Add Rimworld post

src/main/_posts/2017-03-01-raspi.md

@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ This section describes the instructions to be performed before trying to connect
 You will only have to follow these instructions once.
 
 0. Make sure SSH is enabled on your Raspi.
-   If it isn't, follow [⎋ this guide](https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/remote-access/ssh/).
+   If it isn't, follow [⎋ this guide](https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/remote-access/ssh/).
 1. Install the necessary packages.
 
        $ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

src/main/_posts/2021-07-18-rimworld-timelapse.md

@@ -0,0 +1,135 @@
+---
+title: Creating a Rimworld timelapse
+layout: post
+date: 2021-07-18
+permalink: creating-a-rimworld-timelapse/
+excerpt: How to create a timelapse of your Rimworld colony using FFmpeg.
+---
+
+You may have seen some beautiful timelapses of [⎋ Rimworld](https://rimworldgame.com/) colonies, including
+[⎋one](https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/igy7am/the_noemca_people_tribal_to_space_timelapse/)
+[⎋of](https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/jxoo49/timelapse_of_my_frostland_colony_before_it_got/)
+[⎋these](https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/ewjruc/timelapse_of_final_base_until_ship_launch_what_a/).
+I recently did a timelapse of my 20-year-old medieval colony, and want to share how I created the video.
+
+
+## 1 Creating screenshots
+This is the easy part.
+Just install the [⎋ Progress Renderer](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2010777010) mod
+in Rimworld and play your game.
+By default, a screenshot will be taken every day at 08:00.
+I recommend going to the settings and disabling _designations_, _thing icons_, _game conditions_, and _weather_ in the
+settings.
+Especially the latter two can cause some jarring effects when you create a video, causing big visual jumps in between
+consecutive frames.
+This distracts from what you actually want to show:
+the changes in your colony!
+
+
+## 2 Combining screenshots
+After you've played the game for a while and had the screenshots created for you, you can combine them into a video.
+I used [⎋ FFmpeg](https://ffmpeg.org/) for this, which is a
+[⎋ well-known](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFmpeg) command-line tool for processing video and audio.
+It's an extremely powerful tool if you know how to use it, but it's certainly more difficult than other, visual tools.
+I think it's a much better alternative than importing all your screenshots into Adobe Premiere though, primarily because
+FFmpeg is made to do one thing, and it does it well.
+I've seen some people who wrote that they used
+[⎋ RimworldRender](https://github.com/Epicguru/RimworldRender).
+I don't have any experience with RimworldRender, but I suppose the advantage of FFmpeg is that you can easily combine it
+in a whole pipeline of tools and libraries to add music, scaling, zooming, panning, and much more.
+
+You can download [⎋ FFmpeg for Windows from gyan.dev](https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/ffmpeg-git-full.7z),
+or you can check the [⎋ FFmpeg download page](https://ffmpeg.org/download.html) for more download options.
+Simply extract the downloaded archive anywhere you want;
+let's say you extracted it to `C:\Users\FWDekker\Downloads\ffmpeg\` so you have the executable
+`C:\Users\FWDekker\Downloads\ffmpeg\ffmpeg.exe`.
+
+### 2.1 Renaming the files
+Before you can use FFmpeg to create a video from your screenshots, you have to (temporarily) rename the images.
+FFmpeg expects the images to have names like `001.png`, `002.png`, etc.
+You can easily do that using [⎋ Ant Renamer](http://www.antp.be/software/renamer).
+Let's say that your screenshots from Progress Renderer are stored in `C:\Users\FWDekker\Rimworld\`.
+1. [⎋ Download](http://www.antp.be/software/renamer/download) and run Ant Renamer.
+2. Click the `Add folders...` button, and select the screenshot folder.
+3. Press `Actions` in the top left.
+4. Go to `Enumeration`.
+5. Change the settings to the following values:
+   * `Mask` to `%num%%ext%`. 
+   * `Start at` to `1`.
+   * `Number of digits` to `3`.
+   * `Increment by` to `1`.
+
+   These settings are fine even if you have more than 1000 screenshots.
