Today I created a quick livestream to give this episode a video overview.
Here is an overview of the old numbering system:
The first through seventh placed outer spiral supports were all named correctly:
This time I focused on GIMP to overlay GC on background images. It took several minutes to recall how to do it with any sort of efficiency; thanks to GIMP and ChatGPT for helping!
Using variants of this helped me label images so I could more easily know which ones to use for what.
thunderrabbit@pop-os:~/db.mt3.com$ mogrify -gravity NorthWest -pointsize 172 -fill red -annotate +0+0 '1389' '/home/thunderrabbit/mt3/00010_002.dgn/00010_002_Take_11/00010_002_11_X1/00010_002_11_X1_1583.jpg'
thunderrabbit@pop-os:~/db.mt3.com$ mogrify -gravity NorthWest -pointsize 172 -fill red -annotate +0+0 'DELETED' '/home/thunderrabbit/mt3/00010_002.dgn/00010_002_Take_11/00010_002_11_X1/00010_002_11_X1_1586.jpg'
Here are a few of the images that were used in this process.
After buying thread at Pandora House near 新百合ヶ丘駅, I retired some lengths of the previous thread which is thicker (and slightly darker (than the background)), but hanging G Choppy from it proved to be so fiddly that I decided to try using an armature for it, and ended up having to stop the livestream (while glue dries) after gluing two pairs of alligator clip sticks together to make the armature actually workable.
Zero frames per hour, a new low! Wooo!
I couldn’t get the small bamboo rods to support Pinky where she had been previously standing, so I rotated the stage toward me, and still couldn’t do it, so thought “hmm” and decided to glue the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Inner Guider in its place while I had the stage rotated and the perfect chance to do so.
The glue is drying now as I write this. Here are three photos I took today of the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Inner Guider:
Today is the day I forgot to take a photo of the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Stanchion before ripping it out so I could re-place it about 1mm from where it had been blocking medium marbles from flowing down the Lowest Small-Medium Splitter
The removal and replacement went quite smoothly, and saved Marble Track 3 from an existential crisis: If I had determined the characters would have to remove and reglue the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Stanchion, or if the removal had destroyed part of the track, … I dunno, but I was tempted to just say bah and toss it all.
Mr Greene has nearly put Small Marble Saver into place; just a few more steps to go!
After trimming Small Marble Saver, G Choppy is flying to his next task on the other side of the track.
Candy Mama is now stable on her right foot (after an unstable arrival onto the stage) after placing the Twentieth Placed Outer Spiral Support close to its place. Soon she’ll move to her left and place the Nineteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support, which I’ve just realized means they are each misnamed as each other’s names!
G Choppy has certainly perfected his talents as a swordsman! He cut the very finest edge in the Small Marble Saver so it may be installed after the Lowest Small-Medium Splitter to ensure small marbles reach the Decorative Walls after the Lowest Small-Medium Splitter.
In other news Super Spoony has gotten the green marble and will soon be taking it up the ramp to test the Triple Splitter. Exciting times ahead!
Here are the photos taken today (across both live streams)
This livestream stopped before too long because I needed to let glue dry on G Choppy’s support so he can fly smoothly to Mr Greene to trim the Small Marble Saver.
More to come soon!
In addition to Mr Greene bringing Small Marble Saver to G Choppy for adjustments, Candy Mama is bringing Nineteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support and Twentieth Placed Outer Spiral Support to the stage, which is rotating just a bit too far for her to get Nineteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support to the correct spot. Mr McGlue is going to be busy for a bit anyway, so someone else will probably help hold the pieces in place. This will likely be Doctor Sugar who is going to help Squarehead now, who Reversible Guy cannot lift, but has been trying!
Today in 2.5 hours:
Here are the photos from today, most of which will be used in the final!
The episode image is a top view of Marble Track 3 Studio. It shows the newly placed extension for the Sky Support to rotate even further.
The Sky Support rods were taken from Dad’s old Shoot The Moon game. They’re basically being used in the same way; they are pinned at one end, and now instead of getting a large steel marble to the moon, they let G Choppy fly with ease..
Today, I spent most of my time trying to get the characters in place and then making sure I knew what their motivations were in the movie so that I could begin moving them properly.
The trickiest part was getting G Choppy in place as he is curving the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Inner Guider
It was quite a thrill once I took the first frame that would be used in the video.. though I kept hiding and retaking it six times before I was happy with it. Altogether I took 11 frames and kept five of them.
In Real Life, I moved, changed jobs, started a book, and more, all while Marble Track 3 waited patiently! Most importantly, the camera and set stayed intact while I moved. It took a while to get the camera pointing in the right direction, but that was the ahem, focus of this livestream.
After just over three years of chilling, Marble Track 3 construction is back!
Next steps are to get the characters back in their places so we can start filming.
Because there are many Outer Spiral Supports, the demonstration Outer Spiral isn’t able to sit on the stage, so I’m making a new demo Outer Spiral which will not have legs holding it up in place, but an upper structure that holds it intact as it rests on the existing supports while the remaining supports are put into place.
This will allow me to more easily measure upcoming Nineteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support and 20poss, plus all the subsequent Outer Spiral supports.
Pinky started jumping up.
Mr McGlue finished gluing Eighteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support (closest to top of triple splitter)
Mr Greene started heading down the middle ramp (after having held the Eighteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support)
Doctor Sugar began to sit on Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection to hold Zog Rails Support and the Nineteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support and 20th poss
Here are the pics taken this day:
Today G Choppy began curving Triple Splitter Small Feeder Inner Guider while Pinky prepares to pull herself up to help install the pieces.
In the foreground Candy Mama has delivered Zog Rails Support to Doctor Sugar who is holding it now until Mr McGlue can get over there to glue it.
She is now about to leave the track, and take two pieces which were cut from the Sixteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support and Seventeenth Placed Outer Spiral Support I think.
Candy Mama got Zog Rails Support into place after the stage rotated sufficiently far for her to step onto it.
On the left, Pinky has just tossed some thin sticks (including Zog Rails) onto the Triple Splitter Small Feeder, where G Choppy will curve the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Inner Guider.
In the back, Reversible Guy is wondering how to help Squarehead, who is still impaled on DC 48.
Here are the frames I took today, about five of which had to be cut from the final:
Today was basically a continuation of last week. I took about 12 17 frames, enough for more than a single second of video. ;-)
Again, this week, I did not create a summary video nor even a livestream; just the snippet shown above.
By the end of the snippet, on the right, Candy Mama has gotten Zog Rails Support rotated in a vertical orientation and will soon hand it to Doctor Sugar.
On the left, Pinky is lifting Zog Rails, Triple Splitter Small Feeder Inner Guider, and one of the Lower Zig Zag 3F Rails.
I didn’t create a summary video for today, and I haven’t finished the summary video for two weeks ago, so for now I’ll post the latest snippet (ID -jDKzYRmhkE) and maybe finish the summary from last time and add it here or maybe create a whole separate entry for last time.
Today Zog finally landed and I glued Zog into place.
I’ve decided to send marbles to Zog with two thin rails that will extend toward the top of Caret Splitter Feeder Extension, alongside the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection.
Zog touched down today (but will keep clattering for a bit next time) as Candy Mama walks down the ramp, not even watching the success of her perfect throw.
Oh just for the record, I didn’t write an entry for last week when I got Zog to the apex, and had Candy Mama walk away (after bumping her).
I took frames from the apex of Zog’s flight until it hit its landing points: Lower Zig Zag 3F and el Lifty Lever Guider.
(written 11:04 Tuesday 08 February 2022 JST)
I bumped Candy Mama while having Zog fly so I decided to have her walk away without watching her toss land perfectly.
Here are the frames I took, about half of which were merged into the rest to make Zog fly.
It’s been three weeks or maybe 4?? I finally got a method for holding Zog steadily in the air as it flies up and over onto Lower Zig Zag 3F and el Lifty Lever Guider.
Today after about three weeks of false starts, I finally got everything sorted out so I could get Zog flying. In previous weeks, there were issues with holding Zog firmly in place, with a minimum of armature, which could be easily removed from the frame.
I got the book of movements up to date and took a single frame, which got deleted once I more carefully looked at how Zog needs to move.
Here is the frame I took (and deleted) today:
Today, Candy Mama’s cookies bounced!
I had been targeting the top of the
Lower Zig Zag 3F
and as they were nearly there I realized they are supposed to go onto
el Lifty Lever Guider,
so I bounced them over! Perfect!
As Reversible Guy walked down the first ramp, Candy Mama waited a bit for the stage to rotate.
As Reversible Guy walked up the third ramp, Candy Mama lowered Zog for a moment and at the last frame, flexed her right arm to toss the cookie shaped feet that will rest on el Lifty Lever Guider and act as the upper support for Zog.
Frames taken today:
My livestream didn’t work today, but I worked for 100 minutes basically getting Zog moved most of the way up the ramp.
The most difficult part was getting Mr McGlue to walk through the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection
Here are the frames taken today, just about 2 or 3 of which had to be reshot
In today’s session, I basically just rotated the stage as Candy Mama put her hands on her hips and Reversible Guy walked down the second ramp. This was after spending some time to recreate the lines marking how far to rotate the stage each time which is what I did at the beginning of the video there.
Now it’s just a systematic process of moving the character. I had to get Reversible Guy walking through the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension and just to make it easier for him to move.
I’m getting closer to having an (interim) replacement for livestreaming.. I would prefer to livestream, but they keep getting interrupted.. and have very few viewers, so I am going with summary videos like the one above.
Today I got Paul installed. Candy Mama is about to cross her arms as Squarehead is stuck on Paul. Mr McGlue is about to glue Paul (though I already did it) so Reversible Guy needs to get out of the way.
I was super happy with the visual gag having Doctor Sugar, Reversible Guy, Squarehead and Candy Mama go off the stage on the left and then immediately come up the first ramp on the right, this time with Paul. Candy Mama is going to lift Paul with Squarehead still impaled on it. I wonder how Squarehead will get unstuck!
Today I didn’t do a livestream, but I think I will go back to Youtube for that simply because they keep track of the duration of videos. The video above is from 1 January 2019.
I’m reallly happy with the animation I created today. Things were simple, so I was able to create like 4+ seconds of video in 2 hours.
Reversible Guy and Squarehead went off to the left and are immediately coming back in on the right, this time with Paul.
Today I nearly got The Third Arch installed. Lin named Paul, a vertical piece that Reversible Guy is going to get soon.
Frames from today:
Today G Choppy cut the Sixteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support while the stage continued rotating. Candy Mama has started to move up the ramp to place the The Third Arch.
Here are the frames taken today
Today I had Reversible Guy bring the chopstick in place and then decided to call in DC 48 because today is DC’s 48th birthday. Not that I knew that, but looked up famous birthdays, and he’s the only one I heard of!
Here are the frames I took today:
I am writing this the day after doing a short livestream, but got a lot of photos taken as just a few characters were moving.
Basically, as Doctor Sugar flipped the switch to rotate the stage so Candy Mama can install the The Third Arch, Mr McGlue finished gluing the Caret Splitter Right Hand Side Inner Guider while G Choppy turned around to go cut the supports placed by Reversible Guy near the top of the Triple Splitter.
