Screencasting
So this week, during my four days at home (as opposed to Toledo) I decided to sit down and master the secret to screencasting.
Emy, the very talented artist and writer of Trying Human, regularly does screencasts of her work in creating her comic, something that interested me, but I put on a backburner for the time being. I already had a channel with Ustream, but when I tried to figure out exactly how to screencast to my Ustream channel, the whole process seemed to involve three programs running at once– and that was without Photoshop running.
My computer is no spring chicken. It chugs along at a steady clip, but four memory-munching programs going at once would surely reduce it to a crawl, and no doubt slow me down.
So I jumped ship and joined Emy and others over at Livestream, formerly known as Mogulus. The Livestream Procaster is their hombrew broadcasting client, which has a built-in screencasting feature. Which meant that after 3 hours of futzing with Ustream, my problems were all solved in about 20 minutes when I went over to Livestream.
So I have a Livestream channel now. The Procaster program is very easy to use, though I’d like to figure out how to have my own personal music playing without it being inputted through the microphone– and thus, recording every sniffle and cough and keystroke I make during the recordings. That’s a quest for another day.
But the screencasting I’ve done so far is actually really cool. I announce them on Garanos, Twitter, Deviantart, and Facebook, so I get at least a few people popping in and out over the course of a single session. ^_^ The nice part about it is that in the Procaster, you can check a box that means your broadcasts are recorded to the server, and they’re kept in a Video-On-Demand library in your channel, so you can then make collections of past recordings and setup reruns to play when you’re not broadcasting live. (You can also import videos from YouTube, which means that all the Garanos video blogs and Sharpie drawing videos are in my VOD library, too! :D)
On the whole, it’s made working on Garanos rather exciting and new. Knowing that I’m putting on a show has done wonders for my productivity; for example, I’ve always estimated that a typical page took 4 to 5 hours to complete, which would often be stretched out to 6 or more hours throughout the day, since I often get distracted by opening Google Reader or Twitter every 10 minutes.
But having people watch me as I complete a page? Earlier this week, that average page only took me 3 and a half hours. It brings an interesting social aspect to my creative process, as I can also view my channel’s chatroom with Procaster while I record. People can ask me questions about my methods, or watch me as I search the web for reference pictures of beaches, or whatever I’ve doing.
Having the reruns available is great, too, because once I was done with a live broadcast the other night, I was able to just hang around and chat with the people still there as another coloring session played. I offered a little commentary as the video played, it was really quite fun. ^_^
Screencasting. My new love. Come watch me next time I’m live!
Childhood Dreams
I’m sitting at my house in Toledo, watching Independence Day on TV with my mom. 13 years later, the special effects are still as captivating as they were when I was 10 years old. Around the same time was the peak of my childhood interest in astronomy and all things spacey. At the time, I still wanted to be an artist when I grew up, but Independence Day threw me into a brief stint of wanting to design special effects for sci-fi movies.
In actuality, with my training, I probably could do this. It’s interesting where life takes me sometimes.
But shortly after that, I decided I wanted to be an astronomer instead. Astronomy still fascinates me, and they were my science courses of choice at OSU. Not to mention that knowing how many light minutes there are from Earth to the Sun is a definite plus when dating geeky boys. (The answer is 8, by the way.)
Of course, as the years went on, my interest in math and the rest of science wasn’t intense enough for me to continue with a realistic dream of being an astronomer, and I went back to artist.
But anytime io9 posts something with the tag [Space Porn], I just can’t help but admit that it’s a good descriptor.
Besides, can you really say you’ve seen anything as amazing at this?
Camera Phone Dump
I’ve got an interesting batch of photos that I just transferred off my phone.
I went to lunch with Codi earlier this week at Five Guys, a burger place that we always go to on the Sunday of Tsubasacon before we head back home. They expanded into Columbus this year, and now there’s a location at the Gateway! They have huge portions of fries, so I got an order for us to split, and it ended up completely burying my burger in a hilarious way.
I got myself some Nerd Merit Badges. I don’t have anything to stick them to, but they do kind of stick well to the fabric that covers my computer speakers. </geek>
Now the rest of these photos are from my late grandparents’ house. Since I’m not doing a whole lot else this summer, I’m currently living in Toledo 4 days a week in order to help clean out their house, which is full of crap. That’s not really sarcasm. My grandmother (who was mentally ill) stuffed that house full for 30 years, and now me, my sister, and my brother-in-law are all sorting through stuff and getting the trash out of the house.
Some interesting high-heeled sandals I found, with carved wooden heels.
This is the coolest thing– it’s a Weston Wattmeter that’s dated January of 1916. There’s also a set of blueprint diagrams that were tucked into the lid of the box. My great-grandfather was an engineer, so we think it belonged to him. It’s very steampunk. More pictures:
With it is also a Weston Ammeter, but it’s not dated. They certainly look like they go together, though.
Lastly, a school paper by my uncle from when he was a child:
I like the airplane best. ^_^
Commission: The Schnuthcast
This art was commissioned by Aaron and Diana Schnuth. They needed some snazzy album art for their new podcast, the Schnuthcast! ^_^
AP09 Art: Zeon
This is the last of the AP 2009 badges I did: Zeon. To quote Mike, “Man, that is one AUSTERE looking Ann.”