Pipe Dreams
Though it took a long time working on it here and there between work and my other projects, I have recently finished a more professional, more finalized special effects test. I learn a great deal every time I tackle another piece, and I think it shows in the final product as compared to my last test. All rendering, design, and compositing of 3D elements was done in Blender, the camera tracking was done using Syntheyes, and the video editing using Final Cut Express.
(If you want to, I would suggest taking the time to watch the video in HD rather than the default, it looks much better that way.)
Something that helped a great deal for this project was the addition of a newly built networked attached storage server, also known as a NAS. The system I built is running a free operating system called FreeNAS, and allows me to store and access all of the project files together in a central place on my home network. Eventually I may try configuring port forwarding and a service like DynDNS so that I can access my files from school and other places as well over the internet.
One of the nicest things about the new server, however, is its amount of storage and backup capabilities. HD footage can be a bit of a storage hog, with an hour of footage taking up as much as forty-some gigs of space. Inside this standard off-the-shelf parts NAS machine are two two-terabyte SATA hard drives that are basically identical twins, straight down to the data. They are connected together via a form of software raid, meaning that if one of the two hard drives die, I still have my data safe and sound on the other one until I can replace the failed drive. I had to lose a terabyte of data before I understood how useful raid could be.
In other news, I just recently finished a new and much lengthier project with the help of a close friend. I’ll be posting a video and information about it soon, so check back often!
-Lace