Writing this a week after the fact. I think it was basically Mr McGlue going to the Caret Splitter Right Hand Side Inner Guider as G Choppy finished curving the The Third Arch while Reversible Guy came up with a chopstick that will be a new piece standing upright near bottom of the Triple Splitter.
Here are the frames I took:
Today G Choppy started to float downward as he curved a few more joints on the The Third Arch and Doctor Sugar has backed away from the switch to watch.
Pinky has nearly made her way off the stage, and Mr McGlue has just finished gluing the latest two outer spiral supports, which were held by Reversible Guy.
They are then bamboo skewers, just outside the Lowest Largest U-Turn, with one of them on the inside track of the Outer Spiral.
It took a bit of doing, but I created a summary of the work I did today. I set up Stopmotion to take photos every second, and then added a voiceover to quickly explain what was going on. The summary is encoded to play at 10 frames per second, so every 6 seconds of summary represents 1 minute of real time. The video above is 5 minutes long, so it represents 50 minutes of elapsed recording time.
Relatively easy day of filming today, with just a couple characters moving.
G Choppy is continuing to curve the Lower Right Side Arch (which I should probably rename the 3rd arch).
G Choppy left foot is now actually lightly glued to the bar on which he is standing. The bar is not going to be part of the final track; I have known that since it was placed there, but I think it should be named because it has been there for quite some time. As I write this, I don’t recall who put the bar there.
Recently, I have not been livestreaming my work on Marble Track 3. The video in this episode is the latest snippet. Yesterday I took 30+ frames of video, so nearly 3 seconds, most of which had G Choppy being aligned to curve what will be the Lower Right Side Arch, which will span the Right Side Small Landing Zone to support the Outer Spiral.
To help G Choppy curve the Lower Right Side Arch, Doctor Sugar has reversed the stage rotation now that G Choppy has reached one end of the bamboo that he will curve into the arch.
Today, in the first livestream, (on YouTube) I got G Choppy finished cutting the Fifteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support and Mr McGlue and Candy Mama moving to the other end of the Lower Left Side Arch to glue it into place.
Here are the frames taken today (most of which were taken while streaming on Reddit):
Today saw very few characters moving, so progress was pretty good. The most challenging thing was suspening Paul as Reversible Guy and Squarehead carried Paul up the first ramp.
I tried hanging it from a thread, but that just swung them around. I ended up tying Paul to Reversible Guy and taping Paul to Squarehead.
Here is the latest snippet, ending with three seconds’ worth of frames taken today: https://youtu.be/dETXzvS18n4
Here are the frames taken today:
https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1018.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1019.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1020.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1021.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1022.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1023.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1024.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1025.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1026.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1027.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1028.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1029.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1030.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1031.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1032.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1033.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1034.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1035.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1036.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1037.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1038.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1039.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1040.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1041.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1042.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1043.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1044.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1045.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1046.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1047.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1048.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1049.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1050.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1051.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1052.jpg https://b.robnugen.com/art/marble_track_3/frames/2021/00010_002_11_X1_1053.jpg
As predicted, having the Fifteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support suspended by a thread let filming proceed quickly today. G Choppy arrived at the Fifteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support and extended his arm for 3 frames and then I cut the Fifteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support and glued it in place.
For some reason, I mis-measured the cut and had to do it twice.
The glue is dry by now as I write this, and while drying was held in placed by the demonstration Outer Spiral.
Today I only streamed one hour, but set it up for the next several frames to go pretty well I hope.
Reversible Guy is up to the Fifteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support to hold it in place, and because it was wiggling around so much as I removed it from Mr Greene’s head, I hung it from above, which required some adjustments to one of the horizontal steels trusses and and carving a groove into a tongue depressor.
Today most of the time was spent balancing the Fifteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support on its way toward its vertical location near the bottom of the Lower Zig Zag.
Here are the frames taken today:
Pretty great progress today as Mr McGlue made it all the way to the Lower Left Side Arch which Candy Mama has been holding in place for a while. Mr McGlue is in a relatively stable stance so he can glue it for the requisite 12 frames, about half of which have been taken so far.
In the background, Reversible Guy has just about arrived to where Doctor Sugar and Backpack Jack have finished raising the Fifteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support.
Today’s livestreams were done in two phases, and each time the livestream was ended soon after I started. I don’t know what caused the issue, but once the livestream started again, it seemed fine.
Anyway, here are links to the four livestreams from today:
Morning:
Afternoon:
Two things were glued to the track today: the smallest of the Lower Zig Zag 1F Inner Rails and Lower Left Side Arch, which Candy Mama is holding while the glue dries.
Today got off to a rough start, but smoothed out to a great cadence. Mr McGlue glued El Banderín onto its poles while Little Brother spun around to stay true to his character. G Choppy finished cutting the Fourteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support and has nearly moved to the top of the Triple Splitter.
Meanwhile, Pinky is leaning down to figure out the deal with the small marble getting stuck on Lower Zig Zag 1F and the Autosticks are coming up past Doctor Sugar to fix that part of the track.
Two livestreams done in one day (26 Dec 2020). I believe the first is when I glued El Banderín https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TrtXoKiIAc and the second is when I glued the Fourteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support.
Just under 2 hours total for the 2 live streams.
Today the Autosticks in stage front were consistently the easiest characters to work with. They did not quite make a tight enough turn to go up the switch, so I had them begin to loop around like a figure 8.
The the same time, the second Autostick which had already gotten up onto the Lower Zig Zag was tricky to work with, and actually ended up stopping filming today because I had to wait for its glue to dry.
In the second live stream today, Reversible Guy grabbed what will become the Fourteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support.
Here are the frames taken during this (second) live stream today. (At least 2 had to be deleted.)
Today was the first time I livestreamed from my new laptop. Super glad it apparently worked!
During actual construction of the marble track, I got two sticks glued:
Thirteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support, which I glued at the same time G Choppy cut it.
Here are the images I took today:
During this livestream I got G Choppy flying and ready to cut the Thirteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support
Very happy with the Autosticks in the foreground with 2 of them on the wrong stage level and two nearly in place.
El Banderín is nearly in place as well. Excellent work today.
Here are random shots of a marble rounding the curve below Lower Zig Zag
Today in over 2 hours of live stream I took about maybe four or five
frames I’m guessing. (only three!!)
Most of the time was spent working to make sure I get the Thirteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support aligned in the correct spot and marked to be cut in the correct place by G Choppy who still needs to fly over to it.
I rebuilt the support beams of the demonstration outer spiral where it arrives up above the lower portion of the triple splitter small feeder.
In the second of today’s two live streams, Reversible Guy walked through the lower corner of the Triple Splitter Small Feeder as he carries the chopstick which will become the Thirteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support.
Standing on el Lifty Lever Guider, G Choppy is watching Reversible Guy for a bit until the stick is ready to be cut.
Meanwhile, standing on the Snake Plate, Candy Mama is watching Mr Greene and Little Brother as they carry El Banderín to be affixed onto el Lifty Lever
Today’s livestream is again split into two bits. In the first one here, the tricky parts were getting Reversible Guy’s chopstick to act right and for the Autosticks to begin climbing up onto the stage.
Double-sided tape has done an excellent job of getting an autostick to stay in place on the switch.
Mr Greene and Little Brother continue to bring in the pieces of El Banderín, and Pinky is trying to reach down to pick up the small marble that fell.
El Banderín is the name I came up with by translating flag to Spanish and discovering a meaning that is for flags used in sports. I should probably check that out with a native Spanish speaker.
I am soo so pleased with myself for how Mr Greene brings the sticks for El Banderín onto the set. Basically as he goes off stage, the sticks come on stage, and then he’s the only one carrying the sticks! Subtle visual gag in the background. Just about 1/4 second total time during the video.
Today I glued the Lower Zig Zag 2F Bouncer after Candy Mama brought it past Pinky, who is busy lifting small marbles up the Lower Zig Zag to test them.
Reversible Guy is grabbing a long chopstick that’s appeared magically right out of the corner. The chopstick will be used as the Thirteenth Placed Outer Spiral Support, and maybe the 14th, though I have not yet decided where either of them will be.
As I write this, I think it would be good to post them near the LWT because there are no full-height supports there for the Outer Spiral yet.
During the second of two livestreams today, I finished cutting the upper support for the Lower Zig Zag 2F and then got Reversible Guy to carry the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Lower Left Protection into place where I was able to glue it into place and continue taking photos of the movie.
After Mr McGlue glues the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Lower Left Protection into place, I plan to have Reversible Guy reverse himself and place the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Lower Right Protection into place on the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection.
This was the first of two 1-hour livestreams today. After getting G Choppy fully onto the track, it became apparent that I would have to figure out how to adjust the Lower Zig Zag 2F support next to Lower Zig Zag 1F so small marbles would not hit it.
Meanwhile, Mr Greene continued moving under el Lifty Lever Guider to lift el Lifty Lever so Candy Mama could help push the large marble under el Lifty Lever. Next, I need to figure out what to attach to the top of el Lifty Lever so it can actually do something useful.
Today I glued The Lowest Longest Separator in place after the Mr Greene and Backpack Jack brought it onto the set. Candy Mama will help them on the other side. I forgot to have Mr McGlue come in to glue the thing but he’s on his way.
Meanwhile Pinky is back to testing the small orange marble on Lower Zig Zag. She has lifted the marble up to the stage level.
Here are the images taken today:
Today started a couple of things: I started the 8th snippet:
This was the first time the characters used the Second Bridge Level 1.
Funnily enough, because I was too quick to glue the bridge, the characters has to add some bits to the end to make the bridge actually extend out of the view of the camera so they can walk in on it.
These are Snippet 7 X-Sheet notes, which might help me document what happened in the 7th snippet. These are copied from Dragonframe 4 X-Sheet notes from all the frames.
Linebreaks are preserved in the source of this file in git, but I killed the pre tags so it would not take ages to scroll through on the site.
<pre>
left snake
right snake
left snake
right snake
left snake
right snake
Youtube seems to have changed their livestream API so last week the short livestream was not recorded, and this week my second live stream seems not to have been recorded.
Anyway, the two missing streams were probably under an hour each so I will ignore their absence.
Today, I finished the seventh snippet! Lunch break after finishing first level of second bridge
Everything went pretty smoothly today; very few characters were moving; I basically just had to unpack the traffic jam around the second bridge, then have Squarehead try to pick up sticks similar to the two that Reversible Guy had carried away easily.
After letting the actual glue actually dry on the Second Bridge Level 1, I was able to get the first half nestled into place so that Mr McGlue could glue it. Once the piece was settled into place, only a few characters were moving:
G Choppy came around to the back of Backpack Jack to cut the chopsticks Backpack Jack has in his backpack. Mr Greene came onto the set with the 2nd bridge bridge level 1. Little Brother walked up to Big Brother to see what’s up and ascertain why Big Brother is stuck upside down.
Great progress toward finishing the seventh snippet today. Candy Mama and Squarehead have just about brought the Second Bridge Level 1 into place, and Reversible Guy and Pinky have placed the Second Bridge Supports under it for Mr McGlue to glue.
