Embeddable Google Books

Google Operating System has taught me how to do this too, and you can browse up to 20% of the book. You'll have to get rid of the script's line breaks if posting to Blogger, and sorry the Blogger template is stuck at this width.

CS4 at SFMograph October 16

On Oct 16, 2008 SFMograph hosts a look at Adobe Production Premium CS4 featuring Adobe After Effects. It's at Adobe in SF; RSVP required.

Update: Matt Silverman, Creative Director at Phoenix Designs (and sfmograph co-host) will break down the motion graphics stinger his team created for the Adobe CS4 launch. "Created in collaboration with Nando Costa from Portland design studio Nervo, and Barcelona's Vasava, the piece explores the CS4 Master Collection as we travel through the Nervo and Vasava artwork. Phoenix completed this heavy AE project in After Effects CS4 (along with Photoshop CS4, Maya, and Cinema4D), and will go over some of the new features which they used to complete the animation including 3D model import and separate X/Y/Z transforms, as well as go over an interesting use of 3D transmission layers with falloff lighting using Buena Depth Cue. Bring the kids for this one... it's going to be swell. A QuickTime of the stinger can be seen here."

"Plug-in of the Month" for October is MochaAE.

CS4 Learning Centers at Layers & Photoshop User

Layers Magazine has a CS4 Learning Center with video reviews and tips for most of the CS4 applications, including After Effects.

Also, Photoshop User has more specific video at its Photoshop CS4 Learning Center. In particular, check out the less flashy new features like the Adjustment Panel, Dodge & Burn, On-Image Controls (also works in Hue/Sat and Curves), Live Brush Previews, and the Mask Panel (with dynamic edges).

Update: Richard Harrington is posting a growing library of video on Photoshop CS4 in different places, like his CSFour.com.

CS4 AVCHD Editing + big AE feature list

Dave Helmly at Adobe has comments and a movie at an Intro to CS4 and New AVCHD Editing.

Todd Kopriva details an unordered, approximately comprehensive list of new features in After Effects CS4.

SF Cutters Sept 25 @ Adobe

SF Cutters with support from SF Mograph and Digital Cinema Society is having the "Meeting of the Year" Sept 25 at Adobe in San Francisco.

The agenda includes CS4 Production Premium, G Tech storage, and "Mini Reel" finalists -- and of course door prizes. This meeting is free, but you do need to pre-register to make sure there is a badge waiting for you and that you get refreshments courtesy of Adobe.

By the way there are other AE user group meetings the 25th including New York and Dallas, and in the LA area Adobe CS4 at Editor's Lounge on the 26th.

Spilling the beans on Pixel Bender

david van brink comments on the Kevin Goldsmith post Spilling the beans... Pixel Bender in CS4:

"Pixel Bender is Adobe’s way of packaging up (essentially) OpenGL Shader Language, for use as effects plugins to their imaging products.

The outcome will be a lot of extremely cool effects plugins. Some of these will be old effects that run much faster, meaning we can use them more freely. Some of these will new effects that would have been prohibitively slow, but are now merely non-realtime."

In CS4 can you share these pieces of code, like the early shaders and filters done for Flash 10 pictured above (from Pixelero and Mr.doob, or even something akin to Fluffy)? I'm not sure, but After Effects is supposed to support the whole set of Pixel Bender functions, while Flash currently supports only a smaller subset, e.g., no GPU acceleration.

As noted earlier today, the Cartoon filter is a Pixel Bender filter, and the other 2 new GPU-accelerated effects, Turbulent Noise and Bilateral Blur, probably are too. And from an old post here, Pixel Bender in action in the Flash beta.

Update: Create Digital Motion (9/25) covers the same ground as this post and attracted clarifying comments by Kevin Goldsmith:

"Pixel Bender runs on the GPU in the Toolkit, in Photoshop and in After Effects. Photoshop’s new pan-rotate-and-zoom of super large images is also using the GPU. Premiere is using GPU acceleration built on AIF technologies, but does not support Pixel Bender filters in CS4.

