5-09-2007
I’m lazy, but alive! I’m at the new Blender Institute (woohoo!) recording video tutorials for the Mancandy FAQ. After a bit of editing and mastering it’ll be in the Blender E-shop, along with another DVD by Andy.
The Blender Institute is a nice large studio in Amsterdam, Intended for blender artist and coder projects ( the tutorials, but also the Peach Open Movie , Apricot Open Game, Physics coding sprint and more.)
The DVDs started bump-ily - Linux capturing wasn’t reliable or smooth enough at 1024×768. (Could be an X11 or software limitation, but some programs such as istanbul show promise), so we ended up using iShowU on the Mac. We plan on editing with OSS/Linux if possible- we had some difficulty both with Cinelerra and Blender- Mac Quicktime codec related, or due to non-standard resolution/FPS (1024×768 at 24 fps), but also because Linux video editors are not mature enough for all uses. We’ll scrape by somehow, probably using blender- Peter Schlaille ( Blender Sequencer Developer) has been squashing bugs and making enhancements to make things work- the sequencer is already good considering it was never supposed to be a full fledged NLE, just a way to quickly edit/treat blender scenes- but it’s already matured beyond that point.
We also had audio problems: the Samson C01 USB mic we started with was totally inadequate, and resulted in hours of tutorials I will either have to re-record or de-noise, normalize and tweak. We swapped it with a Studio Projects B1 mic and a Tascam USB mixer thingie (US 122 L) and things are going much better. (Sadly we found the Tascam is not Linux compatible- but there are alternatives that are- the Samson works fine in Linux, though)
5-09-2007 at 12:43 pm
Good luck with the recording of the video tutorials! I am not a great fan of these (I prefer books and writings) but I must say than they can be very helpful to absolute beginers… and thus I support them. Moreover I think that there’s a lot to say about the Mancandy and I wonder what will be in the tutorial ;-)
5-09-2007 at 3:07 pm
this dvd is going to be awesome, cant wait!
.andy
7-09-2007 at 12:20 am
Pity that the Samson quality was so poor. Would perhaps the MXL USB.006 be an option that provides USB support under Linux, but deliver the necessary sound quality.
I have been thinking about getting one of those and would love any real-world feedback under Linux.
7-09-2007 at 7:06 pm
Denise, I’m not 100% sure that the samson is that poor or if we just got a broken mic (bad luck) but it was linux compatible. I’m leaning now towards getting a normal studio projects mic for myself, and a freebob supported firewire preamp/mixer
olivS: well, I’m hoping in this case the video part will be justified; there’s a lot of animation on there, and I hope seeing it is half the fun :) it also is interesting because it takes the “FAQ” format into another medium… I hope. At least I hope it will be information people find useful and a bit fun to watch. I’ll try to make a preview clip in the coming days. Also the blend files will be on the DVD, with a nice CC or other open license for people to use.
Andy, thanks! I think yours will be better, but we’ll see ;)
7-09-2007 at 7:22 pm
hey bassam - cool that you are on board with the peach-team… at least as tutorial speaking artist ;-)
Can´t wait to order that DVD! What topics will it cover?
greetz from Munich!
Tom
12-09-2007 at 4:30 pm
Thanks Tom
I wouldn’t say I’m “on board” more that blender institute seems to have more than one project going on, and that we briefly intersected :) it was fun meeting the peach team, though.
The DVD isn’t intended to be comprehensive: I focus only on animation and rigging, and I don’t cover basics in either- it’s really intended as a guide to mancandy: basic rigging techniques aren’t covered (these are available in other books/tutorials/Wikidocs) rather some of the more hard to understand aspects of mancandy are disected. I also do a few animation demos: to show how the facial controls work, to show how you can do *really* floppy arm and leg animation, and to show how to do forward cycling on a curve, step by step, because it can be tricky.
the DVD also has 5-6 minutes of animation for your viewing pleasure, of course it also has all the blend files, for mancandy, the animations, the tutorials, and a couple of extra objects introduced for the tutorials/anims.
Bassam
PS I hope to get a quick “teaser” available soon
PSS everything is going to get released under some creative commons license or similar; in keeping with blender’s approach.
13-09-2007 at 12:07 pm
Dude…. It looks so great!!! GO FOR IT my friend
13-09-2007 at 1:23 pm
Liked what your doing looking forward to the dvd and seeing your future.
13-09-2007 at 4:20 pm
Hi!
Excelent news, nice interview! Good vibe!! Could you people, please tell us, when will that DVDs comeout ? (aproximatly)
Keep up the good work!
Tks
26-09-2007 at 7:13 am
Hello,
this project will sure be a success! Any updates?
-AntonG
28-09-2007 at 7:39 pm
yes! stay tuned….
11-10-2007 at 9:18 am
ok, will stay tuned for next X days, no problem :)
-AntonG
2-11-2007 at 6:44 am
Hello Bassam, you mentioned you had problems with Samson C01U. I guess on mac as well? Until I’ve found http://www.samsontech.com/main/misc.cfm?pageID=45 with ability to increase input meter, I was also disappointed with performance on my mac, now I’m satisfied with the C01U.
-AntonG
4-02-2008 at 7:55 am
We had a Samson C3 microphone. Quite a good lesson: never buy cheap mics, unless you like lots of noise!
Beejay