So I got inspired the other day while watching lightsaber movies on YouTube. I decided it would be cool if I could make a movie of myself with a real looking lightsaber. Well...after about a day of looking at stuff and downloading a trial version of Adobe After Effects (which is a really cool program by the way) I did manage to get a couple decent looking videos. I figured this could make a good Randomland article thing. I have no idea how to make them...again...though. So yeah, if there is a place to post these or something let me know.
Yes, yes there is!was. I made a Randomland YouTube channel a while ago. I just deleted it in an attempt to "migrate" it to the Google Apps account...which failed because it's not letting me reuse the "randomnets" moniker. I posted a question on the YouTube forum and will try again in a few hours. I'll let you know when it's back up...
Edit: it's back up. I PM'ed you the login details. If you have a problem with it, contact me or Nick.
Got my two videos uploaded to the Randomland YouTube Channel! Let me know what you think of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLfRb43W2hQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLfRb43W2hQ
Edit - Another video I just made. Somehow I just keep throwing these things out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHB3rb3P0dA
Haha nice. I especially like the last one. It even made Eve smile!
More then slightly cool. I think we may need to make a mini-movie featuring these photonic foils. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foil_%28fencing%29)
I've been trying to convince Kolby to get over here so we can film a short short fight sequence. I'd like to try this with two sabers clashing together and whatnot. Not sure how well I could pull it off, but it shouldn't be any more difficult than what I have done already. Alas, Kolby is busy with school and work so I am stuck here filming myself.
Speaking of filming...I don't suppose anyone has a video camera capable of recording at anything higher than the super crappy quality my camera takes do they? Figured I would ask. It's a pain in the rear trying to edit the tiny grainy video.
You can try my/Nick's old "big" camera, which does 640x480...but surely your big camera does at least that, right?
You could borrow my video camera, but it'll have noticably worse quality :-\
Yeah I have been using my big camera which does 640 x 480. I didn't think anyone had a better video camera than that but figured it couldn't hurt to ask.
My new camera technically does 720p, but your big sensor will look better, even at slightly lower resolutions...but you're welcome to try
You might look into some of the newer USB webcams. Some will do 1080 at a decent framerate. But, like z-man said, the big guy will do better with its (comparatively) large sensor and much, much better optics.
If I ever give in and spend some monies and get a T2i I will let you use it all you like. Something like that should match any video camera less then $2k. Perhaps even then it would be close. But that's for another thread. :)
I didn't think I'd mind the lack of video on my DSLR, yet I occasionally do wish it were there. If we ever do YouTube videos or something, a decent video camera would be nice. But in the long run, I must say, "whatever"; I am brimming with electronics.
Yup, I know.
Pretty soon even the kitchen microwave will have wifi and a camera built in, so you can upload your 'cook'en meh foodz dance' video to you tube, while you microwave your burrito.
But still, the prospect of some kind of high quality video device is tantalizing. Especially if it can do some motion detection and turn on some lights (Those thieving rodents won't get away this time!!!) Or if it will hook to a computer to do the same thing.
That and 4x4 craziness.
And the prospect of cool photon-foil (Magnetically contained plasma blade with crystal harmonics? MCPBCH?) videos.
You know, with this new found interest in video editing, I would almost pitch in some money for a good quality camera. Of course I would want to have a job before I went throwing my money into that sort of thing, but yeah. I think it would be fun to make some decent quality movies. There is no reason for it I suppose....but we can always put them on YouTube! Speaking of which, I think it is funny I got two comments on one of my videos within a day.
You did?! That marks the first Randomland YouTube comments ever! Congrats :) You somehow manage to make content that people actually view...so make more! :)
I was rather surprised myself! It's cool though. I don't expect to get many more but I suppose you never know. Oh, and I have another one in progress. Learned a few more tricks with that program and wanted to try them out. I will probably finish the sound tonight or tomorrow morning and post it!
And as a PS of sorts, one of the people that commented on the video asked us to join his friends list thing or something. Figured I would leave that decision up to you guys.
Like a YouTube befriending? I say go ahead and spread the randomness as far as you can, unless you find the person creepy or insulting.
We also have a Twitter account (@randomnets). Feel free to post to that, too. (BTW, YouTube upload are supposed to tweet, but it seems broken...)
I was kind if considering making a Facebook account. I generally avoid Facebook, but we could add little, like "like" buttons, and, like stuff.
I didn't know the videos had sound until last night. How did you do it? It's pretty sweet. I recommend adding them to a "playlist."
Oh, one last thing: I uploaded a montage of Francine gravel pit videos. It's nothing special, but I figured that was better than uploading a dozen individual clips. Let me know if you have suggestions. I might do more, too! Like Francine videos from Nick's backyard, go-karts, etc.
Oh the sound....
So I know there are about 50 better ways of doing this, but I chose the hard way because I guess I am difficult...and because the trial of Adobe Premiere was 1.2 gigs or something.
1- So what I did was load the video into VirtualDub and save the original audio into a file.
2 -Then I took that file and loaded it into Cool Edit for something to work from.
3- And then...going back to Virtual Dub I would go through the video frame by frame until I found the point at which a sound should start and throw one in. I got the sounds from a few nifty free sound packs I found on some site I can't remember the name of at the moment.
