An epic confrontation
Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, July 27, 2017 Under: WIP
Hey all!
This week's vlog!!
- Choice in serpent
I have talked about it before, but I want to write it here again, since this is where the serpent features again. It featured all the way back in September 2016 (oh yeah, it's been almost an entire year! hahaha).
When you go and look up serpent in the interlinear Bible, you will find that serpent is defined as pretty much any kind of reptile (including dinosaurs). If you look at dinosaurs from a truly Biblical perspective, you will find that their extinction, just like other animals, did not come at once, but gradually as they were hunted down for sports, safety and probably food too. On top of that you can add predatory causes like hunting each other and various forms of starvation due to young ones not being able to keep up with the program and never making it to adulthood, etc.
Crocodiles and snakes are the closest common living relatives we have today. If you go and look at the skull of the T-rex and the skull of a snake, you will see remarkable similarities in how they were designed. It's the very reason that you see that little skin flap in the mouth of the T-rex in Jurassic park - oh yes, comes from other living reptiles today. I had to go do some research to design this little animal and it is only how I felt led to make it based on GOD's original designs.
Does that mean that that was what Aaron got when he threw down the rod? I don't know. Is it likely? I think it's more likely than we anticipate.
But what about the cobra for the Egyptians? Well, that's a different case altogether, since they worshiped and feared the cobra over other animals, making it the most likely candidate for the magicians to use. To them it was one of the most deadly and dangerous animals.
Then how come a dino for Aaron? I am so glad you asked, hahaha.
Well, I asked GOD a while back about Evolution and all their "evidence". HE challenged me right there: "Who are you going to believe?" and of course that was a rock and hard place for a second or two, but obviously I'm going with GOD, since HE made every thing. So I asked HIM for something to give other people and HE gave me Kent Hovind's seminar series on exactly this topic. Didn't know who Kent Hovind was, didn't even know he had a seminar series. Another YouTuber simply mentioned him in passing and his name stood out and sure enough, that was what he talked about.
You can find his seminar (make time to watch it - you will not be sorry) in the previous vlog where I spoke about the serpent choice as well as the clarity-cost principle with John Paul Jackson.
That doesn't answer why he specifically gets a dino. No, but I'm getting to it, haha. In the book of Numbers, chapter 21, Moses was instructed to build a serpent and whoever looked upon the serpent would be healed after having been bitten by the "snakes". In the new testament, JESUS HIMSELF used it as a figure for HIM being lifted up (crucified) for our salvation, because without HIS sacrifice, we would all certainly die in our sins (John 3:14).
When I needed the serpent for Aaron, I truly felt that GOD wanted me to go check out what serpent meant for the rest of the Bible and sure enough, I came across the instance in Numbers - The only instance I knew of where the Israelites actually started worshiping a serpent (2 Kings 18). It was also given a name (not sure by who). When you go and look up that name, you find a very different creature than we find today slithering around - you find a winged serpent, like a small dragon, sometimes depicted with two legs and had big ears or frills in one.
Since that was the animal that:
- JESUS compared with HIMSELF as a figure
- GOD instructed Moses to make
- GOD used for judgment against HIS people,
it is a very very likely candidate for HIM to also use it in demonstrating HIS power in Egypt. Thus, Aaron gets a dino :), haha.
You can check out this article and video by Answers in Genesis on dragons and dinosaurs.
I'm not sure if its the same video I saw (current data limits), but the article makes some really good points, not to mention Kent's seminar videos! (^^,)
The irony here is that I may be totally off on it (the animal that Aaron gets), but since GOD only instructed me to make the video and didn't outright show me what took place, I am still perfectly in HIS will regarding this, because I obeyed the leading I believe I got from HIM. If I'm wrong on this point, I would be thoroughly surprised, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time, haha, as the next point will illustrate, haha.
- The chair flicker fix
Well, this is awkward, haha. Last time I spoke of this issue in the vlogs, I called it a bug, because that was all I could name it... Even while saying it I felt like GOD insisted that HE already gave me a solution (not that I got what that even meant at the time...). So I went ahead with it and put it up and yeah, it was not a bug. It was once again my math letting me down, hahaha. I had 14 chairs over 10 vertices. Amazing how Blender would then double place some, hahaha. Of course this means that the frames containing the flickering chair, had to be re-rendered. Unfortunately, it meant that the majority of the shot where Moses tells Aaron to throw down the rod before pharaoh, had to be re-rendered, haha.
Oh well, at least we now know where the bug was, hahaha. I was wrong, I'm sorry! This was not a bug.
- Depth and motion
There is a very strange occurrence in 3D - the second something starts moving in 3D space, you immediately lose most of the depth perception. I think it's because the eyes have less time to take it in and the focus becomes the movement and no longer the novelty of seeing a 3D space on a 2D surface. Just look around you - do you notice the depth or the objects and the movement and the events?
When GOD had me work on the 3D conversion node, HE had me make some other tools as well, including the depth space adjustment as well as some, although be it limited, strength boosters. This means that for scenes where the basic node mangles too much, I can simply add these nodes to take it up a notch and it really makes a difference! The downside is, these only work with anaglyph. What I can do though, is use the offset of both left and right images to shift the depth space, but this does not alter the physical space between objects. It only alters their relation to the viewer (closer or further). I did make a node for this, and while I can add some minor depth adjustment to the side by side version, it isn't very high quality. I think for the moment, unless GOD gives me another suggestion, all I got that is of value on this, is a separation increase, that can convert to what blender supports for 3D and of course, requires an SBS(50%) input.
I would like to boost the 3D a bit more, but thankfully, it's not distracting - I just don't want it invisible, so I'm pushing the conversion node as far as I can! Again, remember this is a distortion method, so it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, haha.
