Mazaika and Mazaika-Video for Mac Tutorials
This short video lesson demonstrates how to create a photo mosaic with Mazaika for Mac software. It shows how to make a new mosaic library and a new Mazaika project. Real-time screencast of mosaic rendering displays how fast Mazaika works. You will see how to correct colors of mosaic for a better visual result and how to save generated photo mosaic montage in an image file format.
The video above covers the actions that are common for both Mazaika and Mazaika-Video programs.
Below is an instruction for Mazaika-Video usage.
Mazaika-Video for Mac Tutorial
This is a detailed step by step scenario of making Shadow of Vampire video mosaic with Mazaika-Video software package.
The mosaic starts at enlarged lower left cell filled with Dracula close-up. The mosaic zooms out to reveal the iconic image of Nosferatu shadow and zooms in into top right corner to the cell filled with the same Dracula close-up as was used in the beginning.
- Part 1 - Converting movies into MZVClp format
- Part 2 - Making a library
- Part 3 - Making a mosaic
- Part 4 - Preparing frame offsets for seamless loop
- Part 5 - Configure zoom-in and zoom-our video sequences
- Part 6 - Assembling separate frames into one video file
Part 1 - Converting movies into MZVClp format
1.1 - Start MZVClp converter application.
1.2 - This is MZVClp converter window.
1.3 - Drop video files into the table at MZVClp converter main window
1.4 - Press Convert button
1.5 - Select folder to save the result files.
1.6 - Wait until files will be converted.
Part 2 - Making a library
2.1 - Start Mazaika-Video.
2.2 - Press the New Library button.
2.3 - Drop MZVClp clips into New Library panel.
2.4 - Set the Offset before value for the new library.
2.5 - Set the Offset after value for the new library.
2.6 - Select Aspect ratio.
2.7 - Press Make library.
2.8 - Enter a name for the new library.
2.9 - Wait while the program indexing your video.
2.10 - Select Open library and make mosaic.
Part 3 - Making a mosaic
3.1 - Open source image panel.
3.2 - Drop source image into source image panel.
3.3 - Adjust the number of Columns.
3.4 - Adjust the number of Rows.
3.5 - Press Apply button.
3.6 - Project is opened and ready for render. Press the Render button.
3.7 - Mosaic rendering in progress.
3.8 - The mosaic is fully assembled.
3.9 - That's how it looks at Enhanced view mode.
Part 4 - Preparing frame offsets for seamless loop
We should tune the bottom-left and top-right cells. We want to use the same video fragment for both bottom-left and top-right cells. Even more, we need the clip in the top-right cell, to finish at the same time-line position as it is positioned at the beginning of the mosaic at the bottom-left cell.
4.1 - Select the bottom-left cell.
4.2 - Right-click on the bottom-left cell to activate a menu. Select the top menu item to show Preview tile screen.
4.3 - Press Load Movie button.
4.4 - Choose a Dracula movie file and open it.
4.5 - Fine tune movie timeline to position 15:12.00
We want this nice portrait of Bela Lugosi to be at the end and beginning of our video mosaic.
4.6 - Make offset "plus" 8 seconds relative to 15:12.00. This means that the clip in bottom left cell will be positiond to 15:20.00 (15:12.00 + 0:08 = 15.20.00)
4.7 - Select the top-right cell.
4.8 - Right-click on the top-right cell to activate a menu. Select the top menu item to show the Preview tile screen.
4.9 - Press Load Movie button.
4.10 - Choose a Dracula movie file and open it.
4.11 - Fine tune movie timeline to position 15:12.00
4.12 - Make offset "minus" 8 seconds relative to 15:12.00. This means that the clip in the bottom left cell will be positioned to 15:04.00 (15:12.00 - 0:08 = 15.04.00)
Part 5 - Configure zoom-in and zoom-our video sequences
We should tune the bottom-left and top-right cells because we want to use the same video fragment for both bottom-left and top-right cells. Even more, we need the clip in the top-right cell, to finish at the same time-line position as it is positioned at the beginning of the mosaic at the bottom-left cell.
