Recently I discovered a 'game' on Kongregate called Step Seq. Apparently there are electronic devices that look exactly like this simulation. Their point is to create music on a time and frequency grid. I've been playing around with this one, seen at http://www.kongregate.com/games/quickfingerz/step-seq.
The fun of this is that I've also been video-recording a few of these and have been posting them to Youtube.
The few I've uploaded include an initial boring tutorial and then three more samples. They can be seen with the following links:
I've also created a Youtube playlist for all of my Step Seq. uploads.
View playlist in new window
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
New Videos and Subscription
Greetings, all! It's been a while since I did any animation. My attention has been more on live videography of various things including game and oscilloscope capturing. However, just today I put together something like four new animations, plus one overdubbed video of myself whistling three parts to a song. Vain me, eh?
Anyhow, here is a list:
In addition to my own new videos, I am pleased to announce that I've connected up with Andrea90723. As of yet, she has not uploaded anything, but hopefully soon we'll be able to expect some fun stuff from her!
Since number of views is the prime goal of Youtube, visit these, link to them, embed them wherever and subscribe! Or just ignore me altogether. I really shouldn't care THAT much.
Anyhow, here is a list:
In addition to my own new videos, I am pleased to announce that I've connected up with Andrea90723. As of yet, she has not uploaded anything, but hopefully soon we'll be able to expect some fun stuff from her!
Since number of views is the prime goal of Youtube, visit these, link to them, embed them wherever and subscribe! Or just ignore me altogether. I really shouldn't care THAT much.
Filehost
I've created an Apache-based filehost. This is generally for short-term downloads that I want to make available to certain people. Really, I don't expect to leave files in this folder up for very long, but only long enough for people to download. How many ways can I say this?
Anyway, you'll find the filehost at http://ppsstudios.myftp.org. If you see anything there that you don't think should be there, give me a buzz with the contact link, which is not at this exact moment available, but will be in a few minutes hopefully.
Enjoy!
Anyway, you'll find the filehost at http://ppsstudios.myftp.org. If you see anything there that you don't think should be there, give me a buzz with the contact link, which is not at this exact moment available, but will be in a few minutes hopefully.
Enjoy!
Yet another short intro
I've posted another prospective intro. See how you all like PPS Short - Black Exploding Cube.
I was able to download a trial copy of Sony Vegas, which I'm experimenting with. The cool thing here is that this software will allow you to make 1-frame per picture animations, unlike Movie Maker which is limited to 1/8th of a second durations on each picture. So if your video is something like 30 frames/second, you can get 30 pictures down into that second! The video will be extremely fast, yes, but also extremely smooth despite the size of your jumps, which is the attraction here.
I was able to download a trial copy of Sony Vegas, which I'm experimenting with. The cool thing here is that this software will allow you to make 1-frame per picture animations, unlike Movie Maker which is limited to 1/8th of a second durations on each picture. So if your video is something like 30 frames/second, you can get 30 pictures down into that second! The video will be extremely fast, yes, but also extremely smooth despite the size of your jumps, which is the attraction here.
PPSStudios Intro Video
Take a look at my three new videos..actually, I'll make it four.
Comment on these and pick your favorite. I'm trying to put together some kind of intro video for my Youtube uploads and would appreciate any feedback. Also feel free to make suggestions on improvements and effects and the like.
Here's my goal: something that's short, but really neat looking. I don't want it to be as long as the Long Intro video. 30-40 seconds for an intro is just too long. If it could be under ten seconds, that'd be ideal (that's 80 pictures or less at top MovieMaker speed). Something that says "PPSStudios" or "A PPSStudios Production", and possibly "Classic" for the older videos which are still in the process of being ripped.
Maybe I'll put up a poll just so we can get a real tally system. BTW, the short intros are quite small (600KB or so each), so it shouldn't take too long to buffer them and view them in full.
Comment on these and pick your favorite. I'm trying to put together some kind of intro video for my Youtube uploads and would appreciate any feedback. Also feel free to make suggestions on improvements and effects and the like.
Here's my goal: something that's short, but really neat looking. I don't want it to be as long as the Long Intro video. 30-40 seconds for an intro is just too long. If it could be under ten seconds, that'd be ideal (that's 80 pictures or less at top MovieMaker speed). Something that says "PPSStudios" or "A PPSStudios Production", and possibly "Classic" for the older videos which are still in the process of being ripped.
