Learning Maya Animation Software--of course!
Look for more adventure images here in this section, as our staff learns to harness the power of the world's most powerful animation tools.
Click the square to view a movie of this animation.
| Welcome to BassPig.com's DV Theater! |
| Animation Examples | Lens Hood Fabrication | Music Arrangements on Kurzweil Instruments |
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| Rene Salud Fashion Show at Foxwood's |
| We recently shot an
international fashion show at Foxwood's Resort & Casino, at the Fox Theater located in
that complex. Lighting and sound were first-rate, and we achieved the pinnacle of a
quality production. Here are some excerpts from the DVD video that we produced:
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| Model:
Bessie Badilla del Castillo –Former Miss Philippines - Universe Singer/Dancer: Rallion Alonzo - Former Philippine TV Host “Keep on Dancing” Here, we took advantage of a rapid pan shot on camera 1 and overlayed camera 2 on it, giving a kind of "Star Trek warp" effect, with the starry background, landing on Bessie: |
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| Here is another view of the action, in the first 30 minutes of the show. Camera 1 was hand held and located at the very edge of the stage for dramatic effect: |
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| This is a nicely-choreographed sequence set to a popular Filipino love song. It evokes the beauty of pubescence at the transition between childhood and womanhood. |
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| This sequence of male and female models is set to one of the more dramatic pieces of Filipino music, really quite a nice sequence. |
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| We were fortunate to get some of the top celebs from the Philippines together in front of our camera. Here we have an excerpt from an interview, conducted by top Filipino fashion designer Renee Salud, with the former Miss Philippines fashion model and dancer, Bessie Badilla del Castillo: |
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| This is an informal showcase of some of the projects going on behind the scenes with our videographers. This week's feature is the first-play segment to the DVD in production for Hayas ng Silangan, a Filipino dance troupe from Connecticut. This is a work in progress. |
| This is more of an audio demo than a video demo. It
was made in 1986 using ancient Newvicon cameras (in a darkly-lit venue) and two electret
condenser mics. The audio quality turned out quite surprisingly good. Enjoy this fine
performance by the Jim LaPine Jazz Quintet. Jim is the saxophonist for the band. He performs on tenor, alto,
soprano sax and clarinet. Gerry Mulligan |
| Windows Media Player 9 required (sound & picture play poorly on WMP 6.4) |
| High Quality LAME-encoded MP3 Version of above selection |
| Rock & Roll from the Untouchables, a band I
recorded in 1984. This was captured on an Akai GX630DB with Dolby NR. The same electret
condenser mics as in the LaPine recording above..
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| High Quality LAME-encoded MP3 Version of above selection |
| Sensitive Ear: The sound of owls hooting at night. These were rather distant, so I made my recording at the Standard Recording Level and then in post production, added more than 50dB of gain in the digital domain by normalizing to 95%. The sounds are amplified to what I would perceive to be 10 times their normal intensity. As such, a host of other sounds become audible, such as the spores falling from the trees (May 2005). One can also hear the cumulative sound of traffic and industry from miles away. This recording was made with an O.R.T.F. array of two Behringer B-1 Large-Diaphragm Studio Condenser Mics, driving a MotU 896, sampling at 24-bits/96KHz.
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| High Quality LAME-encoded MP3 (downloadable) |
| Helicopter Recording: The sound of a military helicopter flying about 1/4 mile south of our location. This recording was made with an O.R.T.F. array of two Behringer B-1 Large-Diaphragm Studio Condenser Mics, driving a MotU 896, sampling at 24-bits/96KHz. CAUTION: Extreme low frequency content! May cause damage to woofers and amplifiers if not careful. Please use extreme caution when playing this clip.
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| High Quality LAME-encoded MP3 (downloadable) |
| Fireworks at Danbury
Airport/Mall, Danbury, CT on July 1, 2005. Recorded with four microphones, with center
channel derived (I forgot the mic mount for the center mic, so recorded just four
channels.) This video clip uses the Surround Sound CODEC.
