Don’t Look! [Part 4]
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Frederick Chilton x Reader
@we-are-all-just-a-bit-crazy’s lovecraftian horror AU, with a bit of my own twist on the origin story. Emotional hurt/comfort. Body horror. Hugging your body-horror monster boyfriend.
3,386 words
Once upon a time, there lived a man who had everything: great wealth (built on the backs of exploited workers), a grand estate, a beautiful wife, and many mistresses waiting in the wings. Yet after years of trying, he failed to produce an heir. Determined that his money could buy anything, the man scoured the world, searching for a solution. One day, his extensive resources brought him to an ancient castle in Lithuania, where the last descendants of a noble bloodline offered him a devil’s bargain—a book, a summoning ritual. He did not ask questions. His wife was finally with child.
The Chilton legacy was secure.
The moment Frederick was born, the life was sucked from his mother—a human sacrifice for his soul crossing into this world. That was what his father told him, at least. Frederick had no memory of clawing his way through the veil between worlds, of being anything other than an ordinary child with a distant father, a young, blonde stepmother, and nannies instead of friends. Until the changes began. Allison (or was it Kayla at the time?) fainted in the living room when he staggered in, screaming as smoke boiled from his skin, begging for help. His father only wrinkled his nose with disgust and calmly explained what he was.
“You must learn to hide this, Frederick. Never let anyone see you this way, or it will destroy the family name.”
And so, he learned the transformation’s schedule. Prepared for it. Knew how to hide it away and never let anyone get close enough to see the real him. But it wasn’t good enough. Try as he might, nothing Frederick ever did met his father’s expectations for the perfect son he had gone through so much trouble to produce.
Frederick grew into a bitter and lonely man with no one to care about, or who cared about him. He kept the world at a distance, hiding his shame behind expensive suits and lavish decoration.
Never once did he consider that he was not alone in this world at all.
***
I see him as one of those pitiful things sometimes born in hospitals. They feed it, keep it warm, but they don’t put it on the machines. They let it die. But he doesn’t die. He looks normal. Nobody can tell what he is.
This is how Will Graham describes the Chesapeake Ripper.
Every therapy session with Graham, every conversation overhead, the puzzle became clearer. At first, Chilton merely believed that Dr. Lecter was guilty of unethical practices—manipulating Mr. Graham in the same way he had manipulated Gideon. He felt such kinship with Hannibal. Learning a bit of dirt on him brought the ever-so-superior doctor down to his level, gave him something to lord over him—a little implied blackmail to strengthen their friendship.
They both had secrets to hide.
Dr. Chilton never would have guessed the final puzzle piece to convince him fully that Hannibal was the Chesapeake Ripper would be the one everyone else laughed at.
“I brought you here to bear witness,” Graham said to Gideon through their adjoining cells.
“To tell Jack Crawford that I sat in Hannibal Lecter’s cobalt blue dining room? An ostentatious herb garden, Leda and the Swan over the fireplace. And you, having a fit in the corner.”
Chilton perked up and quickly shared the audio feed to one of the junior therapists assisting him. You were reliable at editing his audio files, clipping and exporting segments he wanted to keep, but he was avoiding you at the moment. This was proof—irrefutable proof that Gideon had met Hannibal Lecter the night he went searching for the Ripper.
After his conversation with Graham concluded, an assistant was sent down to coax more information from him while Chilton’s research team listened in, keenly taking notes.
Gideon was not finished dropping bombshells.
With a casual lilt to his voice as if talking to a friend over dinner, he began to describe the Chesapeake Ripper. Skin like volcanic ash, reflecting no light. A red glow to his eyes. Black claws as long as steak knives. Antlers breaking through the inside of his skull, punching through the skin. All black as night—a form that shifted in the shadows, ever tricking the eye, unwilling to be known.
He’s the Devil, Mr. Graham. He’s smoke.
“Great. Gideon is delusional,” one therapist snorted. “On the bright side, this completely undercuts his malpractice case against you.” She patted Chilton’s shoulder. Chilton flinched.
“We should start him on antipsychotics. What do you think? Doctor?”
Chilton’s face turned ashen white. “Y-yes, certainly,” he muttered, staggering to his feet.
He moved for the door, but crumbled halfway there, pain ripping through his leg as sharp thorns grew beneath the skin. It was daylight. No. No! The transformation should not be starting for hours—he had plenty of time! He gasped out as another shock tore through him, barely containing a cry. His body convulsed.
“Doctor!” A therapist and a guard rushed in to help him to his feet. “Where does it hurt? If this is a complication from your surgery, we need to get you into intensive care right away.”
“No,” he brushed them off. “Only… psychosomatic. I need to— ah!” He gritted his teeth, mind racing to the one person he did not want to turn to, but the only one he could, and barked, “Get my secretary!”
***
Smoke was rising off of his burning skin by the time you rushed into Chilton’s vacated office. His eyes were wide with panic, but greeted you when you entered with—not relief, perhaps, because he was every bit as terrified as before, but with the anticipation of being rescued. His eyes pleaded.
“H-help. I cannot make it stop.”
You managed to get him into your car. The sun’s orange rays seemed to chase the beast away, clearing his skin and stopping his wracking convulsions long enough to cross the employee parking lot without drawing stares. He insisted on taking the back seat so he could hide—and to put more distance between you in case he lost control.
His chest rose and fell like a rabbit in a cat’s mouth.
“The way he described Dr. Lecter—anyone would think it was a metaphor! That he was crazy!” Chilton’s breath was raspy as you drove, glancing back at him through the rearview mirror. He kept trembling, small patches of scaly skin appearing at random then swirling back inside. One pupil was a pinprick. His tongue occasionally became serpentine and got in the way as he frantically spoke. “But it was too specific, the details. Familiar. I always knew there was a connection between Dr. Lecter and me—a reason we were friends. It all makes sense now!”
“Hey, it’s OK,” you said, trying to sound soothing, though you had no idea what he was talking about.
“Don’t you understand? Lecter is like me!”
“That’s good, isn’t it? That means you’re not alone.”
“Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper!” he shouted, and a spine tore through a seat cushion. “A cannibal, if Will Graham is to be believed, and loathe as I am to admit it, Graham is an excellent profiler. If the Ripper and I are the same… then that means I—”
“You are nothing like that!” Forgetting the damage his demonic tantrum was doing to your faux-leather interior, you had faith in him. He was a little withdrawn and more than a little vain, and it had garnered him an icy reputation around the hospital, but now you understood why. He wasn’t evil or malicious. He was frightened.
“God help me,” he murmured.
***
As soon as the garage door closed behind you, he scrambled from the car (scratching the handle), and retreated inside. He didn’t invite you to follow him home. But he didn’t forbid it, either, and you wanted to be there. All you had were panic-scrambled memories from the first time that made his transformation worse in hindsight than it was. Or maybe better. You didn’t know, and you wouldn’t know until you saw it again with clear eyes.
The electric kettle rumbled on its stand, hissing steam as you searched through Frederick Chilton’s surprisingly extensive tea collection for something herbal and soothing. Chamomile, you thought. With honey. Surely that must be good for demon-monster-werewolf things?
The sun was about to set and he was still reeling over Hannibal, and just as much from the premature transformation the revelation had triggered. And every time he cried, “This is not possible. How can this be possible?” the next convulsion was more intense.
He would probably just burn himself on tea.
A painful whimper came from somewhere in the house, and you followed it to a tiny panic room that opened behind a bookshelf. It was only about seven by nine feet with concrete walls and floors, bare except for deep scratches of varying age, like an animal trying to escape. The few chairs inside were metal. Difficult to break. Frederick faced away from you, staring at a hand that was too large for the rest of his body, capped with long black claws.
“Oh no, this will not do at all,” you tutted, shaking your head at the barren space. “How about I bring in some blankets? Let’s get you comfortable.”
His whole body shook. “You should go.”
“No. No way, not after seeing this prison cell. I am not leaving you like this.”
“I do not want to hurt you.” His shoulder jerked. A spike tore through his shirt.
“You won’t.”
“Seeing it again… will not be therapeutic for you,” he hissed, another spike breaking through. “Go before it is too late.”
“No!”
“Damn it! I am a monster—there is proof of that now! The FBI has no idea what it is dealing with!” Chilton began to pace the small cell, thoughts racing, features morphing into something grotesque and alien. “Does Hannibal know about me? Can he sense it? Is that why he confided in me? I always thought it was professional respect—hah! God, what if he…” A painful convulsion halted his pacing and brought him to one knee, gripping his side. His attention snapped back to you. “This is… dangerous,” he warned, then hacked violently. Fleshy, snake-like projections spewed from his mouth, and he quickly turned away again, hiding his face. “You should… you should be nowhere near all of this! You should not be here! Why did I let you inside?!”
A roar of anguish ripped through the air with enough force to push you back through the panic room door, just in time to avoid being impaled on half a dozen spines as they shot from Chilton’s body like lances. Chips of concrete clattered to the ground as they penetrated the walls. He screamed again, writhing to get free, but found himself trapped by his own violent transformation. Like an animal, he struggled and clawed at himself as if his rational mind had been overtaken by raw, volatile emotion.
“Take it easy. You’re going to hurt yourself,” you tried to calm him, but you couldn’t stop your voice from shaking.
This was worse than last time. You were sure his spines weren’t half as long when you saw him in his office—even Chilton seemed surprised to be pinned.
You lifted your hands, palms toward him in a steadying gesture, and took a step back into the concrete room.
“Stay back!” he howled, thrashing. “Get away!”
It was tempting. Every muscle in your body wanted to follow his advice and run far away from the indescribable horror before you. But his eyes were still green. Were still terrified. And you had an inkling of why it was worse this time. Maybe he would hate you later for imposing, but it seemed more important right now not to leave him feeling… like a monster.
“It’s OK.” You took another step closer.
“No!”
“You’re not going to hurt me. I trust you. Shh, shh… I’m not afraid, see?”
Rigid spines sprayed from his back and shoulders in a 180-degree arc, leaving only his front accessible. You ducked under one and followed its trajectory to where it met the wall. It wasn’t just pinned by pressure—it had struck the wall with enough force to dig into it like an iron rod. Sawing through might be the only option for getting him unstuck. You wondered if that would hurt. Were there nerves in his spines? You stepped over the next one as you drew nearer.
“You should be afraid! I am just like him!” Chilton tried to turn his head away as you traversed his network of thorns and stood in front of him.
His face was almost entirely inhuman. Tentacles cascaded down from where a nose should have been, and when he opened his mouth in a snarl, they parted like wriggling eels—each with a life of its own—to reveal a jaw that split his face open vertically, crowded with rows of sharp white teeth. The more agitated Chilton became, the more dramatic the effect. Each time he spoke, you caught a flash of teeth that sent shivers racing down your spine. But you continued to move closer anyway, within snapping range.
“Hannibal and I… we are the same. Please—I do not want to become him. Do not let me hurt you!”
“You are not the same. You’re not a killer.”
Chilton let out a choking cry that was all too human. “I killed that nurse,” he said. Concrete groaned as his spines grew longer. A crooked horn sprouted from his head. “I killed Elizabeth Shell.”
“You… you didn’t kill her.”
His breath quickened again. Tentacles sprouted and died and resprouted from his face in a constant fevered motion. “I knew Gideon would kill! I lowered security! I knew what would happen—what I needed to happen to prove that he was the Ripper! I may as well have plucked her eyes out with my own hands and… and feasted on her organs. God… I am the Ripper,” he wailed.
