@flyboy:
$15k on a mac? for THIS?

you sir, are an idiot.

no no wait, an iDiot.

nutbastard

That's a hell of a project Avinash, congrats on the nice work! If only you could get approval from Lucas Arts, I'm sure you could make a mint with fans on prints.

As a complete aside:
I'm more and more shocked by the commenters on this website. There are a whole group of really excellent commenters who contribute funny, meaningful, insightful information to posts. But increasingly the threads are full of people denigrating EVERYTHING. If you could have done it better, then go and do it. No one likes an arm-chair critic (I'm looking at Uberfu, Joseph, and Ghede in this thread)

wikkit

@Joseph:

Sup. I don't think that screensaver crap can import 6 full length films, crop out specific frames from each automatically, and use this for the basis of a 24,168 x 10,864 pixel image, let alone accomplish this rendering feat in what, the 15 second screensaver interval?

Mac-ignorance fail.

impreza

wow that's really cool. too bad he said he couldn't print it out at full size. i'm sure if he went to a bigger press they would be able to handle that size.

chopstickhero

@Samifumi: Finally, somebody said it!

Slartibartfast

@WilCon: If you could find all the software he used on his PC for a MAC, then you might be going somewhere, else, well, I'll leave that up to your discretion.

Thomas Palmer

"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to build a mosaic is insignificant next to the power of a hobby that chicks will appreciate."

SSRPaulO

@flyboy: Heck, now we have to put up with PC fanboys. ;)

twilight-arc

@Joseph: thats a big motherfucking lol

an1m3fr33k

Much time have yee, young padawan.

ninjatales

Way back in the day when I was about 20ish, my much younger brother gave me a Yoda mosaic poster for my birthday. A month or two later he was with my parents visiting me at college, and he was saddened to see that Yoda was not gracing the walls of my apartment.

I didn't quite know how to explain to him that although I did love him, and I did love Yoda, I also really liked getting laid.

jetexas

@Jesus Diaz: Ghede is right. The images aren't pure frames. They have been color corrected. HOWEVER, the fact that he used the CONTENT of the images for placement is a huge deal.

James

@Ghede:

too funny.

Accordion

@Ghede: Dude, what are you talking about? The software and the algorithm he did pics the frames based on hue and content. Look at the images in the gallery.

Jesus Diaz

I hate those multi-picture pictures. Mostly because people make it sound like it is a big deal. Really, all the software does is what it normally does, arrange pixels. Except now it tints other pictures to make those pixels. Bleh.

If it took actual pictures based on their content and fit them to make a picture, that would be cooler, but you would need a wider and more varied image sample to do so.

Ghede

...

Goddamnit. Watch that Southpark Mac vs. PC video on youtube.

All computers suck. Cry about it.

MastaFalse

@Out2gtcha:

yeah - nut to manipulate this kind of image you have to drop say 15K on a Mac strong enough whereas your Xi Skulltrail 8 core can do it for around 5K.


Its just an example of someone doing real work using a PC for the compute per dollar factor so he gets it done faster.

most studios have similar situations - a bunch of Macs for fiddling and some strong boxes for the grunt stuff.

flyboy

@flyboy: @AndersonBMX:

Uh oh......you don't want to be called "haters" now......HAHAHAH!
Haters, haters, haters, haters! HAHAHAHAH!

Actually, I am forced to use Macs fairly regularly and from my experience this would have been one of the very few times where I would probably want an apple.

Unless I'm manipulating graphics, video or other tangible media, the apples I use are fairly useless.

Out2gtcha

@flyboy: HAHA funny part about that is that THIS IS JUST A SCREEN SAVER IN OS X. All Macs running Leopard can do this real time with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries right out of the box. Iditioc PC users spend 2 days doing something that's a real time screen saver in OS X.

Apple > System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver > Select a Photo Album > Display Style: Mosaic. DONE!

+ Watch video

@AndersonBMX: Apple FTW. AGAIN!

Joseph

I'm not sure about the black bar issue. I see everything just fine. Maybe a browser issue? I'm using FireFox.

CubFan81

awesome-o!

sumosamkawasaki

on another note - it's pretty damned cool_

Way too much free time tho_

@mtopper: I don't know about all of that - but the black space along the left is there_ It reminds me of an older version of Gizmodo and also the comment/psoting buttons have been screwy for the past several days_ Seems again like they've reverted back to an older or maybe "default" version_

Namely the Quote and +/- buttons and I think there was one more that is missing now_

uberfu

I bet his parents that paid for him to go to college are proud he blew off 2 weeks of school to work on this....

Y2KGTP

.

uberfu

@Geisrud: LOL!

