The site of motion graphics artist and visualist Sean Siegler.
In motion.
I needed to replace a screen background for the Aeon Nox 3 skin for the new XBMC 11 Eden release. Well, I didn’t need too, but I didn’t like the options presented. Anyhow, using the Xplode plug-in for C4D and dynamics, I was able to create this kind Tron/Superman’s Fortress of Solitude landcape. The TV model comes from The Pixel Lab and is one of their freebie models.
I recently purchased the Xplode plugin for Cinema 4D and have been playing with it quite a bit. This is the result of Xploded a large cube right down the middle, applying dynamics to the pieces and then letting them fall on carefully placed plates in order to create a rocky valley. I also scattered a bunch of smaller Xploded bits around to add in more random rocks. Who knows, maybe I’ll make a tutorial on how I did it.
Still having fun with the DSLR and the intervalometer.
And I snuck in some titles done in a Video Copilot style.
I have been trying figure out how best to deal with the footage shot on my Canon HG21 video camera. It is in the AVCHD codec, which is pretty heavy to deal with for most computers, and quite honestly, I wasn’t sure how best to “capture” the footage.
After a few trials and mostly errors, I found a video online which seemed to help.
Originally I was trying to bring it in thru Final Cut Express 4, which seemed to work before I wiped my system and did a re-install. Now it just gives me some error and won’t bring the clips into he editor (yet still allows me to video them).
Anyhow, seeing as how the camera is hard drive based, I kind of figured out that there is no “capturing” per se. The camera mounts like any other external drive and you just open the folder containing the .MTS files and drag n drop them on to your system!
With the newer Adobe CS4 software, you can play directly with the .MTS files (in After Effects & Premiere and apparently Encore), although because of the AVCHD codec, they are pretty clunky on playback (although I AM doing this on a Mac Book Pro laptop).
Using Adobe’s Media Encoder, I am now converting them into the Apple Intermediate Codec. This drops the file size way way down and they still look fabbo and are now much more manageable.
I assume I can use them as proxy files if I really wanted to, although I don’t have much experience using proxies.
Anyhow – this video from Adobe was a big help.
http://www.mbsdirect.com/current/News/Video-Production-News/adobe-cs4-production-premium.html
So far this year it is looking like it is going to be a good year for me and the visual stuff.
I have mixed live three times this year already, have another set booked next month, a possible bi-monthly VJ “residency” of sorts at a local club and I am going to Boulder, Co to do a live performance with my great friend mr. projectile at the Communikey Festival of Electronic Arts.
The set with mr. projectile is what I am really excited about. We are going to really try and get something very well meshed together, something complimentary and something that flows.
He is going to be doing a mainly hardware live set which will flow into a set of some of his newer stuff.
I am planing on using a combo of video clips and quartz compositions, all synced to him midi clock – which I have never done before – so there is a learning curve to get over. But I think I should be able to get over it. I am pretty much spending my after-work hours, slaving over a hot processor, trying to eek out new and purty visuals.
The website for the festival reminds me, I need a new photo of myself and I really need to re-write my bio-thingie. It reads like a pamphlet on how to suck.
Last month I got the chance to VJ for the 1st night of a low-fi, 8-bit-ish music kind of night known as Duty Cycle. It is quite different music than I usually mix too (which lately, due to the nature of San Francisco, has been breaks and dub step). So I wasn’t exactly sure how to pull it off. I didn’t have to time to make a whole new slew of clips so I dug into VDMX and tried various effects until I was able to low-fi my clips and get things a bit more pixellated and vectory. In the end it worked out rather nice and I was quite pleased with the night.
It is a testament to the power of VDMX that i was able to get my stuff, which I like to think is quite high-fi and crisp and nice looking, into something much more basic and low-tech looking, while still retaining a very high quality look.
VJing @ Duty Cycle
A while back, a friend of mine and I had the idea of taking the chunk from the movie “Back To The Future” where Marvin Berry calls his cousin “Chuck” to tell him he may have found that “new” sound he was looking for, and replace the “Johnny Be Good” song with other tracks.
So that is what we did. Completly pointless and I spent an entire sunday in front of my computer doing it, but here are the results. One version I did a massive re-edit of the BTTF sequence to go with my edited version of the Loverboy song “Workin’ For The Weekend”. The other version, I used the Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows”, and although I didn’t edit the footage, I did highly trip it out.
Back To Tomorrow:
Back To The Weekend:
These are also up on YouTube but the quality is pretty crap on one of em, which is why I have made my own flv’s. Back To The Weekend and Back To Tomorrow.
*Ok. Two more things. One is that I just noticed a link on the vids on YouTube to watch them in “High Quality”, and I must say, it looks really good! Nice one!
The other thing is, I have NO idea why I linked the words “the Beatles” to the Beatles website. Like anyone doesn’t know who the Beatles are.
So recently I did some work for Om Records.
Ok. Recently is a bit of a stretch I guess. It was over two months ago now.
The point being that I did some stuff for them. Namely two looping DVD’s to be played during live performances by Mike Monday and Mark Farina.
To be perfectly honest, I was not wild about the end product. It was a rather crunched time frame to create two looping DVDs of mostly original and branded content.
Anyhow, here are two clips from the loops:
Mushroom Jazz.
And apparently I cannot find the uncompressed version of this one, so the flv is coming from and already compressed Quicktime in h.264.
Hence the quality.
Mike Monday.
Someday I might even put these up as .m4v, so they can be viewed on things such as the iPhione and the iRaq. But then again, Apple could adopt Flash like the rest of the universe and save me some trouble.
Despite the lack of activity around here, I have been busy.
Actually, maybe THAT is why there has been little blog activity.
However, I have been doing stuff and even have a few videos to toss up here.
Admittedly, the nasty cold rain today is keeping me inside, and forcing me to do things I have been putting off, like posting pointless crap to the interweb tubes. It is a series of tubes, you know.
