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Ideas For Creative Movie Props? (Page 17)
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Originally Posted by andi*pandi
another odd private message I got on facebook. The most persistent people are cleaners and duct vent spammers.
Sounds like they're full-service. Should you respond, ask if they'll launder money and clean evidence for you. Imply bloodstains on furniture & carpets. Cleaned site must look like there was no violence. Throw in some Mob terminology - gotta protect the Family.
Two can play the creep-out game.
Should they ask for a site pic, maybe subego can fake up a scene for you. So it looks like someone had been tied up in an office chair - some rope & cut nylon ties lying about. Some large-ish blood stains. Maybe an empty acid jug partially visible on the edge of the pic.
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“I will respond with lots of love and dedication” is just perfect.
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We need an effect where a bullet shot at the cats hits the ground about a foot in front of them and plows up some dirt.
I pitched using actual explosives, but got vetoed.
I’m convinced it can be done safely, but the dealbreaker is the pressure it puts on the parents.
Oh, well. CG then I guess.
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During the filming of Inception, they had the cafe scene in Paris. The film makers wanted to use explosives for when the scene tears itself apart. Surprise, surprise - they could not get permission for explosives within Paris.
So they used compressed-air charges. CGI was used to add extra junk into the air, but the main work was done with compressed air. The scene did not suffer from the change.
Compressed air isn't hard to come by, the hard part would be limiting the output volume to a fraction of a second. To simulate an explosion. Some kind of fast-acting valve perhaps. Or a super-tiny reservoir, limiting the "explosion" by available volume. Say, the volume of a short tube between two valves. The charge-up valve you fill normally, then kill. And the solenoid release valve.
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My original idea was to stomp on some form of bellows.
Ironically, I feel the risk profile for this is essentially the same as a tiny explosive. Both are equally capable of chucking debris into someone’s eye.
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you don't want to do the old movie cutaway (cats eyes widen, gun fires, cut to closup of puff of dirt at their feet) or?
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I don’t know the exact details, but as imagined the shot is wide enough to see both cats and the area which gets hit.
We considered greenscreen (well, bluescreen, because grass is green), but this is a job for sodium vapor.
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With a big enough bellows, and a big enough “stomp”, you can make the effect work. What reader said about releasing the air “all at once” is important if you’re throwing a bunch of stuff into the air. But just simulating a bullet hit should only need a little air (comparatively speaking).
This one should be more than enough.
Now the caveats: you have to pipe the air to where it’s going to blow the dirt up; I think 1/2 inch polyethylene irrigation tubing is a good choice. You can just put an elbow fitting on the on-camera end of the tubing (with something to keep the dirt from filling the fitting) and bury it - along with the rest of the tubing. Pro tip: a square-bladed shovel can make slits in sod that disappear after you place your tubing in them. We did this to hide/protect XLR cables for outdoor PA setups.
So I would first plan where the effect is going to happen, to get an idea of how much tubing you’ll need. Then experiment with connecting the bellows output to the tubing so you can keep the bellows output from popping out of the tubing connection when you stomp on it.
Once you get that figured out, assemble the tubing and elbow, bury everything well past “out of frame”, and then connect the bellows to the tubing. Ideally this setup would let you rehearse blowing out a clump of dirt and sod several times, tweaking as needed to get the right look.
Alternatively, if someone knows where you can get an inexpensive pneumatic valve - preferably electric - then I’d go with the same kind of tubing, but connect it through the valve to a compressed air tank.
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Originally Posted by subego
My new server home in my laundry room.
The rack enclosure kinda sucks, but was only $250, so I can’t complain. It’s designed as a wall-mount box, so no way to get at the back. Also not very deep, which is why I need the dual UPS. The magenta things underneath the UPS are stacks of post-it notes I’m using as cribbing.
Will ultimately hold 6 Minis as render nodes, but I’m stuck with Intel at the moment, and don’t want to max it out with legacy hardware.
Still no water issues (knock on wood), but one of my (now four) Minis just up and died. It powers up, shuts down, and powers back up in an endless loop. Display never kicks in.
I’m worried I have the rack too densely packed and cooked it.
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Does sound like PS overheating. Blow it out with compressed air? Also re-grease the heat sinks. After use in a render farm, they're probably bone dry.
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Originally Posted by ghporter
With a big enough bellows, and a big enough “stomp”, you can make the effect work.
If I’m being honest, I’m not pursuing this idea as aggressively as I should because, well… I’m being a big baby about it.
I should though. One nice thing is very little would actually need to get buried. I can hide the tubing in post.
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Originally Posted by reader50
Does sound like PS overheating. Blow it out with compressed air? Also re-grease the heat sinks. After use in a render farm, they're probably bone dry.
All massively non-trivial on a Mini unfortunately.
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Even though I hope to get this repaired, it prompted me to buy a new node with Apple silicon. I’m tentatively excited by the possible gains from 5 years and the switch to a more efficient chip architecture.
I have something of a spare room I didn’t have when I set up this rack, so for the moment it’ll go in there and escape any heating issues.
