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• Bye Bye FATE Machine

  4 septembre 2010, par Multimedia Mike — FATE Server

  This is the computer that performed the lion’s share of FATE cycles for the past 1.5 years before Mans put a new continuous integration system into service. I’ve now decided to let the machine go. I can’t get over how odd this feels since this thing is technically the best machine I own.

  
  
  

  It’s a small form factor Shuttle PC (SD37P2 v2) ; Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz ; 2 GB RAM ; 400 GB SATA HD ; equipped with the only consistently functional optical drive in my house (uh oh). I used it as my primary desktop from March 2007 – November 2008, at which point I repurposed it for FATE cycles.

  As mentioned, the craziest part is that this is technically the best computer in my house. My new EeePC 1201PN isn’t at quite the same level ; my old EeePC can’t touch it, of course ; the Mac Mini has a little more RAM but doesn’t stack up in nearly all other areas. But the Shuttle just isn’t seeing that much use since the usurpation. I had it running automated backup duty for multimedia.cx but that’s easy enough to move to another, lower-powered system.

  Maybe the prognosticators are correct and the PC industry has matured to the point where raw computing power simply doesn’t matter anymore. I fancy myself as someone who knows how to put CPU power to work but even I don’t know what to do with the computing capacity I purchased over 3 years ago.

  Where will the Shuttle go ? A good home, I trust– I know a family that just arrived in the country and could use a computer.

• Who Invented FLIC ?

  26 mai 2011, par Multimedia Mike — Multimedia History

  I have been reading through “All Your Base Are Belong To Us : How 50 Years of Video Games Conquered Pop Culture” by Harold Goldberg. Despite the title, Zero Wing has yet to be mentioned (I’m about halfway done).

  
  
  

  I just made it through the chapter describing early breakthrough CD-ROM games, including Myst, The 7th Guest, and The 11th Hour. Some interesting tidbits :

  The 7th Guest
  Of course, Graeme Devine created a new FMV format (called VDX, documented here) for The 7th Guest. The player was apparently called PLAY and the book claims that Autodesk was so impressed by the technology that it licensed the player for use in its own products. When I think of an Autodesk multimedia format, I think of FLIC. The VDX coding format doesn’t look too much like FLIC, per my reading.

  Here’s the relevant passage (pp 118-119) :

  Devine began working on creating software within the CD-ROM disk that would play full-motion video. Within days he had a robust but small ninety-kilobyte player called PLAY that was so good, it was licensed by Autodesk, the makers of the best 3-D animation program at the time. Then Devine figured out a way to compress the huge video files so that they would easily fit on two CD-ROMs.

  Googling for “autodesk trilobyte play program” (Trilobyte was the company behind 7th Guest) led me to this readme file for a program called PLAY73 (hosted at Jason Scott’s massive CD-ROM archive, and it’s on a disc that, incidentally, I donated to the archive ; so, let’s here it for Jason’s tireless archival efforts ! And for Google’s remarkable indexing prowess). The file — dated September 10, 1991 — mentions that it’s a FLICK player, copyright Trilobyte software.

  
  
  

  However, it also mentions being a Groovie Player. Based on ScummVM’s reimplementation of the VDX format, Groovie might refer to the engine behind The 7th Guest.

  So now I’m really interested : Did Graeme Devine create the FLIC file format ? Multimedia nerds want to know !

  I guess not. Thanks to Jim Leonard for digging up this item : “I developed the flic file format for the Autodesk Animator.” Jim Kent, Dr. Dobbs Magazine, March 1993.

  The PLAY73 changelog reveals something from the bad old days of DOS/PC programming : The necessity of writing graphics drivers for 1/2 dozen different video adapters. The PLAY73 readme file also has some vintage contact address for Graeme Devine ; remember when addresses looked like these ?

  If you have any comments, please send them to :
  	Compuserve : 72330,3276
  	Genie : G.DEVINE
  	Internet : 72330,3276@compuserve.com
  

  The 11th Hour
  The book didn’t really add anything I didn’t already know regarding the compression format (RoQ) used in 11th Hour. I already knew how hard Devine worked at it. This book took pains to emphasize the emotional toll taken on the format’s creator.

  I wonder if he would be comforted to know that, more than 15 years later, people are still finding ways to use the format.

• ffmpeg : Create a fake shadow below alpha channel webm/png sequence

  6 mai 2021, par Beneos Battlemaps

  Purpose : I'd like to render out animated 3D meshes as png sequence to use them as animated tokens for virtual tabletop games. To make the mesh looks more natural I'd like to create a fake show beneath the actual token.

  


  Problem : I have a png sequence 1 (as well as a webm file created with ffmpet out of this png sequence if it makes it easier) with alpha channel. To create the webm I use :
ffmpeg -framerate 24 -f image2 -i Idle_Top.%04d.png -c:v libvpx-vp9 -crf 25 -pix_fmt yuva420p Idle_Top.webm (If its relevant). I'd like to render out the png sequence to a webm file that have the current images as well as the transparent shadow beneath the token combined.

  


  Possible workflow : I think a good way to achieve the wanted shadow effect is to use the alpha channel image as a mask on a black picture with the same resolution as the source image 2. Then you have a complete black version of the image. Then you need to place this image beneath the colored image and make a offset of 10px left and 10px down to create the ilusion of perspective 3. At the end the black image below the colored image must have a transparency as well ( 30% visibility should be enough) 4.

  


  Workflow overview

  


  Assets : I've put the webm file and the png files on my gDrive https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wznGaPwhKc2UyPpSZBSISa1gs3oixsHR?usp=sharing

  


  Though I work with ffmpeg on a regular basis I have no clue where to start. Can you please help me out with this interesting problem ?

  


  Best regards
Ben