- Anaglyph and color choice
This is a very interesting concept! With the rendering of the action background, GOD insisted from the get-go that I use the same render and simply adjust the color for use in other scenes.That means that I also save a huge amount of time and space, since in the first two minutes, we already have two instances where there are action line backgrounds. Btw, you can check out the tutorial below as well:
GOD is so amazing!
Anyway, so I went to render the serpent shot and I wasn't sure on what color to use. I felt led to use red. I naturally forgot that I was working with anaglyph 3D and that red is not a very good choice, hahaha. So when I saw it was red, I was like "Oh! My eyes!!" haha. Not really, but it was certainly a surprise. What happens with red is what is known as retinal rivalry. Your brain wants to reconstruct the red, but it only gets the information from one eye. The other eye sees black. This means that in your brain, the two kind struggle against each other and you get a sort of flickering sensation when you look at it through the glasses. With the way GOD had me optimize for color, it does exclude most instances of red, but the strongest shades of red still come through. This meant lots of rivalry going on between the two eyes - queue color change! hahaha!
Thankfully, Blender has an awesome compositor and I have an awesome GOD that simply suggested to change the color before final output to 3D and sure enough, yellow was the best fit. I luv the final shot!
This has only to do with color sensitive 3D, not polarized or stuff like that. Without going into it with too much detail, polarized 3D is 3D that is based on the rotation of the light waves that reach each eye. The lenses also act like filters, but need special displays that can send out vertical and horizontal light waves to correspond to each eye. Some methods use an interlaced mix and it's the very reason why you have to be a certain distance from the display to see the 3D correctly (again home viewing and device method dependent). In shorter terms, it's a form of 3D that allows you to mess with your color settings as much as you would like - it's not going to mess with the effect. It's also a method that is built from various 3D storage methods such as side by side, top and bottom, separate full res synced video streams, etc. Other methods that aren't color dependent include interlace, cross eyed, VR (viewfinder style stuff like Google Glass) and lenticular displays, shutterglasses, and a bunch of new glasses-free 3D screens that are appearing all over the place such as in the Nintendo 3DS, haha. Oh, and lets not forget the new special filters (my guess is probably lenticular on a very fine scale or some form of polarization) for your phone screen and the eye-tracking methods.
- Displaying anaglyph correctly in VLC
A lot of you use VLC for your everyday media needs, since it can play pretty much anything. I believe it can even play blu-rays if you have another player installed that has the codecs required, but I speak under correction. Anyway, it has a built in feature that allows you to convert SBS half width videos on the fly to Anaglyph (at least the version I use), but I found a serious snag - the colors were faded a bit. When VLC plays a file, it wants to use the hardware to convert it from YUV (videos' way of storing images) to RGB (monitors' way of showing images). For some reason, this caused a dulling of the colors on my PC and when I turned it off, boom, colors were right again. So, if you struggle with this issue, just go into your options and turn off the option that says to use hardware conversion from YUV to RGB. The software does a better job with, at least on my PC, and thankfully with no reduction in performance.
- Displaying anaglyph correctly on a TV
A lot goes into the making of TV's and the creation of all manner of codecs to make the videos small enough to be sent wirelessly while still looking awesome. These codecs were never designed to carry something like anaglyph. While it should be more than viable for the TV to be able to convert an SBS signal to Anaglyph or whatever else, that didn't really realize or gain traction (if it ever existed, haha)... In fact, the anaglyph method kinda fell by the wayside since the 80's and 90's. While still something that gains popularity and loses it, it remains one of the most challenging forms of 3D to display in video without ghosting. The biggest reasons include, but I'm sure are not limited to:
- Quality of the glasses
Not one we often want to face, because we truly sometimes only have what we have and have to make due without being ungrateful, but this definitely does have an effect. With the cardboard glasses I have, I find red bleeding through (will be talked about later). I don't think this is a problem with the display, but possibly the glasses. It is very possible that the thin film of the cardboard glasses are just not enough to filter out thoroughly enough and thus, giving a bleed through. While I haven't gotten to try it out, there is a company that specializes in improving the glasses and making sure that the lenses are made in a way that prevents ghosting as far as possible and that they are large enough to fit over most prescription glasses. Honestly, I would luv to see what the difference is! I think there may be something to it.
- Realtime enhancements
These include a multitude of things that TV's have built into them. Some you can turn off, others are just there. You, as the end user, would need to put in a little bit of time and effort to make sure that the picture you are getting is as neutral and raw as possible. Sometimes, it means dialing back even basic settings that seem neutral. These settings include contrast enhancement, upscaling (that uses sharpness that can often affect brightness), saturation boosters like the movie profile on many displays, brightness, hue, etc.
- Contrast of the display
Every display handles color slightly differently based on physical characteristics such as build quality (parts quality), design (how it's put together, including OS) and of course it's color management system. While fairly standardized, there are subtle variations within the primary colors (RGB) and that leaves you with variation as to the level of ghosting you may or may not experience. I've seen some displays on default run anaglyph video virtually ghost-free.
The brightness of the display too has a massive impact. I've noticed on our screen that I have all manner of color bleeding between the eyes because of the physical brightness of the display. Red was literally leaking through the Cyan lens. Not super massively, but to the point where it was clearly noticeable, so wow! hahaha.
