One nice thing about creating a video for YouTube is having a good example of technology that I can reference. Collecting videos and photos is relatively easy. When it came to adding animated maps of where Goblin Valley is located, I did not know what to do. I knew that Google has a pretty good maps of anywhere in the world and so I started there. I tried to do everything with Google Maps but then thought about using Google Earth. Earth is better for doing flyovers like I have at the beginning of the video (at 0:29). You are limited with the web version of Google Earth and I recommend the stand-alone application as it is significantly more flexible.
So how did I do the animations for the other 2 maps (at 1:25 and 5:56)? I asked one of my coworkers for ideas and he suggested using Microsoft PowerPoint. I know how to do that and so I took a screen shot from Google Maps, loaded it into PowerPoint, then added some circles and arrows. Now I just needed to record the animation on my screen. I used the Quicktime player on my Mac to do that. How? Well Quicktime allows you to do screen recordings. I simply started Quicktime and went into the "File" menu where there is a "New Screen Recording" menu item. It brings up a red record button. When I clicked on the button, it asked me to select the part of the screen I wanted to record. Once I selected it, a large "Start Recording" button appeared. Then when I was done recording, I brought up the application bar and right-clicked on the Quicktime icon. It brought up a menu with a menu item to "Stop Recording." Quicktime then allows you to save the MP4 movie file anywhere you want.
Once I had all of my videos, photos, and animations, I combined them all together using iMovie. Everything came together quite easily looked great. The last thing I did was to add in music and my narration. For that I used GarageBand, but this is a topic for another post.
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Saturday, May 26, 2018
My First YouTube Video
I have spent the past couple of months putting together my first YouTube video. It is not nearly as easy as throwing together a blog post and so I don't plan on doing very many of them. I did learn a lot about the process though and that is why I put together this one.
While I enjoy spending time in front of my computer, I much prefer spending time outside. I wanted to start putting together some videos about our National Parks. Then I discovered that you need to have an expensive permit if you plan to record video for anything other than your personal use. So instead of starting with a National Park, I decided to start with Goblin Valley State Park. Note that there is no such restriction for photographs.
There are a lot of poor quality YouTube videos and I didn't want my video to fall into that same category so I tried to do it right the first time. I created my own script before heading down to the park. That gave me an idea of what video I needed. Then in March I drove to Goblin Valley State Park where I met my son with his wife and puppy. We spent the next day wandering around the park taking pictures and gathering video. I had 3 other people helping me take pictures along with 2 separate video cameras. One is an old camcorder unit while the other is an older action camera. We used the action camera for all of the rappelling shots. I plan to update both video cameras in the future but wanted to use what I had for this experiment.
As I compiled the video and showed early versions to family, I got some very important feedback. While I had a lot of video of the park, most people liked the still camera shots except for the rappelling scene. Video made that part more dramatic.
No video is complete without a soundtrack. I had all of my video edited together and then found a piece of music that I can use for free with attribution to the artist. It is no coincidence that my video is around 7 minutes long and exactly the same length as the music.
The last thing to do was to record the narration soundtrack. Recently I purchased a high-end condenser microphone complete with shock mount and pop guard. Then I locked myself in my bedroom which had the best acoustics in the house for recording my voice. Combining the narration with the music and my edited video didn't take long at all.
As I mentioned, I created the video as a learning experience. I am very interested in feedback. Is the video boring or does it hold your interest? Do you want to visit Goblin Valley State Park now? Please feel free to send me comment as I am looking to improve for my next video.
While I enjoy spending time in front of my computer, I much prefer spending time outside. I wanted to start putting together some videos about our National Parks. Then I discovered that you need to have an expensive permit if you plan to record video for anything other than your personal use. So instead of starting with a National Park, I decided to start with Goblin Valley State Park. Note that there is no such restriction for photographs.
There are a lot of poor quality YouTube videos and I didn't want my video to fall into that same category so I tried to do it right the first time. I created my own script before heading down to the park. That gave me an idea of what video I needed. Then in March I drove to Goblin Valley State Park where I met my son with his wife and puppy. We spent the next day wandering around the park taking pictures and gathering video. I had 3 other people helping me take pictures along with 2 separate video cameras. One is an old camcorder unit while the other is an older action camera. We used the action camera for all of the rappelling shots. I plan to update both video cameras in the future but wanted to use what I had for this experiment.
As I compiled the video and showed early versions to family, I got some very important feedback. While I had a lot of video of the park, most people liked the still camera shots except for the rappelling scene. Video made that part more dramatic.
No video is complete without a soundtrack. I had all of my video edited together and then found a piece of music that I can use for free with attribution to the artist. It is no coincidence that my video is around 7 minutes long and exactly the same length as the music.
The last thing to do was to record the narration soundtrack. Recently I purchased a high-end condenser microphone complete with shock mount and pop guard. Then I locked myself in my bedroom which had the best acoustics in the house for recording my voice. Combining the narration with the music and my edited video didn't take long at all.
As I mentioned, I created the video as a learning experience. I am very interested in feedback. Is the video boring or does it hold your interest? Do you want to visit Goblin Valley State Park now? Please feel free to send me comment as I am looking to improve for my next video.
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Video Game Review: Horizon Zero Dawn
In January I started playing Horizon Zero Dawn while spending evenings on my sailboat in the Bay Area. That means I only got to play for an hour or two on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings. Last week I finally finished the game. I have about 100 hours into the game and completed all of the side missions except tutorials. I also only have a few other tasks until I complete all of the trophies.