Flash runs Pixel Bender multi-threaded on the CPU in 10.0

Peter’s original point is absolutely correct. Adobe was already using GPU acceleration before CS4, but in CS4 we’re pushing it even further. We’re also doing a lot of work on scaling for bigger numbers of multiple-cores. Run a complex Pixel Bender filter in FP 10 on an 4 or 8 core system and watch the CPU utilization."

Update 2: Kevin Goldsmith adds more with CPU, GPU, multi-core.

PETA Urges Ben & Jerry's to Use Human Breast Milk

from SFist:

"PETA Urges Ben & Jerry's to Use Human Breast Milk"

'Grave Threats' To Economy

CNN notes the Fed chairman on 'Grave Threats' To Economy, but the lack of oversight clause seems more like a tactic to avoid a taxpayer equity stake and push instead a gift to Wall Street.

picture via Digby

Update: It's not a matter of the complexity of the "financial instruments" that a "computer tells you" are real. It's a matter of biased assumptions and dummy variables; see How Wall Street Lied to Its Computers at NYTimes.com. The finance guys weren't interested in resilient systems. The players already knew that these "instruments" were Ponzi schemes or something similar and that they couldn't always controls the herds.

Of course investors don't understand, because the game requires they don't! Now that The Fed and its allies want the marks to cover the losses, we should really question where "the money has just disappeared" to.

The actual wealth is still around; it was just skimmed off quick to protect it. After all, in Pottersville we serve hard drinks for men who want to get drunk fast.

The Cartoon filter story

On the After Effects List, some of the AE team shared background on the Cartoon filter (see the Chris Meyer highlight movie), which has been been seen as symbolic of a lack of development focus by Adobe HQ.

Lost in the shuffle is that Cartoon is one of 3 the new GPU-accelerated effects; the others are Turbulent Noise (an improved version of Fractal Noise, but without looping) and Bilateral Blur (like a fast Smart Blur). Anyway here's the story:

Todd Kopriva:
The Cartoon effect was written using the same foundational technology that underlies Pixel Bender. So, rather than thinking about the time spent on the Cartoon effect as being just spent on the Cartoon effect, think of it as time spent by our best people on implementing, testing, and improving a platform on which all sorts of fast and flexible effects are being built.

If you want After Effects to use your GPU effectively and provide an easy way for users to create effects, then you should be happy that time was spent on the Cartoon effect.

Dave Simons:
For the whole back-story, it's what Todd said, plus this detail: Holger Winnemöller was hired into the research group at Adobe after doing his PhD thesis on real-time video abstraction.

Siggraph paper: http://videoabstraction.net/papers/videoabstraction.pdf
Demo movie: http://videoabstraction.net/movie.php?size=large

BTW, the technically superior Red Giant ToonIt costs $379. Upgrade to AE CS4: $299.

Adobe responds to 23 After Effects gripes

Dear Adobe collates 23 responses by Michael Coleman and Ellen Wixted in Adobe responds to After Effects gripes.

Update: Helpdesk support back in the day, with English subtitles.

AE LiveDocs for CS4 +Premiere

AE LiveDocs for CS4 are up.

There's a PDF, a page that describes all changes to the UI, and a new features page. Commenting won’t be turned on until the software is released.

Update: Todd Kopriva has more in After Effects CS4 Help is live! (...but it's still in beta).

Update 2: Adobe has also posted Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 Help on the web where you can search it. You can also go straight to the list of new features.

Grain Matching on new PVC channel

AE I Owe You has a new tutorial called "Grain Matching" that shows a simple technique on matching each color channel instead of just slapping on grain overall.

AEIOU is now part of the galaxy of blogs absorbed by PVC. In this case it's part of a new channel called Motion Graphics & Visual Effects. According to Chris Meyer, writers slated to share their expertise include:

• John Dickinson of Motionworks
  
• Jonas Hummelstrand of General Specialist
• Alan Shisko of Motion Graphics ‘n Such
• Mark Spencer of All About Motion
• David Torno of AE I Owe You

CS4 now public with previews

Adobe TV already has Adobe CS4 tours and more. Tours for AE, Premiere, and Photoshop Extended, respectively, are posted below -- though they can be viewed much better at Adobe TV. The product pages, including AE CS4, are also up and have different feature previews.

