∞

Not CG

Star Wars BB8

Who would have guessed? Then again, I’m sure there were a few shots that needed digital replacements and most of the shots are likely enhanced in post.

Link: www.engadget.com/2015/04/1…

∞

FMX 2015

FMX 2015, the 20th anniversary edition, of the Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Transmedia focuses on “Immersion & Virtual Realities - The Future of Content Viewing & Producing”.

It’s running from May 5-8 in Stuttgart, Germany and is sure to be a blast again.

I’ll be there as well. Hit me up for a drink when you find me.

Link: fmx.de

∞

Standing Desk

My workday consists, like pretty much everyone else’s these days, of about 99% sitting in front of a computer followed by more sitting on the couch after work. I recently jumped on the bandwagon and decided to stand more often.

Overall I am trying to stand in the morning and sit in the afternoon, which works out fine most days. Occasionally I’ll switch it around, but standing in the morning has the effect of keeping morning drowsiness at bay.

I can confirm that concentrating while standing is a bit harder at first, but on the flip side I find that I am much more focused once I managed to find my focus.

I’m lucky as my desk is already height adjustable. Only by about 10 centimeters or so, but in combination with my height adjustable monitor on a little pedestal it is enough to accommodate a sitting and a standing configuration.

I also built myself a little table for my keyboard, mouse and a glass of water out of a very nice bamboo slab. I’m kind of proud of it. It feels very smooth and doing the little bit of carpentry was refreshing.

Having something I built myself also seems to help with daily motivation to actually stand. I had a crude setup before the bamboo table was finished and I noticed that I skipped standing much more often.

Cost for this little endeavor was about €50, but only because I splurged a bit for a nice wooden slab and some high quality varnish.

After a few weeks I feel good about this setup and am already thinking about upgrading it from a standing to a walking desk. The costs for a good treadmill that will fit under a desk are considerable though. From my research I gathered that one will come in at around €1000 no matter which brand. This will need some more pondering, but in the end it is probably worth it to get more active.

∞

Wipster - Online Video Review

We have recently started using Wipster for our client reviews and it has been very well received. It works well most of the time. At times it can get stuck when switching back and forth between comments, but a quick page reload fixes that easily.

Prices are decent. In fact we are on the free plan for now and it works great.

Here is the way the service describes itself:

Wipster speeds up video review and approval by putting the conversation right on the video. Here you can store, share, receive and reply to feedback, and easily manage multiple versions of the same video.

It’s sure to change the way you work, whether you’re a freelance animator, indie production company, or large-scale advertising agency.

Wipster is a shared workspace for videomakers, where anyone in your team can upload a video, invite reviewers or tick comments off when they’re done. And the Activity Stream means that everyone can see what’s been done – or not – meaning nothing slips through the gaps. Using Wipster gives you complete transparency around the feedback process, making for a vastly more efficient team – what’s not to love?

You can try all of Wipster’s features for free with no credit card information required. Your trial will end after 14 days or if you upload over 30 minutes of video. After that choose from one of our low monthly subscriptions.

Ready to change the way you work? Learn more about how to get started on Wipster.

Link: http://app.wipster.io/SignMeUp/AW4DAQD4bRuO

∞

Kirby 2.0.2 - Important Security Fix

Text: Everyone running Kirby should probably update.

getkirby.com/blog/kirb…

∞

Most people are dead. Did you know that? It’s true, out of all the people that ever were, almost all of them are dead. There are wayyyy more dead people, and you’re all going to die. And then you’re going to be dead for WAY longer than you’re alive, like, that’s mostly what you’re ever going to be… You’re just dead people that didn’t die yet.

Link: Louis C.K. Via: Nerd Fitness

∞

What is going on right now that hasn’t happened ever since the beginning of time, but is soon guaranteed to never ever happen again?

Today.

Link: Nerd Fitness

∞

Tell me again how physically accurate your shader is. I’m a compositor you know.

  • A Compositor Via: The Internet
∞

Writing a Novel with Ulysses

I’m actually in the middle of reading Mike Montero’s Design is a Job—which is recommended reading as well, by the way—but I couldn’t pass this one without at least peeking in. And it didn’t stay at peeking. I read through the whole book in one sitting. It reads very well, is entertaining and maybe, just maybe, it’ll motivate me to start writing more again. Which is the goal of this whole new blog thing after all.

