Tpoic: making a wishlist for a machinima viewer/dropdown menu for excisting viewers.
MachinimaMondays whispers: Checking inventory items...
MachinimaMondays: Type a message you want to send to your subscribers on channel 95 (eg. /95 my message)
MachinimaMondays: Virtual Montmartre (154,169,31)
MachinimaMondays meeting at 1 pm - needs your input!! we are hosting machinima and trying to make wishes come true! Discussing a machinima menu in Second Life viewers; what would be your ultimate application or option? What would make your machinima life better? Come on over and discuss it with us!
NikoKito Aries: hello good night
Chantal Harvey: hello
NikoKito Aries: hi Chantal
Chantal Harvey: heyas!
Chantal Harvey: welcome
NikoKito Aries: welcome Bubblepop
Bubblepop Unplugged: hello!
Chantal Harvey: hi bubble!
Chantal Harvey: welcome
Bubblepop Unplugged: chantal im close to being able to broadcast and do audio video soundeffects anounce all at once, one take.
Chantal Harvey: ho
Bubblepop Unplugged: very close
Bubblepop Unplugged: hope to talk to you about that and other stuff someday
Chantal Harvey: ok, there is room for that today, plenty
NikoKito Aries: welcome Pixie
Pixie Rain: thank you
Bubblepop Unplugged: i do have a quick question though
Bubblepop Unplugged: you ever try or hear of controling audio with foot pedals?
Chantal Harvey: sure, shoot
Bubblepop Unplugged: the volume
Chantal Harvey: woo no i havent
Bubblepop Unplugged: if im controlling sound effects with one hand, cam with the other, wich i almost mastered....
Chantal Harvey: hi gabe, welcome
Bubblepop Unplugged: ... i was thinking maybe footpedals to control volume. 1 for each soundcard/player
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: Heeeeey!
핕리: omg gabe i didnt know u meant now
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: LAWLLLLLLL
Chantal Harvey: welcome, MinDBlinD, grab a seat
Chantal Harvey: I was wondering, can all hear voice?
Bubblepop Unplugged: i like both voice AND text, makes it more exciting
At this point, in voice, Chantal Harvey announces sponsorship for the 2012 contest 48 Hour Film Project Machinima; 4000 dollars prize money and a big chance of the winning film going to not only Filmapalooza, but also to Cannes.
Pixie Rain: That should excite Tutsy enough to enter! I'll tell him tomorrow!
Chantal and Michelle then talked about viewer 1 and viewer 2, and why it now really is time for machinima people to move to the new viewers. Soon the 1-viewers will not be supported anymore, so we best prepare ourselves and get on with it.
A huge advantage is the better framerate and the light settings, amongst many other improved things. - so apart from having to move over soon anyway, this should be a good reason to do it now. Machinima will improve, we need to move on.
After initially resenting viewer 2, I found that it took me 2 days to get used to the new viewer, and to my own surprise do not want to go back to my beloved old viewer 1. It is a learning curve, but well worth it. Now, who would not wish for better framerates...?
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
We then moved on to todays topic: a machinima wishlist.
Today, sadly, Kirstens viewer was abandoned - the crowdfunder halted at 28%, Lee starts a rl job, and our beloved machinima viewer is gone. :-(
Several coders/viewers have now come to me and talked about implementing a machinima menu, or even developing a new machinima viewer. And you know? MachinimaMondays is an excellent platform for collecting ideas. We agreed to collect these and make a wish list.
Mary Wickentower wish list: machinimatographewrs windlight bundle - expansive set of windlights and special effects including but not limited to Torly's windlights
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: yus
Pixie Rain: the new "Tex Refresh" option in FS 3 is fabulous
Ambrosia Lanley: one viewer for machinima
MinDBlinD Setsuko: a machinima dedicated viewer will be very useful
Ambrosia Lanley: stop all the applications that are not needed to reduce lag and smoother filming
Bubblepop Unplugged: saving every single setting so i jumop right back into filming after a crash
Ambrosia Lanley: derender is good
Pixie Rain: derender is essential for me
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: it's possible to make a viewer where all settings persist between logins
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: that's very easy
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: every setting has "persist" yes or no, we can just set 'em all to persist
Bubblepop Unplugged: well... would a higher quality voice audio possible? would save lots of time in some cases. Adjustible audio would be useful, even high tones, noise reduction, bass sliders?
Ambrosia Lanley: for filming we dont need an external browers cookies java scripts plugins web proxy
MinDBlinD Setsuko: i don't know how.. but could be nice have a function to record a camera movement track
LaPiscean Liberty: yes macro settings
Bubblepop Unplugged: a search engine that links me to props and animations with a slurl with 100% accuracy.
Mary Wickentower: as that controls/HUDS visable to us but not on film to the list chant - a coder migth be able to figure out a way
Fuschia Nightfire: yes , that would be very helpful
Chantal Harvey: having text and huds outside the window-option would be more than useful, it was suggested over a year ago by Toxic Menges. Or just a way to operate huds without them showing in the film.
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: two views? one with UI, one without UI
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: in theory it's possible, but i don't know if you would want to... it's the equivalent of running two viewers, you take a loss in framerateGᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: but there might be a creative way around it
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: how does fraps handle dual monitors?
LaPiscean Liberty: not possible to take outside the portal
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: that's possible yus
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: yeah, that's definitely possible
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: UI on one monitor, world view on the other
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: that would be pimp
Mary Wickentower: fraps records the ACTIVE window
Mary Wickentower: there is a clunky workaround for that
LaPiscean Liberty: if they did, it would be like Gabe said
LaPiscean Liberty: same as 2 viewers
Ambrosia Lanley: two avatars - two viewers
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: but if you have world view on one screen, UI on the other, that's good
LaPiscean Liberty: but perhaps you could log twice and have your avatar control the other avatars functions
Bubblepop Unplugged: i never tried it, its why i was asking if its been done
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: scripted camera tracking seems like the most obvious feature it would have
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: set your path and timing between points
Bubblepop Unplugged: i do a dual monitor, livestream/procaster, rhapsody to play music, VLC to play sound effects, recording/sound/voice all at once
LaPiscean Liberty: or perhaps a better text client like metabolt, that has more function for your avatar
Bubblepop Unplugged: im also using that cam hud that guy had here. i need to find out where to get more
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: it's possible - i can show you my scripted camera work
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: want to see a video i did using that
[13:28] Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: all motion is scripted
http://www.olpglobalkids.org/2011/12/lts_food_justice_show_full_vid.html
only the first 30 seconds -- the rest is not by me
Pixie Rain: very good
Mary Wickentower: workaround to using huds and settings in fraps that do not appear in film- Some huds and settings will still work, even tho they are not visable , so it you track where they are on the screen, before you click F1, you can click on those buttons, even thos they are not visable - they are still THERE
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: all the SL camera movement there is scripted
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: but if there was camera tracking interface in the viewer, that would be awesome
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: i have my own scripted gadget for doing that
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: but i'd love to see it part of the UI
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: Kinnect
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: it's Kinnect
Ambrosia Lanley: its open source so alot of hacks are being made for sl
Bubblepop Unplugged: where can i find that one hud someone had here? the StatiCam v1.1 PRO ?
Ambrosia Lanley: it will but limited only by the hacks made so far with body movement so far
Mary Wickentower: you can combine some expressions in the free adorkable HUD
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: i have something called BijoCam, it's pretty good, but still clunky
Bubblepop Unplugged: he had it here and was working on it, sold them for whatever we wanted. i think you got one didnt you chantal? Paramparam Papp!
Bubblepop Unplugged: i just have that one. and for this live broadcasing, im controling cam angles with left hand on keyboard.
Ambrosia Lanley: yea all pretty much the same
Mary Wickentower: you can also switch back and forth between hair bases to get eyebrow expressions
Ambrosia Lanley: smile frown ect. a drop down menu with basic emotions/animations would be good
Ambrosia Lanley: needs to be a smooth transition from one emotion to another
Mary Wickentower: I collect hair bases just so I can get different eyebrow raises frowns etc moving from one to the other
Ambrosia Lanley: crazy talk - it uses the mouse to make the face move
Arm Strom: dont look at me :-/
Ambrosia Lanley: called puppetiteir
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: also easy to do
Arm Strom: :-)
Ambrosia Lanley: crazy talk 6
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: but crazytalk can only be used on static images
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: i wish it could be used on captured footage
Mary Wickentower: what would the software DREAM package(s) be to have to machinima if money was no problem ?
Michelle Leckrone: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/aDORKable-Poses-Emoter-HUD/1081190
Mary Wickentower: exterior software
Mary Wickentower: for productions
Mary Wickentower: and fine tuning
Mary Wickentower: like premiere etc
Ambrosia Lanley: ctrl alt left mous ebutton will control the eyes
Mary Wickentower: we need a difinitive list of all this good info
Michelle Leckrone: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/AnyPose-Expression/2613652
darx Taurus: people talks before about Kinect, have you seen this experimental video: http://www.nsl.tuis.ac.jp/xoops/modules/x_movie/x_movie_view.php?cid=2&lid=33
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: framerate is way better in the 2 based viewers! framerate should be the number one priority for machinima artists
Mary Wickentower: grumbles about bloody "new" viewer
Mary Wickentower: Im miss dyslexic and monofixator eyes - new viewer makes me crazy
Michelle Leckrone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9ujnzMPBoc&feature=channel_video_title
Chantal Harvey: I will copy paste this chat for references in my blog, tonight.
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: can i say the f word just to spice things up?
Fuschia Nightfire: lol
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: gotferdommen
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: i'm sure i spelled that wrong
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: LAWLLLLLLL
Mary Wickentower: rofl
Bubblepop Unplugged: awsom, please. how do i say 'you love donkeys" in dutch? - and i'll start using it in the usa
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: ijk how van donkeys
Chantal Harvey: ik hou van ezels
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: i was close
Mary Wickentower: there is a funny funny film where a prim & proper librian looking Dutch woman swears in dutch and translates it - it is funnay as
LaPiscean Liberty: As my Grandma would say, It;s all Dutch to me
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: As my grandma would say, "pass the dutchie on the left hand side"
Chantal Harvey: http://www.nsl.tuis.ac.jp/xoops/modules/x_movie/x_movie_view.php?cid=2&lid=33
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: that video is amazing
Pixie Rain: very interesting, yes
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: a kinect costs about $150
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: but worth it
LaPiscean Liberty: Ive had GOM player for yrs, but didnt know they offered a encoder now
Chantal Harvey: def, if i knew i could use it
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: would Glyph Graves share the code?
darx Taurus: it's open source, but you can move avatar only in your screen, because there is no LL server support
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: well you could host the kinect support on your own server
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: use HTTP to transmit the data
LaPiscean Liberty: that would require some pretty good bandwith to http the movement to LL
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: you could bypass LL
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: the avatars have an attachment to send the data to your server, and the machinimatographer picks up the data through their viewer
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: that would take a long time to make tho
Mary Wickentower: does ENCODER work with SL?