There was very nearly a disaster as I swapped Mr McGlue with shoes for Mr McGlue without shoes: a block of magnets fell from the lighting area and landed right on The First Track, fortunately not breaking either the Lowest Largest Backtracking Chopstick or First Snake-Installed Rail which holds the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Second Stanchion.
Today I got quite a few frames taken in 2 hours, with over 1 second of video created, mostly with characters on stage left helping with the Second Bridge Supports (Reversible Guy, G Choppy, Backpack Jack, Mr Greene, and Pinky) and Second Bridge Level 1 (Candy Mama and Squarehead).
On the right, Little Brother is still sneaking backwards, and Big Brother ended up in a tumble off the track, possibly because he was watching Little Brother instead of his footing, but actually because I couldn’t get him to move smoothly otherwise.
Today just 4 frames taken as I only had an hour, but I got a good start on Reversible Guy throwing a stick into the air to knock down the piece G Choppy had cut.
Pinky has nearly flipped forward and off the track to help Candy Mama, and Little Brother has frozen in his tracks for at least half a second before trying to sneak away.
Here are the frames from today. Hey I thought I took four frames! Hmmm
Today while having Candy Mama call everyone to her, there was not much else
going on, so I decided to have Reversible Guy toss his two sticks into the air to
knock down the ones that are still hanging
floating there from when G Choppy cut them.
Little Brother is now frozen, about to slink away from Candy Mama hollering, while Pinky is flipping off the stage to come help.
I have drawn an arc and height markers for Reversible Guy’s sticks. I wonder how it will look once it’s done.
After getting off to a slow start I made pretty good progress on filming for marble track 3 today.
G Choppy has made it all the way down to the stage and has just cut the stick that Reversible Guy has been holding. The two pieces already cut are still up in the air; I’m not sure how I’m going to get them down.
I had the idea to have Candy Mama call for everyone to come help build the Second Bridge Level 1. after she calls, the two brothers are going to run away to try to get out of work. Pinky and Mr Greene will come help, along with Doctor Sugar probably.
Today I took 6 frames in 59 minutes 45 seconds of livestream. With the film running at 12 frames per second, this amounts to just slightly over 1/2 of a second of film per hour of livestream.
G Choppy has cut Reversible Guys vertical stick a second time to create Second Bridge Supports as Reversible Guy and Candy Mama prepare to make Second Bridge Level 1.
Meanwhile, Little Brother has finished his backbend and is about to stand up on the Right Side Small Landing Zone.
(written 07 August 2020 JST)
I don’t recall details from this except that Little Brother did a backbend to get himself safely away from G Choppy’s sword. G Choppy is floating down and cut the top of the stick Reversible Guy is holding. These will be the Second Bridge Supports.
Today I livestreamed for about 90 minutes, the last portion of which Jimmy joined via the chat. Most interesting today was deciding to (probably) do a new weird thing with Backpack Jack, who has arrived with a pair of chopsticks in his backpack. I locked the chopsticks in place with a big clamp, and might have him slide off sideways to unload himself from the chopsticks.
In either case, for now, I can rest assured that he will neither fall over, nor easily move, so he should stay rock solid in place until it’s time to move him again.
Today I basically caught up with where I had sloppily filmed last week. This time I smoothed the motion of the chopstick Reversible Guy is lifting, and slowed G Choppy’s pace as he flies across the spinning stage.
I need to more consistently plan paths so I get them right the first time.
Here are the frames from today, about half of which were retaken.
I started today by deleting 7 frames that I determined should be reshot as Reversible Guy should be standing the stick upright instead of putting it onto the track.
I shot all the new frames in about 2 hours. Yay! Then I realized I should reshoot some of them again because I hadn’t moved the stick up along a straight line.
I realized some of the frames were okay, and I could “poke holes” in the sequence of frames to retake the shots where the stick was out of alignment and I was able to shoot the first of those five holes before I gave up for the night.
The weather is getting hotter. Normally no problem, but my computer was heating up. Turning on the AC caused a piece floating on a string to blow around, so I put a curtain in front of the AC to baffle its buffeting.
Big Brother is carrying the Triple Splitter Medium Catcher Ridge up onto the set as Pinky tests the Lower Zig Zag with a small orange marble.
Pretty great progress today as:
Here are the frames taken today. A few near the end were deleted so that Mr McGlue could come through Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection perfectly.
Today I took some time to create an archway that will go over the Left Side Small Landing Zone, and another OSS which will go in front of Pinky’s Decorative Walls after the Lowest Small-Medium Splitter.
Doctor Sugar is about to pick up a board that has been giving him and me problems for a while. Big Brother came onto the set carrying the Triple Splitter Medium Catcher Ridge. Pinky is still working to get the small orange marble up the the Lower Zig Zag, and Reversible Guy is holding el Lifty Lever Guider steady while Mr McGlue glues it in place.
Today in two hours of livestream, I was overall super productive for the construction of Marble Track 3 and took zero frames of video!
The main best thing was preparing the placement of The Lowest Longest Separator which will hopefully keep small marbles on the Lowest Small-Medium Splitter after they go left down the Caret Splitter. This piece should hopefully keep them from falling onto The First Track.
Okay, so in addition to The Lowest Longest Separator, I cut two thin bamboo pieces to be the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Lower Right Protection and the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Lower Left Protection respectively, though I didn’t take a photo of the latter.
Today I did a happy dance after putting el Lifty Lever Guider into place.. because it worked!
I was a bit sloppy when I glued it so I had to spend some time scraping semi-dried glue off the bamboo. That required moving the entire track off the set, which is quite a rare thing! I didn’t think to take a picture then, but here are some other recent pics.
Today’s livestreaming was done in two parts. In the first, I averaged 1 second of video per 4 hours of livestream. By the end of the day I had 3/4s of a second in 2 hours of livestream, so slightly faster progress was made in the second livestream.
The main thing today, G Choppy chopped the Eleventh placed Outer Spiral Support. Nearby, Reversible Guy is installing el Lifty Lever Guider while Pinky climbs up by the Little Wiggly Track to test the Lower Zig Zag again.
Today, Squarehead continued to not hit the switch as the stage pulls him around. I am wondering about having him go all the way around the set, maybe while all the other guys go to lunch?
I forgot to have Pinky watch the medium green marble as it went down the Medium Catcher Below Triple Splitter under the Triple Splitter. I am not going to retake the frames though because..
Dealing with G Choppy and Reversible Guy flying was made easier with the maglevs, but still pretty tricky as they tended to spin any which direction. I spent a great deal of time making a smaller maglev system for Reversible Guy because I need to move him laterally across the track and his old maglev cannot do it.
Great progress today, adding 10 frames to the video. The second half of the livestream was spent setting up two (2) maglevs, which have the ability to angle like turntable tone arms while lifting characters as if they levitate over the track.
Backpack Jack is carrying a skewer which we become el Lifty Lever Guider to the center of the stage where it will guide el Lifty Lever alongside the Triple Splitter.
Meanwhile, Little Brother has just released a medium sized marble down the Triple Splitter to test the Medium Catcher Below Triple Splitter put in place by Big Brother.
For a few weeks I have been fluttering the Caret Splitter Rudder down to Reversible Guy. Last week he caught it and today he attached it to the Caret Splitter Rudder Lever Spinner.
Behind the scenes view of gluing the Caret Splitter Rudder into place
I was super happy with the way Reversible Guy looked in the frames before and after the thing was attached. Despite Jennie jumping up onto the set, it looks super smooth!
Today I spent some time stabilizing the camera; it had gotten bumped in the week of not filming.
I made shoes by cutting corners from a balsa box and glued them to the camera shelf as shoes for its tripod feet to keep from moving. Then I glued the shelf to the desk.
After that I took about 13 frames, 8 of which were useful.
Today the Caret Splitter Rudder began fluttering in earnest on its way down to be caught by Reversible Guy in about 30 frames from now. Doing all the prep work has made it easier to take these frames.
There are currently four things suspended now. The Caret Splitter Rudder is fluttering down while Little Brother is doing a front flip onto the set while he brings up a stick to keep the small orange marble on the Below Lower Zig Zag U-turn. How did he know to bring it if the small orange marble is only right now suspended in the air after going off the track?
Today most of the time was spent adding little numbered strips of paper to the track so I can ensure it rotates at the right speed for the Caret Splitter Rudder to flutter down to Reversible Guy so he can catch it without really moving as the stage rotates with him on it.
I suspect it will take me some weeks or maybe months to realize this plan. I think it will look awesome.
Not many frames taken today, but I made great headway in planning what will be a cool effect of the Caret Splitter Rudder fluttering down into the hands of Reversible Guy, fully 3 seconds from now in the video.
I suspect it will not be finished until 2020, unless I can get a lot of hours done this holiday season. (The Caret Splitter Rudder Flutter finished in late January 2020.)
In other news, I designed the shape of The Grand Archway.
Today Reversible Guy caught the Caret Splitter Rudder Holder which will soon be part of the Caret Splitter Rudder, which should fall from the sky soon.
Little Brother has run onto the set and is climbing onto Squarehead as Squarehead runs along the edge of the stage, this time away from the switch after Doctor Sugar toggled the rotation direction.
Mr Greene has brought el Lifty Lever onto the set, and will soon drill a hole into it (how??).
Today I spent some time planning and making el Lifty Lever. Mr Greene was going to bring it in, but Squarehead is running and about to get into the way so I had to abort the entrance of el Lifty Lever.
Here are the frames from today. Several had to be erased.
Today I took a pic showing how close The First Track is with Bar Below Circle by Caret Splitter
Today I took only 10 frames in 2 hours, which is slower than I would have guessed given how quickly the first frame was taken. I had a bit of a delay while dealing with measuring and cutting the chopstick that will be the Tenth Placed Outer Spiral Support.
Today’s livestream ended up in two parts because my computer stopped
working (ran out of space on /dev and others), but it was readily
cleared up by rebooting the machine.
The first livestream from today is setup and then me noticing the camera was not working.
I took five frames today, during which the green marble went around the Snake Plate U Turn
Happy Birthday Dad!
Today I streamed nearly 3 hours, and got four full seconds of frames taken because there was not a lot going on, but that which was going on is fantastic!
Happily for Squarehead, he got his hands unstuck from the Ninth Placed Outer Spiral Support In completely unexpected news, Squarehead has stood up sideways on the track!
Today was a recent record in terms of frames taken; there were times with only a single character moving. In most of the frames, Squarehead was trying to get himself unstuck from the Ninth Placed Outer Spiral Support.
Mostly characters were idling, waiting for Mr McGlue to catch up with the gluing required on the Caret Splitter Feeder Guiders.
During the filming, I needed to have Reversible Guy suspended by a string, but in the process, I ended up dropping something on Lower Zig Zag 3F and breaking the Lower Zig Zag 3F Lower Support. I reglued it and ended the livestream at that point.
Today I spent nearly an hour preparing for the first frame, which included measuring the Caret Splitter Feeder Righter Guider.
Things went pretty smoothly after that; I got 13 frames taken in just over an hour, so that is back up to baseline 1 hour per second of video.
In the background, Big Brother is working his way up the Triple Splitter with the large marble.
Here is the latest snippet:
Here are the frames taken today
During each hour of today’s livestream, I took enough frames for about 1 second of video.
