The Journal will feature an embedded video
animation of yourself reacting to click of the mouseWebmastering on the journal
dates. The journal dates will spin around in a vortex fashion.
It was adapted from the vortex experiment found on the Levitated.com.
It is an open source code, so you can use or adapt it as you
like as long as you give the original author credit.
1. The video
1a: digital camera:
Use the digital camera to make a 5 second video of yourself.
You can smile, frown, cry, growl, whatever. The quality of the
video is not high, so make sure the shot is a close up of just
your face like in the example. Don't move your hands around either.
The file will be saved as a mpg format on your disk.
To make it easier to clean up the background later, it is also
best if you have a high contrast between you and the background: dark
clothing against a light background or vice versa.
When done, you should have a short clip like shown here:
original clip
1b: Paint Shop Pro Animation Shop:
Open Paint Shop Pro Animation Shop. Go to open and find your
video. The following Import Options screen will pop-up. Set it like
shown.
This is a large file and it has to be reduced some. One way is to take
a "sample for every 3" frames. The reduction won't
be that significant.
It should generate a bunch of frames like shown below.
We want to end up with a total of about 40 frames for the whole
sequence. Select the frames you don't need and delete them.
Probably some in front and some in back.
Next, select all your frames and use
File / Save Frames As
to save each cell as a separate file. Change the File Name and
select JPG as the Format. You will get a sequence of
40 or so images.
2. Flash 5:
2a. Importing images:
We need to get the images you just saved prepared for the journal
file. They have to be cleaned up a little and the animation sequence
set up.
We'll use a temporary file for that and then later drag the symbol to
the journal file. Open a new document and call it
videoSetup. Make
a new movie clip symbol named
videoClip.
Go to File / Import and
find the first image saved above (my was karimot01.jpg). Flash
will then prompt you that it has found a "sequence of images" and ask
you whether you want to import them. Say yes to import all your
images.
After you do this, Flash will insert each one of your images into a
separate key frame.
2b. Magic Wand:
We want to delete the background part of each image.
Go to frame 1 and select the image on the Stage, then
Modify / Break Apart.
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This is where the high contrast between the
object and the background becomes important. If your image
is like the one on the left, then the
Magic Wand can be
used to easily to cut the background out. |
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Select the
Lasso on the Tools
Panel and in
the Options choose
Magic Wand Properties.
Here you will have to experiment a little with the settings. Try
the setting shown below first.
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With the
Wand, click on the
white (hopefully) background area and then delete it. If things
worked out as planned, most of the background should be gone.
You might have to use the
Eraser tool to do some extra clean up-like eliminating
left-over white areas. This is tedious work,
but the better job you do here, the better it will look.
Do the rest of the frames. |
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2b. copying frames:
To avoid any jerky motion between the last and the first frame of
the animation. well copy all the present frames, paste them at the end
and then reverse them.
Select all (Edit / Select Alll)
the frames of you animation and
Edit / Copy Frames.
Note at this time the total number (my was 41). Select the the frame
past the last one at the and
Edit / Paste Frames.
With the frames you just pasted still selected
Modify / Frames / Reverse.
The final version might look something like this if you play it.
Video animation
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