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: aside from better facial animations, that is the most difficult thign that has been mentioned today
Bubblepop Unplugged: wich type of media streams into SL again? i forgot
LaPiscean Liberty: Mpeg, MP4, MOV, MP3, SDP
LaPiscean Liberty: VOB is low enough resolution
LaPiscean Liberty: MP2
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: synching cameras in the next FS viewer? View angle numbers
Mary Wickentower: is ther a definative list anywhere of what you should have externeral to SL (software) & internal to SL to produce kicking films (if money was no object) ?
Pixie Rain: I like the idea of "preferences profile settings" ....1) High lag sims 2) Ultra 2) Depth of Field etc
Pixie Rain: so I call up the profile, not have to re-do it each time
Pixie Rain: 10 options, create your own presets, and an option to save them, like windlight settings now
darx Taurus: i have looked that DOF flickering strange way..maybe its just my viewer fault..have somebody experience?
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: definitely can customize all menus
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: definitely
Pixie Rain: and it automatically sets preferences to pre-defined graphics
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: yeah you can create new presets
Pixie Rain: exactly
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: right now it's only minimal --> ultra
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: those four
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: but you could make new ones
Gᵃᵇᵉ 게이브루니: yus
Pixie Rain: yes....but I mean user defined.....different AA, for example...different Draw, or shadows etc etc
Pixie Rain: * at the mo, we have to reset all the time..I change 5 to 10 times a day
Pixie Rain: if I go to a club...I want Impostors ON.....but if I go to an art sim, I want it OFF
Mary Wickentower: very productive meeting
Pixie Rain: Bye all, thank you
Chantal Harvey: second meeting at 7 pm, and I will collect your ideas all week long.
Showing posts with label Toxic Menges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toxic Menges. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
MachinimaMondays - March 21, 2011 - Codebastard Redgrave
On March 21 2011, I invited Codebasterd Redgrave to come over and talk about the new update on her MachinimaCam. Thanks Codie, for doing this, on such short notice!
CodeBastard Redgrave: MachinimaCam is the only machinima oriented scripted camera that can be 100% operated without any visible interface. It is a kind of spinoff of regular scripted cameras, in the sense that it makes 2 types of effects; follow cams or mathematical or motion cams I upgraded it recently and it offers around 15 different effects, i believe. it is entirely operated through some gestures that acts as hotkeys.
The camera gets commands this way and executes the effects, after letting you browsing them https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/MachinimaCam-HUD/255166
I got it into a bundle with FilterCam too, which i will explain subsequently.
Anyways. MachinimaCam is just a normal HUD, which automatically hides in order to be clear from your shots. You click it once, the menu pops for effect selection, then it hides like a good boy. We got 2 pages of effects now, almost. I recently added 3 laggy camera effects, LagCam, DecayCam and SlowCam, plus a few more.
CodeBastard Redgrave: i also fixed a "chat spam" issue, which chatted the commands in openchat. now it's all on a secure channel.
Arthur Ashland: may I ask, are the triggers modifiable?
CodeBastard Redgrave: of course, when installing the gestures, make sure they don't conflict
Graycon Sonata: so it won't record the local and ims?
CodeBastard Redgrave: Arthur: of course you can, bind them to anything you want. Graycon Sonata: can turn them off more easily?
Arthur Ashland: thank you
CodeBastard Redgrave: Graycon: it still requires your interface hidden, but it will at least you give you one step less to do (hide the HUDs for example)
Takoda Toxx: Mac and PC friendly? I'm a Mac.
CodeBastard Redgrave: of course, it's a HUD and runs on any SL™ version/platform
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): i use it on a mac.. but haven't figured the hotkeys out with it
CodeBastard Redgrave: it's using the sim's computational power
CodeBastard Redgrave: Miles: the mappings could be different on a mac, but you can re-assign them to something more convenient for you Graycon Sonata: still having issues getting the command to turn the chat off
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): it's ok..i dont need the hotkeys
Arthur Ashland: that's why I asked, because the MAC F keys perform different functions, I am MAC also CodeBastard Redgrave: Graycon: not sure if you got the latest version, which is silent by default, we can update you up
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): upgrade me baby
Graycon Sonata: I don't think I have
CodeBastard Redgrave: Arthur: that's entirely possible. you could for example bind ALT+function keys instead of regular function keys Arthur Ashland: ok, thanks CodeBastard Redgrave: i'll check it out with everyone of you, no worries.
CodeBastard Redgrave: let's start by a video, it's worth 1000 words
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/MachinimaCam-HUD/255166
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll4Vkj5nRJ0
CodeBastard Redgrave: that's for MachinimaCam, not filtercam
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): oh..where's that then...?
CodeBastard Redgrave: http://vimeo.com/3401209
2 different gadgets, but indeed, that's the old old MachinimaCam video.. a new one is on the way.
I want to show you about FilterCam, MachinimaCam's little brother FilterCam is a full screen camera overlay HUD made for SecondLife http://vimeo.com/3401209 that's the FilterCam video
Georgianna Blackburn: so filtercam is sold separately, correct?
Takoda Toxx: wow very nice
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): hmm i could use that...
CodeBastard Redgrave: Georgianna: you can buy it separately, or in a bundle https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/ML-Camera-Bundle-BOXED/1718388
Georgianna Blackburn: kk
CodeBastard Redgrave: this is the bundle, but check below in Related items for individual versions
So, i'm quite proud of FilterCam as a creative tool
Georgianna Blackburn: offer ends 2001 LOL
CodeBastard Redgrave: it's got 4 layers with individual controls
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): cool think about machinima hud for me is..it's transferable CodeBastard Redgrave: oops, yeah that was a typo hahaha
Takoda Toxx: u should be
Takoda Toxx: it is nice
CodeBastard Redgrave: there's 85 premade effects using 45 different alpha layers you can make your own of course, and extend the device it is even made so you can make your own texture+preset cards and sell expansions for it, if you'd like If you can do an alpha in photoshop, you can do them. also tons of awesome tutorials have been made, search Ryker's tutorials for it she practically made all of the filter masks contained within
CodeBastard Redgrave: next step i wanna do is animate textures when wanted, but it's a bit harder than i expected
Georgianna Blackburn: sweet
CodeBastard Redgrave: a short click on the HUD does minimize or maximize so you can take your shot, cam, etc..
CodeBastard Redgrave: and a long click gives you the preset menu, working in banks like we made like 7 or 8 default banks of presets, classified by type frames, masks, holidays, blah
Graycon Sonata: it comes with a manual for it right?
FilterCam 1, only had 1 single level with all presets. now it's in banks.
Arthur Ashland: those filters can be used for still photography also I'm assuming CodeBastard Redgrave: Arthur: absolutely, all of our documentations are on http://mechanizedlife.com/
check in Documentations, its up to date and in as many languages as we could afford to translate them.
You: even in dutch?
CodeBastard Redgrave: no, sorry Chantal only German for filtercam, i think but if you wanna indulge in a translation?
You: i think i speak english.
Arthur Ashland: too bad I missed the 2 for 1 deal, lol
CodeBastard Redgrave: yeah but deals comes and go.. now if i can invent something new okay, as for updates...
CodeBastard Redgrave: what i suggest is that you just IM me right now and give me your current MachinimaCam version number. i will know if you are updated or not, and send you an update if not. how does that sound?
Arthur Ashland: if we haven't purchased yet, the newest version is on Marketplace? CodeBastard Redgrave: oh, PS, upgrades are free for as long as i will upgrade those scripts.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Arthur: absolutely, it's all fresh versions on Marketplace Arthur Ashland: thank you
CodeBastard Redgrave: or inworld at my store for that matter, if anyone needs the landmark, just let me know in IM so i can drop it on you easy
CodeBastard Redgrave: feel free to use my sim as a filming location anytime
You: ;o)
CodeBastard Redgrave: I wish i could just give it all away but then i couldn't keep Rouge running
And tbh, i worked so hard on them.. and more to come i can tell you that, MachinimaCam 2 will be... insane
You: that s fine, it helps us improve our films, so i am pretty grateful you invented this
Georgianna Blackburn: hey we all do enough for free Code... I bought the package off marketplace, can't wait to try it out
CodeBastard Redgrave: just doing my best =) awesome Georgianna, thank you so much.. i really hope it will be super useful to you
Georgianna Blackburn: I'm sure it will be
CodeBastard Redgrave: tbh, i only got awesome feedbacks especially on FilterCam, im sad i took so long to upgrade MachinimaCam but it's finally done, now i can really concentrate on the new generation
Georgianna Blackburn: cool
CodeBastard Redgrave: the biggest complain about MachinimaCam was the chat spam.. and it's sorted
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): cant wait to check out the new features
CodeBastard Redgrave: obviously if anyone knows a friend complaining about it, you can suggest they contact me for a free upgrade, would be my pleasure to get the earth rid of the old version.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Lagcam and Slowcam especially, you will like
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): yea..was gonna ask..what are they?
You: yes pls explain
CodeBastard Redgrave: they are 3 effects based solely on 3 LSL camera properties called focus lag, behindess lag, and position lag so, they are slow paced, slowly moving, followcams did you ever use a HUD made by Chouchou? a kind of cinematic HUD? it's playing with the same kind of camera lag effect, one with more focus lag, one with more behindness, and so on
CodeBastard Redgrave: the camera follows you very slowly, hence the term "lag"
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): i think i understand
CodeBastard Redgrave: i can't wait to put the new video online, i could have shown you but it's really what was missing to MachinimaCam, followcams which used those slow effects more extensively
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): i'd like some of the effects in the cam to be slower..like the spiral effect
CodeBastard Redgrave: that can be ajusted with F11-F12 Mιℒєﻜιιнσця miles.eleventhauer): ahh..the mac thing then...
CodeBastard Redgrave: which is in fact the stepping factor, not really the speed with the old version, you could say "camspeedup" and "camspeeddown" in open chat Now you can still do that with commands like /12345camspeedup (12345) is fictuous, i can't remember what new channel i put it on, honestly
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): i need that
Graycon Sonata: I want to hear more about all of this and i am fasinated
CodeBastard Redgrave: well hopefully the new gestures should work better for you, and if not, bind them to another set of Fkeys like ALT-F2...ALT-F3..
Graycon Sonata: I look forward to the transcipt of this and will probably have a million questions
Georgianna Blackburn: yes, I need to get back to work here, glad I stopped by :)
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): i ll look into that
CodeBastard Redgrave: oh, i give casual lectures for free
Georgianna Blackburn: cool
CodeBastard Redgrave: like FilterCam advanced and basic, MachinimaCam operation, etc... There is a huuuuuge Tumblr full of class transcripts http://codie.tumblr.com/ i believe
CodeBastard Redgrave: All of the presets are stored in the same format So you can set anything you want on the 4 different layers, and use a dump command that allows you to create new presets Each layer allows some settings, like color, transparency, glow (obsolete) + masks, which are usually transparent textures
The dump command spits out a long string that you can copy/paste in any of the Preset files contained within the HUD, and make a new Preset out of it
You: hi ken
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): hey ken
Ken Alphaville: hi Ken Alphaville: whats up miles
Arthur Ashland: hey ken
You: ken, Codie has been presenting his machinimacam for the past hour
CodeBastard Redgrave: welcome!
