It seems that everyday has been the same for ages. The weather is showery with varying amounts of wind. It really isn’t very pleasant.
I am only nipping out for quick wanders as it isn’t photography weather and the dogs are not bothered about going far.
I have been working on a few graphics but have yet to produce the one I want. I am after the Earth spinning counter clockwise with Adrian's Images on a ring around the equator revolving clockwise. I am slowly getting there. It is interesting but I find it impossible to recall how I have made a 3D animation do what I want. Last night I solved one problem. I popped a letter X on my sphere so I could see it revolve. No mean task on it’s own. I would have thought key frame the start move the cursor to the end of the timeline and rotate the sphere 360o .Nothing happened; it took me an hour to work out that Blender 3D didn’t think it had moved. I then half solved the problem by setting the cursor halfway along the time line and rotating it 180o Then doing the same again at the end. Great I have a spinning globe. The trouble is it spins slowly then speeds up then goes slowly then speeds up and slows down again. After an hour trawling the internet I found a thing called a Dopesheet. Aptly named, it’s for dopes like me. In amongst all it’s complexities is a graph editor and my graph looked like a sine wave. All I have to do is find away to convert it to a linear graph and I should be in heaven or a ‘Funny Farm’.
I’d be completely crazy if I didn’t have the sea to gaze at. Today there is a healthy swell running. It’s difficult to judge but I estimate two to three meters. It’s bouncing up the rocks in an impressive manner.
I have also sorted the little bits of gold dust out.
There are lots of tutorials on how to achieve this effect. I decreased the particle size bumped up the number of particles and increased the render sampling from fifty to a hundred samples. That has got rid of the odd flying brick. I quite like this so will redo it a bit longer, adjust the lighting a bit and then I will be able to run music credits and whatnot over it.
If anyone is interested in playing then you can use Blender 3D for free. This is dissolving text and then run backwards. I don’t think you could create it this way round.
Tomorrow the video head is arriving as are the wet sensor swabs so the midges and dust will, with luck, be a thing of the past as will jerky panning and tilting.
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See Douglas not that impressive.
The waves look like they're starting to get bigger and more powerful. Is it possible to do long exposure when the sea is rough or does it look all wrong, if you know what I mean
ReplyDeleteDouglas it looks like mountain peaks poking through cloud. I did try some. Also it takes a good hour or more to clean the salt spray off everything. I have to do it a tiny bit at a time as it's quite abrasive. Okay the filters from SRB are not expensive but it makes a dear image if one is wrecking filters at £50.00p every shot. They get blathered. I'll find one and pop it on this post.
DeleteDouglas it's popped on.
DeleteShame about the salt as I think it looks quite good.
DeleteDouglas I used to love Olympus for their build but they got too far behind Canon. I swapped. I'm glad in one way but am very wary of water now.
DeleteIt may be lousy weather you're having Adrian but at least you've found something to keep you busy, even though your world is spinning backwards in fits and starts!....how's the headache?
ReplyDeleteThe gold dust titles look a lot better now...(I was going to say they looked minted now...but decided not to!!)
No 'little ants' on the beach today?...[;o)
Trevor, don't say I've got my world spinning the wrong way. No looking from the top it spins anti-clockwise. I drew it on a bit of paper I started with France and the sun hit's France before it lights us up. I wonder or was wondering whether I dare tilt it twenty three and a half degrees on the Z axis. Maybe I'll shift he light source. And tilt the camera view. I have not put any NASA photos on it yet as it slows the job up. I did try creating a bump map for it to give more realism but thought sod it no one will notice. It's only a tiny globe and by the time YouTube have chewed it up it will not matter a toss anyway.
DeleteThe titles look good but I'll improve and fine tune them. I will have to find a way of sharpening as YouTube blur everything. I don't want the agro but the only way I know how to do it is put the video into PS. Convert video to Frames and save them out as TIFF files. Pop them in the Raw converter over sharpen there. then back to PS editor convert and export them as a video. It works with Timelapse. It works if I can remember the work flow.
