Ask something - We can help.

Nikolas · Mon 16/07/2012 18:22:57

So,

I'm trying really hard to stay 100% legal! In all my music software this is possible, since I'm a pro in music.

But for images and video I don't really want to spend the kind of money that Adobe wants me to (bloody expensive stuff, for someone who is not a pro in that industry).

So... thus far, I've found the following solutions:

Instead of _____________ I'm using : ____________

Word: Open Office (did my PhD Thesis there and by all means it worked!

)
Photoshop: GIMP
Corel: Inkscape
Paint: Ultimate Paint (found it from here actually! Looong ago and love it! For small stuff it's awesome)
but I'm really having trouble with
Premier (Adobe) and After Effects: ?!??!!??!?!

So what could I use to create videos that is freeware and/or open source? Blender is for 3d, so I'm not interested in that, as far as I know...

Ideas, please?

Nikolas · Mon 16/07/2012 19:14:25

Got my reply from facebook, and I'll research and hopefully update. Any comments are still most welcome:

" Kino, Avidemux, Cinelerra or VirtualDub."

selmiak · Tue 17/07/2012 12:05:39

avidemux, virtualdub (and vdub mod) and kino are mostly used for cutting video, encoding a video to another codec (e.g. mp4 to avi), editing another audio layer to a video or basic video effects (fade in, blurring out a TV station logo). I prefer avidemux for these tasks, but really advanced video editing with mindblowing effects is more a thing of after effects (or maybe cinelerra, but I haven't tried it... yet).

some more software you'd like to try
lightworks - http://www.lwks.com/
Wax - http://www.debugmode.com/wax/
cinefx - http://sourceforge.net/projects/cinefx/

Crimson Wizard · Thu 19/07/2012 22:46:51

What is "Geronimo!" ?

EDIT: Whoops sorry, nevermind, found this out.

Crimson Wizard · Thu 02/08/2012 19:23:35

I remember year ago there was thread about correct english lanuage, but it's no longer active, so I thought I'd ask here.

There's something not really important perhaps, but still bugs me.
What would be correct way to name a program function that returns number of things - is it GetItemCount or GetItemsCount?
Same about naming a thing that is related to multiple objects: ManagedObjectPool or ManagedObjectsPool?

Oliwerko · Thu 02/08/2012 19:59:33

As far as I know, singular has to be used because the first word (i.e. item/object) is a convert from a noun to an adjective and thus has to be singular.

selmiak · Fri 03/08/2012 00:10:28

could also be a definition thing. GetItemCount when you are going through the inventory and add item to item. GetItemsCount when the player has 15 coins and you count the number of coins, so, many items that are actually the same item. Or maybe I'm talking bullcrap here

For the latter plural sounds better as pool already implies there are many in there.

Gilbert · Fri 03/08/2012 02:31:08

Also, you may include the s as the English text could be "Get Item's Count" or "Get Items' Count", so I think both spellings of the function, with or without the s, are grammatically correct.

Crimson Wizard · Fri 03/08/2012 08:13:04

Okay, I see. Though I hoped there would be one correct option, so I wouldn't bother to make a choice myself

.

nihilyst · Fri 03/08/2012 19:05:12

Two days ago, from one day to to another, my Google Chrome started to have a problem with running any sorts of flash streams (audio and video). For example, when I start a youtube video, there's the image, but no sound, and after exactly 11 seconds, the image freezes. When I jump in the video's timeline, the video starts again (still without sound), and, after 11 seconds, passes out again. Audio streams like built-in mp3 flash players on webpages or services like soundcloud etc. don't work at all. Funny thing is that I didn't change anything at all, no new programs, no deinstallations, hell, I didn't even restart my computer. It worked one evening, I went to bed, and the next day, it did this.

Things I've done so far:
- Tried it in Firefox -> everything works, but as I want to use Chrome, that doesn't help me much
- Fiddled with the Flash player's "hardware acceleration" options -> didn't do shit
- Rebooted -> nope
- Reinstalled the Adobe flash player plugin -> it seems that Chrome has it's own built-in player, since the deinstallation didn't affect the browser at all (unlike to Firefox which then complained about not having the needed plugin installed)
- Reinstalled Chrome -> didn't work

Is anyone else encounting such problems? Might someone have a solution for this problem? Thanks

EDIT: Solved. I just deactivated the built-in flash plugin. Seems that was the little bastard.