Not to mention, I picked up a cooler for it.
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On the server rack: wire shelves to separate the Minis from each other and the other equipment will help with cooling, with or without coolers. But get coolers too.
I found a solenoid pneumatic valve that looks like a good fit for your effect on Amazon. It comes in 1/8 and 1/4 NPT fitting sizes, and they have 12V, 24V and 110V (I assume AC) versions. I’d go with the 1/4”, 12V version: normal “fill your tires” compressors use 1/4” fittings making it easier to find parts, and 12V (at about 0.5A) can come from all sorts of easy to find/make sources. The solenoid can be at the air source so it’d be well out of frame.
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I'm going to disagree with Glen on the valving. The air effect you're going for must be small, unless you're simulating a mortar hit. If the valve is close to the tank, you get a lot of air committed through the line to the action point. Slower response, and worse, extended response. A simulated bullet hit should be instantaneous, not like a deflating balloon. So I'd suggest the smallest possible valve, and place it right under the release point.
In fact, I suggest two tiny valves, with a short tube (one inch?) in between. Open & close the 1st valve to charge the length in between. Then pop the final valve for the effect. Also check the specs sheet on the voltage. Use whichever voltage cycles the valve faster. Which might be the highest voltage.
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Sadly, even though I got over my tantrum, the fun police killed it anyway.
The amount of material we have to get through on that day (this Sunday) keeps growing. A whole new scene got added today, and there may be more coming. There won’t be time to deal with resetting it after every take.
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Then may I suggest Batman/silentmovie-style flash cards: BANG!
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I like that. Or a silent movie card.
Theoretically, I’m going to try to CG it. I have a good particle simulator, it’s just a question of wrestling with it.
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Another creepy fb post, this time on the wall of someone I'm about to ban, so that's a scammer scamming a scammer:
Hello ������ I seen one of your pictures could be my inspiring muse for an art project i’m working on for a client. You will totally get paid for it as well as a I was really looking forward to you.For the painting, I would be doing an oil on canvas, 50cm × 50cm portrait painting using your face or one of your posts as my inspired muse for reference. also get credits
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Another creepy fb post, this time on the wall of someone I'm about to ban, so that's a scammer scamming a scammer:
Hello 👋 I seen one of your pictures could be my inspiring muse for an art project i’m working on for a client. You will totally get paid for it as well as a I was really looking forward to you.For the painting, I would be doing an oil on canvas, 50cm × 50cm portrait painting using your face or one of your posts as my inspired muse for reference. also get credits
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Saved!
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Originally Posted by reader50
I'm going to disagree with Glen on the valving. The air effect you're going for must be small, unless you're simulating a mortar hit. If the valve is close to the tank, you get a lot of air committed through the line to the action point. Slower response, and worse, extended response. A simulated bullet hit should be instantaneous, not like a deflating balloon. So I'd suggest the smallest possible valve, and place it right under the release point.
In fact, I suggest two tiny valves, with a short tube (one inch?) in between. Open & close the 1st valve to charge the length in between. Then pop the final valve for the effect. Also check the specs sheet on the voltage. Use whichever voltage cycles the valve faster. Which might be the highest voltage.
I have to agree. I hadn’t thought it out thoroughly, and thus didn’t scale my concept properly.
subego, I like the silent movie card idea, but I also like the CGI angle. In real (and typically really old ones) they would do a physical effect on-camera, and add a card afterward. Maybe go that route?
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Apple Silicon Mini arrived early.
It’s 4 times faster than my Intel nodes.
Kudos to Tim Apple.
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My M2 Mini felt rocketship fast when I got it, but when I started using the gaming PC with gaming mouse and keyboard and 165Hz display, the Mini feels like molasses. Not sure if it's a sluggish Magic Mouse or something else but I almost dread using it? Which is weird because I've preferred OS X to Win anything forever.
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Unless you’re doing detail work, I unreservedly recommend the Magic Trackpad.
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There's nothing more relieving to me than plugging a mouse into my laptop so I don't have to use a trackpad.
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Add my vote in favor of a mouse. I can use a trackpad, but a mouse just works. Without all the finger dancing.
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Things I miss when I’m using a mouse…
Two finger right-click. As a Mac user, right clicking feels strange, but I instantly took to two finger clicking.
Two finger horizontal and vertical scrolling.
Three finger swipe between full-screen apps. I know everyone here has 16 monitors, but with only one, I can’t live without this feature.
Before anyone mentions the Magic Mouse, I’ve always gotten unintended inputs from the top, and they don’t work with MouseRugs, which are my favorite mousepads.
Edit: I also love that they take up a defined and small amount of space.
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Last edited by subego; Jun 10, 2024 at 07:02 PM.
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Originally Posted by subego
Your Apple laptop?
Any laptop, Apple or otherwise. I miss horizontal scrolling, but that's it.
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The new node is fast enough I’m thinking there might be I/O bottlenecks I can get rid of.
First test was a bust as far as rendering speed is concerned. No change switching the scratch drive from SATA to PCI T-bolt.
