Tuesday, 23 October 2007

Lightwave 12

This post marks the end of a lot of things, the end of the final assignment, the probable end of this blog and the end of uni.

Well not quite the end of university but near enough to it.

Today went smoothly enough until it came time for the final animation. I had arranged everything the way I wanted in the Lightwave program with the lighting and the motions of the camera just right and all that business.

I set the program to render an export it as a QuickTime .mov file and the program does it's little show where everything slows down to a crawl because some or all of the system resources are being used.

When it finished which took almost 20 minuets I opened the folder to where the movie should have been and there was a file that had the file name but there was no images whent he file was played.

After another 2 attempts one of which Stuart checked and recommended a few minor changes to the current set up I had my final animation rendered out as 1200 .jpg.

By this time class was over so I burnt off what I had only to learn that what I had done was very, very big.

I left off some of the less important information and burnt off to 3 CD's 2 of which Stuart gave me the work. I even found trouble there though because the last video I had was 1.4 Mb too big to fit on to the CD's. After a run through the zip program it fitted nicely at just under a 100Mb.

In closing I'd like to say thank you to Brendan for being there to look at my work and share an opinion and to Stuart for those off the jokes and views on life and just for doing what a teacher does best.

Tuesday, 16 October 2007

Lightwave 11 (blog)

It has been a long day not that today unexpectedly changed from 24 to 27 hours or anything like that. I started earlier then normal and left late.

Today was a quiet, mostly because everyone was working towards finishing the 3D project.

In my own work I made five more models; cannon, a small pile of cannon balls, a rocket, a pipe from the Mario brother’s games and a display stand.

This work went relatively smoothly, it was the animation part that caused a few hiccups. In theory it is quite simple what I want to do. I put in a few key frames adjust the camera and move.

I couldn’t find where to adjust the output settings/ save files and I couldn't get the key frames to work correctly. After a brief chat with Stuart and some helpful directions I was on my way. The first attempt looked awful, the camera swung in the wrong direction at certain key frames and the speed the movie moved at made it hard to see the model properly.

After class finished I stayed back to do some more work however working without a key finally caught up with me. In the design section while in demo mode you can save work as long as it is smaller then 200 points per layer this means cutting it up and sharing the mess over a few layers.

In the other half of the program there is no saving of work in demo mode and exporting it as a QuickTime .mov left my work with a chequered watermark. It was quite disappointing especially after I got the timing right on the movie.

I spent the last of my time in the class room cutting and resizing the models so as I can go straight to the animation when class starts back next Tuesday.

Lightwave 11 (10:41am)


More cannon fun

Lightwave 11 (10:40am)


This mornings early work

Tuesday, 9 October 2007

Lightwave 10 (Blog)

As one could probably guess looking at the other posts today, I've been busy.

I started my morning with my Fred Flintstone special. 2 great round stones for wheels a couple of logs to hold them in place a few chairs a steering wheel and a canvas covering.

While I still don’t have a definite direction with this project I do like making the models, especially when all I need to do is think of the object in simple shapes and keep in mind which view section I am working from. Usually it is the top and right view and inspect the work in the perspective.

A small list of things I want to try and build are;
A boat/ ship
Swords
Shield
Axe
Cannon

I'm not at all sure how I am going to present them all yet but win or lose it will be spectacular.

All I know is it is better to keep working and making models then sitting around thinking "what am I going to do?"

See you in a week

Lightwave 10 (1:25pm)


Took a lunch break but besides that nothing much else has happened.
I loaded the cars into the Lightwave animation section to have a look at what the works would look like rendered. Except for a few minor touch ups I am quite happy with the end result.
I think the wheel looks especially good.

Lightwave 10 (12:02pm)


Another car I just knocked up.
I've got a feeling this might end in a show room of some description or museum.
Basically I'll just keep knocking out models until I am satisfied.
That last sentence may get me into a lot of trouble with fashion enthusiasts and the law if it was taken out of context and I was personally causing unconsciousness in the pretty people that get photographed and painted for a living.

