Stopmotion animation with a webcam in UbuntuStudio

This educational tool is probably for under K-6 education. I still can't think of an example for secondary and higher ed students.

The Stopmotion software for stop motion animation is included in the distribution of UbuntuStudio. The demo here was done with UbuntuStudio 8.04 based on Intrepid.

I used an A4Tech web cam which is v4l2. Stopmotion has a problem with these kind of web cameras so you'll need to follow Aearenda's solution here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=931208 . I do hope they've already solved this in Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04.

Create an mplayer video import device in Stopmotion


Start Stopmotion and in the menu find settings->configure stopmotion or ctrl-P.

Click add button.

Resize the dialog box to see the start deamon & stop deamon text boxes.

Click video import tab.

In the start deamon text box enter the following (change the ~/RENDER/stopmotion/ folder with your preference):

~/RENDER/stopmotion/startmplayer $VIDEODEVICE $IMAGEFILE 2 0.25s .tempjpgs &

In the stop deamon text box enter this code:

killall startmplayer && killall mplayer

Download my startmplayer file from: http://www.mediafire.com/file/zm2ytmnqa2j/startmplayer.zip.

Extract this startmplayer file in the ~/RENDER/stopmotion/ folder, you can change this folder.

Then follow this demo:



Finished product (a bit crude):

Video tutorial on Cheese

Introduction to Cheese



Setting up usb mic for cheese



Photos and videos with cheese



Cheese effects



Sample Cheese video and photo

Say Cheese!

Capturing webcam video and audio with Cheese



Let's start playing with our webcam with Cheese. Cheese is a webcam photo and video capturing program that runs on Ubuntu GNU/Linux. My camera is an A4Tech Live Messenger Webcam (modle PK-720MJ) with a built in microphone. I am running cheese on an UbuntuStudio (Intrepid) amd64.

Setting up cheese

To select a webcam go to Menu->Edit->Preferences.



In the preferences dialog box choose your camera and resolution. Depending on the capabilities of your webcam, generally the higher the resolution the higher the lag in video.




Setting up the usb microphone

Initially I was unable to record from my usb mic so this is what I did:

1. I went to Startup menu->System->Preferences->Volume Control. I selected my mic then turned up the mic.





2. I went to the Startup menu->System->Preferences->Sound. Then in the Sound Preferences dialog box I clicked on the Devices tab. I then set my Sound capture device for Audio Conferencing to my usb mic.





Taking a photo

Click on the Photo butten then "Take a Photo" button. It will display a countdown, then your picture will be added to the strip bar of photos and videos.






Recording video

Click on the Video button and hit "Start recording". Then click "Stop recording". Your ogv video will be added to the strip bar. You can click on that and save it in another folder. You can also convert it with mencoder to another format.




Converting to other format

If you have mencoder installed, open a terminal window and cd to the folder where you have your video. Then type this code (replace the name of the video). This will convert the video to an avi format with divx video codec and mp3 audio.

mencoder cheesesample.ogv -o cheesesample.avi -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc

Using Effects

Effects in cheese are applied during recording or photo shooting not afterwards like in a video editor.

To use effects click on the Effects button and click on the effects you want to use. Click on the Effects button again to go back to your video display and you'll see the effect applied in realtime to your video. You may then take your photo or record your video with the effect.



You can also combine effects. To remove the effect just click on the effect thumbnail again. To remove all effect, click on the No Effect thumbnail.

Comparison of look and feel of Moodle 1.9+ in the browsers Firefox, Konqueror and Opera

Moodle Environment Review No. 1: Browsers

I have compared the look of the current stable Moodle 1.9+ in the browsers Firefox, Konqueror and Opera running in Ubuntu Intrepid. The installation is set to the default theme.

Site Frontpage


Fig. 1: Moodle site front page in Firefox 3.0.7


Fig. 2: Moodle site front page in Konqueror 4.1.2


Fig. 3: Moodle site front page in Opera 9.5

Course Page


Fig 4: Course front page in Firefox


Fig. 5: Course front page in Konqueror



Fig. 6: Course front page in Opera

I don't see much difference. Perhaps if they were running under a different operating system with different default fonts, the difference in look will be more pronounced.

What we don't see is the difference in behavior due to JavaScript support. JS is supposed to be a cross platform scripting language but each browser implements the script differently at times and causes certain scripts in Moodle not to work in certain browsers especially when AJAX is turned on. Next post will review enabling of JS and cookies in the three browsers.

You can install Firefox and Konqueror in Ubuntu by using synaptic or opening a terminal and typing:

apt-get install firefox konqueror

For Opera, get the .deb file here: http://www.opera.com/download/?custom=yes. Install with Gdebi or go to the folder where you have the deb file and type:

sudo dpkg -i opera_9.64.2480.gcc4.qt3_amd64.deb

The latest is version 9.64 opera_9.64.2480.gcc4.qt3_amd64.deb but I have yet to install this version. Replace the filename of the deb file with what you have. Remember that Opera is not a "free software". It is copyrighted by Opera Software ASA so read the license for terms of use.

Debugmode Wink ;-) on Ubuntu Intrepid

Update: As of Nov. 4, 2009 the wink.deb file in this page is not installable in Ubuntu Karmic Koala because 9.10 dropped libstdc++5 and is now using libstdc++6. Perhaps compiling a new deb package against libstdc++6 can be done but I don't have the time to test that yet. In the mean time readers are advised to install wine in Karmic and then the windows installer of wink. Wink version 2.0's sound recorder does not work in Ubuntu Karmic as far as I know, but the screen capture does work.