As the teams release more info, you'll find more on Adobe Blogs. John Nack has the first round-up of external resources in (CS)4 On The Floor!

For the continuing blow-by-blow on AE, Todd Kopriva, keeper of the docs, is keeping track new resources at After Effects region of interest. Also, you might watch AE product manager Michael Coleman's Keyframes blog for more information.

Chris & Trish Meyer are at the ready with After Effects CS4 New Creative Techniques at Lynda.com, which has previews for the other products too. There's more at ProVideoCoalition, Layers Magazine, and elsewhere:

• Chris & Trish have an After Effects CS4 quick tour
• Mark Christiansen posted a video about 3D in Photoshop/AE
• Richard Harrington has a video look at Photoshop CS4 User Interface Changes
• Stu Maschwitz on the Mini-Flowchart
• Zoom in Online has overviews, podcasts and tutorials starting
• Creative Mac has Adobe CS4: Six Things to Keep In Mind
• Real World Illustrator has CS4 facts and more
  
• Angie Taylor showed off After Effects CS4 at IBC
• Flash CS4 Feature Tour from Lee Brimelow
• Layers Magazine has a CS4 Learning Center with video reviews and tips for most of the CS4 applications, including After Effects.
• Mylenium has nice in-depth overviews of AE CS4 and 3D in PS

But wait, there's more: Check out Russell Brown's PS CS4 tutorials on AdobeTV; here's CS4 3D Mesh from Grayscale:

The Making of 'Reverie'

Prolost posted details about Reverie, an impressive new video shot with Canon's 5D Mark II by Vincent Laforet (direct link to the Canon site). Now there's a behind the scenes video on the making of Reverie; it's not super informative but Laforet adds:

'if the Canon still camera team and the video team have come together to produce the Canon EOS 5D MKII - the next HD camcorder they come out with - may just floor us all… these are very exciting times - to be someone who focuses on “creating” as opposed to the “process” and “technique” of making your vision match the “reality” of the tools you have at your disposal.'

Here's a web version of Reverie. The QuickTime version is much better, and again you can find it and detailed comments though Prolost:



Update: The Full-Resolution Video Clips for Reverie were posted by Canon; Vincent Laforet’s Blog has the details at Original “raw” clips from “Reverie” Now Available for Download.

Update 2: Adam Wilt posted with humorous perspective on the SF Cutters list:

Does the EOS 5D MkII change everything?

Sure! Just like (in my short time following the business) Super8mm, AV-3400 Portapaks, Super8 Sound, Trinicon cameras with Betamax portapaks, one-piece camcorders, the ECS-90, the CMX 6000, EditDroid, VHS-C, Video8, Montage Picture Processor, Avid running on Apollos, Hi8, TAO Editizer, DV, Lightworks, the HDW-700, Panasonic WJ-MX12, FCP, the HDW-F900, Varicam, Vision2 Expression stock, the DVX100, HDV, P2, Vision3, Viper, Dalsa, SI2K, RED ONE, and XDCAM EX HQ (sorry if I missed your favorite world-changing revolutionary technology / camera / format / film stock).

More, better, and cleverer tools? Bring 'em on! Expecting the tool itself to cause an explosion of creativity and talent, and to turn the world upside down? Maybe not so much. Evolution, sure. Revolution? Um, hmm, erm...

As to some of the more breathless reports that the EOS 5D MkII eliminates the need for (a) lighting and (b) truckfuls of expensive cine lenses, tripods, dollies, crews, and such?

HD was supposed to have done away with lighting already, right? Turns out, it's not about candlepower, it's about control.

And with Canon and Nikon adapters readily available for the various 35mm relay lens adapters, RED ONEs, etc., how come Zeiss is several months behind making $15,000 Ultra Primes and Angenieux is scrambling to churn out enough $47,000 Optimos to meet demand? Perhaps there are *reasons* why cine lenses are different from stills lenses; could that be it?

