There is an amazing helper software for texturing called Crazy Bump. I’m planning to put it to good use. All you have to do is supply a texture, and it automatically generates the bump, displacement, normal, etc maps for you. The are a many options to customize how much of each you want – really fantastic. I highly recommend it. The website has a good introductory tutorial on how it works.

Arguably one of the most annoying things about Apple Quicktime is that when you create a new file with h.264 compression, the colors look extremely washed out and dull. For instance, this happens when you export a file from Shake, After Effects, or other compositing programs. For the last year, I always thought it had to do with the h.264 compression that produced the dullness. However, when I played the same file with VLC player, the image looked fantastic. It never made sense, so I decided to revisit the issue and lo and behold there IS a solution to fix this.

1. First and foremost, you need Apple Quicktime PRO.
2. Open the QuickTime/h.264 file.
3. Select “Window -> Show Movie Properties“.
4. Select the video track, then click on the “Visual Settings” tab.
5. On the bottom left part of the screen, you should see “Transparency” with a drop-down box.
6. Select “Blend” from the menu then adjust the “Transparency Level” slider to 100%.
7. Afterward, choose “Straight Alpha” from the same drop-down menu and close the properties window.
8. The just Save the file.

At first, it might not look right, but move the slider on the timeline a bit and you should a much better looking image. Quicktime H.264 washed out colors demystified!!!

Update: 2008-10-11

I just realized that when you save the file above, the http streaming gets disabled for some reason. I was able to circumvent this by “Saving As” another file. But then the playback is no longer smooth.

If anyone knows a better solution for this let me know.

It’s amazing how quickly the summer went by. Classes officially begin today at the Academy of Art University. I have a full schedule with 3 classes (believe it or not). They are:

1. Pre-Production for VFX
2. Collaborative Texture and Lighting
3. Production Lighting Principles (VFX 1)

The pre-production class here at the academy is where you develop your masters thesis ideas, along with the story, storyboards, concept art, animatics, etc.

The collaborative Texture and Lighting class is essentially a production class where we colloborate as a class to work on outside projects. We actually had to sign a non disclosure agreement on the first day. I wish I could give more details, but you’ll just have to wait until my reel gets updated after the semester.

The last class is Visual Effects 1 consisting of five projects, some group, some individual, beginning with character replacement in a film. This is probably going to be a ton of work, but I’m not too worried about that right now.

Luckily, my classes are all on either Tuesday or Thursday so technically school starts on the 9th for me. It should be another exciting semester. I’ll update the site with project work as I chug along.