- Codec and quality
Codecs in general struggle with ghosting because of the way that videos store picture information. Contrary to what we may think, videos do not get stored in the typical RGB format that images do. It's one of the many reasons why they can be as small as they are. RGB means you are essentially storing the same picture 3 times, with different color levels, that are then screened over each other. While it gives stunning display quality, it does limit the storage capacity in the long run, thus, YUV and other color spaces are used for video. Video can be encoded to RGB, but this isn't standard and that really makes a mess of the convergence around sharp areas, especially on full-color (within Red/Cyan) anaglyph. What helps a lot in these cases, is to use a monochrome anaglyph or to use a Color-Optimized anaglyph. The method GOD gave me isn't super optimized, but it certainly limits retinal rivalry, while still allowing strong reds to seep through. Also, the pixel block movement adds additional artifacts with what I call "the vacuum sealed" effect, where you have all manner of VHS style fringing (though minimized) effects around sharp edges. The best way to display and view anaglyph would be in raw formats, but unfortunately, most of us don't have that storage space nor equipment, so we have to minimize the damage and you can get it down to a very very very low level! If your video quality is pretty close to lossless, you should be able to view comfortably.
- Device playback quality
This kinda ties in with what the TV's software does, only in application to the player. Some programs, like the VLC example, do things that wouldn't ordinarily bother the typical viewer, but would absolutely mangle the anaglyph effect. You definitely have some level of visual influence on every device in the chain as it relates to the final result. It's almost like you are throwing the video through all manner of filters, but the goal is to have each filter do as little as possible, haha. If you have a quality machine - which most these days are more than good enough, you should be golden.
- ColorSpace displayed
One of the biggest influences I've noticed for sure. Apart from ridiculous sharpness levels and upping contrast etc, this one has a very big influence. It's like the difference between films from the 50's and films from now. There is a huge difference in how the final image output is delivered through the display. In this case, we're talking about the device through-put, not the output device itself. Our player outputs to YCbCr or RGB and RGB looks the best by far with anaglyph.
So in closing on this "little" topic, I will summarize with an earlier statement - you want the video to display as raw and unedited by the devices and codecs as possible. Sometimes the best way to do that is to have the video on pause and dial back the settings until you are satisfied with the result! hahaha.
Of course, anything you do is entirely at your own risk - I'm merely sharing what I did. If you want to maintain your settings for other sources, I suggest writing them down before adjusting anything or creating another user setting profile if your system allows you to.
- Wings in the way
When you work on a project like this, you will do a lot of stupid things, like I mentioned earlier with the chairs. Only this week, I made the same mistake multiple times and I just didn't get it, hahaha. The issue was with the serpent's wings. I wanted the wings to be normal as in the transformation, but wanted them tucked in the anticipation of it's growl hiss (still needing a sound effect) and so wanted to make sure I had the original wing position to keep the transformation sequence consistent. For some reason I just kept overwriting the bones' positions, hahaha. I did it at least three times, where I kept forgetting to make sure the keyframes were added and then move the time slider, haha.
When you make these sorts of mistakes, do not be surprised! hahaha. Just laugh at it and use it as an interesting story.
- Aaron's cast
Last week I mentioned to you guys how frustrated I was with Aaron's throw. I didn't have a clue on what GOD wanted me to do with it. For months I had been throwing down sticks in various ways, including a test for Aaron's throw while busy with the story boards or just before (see Demo reel) and I was just at a loss. I was not going to have him just drop it in a fancy way, because that is not what the text says. GOD's Word says that he cast it. That means it had to have air-time and it had to have some momentum horizontally, but I was totally stumped by a simple throw... Finally, just before the time came to get back to work, I got a flash of how he's supposed to throw it! GOD is so good!!! I felt peace about using it, because it wasn't excessive, but it was demonstrative enough to make a statement. You can check it out in the vlog! :D
- Speed consistency, GOD is amazing!
In the vlog I already talked about it, but it's worth mentioning again - GOD IS AWESOME!!!!
After I rendered Aaron's throw in OpenGL, I felt it was a little slow, but at the same time that it was at the exact speed it should be. Very weird internal struggle between re-rendering, leaving it as is, speeding it up in the edit, etc. I showed my mom and she felt it's speed was great as-is and I took that as the deciding factor and left it as-is, initially. So I went ahead with the next shot - the stick hitting the ground (using a different blender project). When I had rendered it and added it to the edit, it was at the same speed as the one from Aaron's throw and I was floored! It's being thrown at the right speed and it's certainly not changing! The reason why I say it's GOD, is because this is HIS assignment, I leave it up to HIM to make sure it is awesome and I did not check back with Aaron's throw for the speed, at all - didn't even think to! GOD is so so Awesome!!
- Pharaoh and the lacking info
This is where I do feel like GOD is giving me a bit of creative space in the way HE phrased things. The verse says:
That "called" means, in the Hebrew: "to summon, invite, call for, call and commission, appoint, call and endow"
Source: StudyLight interlinear Bible
Remember, that is just one of the definitions. By default, it means that he could've:
- Yelled
- Called
- Told his assistant or a messenger to go get them
- Hand signaled them forward if they were present, etc.
Personally, I believe GOD showed me to use a snap. Why? Because there is no quote to be had here. Any physical form of summoning, calling or bidding will fit the context, because I can't add words to scripture. My job, at least for this project, is to bring eyewitness testimony into video and that means that there are huge gaps. For example, there is little information, through-out scripture, about body language. Most eyewitnesses just don't care about that sort of info (just think of when you relate about a large series of events) - the goal is to relate what happened and not the minute intricacies of every person's emotions or their character development, haha. We're told that he called for them, or summoned them. We just don't know how. We don't know how demonstrative it was or what method he used - we just know that they were called for and they pitched. GOD has to give me the body language HE wants or I got nothing - just like Aaron's rod being thrown.
