Video Generation Journey. Part 1: Making frames (problems 1-4)

Initially, I aimed to make one big post, but I am splitting it up. This Part 1 is about how I made the frames to generate videos from.

Intro

I have been on and off doing this project for a few months. Many things did not work for me – from ffmpeg to sheer OpenCV/ffmpeg installation on Apple M1 systems – and I am not 100% sure what made it work to this day. I plan to put myself in a situation where I have to do it again, and I will make a guide then. However, right now, I can only say that this video tutorial on running native ffmpeg and this guide from OpenCV themselves are good places to start.

The last time I used OpenCV was in 2017 when I worked on my graduate work. Back then, I processed prerecorded videos with no need to worry about audio. So I had some background prior to this project, but I was in no way ready for the ride.

Buckle up!

Table of contents

  • What do I have to create?
  • Limitations
    • Background
    • Phrases
    • Audio
  • Problems
    • Problem 1: GIF on a background
    • Problem 2: Putting text on the image
    • Problem 3: Text wrapping
    • Problem 4: Text blocks positioning
  • Results so far
Read More »