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September 01 New Garry's Mod movie! And the Little Palm that Could.New Garry's Mod movie! And the Little Palm that Could.Hey, I'm back! First off, I'd like to say that Just A Day In ClayWorld 3 is coming along slowly. In fact, I've only got the final scene to film! (plus that and a bit more in voices) So yeah, I do apologize that it is coming along so slowly, but it will be done sometime, I promise.
Anyway, I've also decided to try and complete another new project. This time, it's going to be made in Garry's Mod for Half Life, and it's going to be short, (hopefully!) funny skits, kinda like in The Idiots Of Garry's Mod. Of course, not copying it, just the same ideas. I've already made a few scenes, and they're surpisingly easy. Naturally, it would look crap if this was a solo project, so I have some help! As well as myself, I've also got the help of some old friends, Admiral WarRage and Tau_Hi, as well as a newcomer to Gmod, Pedro. So yeah, hopefully that should be done in a bit!
Onwards. I own a Palm M505, and was given it in 2003, I think. Ever since I first HotSynced it, I absolutely loved it. I put everything on it: Movies, games, applcations, photos, you name it. It's a fantastic little bit of kit. Of course, it's been through a bit of abuse. First off, when I was carelessly walking into my room with my shoes on, I heard a slight crunch. Bad. I looked down, and there was my Palm, without a single scratch on it. A few months later, I dropped it 1.5m onto hard carpet. I pressed "on". Nothing. Hard reset. Nothing. I admitted that it had finally given up, when it sparked into life. After a bit of trouble with the touchscreen, it was working perfectly again. Then, a week ago, I was on holiday in Kent. We went out shopping and I left my Palm on a bedside table near an open window. Turned out, it rained. A lot. So there was my Palm, which had been soaking in water for over an hour. Absolutely nothing this time. I took it home, nothing. The usual, soft reset, hard reset, and nothing. Then, not two days ago, I heard a buzz. It was my Palm's alarm going off. So now it's working like new again, except for the green "Charging" LED. Will anything kill it?
July 18 Goodwood Festival of Speed, Buuuurrrrn, JADCW 3 update, and other stuff.Goodwood Festival of Speed, Buuuurrrrn, JADCW 3 update, and other stuff.Alright, I'm back! Sorry I haven't posted in such a long time, but things have been busy recently. A few days ago, my dad managed to secure two tickets to this years' Goodwood Festival of Speed, a place to show and race cars of the past, present and future. And believe me, it was stunning, and I managed to get some fantastic photographs as well. Obviously, I'll update my Photos section soon. In order to arrive early, we stayed in a nice B&B on our way up, in Cocking. Queue many "cock" jokes from Paul. ¬_¬
Our first stop was the Ford BP rally paddock (we're both Ford people :D). Obviously, the Ford Focus WRC car was there, so I took a few shots and moved on. Our general plan for the day was to spend most of our time at the Forest Rally Stage instead of the racetrack, so we made our way up there, pausing at the hillclimb track for a bit and the Paris Dakar Land Rover course. When we arrived at the shuttle point (the rally stage is a long walk), the ride was...... bumpy. Anyway, with bruised buttocks, we made it. The start line was our first stop to take some photos just as the cars kick up dust on their way into the forest. A problem, though: the start line was bordered with hay. It made sense for safety, but it was annoying having all my photos of the roof. I tried everything, but to no avail.
After a bit, we searched for a better spot. And boy, did we find one! It was in the forest just in the middle of a corner, about 3 meters away from the track. There were some incredible cars that passed as well: an Escort 1600, the Ford Focus rally car (:P), the Renault 5 Turbo Group B rally car, and even my dad's first car, a Talbot Sunbeam. I experimanted a bit with camera settings, then had lunch.
Next up we made our way back, and took some photos of concept cars. There were some nice looking vehicles there, including a weird "sky car" and the chassis of a Westfield. It was about 3:00, so we made our way back to the car. We were both shattered, so we paused as little as possible. A really incredible day, and the weather was absolutely perfect. Same next year, I hope!