You: you will have to catch up on the blog, later
Ken Alphaville: oh yeah
Ken Alphaville: what did i miss
CodeBastard Redgrave: hahahaha
You: lol
Arthur Ashland: lol
CodeBastard Redgrave: Chantal will tell you everything
You: codie, can u start again
Ken Alphaville: ahhh ok
You: rofl You: hahahaha
CodeBastard Redgrave: loool
You: pinches codie
CodeBastard Redgrave: *chuckles
CodeBastard Redgrave: ok so, that's typically what the content of FilterCam's inventory looking like, apart things evolved since 1.04.. now we got multiple Presets notecards, and still a huge bunch of textures
CodeBastard Redgrave: but basically, same principle. filters are read from notecards within the inventory. makes it very versatile for creating presets. And that's also my plan for MachinimaCam 2.0, to use the same exact principle i used to build FilterCam 2.0., so you guys will be able to make your very own camera presets
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): now that's cool
Arthur Ashland: yeah that's awesome
You: yes agree, very cool and handy
CodeBastard Redgrave: it will be plugin based as for traditional followcams, motion/scripted cams, etc...
You: but can this be used anywhere? or only in places where scripts are allowed, right?
CodeBastard Redgrave: only where scripts are allowed, unfortunately
CodeBastard Redgrave: it was a colossus task, and i visibly missed lots of people during the upgrade. lesson learned.
CodeBastard Redgrave: i sold over 1500 and i had records for about 600 people
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): well..add that to your marketplace listing..maybe the other 900 will see it
CodeBastard Redgrave: Miles: not a bad idea.
CodeBastard Redgrave: MachinimaCam is the only machinima oriented scripted camera that can be 100% operated without any visible interface. It is a kind of spinoff of regular scripted cameras, in the sense that it makes 2 types of effects; follow cams or mathematical or motion cams I upgraded it recently and it offers around 15 different effects, i believe. it is entirely operated through some gestures that acts as hotkeys.
The camera gets commands this way and executes the effects, after letting you browsing them https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/MachinimaCam-HUD/255166
I got it into a bundle with FilterCam too, which i will explain subsequently.
Anyways. MachinimaCam is just a normal HUD, which automatically hides in order to be clear from your shots. You click it once, the menu pops for effect selection, then it hides like a good boy. We got 2 pages of effects now, almost. I recently added 3 laggy camera effects, LagCam, DecayCam and SlowCam, plus a few more.
CodeBastard Redgrave: i also fixed a "chat spam" issue, which chatted the commands in openchat. now it's all on a secure channel.
Arthur Ashland: may I ask, are the triggers modifiable?
CodeBastard Redgrave: of course, when installing the gestures, make sure they don't conflict
Graycon Sonata: so it won't record the local and ims?
CodeBastard Redgrave: Arthur: of course you can, bind them to anything you want. Graycon Sonata: can turn them off more easily?
Arthur Ashland: thank you
CodeBastard Redgrave: Graycon: it still requires your interface hidden, but it will at least you give you one step less to do (hide the HUDs for example)
Takoda Toxx: Mac and PC friendly? I'm a Mac.
CodeBastard Redgrave: of course, it's a HUD and runs on any SL™ version/platform
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): i use it on a mac.. but haven't figured the hotkeys out with it
CodeBastard Redgrave: it's using the sim's computational power
CodeBastard Redgrave: Miles: the mappings could be different on a mac, but you can re-assign them to something more convenient for you Graycon Sonata: still having issues getting the command to turn the chat off
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): it's ok..i dont need the hotkeys
Arthur Ashland: that's why I asked, because the MAC F keys perform different functions, I am MAC also CodeBastard Redgrave: Graycon: not sure if you got the latest version, which is silent by default, we can update you up
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): upgrade me baby
Graycon Sonata: I don't think I have
CodeBastard Redgrave: Arthur: that's entirely possible. you could for example bind ALT+function keys instead of regular function keys Arthur Ashland: ok, thanks CodeBastard Redgrave: i'll check it out with everyone of you, no worries.
CodeBastard Redgrave: let's start by a video, it's worth 1000 words
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/MachinimaCam-HUD/255166
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll4Vkj5nRJ0
CodeBastard Redgrave: that's for MachinimaCam, not filtercam
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): oh..where's that then...?
CodeBastard Redgrave: http://vimeo.com/3401209
2 different gadgets, but indeed, that's the old old MachinimaCam video.. a new one is on the way.
I want to show you about FilterCam, MachinimaCam's little brother FilterCam is a full screen camera overlay HUD made for SecondLife http://vimeo.com/3401209 that's the FilterCam video
Georgianna Blackburn: so filtercam is sold separately, correct?
Takoda Toxx: wow very nice
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): hmm i could use that...
CodeBastard Redgrave: Georgianna: you can buy it separately, or in a bundle https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/ML-Camera-Bundle-BOXED/1718388
Georgianna Blackburn: kk
CodeBastard Redgrave: this is the bundle, but check below in Related items for individual versions
So, i'm quite proud of FilterCam as a creative tool
Georgianna Blackburn: offer ends 2001 LOL
CodeBastard Redgrave: it's got 4 layers with individual controls
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): cool think about machinima hud for me is..it's transferable CodeBastard Redgrave: oops, yeah that was a typo hahaha
Takoda Toxx: u should be
Takoda Toxx: it is nice
CodeBastard Redgrave: there's 85 premade effects using 45 different alpha layers you can make your own of course, and extend the device it is even made so you can make your own texture+preset cards and sell expansions for it, if you'd like If you can do an alpha in photoshop, you can do them. also tons of awesome tutorials have been made, search Ryker's tutorials for it she practically made all of the filter masks contained within
CodeBastard Redgrave: next step i wanna do is animate textures when wanted, but it's a bit harder than i expected
Georgianna Blackburn: sweet
CodeBastard Redgrave: a short click on the HUD does minimize or maximize so you can take your shot, cam, etc..
CodeBastard Redgrave: and a long click gives you the preset menu, working in banks like we made like 7 or 8 default banks of presets, classified by type frames, masks, holidays, blah
Graycon Sonata: it comes with a manual for it right?
FilterCam 1, only had 1 single level with all presets. now it's in banks.
Arthur Ashland: those filters can be used for still photography also I'm assuming CodeBastard Redgrave: Arthur: absolutely, all of our documentations are on http://mechanizedlife.com/
check in Documentations, its up to date and in as many languages as we could afford to translate them.
You: even in dutch?
CodeBastard Redgrave: no, sorry Chantal only German for filtercam, i think but if you wanna indulge in a translation?
You: i think i speak english.
Arthur Ashland: too bad I missed the 2 for 1 deal, lol
CodeBastard Redgrave: yeah but deals comes and go.. now if i can invent something new okay, as for updates...
CodeBastard Redgrave: what i suggest is that you just IM me right now and give me your current MachinimaCam version number. i will know if you are updated or not, and send you an update if not. how does that sound?
Arthur Ashland: if we haven't purchased yet, the newest version is on Marketplace? CodeBastard Redgrave: oh, PS, upgrades are free for as long as i will upgrade those scripts.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Arthur: absolutely, it's all fresh versions on Marketplace Arthur Ashland: thank you
CodeBastard Redgrave: or inworld at my store for that matter, if anyone needs the landmark, just let me know in IM so i can drop it on you easy
CodeBastard Redgrave: feel free to use my sim as a filming location anytime
You: ;o)
CodeBastard Redgrave: I wish i could just give it all away but then i couldn't keep Rouge running
And tbh, i worked so hard on them.. and more to come i can tell you that, MachinimaCam 2 will be... insane
You: that s fine, it helps us improve our films, so i am pretty grateful you invented this
Georgianna Blackburn: hey we all do enough for free Code... I bought the package off marketplace, can't wait to try it out
CodeBastard Redgrave: just doing my best =) awesome Georgianna, thank you so much.. i really hope it will be super useful to you
Georgianna Blackburn: I'm sure it will be
CodeBastard Redgrave: tbh, i only got awesome feedbacks especially on FilterCam, im sad i took so long to upgrade MachinimaCam but it's finally done, now i can really concentrate on the new generation
Georgianna Blackburn: cool
CodeBastard Redgrave: the biggest complain about MachinimaCam was the chat spam.. and it's sorted
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): cant wait to check out the new features
CodeBastard Redgrave: obviously if anyone knows a friend complaining about it, you can suggest they contact me for a free upgrade, would be my pleasure to get the earth rid of the old version.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Lagcam and Slowcam especially, you will like
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): yea..was gonna ask..what are they?
You: yes pls explain
CodeBastard Redgrave: they are 3 effects based solely on 3 LSL camera properties called focus lag, behindess lag, and position lag so, they are slow paced, slowly moving, followcams did you ever use a HUD made by Chouchou? a kind of cinematic HUD? it's playing with the same kind of camera lag effect, one with more focus lag, one with more behindness, and so on
CodeBastard Redgrave: the camera follows you very slowly, hence the term "lag"
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): i think i understand
CodeBastard Redgrave: i can't wait to put the new video online, i could have shown you but it's really what was missing to MachinimaCam, followcams which used those slow effects more extensively
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): i'd like some of the effects in the cam to be slower..like the spiral effect
CodeBastard Redgrave: that can be ajusted with F11-F12 Mιℒєﻜιιнσця miles.eleventhauer): ahh..the mac thing then...
CodeBastard Redgrave: which is in fact the stepping factor, not really the speed with the old version, you could say "camspeedup" and "camspeeddown" in open chat Now you can still do that with commands like /12345camspeedup (12345) is fictuous, i can't remember what new channel i put it on, honestly
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): i need that
Graycon Sonata: I want to hear more about all of this and i am fasinated
CodeBastard Redgrave: well hopefully the new gestures should work better for you, and if not, bind them to another set of Fkeys like ALT-F2...ALT-F3..
Graycon Sonata: I look forward to the transcipt of this and will probably have a million questions
Georgianna Blackburn: yes, I need to get back to work here, glad I stopped by :)
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): i ll look into that
CodeBastard Redgrave: oh, i give casual lectures for free
Georgianna Blackburn: cool
CodeBastard Redgrave: like FilterCam advanced and basic, MachinimaCam operation, etc... There is a huuuuuge Tumblr full of class transcripts http://codie.tumblr.com/ i believe
CodeBastard Redgrave: All of the presets are stored in the same format So you can set anything you want on the 4 different layers, and use a dump command that allows you to create new presets Each layer allows some settings, like color, transparency, glow (obsolete) + masks, which are usually transparent textures
The dump command spits out a long string that you can copy/paste in any of the Preset files contained within the HUD, and make a new Preset out of it
You: hi ken
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): hey ken
Ken Alphaville: hi Ken Alphaville: whats up miles
Arthur Ashland: hey ken
You: ken, Codie has been presenting his machinimacam for the past hour
CodeBastard Redgrave: welcome!
