ROFL...

Hey, now before you run off Mr Cardinal Bryster sir. (bows deeply)

What's Pinacle Studio like?

What version of it have you got?

Have you used any other similar software, if yes how does it compare?

A Cardinal doesn't run off! He retires in a stately manner.

I use Pinnacle Studio 11.
It can be a bitch to install and it can be very tricky to operate, especially if your project involves of lots of transitions and special video effects.

However, the results are spectacular! I made a DVD with professional looking menus and tons of transitions and effects of my grandson's first year on this planet. Everyone loved it, paticularly as they were expecting 'home movies - groan ! '  I was able to add a backgound music track and sound effects too.

I'm in the middle of making a DVD of our holiday in Scotland and one involving another of my grandchildren.

To use Pinnacle effectively you need a good graphics card, lots of ram and a large hdd. I use 3 hdds - 500gig, 300 & 160 gigs. Pinnacle generates a lot of huge temp files as it renders and depending on the size of your project can take hours to render to your DVD burner.

But, I promise you if you do it right and stick with it the end result can be every bit as good as something you might see on the tv, which isn't surprising as many TV Companies use Pinnacle sourced products. You should be warned though, your project will only be as good as the footage you are working with. You can't do too much with crap footage and there's no answer to idiots who clap along with the crowd at an event instead of filming the crowd clapping!!!!!!

Nero has it's own video editing software suite called Nero Vision. It's nowhere near as complex or sophisticated as Pinnacle and works a lot faster, but for my money it doesn't give you the quality end-result you can get from Pinnacle Studio.

Hope this helps.

It does actually, because I'm thinking about the possibility of getting a video camera, the kind that saves to either an inbuilt hard drive or a flash card, so that I don't have to invest 2 or 3 thousand pounds to convert footage on a tape into something a computer can deal with (avi for instance) - and Ian's been talking about something called Pinnacle Studio.

I've only used Premiere Pro - had it at college and they have it here at Uni too.  But it's not cheap.

That's why I was asking.  So thanks for the info.

I suppose you don't happen to know how it compares with Premiere Pro, do you?

Fran: I use a medium priced Panasonic DV camera that plugs straight in to the pc via a usb cable OR a firewire cable. The camera plays back my footage from its tape, and I can see what I've got in realtime on the Pinnacle preview screen. In fact, Pinnacle gives you onscreen controls to operate the camera once you've plugged it in and swtiched it on!

More modern cameras now use a DVD-RW disc that I think you can just pop into your pc's burner drive.

And I haven't used any software other than those I've mentioned.

What do you call "medium priced"?

Fran, don't be too surprised.  Bryster is probably still miffed about that rock you hurled at Mars. He'll get over it.  At least I hope so for all our sakes.  Inquisition run amok would be baaadddddd.

Fran: Mine cost about £700, but I got a deal for about £400. You can checkout the Argos or Dixons/currys for one around 200-300. Depends on what you want to do with it.

Fran: DVD arrived................by Owl !  (I'm very worried about you.)

Fran: Wonderful footage. At last, someone who knows how to shoot train movies!
It was really nice to see some stuff on the foot plate of Bittern. That really helps. I can capture some stills from this and use them for reference shots.

Huge Thank You!

(Gives Fran a 'Get Out Of Chair Free' card.)

The Owl Service is the only way to send really important stuff.

ggg.

There is footage there from two of us, we spent all day hanging around stations, marshaling yards and in and out of trains, the footplate stuff was Steve - I know cos I filmed him climbing up there.

Otherwise it's often hard to tell who filmed which clip - unless either one of us appears in the shot, it's funny really - when editing it I often found myself looking at a really nice shot and thinking, "that must have been Steve's" only to see him walking down the platform.

You see I was using the Sony PDX10 from Media section at College and he was filming with his own Sony camera - similar to the PDX10, but cheaper, I naturally assumed he'd be better at it than me, so seeing a nice shot and only later realising it was one of mine was really nice.

I did say I didn't have many stills, here's one more I've found, not of either Bittern or Wadebridge, this is of the 41312.

There were a few other trains in the marshaling yard you see - they were really the only ones I had time and leisure to take stills of as well as video.

There was also a Canadian Pacific Merchant Navy Class, called I think Bodmin, and a tiny bit of video of a 92212, that I can get stills from if you need that too.   Plus a little green engine - might be the one they use as Thomas the Tank engine, not sure though.

Hurriedly runs off with the "get out of chair free" card before the Bryster changes his mind and tries to take it back.

Grrr!  I'm a bit angry/annoyed... b/c of this project I now am interested in starting up my old hobby of collecting scale model trains (HO and N) but I have never been completely interested in American style trains. It's always the European style or Asian trains that have interested me. So I go to the bachmann site and see they have a lot in the catalog. For fun I click their international sites and notice all the trains.. even the Flying Scotsman ones, Harry Potter ones (Castle and Hall) are available there. But I can't order them! grrrr!!

Then to make matters worse, their affiliates which make Chinese style model trains are also unavailable for me here.. as they are for sale in Europe and not in the States; and unless I failed to look properly, not available for online order. I would love to do a model scene from something like the movie Shanghai Express. Or even a Hogsmead scene with a Harry Potter feel for the kids.... 

*sigh

Why not make everything available everywhere instead of localizing markets? Just because someone lives in one country doesn't mean all his/her interest will only be only of things in that country/culture. Especially in the age of the Internet.

*sigh

Attached Link: http://models11.net/store/

@nruddock: This is really cool! Thanks for the link. I already found some stuff I'm now looking into buying.