- Magicians
GOD's Word says:
If we say that the magicians just used trickery, we have to put GOD in the same category, because Moses did: "Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods." Now was GOD mislead, mistaken or lying when HE allowed in HIS Word this occurrence to be affirmed? None of the above! HIS Word states that their rods became serpents. If they were just charmed stiff snakes, it could've said: "And their serpents became loosed and Aaron's rod ate their serpents", but it doesn't say anything like that. If these were just snake charmers and fire dancers, that would be made clear, since Moses knew Egyptian culture and what they did in the courts a lot better than we do.
We have to remember that GOD's Word is true and anything hidden will be brought to light, but Moses clearly states that they had rods, they threw them down and they became serpents. I don't believe in a country where witchcraft was extremely prevalent, and practiced everyday, that those in the courts of pharaoh were simply snake charmers and "skilled jugglers". The enemy is definitely not going to pass on an opportunity like that. He wants to take GOD's place, he wants to be worshiped, he wants to be followed and he wants to destroy those who do and those who don't. I truly believe that these magicians were busy with the demonic in a country that welcomed it with open arms - they did a lot more than wiggle some iron to try and impress people (which is also an insult to the intelligence of the people at the time btw). Devil worship is not an illusion - it is very real, but GOD is above it in every sense of the word, that is why Aaron's rod ate theirs.
Don't be fooled, if GOD's Word says something took place, it did. Don't let the fear of people calling you uneducated, crazy, stupid or naive, allow you to try and explain away something that you've never come to confront yourself, just because it's scary. We have a very real enemy, with very real power, that does very real damage, to very real people every day, and at that directly and through other people as well. As long as he can remain hidden and bring destruction, he does, but when he is confronted or called to be open and welcomed, he lures with pretty sparkles, excitement and supernatural things that only hurt those who perform them and those who watch. Don't let yourself be lured away by a lesser power. GOD is GOD, because HE is supreme in every way, not just because HE is called GOD. Not only that, HE loves you and wants the best for you - why settle for less!
I really believe GOD led me to write more on this with a lot more scriptural examples, so you can check that out here.
- Length estimate
This is quite a different thing to get a grip on. I estimated the length to be at the shortest about 24mins (which is a very flat reading of chapters 7-12). Then, when I did the storyboards, 28:55. I have to be honest, I think it may be longer than that. When you do still frames, you have little to no expression and if you don't compensate for it with multiple frames, you end up underestimating the length. At this point in time, I'm already at 02:11, about 30 seconds longer than the storyboards for the same point in the narrative. Location, tension and timing has a much bigger impact than I compensated for in the storyboards for sure... I would honestly not be surprised if it runs about an hour (I would luv it if it turned out to be a feature film!!!!). I just want to finish it very quickly though. GOD is super gracious in making the animation process fly along (for me) and the render times very rarely get to 5mins per frame!!! GOD is super!!!
- Another re-render for the week
When you are working with any kind of script, you can easily miss things and I did miss quite a few things in a particular shot this week. You'll remember me talking about this in the video. Re-renders suck up so much time and resources, it's truly something I want to avoid. Unfortunately, I have had to do it twice already and would like for it to end now, hahaha. This week's re-render came in the form of the magicians' entry with a cloud of smoke between Pharaoh and Moses and Aaron. There were quite a few issues with it:
- The dino was missing
When Aaron throws down his rod, GOD initiates the supernatural confrontation by going first. This means that when the magicians enter, there is a dino awaiting them. Said dino was missing in the shot and I can guarantee you, he did not go and hide, haha. Nope! I had to add him in there and animate him as well.
- Moses and Aaron didn't move (neither did anyone else)
Speaking of animation, Moses and Aaron, as well as Pharaoh's posse, were all like manikins, not to mention Pharaoh's pose was inconsistent with the previous shot, so that had to all be fixed as well. This meant some animation work for Moses, Aaron and the lady on the far right. I did have to add a little over a second pass, because in the OpenGL test render, you could see that Moses just suddenly stopped moving, so it looked totally unnatural from an animation standpoint (the camera also suddenly stopped).
- The smoke was too fast
This was the biggest scream in the scene that had to be fixed. Haha, I did not follow my own advice and render an OpenGL first to check, because it ran smooth in the viewport and looked fine - only it wasn't. It's better now, after slowing it down a lot and adjusting the grow-in and shrink-out animation length relation to be more equal (meaning there is very little time where the particle stays the same size for a period of time, if any).
- The smoke was an impractical color for the Anaglyph 3D
A common issue for anaglyph, color can really ruin the experience. Red, especially, so the red from the 2D did not prove practical for the 3D. I just wanted to change it using the white balance - only issue is that it didn't prove practical (it changed too many things I didn't want it to and not enough of what I did, hahaha). So, GOD helped me with another method - the HSV node! Adjusting the hue very minutely, left most of Moses and Aaron's color intact, while changing the color feel of the environment to a most practical color - yellow-orange.
So there you guys have it! A lot of stuff covered in just one week - no wonder I was so tired, hahaha. I know the information I get to share here is of immense value to those it gets to! May it bless you and open your eyes more and more to GOD's goodness and brilliance!!
This week's vlog!!
GOD is super!!!
- Choice in serpent
I have talked about it before, but I want to write it here again, since this is where the serpent features again. It featured all the way back in September 2016 (oh yeah, it's been almost an entire year! hahaha).
When you go and look up serpent in the interlinear Bible, you will find that serpent is defined as pretty much any kind of reptile (including dinosaurs). If you look at dinosaurs from a truly Biblical perspective, you will find that their extinction, just like other animals, did not come at once, but gradually as they were hunted down for sports, safety and probably food too. On top of that you can add predatory causes like hunting each other and various forms of starvation due to young ones not being able to keep up with the program and never making it to adulthood, etc.