You: you will have to catch up on the blog, later
Ken Alphaville: oh yeah
Ken Alphaville: what did i miss
CodeBastard Redgrave: hahahaha
You: lol
Arthur Ashland: lol
CodeBastard Redgrave: Chantal will tell you everything
You: codie, can u start again
Ken Alphaville: ahhh ok
You: rofl You: hahahaha
CodeBastard Redgrave: loool
You: pinches codie
CodeBastard Redgrave: *chuckles
CodeBastard Redgrave: ok so, that's typically what the content of FilterCam's inventory looking like, apart things evolved since 1.04.. now we got multiple Presets notecards, and still a huge bunch of textures
CodeBastard Redgrave: but basically, same principle. filters are read from notecards within the inventory. makes it very versatile for creating presets. And that's also my plan for MachinimaCam 2.0, to use the same exact principle i used to build FilterCam 2.0., so you guys will be able to make your very own camera presets
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): now that's cool
Arthur Ashland: yeah that's awesome
You: yes agree, very cool and handy
CodeBastard Redgrave: it will be plugin based as for traditional followcams, motion/scripted cams, etc...
You: but can this be used anywhere? or only in places where scripts are allowed, right?
CodeBastard Redgrave: only where scripts are allowed, unfortunately
CodeBastard Redgrave: it was a colossus task, and i visibly missed lots of people during the upgrade. lesson learned.
CodeBastard Redgrave: i sold over 1500 and i had records for about 600 people
Mιℒєﻜιιнσця (miles.eleventhauer): well..add that to your marketplace listing..maybe the other 900 will see it
CodeBastard Redgrave: Miles: not a bad idea.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Feb 14, 2011: MachinimaMondays special guest speaker: Goat Firethorn
I am happy to post the Q & A session with Goat Firethorn, on MachinimaMondays.
http://slurl.com/secondlife//81/84/41
Ever wondered about PC hardware? Which graphic card, processor, soundcard, memory, harddrives, ram ..... should you get to run SL smoothly?
How to spend your money wisely?
Please take note that Goat is not a machinimatographer, but his excellent knowledge about hardware has made quite an impression.
Here is the chat:
Chantal Harvey: this MachinimaMonday meeting will be in chat, not in voice
Kayden Oconnell: ok, thought it was pretty quiet.
Graycon Sonata: It feels so clinical...
Almo Schumann: We're just shy.
Chantal Harvey: i want to let you all know that this meeting is in chat, as it will be logged for the ones that cannot come today - so pls ask many questions, this entire session will be done as Q & A.
Goat Firethorn, the lovely fox avatar here, has agreed to share some of his excellent knowledge.
Goat: LOL everyone thinks it's a fox!
Ironically, it's a husky, but I get called a fox all the time.
Anyways - where should we start?
Chantal Harvey: could you introduce yourself?
Goat: I'm Goat, I've been working with computers for about 13 years, but I got into hardware around 4 years ago.
Actually I learned most from my father, who has been working with computers since the age of punchcards doing hardware work.
Graycon Sonata: so you actually assemble computers?
Goat: yes, I do - I have ... quite a few and some parts laying around
Kayden Oconnell: was hoping for some information on what to look for when buying a new system, processor, memory, graphics.
Goat: I'm going to have to say that I can't come up with PC's right now, and here's my explanation:
Right now, the motherboard and CPU industry is at a standstill, due to the release cycle, and Intel having a recall on the P67 chipsets, which essentially makes buying ANY new motherboard a rip-off.
In april, the new chipsets come in, then P67 comes, but until then, all you can do is buy things that are soon to be outdated.
Graycon Sonata: so just to open the field up to you was wondering if you which hd would you recommend for storage as an external?
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): why does SLI not work anymore?
Graycon Sonata: and are you a fan of a single taro or duel taro?
Goat: actually, if you don't mind I'll answer the second first
SLI does work, but it requires code to be written for it in the application. SL, had SLI support at the start, but it got phased out as the code progressed , it's actually still on the Nvidia webpage as SLI compatable
Goat: I like the HD question lol
Actually, I myself don't own any SSD's, and their quite pricy, so what I did buy was an awesome hdd that I reccomend 100%
Graycon Sonata: which one?
Goat: It was actually really really cheap, $ 40.00, and it outpaces some of the $ 130+ Velociraptors, as well as ALL of the Caviar blacks. It's a Samsung F4 320GB, note that the F4 2TB is NOT near as fast, and is actually extemely slow.
Graycon Sonata: I have 320 GB and find with recording I am filling it up fast due to files size,
and existing fies so therefore I was wondering about externals and your views on single vs duel gig storage.
Goat: yes, I'd say for recording in HD, I'd go with a drive assigned to just that.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): well u definitely need 7200 rpm to capture .
Goat: yes, but actually RPM on an HDD has a lot less impact than you think. For example, the velociraptor is 10,000 RPM, yet it gets beat by my drive @ 7200.
Goat: that's a link to a comparison I ran across drives.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): yes but I cant capture with a gren drive, wont keep up
LaPiscean Liberty: bus speed probley plays into that
Goat: yes, of course, they're all factors, I'd reccomend probably a Samsung F3 1TB, or a caviar Black 1TB if you like Western Digital, they both do extremely well - around 115 mb/s read
Ken Alphaville: i agree
Talia Sunsong (taliasunsong): Do people find the 1 TB break faster?
Jewle Rae: every single terrabyte drive I have purchased for video has failed. I personally won't recommend them to anyone for that reason. Also fragmentation comes faster when using terrabyte drives.
Chantal Harvey: i have 4 drives, 2 terrabit each, and they work fab
LaPiscean Liberty: an array of smaller drives seems like it would save more data if a drive went down
Graycon Sonata: then you prefer half taro to full on and piny them?
Goat: I personally haven't had any issues with them, but since you are doing heavy video editing, I'd probably go western digital, if anything happens, you have a 5 year waranty to back you up.
Ken Alphaville: same happened to me till i stuck with western D.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): SEAGET had issues last year
Graycon Sonata: nice ans we have that here.
Jewle Rae: So happy for you Chantal. Believe me if I had any luck with them I would have stuck with them. OTOH copying takes so much longer.
Petlove Petshop: i just returned a seagate - wasn't working properly
Ken Alphaville: oh man seagate ...
Ken Alphaville: runnnnn ....
Jewle Rae: II've had both Seagate and WD.
Goat: I personally haven't used seagate in awhile, I stick with Samsung and WD usually
Chantal Harvey: could there be a difference between European and American hardware?
Goat: usually no, european is about the same
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): Seagate 7200.11's - over 30% failure apparently.
Inquisitive Loon: Ive got an OLD Pentium 4, works fabulously with all my editing/filming software.
Inquisitive Loon: CPU cost 10.00 keyboar 1.00, mouse fift cents and the 20 inch monitor was free.
Inquisitive Loon: Id rather have Spielberg hired to work on my Pentium 4 than someone less talented with a 5,000,000 computer.
LaPiscean Liberty: large resolutions like full HD are very hard on graphic cards
Goat: Actually, let me recommend a really awesome company, and the only reason I reccomend them is because their support is something it sounds like you need.
I actually just recently purchased my first EVGA product, and it was amazing.
The reason I recommend this brand is really the quality of support
I've NEVER waited more than two minutes on a phone, and they are open 24/7
Chantal Harvey: evga, yes!!! i agree
Goat: so if you kill video cards like you say, and you plan going NVidia, that'd be an awesome company to go with, not to mention they support overvolting and overclocking. Best company I've ever seen.
That and NZXT, who also has great support program.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): the problem is that is Mac only? - and from what I have heard Macs do not run Sl very well compared to PC
Goat: actually, on the contrary, Macs actually do a bit better
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): whose PC are you comparing too?
Jewle Rae: Macs handle SL better goat?
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): there is such an issue with tweaking it's hard to compare
Goat: ): nono - I wouldn't make that bold of a statement
Mac is generally not going to have as good quality parts, as with any prebuilt system, but yes, the OS itself handles OpenGL better
The reason is, Windows uses DirectX as it's main 3D API, Linux and Mac actually have a cleaner and more complete OpenGL API
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): also a musicion with Protools not happen with his Mac since the changeover to Intel chips - Protools Hardware now basically obsolete
Goat: If you've ever run SL on Linux, you KNOW you get a nice FPS boost
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): so the issue with Mac is not hardware but the viewer?
Goat: not really, It's the Operating system itself
Anything OpenGL based usually runs as good on OSX and Linux, if not better, than on windows
al Peretz: do you think linux is a good OS for machinima in SL?
Goat: Actually, it depends
linux is very complex when you get into it, but if you know linux, then yes, it'd be ideal since it has very low hardware requirements, and better threading
LaPiscean Liberty: I wish Windows had broadcaster like MAC does
LaPiscean Liberty: for live feed
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): so if I run a linux partition you suggest I will get hifgher fps?
al Peretz: I will try linux
al Peretz: whch version you recommend?
al Peretz: suse is good for that?
Goat: eh, yes, depending on the viewer, usually (You would need to install your proprietary drivers)
Like I said, linux isn't as easy as it sounds, but it's gotten much more friendly in recent years
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): is there a Linux "for Dummies"?
Goat: actually, there are several distributions made for converts from windows, but again, you have to see what your needs are
For example, Linux will not support as many programs, so that's something to look into
al Peretz: I used linux some years...Its easy to do a partition and hace 2 OS in one computer
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): well just a partition for filming and that 's it
Goat: Just be careful!
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): would be a nice option if there is a performance boost
al Peretz: I think film in linux and edit in windows
Petlove Petshop: can you do that al?
Goat yes you can, and actually that probably would work best, but like I said, things aren't so ideal as of right now
I run Mint Debian Linux, and there are a few things you have to do to get good FPS, etc
Jewle Rae: What about RAM and chip speed? what's your recommendation goat?
Goat: yeah, let's steer away from software, I don't want you to convert unless you wish to, I really beleive all OS's have their place
Jewle Rae: Anybody else finding their system running hotter after this last round of viewer updateas?
Goat: actually that would be an odd thing, but a good thing.
Actually, I'll try and stick to hardware here, but one last note on software is that it can affect performance a lot, especially drivers. As for the question on clock speeds, that's one thing that is very misleading, as are all numbers with computers. What I find is that a lot of people tend to compare numbers with computers readily, and in actuality, it isn't so easy. For example, really cool fact:
Ever wondered why your harddrive shows less space than it says on the box?
Petlove Petshop: isn't because of its own operating system needs?
Goat: it's actually because manufacturers round using MiB, instead of real MB, MiB = Mebibytes, MB = Megabytes
Matthew Kidomen: Isn't part used in formating as well.
Goat: yes, part is formatting, but a small part.
Matthew Kidomen: how much effect does the hard drive have on video capture
Goat: basically, what happened is that the hardware industry decided to go on 1000 = increment
Goat: and software says 1024
for example 1024kb = 1Mb
hardware makers rounded, saying 1000 instead
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte
Goat: that's why a drive shows quite a bit less
Chantal Harvey: i liked matthews question a lot
( how much effect does the hard drive have on video capture )
Goat: actually a lot
from what I understand video capture records to the harddrive, so having a good write speed is important
Jewle Rae: Hard drive speed and fragmentation have major impact on video capture.
Matthew Kidomen: I think some one was talking about SSD drives not long ago?
Chantal Harvey: ssd is a good idea?
Goat: I would think any fast 7200 would do good, and actually SSD migt not be so good
Chantal Harvey: oh why not?