“No…” It never occurred to you that Dr. Chilton would have done such a thing knowingly. Maybe there was something dark inside him that this creature was reflecting. It hurt to acknowledge, and yet maybe you both needed to. “You made a mistake. You did a bad thing, but… Gideon was already a killer. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I drove him to it, manipulated him… I am just as responsible as he is. I am a monster.”
“A monster wouldn’t feel this guilty! You made a mistake, but you won’t make it again, will you?”
Tentacles and spines stopped sprouting. His form stabilized as his wet eyes looked off thoughtfully. He seemed so pathetic… so innocent, almost. Despite the intimating spines and claws that added danger and height to his appearance, his body had the same mass—leaving his frame gaunt and frail, with ribs sticking out prominently. Hollow.
You wanted to protect him.
You knew that was your job at BSHCI. You knew that was why Dr. Chilton suddenly needed a personal secretary when he never had before. Someone to sit outside his door, take his calls, and warn him when visitors wanted to see him. You’d never met the doctor before he was attacked by one of his patients, but you recognized the signs of trauma—the way he flinched easily, avoided contact at first, then the way he clung to you when you earned his trust. The awkward little smiles. The way his cheeks turned bright red when his fingers brushed yours as you delivered his coffee. You couldn’t help feeling protective. Falling in love, even.
Though it was closed for the moment, his mouth was a dangerous black hole with alien arms ready to pull prey inside. It seemed impossible to get close without being dragged into its teeth by instinct. You couldn’t imagine putting your face anywhere near it.
Another step, and your forehead touched his.
“I... I do not want to hurt you,” he pleaded.
“You won’t.”
You leaned into his arms, a hand reaching up to stroke the side of his face. It was covered in fine scales that glistened as if they should be slimy, but were smooth to the touch, like a snake. Sharper thorns sprouting from his skin seemed to retreat before your caress.
He trembled with inner turmoil, hot breath puffing against your chin. Your eyes darted toward the motion of one of his claws rising behind you, and all you could focus on were the way each sharp talon caught the light. You couldn’t be sure what he was thinking—if he was going to return your embrace, or prove to you that he was a monster. Would he slash you just to drive you away?
“I smell your fear,” his voice hissed accusingly.
For some reason, of all the reactions you could have had, you started to laugh. It was nervous and tight at first, but then building in confidence at the ridiculousness of the situation.
“You’ve got giant claws! Of course I’m afraid! But I’m not running, am I?”
You slid your hand from his cheek and trailed it over his bony neck and the ridges and spines of his shoulders, finding a path for your arms to twine around him. Cuddling closer, you nuzzled into the crook of his neck, hardly bothered by the writhing tentacles that draped down over you.
“I know you would never hurt me. You’re just going to have to keep showing me there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Shuddering, he breathed in your scent. All his senses were heightened by this form, and he was surrounded by you—your pheromones, your electric field, the radiant heat of your skin. It was like sinking into a warm bath with a glass of fine wine in his hand. He opened his palm and let his predator’s hand sweep harmlessly down your back, holding you close. He could sense the fluttering of your heart in his embrace. It was slower than a creature in terror—slowing the longer he held you. You were not afraid. And he could not imagine hurting you. Whatever he had been worried might happen, whatever awful things he might be capable of, he could never imagine hurting you. You were right. You didn’t have anything to fear.
He exhaled a long, steady breath of surrender. The long spines retracted, pulling out of the walls as they returned to their usual size. He could move again, but didn’t. Not for a long time.
“It’s OK. It’s OK,” you sighed. The scent of your hair was intoxicating.
Eventually, you had to part. Chilton’s eyes darted away as you did—the inky scales on his face emitted a soft bluish starlight, which you were certain was blushing. You could not coax him to leave his concrete prison cell, but he told you where to find some blankets he could live with damaging—linen closet, second floor, third door on the right—and let you make a cozy nest on the bare floors. You made tea, and only cringed a little at his attempts to drink it. It was late, then. You were sleepy, and he was exhausted. Emotionally drained. His mind still raced over everything, still not certain of your presence and inexplicable kindness. You sat in the pile of blankets and had him rest his head in your lap.
“Give me your hand,” you asked, extending yours.
A clawed, scaly hand slid tentatively along the floor. You took it. Held it gently, first observing the long talons protruding like daggers from each finger before slotting yours between them—nothing sharp there. You let out a long sigh and leaned back against the concrete wall. His breath hitched.
He’d never had his hand held in this form, you assumed.
He’d never had his hand held at all, in fact. Not in many years.
It had to be a trap, he thought. No one had ever loved him before. No one could—not like this. Yet, as he fell asleep to your fingers massaging his temple and the soft murmuring of your voice, he let himself believe it. You were always there, protecting him. Smiling at him in the morning.
When you woke up, Frederick was human again, still fast asleep in your arms.
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not sure if you’ve answered this before, but what’s your process look like when you make an amv? i’m just curious and in constant awe of ppl who can make videos like you do :)
hello all!!! i have answered this before and i have a vid help tag with other asks i’ve gotten about stuff like this! but i’ve gotten several more messages along these lines so i’m just going to answer a bunch of them together (under a cut since i love to ramble about editing lol). i do just wanna say i’m definitely not the authority on video editing and obv everyone has their own techniques!
edit: i just finished typing all this up and it’s SO long so sorry in advance LMAO god bless anyone who reads this entire thing
so i work in news tv and we have a very specific workflow for writing scripts, sourcing video, producing, and editing. i’ve just applied that to making amvs! for every video i make, i copy the song lyrics into a google doc and adjust them to match the song i’ve cut (i often will trim songs for time and/or content purposes). then i start planning! i’ll mark down what clip i want to use for each lyric next to that line, and any sound bites i want to use (with episode numbers!). i’ll color code between video and sound bites and lyrics, so my scripts end up looking something like this (for my honeybee amv):
doing the planning ahead of time makes everything much easier when it’s a video that spans the whole show or involves a lot of sourcing, like honeybee or sports analogies. that way when i get to the actual editing process, i already know what i’m going to do and have a game plan. for videos like happy ending or believe it or not, where i’m mainly just pulling from a few episodes, i can just plan it in my head as opposed to writing it all down, and produce as i edit. obviously i do make in-the-moment decisions while editing—sometimes a shot doesn’t work the way i thought it would, or i go where the video takes me—but planning ahead definitely helps. i know some people use spreadsheets as well, with columns for lyrics, video clips, and sound bites if applicable. once you find a system that works, it actually goes pretty quickly.
as for sourcing clips themselves/finding clips within episodes, i talked about that here and kind of here. the short version is that transcripts are a must, and the supernatural wiki is hugely helpful by cataloguing all the hugs, prayers, phone calls, etc. in the show. gifmakers that tag episode numbers on their posts are your friends. it gets easier the more video you make—that’s another huge reason i make the google docs for each video (even the ones i plan in my head, i end up going back and making a loose script with episode notes just for reference). if i can’t remember where something is but i know i used it in another video, i can easily reference past scripts!
i also cut all my videos in the same project in premiere pro, so i can flip between them easily. instead of checking a past script, i can just go to the video sequence itself and copy the clip i’m looking for! this was especially helpful when i match cut together the 5x18 and 4x22 wall slam shots for my bestie video, and then stole it from myself for honeybee hahaha. at any given time i have at least 8 sequences open:
because of the sheer volume of videos i make, it’s worth it for me to download the entire show—i have all 327 episodes in HD, plus deleted scenes. if you think you’re only going to make a few videos, i’d start with scene packs. you can usually just google “destiel [or whatever ship/character you’re looking for] scene packs” and there will be any number of ones you can download. if you need other specific scenes, you can always download/torrent individual episodes or screen record netflix (that’s what i did before i got HD download links). i’m happy to share my links if you DM, but be warned it’s a lot of disk space (about 500GB on my hard drive). someone also compiled every destiel scene, downloadable here.
having every episode already loaded in premiere for all my projects also makes it a lot easier to source clips. once i use a clip in a video, i’ll put a marker on the episode file, so that after a while i have most of the important scenes/lines marked to easily find them. to give you an idea, this is my episode file in premiere for 12x10 lily sunder has some regrets (markers at destiel scenes, the car fight, hot girl cas, etc.). markers are the green tabs along the bottom:
premiere also lets you color code and name markers, so ONE DAY i will go back and color code them all. the ones above are all the same color, but in a perfect world, i’d have a myraid—for destiel shots like hugs, touches, looks; for important pieces of dialogue; for action shots; etc. but for now this works ok for me, so that’s a project for another time!
between detailed scripts, one giant premiere project, markers, the wiki, and my own memory, i have so many points of reference that i can usually find any clip i need in about 2 minutes max. sound bites are often harder to start out, or tiny specific shots i haven’t used before, and that’s when i turn to tumblr gifsets or beloved mutuals to crowdsource. but if you’re as obsessive about marking/keeping neat scripts as i am, it gets easier and easier with every video you make. that’s part of why i’m able to cut videos together so quickly. (also i want to stress i do this for a living and have to produce/edit a new piece for my show every day so i’m used to it. and compared to constantly updating content/sources and news that changes every day, 327 highly documented episodes that never change are much easier to handle hahaha)
this is all great for me since i make so many videos and plan to continue doing so, but if you’re only making a few, this level of work isn’t worth it imo. really it’s all about developing a system that works for you. whatever you do with episodes/sourcing, though, i cannot recommend planning things out in a script ahead of time enough.
everything i just mentioned is producing, though. for the editing process, i usually do it in this order:
music first. any parts i want to cut, i make sure it all sounds smooth
then soundbites. i usually try to weave them into the lyrics—i have characters talk in breaks between lines or instrumental sections as much as possible. i’ll sometimes go so far as looped/extending an intsrumental part to make room for the soundbite i want there lol. if i do have dialogue over a line, i do the sound mixing/levels at this point as well to make sure everything is audible/one doesn’t overpower the other. (also i always include the video that goes with these bites when i drop them in, and decide later if i want to show the character speaking or have other clips cover the dialogue)
once i have all the audio locked in, then i bring in all my other video clips. sometimes i edit completely chronologically, sometimes jumping from section to section—it depends on the song or how i’m feeling
double check sound mixing. i usually listen to my videos through a few times, with headphones and without to make sure it’ll sound good no matter how people watch it
once i have picture and audio lock, i go through and color correct my clips. i’m basic and just use lumetri color in premiere, and usually just play with brightness, saturation, temperature, and tint until i like it
render and export! :)
i always have several audio tracks, but i try to keep my video tracks condensed. i’ll drop clips on a V2 level, and edit a section there, and drop the whole chunk down to V1 so i know it’s finished. that way when i leave and come back i can know where i left off/what’s done/etc. to give you an idea, this is the timeline for my what the hell video:
i always render as H.264 with high bitrate, and make sure to check “render at maximum depth” and “use maximum render quality” for the best quality. i’m sorry, but i don’t know what the equivalent options are in final cut, imovie, kdenlive, etc. i post on youtube mostly so i don’t have to sacrifice quality, but usually just using a lower bitrate will get you under the tumblr file size limit and it’ll still look good.
as for the anon who asked about “polishing”: first of all, thank you!! second of all, it’s in the details. all of this is a matter of taste and my own insanity, but here are some little things i always try to do:
after i color correct, i blur out any credits from the starts of episodes. i use gaussian blur for this, but really any blur tool works
as much as possible, i avoid clips where we see a character’s mouth move but don’t hear the words. in tv/film we call it “lip flap” and i just think it looks messy. also i’m trained to avoid it at all costs at work hahaha. it’s more for serious videos that this matters a lot to me (e.g. i think i did a really good job eliminating lip flap in my happy ending amv)—for comedy videos i don’t sweat it as much
i put audio fades on the start and end of every single audio clip i use, even if i don’t think i need it, to make sure everything sounds smooth
i use markers for timing, especially in action-y videos like what the hell. i’ll put a marker on the clip i’m using at the exact moment a punch lands, and in the song on the beat. if i have the magnet/snap in timeline tool on i can just easily snap them together instead of having to spend time finagling it
this is such a small thing but i dip/cut to black for a tiny bit at the start and end of every video. this way if i post with tumblr video player, there’s black between the loops, and it gives you a beat before the video restarts. i do this even on videos i post on youtube, just because i think it looks nicer/more professional
this is 1,500 words so i’m going to stop myself before i pull something. if you have follow-up questions feel free to ask and i’ll continue to add them to the vid help tag, but any more questions about sourcing clips or my process in general i’ll just link this post going forward. anyone who made it this far, i am sending to a telepathic kiss. thank you for reading and happy editing!