Crocodiles and snakes are the closest common living relatives we have today. If you go and look at the skull of the T-rex and the skull of a snake, you will see remarkable similarities in how they were designed. It's the very reason that you see that little skin flap in the mouth of the T-rex in Jurassic park - oh yes, comes from other living reptiles today. I had to go do some research to design this little animal and it is only how I felt led to make it based on GOD's original designs.
Does that mean that that was what Aaron got when he threw down the rod? I don't know. Is it likely? I think it's more likely than we anticipate.
But what about the cobra for the Egyptians? Well, that's a different case altogether, since they worshiped and feared the cobra over other animals, making it the most likely candidate for the magicians to use. To them it was one of the most deadly and dangerous animals.
Then how come a dino for Aaron? I am so glad you asked, hahaha.
Well, I asked GOD a while back about Evolution and all their "evidence". HE challenged me right there: "Who are you going to believe?" and of course that was a rock and hard place for a second or two, but obviously I'm going with GOD, since HE made every thing. So I asked HIM for something to give other people and HE gave me Kent Hovind's seminar series on exactly this topic. Didn't know who Kent Hovind was, didn't even know he had a seminar series. Another YouTuber simply mentioned him in passing and his name stood out and sure enough, that was what he talked about.
You can find his seminar (make time to watch it - you will not be sorry) in the previous vlog where I spoke about the serpent choice as well as the clarity-cost principle with John Paul Jackson.
That doesn't answer why he specifically gets a dino. No, but I'm getting to it, haha. In the book of Numbers, chapter 21, Moses was instructed to build a serpent and whoever looked upon the serpent would be healed after having been bitten by the "snakes". In the new testament, JESUS HIMSELF used it as a figure for HIM being lifted up (crucified) for our salvation, because without HIS sacrifice, we would all certainly die in our sins (John 3:14).
When I needed the serpent for Aaron, I truly felt that GOD wanted me to go check out what serpent meant for the rest of the Bible and sure enough, I came across the instance in Numbers - The only instance I knew of where the Israelites actually started worshiping a serpent (2 Kings 18). It was also given a name (not sure by who). When you go and look up that name, you find a very different creature than we find today slithering around - you find a winged serpent, like a small dragon, sometimes depicted with two legs and had big ears or frills in one.
Since that was the animal that:
- JESUS compared with HIMSELF as a figure
- GOD instructed Moses to make
- GOD used for judgment against HIS people,
it is a very very likely candidate for HIM to also use it in demonstrating HIS power in Egypt. Thus, Aaron gets a dino :), haha.
You can check out this article and video by Answers in Genesis on dragons and dinosaurs.
I'm not sure if its the same video I saw (current data limits), but the article makes some really good points, not to mention Kent's seminar videos! (^^,)
The irony here is that I may be totally off on it (the animal that Aaron gets), but since GOD only instructed me to make the video and didn't outright show me what took place, I am still perfectly in HIS will regarding this, because I obeyed the leading I believe I got from HIM. If I'm wrong on this point, I would be thoroughly surprised, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time, haha, as the next point will illustrate, haha.
- The chair flicker fix
Well, this is awkward, haha. Last time I spoke of this issue in the vlogs, I called it a bug, because that was all I could name it... Even while saying it I felt like GOD insisted that HE already gave me a solution (not that I got what that even meant at the time...). So I went ahead with it and put it up and yeah, it was not a bug. It was once again my math letting me down, hahaha. I had 14 chairs over 10 vertices. Amazing how Blender would then double place some, hahaha. Of course this means that the frames containing the flickering chair, had to be re-rendered. Unfortunately, it meant that the majority of the shot where Moses tells Aaron to throw down the rod before pharaoh, had to be re-rendered, haha.
Oh well, at least we now know where the bug was, hahaha. I was wrong, I'm sorry! This was not a bug.
- Depth and motion
There is a very strange occurrence in 3D - the second something starts moving in 3D space, you immediately lose most of the depth perception. I think it's because the eyes have less time to take it in and the focus becomes the movement and no longer the novelty of seeing a 3D space on a 2D surface. Just look around you - do you notice the depth or the objects and the movement and the events?
When GOD had me work on the 3D conversion node, HE had me make some other tools as well, including the depth space adjustment as well as some, although be it limited, strength boosters. This means that for scenes where the basic node mangles too much, I can simply add these nodes to take it up a notch and it really makes a difference! The downside is, these only work with anaglyph. What I can do though, is use the offset of both left and right images to shift the depth space, but this does not alter the physical space between objects. It only alters their relation to the viewer (closer or further). I did make a node for this, and while I can add some minor depth adjustment to the side by side version, it isn't very high quality. I think for the moment, unless GOD gives me another suggestion, all I got that is of value on this, is a separation increase, that can convert to what blender supports for 3D and of course, requires an SBS(50%) input.
I would like to boost the 3D a bit more, but thankfully, it's not distracting - I just don't want it invisible, so I'm pushing the conversion node as far as I can! Again, remember this is a distortion method, so it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, haha.
- Anaglyph and color choice
This is a very interesting concept! With the rendering of the action background, GOD insisted from the get-go that I use the same render and simply adjust the color for use in other scenes.That means that I also save a huge amount of time and space, since in the first two minutes, we already have two instances where there are action line backgrounds. Btw, you can check out the tutorial below as well:
GOD is so amazing!