Anyway, get it. I can highly recommend it.

∞

If you hand a client an estimate and slap them across the face and they complain about the slap, then the estimate wasn’t high enough.

Via: Mike Montero - Design is a Job

∞

New Site

You. Yes, you, the one person that has visited this site in the last year. You will likely not have noticed, but this site is once again looking 100% different again.

I got bit by the CSS bug again a couple of weeks ago, got myself some new books on web design and content strategy and a new writing app and here we are.

The new look is the barest minimum of chrome. I want you to focus on the words on this site. I might not be a great writer or even a good one, but I do appreciate a clean design and the power of words. That’s why I come back to this blog time and time again, even after I have seemingly abandoned it.

This time around I am not only trying post more often (like that worked so well before), but also to link to stuff I find interesting without much ado. That will hopefully to get me to spend more time with the site and motivate me to write longer articles again.

∞

My iPhone App Playlist

In the spirit of app recommendation lists that keep popping up everywhere I decided to make my own. I do have a lot of iOS apps. In fact, I went a little overboard in 2012 and the first half of 2013. So much so that after I added up the amount of money I spent on app purchases, I went on a very strict app feast for the rest of 2013.

Anyway, my point is that I have tried a lot of apps and a couple stuck leading to the top apps I use today. Each category is in order of importance to my way of working. Well more or less. Halfway through I wasn’t able to decide on the proper order, so higher up is generally more important to me, but it’s a sliding scale the further down you get.

Internet Apps

While Internet is a pretty broad term, I use it to designate apps that are used to interact with the online world.

###Felix Without doubt still my favorite App.net client. It has gotten pretty slow on my iPhone 4, but I still keep coming back to it every day. Felix definitely is a top contender to the “most used app” spot.

###Sunstroke For my news reading I am using a Fever install on my server. Sunstroke is without a doubt the best way to access my Fever feeds on the iPhone and I have tried pretty much every Fever compatible iPhone client out there. It is not as versatile as Mr. Reader on the iPad for sharing out items, but from a pure reading perspective I have yet to find a better app.

###Twitteriffic

I hardly use Twitter anymore these days. App.net has almost completely replaced the service with the bird for me. However, a lot of my colleagues still use it and I need a way to occasionally respond to DMs and mentions. Twitteriffic is a beautiful and more then adequate Twitter client for this job.

###Articles

For my Wikipedia research I prefer to use a dedicated client like Articles. This is one area where I grabbed the client that looked best for me way back when I got my first iPhone and I just never tried another one. So there might be better Wikipedia clients out there, but Articles suits me just fine.

###dict.cc

While my English is reasonably good, I do need to look up words once in a while. I found dict.cc a pretty good dictionary. Plus it is an offline dictionary, which is still something I rely on occasionally in spots with bad reception.

###WeatherPro

I usually check the weather by looking out the window—now there’s a revolutionary idea! But when I need to look up the weather at a travel destination or to check a forecast for the upcoming week WeatherPro has proven to be the most reliable app for Germany and Europe in general. And it has nice detailed statistical infos and weather radar imagery. Not that I could make heads or tails of those, but they look nice.

###Outbank

For German bank accounts there is nothing better then Outbank. It is available on iPhone, iPad and OS X and it actually works with a wide array of banks. While I don’t check my accounts daily, Outbank is certainly the cornerstone of my own digital accounting and that of our business.

###Screens VNC

Another one of these “don’t use often, but critical when I do” apps. Screens allows me to quickly fix things on our server even when I am hundreds of kilometers away from home. Together with Screens Connect, its desktop counterpart, setup is a breeze and I don’t have to trouble myself with ports and SSL, etc. It just works.

###Pushpin

I use Pinboard for everything bookmarking related, including keeping a downloadable archive of the bookmark, meaning if the page you bookmarked goes offline, you’ll still be able to see the archived copy indefinitely.