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7 Secrets Drabbles
The one where Jungkook finds out
This is a Drabble/oneshot based off of my soulmate series “7 Secrets” from the point of view of Jungkook. Namjoon says that Jungkook is the one who originally found out about the soulmates, so I thought it’d be fun to show what happened exactly. Enjoy!
Genre: BTS Soulmate au
Warnings: None as far as I know
Word count: 1.7k
Song recommendation: “Invisible String” by Taylor Swift
Tapping on the door I wait for a few seconds before peeking my head into the room. Clutching my laptop close to my chest it takes a moment before my eyes adjust to the dimly lit room.
“Oh, hey Jungkook. How’s it going?” One of the staff on the editing team greets me, shuffling around as he clicks around on his computer.
“Hey Ji-hoon. Can I borrow your computer again? My editing program crashed, and I really want to get this done.” I hold up my laptop for emphasis.
Ji-hoon’s eyes trail over to his screen, nodding absentmindedly while he no doubt gets the program up and running. “Uh, yeah. That’s fine...let me just…” He snaps his fingers when he finishes. “There you go! Just don’t go in and mess up my stuff, alright?” He teases me.
I’m quick to promise him I won’t do anything of the sort. “Are you going somewhere?” I ask as Ji-hoon grabs his jacket. He nods, edging his way toward the door.
“Yeah, meeting up with some friends for dinner. I just stayed a little later so I could get ahead on some stuff. When you’re finished just save everything and shut it down, alright?” With that, Ji-hoon disappears from sight.
I sigh, settling down into his chair. My eyes grow wide, getting into the zone as I try my best to get back to the point I was in the editing process before my program decided to kick me out.
The hours tick by, and I jump up with a shock as I glimpse the time.
“Oh no,” I groan. “Jin is going to kill me.” I was supposed to help him with our unit song tonight. He’s probably been waiting for over an hour.
Quickly, I save and am in the process of trying to send myself the edited video when something catches my eye. On the bottom right-hand corner of the computer is a sticky note. Clearly in Ji-hoon’s writing, which says, “fix opening credits for ep. 64”.
I furrow my brow. “What episode is he talking about?” It’s been a while since the 64th episode of Run! BTS. I quickly send off my edited video, leaning back in the chair and rubbing my eyes.
Editing is a kind of twisted hobby of mine. It’s exhausting, but it’s also the most calming thing in the world to me. Once I manage to sit up again I go to power of the computer. A thought pops up into my head.
“Ji-hoon seemed like he was in a rush earlier...I should probably help him fix the opening credits for episode 64 so he doesn’t have to worry about it later. That can be my thanks to him for letting me use his stuff all the time.”
Mumbling to myself has long become a habit, and it’s in moments like these that I completely forget I don’t have an audience to narrate every little thing for.
Rolling my neck and sending Jin a text apologizing for showing up late, I get to work. Jin will understand, he’d do the same.
It doesn’t take me long to bring the files back up, quickly finding the video again. I double click on it, turning the volume down low and double checking that Ji-hoon isn’t about to barge in here demanding to know what I’m doing.
The screen is black for a moment, just the words, “Insert opening credits” showing up before big bold letters spill across the screen.
Episode 64 - “Back to school” I hum in acknowledgement, we’ve certainly had plenty of school-related episodes in Run! BTS. However, when the scene that first appears is inside a kitchen that I’m sure I’ve never seen before, I’m wracking my brain, trying to place the episode.
Quickly pausing it, I pull up the calendar on my phone. If this was episode 64 of Run it would have been in… February?
“We didn’t film anything in February…” I mumble. “Was this already recorded?” I shrug, pressing play. Maybe I’ll remember it once I watch it through. Shaking off the strange feeling in my stomach that forces me to the edge of my seat, I watch with wide eyes.
“Soon-ah?” A whisper comes from the audio, although the owner of the feminine voice is nowhere to be found. “Soon-ah? I’m so sorry, did I wake you up?” Indecipherable mumbles respond. “Oh, ok. I was just wondering, could you maybe help me with the map one more time before I leave? I’m scared that I’ve got it all backwards, and I don’t want to be late for my first class because I’m lost.”
Some more grumbling and loud thumping happen before a girl appears in view. She’s chewing on her lip, clearly nervous about something. Heading toward the kitchen she reaches up for a bowl, map tucked under her arm. Looking directly into the camera she gives a cheery wave despite her obvious nerves. I’m pretty sure I’ve lost the ability to breathe. Or formulate sentences.
“You...you…” The words fall from my lips without my consent. “This is…what is this? Where - who…”
I know who that is. Even though she remains nameless to me for the moment, I know exactly who that is. The girl in the screen continues on, completely clueless to my current predicament. She’s humming to herself, pouring a bowl of cereal. I find myself leaning closer, nearly falling off my chair in the process.
“Wha- what’s the map for? Where are you going? Is there a map I can use that will lead me to you?” The questions dive off my tongue even though I know the chances of the girl before me turning back to the camera and answering them are slim to none.
“Do you want me to bring you food, Soon-ah?” The angel asks, eyes looking down the hallway. I’m pinching myself, fighting the urge to cry out and beg her to turn around again. Look at the camera. Look at me.
The girl shrugs when she receives an answer that the audio doesn’t pick up. That’s when I notice the microphone clipped to the girl’s clothes. Somehow, these girls are aware and participating in some sort of show… Why didn’t I know about this?
Wait, why am I upset about this?
It’s almost as if she hears my thoughts, because the girl is quick to turn around and remind me of exactly why I should be upset about not knowing about her existence earlier. She returns the box of cereal to where it must be resting beside the camera. Looking into the camera again as though it’s an everyday occurrence, she winks.
“I’m starting my first day at the university, so if you’re watching this Jungkook, wish me luck. I’ll do my best not to get lost,” she holds up the map to emphasize just how hard she’s trying to not get lost.
“You...this is for me? I- good luck!” Too many thoughts are rolling around my head now to really get anything straight, but there is one thought that sticks around. I breathe it out.
“I never got my results back.”
Hand running through my hair at lightning speed I gulp down as much as my lungs will allow. Suddenly the floor has disappeared from beneath me as I remember with a start going in for soulmate testing. The procedures lasted about a week, and we were told that we would be given our results within a couple of months. Counting in my head I strain to remember when that was. Definitely more than two months.
More like three years.
While we were told beforehand that most results come back as inconclusive, we were actually never told that’s what happened with our tests. I guess I just assumed as much when we never heard back about it.
But there’s this girl in a kitchen hunched over eating cereal and studying a map out with such precious concentration that I can’t help but curse myself for being so young and naive and stupid. I should have demanded an answer.
A moment passes before another girl hops into the kitchen, the two of them smiling. “Are you excited? I see you’re back to studying that map.” The new girl asks, stuffing her hands in her hoodie as she begins studying out the contents of the fridge.
It’s a BTS hoodie, that much I can see. However, when she finally turns her back to the camera I chuckle. More specifically, it’s a Suga hoodie.
“Yeah, I think so. It feels nice to take this next step instead of just…” the girl with the map; my girl, sneaks a look at the camera. My heart stutters at the indirect eye contact. “You know. Waiting.”
I jump as my phone suddenly sounds, hardly able to tear my attention away from the scene in front of me. Quickly pausing it I see Jin’s contact photo taking up the screen of my phone, and I answer it.
“Where are you?”
I don’t bother to answer his question as a sob I didn’t realize I was containing rips through me. “Hyung! H-hyung you won’t believe this.”
“Kook where are you? Is everything al-”
“Soulmates, hyung! We have soulmates! And they never told us, they’ve kept them from us, but they’re real and...and mine is going to the university and she’s so nervous and-”
“Jungkook,” Jin breathes out in wonder. “What happened? Where are you?”
I’m already a step ahead of him, quickly exporting the video and sending it to my personal email. There’s no way I’m losing this, not now that I finally know.
“I’m still at work, I’m on the bottom floor.” My voice still wavers, but it’s growing steadily harder as the fire within me threatens to set everything it touches alfame. Starting with Bang PD. “Just, wait for me, ok? Meet me in the conference room on the second floor. I have something to show you.”
I don’t even wait to hear a response before I’m up, reluctantly closing out of the computer before bolting out the door and up to the second floor. Holding my laptop close to my chest I dial another number, the tears already flowing as I hear his voice.
“Hey Kook, what’s-”
“Joon,” I croak out, the tears making my throat close up. “I need you to listen to me, this is important.”
Taglist: @taylorroe3 @mae-musicbitch @agustneeds @eusticenatalie @heartblackerthancoffee
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hey wanna hear something that SUCKS
So a while back I made some customs Sims4 poses for my Jlaire family, so they could have a cute lil family portrait y’know? Well, since then their family has grown a bit and some of the older kids aged up to teens so I decided, hey, let’s make a new one with the updated characters. So I set to work putting it all together in Blender.
After two days’ of work neatly posing all the characters, I started saving everything out to export into Sims4Studio. I had a bit of a scare when I accidentally saved over the wrong filename and had to restore a backup--but luckily that got sorted in the end.
Finally I had my pose pack, and I opened my game. but SURPRISE! MY SAVE FILE WAS CORRUPTED! Trying to play the Trollhunters household resulted in Utter Brokenness. I tried restoring older saves, but alas, even the oldest backup was broken in the same way. So I had to start do a lot of finagling to reset everything while loosing as little information as possible. In the end, I had to save the lot to the gallery, save the household to the gallery (after separating it into two cuz I’ve used mods to add twice as many Sims as are technically allowed), bulldoze the lot, re-place the lot from the gallery, re-place one of the household-halves from the gallery, re-place the other half in a different lot, take some from the main lot over to re-claim the other half into the family, and BOOM. Finally, the lot and all the characters are working! I lost my clubs and some relationship levels, but those are fixable enough I guess.
Finally time to test my new pose pack. But it’s raining outside...no worries, I’ll just take the pic inside. Except...wait a minute...ALL MY LIGHTS AND FIREPLACES HAVE DISAPPEARED!