The construction during the animation was slower than I guessed, but I think the animation itself looks pretty good. Today G Choppy floated down the right side of the Caret Splitter and then arranged himself so he could cut the Caret Splitter Feeder Lefter Guider.
Reversible Guy helped with that, and as of this writing the Caret Splitter Feeder Lefter Guider is glued in place, although I have not taken any photos for the video with the Left Guider in place.
Today’s livestream was done in 2 parts, for a total of over 3 hours I think.
In the first part, Reversible Guy walks over to Squarehead to pick up the bars that will be the Caret Splitter Feeder Guiders, although at the time he got them, I was thinking they were the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Protection. Turns out it was great to have him get the Guiders because G Choppy was slow to finish curving the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Protection Upper Holder, which I glued in place during the break between livestreams.
Today I got several frames added to the video despite having to delete a few. Little Brother in the back basically just watched. Candy Mama watched as some Autosticks moved themselves into place to be the Lower Zig Zag 3F edges. In the midground, Pinky rotated herself out of the way so the medium blue marble can roll down the tracks that are having rails installed now.
In the foreground, Reversible Guy and Backpack Jack are placing Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Protection Holders which G Choppy curved so they can hold the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Protection that Squarehead is holding.
Today after cutting the sticks Squarehead was holding, I was surprised to see how much longer they looked on camera, even though they were the exact same sticks. Now they look a bit too short as Big Brother is going to pick them up, but the cut looks fine.
In the background, Candy Mama is helping Autosticks support the Lower Zig Zag 3F by becoming its Lower Support as the 3 orange marbles are rolling down the Triple Splitter Small Feeder.
Today began a shift into a new phase of construction. The cycle of small orange marble tests is complete. Squarehead has jumped up onto the stage after I debated having Big Brother jump onto the sticks, causing them to flip up and land somehow on the track.
That would have been messy and I realized pointless because Big Brother can use the ends of these tracks to be the Lowest Largest U-turn Berm, which is what he wants to work on now.
Today went pretty smoothly as I got the third marble started down the Triple Splitter Small Feeder after using color-coded markers to ensure it would go down at the same rate/locations as the first two marbles had.
I stopped streaming after I glued the Lower Zig Zag 2F top to the Lower Zig Zag 2F after determining it did not look too weird if it just appeared there. I may have Reversible Guy futz around in the area for a bit to ensure he has had enough time to make it.
Today I streamed for a bit over an hour and got the second orange marble started rolling down the Triple Splitter Small Feeder. Reversible Guy is watching the first orange marble rolling down, and about to turn back to maybe watch the second one. Squarehead is jumping back in fear after seeing the large red marble tumble off the track. Pinky has just let the blue marble go down the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection and it has now made it to the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension.
Today I took several frames but some of them had to be deleted. Main things:
No snippet today, but here are the frames I took (though at least 4 had to be deleted).
Today’s livestream was over two hours, during which I got 9 frames taken. I spent most of the time planning the next few pieces.
The position of Caret Splitter Rudder seems like it will work, though I do not yet know how I will toggle its direction.
Lower Zig Zag 3F will possibly be the name of the third (from bottom) 9.4cm bar of the Lower Zig Zag. Its upper support, Lower Zig Zag 3F Upper Base will be supported by 2 of the toothpicks making up the Lower Zig Zag Net. These two toothpicks will be the Lower Zig Zag 3F Upper Base Base
Today’s livestream was in two parts. In the first, above, Super Spoony carried two orange marbles up the ramp.
In the second, Dr Sugar rotated the stage to let Super Spoony come onto the stage
Several images take today, as just a couple characters were moving.
Entertainingly (to me), Little Brother can be seen in the background as he begins to do a back roll, allowing the Medium Blue Marble to roll up the ramp over him. It is a bit tricky to hold him up and the heavy marble in place over him, but should be worth it.
After a couple of misfires with my computer acting like it could not keep up with all its tasks, I rebooted and tested the small orange marbles rolling down the Triple Splitter Small Feeder to the (top of the) Triple Splitter, where they immediately fall onto the Triple Splitter Small Marble Catcher, down onto the Little Wiggly Track and finally to the Right Side Small Landing Zone.
They worked perfectly! (So long as someone (Mr McGlue stood where the lower end of The Outer Spiral will be, allowing the marbles to bounce off him and remain between the rails of the Triple Splitter.)
This was a relatively quick livestream in which I was just able to glue the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Outer Bar before I had to go.
The next day, I noticed the outer bar was glued a little bit higher than the inner bar on the Triple Splitter Small Feeder. Small marbles still rolled down it, but I figured it would be better if flatter so I took a few minutes to explain the problem and fix it.
Today I finished curving the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Outer Bar.
Mr Greene has cleared off the stage below the Lower Zig Zag, and is now carrying a stick which will be placed at the top of the Triple Splitter Small Feeder.
Pinky is pushing the Medium Blue Marble up the track toward the Caret Splitter.
I added about a second worth of frames to the end of the video snippets.
The first of the frames below replaced the last of the frames from last time. 2 or 3 of the other frames below had to be deleted from the final video, but I do not know which ones.
In just a bit over an hour, I got the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Inner Bar moved and glued in place. During this time, Big Brother pushed the large red marble into the snakes, which has set them into motion. Backpack Jack is bringing the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Outer Bar Lower Support up the ramp, and Mr Greene is clearing the landing zone below the Lower Zig Zag.
I turned off the livestream once I glued the tssfib in place, and then realized I could get a jump start on next livestream by bending and gluing the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Outer Bar. So I glued Triple Splitter Small Feeder Outer Bar in 11 minutes
Great progress in terms of frames today. Got the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Inner Bar curved and have a plan for Pinky to go push the Medium Blue Marble up the track on the Caret Splitter side of things.
Here is the latest snippet
All but one(?) of these were used at the end of the snippet above.
Another 1.5 hours of livestream (but my hour counter is currently broken, blarg) and got G Choppy to float down to the stage so he has easier access to curve the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Inner Bar. It has two breaks in it now, and will have three soon!
Here is the latest vid, the last 14 frames of which were taken in the livestream above.
Wow; I finished twice as many frames as I thought!
Today’s first livestream went pretty quickly. I took 8 useable frames in 75 minutes.
The latest snippet is here.
At the moment, G Choppy is curving the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Inner Bar. Mr Greene is clearing the Lower Zig Zag Landing Zone. Big Brother is pushing the Large Orange Marble up the First Track. Little Brother is still spinning on top of the Triple Splitter.
Other characters are not doing much for now.
Today after getting the stage set up again after holiday, I bent and glued different sticks to speed up filming next time.
Live stream was done in two parts, above is the second part. Here is the first part, which was mostly spent getting the scene back in order.
Today I took 11 frames. I wanted to get a frame after gluing the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Inner Bar Lower Support, but I could not get it to stay in place without moving the stage and characters out of the way.
G Choppy is suspended above the track about to fly over to that area to help curve the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Inner Bar, and maybe the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Outer Bar.
Today was a three hour livestream, which should have put me over 300 hours; I think I was pretty close already.
I uploaded a snippet which will be published on March 16th, while I am in the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN5QtFGp4RU
Jimmy chatted online for a bit and then called me for nearly an hour of the livestream. I think that helped it both take longer and go faster. We talked about possible ideas for character arcs and visual gags because the video is super dense with activity now.
Today, due to a traffic jam of sorts back by the Decorative Walls, it took 34 minutes to get the first frame taken. After that, the frames came faster, although if I recall correctly, the second was taken around 55 minutes into the livestream today.
This is the latest snippet, which will go live on March 9th.
I think 9 frames ended up being usable; here are the ones I took today.
Not a livestream in the construction sense, but this was a livestream to introduce the track at its current state.
highest tracks:
Today I glued the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection onto the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Stanchion and have a plan for a mini stanchion that is not yet named.
Backpack Jack will carry the new piece, which was cut from the top of the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Stanchion and floated in midair for perhaps too long until he could grab it.
G Choppy has cut the Ninth Placed Outer Spiral Support with his first backswing chop, not easily seen in the movie because it is on the opposite side of the stage from the camera, and it takes less than a second to complete. Reversibly Guy is holding the piece cut from the top of the Ninth Placed Outer Spiral Support, which he will soon take over to be the Caret Splitter’s Right Hand Inner Side, although he needs to move quickly as the stage is turning the Caret Splitter away from the camera.
I think I got one picture done today. 28 minutes until the first snapshot, and then the next two were no good or something.
Anyway, I had a headache from too much computering so will come back to MT3 on Monday.
Here are the pics from today. I think the middle two had to be erased, or maybe the first 3?
Today, with a glorious backswing, G Choppy cut the Ninth Placed Outer Spiral Support, which Reversible Guy has been holding for a while. I cut the piece and glued it into place, which is good because Mr McGlue has already glued it, even though he was supposed to glue the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Stanchion first.
At the same time, Pinky has been continuing construction of the Decorative Wall, while Big Brother is busy fixing the Snake Plate U-turn Berm Bar.
Today G Choppy cut the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Stanchion as activity took place all around him.
Pinky is still working on her Decorative Walls after the Lowest Small-Medium Splitter.
Big Brother is pushing the large orange marble up away from the Snake Plate U-turn Berm Bar.
Doctor Sugar is headed off the set via the ramp while Candy Mama has just come up the ramp with the Triple Splitter Small Feeder Outer Bar. The Triple Splitter Small Feeder will be put in place vaguely soon, probably before the Outer Spiral is even really started.
Today G-Choppy began his walk across the not-yet-placed Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection on his way to cut the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Stanchion, being held by Backpack Jack.
The livestream got interrupted by work, but I got six frames taken, but the second to last below had to be reshot because Backpack Jack had fallen.
As of this writing, I have written all the actions that the characters have performed in the 10th take, which is the 7th video in the playlist of silent snippets.
Today I livestreamed for a bit over two hours, including a decent amount of time waiting for glue to dry on the decorative wall.
During the glue-drying time, I found a good way to plan ahead on construction AND finish the Step by Step part of the website.
To make the Step by Steps, I will have to sort some words by timestamp, but at least I won’t have to re-search for the things to write.
Not quite as visible as Pinky placing the decorative wall, I placed the 8th Outer Spiral Support.
Before and after placing the Eighth Placed Outer Spiral Support:
The last 3 seconds of this snippet are new.
I took some time to measure the length and positions of Eighth Placed Outer Spiral Support and Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Stanchion by putting the os on the track to make sure it would all work.
At the same time, I bumped the ramp, so I decided to tape it to the desk so it won’t move much.
Made good progress during this video up until I needed to measure the Eighth Placed Outer Spiral Support and the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection Stanchion.
I was a bit rushed for time at the end of this, and ended up stopping just after I taped a thread around the green marble to it could be suspended after just coming off the Medium Catcher Below the Triple Splitter.
To be honest, I forgot to take a picture, but this is from the next day of filming.
Pretty good progress today, with over 1 second worth of video frames taken. I got stuck near the end because several characters were all converged around the 7th Placed Outer Spiral Support which has now been cut, and the traffic jam is soon to be untangled.
