IN THE GRID: Video: "A noble but failed experiment in documenting Caledon's public transit system."

December 20, 2006

Video: "A noble but failed experiment in documenting Caledon's public transit system."

Well, it's by no stretch of the imagination an award-winning film, but I finally managed to pull off my first machinima recording this week, which I just successfully uploaded to YouTube. Those with Flash Player on their device (desktop, laptop, or mobile) should be seeing a smaller version of it above, in fact, that you can simply click on to watch; or you can go to the YouTube page to see a larger version, or download the .mp4 file (CAUTION: 12 mgs), for viewing in FrontRow, your iPod, or other portable device. This file is being released without DRM software, so that people can convert it into whatever format works best for them; if you end up converting the file yourself, say into .wmv or .div, please feel free to send me a copy at inthegrid [at] gmail.com and I will post it here as well.

The video itself is my attempt to capture some of the wonder of the public transit system at the Victorian community Caledon; the entire thing is steam-powered, and rolls along at a leisurely pace throughout the pastoral countryside. But alas, as you can see in the file, the combination of my low-end computer and Second Life's infrastructure made for ultimately a failed documentation; as I'm actually moving, most of what you see has been rendered only as featureless gray rectangles. Still, I worked three damn hours to put this footage together, so thought I might as well release something for ITG's readers to check out.

I'm leaving for Christmas holiday tomorrow, and will have access for a few days to a slightly more powerful computer than mine; I'm hoping to try out some more machinima experiments while there, and maybe having something a little better-looking for everyone to see. In the meanwhile, though, I hope you enjoy this, and sorry again for the unending cloud of gray.

MUSIC: Scott Joplin, "Pineapple Rag," performed by a friend of mine named Scott Kirby. Sorry for the intricate captions, which I didn't realize would be so hard to read in the small version; try the high-quality downloadable version for your best shot at reading them.

Comments

Pretty cool. Some tips you might find useful:

Quick way to get rid of grayness on multiple objects: press Ctrl-3 (selects the Edit build tool), then click-drag to select some objects. Press Esc to deselect. All the objects you had selected should load their textures. If you have enough video ram, you can go around loading textures you need before filming.

To get rid of the user interface clutter: press Ctrl+Alt+1.

Posted by name | January 5, 2007 6:22 PM

Actually, I think this is a very commendable piece of work. One can't be blamed for assaults of greyness, something which effectively crippled much of my initial experimentation.

Posted by Ordinal Malaprop | December 31, 2006 11:47 AM

Well, it may not have had the touches of, let's say, a George Lucas, but it did get the point across very well to me. I know as soon as I finish this post, I HAVE to try out the train. Also, makes me wonder what videos I could make. Not that I could do it very well, hehe. That is so cool. Thanks for sharing it!

--davey

PS I think you did very well!

Posted by davey Luxor | December 20, 2006 2:09 PM