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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE
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  1. Jedi Amy-Wan Kenobi

    Jedi Amy-Wan Kenobi Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Mar 5, 2000
    Well, some of you may remember some thread started by some person in some other forum asking what, exactly, it was that Darth Maul did to pass the time while waiting for his probe droids on Tatooine. Take the inspiration of that thread, one of me, mix in a few too many Cherry Pepsis, one Star Wars Episode I videocassette, and one cr@ppy old computer, and this is what you come out with...
    ~~~~~~~~
    Mauled

    An alarm rang through the Sith Infiltrator. Darth Maul awoke with a start. He had fallen asleep again, he realized, as he blinked about the room. He would have to stop doing that. He had been under the instruction of Darth Sideous for practically his whole life. He had been trained in all sorts of fighting techniques, although usually by a simulation. He recalled one time when he was just a little tyke, way back when his teeth were still a sparkling white, when Lord Sideous had tried to show him how to do a triple flip wielding a double-bladed lightsaber. He was kinda up there in years, and hurt his back. He couldn?t walk for weeks after that. Darth Sideous had also tried to train him to stay awake on the job, but to almost no avail. Maul turned off the alarm as he looked out the window.
    ?Tatooine,? he thought, grinning. ?In 24 hours, the Jedi will be in my hands, and my Christmas bonus will be secure.? His master had promised him a generous Christmas bonus this year, as long as he got the Jedi. He wasn?t sure why this was so important to Sideous, but he wasn?t going to argue. He was going to use his extra pay to take a nice, long, vacation. Somewhere warm. Somewhere with a lot of nice, rolling oceans. Somewhere far away from Darth Sideous and his bloody plans for galactic domination. That was the thing that bugged him the most of the many, many things that bugged him about being a Sith. Darth Sideous and his stupid ?fulfillment of the millennia old Sith purpose.? The guy was completely dotty, as far as Maul was concerned. ?Who wants to rule the galaxy anyway?? he grumbled under his breath. He certainly didn?t care, but the way things had been going in his apprenticeship so far, it looked like he was going to be the one doing the galactic dominating for the Sith Master. ?Him and his stupid alter-ego,? he muttered, punching in some coordinates on the dashboard. Sideous was never even around. He was too concerned with this split-personality thing he had going. He was always off on some ?covert operation,? or whatever he called it, and Darth Maul was left doing the Sith busy work. Killing Jedi, that sort of thing. Maul would have been perfectly happy lurking about in the depths of Coruscant, just generally being evil and staring at people menacingly. That was what he was good at. He enjoyed that part of the work. Yes, he enjoyed that part rather a lot.
    Maul?s train of thought was jerked suddenly back to the present as the ship automatically started it?s landing cycle. The Jedi were not far from his grasp. And that queen Sideous had told him they were guarding. The queen? Maul didn?t know who the queen was, or what Sideous wanted with her, but still. ?Christmas bonus,? he told himself. ?Think about the Christmas bonus. It doesn?t matter at all if your boss is completely insane. You need a vacation.? Maul pulled out the picture of the Queen that Lord Sideous had given him to identify her by. He laughed a little bit and shook his head. ?She looks like she?s wearing a bird on her head.?
    Tatooine was incredibly boring-looking. Maul surveyed the landscape out the window and turned and activated the door. It slid down and formed a ramp. The desert night was cool and windy and his cape rustled about him as he made his way down the boarding ramp. He fleetingly wished that somebody was there, just so he could stare menacingly at them. He surveyed the area through a pair of binoculars. There were three cities in the immediate vicinity of the plateau he had set his ship down on. Lifting his wrist link, he summoned three Dark Eye probes from inside his ship. The wrist link and prob
     
  2. Frostfyre

    Frostfyre Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 25, 1999

    ROFL!!! Oh, that's great!!! Write more, please!!!
     
  3. epic

    epic Ex Mod star 8 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 4, 1999
    LOL

    Nice.
     
  4. Maelisaandii

    Maelisaandii Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Feb 3, 2000
    ROFL! That was priceless! Write more!
     
  5. Jedi Kylenn

    Jedi Kylenn Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 1999
    Oh, that's hysterical!!

    I'd like to see your take on what was going through the decoy Queen's mind during all that down time on Tatooine when Qui-Gon and Padmé were trying to get new hyperdrive parts.
     
  6. K'Tai qel Letta-Tanku

    K'Tai qel Letta-Tanku Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Apr 18, 2000
    ROFLOL! That was great. Is there more? You know, the style reminded me of Douglas Adams and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Fantastic!
     
  7. Jedi Amy-Wan Kenobi

    Jedi Amy-Wan Kenobi Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Mar 5, 2000
    Thank you, K'Tai! You're not the first person who's told me that, and I'm beginning to think hours of reading the "trilogy" over and over is beginning to rub off on me!