Well, that’s annoying, but it’s probably just from all that finagling I had to do to get stuff working. I guess I can just replace the lights. So I go into Build Mode and...can’t place any lights. It says I’ve bought them, but they don’t actually show up. Phooey!
Time to consult Google. Apparently this a glitch that’s been happening to several people since a recent update, and to fix it you have to Repair Game in Origin. Guess I’m doing that now. Naturally, my internet connection pulls some shenanigans and this takes longer than it should have, as well as an Origin restart cuz it froze the first time. But finally it works and I can re-launch the game (twice cuz repairing disables mods so I had to turn them back on which requires a restart to take effect).
Ok, my lights and fireplaces are still missing, but at least I can place new ones now, so I re-light my lot. Probably not as nicely as the original but hey, I can edit it later.
FINALLY, for real this time, I can try my pose pack!
I set up the teleporter, summoned all the characters, applied my poses....aaaaand...
it’s broken. Or, well, sort of.
This time it was my fault, unfortunately. See, I’d done a lot of scaling with the rigs to cheat heights/sizes so that everyone looked their proper relative age. I assumed this would work because I thought I’d seen downloadable pose packs where people had shrunk toddlers down to baby size, since you can’t really do anything with actual babies in S4.
Turns out, Sims4Studio does not actually import any scaling data from Blender, so while it might look nice in your editor, no scaling edits will actually show up in-game. The folks who made the poses with shrunk toddlers and the like apparently had to use special custom rigs, the making of which is far beyond my technical capabilities. So when the non-scaled versions were applied in game, everything got jumbled. Characters were too big or too small, or floating, or had their feet buried in the ground, or were awkwardly clipping through each other. And the only thing I can do to fix it would be to completely re-do all the poses with no scaling data--which could work for some, but definitely wouldn’t give as clean a result when it comes to cheating heights etc. and overall just would not be worth the hassle.
So I uh. just wasted several hours of my life, basically. Ain’t that fun. 🙃
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gif tutorial for anon!
hi everyone! an anon asked me about how i sharpen my gifs and i got a bit carried away in my answer so i decided to just turn it into a tutorial oop.
disclaimer: i’m still a beginner, so some of the stuff i do might be a bit weird! also, two of the “tricks” i use i did not come up with/figure out on my own, i linked to the posts of the original creator’s in the step.
so my settings do vary for each gif, but in this tutorial i just go through all the general steps i use for each gif i make, so hopefully it’s at least a bit helpful to someone!!! there’s a lot of images bc i’m a visual leaner so sorry if you’re not!!!🥺
for this tutorial you will need:
- photoshop + basic photoshop understanding.
- a way to download videos.
- patience with my ramblings.
- i think that’s it?
ok here we go!!! so.
step one: the first thing you do is find the video you want to gif. i’m gonna do this one:
i use clipgrab to download videos of the youtube, which i downloaded for free from right here. i haven’t gotten a virus yet, so it seems safe. it works for youtube videos and instagram videos, but not twitter videos or vlives.
there’s also Y2Mate which is online and does the same thing, but i think for only youtube videos - i also can’t completely vouch for it because i’ve never used it, but i think it should work just fine! you can find it right here.
IMPORTANT - make sure that your video is as high quality as possible. you can either change that on youtube by clicking on the gear in the play bar (right next to cc box). usually videos are automatically set to 720p, which is pretty good, but i like to bump it up to 1080p when there’s the option to! note: clipgrab usually does this automatically for you, i’m not positive about Y2Mate and other online converters.
step two: copy the link into your converter. make sure that the quality is where you want it, then hit “grab this clip” or “convert” or whatever the prompt is and it will download onto your computer. save it wherever you want to that you’ll find it, i usually just save it to my desktop so that it’s right there for me.
step three (optional): i like to crop the video down and do a primary editing on imovie just so it’s easier to manage when making the gifs. this step isn’t necessary, but if you have imovie or another video editing app, i would suggest it!! (you can also slow down the video here if it’s too fast to make a good gif!)
here’s a before and after shot!
for me, i literally just click the “magic wand” or “auto-adjust” tool. but you can already see it makes a big difference!
so now i also use iMovie to crop down to the gifs i think i want to use. it makes things easier to be precise when using photoshop.
step three and a half: export your new mph. once again, make sure the quality and resolution is bumped up to your liking!
step four: so now it is time to use photoshop! open up a new document. you can set it to whatever dimensions you like, i typically prefer 500x281, but it doesn’t actually matter because it will automatically resize to the size of your video lol. anyways, once you have your canvas open, go to file -> import -> video frames to layers.
depending on if you have more than one gif in the movie file, you can either crop it down or just import the whole thing. since i have to gifs in this file, i’m going to crop it.
step five: okay, full credit to this life saving post for the next step!!!! i was stumped on how to edit all layers of a gif at once for quite a bit of time, which is why some of my earlier gifs are a much crustier looking. anyways, op explains it much better than i ever could, so i would suggest just reading their tutorial for this step!!!
step six: so now that you’ve combined all your gif layers into a smart object, it’s time to edit them!! the adjustments i typically mess around with are image -> adjustments. i almost always adjust the brightness/contrast, vibrance, hue/saturation, and selective color. i don’t have specific settings for these (sorry if that’s not helpful!) because it really does depend on each individual gif! sometimes my adjustments are drastically different for gifs from the same video!! i’m perfectly happy to help troubleshoot for specific issues if you need help, but it’s hard for me to give a blanket tutorial for this part :)
also remember to not whitewash poc when adjusting the settings. please don’t do this!!!! it’s also possible to correct whitewash w/photoshop, so just fool around on the settings until the subject’s skin tone is what it should be.
step seven: after adjusting your gif to your liking, now it’s time to actually sharpen. for steps 7 through 10, i use a trick from this amazing post to sharpen! so now that you’ve adjusted all your layers, do control/command click on the layer and choose duplicate layer. this will make a copy of the edited gif.
step eight: on the original layer, go to filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen. once again, every gif is different so depending on the size and quality of your gif, the sharpen settings will be different. the larger the gif is, the more you can sharpen it, which is why i like to wait until the end to resize it!
step nine: on the copied layer go to filter -> blur -> gaussian blur. again, the amount of blur will depend on your gif. this step just smooths it out. don’t worry if it looks blurry, because it’s supposed to! after this, still on the copied layer, go to filter -> sharpers -> smart sharpen once more.
step ten: cool! now you’re going to lower the opacity of the copied layer! i usually put it at about 30 percent!
step eleven: go to file -> export -> safe for web (legacy). this is were the resizing goes! so for this particular gif, i didn’t have to crop it or anything. so the only think i do to resize it is make it 500x281. this size usually ensures it will be small enough to upload to tumblr, and it is a ratio of most standard sized videos so it works perfectly!!
and voila!
i’m so sorry if that was very long and/or hard to understand!!! please feel free to ask any clarifying questions!!
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4Media MP4 To MP3 Converter
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me trying to make a gif part 2 (thrilling finale, buildup ver.)
ok good news and bad news: good news being withheld for Spoilers (not that it’s that hard to guess anyway lol), bad news explained first bc, chronologically, it is first
so yesterday i mentioned in the tags of that post that i had seen that krita has an animation feature so i was gonna try importing the frames into that and then exporting it as a gif. easier said than done, as it turns out
i started by opening the file i made yesterday with 62 layers as the frames and importing that into krita, which worked fine (i didn’t know you could actually open .psd files in clip stuido ((this typo is so fucking stupid it made me laugh so im leaving it)) and krita, so that’s pretty neat, i wonder if it works the other way around too) but i ran into problems when i tried to convert those layers into frames in an animation. because, like, the layout of the program has the layers displayed in one tab, and the animation timeline in another, like so:
(do u like how im using pictures now, i thought of that yesterday after i published the other post and realized hey, visual reference would probably make my plight a lot easier to understand!! so enjoy these educational diagrams from now on)
so my goal was to get the frames from the layers into the timeline, and i still don’t know if i did it right bc lbr krita is not very intuitive at all,,.,, i mean i watched a video tutorial abt how to animate in krita which was v helpful (it’s the one by jesse j james on yt fuckin SHout out) but it was about animating from scratch, not importing an animation you’ve already done elsewhere
so like, the way krita’s animation thing works, from what i could piece together as i bumbled my way around w/ it, is that each layer in the layers tab is a separate timeline in the,,, timeline tab
i want them all to be in the same timeline, not separate ones, and there’s no way to combine them in the timeline tab bc doing that just overwrites whatever layer you’re pasting it down onto, and also if you define the number of frames for that timeline (62 for this project) it just puts the single image of that layer for all of the frames instead of just one of them, so you’d have to go through and delete all the other frames you don’t want it to be, which would be such a fuckin pain
so i found a workaround, which is so tedious that it can’t be the right way to do it, but basically i started w/ layer 1 and defined 62 frames & then emptied frames 2-62, like this
(that blue box is the frame, btw, even tho it says 0, which actually kind of annoys me like why doesn’t it start the first frame on 1????)
from there i went up to layer two and selected that in the timeline, but for some reason the frame doesn’t show up automatically?
& i couldnt fuckin figure out how to make it into like, an Official Timeline Layer or whatever tf bc like, u see on layer 1 how theres that little lightbulb-looking icon on the right? that’s for turning on onion skin which only applies when you actually have frames with things drawn on them, so basically layer 2 in the layers tab has a drawing but in the timeline it doesn’t?
i didn’t find out what the actual reason for this is or how you’re /supposed/ to make the frame appear in the timeline, but what i did was right click on layer 2′s timeline & select “create blank frame” which magically made the frame i want appear
but it’s on top of the layer 1 frame, and i want it to be the frame after. also it’s still in a different timeline. this is the only easy fix in this whole damn process, u can literally just click & drag the frame from layer 2 to layer 1 and put it wherever u want on the timeline
and then u just delete layer 2 and that’s it, frame transferred!! then i just had to do that for 60 more layers and after [unspecified amount of time but it was a fuckin while ok] my timeline looked like this!