And a big feature for me is that I use Pinboard as Instapaper replacement. Pushpin is the client that helps me achieve that last part. Right now it is a basic way to browse my bookmarks and catch up on my unread items. However, there is a feature in the works that will make my goal of using Pinboard and Instapaper replacement complete: Offline reading. I don’t know when exactly it is coming, but I was assured it is coming and when the day comes it will be glorious. Or so I hope…

###Dropbox{#dropbox}

I don’t use the app that often, but it is very comforting to know that I have the option. Getting at anything in my Dropbox within a matter of seconds is truly convenient.

###FaceTime

Skype can suck it. Especially since Microsoft took over and ruined the app even more. ‘Nuff said.

##Productivity {#productiviy}

Productivity is such a loaded word that I try to avoid it. In this case I really am referring to apps that allow me to do work or to keep track of stuff.

###1Password

I don’t think I’d be able to survive without 1Password. I’d have to use the same password everywhere or juggle paper lists or something. Madness would ensue pretty quickly I am sure.

Thankfully, AgileBits has me covered in the insanity department. 1Password is the first app I install on any machine. And since it syncs via Dropbox I can access my password library even when I am on a random computer with Internet access.

###Begin

Great little to do list app. Simple and very bare bones. Just what I need. I also have Omnifocus, but rarely use it. Begin I actually do use. It is a refreshing take on the old paradigm of creating lists to check off.

###Mail.app

What can I say? I rely on email and I find the default mail app to be very much sufficient. I have used Sparrow in the past, but with iOS 7 I switched back to the default app and haven’t looked back.

###Drafts

While I prefer to write on my iPad, I do use Drafts on the iPhone to sketch out quick ideas or as simple pasteboard. Sync with the Drafts for iPad app is instantaneous, so I can start a thought on my iPhone and continue it on my iPad in Drafts or Editorial without effort.

I have set up a nice little array of custom actions in Drafts, which allows me to use it as a plain text journaling app or as a quick entry bucket for story ideas.

###Calendars 5

I used Fantastical before Calendars, but as it turns out Calendars has the same natural language event creation, but a much nicer calendar interface. I don’t use a calendar that often really, but it is always a pleasure to use Calendars 5 when I have to.

###PCcalc

Powerful, quick, to the point. When I need to use a calculator this is the one I turn to. It allows me to be as simple or as complex in my calculations as I need to be and it can do so much more like convert units. Though for unit conversion I tend to use Vert.

I linked to the free version above as that is already plenty powerful and if you so desire you can upgrade its functionality to suit your needs, which is exactly what I have done.

###Vert{#vert}

Vert is another one of those laser focused apps without any cruft, a concept that I seem to really gravitate to, don’t I? Vert does exactly what it says on the tin. It converts a wide array of units and does so in a fast and efficient manner.

###CarbonFin Outliner

Sometimes I need a list that is neither a todo list nor a full outline or mindmap. CarbonFin Outliner fills that niche nicely. It is very much alike the famous OmniOutliner condensed down for iPhone. It can be used as todo list app or as full blown outliner with comments and the likes. But it is clean enough that I can use it for my simple list making.

###Navigon

The only turn by turn navigation I use. It is accurate, regularly updated with up to date map data and is generally nice to use.

From the looks of it my global version of Navigon isn’t offered any longer on the App Store. Instead there are several region based apps at a cheaper price.

###DB Navigator

The app of the German railway services. More of a nuisance then a must have, but it is better then juggling paper tickets.

##Media {#media}

###Castro The new kid on the podcast client block has bedazzled me from the day it came out. Yes, it is very minimal in its feature set. However, I found that it actually offers all the features I need and not more. Before I was using Instacast and lately Downcast, both great apps, but much too fiddly.

I am so much happier with Castro and without feature bloat. Give it a try. You might like it.

###Audible

I cannot say enough good things about Audible. I love the way their service works. I love audiobooks. I love this app. That plus the fact that the support is simply awesome. Recently I found out that you can return two books a year within a year of purchase for a full refund without challenge from the staff. How awesome is that?

I highly recommend a membership with them.

###Naturespace

Sometimes I need to switch off my brain completely or shut out the world. Naturespace is brilliant for that. It offers a great collection of high quality nature sounds that really transport you to the recorded location when you close your eyes.