Maybe I'll put up a poll just so we can get a real tally system. BTW, the short intros are quite small (600KB or so each), so it shouldn't take too long to buffer them and view them in full.
Youtube:Newest Ten
I've just created a "newest ten" playlist in my Youtube channel. This is because my more recent videos aren't really getting viewed all that much. I post links to them here and there, but not many people read what I have to say. Therefore, I'm going to see what I can do about promoting them here. After all, isn't that what Youtube is really for? Getting people to view your videos more than everybody else?
I was so happy when the Galactic Conflicts series got 100 hits or so each. But then I look at the REALLY popular stuff and it's like 2 million hits in a single week or something insane. It's crazy! I need to step it up.
Anyway, here we are:
Edit: I just checked....in all, the cumulative views on my Youtube stuff is:
Videos: 19792
Channel: 1467
I should seriously check my sources before I go complaining.
I was so happy when the Galactic Conflicts series got 100 hits or so each. But then I look at the REALLY popular stuff and it's like 2 million hits in a single week or something insane. It's crazy! I need to step it up.
Anyway, here we are:
Edit: I just checked....in all, the cumulative views on my Youtube stuff is:
Videos: 19792
Channel: 1467
I should seriously check my sources before I go complaining.
Can new technology go too far?
Seriously, Blu-ray is just a way to create a 40GB DVD. And of course, if the technology is popular with a big company like Disney or Universal, well, they'll do everything possible to get sales including remastering these old videos into high quality digital video with replacement 3D renders and adding hours of 'extras' which are a waste of time.
Personally, I say if you want Blu-ray to take off, stop advertising so much in the way of "hours of special bonus features!" Instead, why don't you pack hours of actual MOVIE onto the disc. Why not put Toy Story 1 at 2 (and now 3 in June) onto one side of one disc and say, "Get all three Toy Stories on one single-layer Blu-ray disc!"
Well, really it seems as though they invested in this great technology and now they don't exactly know what to do with it. It's like getting a one-million dollar check in the mail and...now what?
Back to old videos though: sometimes the mistakes and cheap look that the old videos had can be appreciated MORE than a remaster of them to make them look cooler. Star Trek for example was COOL when it was cheap! Of course, it's kind of cool now, but not as much.
More on Skype and overhead setups
Well, last night at men's 6:33 we had our Skype call from Argentina. And it worked...kind of. However, the connection they had down there was extremely poor and our own LAN wasn't doing so hot for external connections either. However, we did like we had done for when they went to India. We bypassed audio transmission and sent only video through Skype. Then we plugged someone's Blackberry into the sound board via headphone jack and were able to get audio that way. So Skype for video and Blackberry for audio. It worked fairly well and we were able to get a decent show up on the screen.
However, WE of course, were stressing out the entire time and we had leadership up in the sound booth bugging us as to why we weren't getting this feature to work or why they couldn't hear us or why why why...
And of course, we didn't know because we hadn't anticipated the Blackberry/cell-phone idea one bit. They just handed us the cell phone and said, "This is how we did it this morning!" But neither of us were there "this morning," so we had to figure out what they were talking about. Anyway, the same leadership person that was pretty much instigating all the stress also said afterward that we should just come up with a standard. He said, "Skype team," but I assume that to mean that we just need to write up a whitepaper or standard on how to make Skype work for missions trips that we want to bring in during a service. And I've come up with a few ideas.
The first idea is to codify the setup we had last night. Have a headphone plugin going to a cell phone from the board for audio and Skype the video in and combine them successfully. However, Skype, I noticed, is pretty horrible with video, especially when the camera is low resolution. Besides that, we only have a framerate of maybe 2 frames/sec if the connection is good and less if the connection is bad or flaky. In fact, there were times where we had 1 frame/2 minutes last night.
So maybe we should scrap the Skype idea and go for something a bit more reasonable like UStream. UStream is like an online video recorder that will also stream your recording live as you record it. Of course, I've no idea what the quality of the transmission would be if they were on a slow connection, so this might require a bit of thought.
