Darren Rowse over at Problogger.net recently posed a challenge to his readers to put together a video explaining why they blog. I decided to participate, and here's my entry:
If you want to read more about my video, check this post.
If you have any questions about how I accomplished anything, feel free to leave a comment and I'll be sure to reply. Or you can just shower me with praise :D
Here are my previous video posts:
I Make Videos, You Can Too!
My First Real Video
Monday, March 31, 2008
Lost - Midseason Break: Week 2
Read my brief re-cap of the first 8 episodes of Lost's 4th Season.
Hey there Lost fans. Well, we're heading into week 2 of the Midseason Break. As of this moment, there are now only 25 days till Lost returns. There's lots of things you could be doing right now to fill up your new found time (or should that be Lost time?).
You could be watching whatever show is filling that time slot in your area.
You could be playing Lost: Via Domus (DON'T! It's not worth the time or money).
Or you could be doing something awesome like re-watching Lost from Season 1 all the way through to Season 4 Episode 8: Meet Kevin Johnson, having scheduled it all out so that the second that Meet Kevin Johnson finishes Episode 9: The Shape of Things to Come starts!
If you're not awesome enough to do something like that (heck, even I'm not that awesome), then in the meantime you can drop us a comment and let us know one reason why you think Lost is the greatest show of all time. And you DO think Lost is the greatest show of all time... right?!
Hey there Lost fans. Well, we're heading into week 2 of the Midseason Break. As of this moment, there are now only 25 days till Lost returns. There's lots of things you could be doing right now to fill up your new found time (or should that be Lost time?).
You could be watching whatever show is filling that time slot in your area.
You could be playing Lost: Via Domus (DON'T! It's not worth the time or money).
Or you could be doing something awesome like re-watching Lost from Season 1 all the way through to Season 4 Episode 8: Meet Kevin Johnson, having scheduled it all out so that the second that Meet Kevin Johnson finishes Episode 9: The Shape of Things to Come starts!
If you're not awesome enough to do something like that (heck, even I'm not that awesome), then in the meantime you can drop us a comment and let us know one reason why you think Lost is the greatest show of all time. And you DO think Lost is the greatest show of all time... right?!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
I Make Computer Graphics, You Can Too!
I make many things. As the last post attests to, I make videos (occasionally), but I also make computer graphics. In fact, I mentioned a computer graphics program and a couple of processes in the previous post.
I started out tinkering with computer graphics and photo manipulation back when I was in high school with a version of Paintshop Pro 7 I downloaded off Kazaa (yes, I know, not exactly a moral thing to do, but I was a kid, I wanted something, and I couldn't pay for it). I don't know why I didn't go with Photoshop, but that's not the point. I learned the basics from that program, and I still miss its interface from time to time :D
Anyway, after playing with that for a good while, and learning of the dangers (and immorality :D) of filesharing, I decided I needed a change. I had read on a forum somewhere about this thing called the Gimp that was free (and opensource), and decided to check it out. I absolutely hated it at first. It was nothing like Jasc's PSP 7, and I couldn't do what I wanted to do with it. I decided to stick with it just because I couldn't afford anything else, and started to relearn how to do things in the Gimp that I used to do in PSP 7.
Fast forward a few years to now, and I can say I'm definitely satisfied with the Gimp. I don't use all the features available, but I can usually get the results I desire. I've also added Inkscape (another free and opensource graphics program) to my arsenal to handle vector graphics.
As for things I've created with these programs, all the images used in the design of this blog (and my other blogs) were created with the Gimp and Inkscape. This banner I used for my travel blog (that hasn't been updated in a while :D) was made from a bunch of images that I chopped up and mashed together. And I made the backwards New Zealand sign in Inkscape. Here it is without the text:
I recently designed a banner for Cmae's blog:
And although they haven't decided to use it, I designed a web 2.0 logo for ...shot then.com (my first real attempt at a web 2.0 style logo):
And then this for another friend's avatar (that Cap'n text wasn't originally there):
Another thing made for a friend:
I made this just for fun:
This one was for a friend (the guy actually in the image :D He doesn't look like that in real life :D):
Oh, and that image I made for Valentine's Day:
All images
where applicable.
Haha, this turned into a gallery of sorts. I just wanted to show off some images I'm proud of.
So yeah. I make computer graphics, and you can too!
I started out tinkering with computer graphics and photo manipulation back when I was in high school with a version of Paintshop Pro 7 I downloaded off Kazaa (yes, I know, not exactly a moral thing to do, but I was a kid, I wanted something, and I couldn't pay for it). I don't know why I didn't go with Photoshop, but that's not the point. I learned the basics from that program, and I still miss its interface from time to time :D
Anyway, after playing with that for a good while, and learning of the dangers (and immorality :D) of filesharing, I decided I needed a change. I had read on a forum somewhere about this thing called the Gimp that was free (and opensource), and decided to check it out. I absolutely hated it at first. It was nothing like Jasc's PSP 7, and I couldn't do what I wanted to do with it. I decided to stick with it just because I couldn't afford anything else, and started to relearn how to do things in the Gimp that I used to do in PSP 7.