Listening to nature is a poor mans replacement to actually going outside, but it is worlds better then blasting my ears with music all day or using white noise to drown out environmental distractions.

###Camera+

My preferred quick and dirty image editor on the go. It has some nice filters and allows for some quick edits. And it allows me to share my pictures quickly and painlessly.

There are other similar image editors like VSCO Cam (which I won’t link to, because I despise it), but they all are too slow, ugly or have horrible filters in my opinion.

###Filterstorm Neue

Now this is a real work horse. Where Camera+ is my Instagram app, Filterstorm is my image editor on the go. It is pretty amazing what the developer has managed to pull of here. Quick, high quality editing on a tiny screen and excellent sharing options including direct FTP upload.

###AutoStitch

I do love panoramas. While the iOS panorama feature looks neat, my iPhone 4 is unable to use it. Also, I usually need more then a single horizontal strip of photos for my panoramas.

AutoStitch is the best panorama app I have found. I can throw any amount of images at it snapped in all kinds of angles and it stitches them into a coherent panorama at a great quality and at up to 18 megapixels if I so desire.

###CameraSync

Once my images have been taken and edited, I upload them to Dropbox, my main storage location for all my pictures. CameraSync does so automatically in the background with a good selection of powerful options including the ability to prevent screenshots and videos from being uploaded if one so wishes.

###Unbound

After my images have uploaded with CameraSync I tend to delete them from my device. Unbound allows me to browse my complete image library from Dropbox in a nice interface.

###Paprika

A cooking app isn’t exactly media, but it is the only category that semi-fit. Paprika is a great recipe app, because it is available on iPhone, iPad and OS X and the recipes are synced between the devices. I can type in a new recipe when I am away for work and my wife can cook the dish at home a minute later or vice versa. Perfect.

##Shopping {#shopping}

###Amazon

I get everything from Amazon. The app is at the same time convenient and really not great to use. But it is better then the website at least from the iPhone, so I’m using it.

###Kickstarter

Hi. My name is Alex and I have a Kickstarter addiction.

Seriously though, I love browsing Kickstarter projects in the app for awesome projects, while at the same time hoping that there won’t be, so I don’t feel compelled to throw money out the window.

I really should delete this app…

###Delivery Status Touch

The best way to track where my shipments are at. Fullstop. Again a service that syncs across iOS and OS X. Those are really the most versatile, aren’t they?

Summary

Pew, that was quite the list. While I don’t use everything on this list daily and these are by far not the only apps I have installed on my iPhone, I would consider this group of apps essential for my daily work and play. I hope there were some nuggets in there for you #teamappdiction people. :)

∞

Domain for sale

Dear Spinning Beachball readers, the few of you that are still reading this RSS feed. I’m about to shut down the site for good. In fact, the last few entries you have been reading came from my personal blog.

If you like to keep reading my highly irregular output, I advise you to subscribe to my RSS feed there.

Also, since I’m shutting that site down, the URL http://thespinningbeachball.com/ is available for immediate sale. If you are interested in this highly prestigious domain feel free to contact me directly via email or on App.net .

∞

Editorial & Drafts Workflow for Quick Capture of Story Ideas

Inspired by Federico Viticci’s Open Tabs Editorial workflow, I created this little workflow to quickly capture and act on story ideas for blog posts or other text documents.

It all starts in Drafts, which I can fire up wherever I go from my iPhone. I enter an idea, or a short title or a link with a comment. This then gets appended to a Markdown file on Dropbox called Story Ideas.md. Conveniently, this file lives in my Editorial folder in Dropbox and show right up on my iPad.

So this:

Write about this cool workflow

Becomes this in my Story Ideas.md:

2013-12-06 - Write about this cool workflow

---

In Editorial, I have a workflow called Manage Story Ideas that allows me to extract an idea from the whole document into a new document ready for editing. Alternatively, I can also delete the idea if I decide it’s not worth pursuing after all.

I wanted the workflow to open up the newly created document ready for editing. Sadly, Editorial currently has a bug that doesn’t all that, so that little extra convenience has to wait until the next Editorial update.

You can get the Drafts action by clicking here and the Editorial workflow is available on the Workflow Sharing site.