KodiakBehr · Sat 04/08/2012 21:44:50

Okay, when playing Cart Life, I noticed that the distant background was always fixed in position while the foreground buildings, etc, moved with the character. How the heck did he do that?

Crimson Wizard · Sat 04/08/2012 22:06:17

Quote from: KodiakBehr on Sat 04/08/2012 21:44:50
Okay, when playing Cart Life, I noticed that the distant background was always fixed in position while the foreground buildings, etc, moved with the character. How the heck did he do that?

Dunno how Cart Life's author did that, but there are two (relatively) simple options.
1) compose background of room objects and always update "distant" object's coordinates so that it is placed at same position relative to viewport.
2) draw on background surface.
Depending on your game it might be optimal to choose either first or second. Or combine both.
By the way, I find this question belongs to Advanced Technical forum.
Also check Parallax Scrolling module, I think it allows to do what you ask about a bit easier: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=33142.0

Nikolas · Sun 05/08/2012 11:51:28

first of all thanks for the previous replies about video software.

Another question, which perhaps one can reply...

Is anyone experienced with kindle and the format(s) it's using? Anyone knows a lot (or enough) about EPUB or AZW or KF8 or MOBI?

If so let me know and we can take this privately (this is for a commercial project, so I can't say anything else in public, sorry)...

Anian · Sun 05/08/2012 22:21:16

Quote from: Nikolas on Sun 05/08/2012 11:51:28
first of all thanks for the previous replies about video software.

Another question, which perhaps one can reply...

Is anyone experienced with kindle and the format(s) it's using? Anyone knows a lot (or enough) about EPUB or AZW or KF8 or MOBI?

If so let me know and we can take this privately (this is for a commercial project, so I can't say anything else in public, sorry)...

Well azw is amazon cloud format, so that would be it, mobi and epub do quite well as far as I've seen, thing is you'd want something that transfers well to other formats, but Kindle basically reads everything, just check the meta data type stuff like menus and page numbers etc. stay well ordered. As long as you have a pdf and maybe one other format, people can transfer it I think.
Cradle is my software for organizing and uploading books to Kindle, it can also transfer between almost all formats, try some things and you'll see the differences between
http://www.freewaregenius.com/the-big-list-of-free-kindle-tools/

And that's about all I can say about that.

Nikolas · Sun 05/08/2012 22:36:01

I would have no problem with a normal PDF, but I think that it doesn't support DRM (and I need that currently), so I'm forced to look at other formats, plus I think that amazon itself prefers KF8 over MOBI or EPUB (sadly so)...

Thanks anian for the reply

Mati256 · Mon 06/08/2012 23:49:18

I'm not a native English speaker and have been always confused with the expression "He was (something)... or was he?"
Can somebody explain this?
Thank you.

KodiakBehr · Tue 07/08/2012 03:21:41

While this is acceptable in English, it is considered poor structure, grammatically. The second clause states that there is exists doubt about the definitive statement of the first clause, implying that the first clause was not definitive at all.

For example, "He was a fish....or was he?"

Means there exists doubt as to whether or not he was a fish.

Oliwerko · Tue 07/08/2012 09:46:29

Yeah. The grammatically correct way to say would be "He was a fish, wasn't he?"

Mati256 · Tue 07/08/2012 16:24:35

Thank you both. That was exactly what I was asking.
I knew what KodiakBehr explained, but I didn't knew why it was used like that.

Eric · Tue 14/08/2012 02:19:52

I don't know that grammar enters into the conversation. I find this sentence structure used most often in a narrative where the narrator wants to imply something to the audience without directly stating it, a sort of half dramatic irony. The tension between the two clauses creates suspense as the audience waits for the narrator to confirm what they've hinted. Such as:

"With the bomb finally disarmed, the room was safe to enter...or was it?"

The implication is that for the people of the story, the room seems safe to enter, but the narrator knows something they don't -- it might not be -- and is imparting that knowledge to the audience.

In the case of your example, you might hear the following in a news report on a serial killer:

"He was president of the PTA, a church deacon, a former high school football stand-out with a bright clean smile and an Ivy League degree. He was, for all intents and purposes, a model citizen...or was he?"