As for audio, working with everybody else's cell phone was just horrible. The first one we got was a flip-phone that required security unlocks due to the international connection and it kept disconnecting on us. The second was a Blackberry and we got audio okay, but had a bit of trouble sending audio back. Besides that, the guy was up in the sound booth yelling at his phone the whole time. Thus I've come up with a solution. Perhaps the best idea would be to create/research a box which would replace the telephone handset. We DO have a landline in the sound booth which we can probably more easily call and get a reasonable connection (cell phones either way increase chances of dropped calls). My idea is to somehow vandalize or 'decompile' the telephone handset which is on a PBX network and replace it with a plain old RCA I/O. This would require a bit of impedance matching and possibly some audio amplifiers to interface the phone earpiece/mic with a regular audio input/output. This is probably the best solution that I can think of. Of course, the store-bought one costs somewhere around $400, so that's out. I can't imagine a church paying that much money for a once-a-year occurrence. Besides, I think I can make my own, with my dad's help.
So those are my ideas and reflections. I didn't think last night was at all efficient, and standardizing it will make things a whole bunch better.
However, WE of course, were stressing out the entire time and we had leadership up in the sound booth bugging us as to why we weren't getting this feature to work or why they couldn't hear us or why why why...
And of course, we didn't know because we hadn't anticipated the Blackberry/cell-phone idea one bit. They just handed us the cell phone and said, "This is how we did it this morning!" But neither of us were there "this morning," so we had to figure out what they were talking about. Anyway, the same leadership person that was pretty much instigating all the stress also said afterward that we should just come up with a standard. He said, "Skype team," but I assume that to mean that we just need to write up a whitepaper or standard on how to make Skype work for missions trips that we want to bring in during a service. And I've come up with a few ideas.
The first idea is to codify the setup we had last night. Have a headphone plugin going to a cell phone from the board for audio and Skype the video in and combine them successfully. However, Skype, I noticed, is pretty horrible with video, especially when the camera is low resolution. Besides that, we only have a framerate of maybe 2 frames/sec if the connection is good and less if the connection is bad or flaky. In fact, there were times where we had 1 frame/2 minutes last night.
So maybe we should scrap the Skype idea and go for something a bit more reasonable like UStream. UStream is like an online video recorder that will also stream your recording live as you record it. Of course, I've no idea what the quality of the transmission would be if they were on a slow connection, so this might require a bit of thought.
As for audio, working with everybody else's cell phone was just horrible. The first one we got was a flip-phone that required security unlocks due to the international connection and it kept disconnecting on us. The second was a Blackberry and we got audio okay, but had a bit of trouble sending audio back. Besides that, the guy was up in the sound booth yelling at his phone the whole time. Thus I've come up with a solution. Perhaps the best idea would be to create/research a box which would replace the telephone handset. We DO have a landline in the sound booth which we can probably more easily call and get a reasonable connection (cell phones either way increase chances of dropped calls). My idea is to somehow vandalize or 'decompile' the telephone handset which is on a PBX network and replace it with a plain old RCA I/O. This would require a bit of impedance matching and possibly some audio amplifiers to interface the phone earpiece/mic with a regular audio input/output. This is probably the best solution that I can think of. Of course, the store-bought one costs somewhere around $400, so that's out. I can't imagine a church paying that much money for a once-a-year occurrence. Besides, I think I can make my own, with my dad's help.
So those are my ideas and reflections. I didn't think last night was at all efficient, and standardizing it will make things a whole bunch better.
Idea for new computer
So we're having this BIG thing at church where a group of probably seven to ten guys are going down to Argentina in about a month or so. They're trying to set it up so that the Tuesday when we're meeting and they are gone, they'll Skype us during service and we'll be able to put it up and talk with them live. I think this is pretty cool. However, we were running into a few security bugs last week when we tested (security locked me out of being able to open Skype up). We'll be testing it again tomorrow night, and I think the IT guy at church fixed it. Anyway, he said he'd look into it this last week.
This all got me to thinking: what would be the ultimate media computer? I thought, everybody goes for Mac as a media computer, but what if I were to just completely create my own? I thought I'd probably use Windows as an operating system, since I know that one best. However, the very basic distribution has SO many background processes to keep everything running it's almost annoying. But I think I'd go for Windows in spight of everything.
Actually, my idea was this: what kind of computer could I build that would be the ultimate in speed, capacity and technology while being affordable? And what kind of cool peripherals could I put on it to make it completely media and Internet-based? I thought, maybe I'd create a whitebox (custom desktop) computer with all the latest video/audio hardware. I'd have a nice big GEForce or NVidia video card plus maybe a 6-channel audio card. Of course, I'd also have the option to mix everything down into 2-channel stereo, but 6 channel would be nice to have just in case. On top of that, I might try to set it up with three monitors. Yes, two is cool but three is cooler!
