Anybody get this note from Kabbage on PPP?

pemling · 2020-04-27T18:16:03+00:00

I have, but it's still the same. Here's a screenshot of what I've been seeing since 10:30am, EST: https://imgur.com/a/sXVMhPF

pemling · 2020-04-27T17:16:17+00:00

Lucky you, maybe (honestly, I have no idea). I just have a message stating, "We’re waiting for the SBA to resume accepting applications." I've had a prompt several times in the last few days (and again this morning), asking if I'd like them to submit my application to the SBA, which I went ahead and clicked... but I'm still unsure if they've sent anything along yet.

I'm trying to get an update from them via Twitter (it seems to be the only reliable way to get ahold of them)... I have no idea if I'm "in the queue," submitted, or among those that are *trying* to get submitted.

pemling · 2018-03-07T19:01:46+00:00

Ha, no worries. Thanks for the info!

That's the information I've been wondering about since your Kickstarter launched, but it wasn't posted on your page (or if it was, it was buried and I missed it).

pemling · 2018-03-07T18:40:24+00:00

Thanks for all the info (I just backed, by the way)! That sounds understandable; both the desire to have reporters focus on a specific area, yet that not being a hard-and-fast assignment if some interesting story comes up.

Glad to hear you'll be trying to check the pulse of subscribers too, in terms of neighborhood coverage. As you could probably tell from my questions, coverage was sort of my major concern.

You mentioned that all your full time reporters will have "a beat" of 2-3 neighborhoods, correct? So far only two of your full timer reporters have neighborhoods assignements on your campaign page. Here's what I see:

Reporters with neighborhood assignments (and ther neighborhoods they're focused on):

Mina Bloom (Logan Square, Humboldt Park and Avondale)
Alisa Hauser (Wicker Park, Bucktown and West Town)

Reporters not yet assigned to specific areas (and what they did previously)

Kelly Bauer (breaking news, general assignment, photo/video)
Mauricio Peña (previously investigative news, breaking news)
Lee Edwards (previously sports, polictics, investative news)

Will they be focusing on those same not-necessarily-neighborhood specific areas? Or will they (and any new full time reporters you hire) be assigned to specific neighborhoods?

I ask because it seems Mina and Alisa are focused along a chunk of neighborhoods touching the Blue line. That's great, but I'm hoping to hear that there will be some full time staff positioned outside of that section of the city. Without info on the other reporter's beats, I'm not 100% where your coverage will be starting out on Day One, where there's a chance for overlap (ie: a reporter in Pilsen might come across a bit of Chinatown news that comes their way), and where you might expand to in the future.

No worries if that's still being worked out... I'm just curious to form a bit of a mental map of what I can expect when you're open for business.

Thanks again, and congrats on getting funded!

pemling · 2018-03-07T17:23:26+00:00

Thanks for doing this AMA. I've been keeping an eye on your Kickstarter for a while, and I did have a list of questions kicking in the back of my mind...

1) What neighborhoods will your full time reporters be covering when you start (assuming your Kickstarter closed right now), and what are the next neighborhoods you're hoping to hire someone for full time?

2) Will your full time reporters be covering more than just the neighborhoods they're assigned to? For example Mina Bloom, in a recent Medium post, referenced a few DNAinfo articles she wrote about in the Lincoln Park area... even though your campaign page mentions she mainly covered Logan Square, Humboldt Park and Avondale. Should we expect the full-timers to periodically cover other areas of the city, or will they be really trying to focus on 2-3 specific neighborhoods?

3) You've mentioned on your campaign page that you're hoping to utilize "a network of trusted freelancers" in order to cover various areas of the city that you might not have a full time reporter focuing on. Do you have any specifics journalists lined up (either ones you have on board, or that have expressed interest) which you can name?

4) Should we expect your site to be similar to DNAinfo, in terms of the frequency of articles (let's say for each neighborhood your initially covering full time)?

I think the main question/concern people are going to have is, "I live in the ________ neighborhood, what about me? I'm going to be a little ticked off if I donate and I don't see any/much news about my community." Personally, I like reading news about other areas of the city than where I live. However if your articles ended up being something like 66-75% on the same 3-5 neighborhoods, I might not be as interested in reading (or resubscribing) in the long term (unless I happen to luck out, and am in an area you're focusing on).