Tripods & dollies & cranes, oh my? Don't need 'em--if you shooting "Blair Witch Project", or "Cloverfield", or "Medium Cool", or any "Bourne" film, or the opening shot for "The Bridegroom, the Comedienne, and the Pimp". If you're doing the *rest* of "The Bridegroom, the Comedienne, and the Pimp", or "Citizen Kane", or Wavelength", or "Michael Clayton", or "Casablanca", well, not sure a handheld 5D is gonna rock your world.

Adam Wilt / filmmaker, Meets The Eye / writer,
provideocoalition.com / Mt View CA USA


Update 3: Vincent Laforet spoke at ILM Nov 13th.

HDR Time-Lapse movies

Via PrepShootPost and KGO-TV/SF are HDR time-lapse movies made by TimeTraveler. Chad Richard of TimeTraveler has even posted his DSLR-based work flow as well as his experiments:


Twin Peaks San Francisco Sunrise from Chad Richard on Vimeo.

Also, TimeTraveler notes a cool blog called Abducted By Design that features various inspirations, like Motion Experiments from Norway's Klipp og Lim:

After all, tomorrow is another day

via everybody...

RED's Scarlet is to be re-visioned.

AE training resources

A few of the many training and tutorial resources for After Effects were added in a sidebar list of links (right). These were culled from tutorial links in AE Portal's AE online resources.

ProEXR 1.3 released

Brendan Bolles has a free upgrade of ProEXR which includes a variety of small fixes, and adds "a key feature that has been requested by users. Whereas the Photoshop plug-in already had a mechanism for effecting the way alpha channels were handled, we've now bumped the feature out of Easter Egg land and into legitimacy via a shiny new dialog."

Update: CS4 comes with several third-party plug-ins, including Foundry Keylight, Synthetic Aperture Color Finesse, fnord ProEXR, and Cycore FX.

Update: (Feb 2009) see the long discussion of this file format on an Adobe forum on Photoshop. Brendan recaps: "OpenEXR files use premultiplied images, while Photoshop long ago chose to use straight."

'The Wire' creator on journalism

PrepShootPost posted a YouTube interview with The Wire creator David Simon from last Spring, "Journalists & the Public Square." It took awhile for me to get to The Wire (and Oz); The Wire DVD boxes don't lie long around in the used bins at stores like Amoeba but you can rent them from a library too.

Watch the interview and check out his comments at PrepShootPost.

DSLR HD movie samples

If, like me, you've only been skimming the discussions of the new DSLR cameras' HD movie capabilities on the informative Prolost, on John Nack, Poynter, David Pogue at the New York Times, and through other blog posts listed on CrispyFeeds, you might have missed links to actual samples listed in comments.

Digital Photography Review posted movies from both the Nikon D90 (AVI/MJPEG and MPEG4) and the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (MOV/MPEG4). There's also movies on the Nikon and Canon sites.

The D90 has 3 sizes at 24fps: 1280 x 720, VGA (640 x 424), and QVGA (320 x 216). The Mark II does 30fps at 1920 x 1080 (38.6 Mbits/sec ~ 4.8 MBytes/sec) or 640 x 480 (17.3 Mbits/sec ~ 2.2 MBytes/sec). Below is a reported test from the Nikon D90.



Update: Apart from RED products there are more cameras along these lines. Prolost and others have discussed the Ikonoskop A-cam dII (see the MacVideo.TV report and another movie from IBC), and there's the Casio Exilim EX-FH20 can record up to 1200 fps movies although at small sizes. Now back to the pages of the camera geeks and gadget blogs.

Update 2: I was going to stop but Prolost posted about Reverie an impressive new video by Vincent Laforet on the Canon site (direct link).

Update 3: The EOS 5D Mark II: Full-Resolution Video Clips for Reverie were posted by Canon; Vincent Laforet’s Blog has the details at Original “raw” clips from “Reverie” Now Available for Download.

Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)

from Yahoo News: 'Norman Whitfield, songwriter and producer who co-wrote a string of Motown classics including "War," "Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)" and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," has died.'

