Tony and I have now finished creating the graphics and video for the installation.
Using the same technique previously demonstrated I designed the required animations freehand and gave them to Tony to be digitally coloured. I then started work on creating the congratulatory videos using Adobe's After Effects software.
As a group we decided on making the videos appear as if they were being shown via a projector; the first action I took was to create this effect.
I asked Tony to create a black frame in photoshop and placed this on the top layer of every video. I then used a number of filters such as tint and grain and applied them to an adjustment layer which I used on all animation layers beneath the frame.
To generate the flickering effect that projectors have, the opacity of a plain grey layer oscillates on a timer. This effect had to be lessened on the darker videos as the effect was amplified by the contrast between the dark and light layers and it became overbearing.
To complete the feel and texture of projected film I used Adobe Photoshop to create stylised black scratches on a transparent background and had them appear at just one frame at a time in random patterns and combinations.
Once the projector effect had been created I imported the images for each video and sequenced the automation. I then imported the audio files that James H-W provided me with and arranged them within the video, I asked him to create several separate sounds, a projector turning on, the projector running, the projector turning off and film burning, music for each scenario, and a few foley sounds such as an owl hooting and a snake hissing. Once I had arranged the audio to match the images I rendered the videos to the appropriate resolution.
The initial quality of the videos was extremely high so I asked to Tony to import them into Final Cut and render them to the same quality as all the videos that he had already created using that software.
I will be posting the videos on this blog once they have been uploaded onto YouTube.
Once the videos were completed, James Medd asked me to create a simple MaxMSP patch that would play the videos on the large display screen upon receiving a bang from the main patch. I used the ‘movie’ object as the basis of this patch.
After testing the whole MaxMSP program with all the video Tony and I have created we have discovered that we need to make some decisions on which media we are to include in the final patch. As a group we will be investigating all our potential options over the next few days.
The videos are looking great. If you're still having problems with the amount of processing needed you could try some of the following:
ReplyDelete1) Use the 'quality' message to reduce the amount of redraw frames that are needed (check out the help reference). This might work quite well considering the old-fashioned projector effect. Reducing the frame rate in this way might actually make things look more old-fashioned.
2) Render the videos down to a lower resolution. You could have them just appearing smaller on the big screen, perhaps surrounded by a picture/window frame? You could do this by using the imovie object in a sub-patcher.
3) Try using a jit.qt.movie object through jit.gl.slab. With the colour mode which Tadej suggested, this would optimise your use of the computer's processor.
Thanks for the advice, we'll be looking at all available options so it's much appreciated!
ReplyDeleteSome screen shots of the process would have been useful, but appreciate you are pushed for time. Try and ensure the videos aren't too over the top with the effects.
ReplyDelete