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| Windows Media Player 9 required (with Surround Sound Pro Audio CODEC) |
| Fireworks at Fort Hill
Road, New Milford, CT on July 2, 2005. Recorded with five microphones, with LFE derived
from the center channel. This video clip uses the Surround Sound CODEC. The proper level to play this clip at requires a volume setting such that the crickets can be clearly heard. Many commercial PC soundcards will produce excessive hiss at this playback level. The dynamic range of this recording is over 96dB. |
| Windows Media Player 9 required (with Surround Sound Pro Audio CODEC) |
| Exotic birds at Busch Gardens. Enjoy this bird show at
Busch Gardens, recorded September 2003.
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| Windows Media Player 9 required (sound & picture play poorly on WMP 6.4) |
| Playing God, Building a New
World, or... Learning Maya Animation Software--of course! |
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| We recently started
moving our animation studio over to top-end capabilities. Above is a still frame from an
experiment with Maya Unlimited's fluid dynamics animation. The above image was set up in
about 40 seconds and rendered out in a quarter of that time. The water is fully-animated
and looks even more convincing when it's in motion. Look for more adventure images here in this section, as our staff learns to harness the power of the world's most powerful animation tools. Click the square to view a movie of this animation. |
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| This is another one of
our "playing God" exercises in Maya Unlimited. Here, we've quickly created some
mountains, fog and a pre-dawn horizon. Click the square to view a movie of this animation. |
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| This may look like the
ocean during a hurricane, but in reality, it's another scene created in Maya. Click the square to view a movie of this animation. |
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| This image might make you
wonder if the Hubble telescope really exists at all. This image was computer-generated in
our studio animation facility. Click HERE to view a Quicktime movie of this animation. |
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| This is an explosion,
created with Maya particles. Click the square to view a movie of this animation. |
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| This is another
kind of explosion, of nuclear nature, created with Maya fluid dynamics.
Click the square to see a movie of this animation. |
| A Custom-Made Lens Hood for VX2000 with Raynox HD-7000 Pro WA Lens [UPDATED] |
| This is our new lens hood, custom built by our
staff. When looking for alternatives to $600 and up matte boxes, we came up with the idea
to fabricate one custom, out of fiberglass resin. The construction process started with angle measurements, followed by tracing the pattern on paper, then building a wooden form, pouring molten wax into the form and then removing the form after cooling, and finally, applying fiberglass resin to the wax mold, sanding, grinding and painting the final product. The hood is based around a 82mm to 95mm step up ring. Total cost of materials was about $50, which includes wax for the mold, fiberglass cloth, resin, wood for the form and a lens step-up ring. There is no problem with vignetting, based on a white card test in widest angle setting. Here are some photos, just updated to show the final product, taken with the other VX2000 with Raynox .66HD Pro to memory stick. |
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| u B-1 Microphone Tests u |
These are just some informal tests, with spectral analysis of the energy content. I had discovered that the MOTU 896 meters were responding whenever I swung the closet door silently (or so it seemed to my ears). I decided to make a test recording and run an FFT analysis on it to find out what the mics were responding to. As it turned out, the dominant frequency was 4Hz.
A few weeks ago, I tried another "killer" test which always showed up horrible artifacts on earlier systems--jangling keys in front of the mic at close range. Here is the FFT graph of that test, at 24-bits/96KHz sample rate.:
As can be seen, a lot of energy outside of the 20-20KHz specified range of the mics appears on these graphs. As with the other test, there is a lot of computer cooling fan noise in the background. A sample of this audio can be downloaded HERE. Caution: contains high peak/average ratio with a lot of ultrasonic energy! |
| u B-1 Microphone Tests Olympus E300 Dust Shaker u |
We Recently purchased an Olympus E300 dSLR camera with the new Four-Thirds system. It uses and ultrasonic wave dust shaker to shake the dust shaker, which Olympus claims to operate at around 35KHz. I was looking for an ultrasonic source to test the Behringer B-1 Microphones' ultrasonic capabilities, so I arranged this test. Ignore the subsonic rumble at 8Hz (the HVAC is running in our building at time of test) and observe that narrow spike at 34,159 Hz. That's the E300's dust shaker in operation, running just briefly to shake any accumulated dust off the CCD imager. And the B-1 picked it up, in our studio full of PC cooling fans and HVAC rumble. I slowed the recording down by -50 semitone to bring it into human hearing range. The MP3 file of the sound of the dust shaker is HERE.