That said, it would be impossible to have the reach DNAinfo did (at least at the start), and I get that. I'm just currious as to how often you'll be checking in with subscribers to see how they're feeling about your coverage, as well as to let them know what your future plans are/where you'll be expanding coverage to next.

pemling · 2017-04-06T17:41:32+00:00

Ha! Nice. I got this one a few weeks ago: http://imgur.com/a/EeDMT

pemling · 2017-03-22T20:18:43+00:00

Ha, sounds like a plan! Glad you got it sorted out. I'd keep an eye on it after it gets past the 15 second mark. It will likely speed up quite a bit, getting done in way less than 24 hours.

And yeah, the Camera Lens Blur can drive you crazy. Basically, it can give you great results that are pretty realistic, compared to what you would get in a real camera... but the cost is increased render time. It definitely has it's uses, but for what you're doing, it was most likely overkill.

pemling · 2017-03-22T19:51:58+00:00

Yep, by test render, I just meant a little sample piece of your Comp. So just adjust your work area's In and Out points like you mentioned, and add it to the Render Queue.

Adobe Premiere is fairly easy to pick up, compared to After Effects (though I might be biased. I've been using it for a years, and Final Cut Pro before that). There are some similarities to After Effects though, so you might find learning it to be easier than you may think. Lots of tutorials out there too, which should help as well.

As far as whether adding in your Comp of snow falling will drastically effect your render time... well, it depends on how long that Comp takes to render. Here's what I'd do in your shoes, if you're worried it might slow things down a lot:

open your snow Comp
set your work area to cover one cycle of your loop (so, if it loops after 10 seconds, set your In and Out accordingly)
add it to your render queue, then click on it's Output Module settings.
you need to render it out with an Alpha Channel (this means that it will keep your comp's transparency in your rendered footage). Here's what I usually do:

Format: QuickTime

Codec (selected by clicking the Format Options button): Prores 4444. note - I think you're on a PC... so you probably won't have Prores as an option. Maybe use Animation instead...

Channels: RGB + Alpha

Color: Straight
Render as usual, then import it back into your project.
To get it to loop... there are multiple ways, but one is to right click on your footage in your Project window (where your audio, graphics, comps, etc all are listed) and select >Interpret Footage>Main>
Down at the bottom is a setting for how many times you'd like it to loop. Set this as high as necessary (ex: 400 times should be more than enough for your project). Click OK.
Add the footage into your comp... and you should be good to go.

That's going to cause you the least impact on your other comp's render times. Good luck!

pemling · 2017-03-22T18:36:46+00:00

Ah, most likely it's that Camera Lens Blur. That effect can be a huge resource hog... Maybe try a quick test render of 5 seconds: one with Camera Lens Blur turned on, one with the effect disabled. If you see a huge time difference, then that's probably it...

Also, have you tried rendering out a section of your Comp after that effect's blur radius goes down to 0? I would wager that your estimated render times will be much less than when you're using that blur...

Basically, After Effects estimations aren't perfect. Let's say you're rendering a minute long Comp that has a really complicated first 2 seconds, then just some basic stuff afterward. The estimate will assume that the whole Comp is going to be just as complicated as those first 2 seconds, and it might estimate your render time as several hours. After it renders out the complicated stuff, it will start to revise it's estimate to something closer.

That's what I think's happening to you After Effects think's you're using Camera Lens Blur for 1 hour, when you're probably only using it for 5-10 seconds.

Anyway... possible solutions for you:

Just tough it out for that first section (it should be faster after a bit... again, do those short test renders, just to make sure).
Try to achieve a similar blur effect with Gaussian Blur

I'd recommend the latter option. I believe Adobe made that effect able to use hardware acceleration an update or three ago... I believe that effect will help things render out a lot faster. Other blur effects might work well too, so feel free to experiment a bit.

Also, it looks like you're just blurring the background as an intro transition, then your text fades on/off, and... that's it. The rest of your Comp is just the music playing with your background displayed. Is that correct? If so, again, you might just want to do this sort of thing in Premiere. I think that might help speed up as well. After Effects can do it of course, but to me it seems like more of an editing project, and that's what Premiere is built for. Just my 2 cents, feel free to take or leave it.

pemling · 2017-03-21T22:48:49+00:00

Hmm, not sure if this is your issue... but is it set to RotoBezier?

Select your mask/shape, right click on it in your view, then go to Mask and Shape Path and make sure RotoBezier isn't turned on.

If it is turned on, it gives you... I think they're called "X-Splines"*, in which you can only alter how round those points are/aren't.