And now for something completely different.
Just a week ago, I was shooting some of JADICW 3 (Yes, I am actually doing it!), and I noticed a strange smell. I figured it was a barbeque next door, so I carried on. A while later, it was still there, but a bit stronger this time. I became curious, but carried on. Anyway, I finished filming for the day, put away the claymen, looked up, and OH MY GOD, MY BED'S ON FIRE. Turns out that for some reason, my daylight lamp that I use to film touched my bed (there's usually a 2-inch gap), so it slowly but surely burned a hole right through my mattress. Pics to follow o_o. Also, on the subject of JADICW 3, it's coming along slowly but surely. I've only got two scenes left to film, a teaser-trailer to make, and then I'll be done!
Laters.
 April 29 I'm back!I'm back!You might not have noticed it, but I've been away for a while, mainly because my computer has crashed AGAIN. But it was a proper crash this time. I could turn it on, but nothing was displayed at all. It was down for a good 2 weeks, but luckily we've managed to get it partially fixed. It's lagging like hell now, though, so that means even MORE delays for JADICW 3. Sorry :(. Nevertheless, I've made another 30-odd second section (without sound), so I'm still working on getting it finished, it just might take longer thanks to this damn computer.
I went to the first meeting of my RC club a week ago, and managed to get some nice action shots of the cars. I'm posting the extra photos in my RC photos section now. I'll probably add some more photos to my General SLR photos section, but not immedately.
In other news, I've got another project in the line up, called Advanced Portal Techniques. I just love the Orange Box game Portal, so I thought it would be great to make a sort of tutorial video to show some of the more advanced Portal techniqes, such as upward flinging and the Infinite Loop Fling. The movie will be a mixture of in-game footage and Flash animation However, as my computer isn't fixed yet, I can't do any of it >_<
That's about it. Bye! March 19 JADICW 3 and other stuffJADICW 3 and other stuff
OK, first of all, I'm afraid to say that JADICW 3 has been encountering some small delays (again). Basically, I just can't get the storyline right. Everything seems a bit too random, and I really want to get a slow storyline going. Nevertheless, I AM still chipping away at it, and I now have about 2 minutes of completed footage, which is about 50%. However, with all the stuff I have to do in Flash, I'm actually more like 40% complete. Hopefully it should be done in a couple of months, but I really can't tell at the moment. I'm trying my best, honest!
In other news, I've finally uploaded some photos from my 14th birthday (only 3 months late =]), so head on over to my photos section to see those. I've also added a couple of shots to my "General SLR photos" part as well. I'm really enjoying my photography now I have the D40, and am looking into taking it further. I'll probably have some more interesting shots uploaded sometime.
I think I'm probably going to ditch "The Many Musical Adventures of the Dancing Banana" now I've thought about it. I've improved so much in my Flash skill, and I don't want people to base all my Flash skills on a piece of work I did a year ago. I'll certainly stick with the JADICW series, and probably add some good Flash effects in there as well as the claymations. I've also decided to add a teaser-trailer to my Youtube Page, basically so I'm going to get a bit more publicity :P. It's going to come out the same time as the full version comes out, though, so it's really a chance for me to experiment with Flash 8's effects.
That's about all for now, except that, once again, my bloody computer is bitching on about how badly it's being abused while I'm writing this. I mean, it's an online version of microsoft WORD, for God's sake. I'm really getting worried about all of my documents now. Seriously. Anyway, bye.
January 15 Christmas & stuffHey, me again. I haven't updated my space in a while now, so I'll try and be as full as I can. My birthday was on the 19th of December. It wasn't anythin too big; just some of my friends coming round for tea. They all came round after school (trust my b/day to be on the last day of the term), and we played Burnout Revenge for a few hours. Alot of swearing, cockyness, and ownage ensued. Then we all played Portal for a bit, before joining up for pizza. Flawless. I also got a chance to unwrap my birthday and christmas present, a brand-new Nikon D40 digital SLR, and photographed the whole event =P. Although everyone was a bit worried about it getting destroyed on the first day, it all ended well, and I had some great fun with it.