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| u Voiceover Demonstrations u |
Curtis Insurance ad 60 This is a 60-second spot that I put together for a local FM station last year. There was much more text that could fit in a 60-second spot, but through digital technology, it was accomplished. by M. Weiss. |
| u Musical Demonstrations u | |
| This section contains some original compositions and some rearranged compositions from classical and Japanese music genres. All are performed on a Kurzweil K2500RS, A Kurzweil PC2R-O and a Kurzweil K2600RS. The Roland A80 fully-weighted master keyboard was used to input original material. These provide decent examples of the capabilities of the Kurzweil synth/samplers. |  |
Orchestral Musings This is a relaxing piece with piano, bell trees and flute. Original composition by M. Weiss. |
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| Puccini: "La Boheme" This is a piano piece from the famous opera. |
| Dupré: Carillon Op 27 Nr. 4 This organ piece was produced using Michiel Post's new Post Organ Toolkit samples. An astonishing realism is achieved. |
| Laputa: Memories in the Gondola This is a very authentic-sounding recreation of the this background music from Japanese anime. |
| Bach: Fantasia & Fugue in G minor BWV542 This organ piece was also produced using Post Organ Toolkit samples. Because Bach's Fugue involves several stop changes throughout the work, I was able to employ a greater number of organ registrations here. Heard in the major parts are Hauptwerk pedals with Full Organ, and in the softer parts, Roerfluit with Flute pedal stops. |
| Vintage Rock - Three Dog Night intro This uses the new ROM4, Vintage Pianos sounds in this classic 1960s tune originally by Three Dog Night. If you're familiar with the intro to "Mama Told Me Not to Come," then you'll be amazed at the authenticity of this Wurlitzer piano! |
| u MPEG2 LAYER 3 VERSIONS u | |
| Bach: Fantasia & Fugue in G minor BWV542 This is the same work as above, but with some of the samples tweaked in the K2500RS to sound more like the Methuen Organ in Massachussetts. I did this because I modeled the performance after Michael Murray's recital of this work on a Telarc recording, which became my benchmark for this Fugue. Specifically, I tweaked the Full Organ sample with the Kurzweil's Para EQ, boosting a 2.5-octave range in the 4khz range. This brightens up the sound for that biting, crisp sound that the Methuen Organ is known for. But we are really hearing the Bavo Organ in reality! This proves how versatile the Post samples are. | |
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| Saint-saens Organ Symphony Nr3 [molto allegro] Based on a discussion about adding spacial depth to the sound of performances from Kurzweil instruments, I chose to experiment using this dramatic segment from one of my favorite works. I used a variety of orchestal instruments from the PC2R/O, and the organ sounds came from the Post Organ Toolkit. |
| A Sci-Fi-ish Spacey Intro Based on the V4.0 K OS with the new Best of VAST sound set, this is my sequenced experiment and my first composition of 2004. |
| My "Invention" Based on the Bach invention (well only loosely), this started out as a practice for left hand and developed into a neat little self-contained Baroque melody all in itself. |
| My "Piano Concert No 11" A relaxed work I created back in 1989, now remixed on the K2600RS Triple-strike Grand Piano sample . |
| Rachmaninoff - Rhapsody-Paganini This was performed using a modified #701 patch on the K2600RS. The character of middle C has been changed to sound more traditional on this patch. It is heard in this performance of the Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, by Rachmoninoff, a theme made popular by the movie "Somewhere in Time".. |
| Spirited Away A work by Joe Hisaishi, now remixed on the K2600RS Triple-strike Grand Piano sample with the modified middle C range (thanks Puppeteer!). Some EQ was used in the K2600 FX buss to darken the sound a bit, just as in a distant miking in a concert hall. Sound is rich. |
| Borgman "Don't Look Back" Exploding with energy! this hard rock tune, remixed on the K2600RS and K2500RS, using Fender Stratocaster and Bass samples, plust a lead part using Poly Six samples. Blow yer' speakers out on this one! |
| Chariots of Fire My most recent recreational arrangement, this work, originally by Vangelis, sounds pretty faithful to the original. I just kept adding layer upon layer, with each listen to the original music, as I would hear something new that I overlooked during the prior listening sessions. The result is pretty rich-sounding. |
