A blog about animation, filmmaking, and the VOP project.https://www.jmalmsten.com/enhttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-v0-14-0-prerelease/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-v0-14-0-prerelease/Tue, 30 Jun 2026 11:10:36 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/malmcrop2/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/malmcrop2/Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:21:05 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/anamorphic-distortion-or-what-is-usually-missing-from-every-other-simulation-of-cinemascope/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/anamorphic-distortion-or-what-is-usually-missing-from-every-other-simulation-of-cinemascope/I have long been fascinated by the anamorphic image. And no, it’s not the flares, or the oval bokeh, or things as overt as that. For me the biggest fascination has been what these lenses actually do to the image. Because, looking at movies by, for example, Luc Besson in his early days. I noticed \[…\]Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:38:01 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-v0-13-1-prerelease/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-v0-13-1-prerelease/Mon, 08 Jun 2026 06:56:51 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-v0-12-2/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-v0-12-2/Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:51:06 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-v0-7-1-prerelease/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-v0-7-1-prerelease/Thu, 14 May 2026 08:39:29 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/260511-2001-slit-scan-test-with-the-vop/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/260511-2001-slit-scan-test-with-the-vop/Mon, 11 May 2026 21:46:02 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-anamorphics/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-anamorphics/Sat, 09 May 2026 14:36:11 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/unpause-of-the-vop/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/unpause-of-the-vop/Wed, 06 May 2026 08:21:00 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/welcome/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/welcome/Mon, 04 May 2026 07:00:23 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/underconstruction/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/underconstruction/Sat, 02 May 2026 11:13:17 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/the-state-of-comments-in-this-blog/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/the-state-of-comments-in-this-blog/Sat, 02 May 2026 08:58:58 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/pause-in-vop-development/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/pause-in-vop-development/The VOP development is in a slight pause.Fri, 01 May 2026 20:49:25 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/VOPv070/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/VOPv070/Quite a big one here. Most notably, the **VOP**, the Video **Optical Printer** now actually accepts video. So it can do... optical printing. Like ye olde J.K. Optical Printers. Please do remember. Prereleases like these seem to work on my end. But I have yet to do a full deployment run. Wed, 29 Apr 2026 14:57:39 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-release-notes-v0-6-2/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-release-notes-v0-6-2/v0.6.2 – (20260406) Added Added run\_vop.sh to simplify starting the vop Added the DVD-screensaver for when the VOP is idle Added drop-zones to file uploads to circumvent any browser-related hangs when a folder disappears.”Mon, 06 Apr 2026 17:17:03 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/teasing-the-vop-screensaver/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/teasing-the-vop-screensaver/Sun, 05 Apr 2026 22:51:57 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-release-notes-v0-6-1/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-release-notes-v0-6-1/V0.6.1 – (20260404) – “Changes to for the installation tutorial Added Created ‘Documentation’ directory for project tracking. Added tutorials to the wiki both for first installation of VOP and fullRGB fix. Changed Moved the force\_full\_rgb.sh script to CaliTools/FullRGBFix/ to clean up the root Added ffmpeg\_metadata.txt to .gitignore to clean out unnecessary file. FixedSat, 04 Apr 2026 18:51:25 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-v0-6-0-release-notes/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vop-v0-6-0-release-notes/Believe it or no, The VOP has finally been updated! I have gone through and painstakingly rebuilt it so it has BOTH the SSS and MDS modes. I have also removed some vestigual things like files that weren’t used anyway. And I have also removed the half-implemented JK Optical Printer functionality. But that’s only temporary. \[…\]Fri, 03 Apr 2026 13:28:05 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/yet-another-vop-tease-this-time-a-slit-scan/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/yet-another-vop-tease-this-time-a-slit-scan/Sat, 28 Mar 2026 21:26:42 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/a-thought-about-time-travel-and-paradox-solutions/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/a-thought-about-time-travel-and-paradox-solutions/The problems of time travel paradoxes kind of disappear if we make the assumption that if you go back in time, at the time point of arrival, the universe is split into one with the time traveler and one without. The one without just sees the time traveler poof out of existance when they leave. \[…\]Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:55:20 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vibes-and-whackamolity/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/vibes-and-whackamolity/“No, you can’t have it. I know I said Monday, but I want Baldrick to readit, which, unfortunately will mean teaching him to read, which will takeabout ten years — but time well spent, I think, because it’s such a verygood dictionary.”– Sir Edmund Blackadder This whole thing with the VOP has been a project \[…\]Sat, 14 Mar 2026 17:54:16 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/teasing-the-mds-mode-of-the-vop/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/teasing-the-mds-mode-of-the-vop/I just want to add here a link to the latest tease I published on youtube for the VOP project. The “music” is loud. It is cacaphonous. But I think it fits the mad scientist vibe this whole project has. Also. I know I say this a lot. But… I really need to get back \[…\]Sat, 14 Mar 2026 12:55:03 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/oh-dear/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/oh-dear/I’ve just found out about the indie-web movement. This here webpage is about to see a lot of strange changes.Sat, 21 Feb 2026 11:22:07 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/250207-quick-depth-map-test/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/250207-quick-depth-map-test/Nothing schmancy fancy here. Just a strange thought I had to explore. I just took the footage from my camera. Fed it into a depth map node and let it create its thing. The Depth Map. I then fed it into a 3D plane that’s then displaced.With a camera and set of lights that spin \[…\]Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:35:13 GMThttps://www.jmalmsten.com/post/250126-further-adventures-in-film-photography/https://www.jmalmsten.com/post/250126-further-adventures-in-film-photography/Well, I for some reason wanted to do some more film photography, so I got myself a bunch of rolls of various forms of black and white stock. I also got a fresh bottle of Cinestill DF96 (because I am a bit cheap and a single monobath is still the most cost effective option). The \[…\]Sun, 26 Jan 2025 21:24:08 GMT