Busybusybusy

I know it's been a bit of a while since I last posted an update.  You can blame that on two things: lots to do, and very little 'new' stuff being done.  I'm going to write today about my project for this half of the course.

After the typewriter we moved into the second half of the course in which we will be repeating a similar process to that we went through to make the typewriter but with moving video.  I've already written about video tracking.

First off, what am I making?  I am making this:

Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge.
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Middlesbrough_Transporter_Bridge,_stockton_side.jpg

Which is a really rather huge bridge in Middlesbrough, North-East England.  Construction began in 1907 (at a cost of £68,026) and was finished in 1911.  The bridge is 259m long and 69m tall.  It is a 'transporter bridge' in that rather than allowing passage over itself, the bridge itself transports goods or people.  This sort of bridge is put in place where there is a requirement for the passage of (big) ships along the river.

I am putting the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge on the river Thames, straddling the Financial Times building.  I am compositing the bridge into a short, eight-second video taken from a boat travelling along the Thames past the Financial Times building and toward Southwark Bridge

Source: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/175689

This is a bit of an undertaking and, if I'm honest, one which is quite daunting.  The model of the bridge is complete. The model of the 'gondola' which hangs below the bridge, and on which people are transported, is complete.  Today I am hoping to start working on texturing the bridge and gondola.  I will give the model of the bridge and gondola their own update because I think it will be interesting to look in some detail at the construction method.

And that's it for today, just a short update.  We haven't covered many new topics in the last few weeks (aside from video tracking) but have been reinforcing things from the first half of the course.  We are looking into some pretty clever stuff soon so I will be able to write a proper update.