That's about all I can remember from my birthday, so I'll move onto Christmas.
We all travelled up to Ilkley (in Yorkshire) for Christmas, just two days after my birthday. The traffic on the way up was surprisingly good, so it took a mere 4 hours to get there. My dad & I stayed at my grandma's house, while my mum stayed with her mum. We all went round Clare's mum's house (Jose) to have a huge Christmas dinner of pork, roast potatoes, and the usual trimmings, while I was the head photographer of the evening =). After that, we all opened our presents, and that was about it. Aside from the Nikon, I got a neat little R/C helicopter that can fit in your hand, which was really nice. The four Bosworth women acted like sisters do, and played "God Save the Queen" on kazoos (naturally), and we all went up to Bolton Abbey for a walk. And yes, the weather was british. That kind of light rain that you can't do anything about, but is really annoying.
Paul & I went up onto the beautiful Ilkley Moors a couple of times, but the weather usually held us back. I got a couple of good shots, though. The great thing about the D40 is that it's compatible with all the lenses of my previous camera, the F301. Although they require a bit more skill to use, they are of very high quality.
That's about all that happened this Christmas, in a nutshell. I can't remember much else. Well, until another day when I can be arsed to update my blog, See ya. I'll probably add photos of everything in a bit.
October 03 Inherited an SLR =DBasically, my grandma has a 15-year old Nikon SLR she used to use. Obviously, it was pretty damn heavy, and she stopped using it around 8 years ago. After clearing out her old house, she found it again. Seeing no use for it, she gave it to me!!!
It makes a real nice change from our terrible digital compact, and I'm having great fun learning how to use it. It's a Nikon F301, with a Sirius 28-200mm f/4 lens, a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens and a Cobra dedicated flash. It's a pretty mighty machine, and it's probably in need of a service, but it is absolutely incredible. On this note, expect to see a few starter photos from me! I'm working on a decent pic of my 1/14 Subaru Impreza RC car, so when I get those photos developed, I'll definitely post them here.
Peace out. July 02 Review: AVIscreen Classic 1.3Review: AVIscreen Classic 1.3ok, ZDsoft Screen Recorder has become a horror: Shareware, so I went out looking for an alternative. Unfortunately, ZD was virtually the only decent free screen recorder out there, as the others are shareware, or just crap. Anyway, hours and hours of searching, and 5 other software tests later, I came across one worth keeping: AVIscreen. AVIscreen is different from all the others simply because it keeps its frame rate. 3 of the others (out of 5) recorded at less than 15 FPS, under half of what I wanted. AVIscreen records at whatever you tell it to, and stays at that FPS. Next, features. Nearly all screen recorders have still image capture, and AVIscreen supports both JPG and BMP stills, but also GIFs. Weird. Also, you can set the JPG quality. (But I use this) But what about the stuff that matters? The video? Well, AVIscreen has many different dimensions, and all of them are very, very easy-to-use, so good. You can use loads of settings, but I find uncompressed fine. There's also a delay if you need it. Nice. There is one major glitch, though. If you have Hardware Acceleration on, the recording goes hyper! If you need to disable it, look no further than here. Once you have done that, AVIscreen will become very handy. Admittedly, AVIscreen doesn't record audio, but you can just use Sound Recorder, and put it together with Movie Maker. Not perfect, by any means, but considering the competition, it deserves a:
