NOT AWESOME

Last year, I discovered the joy of Google Auto Awesome, http://www.qaptainqwerty.com/2013/07/google-auto-awesome-is-awesome.html .  The idea is simple enough.  Take a series of photos of a scene and Goolge Photo intelligently recognizes the moving elements and the still background to cobble together a nifty animated GIF, or a mini movie.  As the name suggests, the work is done automatically.  It seemed to be a great idea and I made a few such "animations" but my latest attempt failed.  The animGIF below was not made by Google Auto Awesome but instead was done on my Mac laptop using GIFfun.  I took a series of photos, which I think show my mini-me, in CubeeCraft form, running in a circle.  Admittedly the background is not constant, but it looks pretty much the same from frame to frame.  Only to me, as it turned out, and not to Auto Awesome.  Awesome takes its sweet time to make the anim so at first I thought it would be just a matter of time.  Maybe I have too many photos and it takes time to scan them and auto-detect the animation.  I took the photos one night before going to bed.  The next morning, still no anim from the photos.  I waited a few hours then gave up and made the animGIF with GIFfun, which I got for free off the Stone Design web site, http://www.stone.com/GIFfun/ .  Thank you, Stone!

I think the uniform color of the floor may have confused Auto Awesome.  I plan to take another shot at it, this time with some other objects in the foreground, colorful objects that make them look different from the floor.  Stay tuned!

GOING AROUND WALTER WHITE

Google Auto Awesome is awesome but it has limits.  I already made a GIF animation by taking still shots of an object (CubeeCraft Hello Kitty) spinning around.  But what if I want to go around the object instead, like in that flying eagle kick in The Matrix?  On the first try, I had a CubeeCraft Walter White of Breaking Bad fame on a stool in my living room then I moved around it taking photos.  I discovered that doing so the object can appear at different distance from the camera.  Besides, my living room is shown in the background.  So for the second attempt I went to the backyard and have two stools side by side to eliminate the varying distance between Walter and the camera.  I only made eight or nine shots so the "animation" is in no way smooth.  The three-legged stools only butt against each other smoothly at certain angles and there is only so much room on my back porch.  Alas, Auto Awesome can only do animations when the foreground object moves and the background stays, or at least some reference points stay so.  I expected that to be the case but I wanted to confirm it and confirm I did.

To make the animation below, I first downloaded the photos from Google Photos, then upload them to GIFNINJA.COM.  The link to the anim on gifnina is http://gifninja.com/animated-gifs/690633/around-walter-white .  It is far from perfect but it's a start.

In other news, I have a surplus of My Coke Rewards (MCR) points and there is a 120-point cap for the week, so I'll give some away both to clear them out and to attract readers.  Free, come and get it!  Today's code is from a Powerade bottle I found during this morning's run to Coney Island's Riegelmann Boardwalk, where I saw that the Shark Bridge was already gone.  Drum rolls please!

H5F56WV5B0MN9K

It's possible that someone already used the code but it's unlikely.  I am sure some Coke drinkers don't even know that Powerade carry MCR points.  Of course, it's a good chance shortly after this blog post is published someone grabbed the code.  First come first served!  For tracking purpose, I'd appreciate a thank-you note in the Comments if you are the first to use the code.

Thanks go to GIFNinja.com for providing the tool to make the animation.

SPIN, KITTY, SPIN!

What's up, pussycat?  Auto Awesome is up, that's what!  And CubeeCraft, too.  I love paper-folding and animation, so it's perfect to combine the power of Google Auto Awesome and CubeeCraft free paper toys.  If you have lots of free time, Google for "cubeecraft" and some fictional character's name, chances are there is a paper model for you to see.  Download the page to the computer then print it out on a color printer.  It's been a while since I got involved with making cubees, so the first one I printed I did so straight from the web browser and some parts of the page got cut off.  Use thick paper so that the pieces can withstand the frequent handling while you assemble the model.  Feed through the Manual slot, as the paper may be too heavy to be processed via the paper tray.  Cut the pieces with a scissor then make the slits with a hobby knife, which in my days of taking Career Drafting class was known as an X-Acto knife.  Lastly, fold the pieces and connect them, notches to slots etc.  Usually there's a head, a body, a pair of legs in one piece, and two arms.  Some characters may have something in their hands, like a lightsaber for Darth Vader.  Most have perfectly cubic head, but some are not and requires extra cutting and snipping.  I messed up a bit with the Hello Kitty model and had to use tape to re-attach some parts but by design you don't need to use glue or tape at all.  The models are made for viewing and not playing, so it's best to keep out of children's reach.  Good luck with that...

http://www.cubeecraft.com/cubee/hello-kitty

Stop-motion GIF of Hello Kitty spinning around and around.  With this post I discovered that to share the GIF in Blogger, you just insert the file made by Auto Awesome.  No need to download it and re-upload.  Cool!

More Cubees

It was the evening before Valentine's Day and perhaps I should be making Val-09 ( http://www.cubeecraft.com/cubee/val-09 ), but I'm done with Valentine's Day years ago - it's just another day for the florists and candy stores rip the men's wallet. Instead, I made Darth Vader, partly to go with another project I was working on with my son. Just last week, for some reason son is suddenly interested in putting together the 3D globe that Aunt O gave him. It appeared difficult to assemble, but once you sort out all the pieces by number range, e.g. 0 to 100, 101 to 200, then even sub-sort the ranges, it was pretty easy. You have to go around the globe, but we are making pretty good progress. The Star Wars fan in me could not help thinking of the destroyed Death Star and I had to make a Darth Vader cubee to go with it. Eventually, I plan to make a bunch of Stormtroopers to line up as Vader march through the lines.


Darth Vader is my second Cubee. The first was Mario, of Nintendo fame. What scene can one possibly make with Mario and Darth Vader. How about, [heavy breathing], "Mario, I am your father!" ?

Cubeecraft.com

There is so much out there on the Internet it is next to impossible to keep up with the fun stuff available. Thanks to my Twitter follower Jake Marsh I learned about Cubeecraft.com. While the creation of Cubeecraft are paper-based, they are not origami as it involves scissors and other cutting tools. Still, perhaps because of the pop culture facet of the design, it is a lot of fun. I salute the designer Chris Beaumont for all the great work!

I decided to give it a try and chose Mario, from the Nintendo game, just because it is something my son would recognize. Much as I would love to use all the scrap paper I have, Cubeecraft toys really should be made with thicker paper, not your standard 20-lb office stuff. Using scissor is fine for the beginning, but when it comes to the small areas, an X-acto knife is ideal.

If you have the patience, give Cubeecraft a try. My first handiwork took me like about an hour, all done in one night. It is shown here atop my Time Machine network hard drive and next to a trackball, to provide a sense of scale. The pieces stay together without glue or tape, but are not strong enough to be treated as dolls, so they are good for display purpose only.