Anyway, so I went to render the serpent shot and I wasn't sure on what color to use. I felt led to use red. I naturally forgot that I was working with anaglyph 3D and that red is not a very good choice, hahaha. So when I saw it was red, I was like "Oh! My eyes!!" haha. Not really, but it was certainly a surprise. What happens with red is what is known as retinal rivalry. Your brain wants to reconstruct the red, but it only gets the information from one eye. The other eye sees black. This means that in your brain, the two kind struggle against each other and you get a sort of flickering sensation when you look at it through the glasses. With the way GOD had me optimize for color, it does exclude most instances of red, but the strongest shades of red still come through. This meant lots of rivalry going on between the two eyes - queue color change! hahaha!
Thankfully, Blender has an awesome compositor and I have an awesome GOD that simply suggested to change the color before final output to 3D and sure enough, yellow was the best fit. I luv the final shot!
This has only to do with color sensitive 3D, not polarized or stuff like that. Without going into it with too much detail, polarized 3D is 3D that is based on the rotation of the light waves that reach each eye. The lenses also act like filters, but need special displays that can send out vertical and horizontal light waves to correspond to each eye. Some methods use an interlaced mix and it's the very reason why you have to be a certain distance from the display to see the 3D correctly (again home viewing and device method dependent). In shorter terms, it's a form of 3D that allows you to mess with your color settings as much as you would like - it's not going to mess with the effect. It's also a method that is built from various 3D storage methods such as side by side, top and bottom, separate full res synced video streams, etc. Other methods that aren't color dependent include interlace, cross eyed, VR (viewfinder style stuff like Google Glass) and lenticular displays, shutterglasses, and a bunch of new glasses-free 3D screens that are appearing all over the place such as in the Nintendo 3DS, haha. Oh, and lets not forget the new special filters (my guess is probably lenticular on a very fine scale or some form of polarization) for your phone screen and the eye-tracking methods.
- Displaying anaglyph correctly in VLC
A lot of you use VLC for your everyday media needs, since it can play pretty much anything. I believe it can even play blu-rays if you have another player installed that has the codecs required, but I speak under correction. Anyway, it has a built in feature that allows you to convert SBS half width videos on the fly to Anaglyph (at least the version I use), but I found a serious snag - the colors were faded a bit. When VLC plays a file, it wants to use the hardware to convert it from YUV (videos' way of storing images) to RGB (monitors' way of showing images). For some reason, this caused a dulling of the colors on my PC and when I turned it off, boom, colors were right again. So, if you struggle with this issue, just go into your options and turn off the option that says to use hardware conversion from YUV to RGB. The software does a better job with, at least on my PC, and thankfully with no reduction in performance.
- Displaying anaglyph correctly on a TV
A lot goes into the making of TV's and the creation of all manner of codecs to make the videos small enough to be sent wirelessly while still looking awesome. These codecs were never designed to carry something like anaglyph. While it should be more than viable for the TV to be able to convert an SBS signal to Anaglyph or whatever else, that didn't really realize or gain traction (if it ever existed, haha)... In fact, the anaglyph method kinda fell by the wayside since the 80's and 90's. While still something that gains popularity and loses it, it remains one of the most challenging forms of 3D to display in video without ghosting. The biggest reasons include, but I'm sure are not limited to:
- Quality of the glasses
Not one we often want to face, because we truly sometimes only have what we have and have to make due without being ungrateful, but this definitely does have an effect. With the cardboard glasses I have, I find red bleeding through (will be talked about later). I don't think this is a problem with the display, but possibly the glasses. It is very possible that the thin film of the cardboard glasses are just not enough to filter out thoroughly enough and thus, giving a bleed through. While I haven't gotten to try it out, there is a company that specializes in improving the glasses and making sure that the lenses are made in a way that prevents ghosting as far as possible and that they are large enough to fit over most prescription glasses. Honestly, I would luv to see what the difference is! I think there may be something to it.
- Realtime enhancements
These include a multitude of things that TV's have built into them. Some you can turn off, others are just there. You, as the end user, would need to put in a little bit of time and effort to make sure that the picture you are getting is as neutral and raw as possible. Sometimes, it means dialing back even basic settings that seem neutral. These settings include contrast enhancement, upscaling (that uses sharpness that can often affect brightness), saturation boosters like the movie profile on many displays, brightness, hue, etc.
- Contrast of the display
Every display handles color slightly differently based on physical characteristics such as build quality (parts quality), design (how it's put together, including OS) and of course it's color management system. While fairly standardized, there are subtle variations within the primary colors (RGB) and that leaves you with variation as to the level of ghosting you may or may not experience. I've seen some displays on default run anaglyph video virtually ghost-free.
The brightness of the display too has a massive impact. I've noticed on our screen that I have all manner of color bleeding between the eyes because of the physical brightness of the display. Red was literally leaking through the Cyan lens. Not super massively, but to the point where it was clearly noticeable, so wow! hahaha.
- Codec and quality
Codecs in general struggle with ghosting because of the way that videos store picture information. Contrary to what we may think, videos do not get stored in the typical RGB format that images do. It's one of the many reasons why they can be as small as they are. RGB means you are essentially storing the same picture 3 times, with different color levels, that are then screened over each other. While it gives stunning display quality, it does limit the storage capacity in the long run, thus, YUV and other color spaces are used for video. Video can be encoded to RGB, but this isn't standard and that really makes a mess of the convergence around sharp areas, especially on full-color (within Red/Cyan) anaglyph. What helps a lot in these cases, is to use a monochrome anaglyph or to use a Color-Optimized anaglyph. The method GOD gave me isn't super optimized, but it certainly limits retinal rivalry, while still allowing strong reds to seep through. Also, the pixel block movement adds additional artifacts with what I call "the vacuum sealed" effect, where you have all manner of VHS style fringing (though minimized) effects around sharp edges. The best way to display and view anaglyph would be in raw formats, but unfortunately, most of us don't have that storage space nor equipment, so we have to minimize the damage and you can get it down to a very very very low level! If your video quality is pretty close to lossless, you should be able to view comfortably.