Downloaded from: http://www.download.com/AviScreen-Classic/3000-2194_4-10394589.html?tag=lst-0-1 June 11 Another project..: Video Game AsteroidsAnother project..: Video Game AsteroidsYup, I'm back, with another project. This one's called Video Game Asteroids (leave a comment if you can think of a better name, I need one ;)). It's gonna be a video game-style asteroids game. You can play in 2 or 3 games (not sure yet), Sonic The Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros, and if there's a 3rd one, probably Megaman. VG asteroids isn't all asteroids, though. There will be alot of other types of playing, like dodging scrolling asteroids (like one of those Chopper-style games), asteroids gamplay (duh), and a whole bunch o big, angreh bosses. Also, there will be 3 different playable characters per game, each with their own speed, agility, shot power (not figured the AS for that yet), and a background story. And because there's a storyline to it, you can play as different characters in the same or different games to reach deeper and deeper into the story. It's gunna be a biggie!!! I'm not very far in making the game, as I'm still working on the Actionscripting, but once I've finished that, it'll just be: make up a story, a tutorial, and a bunch of levels. It will take me ages, but I hope it'll be worth it. In other news, Just A Day In ClayWorld 2 is getting great reviews, and is over 3.10 out of 5!!! That's really good for most Knox-esque movies. Also, I'm planning Just A Day In ClayWorld 3, but I'm having a bit of trouble. I'm thinking: Claymen hate the place they're in (see JADICW 1 for more info), they try to get back to where they were, have a bunch of ideas, some good, some bad, but they all fail. If you're thinking of an idea as to how they could get back (walking not allowed), REMEMBER!!!: It needs to be funny, and it has to be able to 'continue'. e.g. if they manage to get home, or they fail really quickly, it won't work. If you want to be credited on JADICW 3, e-mail me!!! at alexrcboy@hotmail.co.uk. I look forward to your suggestions!!!!! May 21 Just A Day In ClayWorld 2 is OUT!!!!!Just A Day In ClayWorld 2 is OUT!!!!!Yep, that's right, the sequel to Just A Day In ClayWorld (surprise, surprise) is out on Newgrounds.com!!! In JADICW 2, everything is improved. The animation is improved, there's a preloader, an ending menu, and... (from 1 minute onwards lol) the text is GONE!!!! In JADICW 2, the claymen get bored in their new 'home', and so go out and find a Game Playing Machine: the machine that plays games for no reason, and a game for it: Super Clay Bros. (super mario bros... in clay!). I won't give any more away, but I'm really proud of it. It's definitely my best claymation, compared to JADICW 1, but it won't stop there! I'm having ideas for Just A Day In ClayWorld 3 already, but I might not make it for a while. Anyway, See Just A Day In ClayWorld 2 HERE!!!: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/379791 and enjoy Just A Day In ClayWorld 2!!!!!!!!!!!
Edit: The movie is actually Just A Day In ClayWorld 2 lol. Got the title wrong >.< April 08 Review: AMcap V9.11 & MS Lifecam 1.1 softwareReview: AMcap V9.11 & MS Lifecam 1.1AMcap is a very basic piece of software for viewing your webcam. The latest version is V9.11, and I heard it was good, so I gave it a try. (it is shareware, and has a 15 minute or 3-photo limit PER SESSION, so just link 2 long videos together for a show The newer version is very differerent from the ones I have heard about. For starters, the newer AMcap supports still photo capture in BMP and JPG format. The AMcap photos are about the same the Lifecam pic, but the compression in the AMcap pics is incredible. The AMcap pic was only 24 KB, compared to 120 KB from the Microsoft Lifecam software, and still the same quality. So there's the difference in the pics, but what about the movies? The video quality in Lifecam 1.1 is actually just about acceptable, as the video is quite clear. The audio, however, is abysmal. It records at 8KB/S (that's bad) and sounds dreadful. You might as well try recording your voice in your printer. In short, Lifecam 1.1 software may have more features, like Video Effects & Face Tracking (not accessible by AMcap), but the quality is terrible. So for general movie making, AMcap is the way to go!!! March 05 JADICW 2 is on the go!JADICW 2 is on the go!As the title suggests, I have FINALLY got all the files necessary for Just A Day In ClayWorld 2, and I'm storming along! I have completed parts 1, 2, and virtually all of part 3. All that's left is he final 2 gunfight scenes. It's gunna (geddit? gun-na? eh? Eh? EH???) be really tough, and I've still got to do the preloader, but I'll manage. I managed to do JADICW, so what's so hard? Also, I've done all of the sound for the first 3 parts, which overall brings me around 65% through Just A Day In ClayWorld 2! Oh, and if you're wondering why I couldn't add an earlier reply, my computer had to be rebuilt by a boffin, so I'm afraid even