∞

The Creative Cringe

I’m reading Shawn Blanc’s wonderful book Delight is in the Details and this one chapter rings especially true with me. It’s about what I like to call the creative cringe, the feeling everyone of us gets when we see our work and are not satisfied with it or where we see all the little and not so little flaws that make us cringe.

Shawn is quoting Ira Glass:

„All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone[…]“

I’m very much afflicted by this phenomenon. Not that my work is anything special, but I get the cringing feeling almost every time, especially on client projects, where budgets usually are the restricting factor and not the—mythical— perfect end result.

But it is important to not let yourself get dragged down and to see this feeling as a sign that there is still some great work hidden inside yourself and that you need to keep working on your skills so you can eventually bring it forth.

Or as Shawn puts it:

„If, one day, we feel as if we’ve reached a point where we can create work that will never make us cringe again, then what we’re saying is that what we do today will be just as good as what we do next month, next year, and 10 years from now. And, well, that’s just not fair to our future selves.“

Now go and do yourself a favor and get reading Shawn’s book as long as it is still 25% off.

∞

fxguide's

My friend (twitter: mattdleonard text: Matt Leonard) has been sorting through “The Art of” articles on fxguide and I thought I’d post his list of all the ones that have been written.

He has printed them all out in the office, and so far they fill 3 ring binders.

So in date order of publication:

Subtitle: Collected Edition

∞

Blogging Workflow…again

Yes, I finally am blogging again. Only 6 months of silence this time. Not too shabby.

Anyway, a major hindrance was that my blogging workflow wasn’t working quite right yet, which in turn was like an invisible wall that I was just too tired to climb each time I want to post something. Luckily, I have had the last two days to tinker with it and to figure it out. Now I have a pretty solid workflow. Well, at the moment it looks solid. It is not battle tested however. That’s what future blog posts are for.

But since it is a little involved, I thought I’d write it down here right away. For one so I won’t forget and also some friends asked me how I am handling blogging from iOS to my Kirby blog.

Tl;dr1

Write your post in whatever text editor you prefer. Ideally one that supports x-callbacks. I personally use Editorial since it’s nice for writing and I also use it for processing everything anyway. Before that I used Drafts together with Editorial.

Fire off the Editorial workflow that transforms your text into a blog post with the correct formatting and uploads it to Dropbox.

Create or edit any imagery that goes along with the post and upload the images to the right Dropbox folder. The path of said folder has been copied to the clipboard by the above Editorial workflow.

Have Hazel put everything into place and let it upload to post to the web server.

The long version

There are several steps involved to make this work. It sounds complicated, but is actually rather straightforward.

  • Kirby, of course.
  • Drafts (or any other editor that allows you to send stuff to Editorial via x-callback URLs).
  • Editorial, Pythonista works equally well, but Editorial is simpler to set up, plus you can write in Editorial as well and just skip Drafts entirely, which is what I do most of the time.
  • Filterstorm Neue or alternatively Photoforge 2 if you still have access to it.
  • Dropbox
  • Hazel
  • CrushFTP, optional, but depending on the image editor you use more convenient

Kirby

First of all, why Kirby? Sounds like an awful lot of work for something that Tumblr offers for free. Tumblr even has an iOS app. Just log in and be done with it.

For me it comes down to owning what I create. And that involves hosting what I create. Yes, Kirby is a little more involved and— gasp —costs money, but it is really flexible—I built several sites with it for myself, friends and even customers—, fast and pretty cheap considering.

Plus it works with text files and Markdown, both things that I value dearly and that make this specific workflow possible without a special “Kirby iOS app”.

Drafts (optional)

For completeness sake I’m including my Drafts workflow as well. However, I have since completely switched over to Editorial for writing as well as post-processing my posts.

I started writing my posts in Agile Tortoise’s Drafts, a fine and frictionless text editor with the added bonus that it supports the x-callback URL scheme and a ton of other ways to share or manipulate the written word.

When I write a blog entry, I put the post’s title in the first line and the actual post content right after it. If I want a subtitle, that goes at the very bottom with the tag Subtitle:

So a typical post in Drafts would look like this:

This is my title

And this is my content.
It can have any content. Paragraphs, code blocks, lists, you name it.