After some false starts, I got a decent amount of work done today. Primarily, I cut and glued the Seventh Placed Outer Spiral Support. Secondarily, I planned what Backpack Jack will do next: get the support for the Caret Splitter Feeder Extension Reflection, which will be installed by Squarehead soon.
At the start of today’s first livestream I discovered that the piece I glued yesterday had been glued too low, so I had to reglue it. I reglued it then ate lunch while waiting for the glue to dry.
At the start of today’s second livestream (same as inline above), I realized I could have ignored the incorrect positioning and continued taking frames.
The second livestream did not last long before I stopped it to let different glue dry.
Today’s livestream was split into 3 segments, the second livestream (an hour long) is featured above. The first segment and third segment were about 30 minutes each.
The great news: I think I got the Medium Catcher Below Triple Splitter connected to the Back Right Medium Landing Zone. They are connected by Guides into Back Right Medium Landing Zone. I have not tested them yet though.
I found an old character from five or six years ago when I first attempted a video of the construction of Marble Track 3.
I have named him Backpack Jack in English, and probably ルックくん in Japanese.
He’s helpfully carrying a bamboo skewer to be used as the Triple Splitter Small Feeder.
Candy Mama is on her way to pick it up from him, but first she has to go around the end of the Triple Splitter, not because she is not ghostable as needed, but because the Seventh Placed Outer Spiral Support does not yet exist. It is going to hold the top end of the Triple Splitter Small Feeder as well as the 20th-or-so segment of the outer spiral (once it exists).
Today was mostly a planning session. I wrote several notes to my future self:
I took seven frames today, all of which seem good to be used in the final video. Funny thing: Pinky was off screen for just two frames and magically appeared on the other side of the set with a chopstick. I did that with the hopes that G-Choppy can cut the 7th Placed Outer Spiral Support while that side of the stage is in view.
Today over the span of two hours I added 16 frames of video to the project. They are visible as the last 1.25 seconds of the video above.
G Choppy cut a piece that Reversible Guy caught in midair. That required suspending the cut piece with a thread. The tape that I used to hold the piece to the thread is more visible than I hoped, but I guess it can be removed in post processing.
Today G Choppy cut the Sixth Placed Outer Spiral Support which will soon glued by Mr McGlue. On the other side of the track, Lil Brother is holding the Medium Catcher below Triple Splitter until Mr McGlue can glue it as well.
Of the frames taken today, I think two had to be deleted.
Today I got 7 frames taken in under 2 hours. Not a lot, but I got two pieces glued, including another toothpick for the Lower Zig Zag Net and the newly named Circle by the Caret Splitter.
The trickiest bits today dealt with toothpicks; they kept falling, repeatedly, and were a general nuisance to deal with.
Right now, the demo outer spiral is on the track so I can figure out where to place the Sixth Placed Outer Spiral Support, but it has not been placed yet. I plan to put it at an angle from the stage just inside the Left Side Small Landing Zone.
Today I hung the top of the bar G Choppy cut last livestream, the Fifth Placed Outer Spiral Support. The top of the bar remained suspended in air for 6 frames, or 1/2 of a second of playback time, and Reversible Guy has just caught it.
But the trickiest bit was at the back of the stage! Trying to get the Lower Zig Zag Net in place required some patience to get the pieces in place. The space is quite small, and the pieces even smaller. I’ve got little toothpicks moving around, trying to be glued from underneath the lowest bar of the Lower Zig Zag
Today I got the traffic jam sorted by the Caret Splitter, and actually got three (3) pieces glued:
Here is the most recent snippet
I had to delete about 4 or 5 of the frames below, but here are the frames I took today.
Today I broadcast for over an hour, during which I got maybe 8 frames taken.
Very glad that I left notes for myself to get started quickly, and I hope the notes I left will help me get started again. Maybe I should scan those notes. They were basically plans for upcoming stuff.
There is a bit of a challenge in how to get Squarehead up to add onto the Caret Extension while Reversible, G Choppy, and Mr McGlue are working on the Fifth Placed Outer Spiral Support.
Today was super slow progress, getting about 7 frames done in 1.75 hours or so.
Main issue was having so many characters active at the same time! I realized after the first frame that I had not moved the Autosticks (toothpicks) toward the Caret Splitter Feeder, so they are paused for about 4 or 5 frames. I am sure it will be fine, though.
I have added reminders to move them over the next several frames.
Today I glued the Fourth Placed Outer Spiral Support after G Choppy cut it.
In the background the orange marble has rolled off the top of the Lower Zig Zag, where Mr Greene is going to help build an LZZ Catcher.
Here are the frames from today. Just 3 in 30 minutes; the first one was missing something!
I planned the Fourth Placed Outer Spiral Support a couple days ago. Been busy on Version 2 of the website so did not write this entry right after doing the live stream.
There was another live stream the same day, where I got Reversible Guy closer to placing the Fourth Support.
I started focusing the camera today!
In two hours I was able to take about 1 second worth of frames (I am guessing). During these frames:
Here is the snippet. The last 3 seconds are new
I glued two more toothpicks on the Lower Zig Zag today. Dr Sugar will be able to test the Lower Zig Zag soon, and will find it fails, but will hopefully get it to work by the time the Lower Zig Zag comes around to the front of the scene again.
Pinky will push the medium marble up the ramp above the Caret Splitter
to test, and will find that the medium marble works perfectly, because
it does.(*) In real life. Perfectly, every time.
Today before lunch I did a livestream in which toothpicks moved themselves up toward the Lower Zig Zag, where they will be rails on the second level of the Zig Zag, while the two toothpicks which had been so fiddly before were cut by G-Choppy and glued into place (by me, not yet by Mr McGlue.
During this time, coming up from the camera point of view, Candy Mama is leading the brothers onto the set, with something which looks suspiciously like it might be the ramp to get onto the stage. (Mainly because it is the ramp.)
Today I realized I had made a mistake moving Mr Greene over the Lower Zig Zag and Triple Splitter. I knew he could pass through walls, but there was no reason for his body to pass over them instead of just walk right through them.
That means I had to delete three images, which are available to Patrons! Here are the frames I ended up with today.
In 1.5 hours today, I was able to take two pictures and glue two pieces. Great to get the middle of the Lower Zig Zag glued, if not stabilized. Mr Greene is holding it in place while the glue dries on the upper end. G Choppy is coming over to cut the toothpicks for the lower end so they can hold it in place.
Today, Reversible Guy caught the piece of chopstick that G-Choppy chopped last week.
G-Choppy has just cut the toothpick that was in Dr Sugar’s head so it can hold the second level of the Lower Zig Zag.
Candy Mama is barely visible in the bottom of the frame as she leads someone or something onto the stage!
Today I finished what I had hoped to complete yesterday: gluing the second support for the outer spiral.
Here is the latest snippet!
Here are frames from today, including one I had to delete because I forgot to move Shikatama-san.
I had hoped to get the second support cut and glued today, but I ran out of time. I may have wasted too much time making sure the left and right snakes were moving properly.
At this moment, G-Choppy is ready to cut the vertical stick that Reversible Guy is holding. Dr Snow and Mr Greene are working on the Lower Zig Zag. There are some toothpicks crawling up toward the piece Mr Greene is holding; they will hold it securely once they are properly positioned.
Today in a bit over two hours, I added one second worth of frames to the video. After about only 5 frames or so, I noticed the camera support I had set up originally stopped supporting the camera stand. So I spent a decent amount of time repairing that. Hopefully it will continue to work as a support.
In order to save a lot of time, I have decided to allow toothpics to move themselves. I need at least two toothpicks to hold the lower end of the second-to-bottom track on the Lower Zig Zag, but there are no characters nearby the cache of toothpicks. I want to get a good deal of the Lower Zig Zag built during this current pass in front of the camera, so allowing the toothpicks to move will save time and get the Lower Zig Zag construction underway.
Mr Greene is named after the drawing I made for Chris.
He is about the same size as Dr Sugar, so maybe they can be partners of a sort. Is Mr Greene a nurse? Is Dr Sugar a woman?
Right at the moment, Mr Greene is climbing up onto the stage to help Dr Sugar put together the Lower Zig Zag, but I am super pressed for time if I want to get anything done before the stage rotates around again. I guess they will be working on it for a full rotation.
Short livestream today during which I had just enough time to check the Inner Left Guide for the Caret Splitter (ILG4CS) (featured in title image of this episode).
After testing the ILG4CS, I had enough time to take a few frames, which I posted below.
The unnamed white guy with green head has just delivered short popsicle sticks(*) which will be used in the Lower Zig Zag. I think I will make him ghostable. He will be working with Dr Sugar, who is apparently not ghostable, so it will be a good combination to have their differing styles of motion working together.
Today, my three hour live stream culminated with me gluing the inner berm for the medium marble just below the Caret Splitter while two more ramps for the Lower Zig Zag are being brought in by a rarely seen character with white body and green head.
The part of Mr McGlue was taken over again by the original Mr McGlue, after maybe 10 or so frames with the stand-in Mr McGlue.
“Hello Mr McGlue, my name is Mr McGlue.”
“Nice to meet you. Wait, who is that guy?”
Today I made two copies of Mr McGlue. I only needed one, but I wasn’t happy with the first one. (nor the second one, but I ran out of yellow pipe cleaners…)
As you may know, Mr McGlue is a ghostable character, meaning (for my
convenience) he can pass through wooden sticks. As the track
construction moves along, Mr McGlue’s big feet were making it more and
more difficult to let him pass through certain
most areas of the track. I had considered removing his big
shoes, but they are glued to his feet in a way that would damage his
feet too much. So I made a copy of Mr McGlue with short feet.
Pinky has pushed the blue ball down the new track, and (IRL) it works pretty well, but needs a bit of an inner berm, so maybe I should make it fall down through that gap during this test so they know what to make next.
In the background, the manager has just put into place the next length of track for the Lower Zig Zag
Today we got the backdrop in place over the Caret Splitter and Pinky is ready to roll the blue marble down to test the track. The track works relatively well in reality, but not well enough so I will need to make some modifications to it.
Ahem, the workers will need to make some modifications to it.
Today’s snippet is only available for Patrons of Marble Track 3 on Patreon
Today was split into two livestreams, though both were quite short. I got a piece glued behind the Caret Split, and had toothpicks delivered by Mr Shikatama for use in the Lower Zig Zag
Here is Toothpick Delivery, the longest version of the sixth snippet in the original silent mt3s.robnugen.com playlist.
The rest of the livestream is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY0G07cf9fY during which I actually glued the stick behind the Caret Split.
Today I spent 45 minutes (livestreamed) to glue a single piece in place. Getting it into the right place while shooting frames for the animation was like solving a puzzle. To summarize the puzzle, I created a 2-frame gif (that Patrons can see (or you can watch the 45 minute livestream and see it in there)).
This photo is an overview of the scene while figuring out the best way to get the piece into the right place while taking frames that don’t show how the piece was put into place.
Pretty good progress today; I have essentially begun making the Lower Zig Zag, and have nearly glued in place the first support of the Outer Spiral.
G Choppy is walking quickly over to the Lower Zig Zag area to help cut sticks to make it into reality.
Here are the sticks for the Lower Zig Zag before Square Head brought them onto the track.
I have officially linked the scene taken from the top and the main scene.
