Planet Blender

Matroska for my Blender animations?
Starbright Illustrations (blog) - 2010-09-04 19:15:59

I want two versions of my presentation video, for the 3D spaceship model I’m building. A low quality version as an inline video in my posts (and on the 3D model’s dedicated page) and a higher quality version that people can download if they want to have a really good look at the model.

So obviously I’ll be creating the high quality version first and simply transcoding a low quality ‘YouTube’ version from that.

So what format to pick for my video? Even I know VHS and Super8 are old news, but what are the kids using now? After reading more than I really wanted to, and certainly more than I thought I would, about video codecs I’ve come to a decision. Website after web site, forum after forum kept saying the same thing.

“If the file sharing scene is an indicator for future trends, the next ‘big’ container format to replace AVI will not be MP4/MOV, but Matroska.”

(this quote from) FFMpeg QuickTime H.264 export only works in VLC…? – Blender Artists Forums.

So my high quality version will be an MKV file.

I’m also still trying to get the best results from my ogg player. I’ve decided on ogg/ogv (same thing, different suffix) for the web version of the promotional video because it is open source. I will also need an mp4 version for all the poor people locked into either the Microsoft or Apple empires.

Now this sounds simple, but it has been a giant pain in the fundament to get hold of these lawyer infested codecs (the code you need to make the file). In theory, now that I have negotiated all the hacks required to get this non-free lump of computer code included in Ubuntu (which is forced to ship without this stuff to make the lawyers happy), I’ll be able to make an mp4 file that will play in most people’s QuicktimeTM (upgrade to the Pro version or it’s pretty useless) or Flash (don’t get me started, who’s got the thousands of pounds or hundreds of hours required to learn how to use that pile?) Or it might be more complicated than even this confused picture, according to this web page about codecs and such.

It says to

1. Make one version that uses WebM (VP8 + Vorbis).
2. Make another version that uses H.264 baseline video and AAC “low complexity” audio in an MP4 container.
3. Make another version that uses Theora video and Vorbis audio in an Ogg container.
4. Link to all three video files from a single <video> element, and fall back to a Flash-based video player.

Don’t ya just hate lawyers and copyright?

OK, rant over, back to work on getting my inline web movie player to work across as many browsers as possible. (So far it’s working in Firefox on a Linux machine, Firefox on a Mac and Safari). Then maybe I can get back to doing something creative.

Sweaty Beards!
Reign of Fury - Blender Short Film Production Blog - 2010-09-04 18:38:15

haha, ran across this trailer for a live action comedy about vikings while I was looking for reference material for my project. Too funny, had to share….

Twitter: 2010-09-05
Matt Ebb - 2010-09-04 18:31:00

• laser microscope: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://teravolt.org/Laser_Microscope.htm #

More Head Sculpting
BenSimonds.com - 2010-09-04 13:42:41

Just another head sculpt. That is all.

Human Rigging Tutorial with Blender 2.5
BlenderNation - 2010-09-04 07:54:21

nawabz wrote us about a nice video tutorial by David Ward from BlenderCookie.com. The video started by adding the default human meta-rig template then adding basic IKs for the arm and leg and a fews...

[read the full article on blendernation.com]

Rattle Zone - A Black Day in Christchurch
Aligorith's Lair - 2010-09-04 07:04:00

Luxrays Blender Render package for Archlinux
goplexian.com - 2010-09-04 07:03:00

("Luxrays" is the name that has been chosen for the part of the Luxrender dedicated to accelerating the ray interesection process by GPU's, from now on I will refer to SmallLuxGPU as Luxrays.) Yesterday after watching this Luxrays video tutorial I decided that I wanted to give it a whirl myself, but there was no Luxrays package for Archlinux ...so today I made one. Here is the package if you want to try it yourself: Luxrays for Archlinux Unless you already know how to use Luxrays...

Another 2.49 to 2.5 (beta) Guide
3rD Movement - 2010-09-04 00:26:00

Well I'll just join in the fad; jump on the band wagon.... here are some of things that changed, moved over, got left out, and still are not added yet in 2.5 (beta). Just note this software is still undergoing changes. They are working on getting it stable.... Hello Beta!
Some of these are new, but most have just been reorganized, and put in locations in the interface that make more sense.
Read more »