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random notes
2005-08-05 16:56:59
The weird experiences with my last vid continue. While making the version for upload at the org, I had to note that a 2-pass DivX compression resulted in a bigger file than the 1-pass encode. Normally it it is vice versa. Today I've tried to compress a 320x240 version for dial up users that small that I can host it at webspace I own. It shrinked not with within an acceptable quality, and so smoothed it to get better compressibility. But again it got larger.
Next time my AMV related activities will slow down a little bit. I will see if I can resolve my issues with MovieXone. I'm somehow familiar with that prog, and testing the trial versions of other progs will need much time and effort. In addition the Aist progs are specialized in one thing that might be helpfull in making AMV's - to animate things. The bad is, there is not tut for this. -
Bonus time - continued
2005-08-04 16:58:13
So I continue with "The Making of ... Noir - Episode#25". Who hasn't seen it - spoiler alert!
The ending, starting from the moment Kirika dies, should last of course a little bit longer. Some more "conversation", Chloe more complaining about Kirikas death, Mireille more trying to covince her to leave it all behind. In case of need of more footage I was thinking about creating some "memories" - monochrome clips of moments when they had helped each other or even teased.
I had planed a lot of masking - in scenes that now aren't in the vid. In that half-hug as Mireille returns Kirika the Beretta I wanted to have Chloe instead and let the gun disappear. Dead Kirika should lie on the altair. The final scene was planned similar to the original version - both leave the manor together.
The idea to that kiss came as I visited the website of a fellow member from a Noir-board, which is unfortunatly down since Mai. She made a picture, a Kiss between Kirika and Mireille, using Kirikas kiss with Chloe and Mireilles "kiss" with Intoccabile. My first thought was to use these scenes too. But while making the footage, I found that Mireilles facial expression after Chloes attempt to kill her fitted much better.
First idea was again to use masking. It had meant a lot of work. Because the shape of Kirikas and Mireilles face is different I had to redraw for a lot of frames parts of Chloes face. And of course for every frame I had to make a mask. Fortunatly I got the idea of using layers in Gimp to do this scene. If I think I had done all that work and in the end figured out it doesn't work... because I have only one overlay track. So how should I have made that Cloes face partially covers Mireilles and vice versa?
This is the first time I announced a vid at the org. My first AMV I announced only at said Noir board. I noticed a remarkable difference. The first started with a star average of 3.5 and is still around there. This one started with 3.0 and dropped now below. I hope it will bounce back and get closer to my first one, because I consider it better. But what do I complain about the star rating? In first line I do the AMV's for myself, to express my emotions about Noir. I can share the vid with others, but I can't expect from others to share the same feelings like me. -
Bonus time!
2005-08-03 17:03:25
Since I write this journal I've noticed that the number of hits between the entries doesn't differ much. Maybe it's a weird incidence, or I have some regular readers. It doesn't matter, knowing that there are people out there who observe my progress kept me going, gave me power, confidence and inspiration if I stuck. Thank you very much. That deserves reward. So I decided to give here some further information about the making of...
....Noir - Episode#25
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=83266
Be warned, it contains some spoilers. The following info will contain spoilers too, possibly for Noir and for sure for the vid.
What to begin with? Of course with the beginning - there was only the idea to make an AMV in silent movie style. During discussions at a Noir forum about members AMV's raised the question why there are so less comedy Noir AMV. That inspired to make it a parody in slapstick style. What I needed now was silent movie music. With the help of Google I found a downloadable version fo that slapstick rag. It was exactly what I was looking for - but it had two flaws - one part was too short, another one too long. The too short part I solved with the help of Audacity, I duplicated a piece of around 10 sec. The too long part caused later on the shortage of footage.
As I have written in an earlier entry, this should originally have two parts. The first should end during the blue scene, before you can see that the knife breaks. To this point the vid follows my original concept. The final text screen was thought to say "To be continued...", changing in "To be continued..?" it should be some teaser for the second part.
The second part, which was planned from the beginning shorter than the first part, should begin with the complete blue scene. The plot was the same as it is now, but should involve more scenes and some more text screens which would of course explain some more the end. Especially I wanted to show Kirika really dying, using the scene of ep.26, where she breaks down hit from Althenas bullet and some masking. But it would have been really hard - as I looked at it, I found that there is no matching scene in ep. 25.
To be continued... (This time really) -
It's done!
2005-08-02 16:29:27
The idea to make the last part completly with GIMP was good. It had such an efficiency that I could finish the AMV. I exported it in HuffyYUV, watched it, quality and synching was ok. I loaded it in VDubMod, exported it with DivX, watched it and was shocked. The visual quality was good, but again I had that desynching problem. I've tried the same with VDub - same problem.
So I thought it was DivX and decided to do an encode with Intel Indeo. While this encode was in progress, I checked the file properties in WMP. Under "extended->video renderer" I found an average frame rate around 19 fps, while the vid is encoded with 24 fps. So I got the idea that WMP is the problem and played it with mplayer. Because the encode still was in progress, I had dropped frames, but it seemed to be synced. After the encode was done, I played it again with mplayer, and it was smooth and in sync. Then I played the Indeo encoded file with WMP, and this time it was in sync too. Probably my version of WMP is too old, it's 6.4.9. ;)
Tommorow I will write the video profile and upload it. After that's done I can enter it right in time to SoobsNet contest. Not that I'm thinking that I have any chance to win the contest or even the category that I enter. It's only to compare with others, different from the rating systems of the org which are screwed up by the fans of certain anime. -
Preparing for the last round
2005-08-01 16:20:30
Today I started preparations for the masking I was intended to do for the last clip. During doing that I realized that masking will need a hughe effort or it will look horrible. Because I have to use GIMP to make the mask, it is easier to do the whole job in GIMP. It's not only the mask I had to make, heavy editing of the frames I wanted to overlay had been necessary too. A clever use of layers will save a lot of work. So I think I will make it to the deadline.
Yesterday I complained about the bad quality of the final vid. It seems to be an incompatibility between MovieXone and DivX. Possibly the result of the RGB - YUV conversion. I exported it as HuffyYUV, and it looked fine. I converted it with VDubMod in DivX, using the same settings as in MovieXone. The result still was fine, only a little bit larger than the MovieXone export.
Evil PC mag's. In their tests of video editing software they say that they only run on WinXP. But it doesn't seem to be true. With a little search I found out that the Magix programs run on Windows starting from 98SE, and ULead runs at Win2K too. Both offer trial versions. For the other programs I have to check that. This project of course I'll finish with MovieXone, it's a matter of time. Then I will test the new software to find out what fits me best.
JOURNAL: Keeper of Hellfire
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