He also wrote and produced this song by The Temptations that still seems fresh today (despite the decline of the Motor City):

Pixel Bender video tutorials

"Pixel Bender" (originally Hydra) is the official name for Adobe's new scripting language for writing fast imaging filters. The same technology is already being used to power some filters in After Effects CS3, and we can expect more throughout Adobe applications in time. For instance, according to John Nack, "an AE plug-in developer could effectively also develop runtime effects for Flash, while a Flash developer could leverage her work inside AE."

Pixel Bender will be tough going for most of us, but mere mortals can get a peek. Lee Brimelow posted 2 video tutorials on getting started with Pixel Bender and using the filters in Flash on his site gotoandlearn.com.

You also can check out an online demo app and download the Pixel Bender Toolkit from Adobe Labs.
-via Kevin Goldsmith's blog

Update: John Nack posted some notes (9/21/08) on Photoshop and Flash in New Pixel Bender hotness.

Rebel CC video tutorial

David Basulto, host of the Filmmaking Central podcast, posted this Rebel CC video tutorial. A poor man's Colorista, Rebel CC is an After Effects Animation Preset from Stu Maschwitz. Stu also shared filmBurn, an After Effects 7.0 Animation Preset that automatically creates the overexposed "roll-out" effect. There's much more in The DV Rebel Guide book and forum.

You can watch the tutorial at Filmmaking Central...

Bigfug FreeFrame access for AE CS3

For the sake of completeness...

Bigfug has now released a version of their inexpensive commercial product Frame Runner (Windows-only) that enables FreeFrame filters in CS3. It seems like the filters come separately.

FreeFrame is an alternative framework for developing video effects plug-ins and hosts on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX and was initially intended for use in VJ applications. Pete Warden provided a free FreeFrame filters and an AE plug-in to access FreeFrame filters on Windows and Mac OS X, but he didn't update his work for CS3. Pete appears to have moved on to Apple Motion (working at Apple), but the BSD licence will let you maintain the AE versions. His Freeframe filters are still free.

After Effects CS4 at IBC 2008

Digital Arts is reporting details on Adobe's preview of After Effects CS4 at IBC 2008. Little of this was shown in the previous sneak peeks. Here's a few but not all they mentioned, and I'm sure there will be much more in the official unveiling next week:


-- After Effects CS4 ships with Imagineer System’s Mocha-AE
-- a Cartoon filter that turns clips into animated movie
-- AE compositions on the Premiere timeline and other Dynamic Link enhancements

-- Roundtrip editing between AE and Soundbooth
-- automatic creation of compositions to match the size and framerate of mobile phone templates from Device Central

Creative Cow also has a short write-ups (another) with additional details like:
-- a Mini-Flowchart and other UI enhancements
-- 3D functionality with raytrace rendering moving between PS and AE
-- export a multilayered AE comp to a Flash project
-- separate keyframes and curves for X, Y, and Z

Update: a Cartoon filter that's fast and works easily would be a good thing, though it might not appeal immediately to strict visual effects types. The full feature set has not been announced; these preliminary reports.

Update 2: Apple Insider says Adobe Creative Suite 4 details emerge, but nothing on After Effects.

Update 2: Digtial Arts jumps the gun again with a beta preview (it's Tuesday in England earlier), and CNET has a teaser:

SF Cutters Sept 25: New @ Adobe

Join SF Cutters at Adobe in San Francisco, with support from SF Mograph and Digital Cinema Society, for the Sept 25 "Extravaganza Meeting of the Year." The agenda so far is "Mini Reels" and TBA, but there will be some news updates in a week or so that may fill this event to capacity.

This meeting is free, but you do need to preregister to make sure there is a badge waiting for you and that you get refreshments (courtesy of Adobe).

Zorro-The Layer Tagger +more

AE Scripts is on a roll. The latest is Zorro-The Layer Tagger, an embeddable panel script that "makes selection and isolation sets easy and possible in After Effects by adding tags to layers. Similar to the way you would tag photos in Flickr, you can tag layers in your comps and then select or isolate those layers in groups by using the tags." This one even has a couple of video tutorials; here's one on Vimeo (Motionbox was slow):


Zorro Video Tutorial from Lloyd on Vimeo.