Joseph

Jesus - does Lucas know about this - as it is very impressive work.

flyboy

@flyboy: ...think what you want dude_

Anyway - first he needs to find someone to print that capable of at least the 3Gb File_ You never need to print something uncompressed at the 40Gbs - that's just a waste - you just have to compress it correctly_

Second - 120-pixel full quality JPGs are an oxy-moron_ JPG use as much compression as they can handle and throw out as much information as they can_ Therefore no such thing as a full quality JPG_ So his output versions no matter his setttings are going to be low quality_ He should have gone with TIF or as he mentioned putting everything into a RAW format - he should have gone with RAW straight off instead of converting from a JPG to a RAW_

Third - Using RAW instead of a Photoshop file is irrelevant_ He must be using Photoshop version 6 or 7 or something_ As CS introduced .psb file format which is Photoshop's Large Document Format_ This is capable of well over anything he would have needed for this project_ Secondly even if he was using an older version of Photoshop - the TIFF format is capable of 4GB capacities_

Fourth - his AMD 64-bit dual-core processor there gave him no significant advantage doing anything related to Photoshop as Photoshop is only 32-bit and does not recognize the added abilities of the processor he was using except in using a wider allocation space to take advantage of larger file sizes in the newer versions__ Further more the version of Windows Avinash was using either was 32-bit or 64-bit only_ In either case the 64-bit version again would not have given any advantage to the Photoshop usage and as well the 32-bit version of Windows merely would not have recognized the 64-bit processor and would have only cranked things out in a 32-bit mode_

So on all accounts [aside from the Matlab crunching - which there's no way to tell what he specifically used from the above article] - your boy did himself a disservice running things on a 64-bit Windows system_

uberfu

@thesilentnight: I'd have to agree with this_

uberfu

@mtopper: Same thing here. Been happening for a few days now.

davidm

Just a thought but wasn't Vader the analogous Christ-child? Luke is actually Judas because he ruins Vader's life.

thesilentnight

..and each of the individual Episode frames in the mosaic are made up of composite mosaics from screen grabs of Star Trek movies! trekkies FTW!

This could go on and on...

SigmundTheSeaMonster

At the beginning of the period the ancients called the 21st century, the so-called Jedi sect began its rise to power. The previously innocuous subculture known as the Basement Dwellers began to exploit its hold upon nascent technologies for purposes other than baseless self-promotion and compulsive masturbation.

Unified by their devotion to the Skywalker lineage, the Jedi sect quickly crushed their rivals (Trekkies, LOTR Freaks, FanFic authors of all kinds, and even the elusive LARPers) in the much-documented WWW Flame War of 2010. Emboldened by their success, the Jedi sect moved on to dominate mainstream society by means of DOS attacks, identity theft, and unrelenting hissie fits.

The Jedi sect's reign was, of course, short-lived. Fractured by infighting over which would be the official OS of the new world order, the sect endured a long and painful demise. During the struggle, power changed hands many times until, as civilization was all but certain to fall into a new dark age, our Fathers of the Church of Amiga took up the fallen reins and redeemed us all.

Then, we killed all the penguins.

BasicBlack

is anybody else experiencing trouble seeing the comments. words are inside the left border, which is black, so the type is almost unreadable on the left side

mtopper

A lot of work for... this.

ANoel

I did the same thing once, but I didn't think anyone would care. So I just scrapped the whole thing.

Geisrud

anything with samuel L jackson in it is ok in my book

discounteggroll

One of you at this table is going to betray me...Oh wait...my thoughts just betrayed me!

MrMaestr0

His system is identical to mine! Except i have a 5200+ and a 6800GTS

sp00nix

want

f0rge

Copyright infringement! RUN!!!!!

sp00nix

@flyboy:

True because a Mac would have done it in half the time at twice the resolution. So not as much work good call.

WilCon

@flyboy: That's the stupidest thing I ever read.

Rain-man

... most impressive.

mcdonnr

Whether the movies were great or not, that is a fantastic piece of work.

forcetrainer

impressive

PeteUALaw

It's unbelievable the extent to which Star Wars geeks will go. The movie was not that great, buddy.....

Samifumi

@flyboy: PC FTW

AndersonBMX

notice it wasn't done on a mac - cos it involved real work.

flyboy

@Slick, well said. It's an amazing piece of art, I'd like one on my wall.

phimuskapsi

@flyboy: you have to basically check every box to get a $15K Mac (actually every box is like close to $35K... hahaha! rrrright!) . a basic 8-core starts at $2799. the only way you get to $15k is if you buy the 32GB of RAM and add the dual-link card.

doing the same thing 2 x 3.2GHz Quad / 32GB RAM / 2 x 500GB HD / NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 on the link (XiComputer) you provided makes a $13K computer vs. the Apple being $17K machine. a big difference but not the $5.5K vs. $15K you quoted. not even close.

anybody who knows anything knows you never buy Apple BTO RAM. going 3rd party (macsales.com) would save you $5950 in RAM costs alone. bringing the $17K Mac down to $11K. doing the same in the Xi would save you $2350. bringing it down to... about $11K. seems to be a wash to me. either way you are getting a pretty awesome machine with one having the ability to run OS X *or* Windows.

care to post the exact specs you used to get the $5.5K vs. $15K price comparison?

x23

@Joseph:

You're still wrong, because originally you said that the screensaver could do it in real time, and now you admit that you need other software, including Quicktime, to do it (and it will be FAR from real-time at that). Impreza never said you CAN'T do it on a Mac; he/she just said the screensaver cannot do it all by itself, and he/she is right.