4 - After that I just saved the multitrack session into a single .mp3 file and loaded it into Virtual Dub.
This, of course, requires a massive amount of tiny tweaking and can get rather frustrating. But hey! Everyone, including one of the guys on YouTube, said the sound was great so I guess it doesn't really matter how it's done.
I feel another tutorial brewing :)
Yes!... another page that might actually get read. :) As opposed to the rest of the site.
Historically, the rice your ride and foam sabers pages have been the hardest hit. A tutorial on making said video effects should do just a well.
Go for it!
New video up. The description kind of explains what I did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDf929ppykQ
I know it's not perfect and the sound might not be quite right, but hey. I had to take a video of me doing my spin thingy and then a video of where I was without me in it and then mask off the stick where I didn't want it visible so you saw the blank video in those sections instead. If that made any sense. Anyways, another neat trick I learned.
There does seem to be an excessive amount of woo-woo sound during the twirls, but maybe that's just me. Anyway, that's pretty awesome!
Tutorial time :) we should definitely do something with this!
That's cool. We should film some dueling, some car chases through the woods and dress some midgets like bears!
Perhaps even set up a complete green-screen someplace....
For the woo-woo sounds, you might need some little generator that will create a sound based on relative velocity of the stick and length of swing. Generating different sounds based on weather the saber is traveling parallel with the camera or towards/away from the camera too.
Then you could have rather even sounds for slow movement and more of a bell-curve of intensity for faster swings.
Buts that all probably a bit much for now. And would take work.
Anyway. Keep it up!
Dude yeah! We should make some videos in the woods! That, and I really just want to waste some time up in the woods. But what should we make?
Recreate the speeder battle with gokarts?
That would be great if they worked!
Edit - And I somehow managed to make another video, outside this time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyuurbLjc2c
Don't think I am going to be able to come up with many more of these. At least not by myself.
Awesome! I like it. Now let's do two!
I need some good ideas of what to try and make. I'm all out. :(
Obviously you need a sparring partner. I suck, but would be willing to try.
We could also make an honest attempt at the "OH NO! The steering wheel fell off"....but that's easier said than done.
Both would be fun. Not sure how I could help with the steering wheel one but I watched it the other day and it actually made me laugh. So yeah, it is unnaturally funny. And Nick's green-screen idea = awesome...even if it's not exactly practical or useful!
As for the sparring thing, I don't think either of us need to be too great at this point. It's not like I am looking to make something "epic" at the moment. Mostly I just want to see if I can pull it off and make it look good. And the trial days are tick tick ticking away...I'm going to be sad when they run out.
Yeah, you should at least take some screenshots while you're using it that way you can make a Randomland page later. What other kinds of things can you do?
Add giant ants to the video for decapitation?
You could! As far as I have read, that program allows you to do just about any sort of visual effects you want. Rumor has it it's the stuff they use for effects and whatnot in movies and TV shows. Unfortunately I only know how to do lightsabers at the moment but I have seen some tutorials on how to do lightning and stuff. That could be cool.
And perhaps next time I get a movie to work on I will take some screenshots for tutorial making.
Edit - So I started a new video and have been taking screenshots so that I can maybe write a tutorial. On a side note, I seem to have found After Effects CS5 on Amazon from anywhere between $300 and $600. I still don't think I could justify that unless Randomland started making super awesome blockbuster quality movies or something. Which undoubtedly would be awesome but highly unlikely I'm thinking.
Double posting so as to avoid double editing...
Kolby came over this morning and we filmed a short fight sequence. I actually like it. Not perfect or anything and we could have done better but I lost an eyebrow in the process. In the middle of editing it right now.
I don't think there is any real convention about posting after your self. I do know that edited posts do not show up as new though. So they can slip under the radar as no emails get sent out and no RL-Crack (aka the red diamonds) shows up to alert people there is new content in a thread.
Also, how did you lose the eyebrow exactly? Are there some conventional special effects in this video?
Nothing too special in the video really. We had about two hours before he had to go to school so we just came up with something in about 20 minutes and practiced until we were ready to film it. I'm sure I am just going to do the regular lightsaber thing at this point....especially with how my head is feeling.
As for my eyebrow...we had practiced our little fight several dozen times, and as much as I might like to blame Kolby it just so happened that he moved a little too fast and I moved a little too slow. The tip of the pipe hit me in the brow and split it right open. I should probably go get stitches but I am too cheap and too lazy. I just used some of those wound closer strip things and taped it shut. Good thing it wasn't a real saber! :P
Post it on YouTube! :D Yet another prime examples for the not-yet-written Randomland series: "thank goodness for brows!"
I would like to see this video. It sounds like it'll be cool!
PS: isn't it sad that cost is actually a determining factor in whether or not you go to the doctor?
Half done with the video...we'll see what I get done today. And yes, it is very sad when you don't go to the doctor because it is too expensive, even when you know you should.
Fight scene completed. Not too bad. I was going to speed it up by about 5% or so but decided not to. Here is the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9iNzD1y6JY
Awsome! But you're sitting right here, so yeah. Make more! And post the video of Kolby and your bloody face :) that was pretty cool