Video Sampling Workflow with After Effects Scripting

Jaymis on Create Digital Motion posted a video sampling workflow that works with After Effects scripting:

"Like to cut up and sample video? Sick of all that time-consuming scrubbing, slicing and rearranging in Vegas or Premiere? Well I’ve figured out a workflow using a collection of After Effects scripts which turns lots of tedious editing into a very quick process to output a series of video clips for your VJing pleasure."

Leveraging tools for journalists

Wordle for tag clouds and more,
mostly via Andy Dickinson:

• Invisible Inkling's Online Tools List,
• Tools You Can Use group at Wired Journalists,
• How to create graphs and charts that pop,
• Embeddable slides and other tools for journalists,
  
• Flickr’s superior slideshow tool.

Update: Fact checking resources like PolitiFact, SourceWatch, and FactCheck.org can be handy too. See the recent Moyers Jounal segment for a summary and discussion. FactCheck missed an EIA summary of oil production per state when criticing McCain (who got it wrong anyway), so not all conclusions are bulletproof.

Photoshop's 3D plumbing

John Nack explains some of the thinking behind the build-up of Photoshop's 3D plumbing. It's not just "a bunch of cool features we'll never learn to use," as quipped a comment to another Photoshop CS4 sneak peak.

Update: 3D surfaces could be in Photoshop someday too. According to New Scientist, Textured graphics can be captured in a flash.

Artweaver: Photoshop in a pinch

via LifeHacker, Artweaver is a free Windows paint application program with a UI much like Photoshop. While missing many feature it could be handy in a pinch with its natural brushs, layers, editable text and filter packs.

I can't decide if Photoshop Express is already already less annoying than Artweaver or GIMPshop.

Free Glitter filter from Boris

For a limited time, Boris FX is offering the Glitter filter for free. Glitter is an OpenGL-accelerated filter that generates glittering sparkles and includes controls for the brightness, scale, and color of the glitters, as well as the number of rays that each glitter emits.

Glitter is available for After Effects, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Avid editing and finishing systems until September 30, 2008. There's also a free tutorial: Generate a Glittering Sky.

Update: Ko Maruyama has a quick tip video to show you how to get around some little gotchas that might pop up.

iTunes new visualizer is Magnetosphere

Venture Beat confirmed that the new visualizer in iTunes 8 is Robert Hodgin’s Magnetosphere, which was earlier postulated by Allen White, and picked up by Create Digital Music (which doesn't share all content with Create Digital Motion).

For more on Hodgin, see an earlier post Flocking with 3D Perlin noise, which was born from mistaken identity of Trapcode Klangfarbe and AlphaOmega iTunes visualizer (in Mac beta). Not coincidently Trapcode leverages Perlin Noise expertly.


Magnetosphere revisited (audio by Tosca) from flight404 on Vimeo.

Watch TechCrunch50 Live

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Project: Report - YouTube/Pulitzer Journalism Contest

From the YouTube Blog: "in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, YouTube presents Project: Report (www.youtube.com/projectreport), a journalism contest (made possible by Sony VAIO and Intel) for non-professional, aspiring journalists to tell stories that might not otherwise be covered by traditional media."

Hullfish color correction tutorials

Steve Hullfish, author of The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction, just started doing a weekly series of free color correction tutorials at Pro Video Coalition. Each movie will be between 3 and 12 minutes; some will be quite basic while others will be "pro level." Most of the tutorials utilize Apple Color but others use Final Cut Pro, Avid, or Color Finesse in After Effects.

The tutorials will be part of a completely revised edition of the 2002 book Color Correction for Digital Video (Google Books sample) by Jaime Fowler and Hullfish, which should be out in December.

UV maps, channels, mattes, & integrating 3D

Todd Kopriva at After Effects region of interest notes 2 articles by Lutz Albrecht on UV maps, channels, mattes, & integrating 3D applications with After Effects.

Another Photoshop CS4 sneak peak

from John Nack:

"Adobe's Terry White traveled to Photoshop World and recorded a video podcast of the keynote presentation, during which Adobe VP Johnny Loiacono and I offered some sneak peeks of the next version of Photoshop, as well as a few Adobe Labs projects expected to follow closely behind the new release. [Via] Photographer, artist, and author John Paul Caponigro summarized the demos, and the Photoshop-specific content starts around the 16-minute mark, running 20 minutes or so."

