Nauvoo Temple Time-Lapse

Notes

5/26/03: FINAL FINAL UPDATE - You know, I never thought I'd revisit this project again, but after some recent work, I thought I'd take a stab at improving the video files.

The basic changes were to add a brief opening title and hold the last frame for a few seconds for a better overall presentation. I also ran the image sequence through a frame-blending process, which blends each frame with several of the previous frames. This gave a smoother feeling to the video, and also reduced the jarring transitions between extremely bright and dark images while still retaining the overall time-lapse effect. The final step was to re-compress the video. Even though the video is longer than before, both the MPEG-1 and Quicktime files are smaller -- nearly 1 meg smaller for the Quicktime version -- thanks in part (I believe) to the frame-blending step.

So there you have it! A better video that takes less time to download. Cheers!

6/16/02: FINAL UPDATE - Well, it looks like this little project has come to an end. The temple is finished, and consequently the files above are in their final form. It's been exciting to watch this historic temple of God come together over the last two years, and judging by the amount of traffic these files have received (pushing my domain over its limits in the months prior to the open house), I suspect you've enjoyed the journey as well.

For the forseeable future, there shouldn't be any problems with leaving this page as-is. If anything comes up, then I may have to find another home for all this stuff, but if that day comes, it won't be for several years. In the meantime, enjoy!

Disclaimer/FAQ

• Did you take these pictures yourself?

  No. The images came from the archives of the Nauvoo Temple Cam site run by Deseret Book, and full credit goes to them. My work to gather and sequence the images was insignificant compared to the continuing effort that made the Temple Cam available. Without that effort this project would not have been possible.

• What hardware/software was used to take the pictures?

  As stated above, the original images came from the Nauvoo Temple Cam site. Contact Deseret Book for more information on the image gathering process. On my end, the individual images from the Temple Cam archive were saved from my web browser into a numbered sequence. The copyright text was created in Paint Shop Pro, and superimposed over the images in Animation:Master, with the combined images saved as another numbered sequence. This sequence was then compiled into two video files using bbMpeg and Quicktime Pro.

• What can you tell me about the Nauvoo area (places, families, etc.)?

  I do not live in Nauvoo, and cannot answer any questions about it. Check out the links below for relevant resources.

• Are you connected with the Nauvoo: History in the Making Commemorative CD-ROM?

  No. I wasn't contacted by the makers of the CD-ROM, and I currently have not purchased the CD-ROM for myself, so to the best of my knowledge the time-lapse animations it contains have been created by its authors. The CD-ROM obviously has a lot more variety, and probably better quality, but the animations on my site always have been, and always will be, absolutely free. Take that as you wish... :)

Other Nauvoo Links

• Nick Literski's LDS Temple Page - A wonderful site all about LDS temples. Nick has some great close-up pictures of construction work on the Nauvoo Temple, plus dedicatory prayers, information on other new temples under construction, wallpaper and screensaver files, and a lot more!
• Nauvoo Internet News - A great site covering all things Nauvoo, including construction news and photos -- TONS of photos -- for the new Nauvoo Temple.
• Nauvoo Chamber of Commerce - Official information about Nauvoo, including lodging, stores, events, history, and more.

About the Project

As an animator, one of the things that I've always loved is time-lapse photography. Even though it's not technically "animation," there's something fascinating about watching an event occur in a few seconds that normally takes place over hours, weeks, or even months. Along this line, I began in the spring of 2000 to create a time-lapse video using images from the Nauvoo Temple Cam archive.

With a few exceptions, each frame of the video represents the view of the temple site at 12:00 noon. February 15, 2000 was chosen for the starting point after noticing that a significant change in the image proportions and quality occurred on that day. The proportions have remained the same since then, with framing adjustments taking place as needed to keep the complete structure in view. The project was wrapped up shortly after the first open-house session in early May of 2002.

Thanks to Deseret Book for the wonderful Nauvoo Temple Cam site, and for allowing me to make this piece available for all to enjoy!

Questions? Comments? Drop me a line...

return to LDS Resources