I consider screencasting tools as a workhorse for developing digital instructional content for distance education. Two of the best that is available for Ubuntu GNU/Linux are recordmydesktop and wink.

Screenshot of Wink

Wink is neither a "free software" nor an opensource software. But it is freeware. It's license states that:

"This program and the accompanied DLLs/plugins are FREEWARE. You can use it for personal, business, educational or any other need of yours, subject to ... restrictions:"

So if you're sensitive about licenses then stick to recordmydesktop.

Recordmydesktop produces theora-vorbis videos in ogg containers usually with the extension .ogv. The video can then be converted with mencoder to any other format (e.g. avi). On the other hand Wink produces flash swf applets. SWF's advantage over videos is having a smaller file. 20-30 MB of video may be equivalent to 5 MB of SWF with the same content.

Aside from this, swf allows some interactivity. Wink allows you two Goto Buttons aside from Next/Previous Buttons that allows you to jump to a frame. According to the Wink User Guide:

"This enables the creation of more complex flows though a presentation than just a linear flow from start to finish. If you are showing two ways to do a particular action in your presentation, you can capture screenshots of both ways and give the end user the option to choose which way he/she wants to see.

Another use would be if there is both some basic knowledge and more advanced knowledge in a presentation. Here it would be possible to make the option to jump directly to the advanced knowledge if the user already knows the basic stuff." (Madsen and Kumar, 17-18)

Wink in Ubuntu Intrepid

The Wink in Ubuntu Intrepid is older than that available for Windoze. It's currently Wink 1.5 build 1060. The main feature lacking in this version is the inability to record voice simultaneously with screencapture.

But even without that feature it's still a great software. Your user guide should be available in your computer at /usr/share/doc/wink/Wink User Guide.pdf.gz. And you can look at tutorials by clicking the help menu->View Tutorial Project 1. It will first ask you to render the tutorial. The preferences dialogue box will pop up and will ask you to put the path of your browser. Type the following in the box labeled "External HTML viewer path...":

/usr/bin/firefox

Your tutorials reside at /usr/lib/wink/Samples/ (make sure to type Samples and not samples in your file browser because Ubuntu Linux is case sensitive). There you will find a sample.wnk, tutorial.wnk, and websample.wnk. You may want to open each in Wink.

Installing Wink on Ubuntu Intrepid AMD64


Wink does not have an ubuntu package for amd64 (ubuntu version not your chip; an amd64 machine can run i386 or amd64 flavors of ubuntu) , it only has for the i386 version. If you try to install the i386 wink, it will result in error in architecture.

First off install the following package:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Further instructions are here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=938838. Or just download the deb package I prepared following the said instructions here:

wink.deb (2.86 mb)

After downloading. Right-click and install with Gdebi or in a terminal window type:

dpkg -i wink.deb

Have fun (^-^)


Reference:

Bent Moller Madsen, & Satish Kumar. S. (2003-2004). Debugmode 1.5. Wink User Guide [PDF].

How to install eXe on an Ubuntu Intrepid AMD64

Update: As of Nov. 4, 2009 I do not recommend python2.5-exe package be installed in Ubuntu Karmic Koala even with dpkg --force-architecture --force-depends. Doing so will result in a blank window. It may have something to do with the name change in python2.5-zopeinterface to pythong2.5-zope.interface. It may not be just an addition of a period but may also be changes in the zope package itself. Still need time to check this out. In the meantime you may install wine and then install the windows version of exe.

The eXe package for ubuntu at http://eduforge.org/frs/download.php/842/python2.5-exe_1.04.0.3532-ubuntu1_i386.deb is only for i386. If one tries to install this on an Ubuntu AMD64 there will be an architecture error displayed.

Download the latest package of eXe for linux here: http://eduforge.org/frs/?group_id=20&release_id=20.

Install ia32-libs first, so that the Ubuntu amd64 can run i386 packages. Also make sure you have python-zopeinterface, python-twisted and python-nevow installed. Yo can open a terminal and copy paste the following code:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs python-zopeinterface python-twisted python-nevow

Then cd to where you downloaded the eXe package and in the terminal, install exe with this code (replace the name of the file with what you have downloaded from Eduforge):

sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture python2.5-exe_1.04.0.3532-ubuntu1_i386.deb

Then fire up eXe by typing exe in the terminal window. Of course if your using i386 flavor of Ubuntu you'll just dpkg -i python2.5-exe.xxx.deb.

Here's a video tutorial from mescareal on how to install it in Windoze:


How to install the OpenMovie Editor effects plugin in Ubuntu Intrepid

OpenMovie Editor is probably the easiest non-linear video editor available in Ubuntu. It is available at http://www.openmovieeditor.org/.

Here's a quick video tutorial about it from oracle2025:



Unfortunately, the effects shown on the video above cannot be done with Ubuntu out-of-the-box because the effects plugin package frei0r is not installed.

You'll need the libgavl1 library from here: http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/libgavl1
or get the libgavl1 and frei0r plugins from Darwin Bautista's archive here: https://launchpad.net/~baudm/+archive/ppa

Install the relevant .deb packages for your architecture (e.g. i386 or amd64) with Gdebi. Voila! You can now play with OME's effects. Later on I'll explore it's application in teaching.