5.1 - Press the Export button to open Export panel.
5.2 - The Export panel is opened.
5.3 - Enter 720 for an output height. It will be Full HD Ready (720 lines tall) mosaic.
5.4 - At first we need to select a viewport location at the beginning of the first mosaic sequence. (Remember, we have two mosaic sequences. First sequence: zoom-out from the bottom-left cell to a whole mosaic. Second sequence: zoom-in from the whole mosaic to the top-right cell)
5.5 - Select the bottom-left cell with a special button.
5.6 - Press Apply to accept the selection.
5.7 - Set the starting scene duration for 1 second (To show the cell in a full screen for 1-second)
5.8 - The enlarged cell doesn't need to be corrected. Enter zeros for both corrections.
5.9 - Set transition duration for 6. (It will take 6 seconds to zoom mosaic from one cell to overall view)
5.10 - Select transition speed: slow-fast-slow.
5.11 - Press Area button to bring up a location selector for sequence ending.
5.12 - Select All mosaic with a special button. (Remember, our first sequence ends with zoom-out to overall mosaic view).
5.13 - Press Apply to accept the selection.
5.14 - Set the ending scene duration for 1 second (To show the whole mosaic for 1-second).
5.15 - The whole mosaic should be corrected. Let's set Correction to 0.3 and Blending to 0.25.
5.16 - The first sequence is assembled. Let's add it to an exporting queue. Press Add sequence to queue button.
5.17 - Here is it, the first sequence is added to the queue as a line in the table.
5.18 - The second sequence is similar to the first one, but with zooming-in instead of zooming-out. We will simply swap the start and end of the first sequence and do few corrections. Press Swap start and end button.
5.19 - Sequence is swapped. You see, we have the whole mosaic at the beginning and one cell at the end.
5.20 - But we wanted to finish the mosaic clip in the Top-Right cell. Press Area to correct it.
5.21 - Select the Top-Right cell with a special button.
5.22 - Press Apply to accept the selection.
5.23 - The second sequence is assembled. It starts with color corrected overall mosaic view and zoom-ins into the top-right corner. Let's add it to the exporting queue. Press Add sequence to queue button.
5.24 - Now we have two lines in the table. Two sequences in the queue.
5.25 - We need to synchronize video offsets in these sequences. To enter editing mode select first line in the table.
5.26 - Press Edit button at the table caption to enter editing mode.
5.27 - The whole duration of one sequence is a sum of starting transiting and ending durations. They are: 1(start) + 6(transition) + 1(ending) = 8(total duration)
Set Offset to minus 8 for the first sequence.
5.28 - Press Synchronize All Down.
5.29 - Press Update to accept changes.
5.30 - Let's verify queue offsets: The first sequence starts at -8, the second sequence starts at 0. That's correct!
5.31 - We are ready to generate movie frames. Press Process whole queue button.
5.32 - Select a folder for output.
5.33 - We need to wait until the procedure will be completed.
5.34 - The procedure is over. We can close the export pane. Press the Close button.
5.35 - We generated all frames for our mosaic video. Now we can quit Mazaika-Video.
Part 6 - Assembling separate frames into one video file
Now we need to assemble the set of separate frames into one video file. We will do that with Movie assembler application that is included in Mazaika-Video software package.
6.1 - Start Movie assembler application.
6.2 - Drop the folder with .mzframes extension in its name, that we just have generated, into Movie assembler window.
6.3 - Here we see the first set of frames in the table.
6.4 - To display that the movie is a "loop" let's add the very same folder again.
6.5 - Now we see two sets of frames in the table.
6.6 - We can see a seamless connection between the first and second sets of frames. The last frame at the first set looks the same as the first frame in the second set.
6.7 - Press Make movie button.
6.8 - Select a file name for our new video file.
6.9 - Please wait until the procedure is over.
6.10 - Finish!
6.11 - We can open our new mosaic video with preview!
Go to Mazaika for Mac page.