+6. Press `Go` at the top.
+   The files have been renamed, but do not close Ant Renamer yet!
+
+Now you're ready to run FFmpeg.
+After you're done with FFmpeg, you can press the arrow to the right of `Go` to undo the renaming.
+If you close Ant Renamer, you will not be able to undo the renaming.
+
+### 2.2 Creating the video
+With the files properly renamed, you can run FFmpeg to create the video for you.
+1. Open the Windows command prompt.
+2. Navigate to the directory of screenshots using `cd /d "C:\Users\FWDekker\Rimworld"`.
+3. Run the following command:
+   ```shell
+   "C:\Users\FWDekker\Downloads\ffmpeg\ffmpeg.exe" -f image2 -r 24 -i %3d.png -vcodec libx265 -crf 24 -pix_fmt yuv420p -vf "crop=5120:3680:2384:3296, scale=1280:920, tpad=stop_mode=clone:stop_duration=3" out.mp4
+   ```
+   * `-f image2` indicates you're going to work with images.
+   * `-r 24` sets the frame rate to 24 screenshots per second.
+   * `-i %3d.png` tells what the files are named: three digits following by `.png`.
+   * `-vcodec libx265` means that you are using the x265 codec.
+     You can also use `libx264` which is less CPU-intensive, but creates much larger files.
+   * `-crf 24` is the quality of the video. A lower value means higher quality. Typical values are between 23 and 30.
+   * `-pix_fmt yuv420p` is the way pixels are encoded.
+   * `-vf [...]` applies filters to the images, like cropping and scaling.
+   * `crop=5120:3680:2384:3296` extracts a rectangle from the images, basically zooming in on your images.
+     The format is `width:height:x:y`, creating a rectangle of size `width` by `height`, with the top-left corner at
+     `x, y` measured from the top-left corner.
+     For some reason, you have to make sure all values are multiples of 8, or else you will get a bunch of warnings.
+   * `scale=1280:920` resizes the video to the given dimensions.
+   * `tpad=stop_mode=clone:stop_duration=3` freezes the last frame for 3 seconds, to allow people to enjoy the end of
+     the video.
+   * `out.mp4` is the file to store the output in.
+
+FFmpeg will show you a nice process indicator with some additional stats, and should be done within a few minutes.
+
+### 2.3 Lowering the quality
+If you find that the image is too large, you can repeat the previous step with a higher value for `-crf` or with a
+different output size.
+However, this means that FFmpeg will have to process all your screenshots again, which takes a while.
+Instead, you can just ask FFmpeg to process your existing video to lower the quality as follows, which takes only a few
+seconds.
+* To change the quality:
+  ```shell
+  "C:\Users\FWDekker\Downloads\ffmpeg\ffmpeg.exe" -i out.mp4 -crf 28 out2.mp4
+  ```
+* To change the size:
+  ```shell
+  "C:\Users\FWDekker\Downloads\ffmpeg\ffmpeg.exe" -i out.mp4 -vf "scale=640:460" out2.mp4
+  ```
+
+### 2.4 Adding sound
+To spice up your video, you can add music.
+Store the music file, say `audio.mp3`, in the same folder as `out.mp4`, and then you can use FFmpeg for this step as
+well:
+```shell
+"C:\Users\FWDekker\Downloads\ffmpeg\ffmpeg.exe" -i out.mp4 -i audio.mp3 -af "afade=t=out:st=50:d=3" -c:v copy -shortest out-with-audio.mp4
+```
+* `-i out.mp4` and `-i audio.mp3` show which files you want to process.
+* `-af [...]` applies filters to the audio.
+* `t=out:st=50:d=3` means that you're applying the _fade out_ filter, with start time at 50 seconds (`st=50`), and a
+  duration of 3 seconds (`d=3`).
+  I chose these values because my video `out.mp4` is 53 seconds long, of which the last 3 seconds are a frozen frame.
+  If you don't want a fade out, then replace the `-af [...]` with `-a:v copy`.
+* `-c:v copy` means that you just want to copy the video without any adjustments.
+* `-shortest` takes the shortest of all your input files, and makes the output as long as that file.
+  So if `audio.mp3` is longer than `out.mp4`, then `audio.mp3` is cut off.
+  If you used the fade out, you won't hear the cutoff.
+* `out-with-audio.mp4` is the file to store the output in.
+
+## 3 Advanced techniques
+FFmpeg is a very powerful tool, and if you want to, you can use any of its features to enhance your video.
+You can add panning, zooming, and rotating effects with complex filters.
+I don't have the experience to tell you how that works exactly, but if you search for `ffmpeg panning` I'm sure you'll
+find something useful.