Various TOTEM posts 2001 - 2003

[Bob Zimmerman]

Jeb Bush offered that guy 3 months free at the beach!! He should take that offer...

[Don Bloom]

To put this to rest, as I was in my car yesterday and while making a 40 mile trip home, on the Chicago highway system during rush hour, after meeting with a client, I was listening to the radio and interviews, interviewers, even most of the Cubs players they talked too agreed that the fan going for the ball did not lose the game for them. Some people though are just plain STUPID! The poor guy (a lifeling Cubs fan BTW) had TV and radio stations camped outside of his house, had to disconnect his phone by 8AM because of the calls, has news helicopters flying over his house and had to have police protection. He couldn't go to work, couldn't leave his house.
I doubt that he will be able to for a couple of days for fear that some overzealous "fan" would come and try to do bodily harm.

FOLKS, wake up, I too am a long suffering fan, but get real, more importantly, GET A LIFE.
He did NOT lose the game, the Cubs did. plain and simple.

Oh well, relax Don. I just hate to see something like a baseball game take on more importance than other events of the day and to place blame on anyone other than who it really should goto is ridiculous.
OK back to video!
Don

[James Emory]

Thanks Mike. I only need 50 and you are correct about quantity discounts. One place that does exactly what I need starts with a minimum of 2500 units and others at 500 units. Where can I find the Neato brand?

[Heath McKnight]

Well, thanks to a lot of people all over the place, my film is FINALLY on DVD/VHS! SKYE FALLING had quite an adventurous journey over the past six or so years, and now it's out!

You can find out details and everything here:

http://www.mpsdigital.com

THANKS AGAIN to everyone out there for your help and support!

heath

[Zac Stein]

Hey all,

I was just looking for information and resources on the process of mapping a 3d character onto a live person, alla Golem from the two towers.

We have a shoot and if possible would like to use a 3d character rather than a person in a costume. And then somehow map our 3d modelled character (done in 3dsmax) onto this person and just tweek the animation from there.

Is this possible, what is required, any resources to check out?

Thanks in advance.

Zac

[Bryan Mitchell]

I myself like Lightwave, but if you have seen many making of videos, you always see the actors with little balls all over their body, and the computer records their XYZ positions. I dont see how you could do it any other way as far as 3d mapping goes. The only other way to map it would be to do a frame by frame 2d rotoscope type comparison, and I would imagine that would take forever.

I would guess the best way to do it, would be to use a program that lets you view the movie in the background, and then animate the character on top of it. I don't know if 3ds will let you do this. Also, since the actor is in the original film, you would have to have your character larger than him from every angle you use. (ex, you couldn't make him a skeleton)

[Stephen Schleicher]

Some of you may be aware of the many After Effects tutorials I have been writing over the years on sites like Creative Mac, Digital Producer, Digital Animators, etc.

For those of you who are educators and use my material in your motion graphics, animation, or video courses (even as a suggested reading/text), I am asking for some assistance.

If you have found my tutorials and exercises valuable and of some worth to your students, could you send me a brief e-mail (off list) telling me who you are, where you teach, the course(s) you teach, and the usual course size?

Also, do you feel a book covering this matter (ala the great Meyer's book) would be something you would use as a text, even if it wasn't published by a traditional text book company (like focal press, and Thompson/Wadsworth)?

It would help me tremendously in the tenure process I am currently going through at the university that I teach at. Basically it will help justify that these writings have educational value.

For those of you who are not educators, please don't feel left out. If you would like to drop a similar e-mail that would be excellent too and of great help.

Thanks for your time and thanks for assisting me in this matter.

Stephen Schleicher
schleicher@mindspring.com
www.mindspring.com/~schleicher

[Michael Wisniewski]

Kill Bill Study Guide

[Federico Dib]

4 years ago, when I lived in Venezuela, all the DVD I watched were from the US.

Now I´m living in Spain, after 3 years I finally got me a DVD player... but now I keep finding very annoying features on the DVD, I never saw on US DVD´s. For example:

- cheap menus for big time studio movies.

- Annoying unskipabble (spell?) trailers that you have to watch before you get to the menu. And NO, there´s no way to skip the track.. except watching them at 12X or whatever.

- Very long (unskippable) Distribution company presentation.

- Lack of extras on rented DVD´s. (or no extras at all).

- Cruel extra options on rented DVD´s. For Example the "Gangs of New York" extra... just plays an animation that tell´s you "BUY THE HOME EDITION TO SEE THE EXTRAS".

This is not on Low Budget Indie Distribution DVD´s. This is on big studio Movies also.


So the question is this normal trend in these days worldwide, or just a Spanish thing? Maybe Europe?

[Michael Wisniewski]

I've encountered stuff like that here in NYC.

Another item to add, is ONLY having the full screen version available

[Alex Taylor]

I stumbled across this review of Premiere 4.0 just now, it's pretty interesting to see how far we've come!

Some gems:

Installation of Premiere either with the supplied five high density floppy disks or CD-ROM is explained very clearly in the Getting Started manual.

A dazzling array of 61 video effects Transitions is available. A few are seen in the Transition window. When the window is active, as shown in the Screen Shot, all the transition icons are continuously animated showing just what the transitions looks like!

The Movie Analysis feature, which gives all the details of the construction of a movie, is somewhat pessimistic, in my opinion. It over emphasises frames dropped during capturing. One animation video captured from tape had no dropped frames according to QuickFlix's Movie Get Info. Yet, Premiere announced, "This movie appears to have DROPPED FRAMES," and had a long listing of frame groupings each with the number of frames and duration.

One thing that impressed me with the professional level of Premiere is the inclusion of a simulated video waveform monitor and vector scope. These instruments are found only in television broadcast and post-production facilities. They are now available to anyone with Premiere.

And, of course, no nostalgic computer article would be complete without system requirements!

System requirements:

Macintosh 68020 processor or higher with 4 MB of RAM
or Power Macintosh with 6 MB of RAM
80 MB hard drive
QuickTime v1.6 or higher
Apple System Software v7 or higher.

System recommendations:
Macintosh 68040 or Power Macintosh
16 MB of RAM for full screen video
500 MB hard drive for full screen video
Video digitizing board that produces QuickTime movies
Color monitor with 24-bit video display card
CD-ROM drive.

[K. Forman]

sniff... sniff... I miss the good ol' days! I remember starting off with either 4 or 4.5, and don't recall ever seeing a vectorscope or waveform. I'm sure I would have noticed something like that...

[Alex Taylor]

I think he might mean the display in the Levels filter or something.

My favourite part is when he accuses Premier of being pessimistic!

[K. Forman]

I had written a screenplay, and used a place I remembered from years ago as the primary location. Well, as all things change eventually, my ideal location has grown, leaving it less than ideal.
So now, I am left trying to find a gas station/ convenience store, located in the middle of nowhere. Production is only a few months away.

Anyone have any ideas on how to do this? I could just get in the truckster and drive around Florida, but I think that would turn into a logistical nightmare. Any and all Floridians are welcome to shout out...

[Phil Reams]

How about somthing like the gas station at the intersection of US 441 and State Road 60 in a town (2 buildings is a town?) called Yeehaw Junction? It's about 30 miles to the East of Vero Beach on the East Coast.

I'm going through there this weekend, I'll snap a pic and post it on my site for you.

I travel a lot--if I think of any others or come across somthing, I'll pass it along.

How's the plans going for your project in March?

-Phil