(the gaps near the end are held frames, to save me time so i didn’t have to copy a bunch of frames that were exactly the same)
krita is great because as far as i know ur animation can have an unlimited number of frames, at the risk of your own pc’s processing power, which is a definite upside to SOME expensive art programs i know (clip studio, i’m talking abt csp) and u can pick the frame rate too (cough photoshop elements 5.0 even tho u dont technically have an animation feature & it’s a miracle u can even make gifs at all) so once i finally got all the frames situated all nice and in order like on the same timeline, playing it was great! played at the right speed, looped perfectly, it was a dream come true right
well, time to export it as a gif
ha
haha
hoooo oo o
so u got 2 options for exporting ur animation, u can either hit “export,” which lets u save it as different file types, one of which being gif, or you can hit “render,” which gives you gif and video options
well
i tried export first, bc that seemed like a good idea, but the “””gif””” it made was distinctly not a gif, despite its claim to be one?? this is what i got:
notice: 1. it is not moving, and 2. the black bars to the sides?? those are supposed to be transparent. they’re transparent in the file i made so why didn’t they register as transparent in the export, when gifs have transparency capabilities??
so That was some real live bullshit but i still had the “render” option, right? export was wrong, so rrender must be the correct option to go to that will produce the results i am wanting to see produced in front of me like a silver dinner platter with a correctly functioning gif under the lid, that’s what i want to see and “Render Animation...” is gonna Give me that silver platter righWRONG ok look at this shit rn ok Look
it says GIF it says it RIGHT THERE right??? right?????? then WHY
?????????????
and it also gave me all This bullshit
like did i ask?? did i fucking ask???? i already have all the individual frames why do i need even M o re i mfjgjgk
((rationally ok yea thats v useful for if ur making the animation in krita and want to export the frames to use elsewhere, but like uhhh 1. again, they’re not transparent & 2. i should have the option of saying i don’t want these??? bc *meme voice* i don’t want these)
so in the end i could find NO correct method of exporting animations as a gif in krita bc every ooption that says gif is fuckign LYING to ur face there are NO gifs in krita, aliens made the progam who looked at gifs and went “hmm i thikng this is how a gif works “ and just made jpegs instead but somehow got on the computers good side and got it to lie for them about it being a gif so thats why it says gif on the file still even tho its not a gif illimati confinr
so what is the conclusion to this? well i said there was good news too, and this is the portion where i divulge that sweet nectar (i type dthis 2 seconds ago and @ me what the fuck)
so after wasting a good 2 hours trying to figure out krita i gave up and watched some good old [youtuber name redacted bc what if it shows up in search & ppl see this dumbass post in there but it rhymes with fjackfsepticfeye] to relax into accepting my fate that i’ll never be able to upload my animations to tungle except in poor quality loopless video form, making me into a laughing stock on my own art blog, but THEN i had a stroke of genius, in my Brain
so if u read yesterday’s post u might remember that flipnote studio, the animation program i use on my ds, to animate, has the option to export files as gifs, both animated and sequential (meaning either as one fully animated gif or each individual frame separately), which is super convenient, but as i mentioned yesterday, any time i tried to open the folder with those files on my laptop, it crashed immediately
WELL today i thought “hey, how about instead of opening the folder in the sd card when it’s plugged in, how about i copy that folder from the sd card to my flash drive, and try to open it there, in case it’s the card’s hardware that’s causing the problem, not corrupted files”
so i tried that and it FUCKING WORKED THANK GOD GLORY HALLELUJAH
so now instead of spedning A THOUSAND YEARS trying and failing to force art programs to bend to my will i can just export the animations straight from my ds and drag them onto my computer Just As God Intended oh GOD im so fucking happy
here’s the gif in the end, i’m gonna post it to my art blog too but this is the Green Version bc i animate in green bc of some default settings in flipnote that i got used to, plus it makes me feel like i’m just sketching so nothing really has to be finalized so i’m comfortable while i work, and also it’s just nice ok it’s a Nice Green
(there’s a few frames at the end that are like the extra scraps from while i was working dw i got rid of those in the final version that i’m posting to my art blog later. also i added my blog url to that one too it’s aaaaaall good)
the only downside to this method is that i can’t change the canvas size to be 540px wide to fit with tumbrl s image dimensions but whatever i can just post them in a text post and fix the html to display it at its original size instead of the resizing bullshit tmurbl pulls constantly ugh. anyway it works great on desktop but it’s inevitably gonna look like shit on mobile no matter what i do *Big Ass Shrug*
anyway thats the end of my success story uhh i can’t make the like comment & subscribe joke again bc i already did that in the last post so like bye i guess thanks 4 watchign & have a great day i’ll see u in my next fvideo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYob4uDjEKI&t=0s
(^that’s my outro music)
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HOW TO ADD SLOTS TO ANY OBJECT
Here we go! This one was long long long loooong overdue. There’s actually a tutorial on the Sims 4 Studio forum about adding slots, but I figured I would show how I do it as well in a sort of simplified way for people who have never worked with Blender before, which may be easier to follow! Hopefully this is pretty clear, I’ll try my best to explain it the best way I can lol.
First off, you will need Sims 4 Studio and Blender. You can get Sims 4 Studio here. You need to register an account for Sims 4 Studio to be able to see the website. For Blender I’m currently using version 2.76a, which you can get here. If you have Blender already installed, but an older version, that’s okay! A couple of versions of Blender work with S4S.
Once you have all of this installed, it’s time to open up Sims 4 Studio. You will end up on this screen as seen below. Now, if you want to add more slots to an EA mesh, you can go right over to Object on the left and click Override and then Object. This will mean it will override the existing EA mesh and you won’t have a duplicate in your game. If you want to have a separate version (in case of keeping houses CC-free for example), you can click Create 3D mesh and then the Object button.
If you are adding slots to a CC mesh, click on My Projects. Track down the CC-file you are editing and open it up!
For this tutorial, I’m adding slots to the Parenthood Bottomless Dresser, because I absolutely love this one but I really want it to have more slots. You can pick anything from the menu, you can use the dropdown menus at the top to quicker find what you are looking for. Select the mesh, and click Next. Save your package somewhere and wait for everything to load up.
The first thing we need to do in order to add more slots, is know what the height is we are adding slots to. If you are using an EA mesh, this is already known in the Rigs/Slots menu, but if you are using something that doesn’t have slots on them yet or surfaces on multiple heights, the next thing you need to do is go over to the Meshes tab and click Export Mesh!
Even though I already know the height for the slots of this dresser, I will show you how you can track down the height of the slots using Blender. Double click the mesh you just exported. It should open up Blender for you, but you might need to select a default program to open up the file with if your pc hasn’t opened anything with Blender before.
Now we need to look at the right side of the screen. There you see multiple things called s4studio_mesh_anynumber. Most of the time the first one is the shadow, but just click through them until you find the one that highlights the surface you are after. Clicking on s4studio_mesh_0 highlighted the dresser, so that’s the one I need.
Now the next thing we need to do is go into Edit Mode. At the bottom of the screen is a little tab which says Object Mode. If you click on it, you can switch to Edit Mode. You can also use the TAB button to do this.
We are now going to figure out the height of this dresser. As you can see by turning to Edit Mode, little dots are now appearing on each corner on the mesh. These are the vertices, the ones you will need to find out the height. Press the letter B on your keyboard and drag the mouse over a little dot that’s on the highest corner of the surface you want to put slots on. It will turn orange.
Now we are going to press the letter N on the keyboard. On the right side of your screen a sidebar should pop up. Scroll all the way to the top, until you find the Transform menu. We need the value that’s behind the Z, that’s for height! You can copy it, or put it in a Notepad, just make sure you put it down somewhere to remember.
You can close Blender now if you only have one height of surface, but if your mesh has multiple surfaces (for example a bookcase), repeat all of these steps and write down all the Z-values! We are going back to S4S now, where we are going to the Rigs/Slots tab.
You can see the slots on this dresser are kind of... shitty. Well, there are not that many of them, so we definitely need more on here for good cluttering purposes. Note that green cylinders are small slots, blue cylinders are medium slots and red cylinders are large slots. A big object - like a table lamp - might only fit into a large slot, while a small object - like a picture frame - fits into the large, medium and small slot.
When you are adding more slots to an EA mesh or CC mesh that already has slots on the surface you want more slots on, you can see the height by looking at the Z-value that shows up when you click on a slot. As you could see in the picture from Blender, the Z-value was 1.15272, here it is 0.0001 higher. This difference is so minimal you cannot see an actual change if you were to change the height to the Blender one, so we are going to leave it at that.
It’s time to add slots. First I’m removing every slot but one. I’m keeping the _deco_lrg_1 slot, but changing the X and the Y value to 0 so it’s in the center of the surface. If you are editing slots on a mesh but like to keep the existing ones because you like their placement, you don’t remove any slots. I’ll explain how to add more slots later on. As you can see, the large slot isn’t actually in the middle of the surface when it comes to the Y value. This is because some objects (like dressers, console tables and bookcases), are slightly backed away from the center so when you put them down in your room, they are closer to the wall without leaving a huge gap.
If you don’t have any slots on your object yet, you need to press the Add button and then type in _deco_lrg_1 in the Name box. Clicking anywhere will make a slot appear (but it’s probably inside of your object, so you might not see it). Put in the Z-value you got from Blender in the Z: box and leave 0 in the X and Y box. It should appear on top of your surface now.
There are some ways to calculate the exact center of the dresser, but I personally always like to eyeball it. It’s easier because it saves some time going back in Blender. I’m simply going to put another value in the Y box and see if it’s closer to the center now. I’m starting with 0.1.
As you can see 0.1 is pretty much the center of the dresser, just as I wanted it to be. Now it’s time to add more large slots so large objects have more places to be put down. Simply, with the large slot selected, press Copy so a duplicate of the slot appears and start changing the Y and X value. I’m starting with the X, where I put in 0.2 for the X value. Then I duplicate that slot once again, and type in -0.2, so I have another slot at the other side of the center one. Repeat this until you have one row of slots all across the dresser. Sometimes you need to try some different values before you have the right ones. Just try to see how much spacing you want between the slots and where exactly you want them to be, this is all about your own preference!
I want make three rows of these five slots in total so the whole surface is covered. You can do this by duplicating the slots one by one and changing the Y-value, but you can also do this by shift-clicking each large slot (you can click on the text in the right menu but also on the cylinders themselves) until you have them all selected and then press copy. Five new duplicates will appear. You then need to hit the Transform button, and tick Offset and put 0.1 in the Y-value box. Press OK and all five slots will be moved to the new spot! Repeat copying the five middle slots, click Transform again but now you put in -0.1 in the Y-value box. You have three rows now!
Now we also want to do the exact same for middle and small slots. You can add a medium slot by pressing Add and typing in _deco_med_1 in the Name box, and you can add a small slot by pressing Add and typing in _deco_sml_1. Copy and paste the Z-value from one of the large slots and the medium and small slots will show up.
You just need to repeat the same steps you did with adding the large slots for the medium and small slots. I prefer to use different X and Y values for medium and small slots, so I try to never put them in the exact same spot as I did for the large slots (I used 0.2, 0.4, -0.2 and -0.4 for those). For example I will use 0.1 and 0.3 for the medium slots and I will use 0.15, 0.25, 0.35 and so on for small slots. Fill up your whole surface with however many slots you like. If you have multiple surfaces, such as in bookcases, you can select all of the slots, copy them and use Transform. Instead of using Offset, you need to use Move and put in the Z-value you had saved from Blender! Remove any slots that clip or are floating in the air.
Eventually you should have a ton of slots. If you prefer less, you can always do less, if you want even more, you can always do more. Now we just need to test it in game and see if it works. Just don’t forget to turn on bb.moveobjects on so you can use all slots. Good luck!
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gif tutorial !!!
hello !!!! it’s me, ur resident shownu stan w a gif tutorial !!! no one really Asked but i wanted 2 make it and also it turns out ppl Are interested in one so :D !!! here i am !!!! so under the cut will b the tutorial nd it’s really picture heavy because i’ll be covering a lot,,,,
we’ll be looking at:
downloading the video :0 !!
trimming the video to get the clip you want
actually making the gif
some coloring advice :D !!! (i lov coloring Truly!!!!)
and some exporting advice too :D
and this is what i’m using:
ps cc 17
vlc
and i use a mac :D
part one. getting the clip !!
