15 Toots || Six Through Ten

MEEP || TUTORIAL NUMBER SIX: CROP NODE
Sherlock would enjoy this one.
The Crop Node helps with the bounding box and is a pretty quick re-format. It helps when your animation takes up a little bit of space but the bounding box is huge. Not only can you control the x- and y-axis, you can also control the width and height of the crop boxes. Clicking on the little 'reformat' box zooms in on the little thing that you've cropped out. I kinda feel like that's too good to be true :3 As for the little intersect thing, the DigiToots guys said that there's basically no need for it. SO WHY HAVE IT? The plot thickens. For no apparent reason. 

BOOP || TUTORIAL NUMBER SEVEN: REFORMAT NODE

Okay, so this one is proving to be rather difficult because I keep getting errors on a lot of stuff. The Reformat Node works better at scaling things up to match project settings. If you choose the little box option, then you gain control of the width and height. The fit resize type option will get the shortest side of the image to fit into the bounding box. There will be pixels stretched. There will always be pixels stretched. unless you click on the BlackOutside box. BlackOutside saves the day! And then there's the distort resize type, which will bent and reformat the output format. Yeah, it'll reformat it. Who's shocked? I'm not. 

BLOOP || TUTORIAL NUMBER EIGHT: TVISCALE NODE

Some filters have better sharpening capabilities than others, but the image will still look slightly blurred, regardless of what you try to do. Something that sounds like "in painting" is what happens when there is data missing (If you double the size of the pixels, it's filling in four color squares. So that's like 2/3s to 3/4s of the data missing. Yikes.). The TVIScale Node is best for something called pixel doubling, as it doesn't really work on any other scales...

15 Toots || One through Five

TUTORIAL NUMBER ONE: MIRROR NODE
So basically, the mirror node and the transfer node are essentially the same thing. If you want to do something simple, go for the mirror. It's fun. If you're doing something more complex, stick with using the transform tool. Time for pictures!

NEXT UP || TUTORIAL NUMBER TWO: TILE NODE
Oooooo sounds fun.
The first filter (Impulse) listed at the top for the tile nodes is the one that will take the least amount of processing power and then the amount of processing power needed increases as you go on, with Notch being the highest. Impulse is also the lowest quality. The higher power filters decide how much blur and sharpen occur. Also, YOU CAN EVEN MIRROR IN THIS NODE! :D How cute is that?! Makin' all these cute shapes. That's pretty good! I light fires to feel joy. That's adorable.

This one looks like Batman's retarded cousin Baman.

YIPPEE || TUTORIAL NUMBER THREE: BLACKOUTSIDE NODE
The top grey numbers tell us how big the bounding box is and the bottom grey numbers tell us how big the overall thing is. I learned in this lesson that pushing the 1 key often helps solve whatever problem you were having. Adding a row (lol I originally typed toe haha) of black pixels does wonders and insures against glitches like a long stretch of faint blue. :3 Also, the BlackOutside node is built into several of the other transformation tools. SWEET.

HERP || TUTORIAL NUMBER FOUR: ADJBBOX NODE

Okay, so it's good to know that anything outside of the bounding box is going to be ignored when the final image/animation is rendered out. If the bounding box is too small, then the edge pixels get stretched out and that's not good. If the bounding box is too big, it slows down the processing time. I guess you just have to pick the lesser of the two evils and go with it.

DERP || TUTORIAL NUMBER FIVE: POSITION NODE
Okay, so basically the Position tool is a really, extremely simple version of the transform tool. All you control is the x- and y-axis, but absolutely no control over the where the center is. Which can be annoying. Using the transform tool to move things results in blurring. If the transition node is set to cubic, then it's faster to use the position node. Be careful using the Position Node because you might need a BlackOutline Node to prevent the pixels from going all willy-nilly.

It's Been a While

Okay, so it hasn't really been that long. But whatever.

Apparently, the blue mustang had a party during my absence...because I opened up the file today and got this:

Is that...is that confetti?!

Uhm...anyways...

Being able to move the foreground around it pretty nifty.

YAY MASK THING THAT MAKES things pretty.

Hooray for color correction. Kudos to people who actually do this for a living because I can't even.

The final render. Weeeee.

Try, Try Again

So I went back and updated my AE files to include the new trees_beauty layer that I rendered out and while rendering that AE file out to see what it looks like, the render cancelled itself and I got stuck with this barely-a-second clip.

Yeah...it looks like an inflatable pool tube on LSD...

As if we needed more trippy things in the art department...

NUKE THEM WITH LAZERS

Or destroy them with lazers. Either way. I'm not picky. 

Okay, so basically all I have to do for this assignment is follow along and pass the quizzes. I think I can do this. ...

Here's Nuke:

Oooh look. Color correction is on the right, original is on the left.

SO BLURRY! 

I thought this was really cool. By bumping up the horizontal blur to fifteen and bringing the vertical blur down to one, you can simulate a motion-blur effect. Pretty neat. Will I be able to do it on my own? Probably not.

Putting in my own nodes.

Fun manuel color manipulation.

Alpha something or other. I don't know, it's just cool.

This is what happens if it's RGB and not RGBA.

What.

Basically I kept getting caught up on one part where he imports something that low and behold we don't have and then goes on and on and doesn't explain half the stuff he does.

Which is every video, almost.

So I went and rendered out what I have so far. It sucks too.

Oh and the day just keeps getting better and better. The crappy choppy video won't upload onto here.

Yay....

Let's try this one...

Woah-oh!

This project isn't looking too promising. He keeps adding things that we don't have rendered out, and the fact that we don't have the trees with all the detail in them...that's seriously hurting this project.

More comparison...what it's supposed to look like...and what mine looks like.

I'm having trouble with the scanlines layer, and just about everything else. I'm understanding what has to happen, I just don't have the correct layers or material to professionally execute this project.

It makes me sad.

Hedgehogs are cool.

OOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhhh OOOOOh OOOOOh

Working on levels for the bowl_ambocc layer, this may or may not be actually working for me.

Yeah, I did everything that I was told to do in the previous tutorial videos and then BAM the Digital Tutors guy is like nopenopenope Imma change e'erything up on ya and now I'm sad.

Sad bad tutorial guy. Depressed bad tutorial guy.

Adding in a mask layer to increase the shadow of the bowl that looks more like a petri dish...

And now I've added a lovely green specimen to my petri dish. Soon we'll be adding bricks and blocks and chicks and clocks, sir.

Fun thing that I've noticed the past couple of days: If I work in front of the computer for too long, my vision starts going out. Like right now, I'm staring at the screen with my hands on the keyboard, looking at the bottom left hand corner of the monitor, and I can't see my right hand. I'm pretty sure that's not supposed to happen. 

BUT IT IS.

It's a sign from God.

Anyways, I HAVE A GLOW!

Ooooo a demonic glow. O_O 

Aha! This is what it's supposed to look like!

Rendering's a Biiiiiiiii

iiiiiscuit.

I've only managed to fully render out like four or five layers. This takes forever. There are too many classes in the lab.

March 4th Edit:
- I have everything rendered out and stuff, I just don't have time to do anything it feels like :(