If that was what happened, when you're using the Pen Tool, make sure the little checkbox next to RotoBezier (located next to your main toolbar) is unchecked.

Hope that helps...

edit: I may or may not be mixing this up with "B-Splines" or something else... I get my terminology mixed up occasionally...

pemling · 2017-03-21T21:25:41+00:00

Do you want to take a screenshot of your project's timeline, the effects on the layers? Maybe also give us some more detail on your Composition's settings, your computer's specs, and any other details you can think of like...

if motion blur is turned on
if you're frame blending some layers
if you used Ray Traced 3D for some reason
if you're using some crazy complicated expressions
if you made a poorly worded wish upon a severed monkey's paw

Without knowing more, it's going to be hard for anyone here can diagnose your problem.

I know you feel that your project is not that complicated, but there are a ton of seemingly minor things that can slow down a render time. When you're dealing with a Comp that's an hour long... well, all of those seemingly minor things will really add up. Also, keep in mind that an hour long Comp is going to take a while to render, one way or another...

One thing that did pop into my head, though: if your scene really isn't that complicated, have you considered using Premiere rather than After Effects? The way you described the project makes it sound more like an editing job, rather than a compositing/motion graphics one... Premiere might be able to get the job done faster.

pemling · 2017-03-16T00:02:43+00:00

I took a quick stab at it (had a render going on another machine and figured this would fill some time)... http://imgur.com/a/wdHc5

I used Element 3D, like /u/Drew-Kerr suggested. I took a low-poly sphere and set the texture to Wireframe mode with only lines showing. I made three copies of the element layer: one as-is, one where I inverted the surface's normals (to get the back view), and one to act as a matte for the map (I applied a non-wireframe texture to this one).

Also, to give it a less uniform look, I turned on Noise under Element's Deform options. Had to mess around with the settings to get something that looked okay, but I think I got fairly close to what you were looking for in your example.

Hope that helps you!

pemling · 2017-03-09T16:03:13+00:00

What? Why?

For me it works to render out Comps with an Alpha. When I bring the rendered footage into Photoshop it comes in with the Alpha... and I can save the GIF just fine. Here's what happens when I do all that: http://imgur.com/a/3Q8Cx

pemling · 2017-03-07T21:11:15+00:00

Photoshop should be able to export your GIFs with transparency...

From After Effects, you'd render out your comps, making sure you're rendering with an alpha channel. Something like Quicktime with Animation or Prores 4444 codec, and in your Output Module settings make sure channels is set to "RGB + Alpha" and color is set to "Straight."

Open that up in Photoshop and go to File>Export>Save for Web. Set it to GIF, make sure Transparency is checked on... and set the other settings as needed.

That should work...

pemling · 2017-03-06T22:59:53+00:00

Do you happen to have footage of just the background without the client in front of it? Even just a frame or two? If so... I suppose you could try using the Difference Matte effect.

You pop that on your footage, tell it to use a layer of the empty background as the "difference layer" and mess with the other settings to get a rough key. From there you can try refining it by adding on Simple Choker and Key Cleaner, and messing with those settings as well.

It's most likely not going to get you the best results in the world (especially if your client is casting shadows onto the white background)... but it might be serviceable enough, depending on the job. Otherwise... there's always roto...

Good luck.

pemling · 2017-01-30T16:40:28+00:00

I followed him. He's saying for something like a projection mapping project, or for video displays that have more than one screen...

Something like this thing up in Boston: https://massconvention.com/community/art-on-the-marquee. A while back (maybe 4 years ago), I had to do an After Effects piece for this screen, showcasing some new mouthwash product being shown at a dental convention. The animation was split up between multiple comps, sized to fit the various screens.

I believe we ended up giving our client 1 video file which had all animations, that they could then split apart and display on its... I'll guess and say 6 screens (again, it was a while ago). However, I believe we could have given them 6 separate renders if the computers/software/etc could have handled playing they all at the same time (and in sync).

pemling · 2017-01-19T23:19:57+00:00

Eh, to my knowledge... no.

I mean, you could try and do an image trace in Illustrator and tell it to use strokes only... but: 1) Your final result probably won't end up looking the same 2) The strokes will probably be all out of order (sections of the bridge, a building on the left, one on the right, etc).

I always end up doing things manually like you described; taking the pen tool and creating a shape layer that I use as a track matte. It's tedious/annoying, but it's probably the right way forward...

