Machinima for the June Exhibition!

My apologies to all of you, especially Majen/Tia! The video upload folder had the wrong permissions before, and only Sarah, Nina and I were able to see the Add Item link. This is now fixed (promise!) so please try again.

$%#@

just curious, but has anyone actually TRIED to capture themself BUILDING yet? i've been fiddling with it for about a week and find it next to impossible. there is no room on the screen with the build/edit menu open and yet without it, the only 'action' that i can capture is the little beam of white light emanating from my hand. the objects can be moved but not to much effect, and resizing and texturing etc are impossible.
anyway, rather than just moan about the technical details, this was meant to be a call to form build-mach teams. it's becoming painfully obvious that we will have to team up to film each other.
soooo i've got pretty flexible hours all this week. we can use my place or yours and also try The Tech. if you don't feel ready to film me, then i can just film you.
who's interested?

garvie

Hiya

lol, my hours are limited this week, and I have not had the opportunity to start playing with the filming yet, but if we can hook up you can film me building if you want? I guess at the Tech would be best. Maybe something tongue in cheek like building a basic table and chair on the lawn and then sit down? Or a sleeping bag to rest after a hard day's building?

I can do GMT eves 7-9pm mostly. Any help?
Cheers

hey lydia
yup european evenings suit me fine.. except for today... but you can IM me anytime later this week. sleeping bag is still a good idea. i'm ok with the camera now, and i'm about to try my new editor, so you build, and i'll 'film'.
anyway..
HERE'S A VERY USEFUL TIP FOR EVERYONE:
if you're working on a complex object (musical chairs anyone?), rez the thing in front of you, turn it all alpha, then UNlink and texture the parts one by one. this cut 4 hours of framing building shots down to about 30 minutes, and i expect that it will make for more interesting viewing.
and another more time consuming trick to achieve a stop frame animation technique:
consider animating the parts with puppeteer so that they all magically fit themselves together.
cheers dears
garvie

Hi Garvie

Sounds good. How about Weds or Thurs eve in that 7-9pm GMT slot? That'll give me some time to get something together so you don't just film me scratching my head and going 'errr...., doh, hmmm' :)
Lydia

I can't do weekdays before 7PM Eastern (just due to work schedule). I am on Tuesday nights, Thursday nights and all day Saturday. I can probably try to change that a bit as well.

Has anyone tried using the screen capture element of FRAPS? I was thinking that might work, as it has an option to take a shot every x seconds until you cancel. It would require some major editing in movie maker, but I thought I'd give it a go tomorrow night.

I can also teach a building class on Tuesday night or Saturday afternoon that we can film. That might be nice, as there is always lots going on!

Sarah has a machinima session scheduled for 4 PM this Thursday (she cant do it earlier b/c she has a real job, too;-). Is one session enough, or should we have a machinima meetup sometime this week in the noon-2 PM time slot?

Also, I just spoke in SL to Draxtor Depres, a machinima maker who does a bi-weekly show for German TV (for ex., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT7p231Cfxk). He wants to do a show on the Tech the week of May 5, but would be willing to do a machinima class for us before then. The times that work for him are weekdays 10-11 AM SLT, or Saturday at noon. Which would you prefer?

That sounds great Rob! Obviously, Saturday is best for me, but go with what the rest of the team wants.

That said, this is just a reminder to the group that if you can attend on Thursday, please do! I'd love to get things filmed, and its very difficult to film much more than me sitting on things. :) Also, if any of your colleagues would like to be in the film, have them come too!

Hi Stephe /All
Sarah, sorry can't do Thurs 4pm SLT coz = midnight, I'm sure others will be able to though

Rob, am interested in w/c May 5, as long as I know the day in advance so I don't book things in on too many days, 10-11 SLT avg to good as not entirely free during that timeframe. But see how days/time fit with everyone else.

Lydia

ok

i like thursday soooo.... how about lydia and i will partner up 7-9 GMT, then i'll hang about at the Tech for any Tech builders who want to do cameos ( i already have a few good ones that i took on the sly, but i'd like more) from about 2-4 SLT, and then i'll join in the group build for 4 SLT (7 EST). lol.. i really think we should just use SL time PDT
and i did get one made today YAHOO!!! uploading soon
garvie

and
Rob, yes, i like the idea of more classes for sure

Another option might be a photo slide show. I have tons of those already taken. Rob, can we upload photos to the section? Would those be useful?

i think stills mixed in with mach or stills turned into slideshows is a great idea. we'll get much more material that way.

Sure, I added a now assets folder for still photos

I can't come on this Thursday for the filming. Have a class. But would like to meet up with others at some time. Love the idea of having Draxtor do a class. Would like to attend---and Saturdays are good. Or in the evening 3-6 PM SLT.
Also, I am getting some footage together that I took on teen grid of the Tech Museum's project there for Eye4You. Should I do it in a Moviemaker file-----usually use Adobe Premier and export it in a .mov file.
Stills are good---and Moviemaker uses them well.
Would also like to get together with others on the main Grid herer to film someone at the Tech Museum interacting with projects/building etc.
Pia

Pia why don't you do another one (or two or three). please :)
garvie

There is no way that I could compare with Draxtor--he is a genius. But I would be happy to do another class.And let me know if anyone would like to do some machinima together.
Pia

Bernard Drax has confirmed that he will do a class for us on Saturday April 19 at noon SLT. Hoot!

Bernard Drax had to reschedule his class to noon on Sat. April 26.

Rob, since the master class is April 26, will you accept video after April 30?

That sounds reasonable, but it's Nina's call since she's juggling all the arrangements for the June opening.

I figure we will have plenty up for the April 30 date, but post master-class the quality of shots (mine at least) might improve!

Just wanted to say WOW! I looked at a bunch of the footage today and it's really great.

A few comments:
--WMV format is fine. Eventually, we will convert everything to MPEG-2, so if you can export in that way, great, otherwise, don't worry about it.
--editing will begin on 5/5/08, so you have some extra time to squeak in more footage. However, we will not be able to accept any other footage after 5/4/08.
--it would be great to get as many projects as possible with an image of you/your team standing in front of your exhibit (or using it). This can be video and or stills.

Thanks!
Nina/Avi

hey stephe, no biggie but i can't upload video to the Machinima project, so i'm putting the new ones for now on the old Musical Chairs assets page just in case they get lost. i mention it here just in case i forget lol.
see you at the meeting
garvie