Goat: the reason I say it may not is size, and issues with writing. SSD's are expensive for their size, and from what i understand, video eats size.
Matthew Kidomen: but ususally I record in short burst, no extended video
Goat: as well, SSD's use a LOT more maintenence than you think, and they have limits
LaPiscean Liberty: and pricey
Matthew Kidomen: so could I get a smaller SSD and shoot then transfer it to my sata drive
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): an SSD apparently more apppriate for program nstalls and OS
Goat: actually one of the very important things a lot of people don't get about SSD's is they require things that harddrives do not first off
SSD's require you to turn off indexing, Paging, and anything that reads and writes a ton
The reason is that SSD's wear faster
They actually wear, just like RAM. They are made of RAM chips, by wear I mean, they begin giving errors
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): you can only write to a specic place a number of times and then it's done
Goat: yup, which is why it isn't good for a lot of reads and writes
Matthew Kidomen: the paper runs thin
LaPiscean Liberty: more like flashing a bios chip seems like
Goat: eh, not really - Flashing a BIOS is just dangerous
RAM actually is essentially what an SSD is made of Flash chips, NAND that is lined in rows
LaPiscean Liberty: yes but arnt you burning to chip rather then optic ewriting
Matthew Kidomen: yes, but are we talking months or years of use?
Goat: years - definitely.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): not if u start capturing to it
Goat: but where a harddrive keeps spinning for awhile, an SSD will die eventually
Matthew Kidomen: well 3 years on an SSD would be enough. Tech changes so fast
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): since an OS loads in RAm it's not using the SSd much
Goat: and yes, the reason they tell you to turn off Paging on it
If you paged to an SSD, you'd eat it alive, paging is basically where you use part of a harddrive as slow RAM
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): Q anyone else using a Ramdisk?
Goat: for example if you use a lot of system RAM, you begin paging things to your hdd, which in the case of an SSD would literally mean tons of reads and writes per second, which eats it alive
LaPiscean Liberty: Q how much cache on a drive is good and should it be used
Goat: cache, as in the cache on a drive does have an impact on drive speed, but it really depends, and it's always used, you can't turn it off
But on high performance drives it can be different
It's also relative to size, it's basically like a buffer - when you go to write to the hdd, it sends it to the HDD, and a stack builds in cache
LaPiscean Liberty: so that it may read and write at same time
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): Q- hardware to optimise particle performance re" fps
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): a 580 GTX and overclocked cpu?
That's a bit overkill, I do fine with my 460
Matthew Kidomen: haha, never too much power. Give me power, power, POWER!!!
Chantal Harvey: yea but if you were to buy, today, wouldnt you buy a nvidia 580?
Goat: if I had the money, No. - the reason is kinda complex
Basically when they make a GPU, they make it using silicon on three layers
What they do to make it, is take a sliver of silicon, with SiO2, an insulator, on top of it, and use a laser to write the actual transistors to it
The reason things keep getting smaller is that they keep shortening the wavelength of the light
Currently, the 500 and 400 series are at 40nm = 40 nanometers
But later this year, a new GPU comes out from Nvidia at 28nm, with a new design
which is what I'd save up for - Kepler = 28nm, quarter 4 of 2011
Chantal Harvey: ahhhh - omg ty for that
Chantal Harvey: on the new nvidia: HERE
Matthew Kidomen: what about video ram
Matthew Kidomen: any suggestions for how much is over kill
Matthew Kidomen: or is it the more the better?
LaPiscean Liberty: water cooled fuel injected
Goat: SL actually can't use more than 512, but really it'd use...around 700 with everything in the background, etc. Yes, usually the more the better, but again it's not as important as you'd think
SL can only access 512mb of VRAM, at the most
Matthew Kidomen: (taking notes)
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): Nividia not ATi from what I have seen in forums
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): apparently ATI sues system memory n OpenGL games
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): at least it did
Goat: I actually prefer Nvidia in SL, simply because ATI has issues with OpenGL coding in the drivers, but they are getting better
Heh, I'm actually using 608mb VRAM right now
Matthew Kidomen: some folks love them which is ok, but I have had big battles with them.
Goat: really, I want to hit on something someone said earlier - and I almost missed it:
If you ever build a computer
Something I REALLY REALLY say to look at is Power supply
Matthew Kidomen: does it effect video capture speed and "smoothness" if you run two monitors?
Chantal Harvey: how much power supply?
Goat: well i depends on what you're doing
Jewle Rae: Now you're talking -- power supply is critical
Goat: and actually like I said, you can't really rely on the numbers they post
For example, yes, you can get cheap 1000w power supplies
Yet I've seen one shoot 3" flames which wasn't good
Brand is REALLY something to pay attention to with power supplies, as well as model.
There's actually a good list on several places, a forum I use regularly, go to this link
Really great thread, tells you a lot about power supplies.
Matthew Kidomen: video cards can draw a lot of juice
Goat: yes, and with a bad power supply, you can fry things.
You have got to keep in mind, power supply gives everything voltage.
So if you go cheap, anything else you buy can be fried instantly!
I actually got mine on sale, it's a corsair TX850, which really has been awesome.
Seasonic, Corsair, Silverstone, they all make great power supplies.
Matthew Kidomen: don't power supplies list the number of watts per rail at a certain voltage?
Goat: yes, as tested by them, which means they may have tested at 20C, and reported those, which is very misleading.
Matthew Kidomen: they wouldn't lie woult they?
Goat: no, but they sure are good at getting around it
Matthew Kidomen: hummm
Goat: that list really, anything tier 3 or above is fine, anything above would be for overclockers...
Which need a REALLY stable voltage
Anyways sorry I didn't get to answer everyone's questions
You guys are an awesome group
Chantal Harvey: we will have to have you back here, Goat
And he will be back in April, hopefully to talk about Kepler and other new developments in PC hardware.
Mr Firethorn, you rock!
http://slurl.com/secondlife//81/84/41
Ever wondered about PC hardware? Which graphic card, processor, soundcard, memory, harddrives, ram ..... should you get to run SL smoothly?
How to spend your money wisely?
Please take note that Goat is not a machinimatographer, but his excellent knowledge about hardware has made quite an impression.
Here is the chat:
Chantal Harvey: this MachinimaMonday meeting will be in chat, not in voice
Kayden Oconnell: ok, thought it was pretty quiet.
Graycon Sonata: It feels so clinical...
Almo Schumann: We're just shy.
Chantal Harvey: i want to let you all know that this meeting is in chat, as it will be logged for the ones that cannot come today - so pls ask many questions, this entire session will be done as Q & A.
Goat Firethorn, the lovely fox avatar here, has agreed to share some of his excellent knowledge.
Goat: LOL everyone thinks it's a fox!
Ironically, it's a husky, but I get called a fox all the time.
Anyways - where should we start?
Chantal Harvey: could you introduce yourself?
Goat: I'm Goat, I've been working with computers for about 13 years, but I got into hardware around 4 years ago.
Actually I learned most from my father, who has been working with computers since the age of punchcards doing hardware work.
Graycon Sonata: so you actually assemble computers?
Goat: yes, I do - I have ... quite a few and some parts laying around
Kayden Oconnell: was hoping for some information on what to look for when buying a new system, processor, memory, graphics.
Goat: I'm going to have to say that I can't come up with PC's right now, and here's my explanation:
Right now, the motherboard and CPU industry is at a standstill, due to the release cycle, and Intel having a recall on the P67 chipsets, which essentially makes buying ANY new motherboard a rip-off.
In april, the new chipsets come in, then P67 comes, but until then, all you can do is buy things that are soon to be outdated.
Graycon Sonata: so just to open the field up to you was wondering if you which hd would you recommend for storage as an external?
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): why does SLI not work anymore?
Graycon Sonata: and are you a fan of a single taro or duel taro?
Goat: actually, if you don't mind I'll answer the second first
SLI does work, but it requires code to be written for it in the application. SL, had SLI support at the start, but it got phased out as the code progressed , it's actually still on the Nvidia webpage as SLI compatable
Goat: I like the HD question lol
Actually, I myself don't own any SSD's, and their quite pricy, so what I did buy was an awesome hdd that I reccomend 100%
Graycon Sonata: which one?
Goat: It was actually really really cheap, $ 40.00, and it outpaces some of the $ 130+ Velociraptors, as well as ALL of the Caviar blacks. It's a Samsung F4 320GB, note that the F4 2TB is NOT near as fast, and is actually extemely slow.
Graycon Sonata: I have 320 GB and find with recording I am filling it up fast due to files size,
and existing fies so therefore I was wondering about externals and your views on single vs duel gig storage.
Goat: yes, I'd say for recording in HD, I'd go with a drive assigned to just that.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): well u definitely need 7200 rpm to capture .
Goat: yes, but actually RPM on an HDD has a lot less impact than you think. For example, the velociraptor is 10,000 RPM, yet it gets beat by my drive @ 7200.
Goat: that's a link to a comparison I ran across drives.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): yes but I cant capture with a gren drive, wont keep up
LaPiscean Liberty: bus speed probley plays into that
Goat: yes, of course, they're all factors, I'd reccomend probably a Samsung F3 1TB, or a caviar Black 1TB if you like Western Digital, they both do extremely well - around 115 mb/s read
Ken Alphaville: i agree
Talia Sunsong (taliasunsong): Do people find the 1 TB break faster?
Jewle Rae: every single terrabyte drive I have purchased for video has failed. I personally won't recommend them to anyone for that reason. Also fragmentation comes faster when using terrabyte drives.
Chantal Harvey: i have 4 drives, 2 terrabit each, and they work fab
LaPiscean Liberty: an array of smaller drives seems like it would save more data if a drive went down
Graycon Sonata: then you prefer half taro to full on and piny them?
Goat: I personally haven't had any issues with them, but since you are doing heavy video editing, I'd probably go western digital, if anything happens, you have a 5 year waranty to back you up.
Ken Alphaville: same happened to me till i stuck with western D.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): SEAGET had issues last year
Graycon Sonata: nice ans we have that here.
Jewle Rae: So happy for you Chantal. Believe me if I had any luck with them I would have stuck with them. OTOH copying takes so much longer.
Petlove Petshop: i just returned a seagate - wasn't working properly
Ken Alphaville: oh man seagate ...
Ken Alphaville: runnnnn ....
Jewle Rae: II've had both Seagate and WD.
Goat: I personally haven't used seagate in awhile, I stick with Samsung and WD usually
Chantal Harvey: could there be a difference between European and American hardware?
Goat: usually no, european is about the same
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): Seagate 7200.11's - over 30% failure apparently.
Inquisitive Loon: Ive got an OLD Pentium 4, works fabulously with all my editing/filming software.
Inquisitive Loon: CPU cost 10.00 keyboar 1.00, mouse fift cents and the 20 inch monitor was free.
Inquisitive Loon: Id rather have Spielberg hired to work on my Pentium 4 than someone less talented with a 5,000,000 computer.
LaPiscean Liberty: large resolutions like full HD are very hard on graphic cards
Goat: Actually, let me recommend a really awesome company, and the only reason I reccomend them is because their support is something it sounds like you need.
