Recently, I have been seen creating scenarios in the Ashram, mostly Roman villas and a few government buildings, along with the necessary Latrina near the Roman Gateway, the idea behind which is that I’d take some background screenshots, but as I was doing these, something occurred to me — it might be good if some of the backgrounds were ANIMATED.
Well, easy enough, although severely taxing on your graphics storage system, but not all backgrounds SHOULD be animated, if you know what I mean.
Just in case you don’t, I’ll take the time to tell you:
- NOTHING — If nothing in the picture animates, don’t make a video, shoot a photo.
- SOMETHING — If something animates but not much, take a snapshot.
- ELSEWISE — If there’s strong and obvious animation, do a video.
Now, in case you found something worth making into an animated background, lemme tell you that you’d better make sure that the CENTER of your shot doesn’t matter. What DOES matter are the SIDES of the shot, and that’s where the animation needs to be, generally equally on both sides.
If that isn’t possible, then seek the help of the Guide of the Western Realm. What I mean is, if the animation can’t be seen on the sides, then when someone is sitting in front of the screen, you won’t see hardly any animation, if you see any animation at all.
My problem in marketing the animated screens is that you can’t show them animated on eBay — they don’t allow it.
So how do you CONVEY the impression of the animated virtual background when they can’t actually see the thing happening?
Well, frankly, damned if I know what might work and what might not.
I’ve put a bunch of animated and still frame backgrounds up on eBay, on my “Rare and Unusual” page — don’t ask me to post the url again — and they’re worth at least taking a glance, just to see what I’ve done there, in hopes of inspiring YOU to go forth and do likewise.
If you’ve got any ideas how to market the damn things, lemme know, willya?
In the meantime, if you like these, let me know, give me some feedback — of course, the best feedback is to buy the set you’re interested in using. This gives me some idea where to proceed from here.
I’ve done a LOT of different examples from every country I could think of off the cuff, including Schleswig-Holstein, and of course, the post office in downtown Tierra del Fuego.
Look, I don’t think I’ll get a fraction of the backgrounds up that I can create in the Ashram or in the Godd™ Games Engine.
It’s amazing that we can recreate ancient civilizations and take screenshots of them, and use them in ZOOM meetings to indicate a particular presence, state or location.
In one application, I’m planning to create a set of interiors in BardoTown — it can be Godd level or Ashram or both, but the idea is to create the conditions for a LRPG, which translates to “Live Role-Playing Game”, which is the subject of many dungeon parties.
You could appear as a merchant or as a voyager, or as a specialist or more. The idea is that you are where you say you are.
How about THAT for a magical operation, eh?
See You At The Top!!!
gorby