Make the coolest intro for your HTPC

[sebrock]

First things first:

I have gotten a lot of PM's asking about my avatar lately. Now I decided to make a simple guide on how to make your own "20th century FOX"-intro. First of all credits goes to another dude on another forum (can't find it right now, sorry... well, you know if you should have cred or not ).

Secondly:
This thing involves rendering, which could be a quite comprehensive task for a simple home computer. If you decide to make the clip in 720p (1280x720) it will take around 40-50 hours depending on your CPU (clip will finally be around 20 secs with 30 frames/sec). As for me doing it with a AMD64 3000+ it took around 50h. Anyway, before you render your stuff in full resolution, try a much smaller one (with correct aspect ratios), and you can see a nice result after only an hour or so.

Third (requirements):
In order to do this you must start by downloading the excellent open-source animation app called Blender (only 8mb). I did it with v. 2.42, but latest should be fine. Then download my attachment which is a ready made template where the only thing YOU need to change is the text.

Working with Blender
Some things could be good to explain about Blender. But basically it's pretty straight forward. Any problems just PM me .

- Selecting items is done with a right mouse click (which is strange, don't ask me why)
- Editing selected text is done with TAB. Also to end editing.
- Changing size of text is easy: select, out of edit mode, just drag the green handle to scale the height, red handle to scale the width.
- The Gkey will grab items (such as text) and you should be able to move them

If something is not understood, just try and fiddle with it... trail n' error will take you a long way.

Rendering:
Now this is the critical part. You could animate the whole sequence right away, but this means that your CPU will be at 100% for ~45h, if you get a crash... blame B.Gates and start all over

OR you are smart and just render a frame at a time, this way if something happens you just start the rendering process from your last frame. And you can split the job by many days, just continue when you don't use the computer.

So, when you are satisfied with the picture, press the first button in the rendering section. Choose your settings. I did it in JPEG at 1280x720 and 600 frames. Press render and very slowly the first picture in the sequence will build on your screen. Press F3 to get back to Blender.

Again, fiddle around with settings and resolutions before you start.

Afterwork:
When all done, you should have 600 JPEGs in your chosen folder. These must now be merged together. There are many simple programs for this, like PhotoLapse. Also you would like to put the original 5.1 AC3 sound into the clip. This could be done with Neros video editing program, which also will allow you to create a nice "fade-out" effect on the end of the clip.

Note: This was actually more work than I thought to explain it all. However, if you need any more help feel free to PM me and I try to answer. Otherwise, trying things out and checking manual/help files for blender will probably explain a lot.

[verhohner]

Thanks very much for this Guide! I just startet to experiment with it. But I couln't find were to set the frame to Render as well as the resolution of it. Can you help me?

What do you think how long it takes to render the scene in 1366x768?

[sebrock]

Originally Posted by verhohner

Thanks very much for this Guide! I just startet to experiment with it. But I couln't find were to set the frame to Render as well as the resolution of it. Can you help me?

What do you think how long it takes to render the scene in 1366x768?

All these settings are in the render menu. I'm sitting in Linux right now, but as I remember the rendering settings are all based in the lower right corner of the screen.

And about the time it takes, well... I don't know what CPU you have. But remember that increasing the resolution (with the same aspects) *should* be the square of time. All I can say is that a 1280x720 for me took about 50h on an AMD64 3000+

[verhohner]

Ok, I have found the option for the resolution. Can you tell me were I can select the frames to render too? Maybe I can install blender on some other pc's here and render 50 frames on each per day or so. Than it would be done very quickly...

[samuel337]

Very cool. Would work well with Vista DreamScene too - wonder if we can get MP to support an opening animation, like MCE has when it starts.

Sam

[Noelix]

This looks pretty sweet, I'll give it a shot. So do you have the video launch when you start up the computer, or when you start up MP...? Or do you have it as the desktop somehow? I'm confused as to how you automate it when MP starts, or if you just have it as a video in your myvideos folder.

[verhohner]

I think he the video shows up if he starts a video out of his "my videos" folder.

[sebrock]

I'm glad you like it. It's actually very cool.

As of now I just have it as a "show off" file in My Videos. But an automated video at MP startup would be very cool. Personally I think having it to run every time you play a movie or open My Videos would quickly become irritating, remember it is 20 secs.

I forgot to mention one thing: If any of you have a "flicker" problem on some of the frames. Either you can try another version (this was a known issue with 2.42, don't know about 2.43) or simply open the actual frame in PS and manually fix it. Easy job.

Good Luck!

[mzemina]

Originally Posted by samuel337

Very cool. Would work well with Vista DreamScene too - wonder if we can get MP to support an opening animation, like MCE has when it starts.

Sam

You know that is a great idea! Instead of the simlple splash to instead allow a .mov or .avi to be used as a real "splash" - maybe also allow the version to be displayed in the lower left or right over the top of the video while it is playing.

It would be fantastic to allow this as an option in the configuration to allow a video "splash" - But I am sure by allowing this, it would take much longer to start up MP, but it would be great to fade out the video and then fade in the MP start/home screen then!

Great idea!

[sebrock]

I got a PM asking about the 5.1 AC3 "Fox intro sound". I have already extracted this and it is bundled within the zip.

Enjoy!