New Pan Tilt Head

Well I had to wait 3 weeks for it, but it finally arrived in the post this week! It's a Pan and Tilt Camera Head from Servo City. This web site is sells just about everything you need if you are into designing and building your own robot contraptions. This head will be the basis for all of my bench testing as I try to construct my own DIY Motion Control Camera Rig.

The head is designed for use with an RC servo. But I'm planning to use stepper motors with it. So there will need to be a few major modifications to the head before I can show it in action. I'm starting a relationship with a local fabrication shop here in Adelaide to help me with some of the tricky parts.

The first step is to model it all in 3D so I can make changes to the design and send the files to the engineer for a quote (well, that's the idea anyway)

The two main changes I will need to make are:
1.) Retro fit the stepper motors. Each with it's own worm gear box.
2.) Make it possible for nodal point offsets. This is essential if I want to make a good panoramic stitch from multiple images. It's also important for extracting 3D move data if I'm shooting a Visual Effects shot.

Here's some pictures!

Solem And RB7 Turntable

Here's two Characters I Designed, Modelled, Textured and Rigged for a short film I am working on called First Light.




Below are the Maquettes that we used as reference while shooting the miniature sets which would later serve as background plates for the final compostie. I sculpted these myself at 1:10 scale out of super sculpey.

The Bottom character, RB7 was made from a robot toy that I re-proportioned to match the CG character. The head, calves and chest piece were the only parts made from super sculpey. A friend from film school helped me out with his head due to time constraints.

Thinktank "Suitor"

This was a Promo Clip for Thinktank's European Tour in 2003. The clip was shot at two different venues in Adelaide. I edited the video and shot about half of it. Good times.. :)

Andrew Schneider

Andrew Schneider is a performance artist, body hacker, and inventor of Experimental Devices for Performance. Check out his Website.



This Video has no real technology in it, but I found myself relating to it's message in some kind of strange way...

Arduino Flash Communication Tutorial

Check out this awesome tutorial from Kasperkamperman!


Arduino Flash communication from kasperkamperman on Vimeo.

Thankyou

Last Month's Blog Stats

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who stopped by my blog last month. It showed me that people are actually interested in my video tutorials. Most of you who visited came via the sparkfun website. They kindly posted a link to my blog on their news page.

As a result, I have decided that it is worth the time it takes to put together one of these tutorials. So as I learn more stuff I will do my best to present my findings in the form of a short, easy to understand video tutorial.

I've got a few on the way already. Feel free to post feedback on here about them. I don't want to be posting crap. This would be a waste of everyone's time. That said, this is my personal blog so the statement at the top of the page still applies :)

Anyways. Thanks for all your interest so far.

Dan.