The Photography Studio of Grignano

The Photography Studio of Grignano
is having a new photo contest.

Themed Photography Contest: FLIGHT

Cash prizes.

THEME
The contest themes are always loose - any interpretation is good. The theme is FLIGHT. Do ANYTHING you want. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Run away! Run away! Airport ‘76. I don’t know - there are lots of possibilities. Give it your best shot.

I swear - ONE DAY I’ll get back to using the backdrops the way I started these contests in 2004 - but not yet!

DATES
Enter by: 28 April 2007 at 5:30.
Exhibition: 30 April - mid-May 2007 at the Photography Studio upstairs gallery.

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We will have an awards ceremony - time TBA.
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TO ENTER
Enter 3 textures of Second Life screenshots.
Textures can be no bigger than 512×512 - rectangular photos saved as 512×512 regain their proportions once they are put on a prim.

Title entries with your name + title <—= so I don’t lose it in my inventory Send them to Osprey Therian with MOD permission and COPY permission. Give me an IM so I know to look for them.

Don’t send them in a notecard - I say this as I look at textures every day but I rarely look at notecards. If I don’t get your heads-up the entry gets buried under the billion spam notecards I get per week. I hate it when things get lost - the only entries to’ve been lost thus far were in notecards.

The Photography Studio is located in The Brownstone East, Grignano
Grignano is a pg sim. <–=

The first no-stress collaborative effort was a lot of fun - you can see the resulting movie at the Cowell Amphitheatre in Cowell or HERE. I made a machinima of everyone watching the machinim, which is HERE.

From the notecard:

It's time for Movie Night, the Sequel!
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WHEN/WHERE
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NEXT MOVIE NIGHT IS IN LATE SPRING
Cowell Amphitheatre at 2pm on Saturday, 19 May 2007.􀀁

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WHAT
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This is an experimental collaboration that is intended to be fun and entail a minimum of stress. Here's how it works:
Each person sends a 10-20 second snippet of SL machinima to machinimanight@gmail.com by about the 15 May 2007.

Salazar Jack* will retrieve the snippets and through the magic of reverse-sawing-a-snippet-in-half will join them together into one weird random movie. Then we'll watch the movie at Cowell Amphitheatre at 2pm on Saturday, 19 May 2007.

*a doctor of snippology

Any questions ask Osprey Therian (pc) or Salazar Jack (Mac) - we are learning, too.
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You can use any editing program but try to keep to about 1mb, 320x240, 30 fps after processing.
This is an experiment, so we will doubtless have some problems, but no worries. It adds to the fun!
If you can't stick to the rules don't worry - my rules might be loony.

I processed one using these settings:
MPEG-4 Files
24 bits, 320 x 240, 30 fps
Frame-based
MPEG-4 SP Video: 720 Kbps
48000 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo
MPEG AAC Audio: 128 Kbps

MP4 is a good format to use if you can.

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HOW TO
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If you haven't made any machinima do this:

Get the FREE Fraps from fraps.com
You can set the FPS on the movie tab. 30 works well.
You can record 1/2 or full size - setting on the movie tab.
You can record sound or not.
Set where you want the movie to be saved.
Set a key to use to start recording.
I always record in a 640x480 window but you don't have to.

Start SL.
Start Fraps and see the yellow numbers that indicate it's running.
Suppress the UI by using control-alt-1
Record and see the numbers turn red.
Stop recording.
Get your UI back by using control-alt-1
Run off to see what you did :D
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Fraps records uncompressed video, which is big.
Now you need to resize it and format it so it can be used.

You can use any editing program but try to keep to about 1mb, 320x240, 30 fps after processing.
An mp4 would be best, but you can do it other ways if you have to. If it doesn't work we'll tell you.
This is an experiment, so we will doubtless have some problems, but no worries. It adds to the fun!
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WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER
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If you have XP you have Windows Movie Maker.
You can open the Fraps footage into it, trim it as you wish,
then save to your computer.

I processed one using these settings:
Video for broadband (512 kbps)
WMV
320x240
4:3
30 fps
It's not an mp4 but email it and I'll change it to an mp4 and give it to Salazar.
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Salazar's Mac instructions are on the notecard.