13 ms·
The engineer preserving the last analog motion graphics machine (2017) [video]
- iaw 5y agoThe seemingly handwritten manual was great.
- kilovoltaire 5y agoI love the use of patch cables to make graphics, like a visual modular synthesizer
- themodelplumber 5y agoFor real. It'd be interesting to see a Reason-like software interface with plug-in cabling for motion graphics. Node-based is cool, but it's also neat to see how the physical hardware worked.
- legerdemain 5y agoHe even pronounces Moog correctly, /moʊg/!
- MurMan 5y agoNoticed that, too. He lives in Fletcher, NC about 20 minutes from Ashville, the home of Moog.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoI thought the home of Bob Moog was somewhere in upstate New York?
- S_A_P 5y agoThe company is in Asheville NC. They even allow tours.
- 2ndseq 5y agoThese folks make modern modular video synths: https://lzxindustries.net https://lzxindustries.net
- kall 5y agoIt‘s not the same thing but I feel like you may get a kick out of the Ming Mecca [0]. It‘s a hardware patchable video game creation system. It‘s a really inspiring concept to me and I hope to play with one someday. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Mecca https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Mecca
- seg_lol 5y agoThis is about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanimate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanimate an analog video synth. I had hoped that it was about a mechanical optical printer that could composite and project multiple film images. The closest thing I can think of was a multihead, aerial-image optical printer built by Ub Iwerks for Disney. If anyone has knowledge of such devices I love to hear it. Apparently it could composite text, animation and live images. http://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/2015/10/optical-effects-magical-moments.html http://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/2015/10/optical-effects...
- anigbrowl 5y agoAre you perhaps thinking of Slitscan, famously used by Douglas Trumbull to produce the stargate scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey?? https://indiefilmhustle.com/stanley-kubrick-slit-scan-2001/ https://indiefilmhustle.com/stanley-kubrick-slit-scan-2001/
- seg_lol 5y agoThere is an amazing 100m lecture from Douglas Trumbull linked from above, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBaZQojd1_s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBaZQojd1_s This is super cool, but not the optical setup I thinking of.
- philistine 5y agoWhen he says the Scanimate had a scene in the first Star Wars, he most certainly means the Death Star plans animation shown during the briefing before the Trench Run. Nothing else in Star Wars looks like what this crazy machine outputs. I knew that the plans show an equatorial "cannon" because the scene used an earlier design of the Death Star, but I didn’t know it used an analog machine to make them. I wrongly assumed it was made by a digital computer.
- hashmash 5y agoI don't think the Scanimate was used for this. This video shows a digital computer being used to create the animated trench sequence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMeSw00n3Ac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMeSw00n3Ac
- jbluepolarbear 5y agoI think this is what scanimate was used for: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Overbridge/Legends?file=DS_command_deck.png https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Overbridge/Legends?file=DS_...
- hashmash 5y agoReally? Why? It looks like a static image in the movie.
- skhr0680 5y agoMaybe it’s this: youtube.com/watch?v=AA_D__HMuFw&t=229s
- BBC-vs-neolibs 5y agoThat looks very plausible. It looks low resolution and video like. Remember, the Scanimate is SD video.
- 5y ago
- kencausey 5y agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15314486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15314486
- ChrisArchitect 5y agoand OP already shared this again 5 months ago
- kilovoltaire 5y agoIf you're wondering why I shared it again, I got an email(!) from HN inviting me to share it again, which is an interesting thing I didn't know existed You can read more about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 And see other invited posts here: https://news.ycombinator.com/invited https://news.ycombinator.com/invited
- ChrisArchitect 5y agofairplay. thx for clarification
- vzaliva 5y agocan it be emulated digitally? :) Seriously, this way it could be preserved for eternity.
- anigbrowl 5y agoYes, probably easily in these GPU days. I have an many excellent hardware and software implementations of analog modular synthesizers; it' soften easier to plan a patch virtually before doing it in hardware (where it does sound better but behave less predictably). Synthesizing color video might be a bit more work, but not that much more; I have analog synth patches that display animated logos and even allow you to play pong when hooked up to an oscilloscope (analog or digital). It's absolutely doable.
- kragen 5y agoProbably worth pointing at Dave Sieg's own YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHjkMThH0aE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHjkMThH0aE
- torh 5y agoThanks. Also, check out his website: http://scanimate.com/ http://scanimate.com/
- bsenftner 5y agoAnyone else notice the Bob Dobbs, Church of the SubGenius logo, on the monitor behind Dave Sieg's head in several of the shots? So rare, the logo's placement in this documentary piece is them being cheeky.
- mrguyorama 5y agoSomeone should show this guy blender's (or similar software's) node based shader and now geometry pipelines. I bet he'd love how you can similarly play with "dials" and sliders to view realtime changes in visuals and shapes. What a beautiful machine.