[CREATE] VR of LGM

[Yuval Levy]

Hi all,

I have some VR to share from LGM 2007 - in chronological order:
<http://www.photopla.net/070503lgm>
<http://www.photopla.net/070504lgm>
<http://www.photopla.net/070505lgm>
<http://www.photopla.net/070506lgm>
<http://www.photopla.net/070507sat>

I've tried to use as much OpenSource software as possible to produce
them - more on the workflow choices below.

It is possible to view most of the content with OpenSource software and
all of it with Free software.

Specifically for Linux 64 bit the best option is
<http://freepv.sourceforge.net/> - select QuickTime in the drop down
menu on the web page.

Since we have a Google Summer of Code student working on improving this
viewer, bug reports, improvements requests, etc. are all welcome on
<http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=148373>

The first link is just Alexandre, Pablo and myself on the night I
fetched them from the airport. This is the restaurant we could finally
settle on after walking half the city by night.

The second link is a whole bunch from the Friday evening. There is even
one with background music (first time I do this) - apology for Linux 64
systems, background music streaming requires Flash. Maybe it works with
Gnash? reports and suggestions for improvement are welcome. I did not
want to use QuickTime to play the sound, because the file format is
proprietary. I know that unfortunately the Flash panorama player does
not work with Gnash - thanks Hubert for trying to get that one to work.

The third link are presentations. There are two VR for the Krita
presentation, but I actually took all the slides and wanted to use that
presentation to test making a slideshow within the VR. Might still come
later on - don't despair :-) There are proprietary efforts (DevalVR)
that do this, and integrate even flash movies inside the VR - though my
goal is to make my content as player-independent as possible.

Interesting in that third link is the social evening at the Vietnamese
restaurant as well as the local bar - you will notice some difference
between the first and second VR at the bar. Beer has an effect on arts
and models =8^)

The fourth link is from the Sunday. For those who missed it there is a
sightseeing of Montreal from the Belvedere, as well as a hugin-stitched
VR of Pablo's presentation.

Last but not least, those who were around Monday morning got to walk
inside a VR at SAT. See that, as well as the Chinese restaurant lunch
table with mostly Gimp people at the last link.

The production and publishing environment is a mix of proprietary and
Open Source tools. As a user, I am uncompromisingly selfish and in my
own self interest my first priority is to produce the best possible
quality in the least amount of time. Whether it is FLOSS, proprietary,
or whatever hybrid, that's a secondary consideration.

The process is made up of three stages: production - authoring -
publishing. While production is mostly desktop-based, authoring is
mostly server-based and publishing is fully web-based. The underlying
O/S for those three phases were Windows XP / FreeBSD 6.2 / FreeBSD 6.2
and I can give more details about my process and the individually
selected application if there is interest. Be warned however that I have
no allegiance to anything else but my performance and thus some of my
choices and comments might not be welcome by some in the FLOSS community
who are uncompromising about the FLOSS vs. proprietary argument.

As an example, even though I love hugin and I invest a lot of time into
supporting it and helping it become the application of choice for VR
artists like me, almost all the VRs linked above are produced with
PTgui, a proprietary application. This is because I am still faster on
PTgui for a number of reasons. Hugin has plenty of revolutionary
features on which PTgui lags, but my overall performance is still better
with PTgui and that's decisive for the trade-off.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy interacting with the VRs as much as I enjoyed
making them and meeting you at LGM2007.

Yuv