iTunes animations

bigben · October 23, 2008, 07:07:07 AM

Hi All

I've been messing around with WordPress and iTunes. I've set up a podcast that I'll use for future animations. It currently contains my old 4 seasons in one day (TG0.9 and TerraTweak) and a fly through of an early version of my Grand Canyon terrain set.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=294152076

inkydigit · October 23, 2008, 05:11:25 PM

awesome stuff, Ben...are you going to edit a soundtrack?...I loved both, reminds me of why I love terragen!

old_blaggard · October 23, 2008, 06:09:21 PM

Nice animations - I hadn't seen the first one

. This is a really good idea.

Oshyan · October 24, 2008, 01:21:55 AM

Bummer, I hate iTunes. But would love to see some more animations from ya.

- Oshyan

old_blaggard · October 24, 2008, 01:55:11 AM

I realize that many people have trouble with the fact that most of the tracks they sell are DRM'd, but I don't quite see why it's not a perfectly good podcast tool. I'm not defending Apple here, I'm just curious about your opinion

.

bigben · October 24, 2008, 02:00:07 AM

Quote from: Oshyan on October 24, 2008, 01:21:55 AM
Bummer, I hate iTunes. But would love to see some more animations from ya.

- Oshyan

That's the good thing about using WordPress to generate the RSS for iTunes. You don't have to like iTunes

Website: http://podcast.bigben.id.au/
(no design yet)

RSS feed: http://podcast.bigben.id.au/?feed=podcast

Not a final URL though. I'll probably move everything back to my main site after testing is completed. There is a compatibility issue between the plugin and version control in the new version of WP, so it wil stay where it is until this is resolved.

I'm working on two small animation projects at the moment.

1: Growing leaves on trees using animated masks and surfacing.
2: Adding a breeze by creating different tree/grass models on the fly via Arbaro.

reck · October 24, 2008, 03:28:54 AM

Shame we have to install iTunes to view your animations

I'm sure they are great.

bigben · October 25, 2008, 12:17:01 AM

Posts are stlightly out of order. The previous post arrived before my previous reply

Oshyan · October 25, 2008, 04:17:17 AM

As a Windows user I don't like iTunes because it is an invasive, bloated, resource-hungry, and IMO poorly designed (UI) application. It is unintuitive to me, needlessly restrictive (par for the course for Apple in my experience), and generally crappy. I understand on a Mac, with more integration and with fewer great, free alternatives (like Winamp, AIM, MediaMonkey, etc.), it's probably the bee's knees, but on Windows the only reason I'd say anyone should ever consider it would be if they have an iPod. But I'd never recommend an iPod either for the same reasons as above (well, mainly the needless restriction and proprietaryness). And there are also better, free tools for managing iPod's on Windows. Anyway, I digress. I think pretty much all Apple software on Windows is crappy.

- Oshyan

Mohawk20 · October 25, 2008, 09:54:12 AM

Quote from: Oshyan on October 25, 2008, 04:17:17 AM
As a Windows user I don't like iTunes because it is an invasive, bloated, resource-hungry, and IMO poorly designed (UI) application. It is unintuitive to me, needlessly restrictive (par for the course for Apple in my experience), and generally crappy. I understand on a Mac, with more integration and with fewer great, free alternatives (like Winamp, AIM, MediaMonkey, etc.), it's probably the bee's knees, but on Windows the only reason I'd say anyone should ever consider it would be if they have an iPod. But I'd never recommend an iPod either for the same reasons as above (well, mainly the needless restriction and proprietaryness). And there are also better, free tools for managing iPod's on Windows. Anyway, I digress. I think pretty much all Apple software on Windows is crappy.

- Oshyan

I do so totally agree with that...!

old_blaggard · October 25, 2008, 03:02:44 PM

All right, makes sense to me

.

bigben · October 25, 2008, 05:21:45 PM

I also agree with these comments. I created the test site mainly as a demo for a potential employer who was interested in podcasting (The university has set up an iTunes U site). It will be interesting to see how long the university keeps their site updated properly as they have also set up a custom site on Google Video, as well as using YouTube to distribute video. A lot of it is certainly knee-jerk reactions by the marketing guys and it will be interesting to see how well their latest venture lasts.

For me the best part of the demo is that you can provide the iTunes site as an alternative to those who do like it with only a small addition to the content on you web site. You're not creating content exclusively for iTunes, merely producing an additional version of exisitng content. This effectively provides some "fad-proofing" of the site. Shut down the iTunes feed and you still have all of the content online without requiring any reworking. In fact you can shut down the iTunes site without removing the RSS feed for iTunes, which provides an RSS feed with a link to the movie.

Oshyan · October 25, 2008, 06:52:06 PM

Yeah, now that I see the non-iTunes link I see it's a lot more versatile, which is good. I'm all for repurposing content in multiple ways. Looking forward to seeing some new animations from you!

- Oshyan