It’s all about research.  I am attempting to find an alternative to After Effects for my slit-scan shots.  Since I plan on doing a music video using this process I would love to have more power over the final effect.  Because in After Effects every composition needs to consist of thousands of layers.  This takes forever to render not to mention just previewing to see what I’m creating.

 

Processing is probably the best other option.  It’s a software that I have started to learn a while back.  Unfortunately, June got a hold of my “Learning Processing” book and she destroyed the binding.  Soon the book turned into many tiny mini-booklets held together by whatever glue was left from the binding.  Eventually, I lost track of some pages and reviewing was impossible.  So, the other night I repurchased “Learning Processing”

 

Also, a few days ago I came across this website.  It catalogues most of the experiments that have ever been done in slit-scan.  It is a great source for research and inspiration.  That is where I found a few code examples for slit-scan within Processing.  Unfortunately, it is a little beyond my comprehension of the software so I think it’s time for me to go back to the chapter I left off on on Day 170.

 

On a slightly separate note, I was pretty excited to see how my experiments from yesterday turned out in video form.  I was really jazzed by the way the still images were looking.  Well, very soon after that I came to realize that the video was not going to be all that different from the stills.  The reason being (now this may be a little hard to follow) is that the line of resolution that I selected to be copied in time across the frame was not moving at all.  In other words the resulting video was similar to a printer printing out my image from the right side of the screen to the left.

 

Now if I could move that selected line or slit in time as it’s going then I can create some movement and interest.  So I went into After Effects and linked all the masks creating the slits in the thousand or so layers to the mask in the very top layer.  Then, I animated the top layers mask from left to right over a period of 20 seconds.  Since all the masks in the layers below are linked they move in unison with it.

 

Sorry, it’s all very hard to describe in simple terms.  Below you can see the results in my video.  First you will see the two shots from yesterday.  You can see what I mean by the printer analogy.  Then the third shot is the same traffic shot from the first experiment only with added movement to the selected slit.  Finally, I rendered an old shot of the ocean that I had with the same effect as the third shot.

 

I’m disappointed with my situation at the moment but I am digging my way to the bottom of it.  If I can get up to speed in Processing, then when I want to experiment with a different approach on a shot all I’ll have to do is adjust a couple numbers in the code and re-process it.  It’s the best situation at the moment.  I just need to keep reading and working my way there.

 

Anyways check out the video.

 

 

Lastly, a surprise treat for you and a possible ray of sunshine for me.  Last night in my research I came across the most amazing slit-scan video that I have ever seen.  It had been uploaded to vimeo a mere 20 hours earlier.  The fellow who made the video, Carl Rosendahl, wrote the software himself in C++ using openframeworks so that he could import the native full HD files directly from his 7D.  He says on his blog that 100 frames at 720p are rendered in a single minute!  That is a major improvement from my After Effects 2 1/2 minutes per frame!  Don’t worry, I have already sent him a message through vimeo.  I am hoping to hear back from him.

 

But for your enjoyment, check out his amazing achievement below.