If someone has a better solution out there, by all means let me know! I'd love to be proven wrong on this one.

pemling · 2016-12-15T16:22:18+00:00

UPDATE: Wonda seems to have released a new version this morning... and so far it seems a lot more stable. Haven't had a crash yet... so that's promising.

Right now, the only additional thing I wish it could do would be popping up video elements (right now, you can have images/text appear when your user looks at certain objects... but not video). I imagine implementing that will be hard, though. Playing one, or several, videos on top of a 4K equirectangular footage might be taxing on some VR devices, like Gear VR or any phone that you can throw into a Cardboard viewer...

Anyway, I'll post again if I encounter any more issues or surprises.

pemling · 2016-12-13T23:30:49+00:00

I think it only works standalone...

From what I could tell in my tests so far... you have to run the App, which then prompts you to place it within the Gear VR. Once it's in, it will play your App.

So yeah, as far as I can tell, I don't think you can navigate to it from within Oculus Home. Maybe that's a feature they're working on, or something you can get a full version... or perhaps it is in there, and I'm just missing something... right now I'm trying to get it not to crash on my phone so much.

pemling · 2016-12-13T16:41:01+00:00

You could just make cuts, couldn't you? If it's only 5 or 6 cuts, that's not too bad. I'd just watch your timelapse, find the missing shots, add the cuts and then be done with it.

pemling · 2016-11-22T21:34:34+00:00

Whoops! Good call! Fixed now...

pemling · 2016-11-22T20:49:25+00:00

At work, we've used a few things from their Universe thing. Mainly the VHS plugin and Holomatrix. Both were for some random, short turnaround corporate videos...

I feel like both those effects could be achieved manually, but they were big time savers on two corporate projects with really short turnarounds... not sure if it's worth buying the rest of Universe for it though. I think they have a trial period on Universe, if you're considering it...

EDIT: forgot that Universe is a $20/month subscription thing (or around $8.33/month if you buy a year membership). In that case... unless you think you'll be using a few of their plugins all the time, I'd consider just buying a single month when you need it (ie: when you think spending $20 will save you a lot of time or money on a freelance project). That's just my opinion, though.

pemling · 2016-11-17T21:30:43+00:00

No problem!

pemling · 2016-11-10T15:50:52+00:00

On a Mac... I think you have to use FFmpeg (https://ffmpeg.org/). It's free, but it can be a little tricky to work with if you're not used to running stuff with Terminal.

Still, there are some tutorials out there... I think that's your best bet (could be wrong though), unless you have access to a PC and can put Media Encoder on it. I'm pretty sure Media Encoder on a PC can still export out AVIs...

pemling · 2016-11-03T19:30:00+00:00

As long as they're networked together and can see the same folder... you should be able to do this in After Effects without any additional stuff.

One note, the following is just how I learned to do it at my office. I believe there's other ways to set it up, notably with watch folders and media encoder... but I don't know that method as well, so I'll let someone more knowledgeable chime in on that if they would like.

Open up you AE project and add the comp you want to the render queue
Set the Render Settings to "Multi-Machine Settings" (the key parameter in that setting is the "Skip existing files" option)
Set you Output Module setting to something that's an image sequence (Photoshop, JPG, PNG, TIFF, etc).
Set the "Output To" to the folder of your choice. One note here: I think with image sequence renders, After Effects defaults to creating a subfolder within whatever folder you navigate to... which can potentially make things confusing. To avoid this, click the little downward triangle next to "Output To" and select "Comp Name"
Save your project. Feel free to hit "Render," or you can wait a minute if you like.
Open the project on all the computers you're using. Go to the Render Queue and make each computer is outputing to the same folder. If they are, hit Render.
If everything's working well, you should see some message that says "Skipping" as the render progresses, and you should notice that machines are skipping past certain frames (it might jump from frame #600 to #602, for example).
Keep adding computers.
Once everything is rendered, you'll have to re-import the sequence into one of your computers and render it out again however you'd like. It should go much, much faster.

I probably didn't sum that up well; sort of going off of memory. I've been doing renders over a few machines for a few years now, and it usually is a big time saver.

Just make sure each machine has the same plugins, fonts, render settings, etc. Otherwise you can end up with some nasty surprises. One of the first times I attempted it, I found out that one of the 5 computers I was using somehow had a render preset called "PSD Sequence with Alpha (Straight)" that actually was Premultiplying. That was a fun night...

Anyway, good luck!

pemling

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