Earlier this week the audio/video production powerhouse AV Linux released it’s newest version, 6.0.3. This is a minor update, mostly focused on fixing bugs and updating software packages to the latest and greatest stable versions, but they did make one non-trivial change; they changed the default kernel to the 3.10.27-PAE low-latency build. This gives improved performance for all aspects of media capture and processing, but especially for PCI audio devices or firewire interfaces. Performance on older platforms and hardware is also enhanced by this change. Whatever type of multimedia creation and processing you were thinking of doing, this Live DVD has all the resources you need for every aspect of the production workflow. You can download the Torrent or the Image and burn it to disk to get your own free toolkit. After you have booted it from the DVD and had a chance to see just how complete the software collection included in this OpSys is, you can also install it to your hard drive if you so desire.
Topping the list this week is the long awaited Odd Thomas, the Dean Koontz masterwork series now in Movie format (at least the first volume). There are also Webisodes of Odd Thomas you might enjoy. While it opened last week at an extremely limited number of theaters, The Wind Rises goes into wide release this week. The latest creation of Hayao Miyazaki is a biography for once, the story of a real person who designed some of the most innovative airplanes in the world for his time. It is up for an Academy Award for best animated feature film, you have this brief opportunity to see it on the big screen. Even though it is a Japanese production, this is animation, not anime; like all Studio Ghibli works it is very much in the style of Walt Disney. Even though it isn’t genre, Stalingrad looks like a very unusual WWII movie you might want to take note of, and catch if you are in one of the towns it is playing in.
Daz 3D is a powerful free 3D modeling and animation software package that has everything you could want to create your own animations. Mind, if you are not careful, the content store may drain your wallet in short order. But that is mostly a problem for the lazy, who are not willing to do the work to create their own stuff when they can just buy it off the shelf.
Once you have downloaded and installed the free software package, knowing how to use it would be pretty useful, so some tutorials would help out. As with most training and tutorials, any of these concepts apply equally to a lot of different software packages that do the same general job. The major real differences between them are what the buttons are called and which menu they live in, although each program seems to have 1 to 3 things it can do with a click that the other programs need a procedure for. So if you use a different program for your 3D modeling and rendering, most of the info will apply once you figure out where those buttons live in your software.
The first one is a basic intro to 3D modeling and animation, demonstrating the basic components any animation is made of. Once you understand what the components are, it is just a mater of learning how to do each of them in whichever program you prefer, and finally how to put them together to create your finished product. The second tutorial is about the program itself, Daz Studio, showing you where these functions live in this software and how to use them. Again, most of the concepts work in any software, so you might want to at least watch it once, even if you use a different program. And if you don’t already have a 3D modeling software package you prefer to work in, then I recommend downloading and installing either Daz or Blender, as the best free 3D programs on the market today. There are more tutorials where these came from, keep your eyes open and you will find a lot of good ones.
The Studio Ghibli film nominated for an Academy Award, The Wind Rises, is finally on the big screen for American audiences to enjoy. This is a bit different as Anime goes, because it is a look at the real life of a man who designed fighter planes for Japan during WWII. While Anime does not shy away from hard story lines, it does not often tell you about actual people, other than historical figures long dead in completely different eras. It has some stiff competition in the Awards, it is up against both Despicable Me 2 and Frozen; I am looking forward to seeing it in the theater. After I do, I will have finally seen everything nominated and can make my decision as to which one I would vote for. Also out this week, Pompeii is about a gladiator making a mad dash to save his true love from being married to a corrupt Roman Senator (is there any other kind?) while the Volcano trashes the town. That one sounds like it should be a lot of fun. There is a chance that Angels in Stardust might be an interesting fantasy as well, or at least an indie quirky kind of film.
Yes, this is a step-by-step tutorial about how to build your own Minions in Blender, a powerful free open source 3D modeling program. Since I personally love Despicable Me (both of them), this seemed like a great project to learn from. Download your free copy of Blender and start creating today.
Frozen is a wonderful animation, as witness the fact that it won the Golden Globe Award for best animation, and has been nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Animation Long Form and Best Song for Let It Go. Because of this, they have just brought another version to theaters, the Sing-Along, with the lyrics under the bouncing snowflake. The woman who sings this in English, Idina Menzel, truly does an excellent job… So do most of the other singers in the 50 different languages recorded for the film. We have at least three (4 depending on how your counting) new movies out this weekend I want to see, but I would love to see this one again, in the IMAX 3D format. Decisions, decisions…