Fast forward a few years to now, and I can say I'm definitely satisfied with the Gimp. I don't use all the features available, but I can usually get the results I desire. I've also added Inkscape (another free and opensource graphics program) to my arsenal to handle vector graphics.
As for things I've created with these programs, all the images used in the design of this blog (and my other blogs) were created with the Gimp and Inkscape. This banner I used for my travel blog (that hasn't been updated in a while :D) was made from a bunch of images that I chopped up and mashed together. And I made the backwards New Zealand sign in Inkscape. Here it is without the text:
I recently designed a banner for Cmae's blog:
And although they haven't decided to use it, I designed a web 2.0 logo for ...shot then.com (my first real attempt at a web 2.0 style logo):
I made this for a friend:
Then there's my avatar:
And then this for another friend's avatar (that Cap'n text wasn't originally there):
Made this for another friend:
Another thing made for a friend:
I made this just for fun:
This one was for a friend (the guy actually in the image :D He doesn't look like that in real life :D):
Oh, and that image I made for Valentine's Day:
All images
where applicable.Haha, this turned into a gallery of sorts. I just wanted to show off some images I'm proud of.
So yeah. I make computer graphics, and you can too!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
I Make Videos, You Can Too!
Yes I do. Well, I've only made two so far, this one I'm about to post, and one I posted about a while ago.
Technically, with this video and the previous one, all I've done is animation and video editing. I haven't actually shot any footage. The main reason for that is because I haven't got a video camera (video mode on my kodak easyshare doesn't count), and I haven't got any good video editing software (Windows Movie Maker, while handy, is crap). Plus my hardware isn't exactly top notch either.
So I would love to write, direct, produce, film and edit something, and maybe I will. Probably not in the recent future, though :D
But anyway, here's the video:
Cactus Freek asked me how I made it, so here's a brief tutorial:
First off, I took photos of everything and opened them up in the Gimp, cut around them to remove the background (a LONG process, by the way), and scaled them accordingly. That's basically all the prep.
Now comes the animation. With this I worked backwards. I started with the final image of everything unpacked by moving all the items to where I wanted them to be, and saved it as a jpeg. Then I continued working backwards, moving and rotating each item bit by bit towards the envelope, saving to a different image after each move (100, 099, 098, etc).
After the main animation was done, I just reopened the first and last frames, added some text, and that was it for the all the frames of the animation. In total, there were 59 frames.
It was then time to put all the frames together in Windows Media Maker. I know there are other tools better suited to this, but it was about 9 or 10 pm by this point, and I needed to get it done before the day was over. So I imported them, threw them in the storyboard, changed the length of time each frame is displayed, added some audio, and exported the wmv. Upped it to Youtube (which took ages because I exceeded my monthly bandwidth limit so it's shaped to 128k speeds), and what appeared above was the final product.
Technically, with this video and the previous one, all I've done is animation and video editing. I haven't actually shot any footage. The main reason for that is because I haven't got a video camera (video mode on my kodak easyshare doesn't count), and I haven't got any good video editing software (Windows Movie Maker, while handy, is crap). Plus my hardware isn't exactly top notch either.
So I would love to write, direct, produce, film and edit something, and maybe I will. Probably not in the recent future, though :D
But anyway, here's the video:
Cactus Freek asked me how I made it, so here's a brief tutorial:
First off, I took photos of everything and opened them up in the Gimp, cut around them to remove the background (a LONG process, by the way), and scaled them accordingly. That's basically all the prep.
Now comes the animation. With this I worked backwards. I started with the final image of everything unpacked by moving all the items to where I wanted them to be, and saved it as a jpeg. Then I continued working backwards, moving and rotating each item bit by bit towards the envelope, saving to a different image after each move (100, 099, 098, etc).
After the main animation was done, I just reopened the first and last frames, added some text, and that was it for the all the frames of the animation. In total, there were 59 frames.
It was then time to put all the frames together in Windows Media Maker. I know there are other tools better suited to this, but it was about 9 or 10 pm by this point, and I needed to get it done before the day was over. So I imported them, threw them in the storyboard, changed the length of time each frame is displayed, added some audio, and exported the wmv. Upped it to Youtube (which took ages because I exceeded my monthly bandwidth limit so it's shaped to 128k speeds), and what appeared above was the final product.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
More David Dallas
What can I say? Dude is just releasing crazy content right now, and you'd be a fool not to check it out. Right now over on his blog he's releasing some remixes of some Frontline stuff, and as usual it's mean as.
Just as a little taster, here's the first song from the remixes (peep the post for the d/l link):
So go ahead an check it out. I also believe you can subscribe to his podcast and get all the remixes and everything via that, so check the link over on the blog.
Just as a little taster, here's the first song from the remixes (peep the post for the d/l link):
So go ahead an check it out. I also believe you can subscribe to his podcast and get all the remixes and everything via that, so check the link over on the blog.
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