Render Farm

I'll again offer my equipment if it will help you Joe. If you are transcoding while rendering perhaps it would help if you render straight to uncompressed, load on ftp, and allow me (and others possibly) to do the transcode for you. I know from experience that transcoding while rendering can really add a bunch of time to the process.

Just offering a helping hand, no strings attached.

Demonstration of the difference

Here's how the special compositing mode rendered video looks:

Now here's a frame grab from the Switching Andover YouTube video master for the Jan issue that had light and darks adjusted using the normal brightness and contrast/midrange method, which renders pretty fast:

Notice the shadow detail in both examples is similar, but also notice the blown out hightlights in the snow piles, the arm, the auto in the background and even in the backdrop in the second example above. By using compositing tricks to keep from blowing out the highlights similar to what you use in Photoshop, I can get the video to all look like the first frame example with good shadow detail and a nice broad midrange of tones and minimal blown out highlights, but it renders *really slow* when I do that.

Mike's scenes are challenging because of the white whites of the melting snow piles and the dark black loco underframes. It is possible to get something that looks pretty good, but the special compositing mode tricks really slows down the video renders.

Long story short - it will be worth the wait, we're working hard to get the best possible video image of a fabulous model railroad.

Cool!

That can't be any fun. I

That can't be any fun. I usually have to take a lot of time to correct all of that in a photo, I can only imagine what it's like in video. Basically like trying to get the results of a bracketed shot out of a single exposure only in a video...

Tristan

How's this coming?

Barry & Joe, do you have a status update on this highly anticipated release?

Part 1 going up tonight

Part 1 going up tonight - 35 mins

Part 2 (hopefully) coming in a week - 40 mins

Well dang - delayed another day

Well it's being delayed another day.

Looked decent on a computer monitor, but it's too washed out on a TV screen, so have to test some render settings for TV screens and then rerender again.

All the heavy rendering that took a couple weeks is done, we're down to the final render which takes 4-6 hours, so it will go up tomorrow night instead.

This has been a long time in coming, but we think it's worth it to get the best product possible.

too washed out on a TV screen

Joe, have a look at YUV color space settings in your render engine.

It's finally here ...

The first part of the Mike Confalone interview has finally been posted ... here's a preview:

//player.vimeo.com/video/86757352?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ff0179

TrainMasters subscribers can view the entire segment on TrainMasters here.

Part 2?

Do you have an ETA on part 2?

Hopelessly optimistic

I've updated this to say the week of March 10th.

On all this stuff - the magazine, the eBooks, the MRH-produced videos ... I end up being the final stop for finishing it up. The staff does some of the preliminary pasteup and cleanup, but I am the guy who does the final assembly and rollout.

My problem is I just finished up a late rollout on the March issue, now I'm doing a late rollout on the eBook, and then I can get back to finishing up part 2 of the Confalone video.

When one thing slips, they all slip.

And yes, I know I'm a bottleneck, but finding a cheap resource who can do everything I know how to do *and* who knows the hobby like I do is a tough find. And besides all that, if I did find such a person, things would slow down even more for several months while he got trained.

So it is what it is - my one skill that could be improved is my ability to estimate and set realistic deadlines ...

In the meantime, on TrainMasters TV

Part 2!

Part 2 is up!

Provacative?

Mike has some rather provocative comments about how he does things on his layout in part 2 of this interview. Anyone pick up on that?

I'm curious what you think ... is Mike crazy or is he on to something?

Still watching!

Joe, you're referring to things like:

"No Sound, No Railroad", Over-weighting, super simple wiring and "Run it on plywood"?

The more I hear, the more I like this guy!! We think alot alike.

Although I also like my cars heavier, I hadn't thought of what I'll call "super weighting." I think there is real merit to this idea.

...back to the video.

Setting Deadlines ....

'Scotty' (from Star Trek fame) once admitted that his secret to meeting/exceeding deadlines was to multiply the time estimate by a factor of four ... just sayin'.  

edit ... corrected the 'doubling' to 'a factor of four' per the actual quote ...

Indeed...

Yup. If you're going to say a time out loud, multiply by 2 (or 3!) [edit: ok - FOUR!] first and then leave everyone amazed at how fast you actually got it done.

"There is no such thing..............

.....................as a half hour job!"  I had told friends I was going to have a return loop done so I could run a short train out and back in a week.  Well, it took a week to build and install the bridge to GET to the return loop!

Peter

Estimating Time

Our rule when I was working, if pressed to provide a deadline, was to imagine how long we thought it would take, double it, and move to the next unit of measure.  Thus the deadline for a 2-hour task is 4 days from now.  It worked most of the time!

Bob

But back to Joes Question.... Provocative?

"No Sound, No Railroad", Over-weighting, super simple wiring and "Run it on plywood"?

The more I hear, the more I like this guy!! We think alot alike.

Although I also like my cars heavier, I hadn't thought of what I'll call "super weighting." I think there is real merit to this idea.

I suppose that is what is adding to my frustration and worse...

My inability to set realistic deadlines and then failing to meet those deadlines has me at times wanting to quit.  Not sure how to change that, since I have always been aggressive in what I want to get done in the shortest time.  One of the downsides with the type of personality i have.  Oh well.

Ken L.

A 2-hour task is 4 days from now

That's great!  It fits me to the tee.  I think that will be my new basis for time estimates.

Sandbagging

As to the time estimates, what you are doing is what my IT boss would call "sandbagging". When that happens, then my boss would ask for a detailed list of the tasks to prove it would take that long. If you can get away with sandbagging, then you by golly better beat that estimate!

Kirk did figure out Scotty was sandbagging!

KIRK: Mr. Scott. Have you always multiplied your repair estimates by a factor of four?


SCOTTY: Certainly, sir. How else can I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?