I actually just recently purchased my first EVGA product, and it was amazing.
The reason I recommend this brand is really the quality of support
I've NEVER waited more than two minutes on a phone, and they are open 24/7
Chantal Harvey: evga, yes!!! i agree
Goat: so if you kill video cards like you say, and you plan going NVidia, that'd be an awesome company to go with, not to mention they support overvolting and overclocking. Best company I've ever seen.
That and NZXT, who also has great support program.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): the problem is that is Mac only? - and from what I have heard Macs do not run Sl very well compared to PC
Goat: actually, on the contrary, Macs actually do a bit better
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): whose PC are you comparing too?
Jewle Rae: Macs handle SL better goat?
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): there is such an issue with tweaking it's hard to compare
Goat: ): nono - I wouldn't make that bold of a statement
Mac is generally not going to have as good quality parts, as with any prebuilt system, but yes, the OS itself handles OpenGL better
The reason is, Windows uses DirectX as it's main 3D API, Linux and Mac actually have a cleaner and more complete OpenGL API
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): also a musicion with Protools not happen with his Mac since the changeover to Intel chips - Protools Hardware now basically obsolete
Goat: If you've ever run SL on Linux, you KNOW you get a nice FPS boost
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): so the issue with Mac is not hardware but the viewer?
Goat: not really, It's the Operating system itself
Anything OpenGL based usually runs as good on OSX and Linux, if not better, than on windows
al Peretz: do you think linux is a good OS for machinima in SL?
Goat: Actually, it depends
linux is very complex when you get into it, but if you know linux, then yes, it'd be ideal since it has very low hardware requirements, and better threading
LaPiscean Liberty: I wish Windows had broadcaster like MAC does
LaPiscean Liberty: for live feed
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): so if I run a linux partition you suggest I will get hifgher fps?
al Peretz: I will try linux
al Peretz: whch version you recommend?
al Peretz: suse is good for that?
Goat: eh, yes, depending on the viewer, usually (You would need to install your proprietary drivers)
Like I said, linux isn't as easy as it sounds, but it's gotten much more friendly in recent years
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): is there a Linux "for Dummies"?
Goat: actually, there are several distributions made for converts from windows, but again, you have to see what your needs are
For example, Linux will not support as many programs, so that's something to look into
al Peretz: I used linux some years...Its easy to do a partition and hace 2 OS in one computer
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): well just a partition for filming and that 's it
Goat: Just be careful!
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): would be a nice option if there is a performance boost
al Peretz: I think film in linux and edit in windows
Petlove Petshop: can you do that al?
Goat yes you can, and actually that probably would work best, but like I said, things aren't so ideal as of right now
I run Mint Debian Linux, and there are a few things you have to do to get good FPS, etc
Jewle Rae: What about RAM and chip speed? what's your recommendation goat?
Goat: yeah, let's steer away from software, I don't want you to convert unless you wish to, I really beleive all OS's have their place
Jewle Rae: Anybody else finding their system running hotter after this last round of viewer updateas?
Goat: actually that would be an odd thing, but a good thing.
Actually, I'll try and stick to hardware here, but one last note on software is that it can affect performance a lot, especially drivers. As for the question on clock speeds, that's one thing that is very misleading, as are all numbers with computers. What I find is that a lot of people tend to compare numbers with computers readily, and in actuality, it isn't so easy. For example, really cool fact:
Ever wondered why your harddrive shows less space than it says on the box?
Petlove Petshop: isn't because of its own operating system needs?
Goat: it's actually because manufacturers round using MiB, instead of real MB, MiB = Mebibytes, MB = Megabytes
Matthew Kidomen: Isn't part used in formating as well.
Goat: yes, part is formatting, but a small part.
Matthew Kidomen: how much effect does the hard drive have on video capture
Goat: basically, what happened is that the hardware industry decided to go on 1000 = increment
Goat: and software says 1024
for example 1024kb = 1Mb
hardware makers rounded, saying 1000 instead
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte
Goat: that's why a drive shows quite a bit less
Chantal Harvey: i liked matthews question a lot
( how much effect does the hard drive have on video capture )
Goat: actually a lot
from what I understand video capture records to the harddrive, so having a good write speed is important
Jewle Rae: Hard drive speed and fragmentation have major impact on video capture.
Matthew Kidomen: I think some one was talking about SSD drives not long ago?
Chantal Harvey: ssd is a good idea?
Goat: I would think any fast 7200 would do good, and actually SSD migt not be so good
Chantal Harvey: oh why not?
Goat: the reason I say it may not is size, and issues with writing. SSD's are expensive for their size, and from what i understand, video eats size.
Matthew Kidomen: but ususally I record in short burst, no extended video
Goat: as well, SSD's use a LOT more maintenence than you think, and they have limits
LaPiscean Liberty: and pricey
Matthew Kidomen: so could I get a smaller SSD and shoot then transfer it to my sata drive
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): an SSD apparently more apppriate for program nstalls and OS
Goat: actually one of the very important things a lot of people don't get about SSD's is they require things that harddrives do not first off
SSD's require you to turn off indexing, Paging, and anything that reads and writes a ton
The reason is that SSD's wear faster
They actually wear, just like RAM. They are made of RAM chips, by wear I mean, they begin giving errors
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): you can only write to a specic place a number of times and then it's done
Goat: yup, which is why it isn't good for a lot of reads and writes
Matthew Kidomen: the paper runs thin
LaPiscean Liberty: more like flashing a bios chip seems like
Goat: eh, not really - Flashing a BIOS is just dangerous
RAM actually is essentially what an SSD is made of Flash chips, NAND that is lined in rows
LaPiscean Liberty: yes but arnt you burning to chip rather then optic ewriting
Matthew Kidomen: yes, but are we talking months or years of use?
Goat: years - definitely.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): not if u start capturing to it
Goat: but where a harddrive keeps spinning for awhile, an SSD will die eventually
Matthew Kidomen: well 3 years on an SSD would be enough. Tech changes so fast
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): since an OS loads in RAm it's not using the SSd much
Goat: and yes, the reason they tell you to turn off Paging on it
If you paged to an SSD, you'd eat it alive, paging is basically where you use part of a harddrive as slow RAM
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): Q anyone else using a Ramdisk?
Goat: for example if you use a lot of system RAM, you begin paging things to your hdd, which in the case of an SSD would literally mean tons of reads and writes per second, which eats it alive
LaPiscean Liberty: Q how much cache on a drive is good and should it be used
Goat: cache, as in the cache on a drive does have an impact on drive speed, but it really depends, and it's always used, you can't turn it off
But on high performance drives it can be different
It's also relative to size, it's basically like a buffer - when you go to write to the hdd, it sends it to the HDD, and a stack builds in cache
LaPiscean Liberty: so that it may read and write at same time
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): Q- hardware to optimise particle performance re" fps
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): a 580 GTX and overclocked cpu?
That's a bit overkill, I do fine with my 460
Matthew Kidomen: haha, never too much power. Give me power, power, POWER!!!
Chantal Harvey: yea but if you were to buy, today, wouldnt you buy a nvidia 580?
Goat: if I had the money, No. - the reason is kinda complex
Basically when they make a GPU, they make it using silicon on three layers
What they do to make it, is take a sliver of silicon, with SiO2, an insulator, on top of it, and use a laser to write the actual transistors to it
The reason things keep getting smaller is that they keep shortening the wavelength of the light
Currently, the 500 and 400 series are at 40nm = 40 nanometers
But later this year, a new GPU comes out from Nvidia at 28nm, with a new design
which is what I'd save up for - Kepler = 28nm, quarter 4 of 2011
Chantal Harvey: ahhhh - omg ty for that
Chantal Harvey: on the new nvidia: HERE
Matthew Kidomen: what about video ram
Matthew Kidomen: any suggestions for how much is over kill
Matthew Kidomen: or is it the more the better?
LaPiscean Liberty: water cooled fuel injected
Goat: SL actually can't use more than 512, but really it'd use...around 700 with everything in the background, etc. Yes, usually the more the better, but again it's not as important as you'd think
SL can only access 512mb of VRAM, at the most
Matthew Kidomen: (taking notes)
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): Nividia not ATi from what I have seen in forums
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): apparently ATI sues system memory n OpenGL games
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): at least it did
Goat: I actually prefer Nvidia in SL, simply because ATI has issues with OpenGL coding in the drivers, but they are getting better
Heh, I'm actually using 608mb VRAM right now
Matthew Kidomen: some folks love them which is ok, but I have had big battles with them.
Goat: really, I want to hit on something someone said earlier - and I almost missed it:
If you ever build a computer
Something I REALLY REALLY say to look at is Power supply
Matthew Kidomen: does it effect video capture speed and "smoothness" if you run two monitors?
Chantal Harvey: how much power supply?
Goat: well i depends on what you're doing
Jewle Rae: Now you're talking -- power supply is critical
Goat: and actually like I said, you can't really rely on the numbers they post
For example, yes, you can get cheap 1000w power supplies
Yet I've seen one shoot 3" flames which wasn't good
Brand is REALLY something to pay attention to with power supplies, as well as model.
There's actually a good list on several places, a forum I use regularly, go to this link
Really great thread, tells you a lot about power supplies.
Matthew Kidomen: video cards can draw a lot of juice
Goat: yes, and with a bad power supply, you can fry things.
You have got to keep in mind, power supply gives everything voltage.
So if you go cheap, anything else you buy can be fried instantly!
I actually got mine on sale, it's a corsair TX850, which really has been awesome.
Seasonic, Corsair, Silverstone, they all make great power supplies.
Matthew Kidomen: don't power supplies list the number of watts per rail at a certain voltage?
Goat: yes, as tested by them, which means they may have tested at 20C, and reported those, which is very misleading.
Matthew Kidomen: they wouldn't lie woult they?
Goat: no, but they sure are good at getting around it
Matthew Kidomen: hummm
Goat: that list really, anything tier 3 or above is fine, anything above would be for overclockers...
Which need a REALLY stable voltage
Anyways sorry I didn't get to answer everyone's questions
You guys are an awesome group
Chantal Harvey: we will have to have you back here, Goat
And he will be back in April, hopefully to talk about Kepler and other new developments in PC hardware.
Mr Firethorn, you rock!
Monday, February 14, 2011
MachinimaMondays Feb. 7, 2011
Our weekly machinima meetings are always different, it often depends on the people that come and the subjects they bring with them.
There are 2 meetings every monday: 2 pm and 7 pm. (SL-time, pacific time)
Often we show each other our new work, and sometimes even ask for feedback. We had guest speakers, machinima classes, a Q & A about lag, nifty discussions about copyright issues, we talked about branding and where to post films, we talked about edit, music and voice over talent, acting, animations, foley - and it seems like every week there are more and new subjects to discuss.
I think it is time to create some MM-blogs, as people are forever asking what we discussed at last weeks meeting.
Both MM meetings had one subject in common; the "wish-list" for a machinima viewer.
A few days before the meeting, Toxic Menges and myself had a meeting with Kim and Rhett Linden. Amongst many things we discussed the difference between the current Lindenlab and 3rd Party viewers.