Here is the latest version of the sixth snippet. The last few frames show a chopstick falling out of the sky. The chopstick is not yet fixed in place, but once G Choppy cuts it, I will glue it into place as a support for the Outer Spiral.
Frames taken today include a few to link the scene taken above the main scene. Marble Track 3 Patrons can see the the scene taken on top, which will show up somewhere on the DVD.
I fixed the berm for the large marble today in a quick livestream only focused on that repair.
At this point, the stick still has not fully fallen from the sky; I need to take another frame of it in the air and then of it in Reversible Guy’s hand.
I plan to work on the track again Friday, and will get the stick into place then.
Immediately after filming the previous livestream, the camera I had set up precariously fell and broke the large marble berm.
Dang. Fortunately, it’s relatively intact.
Filmed a scene on the top shelf of my desk, which will connect with the rest of the movie later.
Perhaps this cut scene which will be on the DVD … oh my goodness I can make a DVD of the movie and allll the frames. Wouldn’t that be awesome??
Here are some of the images that I took today.
Support Marble Track 3 Construction on Patreon!
Pretty great progress today.. nearly ready to have the bamboo stick “fall down from the heavens” into place where Reversible Guy will put it where it can support the outer spiral, coming soon.
Special thanks to Prentiss for watching live; in the livestream, I introduced the characters, explained the plan for the outer spiral support, and described the plan to have the brothers knock the chopstick off the top.
Oh that reminds me; I should put blue fabric on the top, from where they will knock the chopstick down.
Today after a slow start dealing with tripod falling apart and with my computer conking out, I got the camera mostly lined up and took several frames, which will be visible under this snippet:
The last five seconds of the snippet are new.
Great news is that we are very close to finishing this snippet with a chopstick falling out of the sky, and therefore close to filming the backstory of how that chopstick came to fall in such a manner.
Oops I forgot to glue what will be a curtain rod for the top, so I did a second livestream today, much shorter than the one above:
Here are images for the second livestream in case it ever gets its own episode:
This is a must see or must miss depending on your point of view because it shows new points of view on stop motion: the planning stages. And new camera angles, and nearly a new character that I decided not to introduce yet.
Here are the frames from this livestream:
I forgot to take an image for this episode, so I used one of the frames.
Tried to figure out how to use the first double splitter as a small marble track, but I cannot get it connected to the first wiggly ramp because it would block the medium sized marble output point.
Lots of progress on the outer spiral, in terms of designing how it will connect to the tracks and supports underneath it.
Only five frames taken today. Here they are!
Had a quick livestream today during which Reversible Guy (apparently) glued a single toothpick and G Choppy cut two others which I had hoped to glue but could not quite before I had to head out.
… hmmmm I do not see the livestream on Youtube, after having streamed 90 minutes ago.
So I streamed again for about 20 minutes (to keep the total livestream duration accurate) but this time waxed poetic about my other life, and how he also wants to livestream.
Today I reinforced the outer spiral with some extra pieces; when I tried to pick it up without them, it wanted to flex at points that only had the tracks holding it together.
I also glued a single toothpick onto the piece where Pinky has been standing for a while. Reversible Guy brought the toothpicks from the center of the track.
And the snake has started spiraling onto the bar, though it is blocked by Mr McGlue and G Choppy.
Today I added the 16th segment to the outer spiral. It’s nearly complete! I used super glue, but ended up having to use real glue and cutting the live stream shorter than I might have otherwise. Tomorrow I should be back to regularly scheduled streaming for 2 hours or so.
Oh, and I found a new camera angle that gives the live stream what is nearly my point of view when working on the track. I hope you like it.
Livestreamed for 2 hours today, during which I added four more segments onto the outer spiral, for a total of 15, and took fourteen frames of the movie, of which I think I deleted 2, leaving 12 which will make a total of 1 second of video.
No great difficulties today. I forgot to take a pic of the setup I had for the outer spiral segments to dry. The first person who does a screen grab of them will get a prize. Must link to this entry, and link to the timestamp of the screengrab for verification.
Today I did a relatively quick livestream during which I decided to re-place the vertical support for the feeder track into the split bridge.
I forgot to take a picture, but I will do that now.
Here are the frames I took today. The first one was deleted because it just magically put the vertical piece into place.
Wow; I just finished streaming for 3.5 hours, (during which I could have run off to teach a lesson. I am super happy that I turned it down. Would have been frustrating to run off and do that,) and I feel happy happy to be so productive here.
The trickest part today was dealing with the snake; they are far harder to manipulate than I anticipated! That is why the snake does not slide off the bar it’s on; that would have chewed up too much time, so I made the snake poke at the next bar as if looking for a place to start. In addition to being easier to film, I think it’s more realistic snake behavior.
I made the eleventh section of the outer spiral, and used it to create an outer spiral frame, but (even though I used super glue, the 11th section was wobbly, so) I have not attached the eleventh section to the outer spiral yet.
Today’s frames (yes, just two):
After the superglue fix yesterday, the small marble catcher stayed in place (without sagging) for the few frames that needed the small marble to rest on the catcher before rolling down the zig-zaggy track.
Delayna, a friend of mine from YRUU back in my high school days watched the livestream for her first time. Yay Delayna! Thank you for watching!
Here are the frames I took today.
Today I felt a little guilty for using superglue, but it was just so deliciously fast to put together segments of the outer spiral. I got two segments added in a relative flash compared to before, waiting for a day for glue to dry, etc.
Then, and therefore, I superglued the small marble catcher under the triple splitter. If it stays in place, then progress should be quite quick; I should be able to get the small ball catcher properly supported and ready for testing (within the movie) next time I do filming.
After taking 6 frames and watching the resulting output, I deleted 7 or 8 frames to reshoot them.
Basically the small marble catcher below the triple splitter needs more support before it can properly catch marbles.
I need to record the snake swiping a small marble off the splitter, but there is no support, so I gotta put the support up before the snake does the swipe, and do the swipe before I put the support up because the small marble keeps making the support sag downward.
Probably no output video today, but I added two more segments to the demo outer spiral, and nearly have the small marble being triple-split correctly.
In the first part of the live stream, it was super frustrating today working with the fiddly pieces of the outer spiral which kept falling every which way while I tried to glue them.
Then in the latter part, nearly as frustrating when the small marble catcher on the triple splitter broke.
Again no output video today, but I took two frames, and photos of several of the workers so I can put photos up for them.
Though it is a bit crooked, I got two more segments added to the outer spiral.
Here are the two frames I took today
I took no frames today, but I worked on the outer spiral for a good twenty minutes or so, making two pairs of sections, each of which will extend the spiral by two sections, so I expect to add four sections to the spiral next time I livestream.
In other news, I have decided to rebrand my patreon page as Marble Track 3, although I think the URL will still be patreon.com/thunderrabbit
I livestreamed for nearly 2 hours today, during which I glued five pieces, three of which are meant to appear in the final movie. The other two are for the outer spiral stand-in.
The challenging bit today was having two ghostable characters appear to pass through each other. Mr McGlue and Reversible guy needed to occupy the same space at the same time.. I think it looks reasonably fine. Here they are ghosting through each other.
I just did a quick livestream to continue work on the outer spiral. It’s a whole lot faster to just do the work myself instead of having the workers do it hahahaha
This photo shows the two next portions of the outer spiral as the glue dries.
I prepped some thigs that will make progress faster in the future.
Worked for 2 hours today, getting a bit confused as to when / how to fix the snake around the triple splitter so that I can secure the splitter to the correct width to separate marbles by size.
The snake had flipped the switch but the stage moved away too quickly so I had Squarehead flip the switch back. Part of the problem may be that I have not been moving the stage a consistent amount recently. I need to start using the dots to measure how far I rotate it each time.
Today over the span of about two hours I created 12 frames of video.
The most difficult part was getting in the snake to properly wrap itself around the upper marble splitter and not have the orange marble fall every time.
In the background the gluer walked through the bridge and the blue marble and the pink character to come glue at piece near the foreground.
Also in the background, The reversible guy is picking up two pieces which will lead to the bridge.
Special thanks to Mayumi and Jimmy for voting on the Great Tail Switch Mystery. Should the snake’s tail flip the switch or not?
In the last video, the snake’s tail was perfectly poised to either flip the switch or not, and we three (me, Jimmy, Mayumi) unanimously voted to have the snake flip the switch. For me, it had been “too long” since the stage direction had been reversed.. nearly two full rotations!
Finished delivering the marbles in this live stream. After Spoonhead caught the marbles, he had to catch up with the rotation of the stage to bring them back into place.
Anyway, during this livestream I created the last bit of this video.
In this livestream, I added 1 second of video to the 6th snippet.
In the background, the reversible guy has just gotten the bridge cut and is about to place it when he (and I, ahem) realized it was flipped around the wrong way.
In the foreground, the snake began climbing up the ramp to the triple ball splitter while the manager tries to work out how to get the small ball to fall at the right place.
Working on MT3 today I had a funny idea. There were two marbles ready to roll off the track and I realized it would be great for the spoonhead guy to catch them. So I had to erase eight frames, but they were not too hard to recreate, and the end result is great.
The frames are shown in the last second of the video above.
Apparently I did not write anything here either. Strange.
Added about 3 seconds worth of frames, so about 36 frames today. Pretty good! One of the snakes has finished his first task and is now snaking around to meet up with his friend who will soon be able to snake around. Not sure if I will have them leave… oh, maybe they should curl up and wait somewhere.
Pinky fell off the stage and hit the switch, so the stage is rotating again. This helped me glue the upper rail along the medium|small marble split. It’s drying now.
よいしょ is the audio I want to add right at the end of this video. In this case, it is the equivalent of “3. 2. 1. lift!”
Spoonhead is adept at getting the marbles onto the stage because he’s the right height for that. I gave him long arms as well to help lift marbles (and knock the switch around accidentally).
Speaking of accidents, while trying to film the frame after they lifted the marble, it fell and knocked everything askew.
１０年前二番目のビーだせんは六ヶ月で作りました。 Ten years ago, I made Marble Track 2 in 6 months.
いじめる人が「六ヶ月は無駄でした」だって。 Trolls said I wasted 6 months.
ファンの人が「すごい！どうやって作った？」だって。 Fans asked how I made it.
だから、去年新しいビー玉線路「三番目ビーだせん」を作り始めました。 Therefore, last year I started a new marble track, Marble Track 3.
予定は毎週二時間以上「三番目ビーだせん」を作ります。 The plan is to work on it at least 2 hours per week.
今も作ろうと思ったんだけど日本語の宿題も大切です。I was going to work on it now, but I should also write Japanese.
I started a channel on YouTube for my latest passion project: Marble Track 3, which is being built to show people exactly how to make a marble track out of wooden sticks and glue.
It all started 10+ years ago when I showed Marble Track 2 to the world. https://mt2.robnugen.com/ As you can see in the comments, trolls were like “you wasted 6 months of your life!” Fans were like, “wow! how did you make that??”
In addition to creating frames for the movie itself, I have been creating a curved track to be the stand-in track for the large marble to spiral around the whole stage.
I spent a couple hours on MT3 yesterday, culminating in introducing a new character whose job is to carry marbles onto the stage. On his way out, he hit the switch to reverse the stage rotation, so Squarehead will fall because he is just about to jump off the stage onto the ramp, but the stage is just about to reverse direction.