(also a quick note !! this isn’t my process for speed giffing or performance giffing as thats,,, thats an entirely Different adventure that makes me scream)
so !!! i will be giffing the dramarama music video and what you want to do is download it first :D so go to vlive, copy the url of the music video and i use two sites to download from vlive just because one of them can get a little buggy ?? but i use soshistagram and savieo !!! savieo is usually what i prefer to use but either is fine :D
once you downloaded the video, open it in vlc and go to the part you want to gif. i recommend pausing a few seconds before the actual scene because it’s always better to get a little more than you intended than a little less. currently, my screen looks like this:
and what you wanna do Next is go to playback > record and record the scene you want! when your scene is done playing, just go back to playback and click record again to make it stop.
for me, all my clips end up in my “movie” folder so it’s best to check where your clips go :D i think ?? you can change their destination but i never really played around with that so i’m not sure D:
part two. making the gif !!!
open up photoshop, then go to file > import > video frames to layers. select your clip and this window should pop up:
simply adjust the arrows until you get the scene you want and then press OK. a few notes about this part:
some people choose to select “limit to every 2 frames”. i personally don’t do this just because to me, it makes the gif look choppy, but use your intuition and go for whatever you think will suit the gif :D
i Would recommend not using ‘limit to every 2 frames’ if your clip is really short, as you want every frame possible
make sure ‘make frame animation’ is selected
and also the rule of having a little more than you want is important here too! the arrows aren’t very accurate so it’s better to get frames from scenes you don’t want that you can simply delete later
once you’ve hit ‘ok’, photoshop will then process the clip and give you this :D
(if you don’t have the timeline, just go to window > timeline. it’s near the bottom :D!!!)
also a quick moment!!! everything in the timeline tab will be called a frame and everything in the layers tab will be called layers :D
moving on! mister kihyun is not part of the scene i want, so i select the frames (not the layers!!!) that i don’t want and hit the trash can button at the bottom. goodbye mister yoo leaving me with this:
aren’t they just,,,, Beautiful :’( ...... anyways !! now we want to Crop !!!! tumblr has certain width sizes that i recommend you use for Ultra Crispness, and you can see a guide of what to use here !!
because the clip i’m giffing is so short (only 23 frames), i can crop it to 540px by 250px without worrying about file size. simply click crop in the toolbar so you get this setup here
where it says 268px by 305px, just change it to whatever your dimensions are! also, make sure ‘delete cropped pixels’ is deselected. then, go ahead and select what you want to be cropped and then press enter :D my screen at this point looks like this
press enter and then :D!! all cropped!!
now we’re going to sharpen! in the timeline tab, there’s a button made up on three lines. i circled it here :D
click that and select “convert video to timeline” so you get this
select all your layers and then convert to smart object! (you can either do this by rightclicking on all the highlighted layers and selecting ‘convert to smart object’ or by going to filters > convert for smart filters
now your gif is ready to be sharpened! i use actions to sharpen my gif and you can find a few of my favorites on this blog !! download a couple and play around with it :D once your gif has been sharpened, select all the layers again and convert it into a smart object again. then click the 3 lined button and click convert frames > flatten frames into clips. then convert back into frame animation (either by clicking the three lined button again and going convert frames > convert to frame animation or by clicking the three squares in the timeline)
you should now be back to where you started :D only this time you have one frame D: but don’t worry! what you want to do next is click the three lined button again and select make frames from layers. delete the first frame in the timeline because it’s just the smart object layer and we don’t need it. you should now have this
and we can officially move onto the best part :D coloring !!!
part three. coloring!!!!!!!!!!
let me preface this Entire Section with saying there is no right or wrong way to color. every gifmaker has their own distinct style, and you’ll develop yours too :D i really recommend looking to see if your favorite gifmakers have any coloring tips and if they don’t, there’s no harm in asking :D (just make sure ur nice abt it nd respect them if they choose not to share their coloring :D)
moving on to actually coloring, you wanna see what kind of colors are in your gif and enhance them. in the case of this gif, it’s very blue toned and blue tends to end up being very grainy in the end. i want to color correct this gif then and there’s a good tutorial that i learned from here :D (i don’t color correct all the time, only when the scene is very heavy in one color)
now we have a more neutral starting point, and you can color as you want from this point! i’d usually just Slap on my psd and adjust the settings until i get something i want, but i’ll go through some of my favorite adjustment layers and what my general coloring process looks like.
here is the Holy Grail of photoshop, the adjustments tab :D i use these adjustments the most:
brightness (i usually decrease the brightness and up the contrast just a bit)
levels (i take the black arrow down a bit and the grey arrow either increases or decreases depending on the gif)
curves (i use this sometimes!! if the gif is just a bit too dark, i usually bring this up a tiny bit)
vibrance (i usually bring this up to about +15 or +30 depending on how colorful the gif is)
color balance (another adjustment i absolutely need in all my gifs!! it helps to change the tone of the gif (if it’s too red/too blue/etc and lets you neutralize it more) and a good tutorial that explains how to use color balance can be found here)
selective color (i usually have like,,,, So Many Layers of this but this is a Must Have adjustment!!! i always change reds/yellows/cyans/blues/neutral/black)
gradient maps (just to add some more color)
exposure (usually to darken the gif a little and decrease grain)
and just for the sake of this tutorial, i’ll go through how i would color this gif so you can get an understanding of how i color :D
so we go from this
to this
i use the levels, curves and brightness adjustments to increase the contrast and darken/brighten the gif a little. it’s not a noticeable difference but it’s there :D
then, i use a color balance layer to make it more red-toned. i worked in the order of shadows > midtones > highlights and adjusted each slider until i got a result i wanted. i also thought it was still a bit too dark, so i threw in a curves layer too.
resulting in this
and then i added some selective color to enhance/change up some colors!
and because i thought it looked a little too red, i added another color balance layer.
and lastly, i add in an exposure layer!
and that’s how i would color that gif :D this is just a really basic coloring but you can always build on it and play with all the adjustments !!! now we’re gonna time the gif and then save it :DDD
part four. timing and exporting :D
timing is easy :D select all the frames in the timeline and then click the number so you bring up this menu:
click other and input the timing. i follow this really rough guide of what timing to use per amount of frames:
15-30 frames: 0.07s
30-60+ frames: 0.05s
i had 23 frames for this gif so i’m using the 0.07s timing :D hit enter and your gif is timed :DDDD !!!!!!
now for exporting!!!
i used to think there was only One Way of exporting gifs but after reading a gazillion tutorials and playing around with the settings myself there’s actually a lot of different ways :D you can ask people what their save settings are and play around with it :D
so to Finally save your gif, go to file > export > save for web and devices and this window should pop up
here’s a closer look at the settings i use to save gifs
make sure the looping option is on forever otherwise it plays once and then you want to Roll into a pool after you upload it and realize you hecked it up. also, make sure the file size is under 3mb. you can check that here
my gif is 1.08mb so it’s fine :D hit save and then name your gif and bam!!!! you made a gif :DDDDD here’s the final result, with a comparison for coloring :D
pat urself on the back and go tackle photoshop :D if you have any questions, feel free to send them my way !!!
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A software “solution” to recording HDR10 via Dxtory & FFmpeg
On Black Friday last year, I got a pretty nice deal on an ultrawide HDR10 supported monitor by LG... so I bought two of them. One for my office at work, and one for home. It's definitely not a monitor used for mastering content, but it's a nice way to get into the world of HDR content creation. So, what can we do?
Well, as it turns out, there isn't a real way to record HDR at the moment via software (EDIT: Ok, maybe "Action!" can do it. I'll test that later). Content creators out there resort to using high quality capture cards to capture HDR10 gameplay. But why is there no software solution? Well, there is... sorta. But you have to get creative with it and manually do everything. For me, this is fine. I prefer being in full control in post. Let's experiment.
Extracting HDR Metadata from the monitor
Before mastering can be done on this monitor, we need to extract Colour Primaries and Display Luminance values from the monitor. Windows doesn't make this very obvious, but you can run dxdiag.exe via the command line and extract it from there. This can be done via:
Windows Batch Command
dxdiag.exe -t diagnostic.txt
Next, open up diagnostic.txt and search for "Display Luminance". If you have multiple monitors, this will appear multiple times. You can easily tell which is which by looking at nearby lines like "HDR Support", "Current Mode" (Screen Resolution), etc.
Generating HDR metadata string for FFmpeg
Now we have exactly what we need to embed HDR metadata into a final video file if gameplay is recorded onto this monitor. However, FFmpeg requires it to be in a specific format. Specifically this:
diagnostic.txt
Color Primaries: Red(0.651367,0.332031), Green(0.306641,0.630859), Blue(0.150391,0.059570), White Point(0.313477,0.329102) Display Luminance: Min Luminance = 0.010000, Max Luminance = 1499.000000, MaxFullFrameLuminance = 799.000000
will become this:
FFmpeg "master-display" string
G(15332,31543)B(7520,2978)R(32568,16602)WP(15674,16455)L(14990000,100)
Yikes!! What math is required to get those numbers? Well, don't worry about it. Instead, I wrote a nice little tool to generate the string for you with the dxdiag information. It's in my render_tools GitHub repo here. If you want to run this online (where you can put your monitor information in), here's a cpp.sh link.
Recording gameplay
We'll get back to FFmpeg in a bit. For now, we need footage to encode. I use Dxtory to record my gameplays. It is the closest a software recorder gets to capturing the original footage correctly. For video codec, I use UtVideo for "lossless" capture (more on this later). I use the default settings on it. For audio, I have a 7.1 setup, and a lot of games out there utilise all 8 channels (Modern Warfare supports up to 16). Dxtory can capture this losslessly as well via IEEE Float. Set it and you're good to go.
Here's my configuration. You don't need to understand the language. The UI is the same in English.
Now just go into a game and record some test footage. You'll get something that looks like this:
Does something look a little off to you? Maybe the footage is a little washed out? This is normal. In fact, it's the raw stream that is being sent to your monitor. The only problem is that it's lacking the HDR metadata, hence why it looks this way. Gee, don't we have that information? Yes we do. Let's embed it via FFmpeg.
Encoding via FFmpeg
Now for the fun part. Let's generate a MKV file straight from the AVI master with the HDR metadata embedded. For reference, this is all open source and available in my render_tools repo on GitHub here. If you don't want to hear an explanation, just scroll to the end of this section. I post the final command there that you can modify for your monitor.
This is not an FFmpeg tutorial. But for those who don't know how FFmpeg works, it's a command line swiss-army knife for media streams like video and audio. It supports basically every format I've thrown at it. If you need an AVI file converted to MP4, consider it done. WAV to MP3? Done. In a basic sense, it looks like this:
UNIX Command
UNIX> ffmpeg -i video.avi video.mp4
For archival of gameplay, I use the MKV container and encode videos via libx265 at CRF 16 with FLAC audio. YouTube accepts these. For that, you'll want a command that looks like this:
UNIX Command
UNIX> ffmpeg -i video.avi -c:v libx265 -pix_fmt yuv420p10le -crf 16 -c:a flac video.mkv
This command has a problem... it doesn't embed the HDR metadata. Recall that string we generated earlier? Now is the time to use it. That FFmpeg command is about to get very lengthy.