Then I thought maybe I'd get a permanent webcam and possibly attach it with a Third Hand sort of mechanical device. Maybe ball joints or something. I also thought that maybe I could manage a good quality scan converter so I could pipe one of the monitor outputs to a composite video feed.
Of course, I also considered making it portable. Maybe a nicely carved wooden box or a steel crate with air vents would be sufficient to cart it around. Or I could go for one of those official media boxes with the twist-clamps. Also, a box would mean casters, because with all this stuff I'd add to it, it would become quite heavy.
Let me go back to audio. I'd also want a fairly decent audio mixer so that I could control volume of the output audio. And probably I'd want another for inputs.
I'm probably going crazy here and have racked up around $3000 worth of stuff...but I'll keep brainstorming.
Of course, I'd have a high-quality (everything is high-quality) network module or two..wireless and wired. And maybe a dialup modem, since we're still on a phone line at home.
Actually I should put this all in perspective. This was an attempt at making the ultimate Skype experience. Webcam, audio input and output and a video output for the overhead projector setup we have at church.
I seem to be rambling. But of course, I'm into it! This is what I'd do if I could. Of course, at the moment I can't but if I COULD...yeah.
Then I have to think about weight. So far, I've really really enjoyed having a laptop to cart around everywhere. It's VERY portable. I couldn't imagine taking this giant box to the library every day for school..of course, who says this is a school computer? I don't want to store EVERYTHING I ever have had on this thing. That would clog it up and it's primary purpose would be bogged down. No. It's only for media broadcasting and stuff.
I just had another brainstorm: video inputs? Maybe. Maybe not. That's a tossup. All of the video stuff I've seen so far is HUGE and that'd detract from the good speed I'd be getting. This is going to take some thought, but I definitely want to look into it.
Okay. I am probably done rambling. Have fun reading!!
This all got me to thinking: what would be the ultimate media computer? I thought, everybody goes for Mac as a media computer, but what if I were to just completely create my own? I thought I'd probably use Windows as an operating system, since I know that one best. However, the very basic distribution has SO many background processes to keep everything running it's almost annoying. But I think I'd go for Windows in spight of everything.
Actually, my idea was this: what kind of computer could I build that would be the ultimate in speed, capacity and technology while being affordable? And what kind of cool peripherals could I put on it to make it completely media and Internet-based? I thought, maybe I'd create a whitebox (custom desktop) computer with all the latest video/audio hardware. I'd have a nice big GEForce or NVidia video card plus maybe a 6-channel audio card. Of course, I'd also have the option to mix everything down into 2-channel stereo, but 6 channel would be nice to have just in case. On top of that, I might try to set it up with three monitors. Yes, two is cool but three is cooler!
Then I thought maybe I'd get a permanent webcam and possibly attach it with a Third Hand sort of mechanical device. Maybe ball joints or something. I also thought that maybe I could manage a good quality scan converter so I could pipe one of the monitor outputs to a composite video feed.
Of course, I also considered making it portable. Maybe a nicely carved wooden box or a steel crate with air vents would be sufficient to cart it around. Or I could go for one of those official media boxes with the twist-clamps. Also, a box would mean casters, because with all this stuff I'd add to it, it would become quite heavy.
Let me go back to audio. I'd also want a fairly decent audio mixer so that I could control volume of the output audio. And probably I'd want another for inputs.
I'm probably going crazy here and have racked up around $3000 worth of stuff...but I'll keep brainstorming.
Of course, I'd have a high-quality (everything is high-quality) network module or two..wireless and wired. And maybe a dialup modem, since we're still on a phone line at home.
Actually I should put this all in perspective. This was an attempt at making the ultimate Skype experience. Webcam, audio input and output and a video output for the overhead projector setup we have at church.
I seem to be rambling. But of course, I'm into it! This is what I'd do if I could. Of course, at the moment I can't but if I COULD...yeah.
Then I have to think about weight. So far, I've really really enjoyed having a laptop to cart around everywhere. It's VERY portable. I couldn't imagine taking this giant box to the library every day for school..of course, who says this is a school computer? I don't want to store EVERYTHING I ever have had on this thing. That would clog it up and it's primary purpose would be bogged down. No. It's only for media broadcasting and stuff.
I just had another brainstorm: video inputs? Maybe. Maybe not. That's a tossup. All of the video stuff I've seen so far is HUGE and that'd detract from the good speed I'd be getting. This is going to take some thought, but I definitely want to look into it.
Okay. I am probably done rambling. Have fun reading!!
