Got my presentation worked out for the Trenton Computer Festival (http://www.tcf-nj.org/web/) tomorrow. It looks ugly, but the content of the presentation should outweigh the aesthetic of the slides:
This was fun. I spent the day perfecting a way to automate a line on a map in Cinelerra. You might think that was a somewhat pedantic exercise, but I think the image I used was very pretty and that the moving line, ala Raiders of the Lost Ark, came out great. What would make it even better would be to use an ancient map of some sort.
Update 2009/04/07 For some reason, this video is not playing as embedded on this page. Please visit my crazed mule profile on Vimeo to view.
Thanks! *** end update ***
Using Gimp to Spice Things Up I created the graphics in Gimp: -the line representing the route and its shadow -the circle representing the route's start -the star representing the route's end
The circle and the star were created using Gfig, the Gimp add-on utility that let's you create geometric shapes. Also note that the shadow of the line matches the position of the light source in the photo of the globe.
Note that the circle and the star are not flat, 2D creations, but they look like stickers pasted on the side of the globe. I acheived that effect by using Gimp's Perspective and Shear tools. Here's a resource that discusses Perspective in Gimp: http://gimp-university.blogspot.com/2008/03/perspective-and-layers.html
I created four images to import in Cinelerra: 1) globe with no Gimp object overlays 2) globe with just the circle as start of route 3) globe with the circle and the line 4) globe with the circle, line and star representing the full trip
Assembling the Images in Cinelerra The tracks in Cinelerra looked like this: Top Video Track image 1 (plain globe) at beginning of timeline and image 4 (all objects) at end of timeline Bottom Video Track image 2 (globe and circle) and image 3 (globe, circle and line)
Gradient Created for Line's Movement The key to the movement of the route was a screen wipe that travelled from the upper left corner of the screen to the lower right, mimicking the direction of the line's travel. Since Cinelerra does not have a built in wipe that moves in this direction, I had to create my own gradient using Gimp and plop it in /usr/local/lib/cinelerra/shapewipe. I then used that gradient in the Shape Wipe video transition tool:
In the timeline picture above, you can see the Shape Wipe transition effect that I used between the image of the map with the circle and the image of the map with the circle and the line.
I love the way this turned out, because it looks a s*1tload better than most of the other animated routes I've seen out there. In fact, it blows away the lame route create with Photoshop and After Effects that I read about in VideoMaker magazine this month. http://www.videomaker.com/article/14206/
"Mules are not really stubborn. They can seem lazy because they will not put themselves in danger. A horse can be worked until it drops, but not so with a mule. The "stubborn" streak is just the mule's way of telling humans that things are not right. Mules are very intelligent and it is not a good idea to abuse a mule. They will do their best for their owner, with the utmost patience." About Mules