- Device playback quality
This kinda ties in with what the TV's software does, only in application to the player. Some programs, like the VLC example, do things that wouldn't ordinarily bother the typical viewer, but would absolutely mangle the anaglyph effect. You definitely have some level of visual influence on every device in the chain as it relates to the final result. It's almost like you are throwing the video through all manner of filters, but the goal is to have each filter do as little as possible, haha. If you have a quality machine - which most these days are more than good enough, you should be golden.
- ColorSpace displayed
One of the biggest influences I've noticed for sure. Apart from ridiculous sharpness levels and upping contrast etc, this one has a very big influence. It's like the difference between films from the 50's and films from now. There is a huge difference in how the final image output is delivered through the display. In this case, we're talking about the device through-put, not the output device itself. Our player outputs to YCbCr or RGB and RGB looks the best by far with anaglyph.
So in closing on this "little" topic, I will summarize with an earlier statement - you want the video to display as raw and unedited by the devices and codecs as possible. Sometimes the best way to do that is to have the video on pause and dial back the settings until you are satisfied with the result! hahaha.
Of course, anything you do is entirely at your own risk - I'm merely sharing what I did. If you want to maintain your settings for other sources, I suggest writing them down before adjusting anything or creating another user setting profile if your system allows you to.
- Wings in the way
When you work on a project like this, you will do a lot of stupid things, like I mentioned earlier with the chairs. Only this week, I made the same mistake multiple times and I just didn't get it, hahaha. The issue was with the serpent's wings. I wanted the wings to be normal as in the transformation, but wanted them tucked in the anticipation of it's growl hiss (still needing a sound effect) and so wanted to make sure I had the original wing position to keep the transformation sequence consistent. For some reason I just kept overwriting the bones' positions, hahaha. I did it at least three times, where I kept forgetting to make sure the keyframes were added and then move the time slider, haha.
When you make these sorts of mistakes, do not be surprised! hahaha. Just laugh at it and use it as an interesting story.
- Aaron's cast
Last week I mentioned to you guys how frustrated I was with Aaron's throw. I didn't have a clue on what GOD wanted me to do with it. For months I had been throwing down sticks in various ways, including a test for Aaron's throw while busy with the story boards or just before (see Demo reel) and I was just at a loss. I was not going to have him just drop it in a fancy way, because that is not what the text says. GOD's Word says that he cast it. That means it had to have air-time and it had to have some momentum horizontally, but I was totally stumped by a simple throw... Finally, just before the time came to get back to work, I got a flash of how he's supposed to throw it! GOD is so good!!! I felt peace about using it, because it wasn't excessive, but it was demonstrative enough to make a statement. You can check it out in the vlog! :D
- Speed consistency, GOD is amazing!
In the vlog I already talked about it, but it's worth mentioning again - GOD IS AWESOME!!!!
After I rendered Aaron's throw in OpenGL, I felt it was a little slow, but at the same time that it was at the exact speed it should be. Very weird internal struggle between re-rendering, leaving it as is, speeding it up in the edit, etc. I showed my mom and she felt it's speed was great as-is and I took that as the deciding factor and left it as-is, initially. So I went ahead with the next shot - the stick hitting the ground (using a different blender project). When I had rendered it and added it to the edit, it was at the same speed as the one from Aaron's throw and I was floored! It's being thrown at the right speed and it's certainly not changing! The reason why I say it's GOD, is because this is HIS assignment, I leave it up to HIM to make sure it is awesome and I did not check back with Aaron's throw for the speed, at all - didn't even think to! GOD is so so Awesome!!
- Pharaoh and the lacking info
This is where I do feel like GOD is giving me a bit of creative space in the way HE phrased things. The verse says:
"Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments."
Exodus 7:11, KJV
Exodus 7:11, KJV
That "called" means, in the Hebrew: "to summon, invite, call for, call and commission, appoint, call and endow"
Source: StudyLight interlinear Bible
Remember, that is just one of the definitions. By default, it means that he could've:
- Yelled
- Called
- Told his assistant or a messenger to go get them
- Hand signaled them forward if they were present, etc.
Personally, I believe GOD showed me to use a snap. Why? Because there is no quote to be had here. Any physical form of summoning, calling or bidding will fit the context, because I can't add words to scripture. My job, at least for this project, is to bring eyewitness testimony into video and that means that there are huge gaps. For example, there is little information, through-out scripture, about body language. Most eyewitnesses just don't care about that sort of info (just think of when you relate about a large series of events) - the goal is to relate what happened and not the minute intricacies of every person's emotions or their character development, haha. We're told that he called for them, or summoned them. We just don't know how. We don't know how demonstrative it was or what method he used - we just know that they were called for and they pitched. GOD has to give me the body language HE wants or I got nothing - just like Aaron's rod being thrown.
- Magicians
GOD's Word says:
"Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods."
Exodus 7:11-12, KJV
Exodus 7:11-12, KJV
If we say that the magicians just used trickery, we have to put GOD in the same category, because Moses did: "Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods." Now was GOD mislead, mistaken or lying when HE allowed in HIS Word this occurrence to be affirmed? None of the above! HIS Word states that their rods became serpents. If they were just charmed stiff snakes, it could've said: "And their serpents became loosed and Aaron's rod ate their serpents", but it doesn't say anything like that. If these were just snake charmers and fire dancers, that would be made clear, since Moses knew Egyptian culture and what they did in the courts a lot better than we do.