Videos
It's time now for another edition of 'Make My Videos Popular,' the only blog which promotes depwl9992 and all of his (my) lego animations. As of now, I've uploaded around four new videos, all less than 30 seconds in length. They are SlaveDriver, Spaceman, Riding the Horse and JohnWayneMount. I'm going to go there in a sec and open it up to anonymous comments and things (they'll all still be censored, but I'm looking for feedback from those who don't have their own channels).
So check them out and see if you like 'em!
Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Depwl9992
Update on Youtube Uploads
- So I am currently uploading all the animation videos that haven't been uploaded to my channel. They include the following:
John Wayne Horse Mount Horse and Rider
I have more, but they are bigger than average, so I won't post them now. Well, maybe I will if I think hard enough. They're not really THAT big; just 2MB each. I can do it. The last one (Horse and Rider) was 600K...
The other two that I can upload now are Walk in-Roll out, Slave Driver and Spaceman. I'm still not 100% sure on the Basketball Stars Original.
Yes, I will do it. Right now, even!
Youtube update - Belated
Ha! So, update with the Youtube channel thing: I've accepted the new beta design thing that they offer. See it at http://www.youtube.com/depwl9992.
In addition to that, you may see a couple short (10 second) videos I uploaded a while ago but never announced. Be ready for a couple new ones soon (not Cowman unfortunately. That one's gone so stagnant.) I have an equally short one called Spaceman. And I was requested to put the original Basketball Stars video up which I had previously taken down for privacy issues. So you might just see that version as well.
Let's see....what else? If you want to see anything, just let me know. I'm all open for ideas.
Happy Star Trek Day
Linerider 2 Unbound
Linerider 2 Unbound is out! And I bought it! New features? Spline tool to make perfectly smooth track. Background tool with layers to make a 3D looking world. Track coloring, game mode, free-design mode, on and on and on. It's a huge program (2GB of free disk space) for the computer I'm using it on, but it still seems to work okay. Local installation allows for offline editing, saving, etc., and it even has uploading and video capture capability! Sounds..I could really go on and on!! It is rather amazing.
They're online user account tool even has been integrated with the new version of the game so that if you do an upload in-game, it will be reflected in your online profile. Also, you can download other's tracks from the website and they will go directly into your game with a few extra steps in between.
Alright..on to more useful information. My Linerider profile is at http://linerider.com/en/user/depwl9992. AND, if you want to see sample videos, I've created a Youtube playlist of most all my Linerider tracks, viewable here.
Enjoy..
Rubik
So...we bought a Rubik's Cube last month, and as soon as I got home (I don't like them that well), I mixed it up and it has now been sitting for 2 weeks without anyone touching it. I guess none of us like it. Well, just today I took the initiative to go reasearching, because to me, the thing absolutely has no logic to it. However, I've been proven wrong. I've yet to try this tutorial, but I think it'll work.
Masterthecube Youtube Channel
Dan Brown Rubik Tutorial - Enter his channel at your own risk. Even with no sound he reminds me of a slight freak.:)
Youtube News
Sweet!! I got a comment and some ratings on my videos. They're finally becoming public, I guess.
View them here
View them here
Linerider
I just realized something. Linerider has profiles just like Youtube channels (which I am obsessed with, as you probably have already guessed). So, to see all of my videos, vote for them and stuff, I would suggest going to this link:
http://www.linerider.com/en/user/depwl9992
Enjoy!
http://www.linerider.com/en/user/depwl9992
Enjoy!
Linerider Videos
I've just discovered a sweet new game called Linerider. Probably you've already heard of it...
You can check out the website: http://www.linerider.com.
I recorded it using the open-source software CamStudio. It's awesome, because the framerate is something like 60fps, which none of the other screen capture video programs do very well. It plays back a bit fast, but hey, as long as it's smooth, I'm happy.
Okay, well, anyway, here's the video:
You can check out the website: http://www.linerider.com.
I recorded it using the open-source software CamStudio. It's awesome, because the framerate is something like 60fps, which none of the other screen capture video programs do very well. It plays back a bit fast, but hey, as long as it's smooth, I'm happy.
Okay, well, anyway, here's the video:
New Videos
Why do I even bother letting you know about these things? Never mind. We've got new videos, and the newest has been deemed "HILARIOUS" according to a friend from church, who gave me five stars on it (oh yeah, uh huh, oh yeah (DISCO LINGO)).
Anyway, here it is:
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