The first 20 minutes are interesting too though, for Photoshop Express-mobile features and Lightroom. Other sneak peaks can be found in these posts.

Live hurricane video and data

First, from USA Today there's an image pan of a child's eye view of hurricane flood waters.

Beet.TV notes that Gannett Has Live Hurricane Coverage on Mogulus Platform....msncbc.com has New Flash Hurricane Tracker.

NBC's hurricane tracker is nicely interactive but has no video. By the way, another nice weather site is Weather Underground. Google Earth has been used to visualize tracking data from Hurricane Hunters planes, but it's can be complicated, so see Google Earth Blog and Google Earth Design on the Tropical Atlantic visualization effort.

The Gannett widget pictured below integrates several live feeds from Mogulus (the embedding was imperfect).

Picasa 3.0 beta

Mostly lost amid the excitement of Google Chrome was the Picasa 3.0 beta and a redesigned Picasa Web Albums. Picasa is still Windows-only until later this year and perhaps worth toying with if you don't have a pro app. There's more on the Google Photo Blog, and a video and a help page with a rundown of new and changed features.

The slideshow movie export is limited to Windows Media 8 and YouTube at 5 sizes.

RealDVD legally copies DVDs +Amazon video

TechCrunch reports on RealDVD, which lets users legally copy DVDs to their hard drives, but with DRM intact. It lets you authorize five computers for a movie -- but its $49.99 for the first license and $19.99 for an additional four licenses!

Read more at TechCrunch...


And over at NewTeeVee there's a quick look at Amazon video compared to Hulu, iTunes, and Netflix: Hands on with Amazon Video on Demand.

Beet.TV seems excited about this with a "Real" interview in Bombshell from RealNetworks: Rip Save Burn Unlimited Hollywood Movies with $30 Program.

Mark Coleran on screen design

Motion.TV and Feed have an interview with Mark Coleran on screen design. Coleran's futuristic screen and UI designs appear in The Bourne Ultimatum, Children of Men, Mission Impossible 3, The Island, The Bourne Identity, Tomb Raider, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and other films. He says he's doing software UI now, and it could be cool if it looked beyond Multi-Touch.

Update: Check out Mark Coleran's Flow of Visual Design for Film for even more info; there seems to be blog in the works for after Gridiron Flow ships.

Here's a Coleran reel sample from Vimeo (it works better on Vimeo).



Update: The MossyBlog has another Interview with Mark Coleran.

YVAN EHT NIOJ + Hippie Fantasy

"Yvan Eht Nioj" (Join The Navy) and "The Hippie Fantasy again" are from Season 12 episode 14 of The Simpsons:

Adobe CS 4 at Editor's Lounge

The Adobe CS4 Production Premium Suite is to be shown at the Editor's Lounge September 26 in LA (well, Burbank). You'll need to RSVP now to secure your spot!

Of course, yesterday Adobe set a September 23 webcast for an announcement about CS4.

Flocking with 3D Perlin noise

Robert Hodgin of The Barbarian Group (makers of iTunes visualizer Magnetosphere), presented a movie (pictured left) at "Flash in the Can" in Toronto earlier this year.

He talks about the Processing environment and his use of 3D Perlin noise for flocking. Flash people were quick to experiment after an earlier presentation on Perlin noise; here's one, Animated Perlin Clouds in Papervision3D.

There's a bunch more generative processing stuff around beside the recent video by Radiohead. Toolbox is a node-based generative editor app that was featured recently on Create Digital Motion, which also features regular write ups on Processing projects. You can find demo movies of Toolbox on Vimeo, where the programmer links to Vector Field animations that do not use Perlin noise (implemented in After Effects in the Fractal Noise filter).

Open Encore DVD projects cross platform

As you may know, Adobe Encore DVD projects are officially not cross platform.

But, from the aether, there's an unsupported trick to open a Win/Mac project in OS X /Windows. If you delete the file “ProjectMedia.acx” from the project folder before opening the project it'll open, but then you'll need to locate asset files and transcode all over again.