Embryo Culture

I replaced the earlier "In the Lab" video with "Embryo Culture". Somehow I had messed up the "In the Lab" video file.

In the Laboratory

I uploaded to YouTube a new version of the teaser for "The Nanoepitaxy of Susanne Marie". The new version includes a scene in the Laboratory of Archology Base when the new embryos from Earth arrive.

I'm still having trouble with what YouTube does to the uploaded file when there has been some digital processing done prior to upload. I tried to use iMovie to slightly darken the earlier "greeting" scene that was over-exposed. I my have made it worse by adjusting the contrast. Also, in the new scene, my digitally-synthesized voices came out even worse than last time.

DAZ Studio tutorials

I have started to assemble a group of tutorials for how to create computer-generated animations.

Rendering models of living organisms - using DAZ Studio for rendering and animation of human figures and other similar 3D models.

Props and models for DAZ Studio - how to download and use polygon mesh models with DAZ Studio.

Animation with DAZ Studio - how to make computer-generated animations using DAZ Studio.

A nice DAZ Studio video:

YouTube status blog

I just found the YouTube status blog. This is a good place to check before reporting bugs.

Funny YouTube help video:

Embryos from Earth

I extended my "video teaser" for "The Nanoepitaxy of Susanne Marie". The version called "Embryos from Earth" includes some animated characters. YouTube now allows you to select among the three automatically-generated thumbnail images to pick the one that is used for each video.

I'm not happy with the way YouTube processed either the video or the audio for the part of "Embryos from Earth" that includes the animated characters.

Character Animation

I made a short video using DAZ Studio. This uses the "fairy" model that comes with DAZ Studio. I'm not sure which is sillier, putting wings on the fairy so she can fly or letting her fly by getting on the dragonfly.

Space Flight

I started experimenting with Bryce and made some computer animation scenes for a trip from Earth to a distant star system. A nice feature of Bryce is that multiple computers on a local network can be used to render an animation.

The worm hole was designed to have a series of 4 rings blast out as the ship entered. I need to go back and look at the motion paths in detail because rather than blast out in single file, the rings crashed into each other and bounced around.

Computer Generated Animation

I started experimenting with computer-generated animation. The short (50 seconds) video call "Planet Fall" at YouTube is a teaser for the story ""The Nanoepitaxy of Susanne Marie". I found Vue to be fairly easy to use with a good introductory tutorial and a big users manual. In contrast, Xface seems to have limited documentation.