Nice brass and copper materials, where did you get them... or how did you make them?

Fran: The copper was one of yours. I just made a few adjustments. The brass I can't remember.
Thanks for looking!

Chris,

That's some kind of regulating valve assembly. The top on will be a gate type valve, only a quarter turn from off to full on for coarse adjustments. The bottom will be a needle valve and have several turns. You set the top one about where it needs to be then throttle with the bottom wheel.

What it does is hard to say out of context. You need to control three things to run a steam engine, the water going in to the boiler, the heat in the boiler, and the rate the steam is applied to the pistons. If you are smart you also have over-pressure relief on the boiler and mechanical brakes. My first guess would be it controls the rate of water entering the boiler. The firebox is coal and you regulate that with a shovel. Your pistons and a waste gate with gages need to be right in front of you so you can fiddle with them all the time. To the left of the boiler is a good out of the way place for the water inlet.

This valve arrangment seems to take steam from the 'Steam Fountain' above the boiler - the bit I modelled before this, so there's a clue.
Thanks for your comments!

Quote - Fran: The copper was one of yours. I just made a few adjustments. The brass I can't remember.
Thanks for looking!

Lol!  I'm so glad I said it was nice then.

They didn't call those guys running trains engineers for nothing. Back in those days, you didn't just throttle and brake - you had to have a decent clue about steam plant operation. Do something wrong and it's either BOOM or something fairly expensive happening.

I bet not all the valves were for steam or water, you probably also needed to control oil or even fuel-oil.

The automated bits with diesel or gas turbine electric must make things on modern engines really easy to run in comparison.

*I bet not all the valves were for steam or water, you probably also needed to control oil or even fuel-oil.

*The oilers on this puppy were I believe fully automated, requiring only initial priming although I have seen grease-pots on some pics.

Very nice, it's coming together really well!

Ho, looking really nice!

interesting.. do you use terrains to boolean the hole for the window also?

Now I have a frame. It is just that - a frame - so there is no need to boolean anything.
I copied it, pasted, flipped x and brought the 2 parts together to form what you see here. This means it's the same on both sides.

Then I went back into PSP - note the lack of forward planning here - and filled in the hole on the jpg. This gave me a shape that I could use as glass to fit inside the frame. viola' .

I'll use the glass as a neg to cut out a hole in the cab bulkhead before I fit the window.

ah ok, yea thats what i meant, if u'd use a terrain to boolean the cab bulkhead

Most very totally indescribably awesomely cool

Gonna have to try that out in the TE, just to see for myself what it does.

That cab is looking great! I imagine the cab may be the most fun and challenging area of the locomotive to model with all those fiddley bits.

Bloody excellent mate!!!!.... no other word for it, except maybe First class!

When it's complete, i'd like to see a fly round (and through) the completed model, that would be cool.

oh, you're finally doing this? looks very very god so far :)

Looks to be coming along very well.

Hi, Drac! Want to give it a shot?

And while I'm at it, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has taken an interest in this project. It's your support that has kept me going for the last 18+ months.

I'm sorry I haven't been able to do as much as I or you would have liked lately but that's real-life for you.

well you know, after 18 months we're all just scared ull give up! lol This thing just has to be done one day lol..

I'm following the progress with great interest, and I'm interested in what you'll do with it once finished?

Any chance of a little animation?  With smoke?  :biggrin:

Toot toot!

*and I'm interested in what you'll do with it once finished?

• Sell it, give one to my mom, donate one to the NRM.....who knows. Someone offered me £5k for it...you do the math*.*

Animation? You have to be kidding.

Keep chuggung along, it's looking excellent!

Quote - and I'm interested in what you'll do with it once finished?
-----

Animation? You have to be kidding.

Aw.... shucks!

It is because of this project that I am now getting interested again in hobby trains. HO and N scales, but mostly N. I'm now buying the box cars, collecting the engines, and researching layouts and buildings and generally dreaming of one day doing my own (I dunno what the train hobbiest terminology is) my own landscape. But now I am very interested in finding a Flying Scotsman and other European style trains in N, or British N scale.

I've been looking into magazines. Lots of new things since the last time I was involved with model trains. So I'm curious.. who else here has a model train hobby?

Bryster, I hope you finish this project soon.. I would like to get my hands on this train.

Looking at the DAZ thread I had no idea you had done all this.

Without a doubt, that's is the most hardcore Bryce modeling I've ever seen.  Actually, the dedication is as hardcore as the modeling come to think of it.  That's amazing stuff Brystie.
 
Respect!

Chris, I don't know what to say. I seem to be superlative deprived at the moment. ;) 

It's, well, so damn good!

If you're ever in Los Angeles, the drinks are on me. :D

Oh, and this is the first time I've looked at this thread and you have 499 posts at this moment.

Now you have 500.

Best,
Jack

The free stuff would certainly be the busiest place on earth if you set it down there.... who needs 5k anyway. (Incidently, 5k in sweden is only worth around 35p.)

Quote - Looking at the DAZ thread I had no idea you had done all this.

Without a doubt, that's is the most hardcore Bryce modeling I've ever seen.  Actually, the dedication is as hardcore as the modeling come to think of it.  That's amazing stuff Brystie.
 
Respect!

I Agree this is one Hard Core Bryce project I've ever seen.

Here y go Bryster all back as a sticky.. ...

Aw, thanks Bobby!
I really appreciate it. For a time there I thought the whole thing had been eaten by aliens!

ooh this thread didnt die after all! when can we expect the next updates bryster?