We use different viewers now for different purposes, forever switching between viewers - (I use 7 viewers!!!) cluttering our precious desktop space with icons, and wishing that all features a machinimatographer needs would be available in just one viewer.
I now use Kirstens viewer for depth of field, Firestorm for shadows, Dale's for anaglyph, Phoenix for windlights, V2 for media on a prim, the meshviewer for ...uhh mesh, Imprudence cos I just like it.
Our suggestion for a machinima-viewer was welcomed as a good idea, but not likely to happen. Rhett Linden asked us what our thoughts were on features we would need, and we agreed to do a survey amongst the MM members.
Here are suggestions that ppl came up with:
* Good shadows
* Good dof (*Depth of Field) - concurs with this point: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/CTS-437?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=234791#comment-234791
* Auto screen size - in the pull down menu in Preferences>Graphics, the sizes are not really useful to machinima makers - 1280x720 would be a good option, as would 1080 x 1920, so we can film in HD easily. Full Screen was a great option in v1.23, but that has been removed in v2.xx and now you have to manually resize in order to be able to film at 1080
* Easy controls to hide things such as avas/clouds instead of being hidden in a massive hierarchy.
* Graphics properties button = accessible from the front pane of the viewer - without having to drill down into the menus
* Working AA when using shadows
* Easy windlight access
* Ability to derender all avas except your own/ones you specify
* Record camera moves to perform multiple passes of same scene - this is an experimental option in the viewer at the moment, or at least it was, and can be very useful for filming from multiple POV.
* Machinima tab - Kirsten viewer has a machinima tab http://www.kirstensviewer.com/Blog/134.html this is an xml tab that includes commonly used features. We did speak at the Machinima Mondays meeting about the ability to include things like zoomtime form the debug menu on that drop down - but it appears that that would involve delving under the hood of the viewer a bit more. Zoomtime is a GREAT tool for filmers and it's hidden deep in debug menu.
* More than one parcel media stream, not reliant on the shared media tech (I did point out that sub dividing media was a possibility here, and also that's more of a server point that viewer)
* Default animation improvements/different speeds - There was a call from Linden Lab to hire one of the inworld animation developers to get them to make a new default walk, any idea what happened with that? It would be great if we could control walking speed of not only our own but other avatars.
* Slow motion avatars for all not just your own - there is an option in the advanced menu that allows slow motion animation, but this only works for the avatar being controlled - it would be good if all avatars could be viewed in slow motion when that option was activated.
* Animation Editor in world similar to Unity 3D's Unity calls their editor a cutscene editor. Think of it like scripting out the scene and pressing play to run through it - I am not familiar with this myself, but it sounds not unlike the puppeteering system that was being looked at by the Lab a few years ago.
* It used to be a feature of the viewer that you could record vid directly from the client. I was on a Mac for my first two years in SL, and this feature never worked on mac clients, but some did use it successfully. Would be GREAT to have this back.
* What about having functions based on genre (like have option for film noir)?
* Making use of more than 3 meg bandwidth
* Bespoke viewer which would use cloud computers - negating lag (hopeful!)
* Sound aspect in the viewer that gave us more control? Broader range of Equalization as well as volume?
* Ability to change infinity view to sand or other terrain so that things dont always look like you are on an island.
* Proper asset sharing for windlight
* Full moon and phases of the moon - the Lab used to replace the moon texture for special occasions - this would be a huge crowd pleaser aside form machinima!
* Nimble for Windlight - would love to see Nimble implemented to give depth and extra weather effects to windlight.
In addition to the above which are more viewer specific, these also came up:
** An infohub for machinima
** Case studies for machinima in commercial projects - in the Enterprise/Commercial info part of the sl.com website.
** Inventory accessible to alts
The suggestions/wishes on the above list are a good showcase of what our machinima community is about. Toxic and I welcome Rhett - who joined MachinimaMondays group - to take ideas from that list and implement them in LL viewer 2. Lets make this world a better place for machinima....
Next meeting - February 14, 2011 - will have a guest speaker at the 7 pm session: Goat Firethorn will do a session on computer hardware.
Ever wondered what to buy for your money? Which graphic card, processor, how much ram, is there a difference in harddrives, - ---- please come to SL and join the MachinimaMondays group, or contact Toxic Menges, Phaylen Fairchild or Chantal Harvey for an invite.
Friday, December 3, 2010
MachinimaMondays about LAG - 29 Nov. 2010, with Miro Collas
MachinimaMondays on November 29 (2010) - sim full, eye-opening meeting !!!
Recently I invited Miro Collas to share his knowledge about lag - and the myths and facts around it.
Rather then listen to a presentation or speech about something that affects our machinima's so profoundly, Miro and I had decided to do a Q and A for everybody present.
I cleaned up the chat a bit, to keep it read-able, and here it goes:
Miro Collas: There are 2 blogs about lag
Miro Collas: one in particular is VERY well written and is in fact cited by LL in their wiki.
http://analutetia.com/2009/06/22/anatomy-of-lag/
http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2008/02/16/lag-myths-dispelled/
This transcript is sent to MachinimaMondays group in Second Life too, if you want to attend our weekly meetings, join the group - or contact Toxic Menges, Phaylen Fairchild or Chantal Harvey inworld.
MachinimaMondays meeting, November 29, 2010:
Chantal Harvey: what is lag?
Miro Collas: ooohhh.... you start with a huge question.
Penumbra Carter: slows down and makes the camera jerk
Miro Collas: lag is not one thing, but 3 things, that are partly connected
first is client side, then network lag, and lastly, server lag.
Easiest to explain maybe is the second, network lag. That is essentially a measure of how good/bad your network connection is.
If you have a slow or poor network connection, you will lag.
Client-side lag involves ... well, things being drawn (rendered) on your computer screen.
Kit Guardian: can location have something to with that on any given day? Or hou much is being used around you?
Miro Collas: location matters yes. For client side, if there is a lot around you, then there is a lot to render, so more work for your computer to do
Kit Guardian: No I mean in RL
Miro Collas: Ah... it might, perhaps. Not so much distance as quality of connection, and speed of connection
Chantal Harvey: The distance to the Linden Lab servers, does that matter at all?
Miro Collas: there's a way to check your connection: visit http://speedtest.net/ and measure your bandwidth. Ideally, check it against Dallas
Georgianna Blackburn: why Dallas?
Miro Collas: Because a good part of LL's servers are now in Dallas
Georgianna Blackburn: ah, why?
Miro Collas: why there? That I don't know for sure, but it appears to be home to large datacenters
Dacob Paine: It's a co-location for redundancy and it is probably cheaper for their server farms.
Miro Collas: I'm afraid I don't have specifics on what is where, re: servers. But it is a good place to check against - better than a near-by city anyway
Chantal Harvey: Q even if u are in europe, as i am?
Miro Collas: yes. SL has no servers outside the US
Anyway, once you have checked your bandwidth, then you can determine an ideal bandwidth to set in your viewer
Chantal Harvey: ah i always wondered what my ideal bandwidht setting is
Inquisitive Loon: Dallas is not an option for the speed test?
Miro Collas: there is a star there for dallas, tho it is a tad hard to locate.
NicoleX Moonwall: i use a hughes net satlite so it floats
Miro Collas: Chantal: ideal is about 80% of the value that speedtest gives you
Miro Collas: 80%
Emmo Wei: Q is that 80% of the up or down?
Miro Collas: download
Miro Collas: upload is almost always far less
Dacob Paine: Q why is that?
Miro Collas: because generally, we download MUCH more than we upload, and 'net companies know this and allocate the bandwidth accordingly
Chantal Harvey: the burning question for machinima: what can we do to improve our framerate....?
Miro Collas: ok frame rate... that depends on many factors and so isn't easy to answer.
Most importantly, it depends on your hardware.
If you have a quad core PC with a high end vid card, you will get MUCH better frames rates than with say a dual core and a mid-range vid card.
(all else being equal of course) - a quad core will give better results than a dual core. And a faster processor better than a slow one
why is quad-core preferable?
Miro Collas: because then the work can be shared among the cores - which are essentially processors
If you enable it, it splits rendering off into another thread
Kit Guardian: Does our choice of software to film also effect the lag factor?
Miro Collas: it can yes. That's an external program which has to run at the same time as the viewer; it will use processor power.
is SL a multi-threaded app?
Miro Collas: multi-threading is enabled certianly in sl 1.23, snowglobe viewers; I cannot speak for Viewer 2
Miro Collas: or rather, *can* be enabled
Chantal Harvey: oh pls explain?
Apollo Manga: How many cores can SL multithreading use?
Penumbra Carter: Q what is multi threading :)
Miro Collas: multi-threading means that a single program can run several tasks at the same time (kinda); it boosts performance
Kit Guardian: which viewer is the best then?
Miro Collas: I have heard that Kirsten's is geared to machinima. Some I know use it for that specifically, and then revert to... whatever else for normal use.
Chantal Harvey: The LL 2.3 has a preset in graphics for 1920x1080, KirstenLee has shadows... each viewer has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Kayden Oconnell: -- Yes, would like a guideline for a new system, if we're looking to replace what we have -- not top of the line, but affordable?
Miro Collas: as for an ideal system: the more money you can throw at one, the better. It is that simple and brutal
Dacob Paine: lol so true
Chantal Harvey: think of it like this: a hollywood studio will cost a million, a perfect pc for machinima will cost 10,000 dollars
Miro Collas: it you want priorities for a system, then in order: CPU, video card, RAM, hard drive
Chantal Harvey: what will setting your bandwidth-slider too high do? does it influence?
Miro Collas: Chantal, yes it will - set it too low and you' you're throttling data
basicaly, slowing yourself down
Chantal Harvey: and setting it too high?
Kit Guardian: Crash perhaps
Miro Collas: that seems to also have negative effects, tho I confess to not fully understanding that part of it
Empirically, it has been worked out that 80% f your true bandwith is ideal for SL
Dacob Paine: can you give us an idea of the minimum computer someone needs for machinima?
Miro Collas: I lack the experience in that I'm afraid, it isn't something I have done. But let me give you an example....
I have a 3.2GHz quad core PC, 8GB RAM, and a GT240 vid card with 1GB RAM.
With that, I can have all my settings at ultra and a draw distance of 256m and not have issues
(well not usually)
Chantal Harvey: i have invited Ricky Grove to come and talk about computers, for machinima
Chantal Harvey: stay tuned... for that one, as he has agreed to do that for MachinimaMondays.
Apollo Manga: with a 64-bit system, is there a maximum RAM that can effectively be utilized? uhm... 32GB perhaps... not sure now.
Dacob Paine: That depends on the flavor of windows Apollo, it's up to 192 gigs at the most.
Dacob Paine: Some flavors are limited to 16 though
Miro Collas: btw, I'm on linux myself
Apollo Manga: Q but is there a limit on what can effectively be used? I'm building a 12gb system now but wondering whether to expand to 24gb
Miro Collas: that depends on the viewer you're using. All windows viewers (that I know of) are compiled in 32-bits
Note: go to: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ram-memory-upgrade,review-32053.html
Apollo Manga: Windows 7 Resource Monitor says I'm not using the 8gb I have now
Miro Collas: some of those include versions that can make use of extra RAM ... those are the LAA versions
Otherwise, a 32-bit app will use 2GB, no more
Apollo Manga: LAA?
