OFF ON TRACKS.

 It's been another of those weeks. I have been doing a bit of work on the Christmas card video and all is back on track or trackish. My problem is I get easily side tracked. I really like the posh Cycles render but sixteen hours for ten seconds of video is not worth it. I investigated and found that I could render every fourth frame and then then pop the video into this software which is supposed to interpolate to get the missing frames.

This is free and looks to do the job, I've seen a demo where it works perfectly but I still haven't got it to work. I have it running on CUDA, my NVIDIA GPU, and have a sneaking suspicion that my GPU may be too old. It looks interesting as I can imagine shooting an insect at 60fps and multiplying by two or four to get some slow motion fly flapping. I'll have another look at it then if all else fails send them a begging email for help.

I then got distracted by Render Layers, this is a very complex way of carrying on. It's like big school render processing and not big school thick class either. It's big school arse licking class, the one where folk did their homework and got made prefects and not the one I was in where we had more interesting things to do upon release and counted down in seconds from incarceration at nine fifteen to release at three forty five. We had streaming at school. (A) was for the future school teachers ,bank employees and I suppose the rare genius. (B) was for normal folk and (C) was for binmen and others headed for Matlock and the council office. 

A teacher thought to threaten me with a future as a binman. I was more than happy with that, the C's didn't have to think of endless excuses not to do homework as no one could give a shit. I suspect that is where the inspiration for Comprehensive Education originated.

Rendering in layers produces large files but means you can adjust individual render channels in the compositor,  a not dissimilar workflow to Photoshop. It is fast when you suss it but I really need to learn Davinci Resolve as it is designed for such malarkey and Blender isn't. I'm also thinking that PNG files don't really carry enough information. There is no industry standard but I have a horrible feeling that saving as .EXR is the way things are heading. I'll have to run them to an external hard drive as they are massive files. It's all procrastination as few folk will view the video on anything larger than a tablet and most will be squinting at a phone. What the other one is viewing on I don't know.

I have had another go at the hoarding and the movie to pop onto one face of it. This is one frame.

This looks as if it will do. I find it difficult to impossible to be objective about my arty farty stuff. I keep looking and finding fault then messing and before I know it the jobs gone to rats. There is still a bit of a dark line. I am thinking that adding another yellow spot light and having them move corner to corner but diametrically opposed would sort it. I could just call it my art and leave it. Time will decide.

I can make swivelling hoardings in minutes now but I can't get animation nodes to instance from the primary one and then get the others to index through 120° at say half second intervals. Again this is an example of big school Blendering.

Perfect. The little orange dots are the origins which in this case aren't important. I just like stuff in the middle, symetrical, neat and tidy, unless I need an origin somewhere else. The colours are purely for my reference, when I was playing with the girls on these faces I got the same girl on two of them and had to go back and rub her out, a distressing occurrence as it was the wee red haired lassie. Fortunately after stealing the totty images from Pixabay I had run them through Photoshop and made them all 1:1.6 so the UV unwrapping would go perfect.

It's only fourteen days till Christmas. This, as is usual for me, will go right to the wire. I'll leave you with a story which is quite funny.

My haircutter needed a horseshoe as one of her little boys had two but wanted to make a present for his aunt and needed three. One would think that seeing eight horses several times a week I would have access to horseshoes by the dozen but the farrier takes them away with him and not all the horses are always shod. I managed to find a couple and popped them in one of those crap green Co-Op carrier bags. I called at the shop, sorry Salon*, on my way home last Saturday. I noticed it seemed busy. One lady in a chair with bits of oven foil all over her head, the young lass that sweeps hairs up on a Saturday and the aunty, the hair cutters sister-in-law in for a gossip. Stuck my head in the door and handed the bag to the haircutter. The aunt and hair sweeper said, almost in unison. What you got?  She said mind your own business, if you ever manage by some outside chance to get as fit and sexy as me you too will possibly get a present like this. The haircutter then started to quiz me on a local lads new BMW. The sweeper taking advantage of her distraction grabbed the bag for a peek but it being far heavier than she expected she dropped it, the bag split and aunt's Christmas present was unveiled. The hair cutter was not amused. Your family have always been nosey sods, you are bad, your mum worse and as for your gran there is nothing she won't poke her nose into. The little girl said. "Pots and Kettles, if you hadn't been poking your nose into Ken's transport arrangements I wouldn't have been tempted..... The little minx turned to me. What car has Kenny bought and who did he buy it from? I left them to it and as I wandered away heard. Kenny is Mr. Stuart to you young lady.

*The Salon is a grand place, last time I was in I'd taken my horsey stuff off in the car and was a minute into my five minute haircut when Andy walked in and sat down. He said Hi. She said You stink of cow shit. Eee lassie you have led a sheltered life, it's sheep shit, terrible stuff it is, it gets through everything. I've known days even a shower won't shift it. It's not so much their shit mind, it's more the langoliny stuff, they have it natural in their fleece. I guess it does go off a bit on warm days but not to worry it keeps the rain out. She, never to not have the last word, said. How in the name of heaven is it I can go into Cupar, walk in my friends Salon and it smells of nice lady things. I am ten miles away and all mine ever smells of is diesel, that tyre soap stuff, pigs, bloody hydraulic oil, cows and fucking horses. Andy says don't forget sheep and that stuff you rub on ladies hair that smells of cow foot spray.

Have fun and a good weekend.