We have to remember that GOD's Word is true and anything hidden will be brought to light, but Moses clearly states that they had rods, they threw them down and they became serpents. I don't believe in a country where witchcraft was extremely prevalent, and practiced everyday, that those in the courts of pharaoh were simply snake charmers and "skilled jugglers". The enemy is definitely not going to pass on an opportunity like that. He wants to take GOD's place, he wants to be worshiped, he wants to be followed and he wants to destroy those who do and those who don't. I truly believe that these magicians were busy with the demonic in a country that welcomed it with open arms - they did a lot more than wiggle some iron to try and impress people (which is also an insult to the intelligence of the people at the time btw). Devil worship is not an illusion - it is very real, but GOD is above it in every sense of the word, that is why Aaron's rod ate theirs.
Don't be fooled, if GOD's Word says something took place, it did. Don't let the fear of people calling you uneducated, crazy, stupid or naive, allow you to try and explain away something that you've never come to confront yourself, just because it's scary. We have a very real enemy, with very real power, that does very real damage, to very real people every day, and at that directly and through other people as well. As long as he can remain hidden and bring destruction, he does, but when he is confronted or called to be open and welcomed, he lures with pretty sparkles, excitement and supernatural things that only hurt those who perform them and those who watch. Don't let yourself be lured away by a lesser power. GOD is GOD, because HE is supreme in every way, not just because HE is called GOD. Not only that, HE loves you and wants the best for you - why settle for less!
I really believe GOD led me to write more on this with a lot more scriptural examples, so you can check that out here.
- Length estimate
This is quite a different thing to get a grip on. I estimated the length to be at the shortest about 24mins (which is a very flat reading of chapters 7-12). Then, when I did the storyboards, 28:55. I have to be honest, I think it may be longer than that. When you do still frames, you have little to no expression and if you don't compensate for it with multiple frames, you end up underestimating the length. At this point in time, I'm already at 02:11, about 30 seconds longer than the storyboards for the same point in the narrative. Location, tension and timing has a much bigger impact than I compensated for in the storyboards for sure... I would honestly not be surprised if it runs about an hour (I would luv it if it turned out to be a feature film!!!!). I just want to finish it very quickly though. GOD is super gracious in making the animation process fly along (for me) and the render times very rarely get to 5mins per frame!!! GOD is super!!!
- Another re-render for the week
When you are working with any kind of script, you can easily miss things and I did miss quite a few things in a particular shot this week. You'll remember me talking about this in the video. Re-renders suck up so much time and resources, it's truly something I want to avoid. Unfortunately, I have had to do it twice already and would like for it to end now, hahaha. This week's re-render came in the form of the magicians' entry with a cloud of smoke between Pharaoh and Moses and Aaron. There were quite a few issues with it:
- The dino was missing
When Aaron throws down his rod, GOD initiates the supernatural confrontation by going first. This means that when the magicians enter, there is a dino awaiting them. Said dino was missing in the shot and I can guarantee you, he did not go and hide, haha. Nope! I had to add him in there and animate him as well.
- Moses and Aaron didn't move (neither did anyone else)
Speaking of animation, Moses and Aaron, as well as Pharaoh's posse, were all like manikins, not to mention Pharaoh's pose was inconsistent with the previous shot, so that had to all be fixed as well. This meant some animation work for Moses, Aaron and the lady on the far right. I did have to add a little over a second pass, because in the OpenGL test render, you could see that Moses just suddenly stopped moving, so it looked totally unnatural from an animation standpoint (the camera also suddenly stopped).
- The smoke was too fast
This was the biggest scream in the scene that had to be fixed. Haha, I did not follow my own advice and render an OpenGL first to check, because it ran smooth in the viewport and looked fine - only it wasn't. It's better now, after slowing it down a lot and adjusting the grow-in and shrink-out animation length relation to be more equal (meaning there is very little time where the particle stays the same size for a period of time, if any).
- The smoke was an impractical color for the Anaglyph 3D
A common issue for anaglyph, color can really ruin the experience. Red, especially, so the red from the 2D did not prove practical for the 3D. I just wanted to change it using the white balance - only issue is that it didn't prove practical (it changed too many things I didn't want it to and not enough of what I did, hahaha). So, GOD helped me with another method - the HSV node! Adjusting the hue very minutely, left most of Moses and Aaron's color intact, while changing the color feel of the environment to a most practical color - yellow-orange.
So there you guys have it! A lot of stuff covered in just one week - no wonder I was so tired, hahaha. I know the information I get to share here is of immense value to those it gets to! May it bless you and open your eyes more and more to GOD's goodness and brilliance!!
Biggest thanx to GOD for helping me with this. Without HIM, none of this would be possible! :D
Know JESUS yet?
To find out more, you can check out this link:
http://www.crossallegiance.org/knowJesus.html
It gives you access to free Bible translations, free teaching videos and more. Remember, this is a decision with eternal consequence, choose life, choose JESUS. :D
Have a great one!!!
Thank YOU!!!!!!
Know JESUS yet?
To find out more, you can check out this link:
http://www.crossallegiance.org/knowJesus.html
It gives you access to free Bible translations, free teaching videos and more. Remember, this is a decision with eternal consequence, choose life, choose JESUS. :D
Have a great one!!!
Thank YOU!!!!!!
In : WIP
Tags: god jesus holy spirit blender bible animations exodus 7-12 kjv progress magicians appear real allegorical shots
Hey all! I've been doing CG work full-time since 2011. GOD has been with me, supported me and taught me all the way. HE tells us to do all things as unto the LORD and that is my goal. I do whatever I believe the HOLY SPIRIT is leading me to do and it's not always easy, but it's always worth it to be obedient!
JESUS is awesome!! If you don't know HIM yet, follow the link above!