Miro Collas: Large Address Aware
Chantal Harvey: i am on windows 7, 64 bits, do you know if sl will be compatible soon?
Miro Collas: Chantal: no clue on LL's plans for a 64-bit viewer
Kayden Oconnell: -- There seems to be disagreement about ARC -- Does that affect our computer? Or the sim where you're filming?
Miro Collas: Anyway, ARC... it stands for Avatar Rendering Cost. The "rendering" tells you it is about client-side effects, the number is a measure of hwo much work your computer has to do to draw an avatar
Miro Collas: ARC has NO effect on a region
Miro Collas: so.. if someone says, "you have high ARC and are lagging the SIM", they are misinformed
Chantal Harvey: wow listen to that, folks
Kayden Oconnell: Yep, the ARC police will tell you otherwise
Chantal Harvey: avatar rendering costs, are not causing lag
Graycon Sonata: omg
Miro Collas: similarly, if someone says that you're wearing too many prims and are lagging the sim, they are misinformed
Chantal Harvey: are u sure about that, Miro, and what arguments can we use
Miro Collas: I am quite sure
Miro Collas: however...
Miro Collas: if you are wearing too many scripts, then yes, you are lagging the sim
Miro Collas: people often wear a ton of scripts without realizing it - and those DO lag a region
Miles Eleventhauer: i've shot video moving next to a heavly scripted av and you can see the frame rate going down in the video
Kayden Oconnell: Q So, if you're at a region with terrible lag, and many avs -- the main lag is on YOUR computer? trying to rez everything?
Miro Collas: but here it is important to distinguish between client-side and server-side lag
Nave Fall: Q: How do we measure how many scripts we have on us?
Miro Collas: Kayden: it is both...
Ok, let me explain in brief what a SIM does... (and this will therefore be incomplete)...
Miro Collas: among other things, a SIM keeps track of where everyone is... as well as running scripts that are on the SIM, delivering textures to you, and so on.
These things are prioritized. Keeping track of avatars has highest priority
So when a SIM is full of people, the SIM is going to spend most if the time, tracking people
When it has done that, it will then deal with scripts and then it will deliver textures
Miro Collas: so... if you go to hair fair for example.... ;-) you'll be familiar with it being gray for a LONG time... because the SIM is too busy dealing with all the people
Chantal Harvey: Q is there a way to improve this.... at all
Miro Collas: but of course you can cut back some by removing as many worn scripts as possible before you go
If you are holding the event, then keep scripts to a minimum
Miro Collas: also, a neat trick: provide seating
Chantal Harvey: oh?
Miles Eleventhauer: people sitting relieves a laggy sim?
Kayden Oconnell: one script for all the seats?
Graycon Sonata: who knew
Miro Collas: backing up... if you're sitting, from the point of view of the server, you become linked to the object you're sitting on - therefore, the SIM no longer needs to track your movements
Kayden Oconnell: ohhh, ok
Miro Collas: you also become phantom.
Bryn Oh: thats interesting
Miro Collas: meaning you can go through walls
Miles Eleventhauer: do that would include dance pose balls at a club
Miro Collas: yes
Nave Fall sits right down.........
Chantal Harvey: how can you see these scripts?
Miro Collas: some viewers, like Phoenix, have a built-in way of counting scripts on avatars
Miro Collas: right-click your avatar, and select S.Count from the menu
Counting scripts. Please wait.
Counted scripts from 13 attachments on Chantal Harvey: 42
Miro Collas: that show how many scripts you're wearing - except for HUDs
Miro Collas: 42 is a very good script count - nice and low
Ideally, you want to keep your script count under 100
Kayden Oconnell: aos?
Miro Collas: Aos no.
Kayden Oconnell: thanks, Miro -- never had it explained like that before
Bryn Oh: so miro i have just begun to get jerky filming where i didnt before. If i wanted to get it smooth again for my spacenav what are some things to do... for example lowering screen resolution etc?
Miro Collas: let me address another myth.
Miro Collas: Bryn: first I'd shut down any other apps that you do not need, like browers, etc
Miro Collas: that way your computer has less to do
Chantal Harvey: yea i find skype and youtube lower my performance
Apollo Manga: Firefox with multple windows can really slow down performance too
Bryn Oh: ok
Bryn Oh: i get a spike every 5 seconds or so and not sure what it is
Miro Collas: then I think much will depend on where you are in SL. If a place is graphics-intense, your frame rate will be lower
Miro Collas: also, just the sky takes a lot of effort to be drawn
Bryn Oh: oh but i love the sky
Miro Collas: basically: adapt to the location and situation
Bryn Oh: sigh
Chantal Harvey: but switch off the clouds in (advanced) rendering helps
Bryn Oh: ok
Miro Collas: example: do you need water reflerctions? If not, turn them off
Bryn Oh: and minimal draw distance?
Kit Guardian: So sky boxes are not necessarily less laggy?
Miro Collas: No Kit not necessarily. Again, it depends on what you can see
Penumbra Carter: sky boxes, if open to the air will get sky flicker, I found
Miro Collas: the more you have on your screen, the more work yoru computer is doing... ergo, the more client lag
Miro Collas: and a specific case of course is particles
Penumbra Carter: especially if they are above 300 m
Miro Collas: particles are like ARC: they are totally client side, and do NOT lag a region
Chantal Harvey: what is post process quality, there is a slider for that?
Miro Collas: Chantal: I think that's "empty" - meaning there's a slider but no code behind it. ;-)
Miro Collas: what questions did I miss?
Kayden Oconnell: the lottery numbers for the next drawing?
Miro Collas: LOL!
Penumbra Carter: do you then lower your fraps to match the area?
Does changing the fraps to match the region help, sometimes it does, but then I was told not to match it to close to go up? does that make sense?
Miro Collas: you're presuming i know what frpas is. :-
Bryn Oh: how do you change fraps to do that pen?
Penumbra Carter: I change the fraps in my frap settings to match the fraps I see being shown on the sim Bryn let me tell you specifically, one sec
Bryn Oh: ok thanks.. i have not tried that
Chantal Harvey: yea bryn that is hugely important
Bryn Oh: oh good
Penumbra Carter: in the movie tab of fraps:)
Chantal Harvey: set it to reality (the actual framerate of your location), or fraps will double frames to match what you have told it to do...and thus create jerkly images.
If you set your fraps FPS at 30, while your actual framerate is only 15 when recording, makes fraps double all the images you shoot till it is 30fps….and that, is jerky film.
Penumbra Carter: but the sim can be jumpy, so do you go up from what you think is the highest fraps of the sim?
Chantal Harvey: I would suggest go as close as you can, and try to stay a bit under.
NicoleX Moonwall: how best to shoot in dark place with out a flash light?
Miro Collas: play with the sky settings to increase ambient light
Miro Collas: in there, go to Lighting and you'll see Ambient - you can raise the intensity to make the scene brighter
Miro Collas: assuming you're on a V1.x viewer, go to World -> Environment -> Sky settings.
Chantal Harvey: Q is there a setting that creates lag??? or less lag???
Miro Collas: you get a window where you can select preset skies
Chantal Harvey: are the presets less laggy?
Miro Collas: sky presets? not especially more or less... no. Ones with more clouds might be a tiny bit more laggy
Chantal Harvey: so resume... what is your ultimate tip to reduce lag....
Miro Collas: When it comes to lag, overall, it is important to understand the difference between the various forms. From there, you can understand how to deal with them.
Miro Collas: If you're at a public place, busy, then reduce draw distance, or de-render stuff and people. ;-)
NicoleX Moonwall: is it true the higher you go up the less lag?
Miro Collas: Nicole: not that I know of - except that there tends to be less stuff high up, so less to draw
Chantal Harvey: lots of movement will cause lag too? animations?
Miro Collas: scripts run on the server - which affects the entire region, regardless of height
Penumbra Carter: scripts = animation?
Miro Collas: movement will cause server lag *if* the avatars are not sitting
Miro Collas: animations, interesting, are played client side
Penumbra Carter: we will have alot of seated machinimas:)
Chantal Harvey: kk - so, scripts are the worst regarding lag monsters?
Miro Collas: naturally if you need movement then you must have it. You can try to compensate elsewhere, like by cutting back on scripts
Kit Guardian: Does it matter what the Machinima person is wearing? or just the actors?
Miro Collas: Kit: script-wise it matters yes
Kit Guardian: like shouldmwe not wear any AOS or Huds when filming?
Chantal Harvey: avatar rendering doesnt matter, but scripts running does, i think
Miro Collas: AOs are not so bad actually. The worst offenders are resize scripts in hair and Shoes
Penumbra Carter: scripts = animation?
Miro Collas: movement will cause server lag *if* the avatars are not sitting
Animations, interesting, are played client side
Kit Guardian: Does it matter what the Michinima person is wearing? or just the actors?
Miro Collas: Kit: script-wise it matters yes
Kit Guardian: like shouldmwe not wear any AOS or Huds when filming?
Chantal Harvey: avatar rendering doesnt matter, but scripts running does, i think
Miro Collas: AOs are not so bad actually. The worst offenders are resize scripts in hair and Shoes
Chantal Harvey: Miro, this is an eye opener, thank you very much.
Picture made by Kit Guardian
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
MachinimaMondays feat. LAG !!! in Second Life.
We jokingly tell each other that lag = love, but any serious machinimatographer knows that lag is a killer. We all have seen the jerky machinima's, and most of us have encountered this low framerate while filming. It ruines any chance on producing a good machinima.
Next week, the 7pm (PAC/SL time) MachinimaMondays meeting will be about lag, how it is caused, what we can do to beat it and get a reasonable framerate to improve our filming. I, for one, wont film if I cannot at least get a minimum of 25 frames per second.
But what to do when you are asked to film a busy event in Second Life, is there a way to improve your fps? Of course we all know about changing our settings, bringing down your draw distance, particle count, for example. Resizing your window helps too - but what if you still want to use that full monitorsize and work in HD...? Relog and reboot?
Miro Collas has agreed to come and share his knowledge with us on this subject - so grab your chance and come over to next weeks meeting.
The meeting will be in text. For those that cannot attend, there will be a follow up blog with transscript of this meeting.
To attend in Second Life, use this SLurl.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/RastaOpen4/79/87/41
To get notices for our weekly machinima meetings, join the inworld group called: MachinimaMondays.
Two blogs by Gwyneth Llewelyn that are recommended if you want to learn about lag:
http://analutetia.com/2009/06/22/anatomy-of-lag/
http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2008/02/16/lag-myths-dispelled/
Sunday, July 25, 2010
MachinimaMondays - 7 pm
*** Machinimamondays - 7 pm - starting on Monday 26th of July 2010. ***
3 Ladies in machinima have decided to start weekly machinima meetings, an open house gathering to which you are all invited.
It will involve presentations, classes, feedback sessions, discussions, chats, sharing & brainpicking.
So, you are more then welcome to come over and join us,
Phaylen Fairchild
Toxic Menges
Chantal Harvey— Chantal Harvey, Today 1:54
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