First, the HDR10 standard requires BT.2020 with a bit depth of 10. So we need to make sure the video outputs proper BT.2020 instead of BT.709. For this, we'll need the following arguments added to the ffmpeg command (put it after -pix_fmt yuv420p10le):
FFmpeg Command Line Arguments
-vf scale=out_color_matrix=bt2020:out_h_chr_pos=0:out_v_chr_pos=0,format=yuv420p10
Finally, we'll embed the HDR metadata extracted at the very beginning of this blog post. FFmpeg can pass parameters to the internal x265 encoder via -x265-params. We'll pass in the metadata there. Add this in the FFmpeg command after the previous addition that converted the colour space to BT.2020:
FFmpeg Command Line Arguments
-x265-params "colorprim=bt2020:colormatrix=bt2020nc:transfer=smpte2084:colormatrix=bt2020nc:hdr=1:info=1:repeat-headers=1:max-cll=0,0:master-display=G(15332,31543)B(7520,2978)R(32568,16602)WP(15674,16455)L(14990000,100)"
If you're lost, here is the final command:
UNIX Command
UNIX> ffmpeg -i video.avi -c:v libx265 -pix_fmt yuv420p10le -vf scale=out_color_matrix=bt2020:out_h_chr_pos=0:out_v_chr_pos=0,format=yuv420p10 -x265-params "colorprim=bt2020:colormatrix=bt2020nc:transfer=smpte2084:colormatrix=bt2020nc:hdr=1:info=1:repeat-headers=1:max-cll=0,0:master-display=G(15332,31543)B(7520,2978)R(32568,16602)WP(15674,16455)L(14990000,100)" -crf 16 -c:a flac video.mkv
Quite lengthy huh? I warned you. However, let's look at the MKV file it exported on the HDR display. Because HDR screenshots can't be displayed properly on an SDR monitor, this was converted from HDR10 back into SDR. Definitely not a perfect conversion, but you can see the difference.
Only one problem...
This method of capturing and encoding HDR10 video via Dxtory is not perfect. Far from it. Dxtory reads the screen as an 8 bit buffer. Meanwhile, the output bit depth the monitor gives is 10 bit. So we're already losing a lot of detail, going from 1024 levels of colour per channel (red, green, and blue) down to 256. For scenes in-game where there's lots of colour variety, the trained eye is going to see banding of colours. This is why I encourage recording to UtVideo over something like x264vfw. We're losing a lot of detail. No need to lose even more. For a way to visually see this, here's a diagram for 8 bit going to 4 bit and back:
Obviously, with 10 bit going to 8 bit and back won't have much of a dramatic impact unlike the one shown above. But it's still a loss of colour information. If there's a software recorder out there that can capture the screen buffer in 10 bit, that'll solve this. Until then, the only proper solution I can think of is to use a dedicated capture card that was made to capture HDR signals. But until then, it's a valid solution to recording HDR video with software and not a dedicated capture card. I'll take it.
Example Clip
Here is a test clip I recorded from when I unlocked a gold Model 680 shotgun in Modern Warfare. It was encoded with the very command shown above. YouTube accepts HDR10 videos and will generate SDR versions for people without HDR displays. It also allows surround sound (It stores a 5.1 stream that plays on TVs). If you have an iPhone X (or more recent), or a Samsung Galaxy S8/Note 8 (or more recent), those have HDR certified displays. It does make a difference.
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How to make Tiny Planets [and Panoramas]
Make fancy looking things without going broke buying Creative Cloud.
By now, you’ve probably seen a lot of those fancy looking panoramas, 3D photospheres, or images that look like Tiny Planets / a Super Mario Galaxy level / King Kai’s Planet.
The way this is done is similar to how NVIDIA Ansel creates 360 pictures, but isn’t automated (yet…).
You’ll need:
Microsoft Research’s Image Composite Editor (ICE)
A first-person camera
You’ll want:
Image Editing Software (Paint.NET or FastStone Image Viewer are my go-to)
Access to a Dedicated Capture Mode – OR – the ability to use Time-stop, No HUD, No First Person Player Model, FOV control, and Free cam/No Clip.
Game and Camera Setup
Have a look through your library, and find a game where you’ve got access to a First-Person camera. While any FPS will work here, many other games have these hidden away as a debug camera. For instance, XCOM2 and ABZU have these, despite not being first-person games. Third-Person cameras won’t work with this method, since the “pivot point” of the camera is out in the scene, rather than at the “lens” of the camera.
If a game has a dedicated Capture Mode (Mad Max , Shadow Warrior 2, or anything that has NVIDIA Ansel), use this.
If the game doesn’t have a dedicated capture mode, see if you can make one with the console (Things like Noclip, Time-stop, Disabling HUD), using GeDoSaTo to get rid of HUD items or great big things that say “PAUSED” in the middle of the screen, or using Cheat Engine to take control of the camera when I shouldn’t. I tend to check things like DeadEndThrills or PCGamingWiki for an idea of what I’ve got available to work with.
If the game doesn’t have either of these, don’t worry! This process will still work, you’ll just have a few extra steps (These are covered in the Tips section).
Image quality is the highest priority when making these things. We’re not trying to be playable, we’re after capturing the mood of the environment. That said, I tend to turn off post-processing effects that add things like dirt or scratches to the lens, such as the psuedo Bokeh effect in XCOM2, but that’s up to you.
On FOV and Capture Resolution: Wider angles will make the capturing process *much* faster at the expensive of image quality, but tighter FOV will give you more environmental detail (Most games don’t include Perspective Distortion, so it’s like cruddy version of supersampling that won’t turn your GPU into molten slag). Our software can do Gigapixel resolution panoramas if you’ve got the RAM (and ability to open the final image), but for most games, you’ll have massively diminishing returns for FOVs below 80. You may also note that I didn’t mention the resolution of your screenshots. While this is normally a big deal in screenshots, higher resolutions have diminishing returns when you’re making panoramas this way. Worry about getting the smallest object you care about in the scene looking good, rather than trying to force as many pixels as you can into each shot. Feel free to use GeDoSaTo to capture at 16K if you want, but it probably won’t be worth the effort / fire hazard.
Capture Method
With your scene all set up, start taking screenshots in all directions. I like to start at the horizon, do a 360 degree (Azimuth, in Spherical Coordinates) sweep, capturing about every 45 degrees for an FOV of 90 (i.e. take a shot, look at the objects at the edge of the screen, move the camera so those are now in the middle, take another shot.). Once I’m back to the start, change the elevation (Altitude, in Spherical Coordinates), and repeat this process until you’ve got a screenshot of every single direction. If you’re not sure that you’ve got a shot, take an extra one. The more photos, the better (provided your scene isn’t moving).
Stitching
When you’re reasonably satisfied that you’ve got everything, quit the game and look at the collection of screenshots you’ve got. Open Image Composite Editor (ICE), and drag-and-drop them into the main window. Once you’ve got them all in there, check that Camera Motion is set to AutoDetect, then click Next.
This will start the stitching process, where ICE does some quick optical object recognition, and finds a way to overlap as many of the images as it can. This can take a while, so go have a nice cuppa tea, a Bex, and a lie down (Don’t worry, it never takes more than 3 minutes on my machine, even with a few hundred images).
Projection
When the stitching is complete, you should see something like this:
The Spans 360 degree Horizontally and 180 degree Vertically underneath tells you that ICE was able to find enough information in all directions to recreate the entire scene.
Now comes the most important part: Choose a projection.
To Make a Planet: we select Stereographic, and set the Orientation to:
Roll 0 Degrees
Pitch -90 Degrees
Yaw 0 Degrees
If this works, you should have a little planet! You can adjust the shape of this using the mouse, but I tend just rotate the scene instead so I don’t introduce additional distortions.
[Alternatively, if you just want a fancy panorama like you see of GTA V or The Witcher 3 on Steam Community with several hundred likes: try another projection then just crop out the area you want. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy! YOUR WINNER!]
Cropping
So, you’ve got your pretty pretty all set up, now it’s time to get it into a saveable format. Select Crop from u the top, and after the panorama is projected, you’ll have your scene again. Looking at the Width and Height, you’ll probably notice that the full image is a mite over 15000x15000 pixels. That’s great and all, but a lot of programs will flat out refuse to deal with files this big. Also, there’s probably a lot of extra space around the interesting parts that you’ll want gone, or maybe missing bits of the sky if you didn’t get Zenith. If you’ve followed the guide and only rotated the planet scene, the middle of the planet will be the centre of the image, making auto-centering and cropping super easy. Here, a 10000x10000 pixel crop looks good to me, but this is down to personal taste. My general advice is to see if 7500x7500 will contain everything of interest to your scene. Once you’re happy with the crop, hit Next and move on to Export.
File Formats
I do two exports here. The first is a high quality PNG at 100% scale copy of the scene. I’ll then make a 95-100 Quality JPEG with a Width and Height between 4500-5500 pixels. This is to keep the image size under the 8MB that Steam requires, and to prevent Steam from throwing up additional errors (I’ve had a lot of problems getting it to accept images above 30 megapixels, but your experience may differ).
Alternatively, use a good image editor to downsample the PNG to something under 30 megapixels and below 8MB. I really like FastStone Image Editor for this, the Crop board is excellent.
Sharing
Upload your JPEG to the Steam Community Hub / Flickr / Imgur / Tumblr /, give it a name, and feel the glow of adding something beautiful to this world.
Or just print it out and throw it out the window at a passing dog. That works too.
Troubleshooting
Sometimes ICE will get confused by a scene and fail to project properly. In this case, you can try importing the bare minimum number of images, as something in the scene might have moved or asset reuse in the game will have caused a problem. If this fails again, I often just recapture the scene.
ICE comes with a very basic Autocomplete function for filling in gaps in panoramas. If you notice Grey holes (or if the Autocrop button doesn’t select the whole image), these are missing bits. If they’re not in your scene when you crop at the end, you can ignore them, but otherwise you can try the (quite computationally intensive) Autocomplete system. This will produce variable results, but can work in a pinch. Otherwise, load up a dedicated image editor (Paint.NET or GIMP if you’re broke like me) and clean up the errors in that.
Tips
Everything ICE does, Adobe’s Creative Cloud can do. But ICE is free, extremely easy to use, doesn’t require an internet connection, and can run on any version of Windows newer than XP.
Get Steam to screenshot in PNG, and use these instead of the default JPEGs. Since ICE accepts PNGs as inputs, you can cut out bad parts of the inputs and leave them transparent.
The general rule of thumb: avoid scenes where you’ll have big objects 30 degrees above the horizon. Buildings or Mountains will distort like crazy, and you’ll have this weird bulbous mass that can look very weird. Sometimes trees will look ok though, so experiment and you should get a good idea.
The closer an object is to the camera, the greater the distortion. If you want an object to look relatively normal (Say, a car or a person), try to keep it at least 5 meters from the camera and within 15 degrees of the horizon. However, distortion on people can look *really good* if you’ve got a good eye for composition (See this GTAV shot by a very clever peep).
Another rule of thumb is try to avoid putting anything too interesting directly underneath the camera. Keep this part of the scene relatively boring and go for more eye-catching detail around the horizon. If you’ve got something like a highlighted path in your scene, capturing the scene directly on top of the path doesn’t look as nice as being a few meters away.
Some games will have HUDs that you can’t turn off. In this case, crop out the HUD before stitching, and just take your screenshots a little closer together. Same goes for games with really strong Vignetting that can’t be disabled at all (Looking at you, Mass Effect 2).
There will be games where you’ve got no access to anything that makes capturing a scene easy (The Long Dark is my favourite example. There’s no console, subtle vignetting, no pause, and the player’s breathing makes little clouds in the middle of the screen). In these cases, I do my best to try and capture as quickly as possible. Things like moving clouds and horrible animals coming to gnaw on my guts will mostly be dealt with by ICE, or can be photoshopped out later. Or use it to turn one deer into a distributed herd. Up to you!