I’m still hopeful for the second test. Ordered an SSD RAID 0 (scary) file server with 10G Ethernet. This should smoke my 1G HDD RAID (non-scary).
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Did you check with Activity Monitor first, see what's being saturated? If drive or network, you'll see a speedup. If it's using a single thread on the new architecture or maxxing the GPU, there won't be much change.
Not sure how to isolate thermal throttling, other than seeing free capacity on all fronts. Apple doesn't have the best rep for systems that can run 100% for 24/7. Often they undersize the heat sinks.
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I like trackpads for most things, but anything that requires precision is much easier for me with a mouse. Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s not…
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Not just you
Originally Posted by reader50
Did you check with Activity Monitor first, see what's being saturated?
I should have but did not. Didn’t want to Heisenberg my speed benchmarks. Not the best reason, but’s that’s what it was.
Now that I have, rendering uses about half the CPU and half the RAM. No GPU metrics in Activity Monitor, and the network monitoring is so spartan it didn’t give me a good idea of how much I’m stressing the Ethernet. Luckily, I can get the latter off the sever. If I’m reading it right, a single node isn’t going fast enough to saturate a 1G connection (most of the time), but multiple nodes will, and I definitely plan on getting more.
As far as the thermals go, 95°C appears to be the target CPU temp. I put the fan on full-blast, which dropped the temp by 30°. No change in the CPU load between the two settings.
Edit: with the GPU enabled, I’m getting a grand total of 6.4x faster on the Apple Silicon (M2 Pro 12/19/16 - 32GB RAM) over the Intel (6-core [email protected] GHz - 64GB RAM). The Intel Mini graphics card is such hot garbage enabling it makes renders slower.
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Last edited by subego; Jun 13, 2024 at 05:46 PM.
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Originally Posted by subego
No GPU metrics in Activity Monitor ...
They're semi-hidden. Activity Monitor -> Window -> GPU History (or command-4)
Also, you can right-click on the columns, and enable "% GPU" or "GPU Time".
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Cooler arrived. Drops it 10° to about 85°C, but for whatever reason causes the internal fan to rev up about 2-400 RPM over non-cooled. Still, I assume the drop is mostly the cooler.
Any suggestions for what I should set as my target temp?
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If you keep beer in the cooler too, suggest 35º F. If no beer, set fan speed by your noise tolerance. Or try different temps, and see if rendering speed changes. Maybe you'll find a sweet spot - max rendering speed is maintained up to X temperature.
I doubt rendering speed will be affected much, so I'd go by noise tolerance.
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Right now, “server room” volume is fine.
I guess I’ll go crazy and set the target for 60°C.
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With the latest batch of footage, it was able to stay below 60° with anywhere between 5-700RPM to spare. Since it seems designed for 95, I’m sure it’ll be happy.
Of course, it’s out in the open right now. Once I rack it up all bets are off.
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Any change in rendering speed, at the lower ambient temp?
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Shoot was canceled yesterday, so I ripped out the eero, which was a disaster, and replaced it with an Orbi.
Also put in a Ring, and wouldn’t you know it, I immediately find a freak in the backyard.
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Your van is not only under 30K miles, it still looks like it's fresh off the dealer lot. My guess is it's good for another 30 years at your usage profile.
Unless you run into those salted roads I hear about. Cars in CA rarely die of frame rotting. But I've seen the horror pics underneath vehicles from the northeast.
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Why, thank you.
I like my car washes, garage has protected it from unnecessary elemental wear, and it’s had rustproofing/underside coating which has held out so far (knock on wood).
I’ve managed to fuck it up more in the past month than the last 9 years. Swiped my garage backing in, and dented the front license plate on a concrete wall. You can juuuust barely see the left side of the plate is caved in.
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Originally Posted by subego
Shoot was canceled yesterday, so I ripped out the eero, which was a disaster, and replaced it with an Orbi.
What didn't work about the eero? Our fiber company provides an eero and after more than a decade of cable internet problems, I've never had such a problem-free modem/wifi situation. The modem sits in the basement so I bought the extender and plugged it into the upstairs hallway, zero problems with coverage or transitioning between sources, which was never the case before.
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Originally Posted by Laminar
I've never had such a problem-free modem/wifi situation.
I know. You singing its praises is why I got it.
I’ve put them in at my dad’s and at work. Unfortunately, both are unstable. They start fine and then slowly degrade. It begins with longer and longer lags before a site will load, and then after awhile it dies completely. Turning off IVP6 didn’t help. It could be a DNS problem, but I’m tired of fucking with it at this point. I can’t really run a security camera without solid WiFi.
Edit: a neat trick the Orbi taught me is the format for a WiFi login QR code…
WIFI:S:[SSID];T:[Security Type];P:[Password];;
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Finally getting around to that “bullet hit” effect. I was grumpy about not being allowed to do a practical, but with this at least I get to do an impossible, crazy, cartoon mayhem version.
In other news, Director Sean has COVID again.
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Aaaand… we lost a cat again. Her mom was the vegan, so my plans for meat trolling were for naught.
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