----

Subtitle: And then at the bottom I have the option to put a subtitle.

When it comes time to share my post with the world, I have a Dropbox action called Blog Post, that will create a file in a designated Dropbox folder—I have a global Apps folder and I put it in a subfolder there—with the name of my post title as filename. It will also fill in a couple of things for me. Most notably the date and the title. So the above post transforms into:

‘This is my title.md’ with the following content:

Title: This is my title

----

Date: 07.11.13 (used for display purposes)

----

Time: 2013-11-07-17-33-55 (used for sorting purposes)

----

And this is my content.
It can have any content. Paragraphs, code blocks, lists, you name it.

----

Subtitle: And then at the bottom I have the option to put a subtitle.

You can import this action into Drafts by clicking this link: → Import Blog Posts action into Drafts

Editorial

This first part is part of the old Drafts workflow. Jump to the second part to see how I’m working right now.

The old way

The next two steps are only for the times I want or need images in my posts or if I want to create one of those snazzy banners that are sorely underrepresented in my blog.

I use Editorial as a simple text filter in this case. I could write something like this for Pythonista to make it work on iPhone (Editorial is iPad only), but I, well, I didn’t feel like it.

Editorial simply gives me back the future path of my new blog post, something I need if I want to drop pictures into that folder without hunting for the correct folder in my next step.

I send over my post from Drafts to Editorial with a simple x-callback URL.

You can import the URL Action into Drafts by clicking this link: → Import URL action “Copy Blog Path” into Drafts

Editorial then cleans it up in a variety of ways. For example, everything gets turned to lowercase, spaces are removed, etc.

The resulting URL is copied to the clipboard. In the example above This is my title turns into http://alexanderkucera.com/20131108-this_is_my_title.

I opted not to run any action after this, as I want to be able to switch to any app I want as the situation requires. But usually it is now on to Filterstorm.

If you want to import the URL cleanup workflow into Editorial or simply read through it in detail, you can take a look at this “create blog URL” Editorial Action

The new way

Since I have completely switched over from Drafts to Editorial, I had to create a workflow that would prep a standard Markdown document and turn it into a blog post. Since Editorial is much more powerful then Drafts, I was also able to make it a bit smarter, ask for input on a few things and optionally archive or delete a post once I’m done with it.

It does a lot of things similar to my Drafts workflow though. After all is said and done, a file with the correct naming scheme gets written to a Dropbox folder. And I also get the blog URL at the end from the workflow above.

The bonus with the Editorial workflow is that I don’t need to watch out for any specific formatting. I can have a standard Markdown document and everything just works™. And Editorial is just really pleasant to work in.

Editorial Blog Posting Workflow

Filterstorm (Neue)

Filterstorm Neue, is brand new, but the old Filterstorm or Filterstorm Pro have pretty much the same abilities. Or you could use Photoforge 2 if you still have it. The important bit is that the app allows you to either export to Dropbox or to upload via FTP and to give your images a name of your choosing.

Well, this step is really simple. Do your image edits. Done? Ok. Then upload it to the folder we just had the path created for in Editorial. Simple, right?

Well, yes and no. There is one step that I consider crucial. I don’t want to upload to my web server. I want to upload my image to Dropbox. I consider the Dropbox version of my site to be the canonical copy. Everything goes there first and then gets uploaded to the server. Otherwise I end up with a file mess. Files might get updated or changed here or there. Who knows? By always going Dropbox first, that issue gets sidestepped completely.

If you don’t have an always on server machine, your best bet is to find a way to upload to Dropbox directly. Photoforge has a Dropbox uploading feature. Filterstorm does as well, though it involves browsing to your posts folder manually instead of just giving it a path.

For various reasons, mostly because I don’t want to hunt down a folder and I have the exact path I need from my Editorial workflow above, I decided to go a completely different route: FTP.

I happen to use CrushFTP for work anyway, which means I just need to set up an FTP account that points to the blog’s content folder in my server’s Dropbox folder and the rest is very straightforward. Get path from Editorial and upload to said path.