MORE delays while I get all of my stuff reinstalled. So, until then, Bye! February 06 ***Project update******Project update***Okay, the good news: Just A Day In ClayWorld 2 is back on track!!! However, with the recent delay and a few still lost files, the release date I'm a little unsure of. But, The Many Musical Adventures of the Dancing Banana is coming along nicely. I've done the first 2 parts of it and the menu (with Scene Select-Yay!!!). Working on both of them now. See ya! Oh, and make sure to see JADICW!!!! January 19 JADICW 2 Delay >:(JADICW 2 Delay >:(Bad news, I'm afraid! My dad has temporarily deleted my Admin account (that lazy, don't-give-a-damn son of a...), so firstly, I can't access the software needed to create my movies, and SECONDLY, I can't even get to the movies I've already made to edit them!!!! Not to mention this month is flying by, so JADICW 2 might be delayed by a little while. I'm currently taking the pictures for the 2nd from final scene, but until I can talk some sense into my dad, I won't be able to do anything with them. Keep hanging on! I'm doing my best!!!! January 08 A tribute to the Dancing BananaA tribute to the Dancing bananaAs I was looking at some of he older flashes in Newgrounds.com, I realised that there were hardly any new Dancing Banana sprite movies there, and the ones that were there had grown old and weary from that old "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time" thing. So I decided to give the once famous Dancing banana a send-off worth remembering... The Many Musical Adventures Of The Dancing Banana! With the help of Flash and my imagination, the movie will have a custom preloader, a menu (with Scene Select) and the Dancing Banana singing along to all your favourite tunes. This will take a LOT longer than JADICW 2, and I'm putting JADICW 2 on the side for the moment, but don't worry: Claymations take no time at all to do. Some of the songs I will include are: War (What is it good for) by War & Peace And Loads More! See ya! December 30 My series' sequel: JADICW 2My series: Just A Day In ClayWorldAlmost forgot to mention, I'm working on a sequel to JADICW, cryptically named JADICW 2. In this episode, The claymen are on a desparate mission to kill some time, so buy a Game Playing Machine (for want of a better name-Please leave a comment if you want to give me your ideas, but no stealing existing names plz e.g. PS2, nintendo 64 etc.). Anyway, they all become a little too addicted and... I'd better leave it at that. If you want to watch JADICW 2, please watch the first movie first so you can get the background info. There is one hidden in the randomness, honestly! Stats about the movie. Well, when it's finished I expect it will be around 4-5 minutes long, but it will also be a lot more professional. I will definitely put a preloader in, maybe custom (but don't put your hopes up) and maybe even a menu, including a story for those of you who are either too lazy to see JADICW 1 or if you didn't get the storyline. Also, the movie will be of a much higher quality, thanks to Flash 8. If you've seen the first, you must have been annoyed with the text, right? It's still on some of the movie (around the first minute) but after that, it's gone. Trust me. The movie will also be bigger (hopefully 480 X 360 or similar), and with a little luck, within 5 megabytes. JADICW 2 is currently about 30% complete, but claymations take no time at all, so expect to see Just A Day In ClayWorld 2 by February! In fact, the only thing that takes a lot of time will be the Flash part of it (movies, quality etc) See ya for now, I'll update you as soon as possible! December 14 My series: Just A Day In ClayWorldJust A Day In ClayWorldMy first series is a claymation, and it's called Just A Day In ClayWorld (JADICW in short). It has a bunch of clay guys doing stuff, seeming random, but there is more to these blobs of plasticine than meets the eye. Before I continue, make sure you have seen Just A Day In ClayWorld 1. Vote if you want. It'll make me happy  . Once you've seen it, I can tell you the storyline (it will have an apparent one in the sequel). The men have been kidnapped and put in the lowest of the low of homes: my desk. Instead of shiny polished wood on the floor, there is painted chipboard, and painted chipboard gives claymen blisters, if you didn't know.  . If you want to know more about this epic thriller, just see my upcoming movies. I'll keep you updated.The rundown of me.The Rundown.Hey there. If you're reading this and haven't been to www.newgrounds.com, then what are you waiting for? NG has loads of great movies and games, and is where I do my "work". Anyway, about me. I'm 12 years old, love techno and rock music, race radio-controlled cars (that do 30MPH) and make movies and submit them to Newgrounds (although I've only made 1 so far). I mainly make claymations, although now I've got Flash (www.adobe.com/flash) I will be branching out into many other types of movie. For more info on my Flash movies, see the next entry. I also do a few remixes, so e-mail me if you want one (see them on my music page). And if you haven't noticed already, I review all the freeware I download, giving as much info as I can before giving it a star rating out of 10. Also, all of the freeware I review is legal and downloaded from trusted freeware sites. So if you want that audio converter, but can't spend £50, take a look here ;). Well, that's about it, so see ya! November 14 Review: MMconvertMMConvertThere are many video and audio converters on the market, and MMconvert is one of them. It is a nice, easy-to-use and proffessional piece of software, and most of all, it does what it says it will do. It will convert movies from and to WMV, AVI and even MKV (not MOV), and convert audio to and from WMA, WAV, MP3, OGG, APE and MKA. It takes very little RAM and can also do many different tasks at the same time-simply line them up in order and hit "execute". In the audio conversion, there is the usual bit rate options, 128KB/S, 96KB/s, 64, 48, 32 and 28.8, however if this is not precise enough, there is a custom bit rate option, edited by clicking "custom", then checking "audio", then clicking "add", then finally typing the bit rate you want. A complex, but precise option. Movie converting is a little more complicated, but easy nonetheless. You can easily control most of the factors, dominated by a sliding bar for the kilobit rate, from 1 to 10,000! Easy, fast and effective. You can also have a grayscale movie. Considering this is only meant to be a audio and video converter, yet is so much more, I will give it my first ever:
Audio converter? oh no it isn't... Downloaded from http://mmconvert.sourceforge.net November 13 Review: Wisdomsoft ScreenHunterWisdomsoft ScreenHunterSimilar to SDsoft Sreen Recorder, but it captures still photos instead. Now that may not sound amazing, but but neither is listening to music, but that's fun and cool. Screenhunter Is very user-friendly, but also very effective. You can capture amost anything-an active window, the full screen or a rectangular area, which you specify by clicking and dragging, rather than specifying the pixel resolution and area. Again, user-friendly. It even captures some game screens, and has an option if you want to include the mouse or not with easy hotkey selection. Overall, an:
Does what it says on the tin. Well. Downloaded from http://www.download.com/ScreenHunter/3000-2192_4-10215821.html?tag=lst-0-1 Review: ZD soft Screen RecorderZD soft Screen RecorderZDsoft Screen Recorder records the image on the screen with all the playback options: Frame rate, movie quaity, File type et cetera, but with one unique difference: it's free. No "14 day evaluation software" notices, no hassle when you can't make a movie, just purely free. And it might as well cost £50. It's that good. You can even save it as an EXE (program), which is tiny-1 minute takes just 1 megabyte of your precious hard drive, at 30 frames a second AND a 'smooth mouse movement' option-very handy. And if that's not enough, it even comes with a player for your EXEs!!! You can also record a specific window (and this includes Flash games on the web). However, one major flaw is that you can't record your bought games with it, unless they are in a window. For this matter only, I will have to give it:
 out of 10.I'd be lying if I said it was ok. Or bad.
Downloaded from http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Video-Recording/ZD-Soft-Screen-Recorder.shtml
EDIT!!!!!! It's sad...... so very sad.... ZDsoft Screen Recorder has fallen to the bottom of the barrel, the lowest of the low... shareware. But don't worry!!!! I'm looking for a completely FREE screen recorder, and expect to see a review shortly!!!!!!!! |
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