. incredibly useful when you’re trying to get info about what it is you’re supposed to be doing. It wouldn’t be so bad if we got given lecture notes about things, but pretty much everything is paper less. Good for the environment, but bad when you can’t get access to what it is you’re trying to study.

supprised

although I enjoy programming, I’ve got to admit that it’s not my forte… which was why I was pleasantly surprised when I got the results through from the Java test we just did… over 70%!! I really do have to say a big thanks to Martin for the mock test he gave us. It made me realise where the holes in my revision were, and I was able to mend some of them accordingly. cheers.

essay part 1 done… kind of

ok, sol I’ve got my essay handed-in… though not as complete as I’d have liked. I was going from the hci assignment sheet given to us at the start of term, which stated that the essay had to be handed in at 2pm… turns out it was changed to 12. An e-mail was sent out, but it was corrected, and ammended, saying it for one group, then aother, then another… all a bit ambiguous. So, I found out the it was 12 and not 2 just in time… by someone who works at a shop near me, who although not on my course, or in my lecture group informed me that the deadline alteration was applicable to all groups. As a result, I rushed back, and printed-put what I had and didn’t have time to print out some of the diagrams I wanted, nor get all the supporting info done. So why didn’t I get ot printed out earlier? well because I had work the day before. I asked to get the shift off to get everytihng sorted, but, I was told to go in for a couple of hours, and they’d send me home as soon as possible… as it turns out however, the person who was supposed to be on the long shift (I was only supposed to be on a short supporting shift) was delyed by a bomb scare in London, and I had to stay on at work until he arrived. I there for got home at about half eleven at night… rather than about seven. I went to print out some of my images, only to find out that my colour cartridge had about enough ink to print out half a diagram. I spent the rest of the evening cutting my essay down to 3,700 words. It was on the morning the next day, when I went out to get  new cartridge, that I went into the shop, and ws informed about the deadline change… I was not ammused to say the least. Well it’s in now, so there’s not a lot I can so about it, other than wait to see what the outcome is…

waiting

well, we had our weekly meet where everyone decided what needed to be done, so I did some alterations to the lay-out of the site… minor details now, I’m pleased to say. Discussions were had about the url, as the one we want appears to be taken… though there’s nothing being done with it. Tut. Don’t know if that got resolved or not, nor do I know when some of the other members are gonna get some of the images together so we can finish this thing, but there’s not a lot to do now.

Don’t remember if I’ve posted this or not, but we’ve now got a Yahoo email set-up for the company, a facebook, and a myspace as well. it’s www.myspace.com/deadpixel_uk ! go look, and if you’ve got a myspace add us!