Only a couple of characters to move around, and no big disasters of things moving without authorization, so I was able to add five seconds of video today in just 1.25 hours.
Today I livestreamed more of The Making of The Construction of Marble Track 3
Hahaha I am really entertained by this next portion of the video. Didn’t even really see it coming until just the other day when I needed a way to hold up a rail while it gets glued into place.
Since June 2017, I have spent 7.5+ days on Marble Track 3.
The resulting video snippets, available via https://mt3s.robnugen.com/, total approximately 9 minutes 39 seconds.
Neat neat neat I just discovered some new characters who should prove to be pretty useful as well as squirmy and maybe giving heebee jeebees!
I am in the middle of making the marble splitter work for small marbles.
The manager has just glued one rail into place and will glue the inner rail next.
Next, the manager will:
At the same time, Reversable Guy (RG) will place the other splitter top rail. Only problem is holding it in place before there are supports for it.
Yesterday I glued a piece onto the track which was designed to catch small marbles as they fall through the not parallel bamboo chopstick marble splitter.
Now it’s time to see if it worked!
Woohoooo it worked!!
(written 00:11 Tuesday 01 May 2018 JST)
Great progress on MT3 today. I shaved the bottom of the marble splitter chopsticks so the small marble could pass under them. I made a bit of a continuity mistake though by actually lifting one of the chopsticks a bit (instead of just shaving the bottom of it).
These are pics from before the shave:
Just smiling after watching the latest snippet for Marble Track 3 construction. It’s the one called “Brotherly Spat” on YouTube. In it, the brothers get into a fight, which they had done a little bit in the first video, but this time, it’s on, as they said on Southpark, and the brothers’ fight is meant to look like a cartoon dust cloud with random feet and other extremities poking out of the cloud as it hovers in mid air.
Curiously, I do not see the live stream that I broadcast today. Usually they are visible on Marble Track 3 YouTube channel immediately after upload.
I did only about 56 minutes of MT3 today before I glued a piece and had to pause. The large sized marble has been lifted up onto the track; the little brother has gotten back onto the stage and is fighting the big brother; the manager has just placed a little toothpick rail on the small marble track that meanders down from the ball splitter.
At the time I am posting this, I actually already glued and tested the U turn.
Here is the video I streamed during the test:
I added lots of frames yesterday to Marble Track 3 video. There was a long section with just 2 or 3, or even just 1 character moving at a time. I added 20 seconds to the video, which destroys any previous day expect maybe the first couple days when I just had the manager walking around.
I did not exactly predict the current situation; I just knew the chopstick poking off the edge of the track should do something. It ended up knocking over a bridge, which knocked the switch into fast mode which caused some havoc including Candy Cane Mom and Green Cutter to lean toward the center of the stage to offset centrifugal force due to the rotational velocity. (I think my terms are correct here).
I worked for 90 minutes today and nearly 60 minutes the other day (but did not put up a new video then). The latest:
While the Reversable Guy went to see what happened, the little brother grabbed onto the chopstick which had kept the stage from rotating properly. Before crashing into the ramps, he jumped off; he is fine.
Soon RG will go back to the switch and perhaps find the ramp knocked over, or maybe the ramp will turn the switch on full blast which could be fun..
I have two sets of notes descrbing what characters should do. The Reversable Guy is trying to figure out why the stage is not rotating. The green head guy is about to glue a small stick under the ball splitter.
Meanwhile, Candycane Mom has just put the dual track rail in place down at another ball split point. It will hold medium-sized and small-sized marbles.
(written 09:25 Wednesday 21 March 2018 JST)
In a single day, I can take maybe 20 or 30 frames, which adds a couple of seconds to the final movie.
Yesterday, I worked 2 hours on Marble Track 3, including adding a new dimension of planning to the project:
I wrote notes to script out the next 5 weeks (or so) for the Reversable Guy (character whose head looks largely the same when facing forward or backward) as he debugs why the stage is slowing down. For what I have sketched out so far, in final movie time, it will be like (323-183) / 12 = approx 12 seconds of video.
An interesting thing is happening with the stage rotation. Last week I noticed a chopstick was sticking out too far for the stage to turn all the way around, and this time it has hit the wall and begun to hamper the rotation of the stage.
I think the cutter guy might cut the offending chopstick and have the stage spring forward, which I may do in slow motion again, like when the manager got yanked by the spinning bearing while they tried to wrangle it.
I think I added four seconds of video today in about an hour and a half. Pretty speedy because at some points only two characters were moving.
Since June 2017, I have spent 6.3+ days on Marble Track 3.
The resulting videos available via https://mt3s.robnugen.com/ are like 8 minutes 32 seconds long.
Now that the little brother has been found to be alive and kicking, it’s time to get back to work.
I will be out of town during the weekend, so not able to work on this until next week, probably Thursday or Friday.
Since June 2017, I have spent 6.3+ days on Marble Track 3.
The resulting videos available via https://mt3s.robnugen.com/ are like 8 minutes 28 seconds long.
I finished the 5th snippet today. The little brother has been found, and did a little dance on the topmost track, much to everyone’s consternation because they had just spent several seconds looking for him.
This clip has 1400 frames in it.
I had previously thought of having the little brother come running up to see what all the fuss was about, and knock everyone off the stage. But I have done that once, and it wastes a bunch of time, and the timing didn’t work out anyway.
So in the end, the characters who were looking for him all turn around one by one. Candycane mom will put her hands on her hips after she fully turns around. This will be the last frames I add to this Take in Dragonframe. After this, we’ll have six (6) snippets in the playlist.
14:03 Friday 09 February 2018 JST
{< youtube s-KCwA27wjA >}
On Feb 5th and Feb 8th I finished the final 5 seconds of video uploaded as “squiggle squiggle” on Friday, and then three seconds of “squiggle squiggle squiggle” on Saturday(?) and now after filming 2 seconds of video in 60 minutes, he is nearly out from between the plates, and they are nearly in full force looking for him.
I got a couple seconds of easy filming done today during which I debated for a bit if I should have people get worried about little brother. Ultimately decided yes, and I’m quite happy with the results so far! The guy with green head is now helping big brother look for little brother. Candy Cane has finished coming up the ramp with a load of five popsicle sticks. The very last frame of the film I output today shows little brother barely visible between the stage platters. I haven’t uploaded it to Youtube yet, but I assume I will when I get back home or find free wifi somewhere.
I spent an hour or more figuring out how to get Blender to import images and output video. This video is all of the frames I have so far. (5500 or so)
Recorded 2 seconds of video today, including having the little brother spin around and fall off the top end of the track splitter. The big brother started to run down to the area to look for his little brother but he won’t find him… I have decided to have the little brother crawl out from between the stages in about 6 movie-seconds from now, which may be in 2 months from now? .. maybe just one month, but it should be great.
I spent nearly 3 hours on Marble Track 3 today, but over an hour of it was trying to figure out how to make Blackmagic Fusion import multiple sequences of images to put them into one movie.
I was not able to figure it out.
I have a sneaking suspicion that BM Fusion is not designed to do this. Most of its output options were images, so.. apparently it is designed ot output images instead of videos. It did have an option to output quicktime, but the default was jpg.
This clip includes 1066 frames. I didn’t upload clips the past 2 or 3 times I worked on the track because it took a long time to add the first three ribs to the edge of the largest marble’s track.
Now I am in the process of getting some characters off the set because they are just じゃま and wasting time during filming. I already have the brothers wasting enough time, plus the guy in the back trying to make his way around the currently-highest point of the largest marble’s track.
(posted 00:08 Tuesday 23 January 2018 JST)
Two pics from a few days ago when I set up a clamp to hold the first rib in place while it dried.
I have worked on MT3 a few times since getting back. A couple days ago, progress was super slow and I did not even export a video clip, much less upload one. Today I got much further, after having figured out a way to lift the bridge, and then I had the green cutter guy make some curved toothpicks which will be used for rail supports to keep the large marbles on track during the 2nd to last U-turn.
I added a record 7 seconds of video in just 2 hours. Part of that was certainly due to fewer disparate things going on, not the least of which being that the stage was stopped from turning!
At this point:
I am quite happy with at least half of the frames I shot today. Fortunately, I am happy with the difficult ones! They were the frames in which the big marble rolled down the M Splitter and then slammed against the wall, driving the white pole all the way into the wall.
After the ball hit the floor, I had the other characters react to the
“sound”, but upon playback, they react too quickly. The frames of
those characters all moving toward the sound were all pretty easy to
take, so I feel good about re-shooting them. I estimate it’s
about 15 I need to delete only 7 frames in all, so just the last
half second at the very end of the video below:
I worked on MT3 in two parts today. Right around 2 hours total, I think, not including letting glue dry (during which I ate lunch and had a nice nap). I found a pretty good technique for keeping the large marble in place: using a twist tie looped around the track seems to do the trick. If I had taken the time to figure that out before I had the guy push the big marble up the M Splitter, he would have been able to walk up on both rails. As it is, he had one foot down and one foot up, lodged betwen the rail and the marble to keep it from rolling.
I finally glued the last piece of the M Splitter.. and it works! Marbles roll down it faster than I had hoped, so I considered lowering it.. but there is just enough room for the small marbles to roll under that track and onto the small marble track which has walls on it, if I lower one of the walls.
Unfortunately, that wall is also the support for the track, so it will be tricky to cut. I might have to use the dremel or something..
Only one hour so far today on Marble Track 3.
The images above show the track before and after having glued the second support on the first half of what I am calling the M Dropper or M Splitter. It will split the medium sized marbles off the large marble track by being too wide for the medium sized marbles to touch both sides of the track.
Today I glued the first half of the track which will separate the medium sized marbles from the large marbles. I am reasonably sure I can get it to work without too much undo/redo, but it has taken some time to get it to look like the characters put it all in place.
One slight mistake: I need to cut the end of the sticks because they stick out beyond the edge of the circle. I guess that is not bad in itself, but for now I want to keep from doing that.
I just uploaded the video that I took yesterday. At this moment, the vertical bar is cut, but I have not taken the photo for that cut. The green guy has swiped his sword, and I cut the bar, but.. let’s just say they are not poised for the shot.
Since June 2017, I have
spent
4.444
4.4+ days so far on Marble Track 3.
I added about 2 seconds of footage today in 1.5 hours. Fast because a lot of it was just moving some characters around. Slow because Jennie came to sit in my lap for a bit. (I have come to accept the idea of letting her walk onto the scene; I will just take pictures of her entry… but she chose not to walk on the desk.)
Anyway, I am about to add a difficult bit to the large track, which will kinda set the stage, so to speak, for one of the small tracks, which runs nearby, and a medium sized track, which will branch off from the large track (by falling through the track. (That’s the tricky bit.))
During the livestream today, I watched the (5) clips so far to see which characters have had the ability to pass through tracks. Basically it’s easier to let characters pass through tracks, but I think it would be a good subtle thing if some characters (consistently) can, and some (consistently) cannot.
Anyway, I took notes and pinned them to the blue fabric which makes the floor of the set. The character in question had not ghosted through tracks before, so I had him climb over the track again today. It’s visible near the very end of this clip.
