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4 Free Open-Source Tools for Working With Video and Audio

Samuel Dean — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:00:19 +0000

Increasingly, many of us are working with video and audio online, not just text and still graphics. From video-based marketing materials, to online tutorials, to videocasts and podcasts, multimedia offerings are a great way to engage your audience. Here are four good, free open-source audio and video software tools, including some available in brand-new versions.

Audacity is very widely used for recording and editing podcasts and other audio recording tasks. We covered the new beta version on the OStatic blog. Improvements in the new version include better noise removal tools, faster equalization, support for recording more than 16 channels, and a new “Mixer Board” that provides graphical mixing tools. It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux machines.

Simple Theora Encoder is a very easy video encoding tool for Mac OS 10.4 or higher. It can convert multiple files at once from several different formats, including .avi, .mov, and mp4. Using it is as easy as clicking “Encode,” and that’s it. The application provides a status bar that keeps you posted on the encoding progress and lets you know when your files are ready.

VLC Media Player is one of the best-loved open-source applications. It supports almost every video format under the sun, even the more obscure ones. I recently covered the new portable version of it here, which you can carry on a USB thumb drive. The full application is also out in a new version 1.0. I’ve been using it; it’s outstanding. You can also use it for broadcasting media, rather than just consumption. It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux systems.

Blender is not only one of the best graphics and animation programs from the open source world, it’s one of the best open-source applications of any kind. Widely used in the professional video and animation communities, it’s great for 3D modeling, animation, rendering and playback. You can also use it on Windows, Mac or Linux systems. You can find a free, online book on it here, and I covered some of the newest features here.

What open-source video and audio tools do you use?

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3D Graphics/Animation App Blender Gets an Upgrade

Samuel Dean — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:00:43 +0000

In early April, I wrote about Blender, a free, robust open-source application that can be used for 3D modeling, eye-catching logos and other still graphics. As we covered on OStatic, Blender is now out in a much-improved version 2.49. You can find announcements of the many new features here, and videos of the new features in action here. There is a lot to like.

Blender is an excellent 3D modeling tool. You can find a gallery of the types of still graphics that Blender is capable of here. It has even been used to create full-length animated movies. There is also a free, online book on Blender that will give you a good sense of whether it may be a useful application for you. Many people use it to create splashy logos for use on web sites and blogs, including animated logos. Here’s a good tutorial on using it for logos, including illustrating how to create the logo seen in the screenshot above.

The new version of Blender includes Projection Painting, which lets you paint directly onto 3D models you create without taking the intermediary steps that were previously required. Blender has always had a healthy set of extensions, and for the new version, you can get many scripts written in Python that automate graphical tasks in the application. Also, if you use Blender for video tasks, there are a number of video improvements. The new version also supports the high-quality JPEG2000 image format throughout the application, and is noticeably faster than the last one.

In addition to being a useful addition to anybody’s graphics arsenal, Blender is a lot of fun to use. You can download the new version here.

What do you use Blender for?

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Use Blender to Create Eye-popping 3D Graphics

Samuel Dean — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:00:13 +0000

Who doesn’t like to get something good for free? The open source community offers all kinds of resources that go beyond free applications, including free books on mastering the top open-source applications.

In this post, I’ll cover an excellent book about Blender, available for free online. Blender is a robust 3D graphics and animation application that can help you create eye-popping graphics for web sites, blogs and documents.

If you’re unfamiliar with Blender, take a look at the gallery posted here for the quality of graphics you can produce with this free application (available in Windows, Mac and Linux flavors). It’s actually been used to produce respected full-length 3D movies but is also more than capable of helping you give a web site, a blog or documents a distinctive, eye-catching look with still 3D graphics. The screenshot above was created by a member of the Blender community, and it’s a drawing, not a photo.

Learning to use Blender is a lot of fun and adds a useful tool to your graphics repertoire. “Blender Basics, Second Edition” is an exhaustive, free online book, downloadable as a 120-page PDF here. It takes you through 2D and 3D graphics creation, how to add lighting effects, and much more. The animation aspects of the book won’t necessarily be of interest to all web workers, but still might be fun to try out.

On OStatic, we also recently covered Linuxtopia, a site that houses a huge number of tutorials. Don’t let the name fool you if you’re not a Linux user. The site includes very complete guides on many free, non-Linux applications and platforms.

For example, you can find thorough guides on virtualization (useful for running dual operating systems), beginning Java programming, the GIMP (a powerful open-source graphics application), web development tools, and much more. Look down the left rail of Linuxtopia for the many free online guides that are available.

Share your Blender tips and tricks in the comments.

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Free Tools for Site Designs, Logos, and Prototypes

Samuel Dean — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:00:34 +0000

A while back, a friend of mine and I had an idea for a new e-commerce web site we were thinking of launching. We eventually shelved the idea after digging up a couple of sites that were too close in spirit to the same idea, but one of the things I remember we worked hard on was mocking up a good looking design for the site, complete with a slick logo. This can be more dificult than it seems at first, but is an important first step in moving from your vision of a web site to execution.

Here are some free resources that can make the process easier, and provide good prototyping results.

Are you familiar with the free, open source applications Blender and Gimp? The former is one of the most respected 3D animation and graphics programs, and the latter is one of the best loved graphics programs. The web abounds with useful tutorials for creating slick logos in Blender as seen here, and here. You can easily learn to make animated or still logos for a web site with Blender. For Gimp, too, there are many tutorials for making slick logos. Try searching at Gimp-Tutorials.net for examples.

You can also find free logos at LogoInstant. The site shares slick looking logos every day, and they’re free to use as either inspiration for a version that you modify, or you can just use the logos as they stand.

Back in June, Mike covered Open Source Web Designs, which provides over 2,000 free web design templates that you can work with for free. Most of them are XHTML- and CSS-based.

Finally, if you are collaborating with another web worker on a prototype for a site design, one of the best loved, free tools for doing so is JumpChart, which I wrote about here. It lets you build and save versions of your site through several iterations. The free version only gives you 10 pages to work with, but that’s usually enough for a basic prototype that you can build out from.

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