carol.gimp.org

use GIMP

Me and TheGIMP were able to make a movie that ran on a simulated building on my computer. I had fun. There are worse ways to spend these holiday times.

In another time and in another place, I saw real player showing an image of the building showing a movie of a projection of futurama. Not the one where Fry gets worms, a different one; with Shatner in it.

other software & stuff

• the project
• the simulator
• the mini project

And then one day, you ask yourself: Was it live or was it real player?

the original was a gif

choose an image

This is probably the hardest step: it a very small image area, so it is difficult to make an image that makes sense visually and this small image is going to move as well.

figure out the motion

I chose a simple animation. I am going to move this train through an 18x18 image area:

Ten times the area:

index with a palette

I indexed my image using a palette with seven colors.

Use Zoom.

I duplicated the layer and moved it one pixel at a time.

I think there was a plug-in that could have and would have done this.

I would do things differently if I did this again. I might use gap and the ken burns effect, maybe I would write a script. No matter how you do this, it would probably take the same amount of time each time you tackle it.

This image probably was cropped to be 18X18pixels and later scaled to make the blinkenthing.

download

I used snarf and got things from Sven.

carol@treva:~$ snarf http://sven.gimp.org/blinkenlights/blib-1.1.4.tar.gz
http://sven.gimp.org/blinkenlights/blib-1.1.4.tar.gz (537K)
blib-1.1.4.tar.gz         [###############################]     537K |   77.39K/s
550402 bytes transferred in 6.95 sec (77.38k/sec)
carol@treva:~$ snarf http://sven.gimp.org/blinkenlights/blinkentools-2.5.tar.gz
http://sven.gimp.org/blinkenlights/blinkentools-2.5.tar.gz (528K)
blinkentools-2.5.tar.gz   [###############################]     528K |   76.45K/s
541411 bytes transferred in 6.92 sec (76.43k/sec)
carol@treva:~$ snarf http://sven.gimp.org/blinkenlights/blinkensim-2.5.tar.gz
http://sven.gimp.org/blinkenlights/blinkensim-2.5.tar.gz (82K)
blinkensim-2.5.tar.gz     [###############################]      82K |   68.88K/s
84548 bytes transferred in 1.20 sec (68.84k/sec)
carol@treva:~$ snarf http://sven.gimp.org/blinkenlights/blinkenthemes-0.9.tar.gz
http://sven.gimp.org/blinkenlights/blinkenthemes-0.9.tar.gz (2600K)
blinkenthemes-0.9.tar.gz  [########                       ]     714K |   76.35K/s
2662997 bytes transferred in 34.30 sec (75.81k/sec)
  

install and use

Even though blinkensim is available for me to use, I only play with it when they do. The software is easy enough to install and the tools are simple to use. You can get the creeps when you just leave it installed yet unused, on your computer. Simple to get rid of when you are finished playing with it would have to be a selling feature to this blinkensim holiday. Just follow the instructions in the README to install.

Find out things about the tools with auto-completion and --help.

carol@treva:~$ b2<tab>
b2b    b2blm  b2bml  b2gif  b2mng  
carol@treva:~$ b2b -v
b2b (blinkentools version 2.5)
carol@treva:~$ b2b -h 

b2b - a format converter for Blinkenlights movies.
Check http://www.blinkenlights.de/ for more information.

Usage: b2b [options] <filename>
Options:
   -o, --output <filename>    write to file instead of stdout
   -t, --type=[blm|bml|gif]   specifies output type
   -b, --bits=<number>        number of significant bits in output
   -i, --invert               invert movie
   -g, --gamma=<factor>       gamma-adjust all frames
   -f, --flip=[hor|ver]       flip movie (defaults to horizontal)
   -r, --reverse              reverse movie
   -s, --speed=<percent>      adjust movie speed
   -l, --loop=[yes|no]        set/unset loop flag
   -i, --info                 show info about the movie, don't convert it
   -h, --help                 output usage information
   -v, --version              output version information

carol@treva:~$ b2b -o steamtrain.bml -b 8 -t  bml  steamtrain.gif 
  

blinkensim-gtk

Here is how I got blinkensim showing my movie:

carol@treva:~$ blinkensim-gtk -h
blinkensim version 2.5

Usage: blinkensim-gtk [options] <theme> [host[:port]]
  Use host[:port] to request packets from a blinkenproxy
Options:
   -l, --list                 list available themes and quit
   -p, --port=<port>          local UDP port to listen to
   -h, --help                 output usage information
   -v, --version              output version information

carol@treva:~$ blinkensim-gtk -l
blinkensim version 2.5

Available themes:
  bnf-72x54             Bibliothéque Nationale de France (26x20) on 72x54
  bnf-144x108           Bibliothéque Nationale de France (Paris) (26x20) on 144x108
  bnf-288x216           Bibliothéque Nationale de France (Paris) (26x20) on 288x216
  bnf-576x432           Bibliothéque Nationale de France (Paris) (26x20) on 576x432
  bnf-640x480           Bibliothéque Nationale de France (Paris) (26x20) on 640x480
  bnf-800x600           Bibliothéque Nationale de France (Paris) (26x20) on 800x600
  gondwana-640x120      Nation of Gondwana (16x3) on 640x120
  hdl-144x108           Haus des Lehrers (Berlin) (18x8) on 144x108
  hdl-640x480           Haus des Lehrers (Berlin) (18x8) on 640x480
  hdl-800x600           Haus des Lehrers (Berlin) (18x8) on 800x600
  hdl-1024x768          Haus des Lehrers (Berlin) (18x8) on 1024x768

carol@treva:~$ blinkensim-gtk hdl-640x480 &
[6] 23538
carol@treva:~$ blinkensim version 2.5
Using theme 'Haus des Lehrers (Berlin)' (18x8) at size 640x480
Listening on port 2323 for Blinkenlights packets

carol@treva:~$ bsend steamtrain.bml 
No host specified, using localhost.
Loaded 'steamtrain.gif' (18x8) channels=1 maxval=255 (124 frames, 6.20 s)
Sending to 1 host(s) ...

carol@treva:~$