A lot of my coworkers and friends have played Horizon Zero Dawn and encouraged me to do so. I hesitated playing it because I knew it would take a long time to complete. I am glad I did though as I thoroughly enjoyed the game. My youngest son also loves the game and I can see why. The story is very compelling and while I thought some of the tasks would get old, it turns out I needed that much time learning how to take down all the different machines available in the game. I also discovered that having the shield-weave armor really helps when trying to take down some very difficult enemies. If you decide to play the game, I highly recommend doing a bit of research and making sure you acquire it as early as possible.
Horizon Zero Dawn is an open-world game that allows you to go anywhere and do missions in almost any order. Towards the end of my game, I discovered there were plenty of earlier quests I hadn't done and so I went back and completed them before the final battle. Completing everything helps ease the difficulty towards the end.
Horizon Zero Dawn is rated T for Teen because of blood and violence. I enjoyed the game and highly recommend it for anyone over the age of 12. You can find a used copy of the game for around $25 and new for $30. It is well worth that price. I would also spend the extra money and get "The Frozen Wilds" DLC as I want to continue playing the game. I am a big fan of the PlayStation 4 console and this is a console exclusive so it is not available for the PC nor the Xbox platforms. That may be a deal breaker for some.
A lot of my coworkers and friends have played Horizon Zero Dawn and encouraged me to do so. I hesitated playing it because I knew it would take a long time to complete. I am glad I did though as I thoroughly enjoyed the game. My youngest son also loves the game and I can see why. The story is very compelling and while I thought some of the tasks would get old, it turns out I needed that much time learning how to take down all the different machines available in the game. I also discovered that having the shield-weave armor really helps when trying to take down some very difficult enemies. If you decide to play the game, I highly recommend doing a bit of research and making sure you acquire it as early as possible.
Horizon Zero Dawn is an open-world game that allows you to go anywhere and do missions in almost any order. Towards the end of my game, I discovered there were plenty of earlier quests I hadn't done and so I went back and completed them before the final battle. Completing everything helps ease the difficulty towards the end.
Horizon Zero Dawn is rated T for Teen because of blood and violence. I enjoyed the game and highly recommend it for anyone over the age of 12. You can find a used copy of the game for around $25 and new for $30. It is well worth that price. I would also spend the extra money and get "The Frozen Wilds" DLC as I want to continue playing the game. I am a big fan of the PlayStation 4 console and this is a console exclusive so it is not available for the PC nor the Xbox platforms. That may be a deal breaker for some.
Friday, May 11, 2018
Narrating Text Messages
I had to visit the post office this afternoon and had a guy behind me narrating his text messages. That means he used his phone's speech-to-text capability to send a regular text message. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a text message? Why not just call the guy on the phone. Then you don't annoy the rest of us in line while you have your conversation.
The guy in the post office really annoyed me today. Yes, it is much faster to speak into your phone and have it convert your message to text than it is to type it in yourself. Perhaps I am strange and only use text messaging when I know that someone is busy and can't talk on the phone or I can't talk on the phone. This guy held a conversation like he was talking on the phone, yet he kept having to correct the text message because speech to text isn't perfect. If you insist on texting instead of using the phone, make sure that is the most efficient use of communication. Otherwise you are just annoying those around you.
The guy in the post office really annoyed me today. Yes, it is much faster to speak into your phone and have it convert your message to text than it is to type it in yourself. Perhaps I am strange and only use text messaging when I know that someone is busy and can't talk on the phone or I can't talk on the phone. This guy held a conversation like he was talking on the phone, yet he kept having to correct the text message because speech to text isn't perfect. If you insist on texting instead of using the phone, make sure that is the most efficient use of communication. Otherwise you are just annoying those around you.
Thursday, May 3, 2018
Video Game Widows
Today is one of my department admin's birthday and I asked here if she had any special plans this evening. She said that she didn't and so I told her to tell her boyfriend to take her out somewhere nice. She responded that he is dating one of the recent video game releases and doesn't have much time for her. It made me think of my own video game playing and if I neglect my wife.
That is sort of a loaded question because I leave my wife every Monday morning, catch a flight to the Bay Area, work at a video game company until Thursday evening, and then catch a flight back home. While I may not play any video games when I am home, other than for guitar practice, I do leave for 4 days each week to work in the video game industry. I guess you could say that my wife is a video game widow along with the admin mentioned previously.
So are there any video game widowers whose wife's neglect him to play games? Unfortunately I don't have any statistics I can cite, just anecdotal evidence. Most of the women I know that play games, do so with their husbands or boyfriends. One of the project managers I work with loves the puzzle solving part of video games while her husband likes the shooting part. When they play, they play together and this is common among most of the video-game couples I know.
Fortunately I get all the video game time I need at work or during the evenings when I am away from home. Unfortunately that doesn't help my department admin who won't do anything special on her birthday because her boyfriend is too involved in a video game. In his defense, it is a pretty good video game with a lot of positive reviews.
That is sort of a loaded question because I leave my wife every Monday morning, catch a flight to the Bay Area, work at a video game company until Thursday evening, and then catch a flight back home. While I may not play any video games when I am home, other than for guitar practice, I do leave for 4 days each week to work in the video game industry. I guess you could say that my wife is a video game widow along with the admin mentioned previously.
So are there any video game widowers whose wife's neglect him to play games? Unfortunately I don't have any statistics I can cite, just anecdotal evidence. Most of the women I know that play games, do so with their husbands or boyfriends. One of the project managers I work with loves the puzzle solving part of video games while her husband likes the shooting part. When they play, they play together and this is common among most of the video-game couples I know.
Fortunately I get all the video game time I need at work or during the evenings when I am away from home. Unfortunately that doesn't help my department admin who won't do anything special on her birthday because her boyfriend is too involved in a video game. In his defense, it is a pretty good video game with a lot of positive reviews.
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