    No plans for a sequel. I'm in the middle of an ROTJ parody and a Star Wars/Matrix crossover so I'm kinda out of creative energy for now.

    Thanks for taking the time to review!

    Amada Mechi
    Hooked on the red pill
     
  8. Melvil

    Melvil Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    May 13, 2000
    Ok, I just need a little clearing up here. First of all, could I actually just paint a big peice of wood (if I painted a wall, my parents would kill me), and use it as a bluescreen?

    And from what I've heard, it sounds like a program will just take out all the blue, and replace it with something else ( a bitmap or something maybe?), is that right? And if it is, what program/s can do this? Thanks.

    -Melvil
     
  9. Jaycen_Kayde

    Jaycen_Kayde Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    May 14, 2000
    <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Geneva,Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Melvil:
    Ok, I just need a little clearing up here. First of all, could I actually just paint a big peice of wood (if I painted a wall, my parents would kill me), and use it as a bluescreen?

    And from what I've heard, it sounds like a program will just take out all the blue, and replace it with something else ( a bitmap or something maybe?), is that right? And if it is, what program/s can do this? Thanks.

    -Melvil

    You should be able to paint something, but you should make sure you use Chroam Key blue or some other light blue paint. I actually bought some blue fabric from a local cloth store and that also works real good. And you've also got the right idea on how to do the effect, just be sure your lighting is good and even. Programs to use are Adobe Premier or After Effects. I think Axogon may do it too.

    JK

     
  10. lokmer

    lokmer Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 15, 2000
    Yup, Axogon does it too.
    -Lokmer
     
  11. Obi Wan Murrow

    Obi Wan Murrow Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Oct 19, 1999
    Even lighting is essential for easy blue-screening.

    I work in local television and we use a green chroma-key wall for weather.

    When the lighting's not even on the wall, the camera reads different shades of green light reflecting, and that makes the background effect weaker in places where the green's not the true green you're keying in.

    Phew!

    Now, how do you chroma-key (blue-screen) in Axogon?
     
  12. lokmer

    lokmer Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 15, 2000
    Here's how you do it.
    Track 1: Background (video source)
    Track 2: Keyground (video Source)
    Track 3: Color Keyer (Compositing &gt; Color Keyer) with Keyground and Background inputs set appropriately. Then you just play around with the threshold and tolerance (and color) until you get the effect you want.
    -Lokmer
     
  13. Saeed

    Saeed Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    May 11, 2000
    <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Geneva,Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Obi Wan Murrow:
    Now, how do you chroma-key (blue-screen) in Axogon?

    Good question. I did some tests recently in my ongoing quest to avoid using 'copied' software. But instead of Premiere's ultra friendly preview of your chroma key results, you are simply faced with a graph type thing with various sliders, only seeing the result when you render a preview. My test was with CG (without alpha screen) rendered with a perfect blue background, and no anti-aliasing - yet I could not get good enough results (without the annoying borderline 'fringe').

    If anyone knows a better way to do this in Axogon, please let us all know...

    Saeed TTC
     
  14. lokmer

    lokmer Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 15, 2000
    Ah! Hah! You forget that EVERYthing you do in Axogon has a preview window, it's just a matter of opening it up. Here's how you do it.

    Pick the last track in the project, move your mouse over the track title, and right click. Pick "Open Work Window" from the pop up menu and click on it (you can also just double click on the track title and that will bring up the work window automatically). You now have a preview of whatever the current frame is - which is listed in the title bar of the work window. To get to the desired frame, use the arrow keys or click on a point on the time index at the top of the track layout screen. It updates in realtime, whatever you do with any effect is immediately visible.
    So, to chroma key, follow the instructins on the previous post while having an open preview window sitting somewhere on the desktop, and you can just play with it until you get the results you want. It offers TOTAL control over the end results this way.

    There is also a bluescreening script for the image processor which works well on backgrounds that are too unevenly lit for the chroma-key to handle. You can find it in the Script Trading Forum at http://artisticwhispers.homestead.com/discussion.html http://artisticwhispers.homestead.com/discussion.html
    Hope this helps!
    -Lokmer
     
  15. Saeed

    Saeed Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    May 11, 2000
    Well, I didn't 'forget'- I'm just starting to look into programs like Axogon and Blender.

    However, you are correct, of course. Mark my words...one of these days I'll catch you out!

    I still had trouble getting a satisfactory result, however - though I think that is mostly due to the low resolution window I was working with.

    I shall continue to experiment as part of my ongoing quest...

    Saeed TTC
     
  16. lokmer

    lokmer Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 15, 2000
    You can change the resolution of the work window in the Project Settings option of the second drop down menu from the left (forget it's name). The preview window is also resizable on the fly.

    BTW, no insult intended
    I'm just in one of those nutty moods today
    -Lokmer
     
  17. Master Lurker

    Master Lurker Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    May 14, 2000
    Snowboard survival.
     
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