Today I glued the third of three angled walls along the small marble track which will eventually catch marbles which will have rolled over the medium sized track that ends with the toothpick lock.
I have spent 4.2+ days ) so far on Marble Track 3.
Funny to put it that way, but yeah today about 30 minutes per glued piece, if I recall correctly. I went to bed early last night and woke up early to get started on MT3.
Right now I am on the train so don’t have the clip ID handy.. oh but Chrome remembered it.
I am optimistic that the pieces I glued in place will prove to have been glued in correct enough places to stay put. Oh, and I used the dremel I got from Dad to clean up some pieces. They look nice.
I have spent 4.1+ days on MT3 so far.
I added 4 seconds of video during three.75 hours of livestreaming today; thanks to Jimmy for watching the last two!
I have spent 4+ days on MT3 so far.
I have spent 3.8+ days on MT3 so far.
I have spent 3.7+ days on MT3 so far.
I added 13 seconds of video in 2.25 hours today!
I have spent 3.6 days on MT3 so far.
Thanks to Jimmy for watchin 2 hours today!
Here is the latest video in my marble track construction series. I added about 4 or 5 seconds to the end of the video today.
I have spent 3.5 days on MT3 so far.
grun1.com is working again.
I glued the first curved piece which will turn the largest marbles nearly 180 degrees.. perhaps 170.. I am not yet sure if the track will work, which kinda spooks me. In Marble Track 3, if the characters glue everything before I glue it, I won’t easily be able to test a portion of track that seems like it needs testing. aka once I glue it without testing, it will take double extra time to refilm them putting the piece in place.
I bought an AC adapter to use with my camera. Today I had been able to use the battery for about 90 minutes before it conked out. The adapter was 2000 yen from Amazon, but between 6000 and 8000 yen at Bic Camera and Yodobashi Camera. How will this play out in the long term? Bic Camera connect with Amazon Buy Now inside their store? I think that is the simplest way (which Amazon would love).
I have spent 77+ hours on MT3 so far.
Special thanks to Jimmy for watching the Live stream nearly 3 hours today
I apparently did not write anything when I originally posted this, but (off the top of my head today, Sept 2nd, 2018,) I think this was back when Shikatama-san was rolling the big marble on the first track multiple times in a row but kept getting the ball knocked down the track by various antics.
Yay they rolled a marble!
Live stream was in two parts today.
I have spent 73 hours on MT3 so far.
Oh wow I really love it. The characters manically run around for a bit and it’s hard to tell what’s going on, but then they all line up for the first roll; I think it looks pretty good.
To be honest, this is taking longer than even I expected. I need to plan ahead a bit better to put characters where the need to be to glue stuff down, etc.
I have spent 70+ hours on MT3 so far.
Two livestreams today. Above, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZAxfzXo63I
I have spent 68+ hours on MT3 so far.
Playlist https://mt3s.marbletrack3.com/ mt3s stands for Marble Track 3 Snippets.
It does not honestly make a lot of sense, but the marble rolled on the stage and the guys ran around while it spun.
I have spent 66 hours on MT3 so far.
It isn’t as smooth as I’d like, but the moment Francois kicks the stage represents about 1 hour of time spent during which I attached the upper stage to the lower stage. Connecting the upper stage was challenging enough for me, so it would have taken a silly amount of time to create footage of the pipe cleaner guys doing it.
Here are today’s livestreams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpeHQqscrnA up to when I let the glue dry on the circle-drawer after adding a new piece to make it a drill guide
Once I got the screwdriver upright, it went quite quickly to get all the screws in. Even so, it took two hours to do the screwdriver part in the video above.
The playlist for Marble Track 3 now has four videos.
Get the helicopter up to super high speed and hovered the stage over to the right then started bringing the new stage with Francois.
I have spent 60+ hours on MT3 so far.
Pretty sure I finished the
haha I don’t remember what I was going to write. I am pretty sure I did not finish the sentence.
I finished drilling the holes, but they may not be deep enough; yup that was it.
I livestreamed for just about an hour today, and added a gag related to the direction of motion. Standing on opposite sides of the circle, the direction of rotation was miscommunicated between two characters.
Here is a link to MT3 snippets playlist
I have spent 54+ hours on MT3 so far.
It was a bit challenging to use the screwdriver and drillbit which are pretty heavy compared to the pipe cleaners, but I was able to get the first hole drilled, and I think I have a good system to drill the other holes in just the right places. I have glued the drillbit holder (yellow and green pipe cleaner guy) to the top of the bearing in such a way that he will hold the drillbit in the right spot for each hole simply by rotating the bearing.
Because I needed to get the bearing aligned, I did a little trope of the scratching fingernails variety as one of the characters simply pulled the bearing into place. He was not one of the characters who tried to wrangle it, but the sorta-joke is that apparently he could have done it without all the trouble of making it float, etc.
I have spent 51+ hours on MT3 so far.
Two livestreams from today, the second one being of me trying to figure out how to copy / reverse some frames in Dragonframe, plus messing with OBS a bit. I need to add 20 minutes to the total count because I forgot to start the second live stream on time..
I am really happy with this bit of the sequence. Thank you, Wachowski siblings.
I have spent 45.75 hours on MT3 so far.
Starting livestream now. I think this is my channel so you can follow along https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHiQhB8J_KI2LYQ7dsexfLw
I have spent 44 hours on MT3 so far.
I have spent 42 hours on MT3 so far.
Latest segment as of today:
They are preparing to center the spinning bearing over the stage.
First step was to make a shelter to protect the project from my cat https://new.robnugen.com/journal/2017/05/30/finished-mt3-shelter/
I added lights, blue background which work well enough for my first project.
Bought a pretty good camera and stand (because the stand I tried to make was too flimsy).
Here is my current setup as of 30 August 2017:
⁂ Two videos and three or four livestreams today (and tonight).
begin centering bearing hasn’t finished processing, but I uploaded the video:
Last night in the middle of drawing the circle which will help me center the bearing on the stage, I had to reglue the guide which I used to show where the pen should draw along the edge, so I paused the livestream while it dried.
17:27 livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6wzdFQO2II started drawing the circle
1:31:35 livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo_ysqq0VXc finished drawing the circle
I have spent 1 day 14 hours on MT3 so far.
Here is a link to the playlist which makes up the movies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KjsYc4Mb5g&list=PL0osPGt21FB48UwuhtCUoi9JndC9YDHAZ
I have spent 1 day 8 hours on MT3 so far.
Plus whatever I spent today (4 or 5 hours across two livestreams, including the first one where I replied to Jimmy’s chats).
Ma watched while I added about 100 frames to the video.
I have spent 1 day 8 hours on MT3 so far.
This is the first time I published the playlist of videos. I guess there were two videos at the original time of publication.
Turned on the rotating bearing to test it, and one character nearly came too close.
This took about an hour to do. Well an hour+ to research before I found Fusion, and then an hour to do it. I’ll just call it 2 hours.
I have spent 1 day 3 hours on MT3 so far.
This 20 second clip took 6 hours to make.
According to the durations listed on the livestreams, I have spent 1 day 1 hour on MT3 so far.
http://www.stopmotionanimation.com/profiles/blogs/my-first-flying-object
Using thread, I suspended a bearing plate from a broom over my
set. I did not have a good way to adjust the length of the
thread, so I used several layers of thick cloth (socks) on one
side of the broom to allow the plate to descend toward the stage.
Using Dragonframe's increments on a bezier curve, I got the plate
to do some vaguely reasonable side to side motion as it came down.
Special thanks to my friend Kai for providing the toy skeleton to
be my RC bearing plate pilot!
I drew these storyboards on the day I got the remote control for DragonFrame.
While preparing for my next scene, I realize I want to add a blur effect, so I introduced myself on stopmotionanimation.com because
I just came to the most technically difficult part of my movie: flying a helicopter (flat bearing thing) into the scene. I have an idea for how to rig it up with thread to simulate flight, but I want to add an effect of motion blur on the blades of my helicopter (flat bearing thing).
This is the first time the skeleton has been seen in a scene of Marble Track 3.
The livestream was 3 hours; it got split in the middle
video time: 68 seconds so far
video making time: 69001 seconds ( 19 hours) so far.
Interesting to see the sun start to stream through the window at the end.
16 hours so far.
I tried getting Cyberduck to talk to Amazon S3, but could not do it as easily as I was able to get it to talk to Dream Objects S3.
Last time I used duplicity, I included GPG in the mix, so the files are encrypted. I apparently did not put the key in a safe place so they are effectively bricked.
This time, no GPG, and I have set the files to be public (but I do not know where / how people can access them). Oh, and I could not get duplicity to work.
14.5 hours so far.
I started putting together the skeleton that Kai gave me as a 490 piece 3D plastic puzzle.
The livestream got interrupted
13.25 hours so far.
I added 200 frames in 2 hours 41 minutes (which included some prep time for future frames)
12.5 hours so far
I added two frames to the video today. Now when the camera is knocked backward, it takes a bit of time to move.
9 hours 24 minutes so far in livestreams for this thing.
Nice.
It came with some little cards that can be used to focus, and some pages that can be used to plan scenes.. maybe I will sketch some out now.
Yesterday I ended up with about 80 frames of completed video.
I might redo them from a different camera angle, but that would mean (starting over and) making a new shelf (or something) to hold the camera.
Today at Bic Camera in Lazona, I bought an extension cord for my headset. It will replace the male-to-male and female-to-female (and tiny male-to-female) extension monstrosity that I bought in Akihabara last week or so. Hopefully this will sort out the issues I had with sound in previous video.
The livestream features some audio pops and stuff at the beginning so watch your ears.
Here is the video of just the frames of characters moving around. Red/white guy escapes the stage.
Here are all the still frames taken today:
I am pretty happy with the resulting video.
I just bought a camera who I might name Mr Snaps. That’s the first name which came to mind. Dragonframe stop action animation software supports it.
Amazon is eating the world: I bought the camera and requested free delivery, scheduled to arrive within 21 - 25 hours from now.
And by started, I mean I mostly cleaned my desk, found a reasonable way to hold my camera, found Open Broadcaster Software, free streaming software that works on OS X, andddd made a crappy livestream.
Now I am headed out to buy a couple of helpful items.
I wonder if I’ll finish it this time.
I wonder if I’ll do my crazy time-consuming version or just make a normal version.
Because we have a cat, I’m starting by creating a shelter for the track.
(written 10:11 Monday 25 September 2017 JST)
Okay so it all started ten years ago. I made Marble Track 2 during my free time at work and then made this video.
People asked how I made the marble track. It’s a simple question with a simple answer. “I glued sticks together.”
I decided I should answer with a bit more detail by showing the pipe cleaner characters making the track. So this set of videos (which will eventually be one video) will answer the question about how to make the track.
Back Row: Candy Mama, G Choppy, Reversible Guy, Squarehead, Mr McGlue
Front Row: Mr Greene, Pinky, Dr Sugar, Big Brother, Little Brother, Super Spoony
You can support Marble Track 3 Construction in a variety of ways. Once Marble Track 3 Construction is finished, the person or entity who has given the most support will receive the actual Marble Track 3 track itself.
