GADE

I liked Jonathan Mann's performance of "Copying Isn't Theft", but it was not an exact match to Nina Paley's animation. Here I've simply tweaked the video using Kino to match up the lipsync to Mann's singing. This is maybe my 2nd or 3rd Kino edit, but I don't think it's too awfully bad.

As the credits say, the work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0.

The original animation version has much higher production values -- mine is just a quick mock-up.

And there is a video of Jonathan Mann's original soundtrack.

And here's a video of Nina Paley singing this version of the song a capella.

Couldn't find the exact original that Jonathan Mann used -- it might not be on YouTube, but the version above is very similar. Paley rearranged the words slightly (to "Copying is not theft" instead of "Copying isn't theft"), and Mann added the "Ah-ooh". So his version can't really be matched to Nina's video without some edits, which is why I created this. I just wanted to see what it would look like.

I find it remarkable how controversial this simple observation is -- it's a fundamental property of information products that they cannot be "stolen" in the same way that material things can. This does not mean there are not reasonable discussions to be had about remuneration for intellectual labor, but to compare copying to stealing is to fundamentally confuse the issue -- and of course some very powerful political lobbies have been trying to do just that. Which is the reason why Paley created this song and this video in the first place.

A 10-minute overview of the production and development work I did for "Lunatics!" and related projects in 2021.

Happy New Year!

This is a simple demonstration and rigging test animation for a 14-segment display prop in Blender. It can display a choice of 22 messages (if you design them not to overlap, you could even do multiple messages at once). This is more than enough for the applications I need it for, and it doesn't require a script to support it. Relies on the "DSEG" font package from www.keshikan.com, which is packaged for Debian as the 'fonts-dseg' package, under the SIL Open Font License.

This was created for a close-up shot of a control panel in the pilot episode of "Lunatics!", "No Children in Space", though I anticipate reusing the display or at least the design later.

Screencast logs of April, sorted out by project:

38.6 hrs on "Lunatics!" Production: mainly the "LA-Launch" and "SF-SoyuzFlight" sequences, and then constructing a new whole-episode animatic.

25.3 hrs on Anansi Blender Extensions add-on (ABX): this month, I extensively modified the "Copy NLA" feature which has now become "Copy Animation"; and I expanded the "L.Ink Compos" feature into "Ink/Paint Config", with options for handling transparency, billboard objects, and fixing the sky background compositing.

15.1 hrs on Lib-Ray media format: setting up unit and functional tests and creating a small test article video to use in more tests. Also came up with a plan for how to integrate visual testing (I had some visual testing working a long time back, but I got the test code muddled up with the application code pretty badly -- a lot of my current reorganization is just trying to sort that out).

3.0 hrs on collecting the codes for automating the robotics on a Primera Bravo II disk publisher that I purchased recently. I put this under a new project "Bunsen", which is very experimental right now, but I might be writing about it -- it's a studio utility to run disk burning on my file server through a web interface from my workstation. It's sort of a learning project, but I also hope to put it to use publishing short runs of M-Disc DVDs or other optical disk archives.

Regard sur… Qui es-tu Lucio ?

SPOILERS!

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This is the first time in a long time that I have assembled the full episode at once, and it also represents a substantial improvement in my Kdenlive workflow, since I'm using some new features to put everything together.

Test of the rocket plume effect with the Soyuz launch vehicle, which is the first shot in the "Soyuz Flight" sequence (SF) in "Lunatics!" episode 1 (it's in "block 3" because of editing changes -- block 1 groups all the cabin interior shots).

This is the one-piece Soyuz model, originally created for the Launchpad Mech set, but isolated here in this one shot. After this, the rigged staging model will be used.

Because this shot is so simple, it renders pretty fast, and made a good test for the final look of the rocket plume in use.

Soyuz model by Chris Kuhn.

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 / "Lunatics!" Project | lunatics.tv

Short promotional video showing what you get on the upcoming "Open Movie Edition" DVDs, which is the main / first release of the episodes.

Music is "To Receive the Answer" by Distemper, CC By 3.0.

Été asi bik a CHU-la 2022

Character model turnaround for Dr. Sarah Allison, from "Lunatics!"

(no sound)