Really, Macs have no advantage over PCs in this process anyway. Avinash used AndreaMosaic to both extract the movie frames AND combine them into a mosaic (once he figured out he could use the program to extract the images also, that is). You just admitted that Macs need TWO programs to do this job: Quicktime to extract the images and a mosaic program to combine them. Avinash used an image editor to edit the mosaic's details, and so would a Mac user. Mac has no single program that would do all of this and output a mosaic at the same level of quality (not just resolution, mind you) or better than this one, which is basically what you claimed when you said the screensaver can do it.

I just don't understand why there's all this fighting over computers and which ones are better. Is this work of art worth less because he did it on a PC? No. Is art made on a Mac worth more because it was made on a Mac? No. Do we care what brushes Leonardo da Vinci used to create his paintings? No, we don't.

Slick

@TheDeadPuppet: there is one in a toilet somewhere

flyboy

Can someone lend me a Mac? I want to do the crucifixion scene using stills from both Conan movies. Mary Magdelene will be made of composites from Krull.

TheDeadPuppet

@nutbastard: Nutty - on this you're right.

we were checking them out for something called Vray that does use the cores.

still doesn't explain the difference - and BTW you'd be a fool to blow money without going for 64 bit - even though we both know we can't use that either....

flyboy

Can we get a picture on the website, without the blow-ups coming out. If I can't buy a copy for my chapel, I would like it on screensaver.

karnak

you don't need 2 cores let alone 8 to do this sort of thing... 8 core computers are good for 3D animation rendering and that's about it. not much else takes advantage of the parallel processing.

nutbastard

@nutbastard: that was the quote I got from apple.com for a full 8 core machine without screen(s).

I just got one for 5.5K from Xi similarly equipped.

check em out - many universities swear by em.

[www.xicomputer.com]

flyboy

So... where can I get a print? This needs to go in my office.

singlecoilpickup

@impreza: On this comment...

Sup. I don't think that screensaver crap can import 6 full length films, crop out specific frames from each automatically

Joseph

Definitely the goofiness of the current generation to spend all that effort combining thousands of still frames instead of just texture mapping 3D models.

heroineworshipper

@Ypoknons: I think it means that you will get laid by a potentially smaller pool of girls. Namely, the girls who are mystified by anything geeky.

markarian

@jetexas: A poster of Yoda on the wall means you can't get laid?

Ypoknons

Its not difficult to do this on a mac or a pc. Theres good software for both. Whats impressive about this is the quality of the final picture created, not the fact that it was done. This guy improved upon the algorithm for placing pictures then placed pictures by hand for the best results.

I still feel like a very similar result could have been achieved just by the computer alone.

lladnar

@nutbastard:

Hahahaha!!!!!!!!

dead_red_eyes

I read in The Lucas Code that Leia = Mary Magdalene = Holy Grail

Vagabum

@x23: it was a private quote from Xi granted - and I did the Apple 8 core quote when the machine first came out .... on the web site when it running.

Maybe if I did the same thing again it would be different - but several IT folk cannot beat that Xi price - with same cores, RAM, FSB and disks, etc.

flyboy

@SSRPaulO: You sir, are why I slog through waste and drivel. Excellent!

cad3

YO, I thought Darth Vader was supposed to be Jesus!. After all he is the chosen one.

victorko2

Gimmick. Star Wars (unlike Battlestar) was a complete replacement of Christian doctrine of good and bad forces in the world. It was Buddhist. That's why there were all those historical wars and a Death Star that flooded entire planet with radiation. No comparison to The Bible at all. Marrying your sister? A tiny fighter plane vs. a huge giant? A fallen angel who was too good at channeling some sort of soul energy into himself and so was cast out? No analogy at all. Come one. A gay robot or two, who follow a guy in a white toga around? Now the series is done. Over. Rerun city, forever? No. No!!!! What was the point of all that CGI crap. A double-ended sword. Yeah, that won so many wars that it explains why I keep reading my history books.

NikFromNYC

@flyboy: Comment on Skywalker Last Supper Painting Made With 69,550 Star Wars Frames "notice it wasn't done on a mac - cos it involved real work." News flash: you're an idiot.

LizaTydeus

The 2,425 picture from the top on the left is from Spaceballs. Nice try, Avinash. Now go play with your ton-ton.

thePav

2 weeks and 30 days on a PC seems normal to me. Thats how long it normally takes to scan for PC viruses, right?. Anyway, montage is really nice, but not cutting edge design. A circa 2001 trick used by kodak for soccer mom advertising isn't what I call Mac material nowadays. PC YAWN

barrelb

If this were commercially available I would be one of many geeks in line to give up my coin.

artdonkey