This technique will work in the real world, too. Camera + Tripod + the ability to edit out shadows = Good Times.
Worried about Perspective Distortion making everything look weird? ICE should be able to compensate for it in almost all cases, unless you’ve somehow turned your camera into a Duck eye. I’ve done a real-world shot with a 14mm fisheye lens, and ended up with a panorama that had no noticeable perspective effects on it with ICE.
Don’t worry about needing a powerful PC. I used to do this on my first gen i7 with 8GB of RAM and an ATi 5870 (“ Top of the line in ’09! ”), and got the same quality as I get with my NVIDIA GTX 1070 and 32GB of RAM. Image projection, stitching, and editing can be computationally intensive, but if you can run Steam on Windows, you can make pretties.
Example Materials
Here’s a link to the source materials I used to make this. You’ll notice there’s a hole at the top of the scene, but the Autocorrect can fix it for you if you want to use that. Try playing with a few projections to see how these things work without stressing about the capture process, but most of all, have fun trying this stuff!
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The Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 M42 lens was a standard lens supplied on several Mamiya 35mm slr bodies in the 1960s, and is available for not too much money either as a stand alone lens or, more frequently when suppled as a complete camera kit bought second hand.
Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 on Fuji X-T1 – Garden Fence
Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 on Fuji X-T1 – Sunrise over the golf course
Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 on Fuji X-T1 – Seagulls
Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 on Fuji X-T1 – Post
Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 on Fuji X-T1 – Don’t fall in!
Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 on Fuji X-T1 – Winter colour
Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 on Fuji X-T1 – Yellow on Red
Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 on Fuji X-T1 – Close up
Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 on Fuji X-T1 – Reflections on the Ice
Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 on Fuji X-T1 – Feeding the ducks
I acquired my copy when I purchased a Mamiya 500TL recently for a couple of pounds. It turned out that the camera body wasn’t in very good shape and needs a lot of work to get it going, but the lens is fine and so I tried it out on my Fuji X-T1 mirrorless to see the sort of results it is capable of.
The lens is of fairly standard M42 screw mount design having a pin in the bottom of the mount which stops down the lens at the point the shutter opens, and an Auto/Manual switch on the lens barrel to disable this action. On the original camera this switch would have been set to Auto so the metering and focusing could be carried out at full aperture, but when used on a digital camera this action is unnecessary. In fact, since a modern mirrorless camera like the Fuji X-T1 controls the aperture electronically, the mechanical nature of the lens’s stopping down pin would cause problems. Fortunately, as well as the Auto/Manual switch, the M42 mount adapter makes sure the pin is depressed and the lens is in manual mode whichever way the switch is set.
The only controls which need to be set on the lens are the aperture and the focus rings. Obviously, the aperture needs to be set manually and there is no readout of the aperture value either in the viewfinder or on the picture metadata when it is viewed in Lightroom (or equivalent). The focus also needs to be set manually, but the X-T1 is a great camera for manual lenses because of the many different focus aids like the focus peaking or split rangefinder view.
In order to test the lens on the X-T1, I put the camera into manual mode by setting the shutter speed dial to T which gives shutter speed control to the front dial, and the ISO to Auto. With the camera set up this way I can set both Aperture and Shutter speed and let the camera adjust the ISO to suit. As long as you observe the ISO to make sure it’s not being set too high everything should be OK.
Test Results
The results I got with this lens are shown in the gallery above. They were all shot in Raw and imported into Lightroom CC where they had a minimal amount of Post Processing following my usual workflow before being exported as Jpeg files with a max length of 1000 px.
To test it out I took a stroll around Fairlands lakes in Stevenage and tried taking picture with a variety of different f stop values to get a feel for how it performs. Unfortunately it was a bit of a murky day when I went out, but the lens still managed to capture some subtle colours quite nicely. One thing which did strike me as I was using the lens was that it focuses really quite closely and with a short extension tube would probably make a good close up lens.
Being a 50mm lens, the Fuji X-T1 crop factor made this the equivalent of a short telephoto, so I needed to stand further back from subjects than I normally like to; personally, I find it easier to compose shots with a wide angle lens than a telephoto, which made the test a bit more of a challenge than say a 28mm lens would be.
I expected the Mamiya to perform well simply because it is such a good name and overall this lens didn’t disappoint. The definition was good, colour rendition good and there is certainly evidence of the characteristic swirly background this type of lens normally produces (which is down to the lens design). Since this lens is available for only a few pound, I would definitely add it to the ‘worth a look’ list.
While I was out with the camera I also shot a couple of video clips just to see how the lens performs, and they are shown below.
Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 M42 lens on Fuji X-T1 The Mamiya-Sekor 50mm f/2.0 M42 lens was a standard lens supplied on several Mamiya 35mm slr bodies in the 1960s, and is available for not too much money either as a stand alone lens or, more frequently when suppled as a complete camera kit bought second hand.
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The Trip of a Lifetime
as i sit here in the CTV room, the day after we got back from nashville at 2:54pm wanting to go home bc im literally running on 3 hours of sleep and alfredo thinks its a good time to be a good teacher and let his tv1 students edit their musicals????? i can honestly say, the separation anxiety from the group and withdrawals from STN as a whole are so real and so heartbreaking. being able to wake up and walk 2 feet to whatever room i choose and behind the doors are some of the people that i love the most. its so surreal. before this trip, we were, mere, a group of friends. but as the trip progressed, we became a family. and thats cliche and all. but for STN2017, i can’t say that. i can’t say we were a family. STN2018 exceeded my expectations and i wouldnt change it for the world.
Since i didn’t blog the night of trash n i’s individual. lets get into that. we got into the room with the prompt pickup 30 minutes before and we met up w schwammy and chadster since movie trailer was also getting their prompt at the same time as we were. i think my favorite part of prompt pickup was the fact that a guy from ithica college or whatever the heck it was called. CAME UP TO US AND STARTED TALKING ABOUT THE COLLEGE MEANWHILE ITS 8:29 AND THE PROMPT COMES OUT AT 8:30. the clock struck 8:30 and the amount of speed ashton n i whipped our head around to get the prompt seemed so extra but that ithica guy had it coming freakin idiot. anyways. we got the prompt and we didnt look at it until we got outside by the big staircase. we read it and we booked it back to the room to start brainstorming. we got an idea kinda fast, we both unanimously agreed to take the metaphorical route of I Walk the Line. bc we thought everyone was gonna go the geometry route. WHICH THEY DID AND IT WON????????? IM FINE WE’RE FINE. ANYWAYS. we got our concept and we start filming and filming without a script and without shot comp in mind or written down is VERY difficult and lead to much frustration and confusion and doubts in our story line. seeing THE ashton bosse break down bc he was not proud of what we were doing and he thought it made no sense at all had to be the most heartbreaking thing to have witnessed. i think i wouldve lost it too.. bc as the one to figure out the concept, i still had no idea what it was about tbh. i had no idea wth we were filming and what order it was being filmed in. i think one of the main reasons i didnt break down was the fact that i KNEW that no matter what footage we got.. we were gonna pull thru and it was gonna be amazing. and it freaking was. ashton and i went into the editing room so chill thinking, “what we got sucks, we’re just gonna put some clips together and export” so throughout the whole 3 hours, we LITERALLY had a picnic, within the first hour we had eaten a bag of popcorn, doritos, laffy taffy, ASHTON ATE ALL THE FUN DIP, and some gummy bears. we were literally so chill that we took a photo booth picture on my laptop of us catching the gelatinous bears in our mouth. its iconic. we also kept loooking back at becca and chad and nicole n bri and they all seemed so into it but meanwhile ashton accidentally spilled a cup of water after specifically telling me not to, OH AND I HOPE TAYLOR FINALLY GOT THE RIGHT SANDWICH #iykyk anyways trash n i exported and had about 15 minutes to spare. we were both so incredibly unexpectedly proud of the outcome which was surprising bc we literally watched it again after it was the hard drive and it ends and we look at each and other and simultaneously shrug our shoulders and go "yeah ok." seeing jimmy pg's face as it ended when we showed them after really made me feel like we had done something right and made me more confident than i was already. he always stressed to make it clear, and to make the audience feel what you want them to feel, and he said we did that. so that was dope.
anyways after we waited for becca and chad and schwammy's face when he met up w them was the cutest thing ever. you guys killed it #proud, bri n nicole were next and literally i dont think anyone has experienced 2nd hand stress as much as everyone watching them TRY to export did. but they did it woo. felipe and melissa freakin exported w 45 minutes to spare. APPLAUSE TO EVERYONE BC ALL OF CTV MADE DEADLINE.
line dancing was probably the greatest excursion (#vocab) we had all trip. ACTUALLY DAVE N BUSTERS I LOVEEEEEEE MY LIGHT UP PINEAPPLE SHOUTOUT TO JAKE MAYOR AND SHOUTOUT TO JIMMY PG FOR NAMING US THE BEST NEWS SEGMENT IN CRAZY 8'S BC GIRLLLLLLL I WOULDNT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO WITOUT IT. just a little apprecation post for my #softnews/softstanduppartner BUT back to line dancing. dancing like freakin crazy bats and in a circle and just hearing ethan yell FAMILY the whole time just idk like becca said it was surreal and i couldnt believe that i was able to be there in the presence of such talented individuals and be able to call them my best friends and the group of people that i can go to when i need a shoulder to lean on.
STN went by way too fast and it literally felt like 2 minutes but the days felt like 47 hours. the exhaustion and the constant walking around that damn hotel was so unnecessary but i would do it all day everyday if it meant being with this group of people forever.
to the presidents; thank you for leading us. thank you for leaving such a legacy that will be so hard to follow but one that we will try so hard to surpass. thank you for showing me what the family side of ctv is which ive been waiting for since my freshman year. i love you all as individuals and even more as leaders.
to my fellow officers; no better group to lead with than all of you together. we each have our own qualities that added up to one amazing and successful year.
to the senior oldbies; thank you for everything you've done and thank you for not giving up on this club even if it is your senior year and all you guys wanna do is graduate. youve showed massive perseverance and determination. and even if some of the seniors are newbies this year, youve impacted my life and have inspired me to be better and do better.
to my underclassmen newbs; its just the beginning guys. you all have 2 more years left and you guys are such passionate, persistent, and happy individuals and you should all be proud of what you guys have accomplished this weekend. and don't lose your drive to create and better yourselves as creators and journalists. youre in for a hell of a high school career.
to andrew n gabby; we are going to be seniors. its time to put everything we've learned and to turn it into everything we'll teach. to the newbies of this year and to the incoming newbies. i love you both. i can't wait to continue the CTV legacy. we can make it a 4peat. i know we can.
and last but not least,
to alfredo pichardo; i cant begin to express how grateful i am to be able to follow in your footsteps. thank you from the bottom of my heart for letting me into your world of TV production and to experience what it is to have the greatest high school experience ever. whether it be from ctv or sga. you're there through it all and i wouldnt want it any other way. i love you immensely and i hope i've made you proud and can continue to making you proud. because who knows. i might be changing my college major just because of this trip.
and with that. my stn2018 experience has come to a close.
here's to the laughs, the tears, the wepahs, but most importantly the bond that we've all created and i hope to keep that bond for as long as possible. i love you all always.
For CTV Soft News, this has been Aleggsama Pichardo the Wepah Queen.
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