Hazel

The last and final step. The one step that unifies desktop and iOS blogging. Automatically uploading my posts from Dropbox to the server. Hazel is the perfect match for that. Especially since it got the ability to open an FTP connection on its own a couple of versions back.

The Hazel flow goes like this:

  • Look into the Drafts Or Editorial app folder and check if there is new post.
  • Put the file into a subfolder called <date>-postname.
  • Rename the file to article.md (the name of my Kirby layout template for a blog post)
  • move the new folder with the post in it into my blog

There another Hazel rule takes over as Hazel rules only ever can work on one folder at a time. It goes like this:

  • Is there a folder? Look into it.
  • Any file that doesn’t have a red or grey color tag and that has been modified within the day gets uploaded
  • After the upload color the file grey

The color tags are there to stop Hazel from constantly uploading files that have been modified inside the “today” timeframe. But they also allow me to simply take off the color label if I want a file to be re-uploaded.

Grab the Hazel ruleset here: hazelrules.zip

The one called Drafts-Editorial-Folder is for the incoming Drafts or Editorial file and the one called Kirby-Blog-Folder monitors the Kirby blog folder.

That’s it.

See? Simple, right?

Subtitle: Kirby, iOS, Drafts, Editorial, Filterstorm and Hazel tied into a neat bundle

  1. Too long; Didn’t read ↩︎

∞

Assembling a VFX Camera Kit

I don’t have my own camera kit specifically for VFX yet. Usually when I am on set, I either rent or get equipment from the production that is hiring me. Now I am about to build my own camera kit and to stay halfway reasonable I want to stay around €6000, though I can go over that amount to get a better kit if need be. And it looks like I might have to.

I thought I’d ask you guys for opinions on what to get and if I maybe can switch around a few things to get the most bang for my buck. Also, writing it all down is more for my benefit really, as it allows me to think through things better.

The goal is to build a kit that works well in four different situations:

  • Professional:
    • Set photography (making reference photos, shooting textures, making set HDRis, etc.)
    • Panorama photography (HDRi and normal panoramas)
  • Personal:
    • Since I am a rather new dad (boy, 10 months) I will use the camera for child photography. He is already a speedy little guy and I only see this getting more intense as time moves on.
    • Also, we own three ferrets who are even speedier.

So all things considered, I am looking to build a kit that serves well for kid and animal photography as well as on set photography.

The List

So far my list looks like this (all prices are not yet researched for cheapness but mostly straight off of Amazon):

Cameras:

  • Canon 7D ~€1200
  • Canon 5D Mark III ~€2600
  • Canon 5D Mark II ~€2300

I am itching for the full frame sensor. Getting the older MK2 doesn’t seem to make much sense as it was still rather expensive when I looked.

The 7D I am unsure about. Yes, it is cheaper, but also not a full frame sensor. However, I could use the saved money to get more/better glass.

Another added benefit of the less then full frame sensor is that is allows me to capture a higher resolution panorama with the 8mm Sigma at the cost of needing one or two more shots to get a full 360° panorama. So higher res, but slower workflow.

Lenses:

The options are:

  • Sigma 8mm Fisheye ~€750
  • Canon 50mm F1.2 (~€1400) or F1.4 (~€300)
  • Canon 70-200mm f2,8 ~€1000 (without image stabilization) or -2000 (with image stabilization)
  • Canon 70-200mm ~€1000 (or I go f4 with image stabilization)
  • Canon 20mm f2.8 ~€450
  • Canon EF 16-35mm 1:2,8L II USM ~€1300
  • Sigma 35 mm f/1,4 DG HSM ~€800
  • Canon EF 35mm 1:1,4 L USM ~€1300
  • Canon 24-70mm f2.8 ~€2000
  • Canon Extender EF 2x III ~€480

I am only sure about the 8mm Sigma and pretty sure I want to get a 70-200mm, but inbetween I am torn. Get a 50mm prime or a 24-70mm zoom? Maybe a 35mm? 85mm?

I do like the added quality and speed of a prime lens. For my main use case, which will be professional panorama photography, I think I’m going to go 8mm (standard, quick on-set pano HDR), 20mm (high-res on-set HDR pano) and 50mm (for those gigapanos and child photography).

