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There will be a Animation Competition at BrickFest. I am asking the body of
animators now to submit to me or in this public forum ideas for the
competition.
The BW03 Competition had a comedy category. Other competitions have had
Historical, Horror, and Star Wars themed competitions.
What type of category would you like to see?
I have thought of a music video category. Or what about a Western?
Please email me at thumat@gactr.uga.edu or post to this public forum ideas that
you would like to see in the way of animation competition categories. You may
also suggest rules that you would like to see implemented. All ideas and
submissions will be considered.
Todd
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Seth, Todd, this is directed to both of you.
The most important issue for us animators is: don't wait for too long!
Making an animation takes time (A Christmas Carol cost me almost half a
year, estimation over 300 hours of continuous work). For BricksWest comedy
competition, we had less than two months, and December isn't a month that
lends much time to animation.
The theme? Personally, I think a music video is general enough to keep the
audience interesting. Other ideas, like limitations on the bricks/figures
that can be used are an interesting challenge to the animator, but can get
boring for an audience that loves seeing videos of Lego creations instead of
wonderful stories that happen to be told in Lego (like we, the animators,
do). We appreciate the fact that minifigs can have emotions, and basically
behave like real-life actors. But do keep an eye on copyright issues.
There's bound to be a local band that is willing to provide music, but
acquiring a song, too, takes time. Once again: the western theme is no
longer on the shelves, and not everyone can order through Shop At Home. On
the other hand, this encourages creativity to work around the issue ;)
Transferring to video: if you can get a video to play full-screen on your
computer monitor, you can get it to play full-screen on tv by a tv-out port
present on most modern video cards (like many cards in the GeForce series).
Formats that can be played full-screen are .avi and .mpg (Windows Media
Player). QuickTime animations can be converted to .avi using a program
called Axogon Composer. The only format I have my doubts about is RealMedia:
the people at RealNetworks don't really want to have their format
disassembled into something un-real, and their basic player (RealOne) keeps
a control bar in-screen when full-screen is selected.
The Lego animation that I can't get to play is yet to be published, so if
you have trouble getting things to work, don't hesitate to mail me: under
normal circumstances you should have a reply within a day.
That said, I want to thank you, Todd, that - despite the criticism received
from the animating community - you still want to give us the opportunity to
show off our work. Without you, there wouldn't have been a festival at
BricksWest, and some people forget that. It's encouraging to hear that
you're not yet tired of this task, and I hope that an animation by me will
be featured at the next festival!
Stefan.
---
New film by YellowHead Studios:
A Christmas Carol In Bricks
http://www.stack.nl/~stefanvz/lego/
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In lugnet.events.brickfest, Stefan van Zwam writes:
> Transferring to video: if you can get a video to play full-screen on your
> computer monitor, you can get it to play full-screen on tv by a tv-out port
> present on most modern video cards (like many cards in the GeForce series).
> Formats that can be played full-screen are .avi and .mpg (Windows Media
> Player). QuickTime animations can be converted to .avi using a program
> called Axogon Composer. The only format I have my doubts about is RealMedia:
> the people at RealNetworks don't really want to have their format
> disassembled into something un-real, and their basic player (RealOne) keeps
> a control bar in-screen when full-screen is selected.
Stefan - Thanks a lot for this paragraph. It got me looking at video cards
with output capabilities. That then led me to take a closer look at the IBM
Thinkpad laptop PC I currently have as my work computer. That PC has a
S-Video output connection on it. I vaguely remember looking at this months
ago but because I don't have any kind of device (VCR, TV etc.) with an
S-Video input connection I just figured I was out of luck.
During my research into Video Cards I saw mention of an S-Video to RCA jack
converter. D'oh! Why didn't someone tell me sooner this creature exists?
One quick trip to Radio Shack later and I had a set up that now allows me to
videotape directly from my laptop PC.
For anyone else who might be interested in trying to duplicate this feat,
here is how I have it set up:
From the S-Video output on the PC I run an S-Video cord to the converter.
This converts to a RCA female jack end. I then insert a double-male
connector into that and plug it into the Video In jack on my VCR.
For the audio, I have to use the headphone jack on the laptop since there is
no separate audio out line. Into the headphone jack I plug a Y-Converter
that has a 1/8 inch jack on one end of the cord and standard left/right RCA
audio jacks at the other end. Those jacks plug into the audio in left/right
inputs on my VCR.
I'm so happy that I can now put my PC-edited animation videos on tape since
that remains the best way for many of my friends and family to view my
projects. I feel a little bit like an idiot for not realizing I had this
capability for a while now but my joy at being able to finally do this is
overshadowing my self-deprecating feelings.
Thanks again Stefan for the nudge that got me thinking about this subject
some more and led to me figuring out how to accomplish what had always
seemed like beyond me.
Greg
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