They were not little ants they woz my artwork....Okay they did look a little like ants but they could spell.
I like the pics of the waves, otherwise I'd think you were on a different planet.
ReplyDeletePauline, how is Oz? I am on a different planet. I just wish I knew how to work the one I'm on.
DeleteI spent eight hours making my name appear from specks of dust with the odd brick. I can do it in under an hour now without bricks. Sometimes I forget a bit and it goes belly up but I have special words for such occasions.
Well, I don't know about your other readers but you impressed the bejeebers out of me. Glad to see you preparing for a new career at this stage of your life -- you could live another 40 years you know, and it'll be good to be doing something productive for posterity.
ReplyDeleteBob, I was a mathematician at school. I messed about there but loved math or maths as we call it. I really enjoyed Physics. Which is pretty much the same when you start climbing the ladder.
DeleteI look at what the thirty five year olds are producing and I look at what the twenty year olds are producing. Okay there is a lot of crap but having spent half my working life at sea I wish I had realised that visual arts were the future. I half understand....no I quarter understand what a free mega bit of software from Holland can do. I'll never understand it all.
I am getting a bit tired of You Tube as they try and make folks I-pad and phone shots look good. They blur mine by dropping a Gaussian filter into the upload as that is what crap stills and video need.
It is a hobby. My blog is a diary. There is no chance of keeping up never mind catching up with the software and hardware development. We are already into 7K video cameras which cost less than my still Canons. I can take one frame and it will produce a six by four as good as a still camera could four years ago.
Blender is open source and I'd love to be able to smooth out the odd wrinkles but I can't write code in Python. I struggle to adjust HTML in Blogger.
I switch between Photoshop CS6 Extended and Blender 3D. Adobe are no more user friendly but after years I have sorted a workflow of sorts.
It's just a virtual hobby or pastime for me.
The mathematics and physics they leave to specialists. Hasn't the world always been so.
Just wondering have you tried or checked out other video hosting sites like Vimeo or Metacafe?
ReplyDeleteVimeo is better but I can't load through live writer. I must be able to but I an a dumb cluck at times.
DeleteGolly, you are clever.
ReplyDeleteThat is brilliant.
I can’t see you ending up on a funny farm, but I’m halfway there just reading this post.
Friko, it is "Funny Farm" territory. It is where all the brains hang out. I am glad I'm not just a brain.
DeleteAdrian, I too am glad you have the sea to gaze at, because usually your wonderful sea pictures are the only things on your blog that I understand. But the goldy thing was very clever.
ReplyDeleteFrances, I have to stop in for a parcel today but tomorrow if the rain stops I'll walk to the big cave.
Deletet seems like winter here and so I'm doing nerdy things. Not very well I must admit.
At the beginning of your post I was going to say it's about time you look for a new location. Then you spoil it all by saying you shouldn't complain so much. I'm writing down the things you use for free and will take a quick look at them. How do you come up with spinning the earth the opposite direction?
ReplyDeleteRed, I'm heading south a few miles on Sunday, Monday at the latest.
DeleteBBC news has a very complicated tittle sequence. The spinning Earth is a simplification of it.
If you start playing with blender then use two monitors. There are lots of good tutorials that you can follow easily then. Some are better than others. If you want I can e-mail you some links.
Thanks but the equipment I have doesn't do the complicated stuff. I am interested in what can be done so following your blog is interesting.
DeleteI'm loving your wave and sea shots. What a great way to spend the day....although some of it looks a bit cold, I would still enjoy working on capturing the movement and forms.
ReplyDeleteChris it isn't cold. 12C at the moment with only 11mph breeze so it's fine .
DeleteI'll do some more long exposure shots today and stop being nerdy.
What a place, beautiful!
ReplyDeleteMaria, I love it here.
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