The 70-200mm will be used for capturing textures and general on-set photography. Still not sure if I want the added quality of the f2.8 or if the f4 with image stabilization is good enough. It is a 1000 bucks difference after all.

Mounts and Tripods:

  • Nodal Ninja with RD16 €449
  • Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 or 190CXPRO4 ~€200 (not sure, both cost about the same. I am open for other less pricey brands as well)
  • I already have a ball head

This setup is pretty fixed. I like the Nodal Ninja and I have a ball head. I am open for a less expensive tripod, but given the quality of Manfrotto, €200 isn’t too bad, really.

Remotes:

  • Promote ~€380
  • Canon tc-80n3 ~€140

I’m unsure about the MK3’s bracketing as it only offers 1EV steps at maximum. The Promote would allow me to control that better, but it is double of the “simple” (and already rather pricey) Canon remote.

All the other stuff one needs and that sucks money away:

  • Sandisk Compact Flash Extreme 32GB 60MB/s (I really don’t see the point of going faster then 60 MB/s I’m not planning to do much video with it) ~€75 a pop about three or four of these
  • Pelican card case ~€40
  • DELOCK Card Reader-FireWire ~€50
  • Hama Lenspen ~€12
  • Peli 1510 Carry On Case ~€300 or a nice huge backpack that can fit all of this gear. I’m open for suggestions here.
  • a ruler of known length for matchmoving purposes
  • greyball 18% grey
  • Spyder Cube (was thinking of taking this instead of the grey ball as it is easier to get then 18% grey paint p lus it is very portable) ~€50
  • LightCraft Variable ND Fader ND MKII ~€100
  • B+W Cirkular Polarizer Käsemann F-Pro MRC DH 77mm ~€120
  • Leatherman Wave ~€70
  • X-Rite MSCCPP Passport ColorChecker ~€70
  • Leica D2 Laser measure ~€110
  • Bosch auto levelling laser cross ~€50
  • Canon battery packs LP-E6 ~€50
  • Suunto Pm-5 Clinometer ~€150
  • various self printed lens charts and tracking markers
  • tapes a whole bunch of them

Software

  • Aperture (which I already have)
  • ptGUI (which I also already have)

Quite the list, eh?

I think the stuff at the bottom is pretty much locked in (and already a hefty 1300 bucks price tag), but I am pretty uncertain how to balance the stuff at the top, especially lenses.

Any ideas?

∞

Check Your iOS iCloud Settings!

Please go into your iOS device’s Settings.app and check your iCloud settings. Do it now. With a shock I just noticed that all my backups and syncing options were turned off on my iPad mini. And that without me purposefully disabling anything. So do yourself a favor and check those settings every now and then. Otherwise you might end up with no or too old of a backup when you need it.

∞

Shadowrun Returns

I got access to my copy of Shadowrun Returns right on release, July 25th, and immediately ended up playing it of about five hours. Probably your first clue that I liked it.

It has been described as Neverwinter Nights meets XCOM by its creators and that description is pretty accurate. I’d add that it at times also has a little point and click adventure feel to it.

On A Budget

Harebrained Software got $1.8 Million from Kickstarter, which, when you take away all the Kickstarter and Amazon fees plus physical rewards, ends up as about $1.2 Million for the actual game. It later racked up the budget with a loan and additional Pre-sales done via their website, so I’m assuming that the actual budget ended up in the $2 Million range again. Which sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t if you do the math.

Anyway, the developers did a remarkable job of translating the Shadowrun experience into a playable and infinitely expandable game. The environments are gorgeous, the first story that came with it is pretty solid and supposed to be about 12 hours of gameplay.

You can really only tell that they needed to cut stuff by the lack of detail in the characters. They just feel a little unpolished at times. The 3D characters that is. The character art is top notch.

Another thing that’s sorely missing to give the game that extra bit of atmosphere is a voice over track. It’s just a little lackluster to read all the dialogue. But I guess with the idea of an editor that allows you to expand the game ad infinitum, a VO track seems a little unrealistic.

But in the end, Shadowrun Returns remains a great, atmospheric game and anyone even mildly into the Shadowrun universe owes himself to check it out.

Subtitle: Game Review