Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Squirrelverse: Graduation Village for new teens to Second Life - 18 and older

Graduation Village in Second Life opened on Saturday, January 20, 2007.
Operated by Squirrelverse (http://www.squirrelverse.com"), Graduation Village is a privately owned education services facility on the Main Grid that has a dual purpose - to give Teenagers aged 18 and over a place to hang and to meet informally with adult educators and librarians, and to be a focal point for the provision of commercial education and business services. Contact Fleet Goldenberg "in world" for further information.
SLURL:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kaunis/20/221/293/

A FLV version of the file is available on from Library Famous on blip.tv. The FLV file on blip is an On2 VP6 encoded FLV file. The original file was in Quicktime and was taken into the Flash 8 encoding module to create the FLV file. Much better. I'm learning as I go, so the machinima will look better as we move along.

If you are interested in joining the Library Famous (machinima actors guild) group in SL, just search using the groups tab. If you join the group you will be asked to join us in the upcoming video about librarians in SL.

Now for YouTube's version of the video. This is an MPEG4 file saved to the spec suggested by YouTube. Due to compression of the files in order to host the worlds' video collection, the videos on YouTube aren't as clear as the FLV files on blip.tv.

Save video (different format) via YouTube
On YouTube, select the small version of the file by clicking on the icon at the lowe right side of the player (2nd from edge).

Friday, January 19, 2007

Mashups: YouTube's Deal with Warner

YouTube: the deal with Warner
According to YouTube, Warner is the first label to support YouTube users' creativity by authorizing free use of their music content.

Read about the YouTube deal.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Making a One Minute Machinima in Second Life

Read the complete article on machinima.com:
Full article: Making a One Minute Machinima in SL

By Chris & Becky Carella of The Electric Sheep Company

Their tips include:
Suppressing the UI (ctrl-alt-1).
Making sure your cursor is not showing!!

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Eric Linden's Top 10 Machinima Tips

First, create an avatar and download the Second Life software:
http://www.secondlife.com.
See the Community Media site: http://secondlife.com/community/media.php

Eric Linden's Top 10 Machinima Tips for Second Life

1) Set up your screen capture software. I recommend downloading FRAPS (http://www.fraps.com/) to capture your footage. FRAPS captures very clean footage while maintaining the best possible frame rates.
2) For dolly shots, contact Alt-Zoom Studios http://alt-zoom.com/
to get their free, scripted camera object. This is currently the best scripted camera in Second Life, and will give you the ability to capture smooth camera moves.
3) Try to isolate your action in a way that prevents extraneous background objects and scripts from coming into view. This will help you maintain a more consistent frame rate ? especially if there is a lot of action in the scene.
4) Try capturing in mouse-look mode. You can get smoother camera movements this way.
5) Try to capture footage in a larger format than what you plan to deliver it in. For example, I always capture at 640x480 when I know my output is going to be 320x240. You?ll maintain higher quality throughout the editing process this way.
6) Try to limit the number of actors in any given scene. Having a lot of avatars within a scene ? especially if they are all using unique animations or have a lot of attachments ? will reduce your frame rate.
7) Always capture several frames in front of- and at the end of your action. This helps greatly when you?re editing scenes together.
8) Try not to move the camera too fast; this can be confusing for the audience and disrupts continuity.
9) Try several views of the same action sequence. Capture more than you think you?ll need. You can always delete. This will allow you to make more creative decisions when you?re editing.
Related Articles: Making a One Minute MachinimaMaking a One Minute Machinima in Second Life.
10) Hide the Second Life UI (ctrl+alt+1) when capturing.