Lightwave 10 (11:26am)



This is image is part of my final project for the class.
Posting the image was a massive task too seeing as I have gone 40 posts in text.
Could be worse I could have gone the year without it.

Tuesday, 2 October 2007

Lightwave 9

I'm not here today, gone tomorrow I'm here today gone early this afternoon.

Today was a good day and while that should be explanation enough for work requirements alone I have to go into details.

I got the results for my Kitchen project (Lightwave 7) All of which I am quite pleased with.
Concept development: High Distinction
Technical Finish: High Distinction
Presentation: Distinction.

As for the work I did today it was mostly balancing lights. Before the break we were to design a structure and place it in a photograph. I finished the structure and got held up with the part second part. The technology was not doing as it was told. Lightwave would not take the Targa files for what ever reason; it was only by accident that I found out that the program took jpegs.

After putting the backdrop in and some minor stuffing around I got my building on to sit where I wanted it. Lastly there was the lighting.

A simple adjustment, a small shift of hand and mouse can and probably will knock several carefully placed objects out of place. Fortunately this only happened to me 4 or 5 times maybe more I was focused on where the object was and what I was doing it didn’t make much difference.

When I got the work to a satisfactory condition I saved, burned and buggered off.

The previous statement is to be considered very carefully as it is brimming with local dialect, self made abbreviations and would probably make more sense said out loud.

Accurately put once I was satisfied with the condition of the work and the lighting I saved it as a standard Lightwave file, exported the file as a jpeg, gathered up all related work on this assignment into a folder on the computer and copied or burnt it to a CD. Once the burning process was completed I wrote my details on the CD and on the CD case handed it in to Stuart and departed the class room to follow up on some of my other errands.

Next week is a free build to show exactly what it is we have learned and understood from the last 9 weeks of class and create magic, or art. I have decided to be spectacular but I'm not sure how yet. Either I'll figure it out or I'll make pancakes, using a real frypan and ingredients because polygons give me gas... probably.

Tuesday, 25 September 2007

Work Placement 7

What a glorious Monday morning, such a shame it started so damn early.

I'm kidding although I started early Monday morning, before work walked around the park land taking photos of what happened to be around, briefly that was trees, birds, water and some structures.

When I did start work Enza told me that they had just found a dead possum. I don't know what killed it I think it might have been gravity related (a big fall) but I didn't check and the critter was not in a state to tell. the Joke of the morning was it either hated the installation so much it had to kill itself right there on the spot or liked it so much it had to become one with it.

Time lost most of it's meaning I assumed work progressed swiftly but it may not have too I took my watch off so it wouldn't get in my way. When Sue turned up after returning a few bits and pieces she was surprised at the amount of work that had been done. For the most part I spent my time filling bags with clothes to be sent back to the second hand shops.

Later on as the monumental installation was reduced bags and boxes of clothes, books and assorted oddities my old friend the sticky tape had to be dealt with. In some parts this was a duel layer operation. There as an upper layer of gaffer tape and a lower guide layer of masking tape. The upper layer came away effortlessly the lower layer wasn't so accommodating for the others.

I found that I could remove both layers of tape at once if I lifted it up and pulled in a special way. This reduced my work load and times drastically, all up I only needed to remove a few sections of tape.

Once the tape was removed and everything was packed, we loaded everything into the truck and headed off to the drop off locations. The first was a chaotic store room of a West Footscray op shop and the second was what I would describe as a warehouse operation in Totenham. Everything that the first drop off didn't want which was a few assorted pieces of junk and the clothes the second drop off took.

Shortly after the truck was returned to the depot and I was let off for the day to go about my own devices. I did that so well I've only just got around to doing the blog entry.

Wednesday, 19 September 2007

Lightwave 8

I had a fairly quiet day today.

Class work didn’t start until late because of class numbers fortunately most if not all of the group showed up eventually to do some work.

Today we were learning how to make a 3D image fit into a photo. The 2 things I've kept in mind is that 2 or more lights are needed to help with the blending and you will need to adjust the horizon line in the Lightwave animation program to help keep the balance.

The sort of structure I built resembles a box on a table with some steps leading up to the front. The general shape reminds me of Asian architecture. I think it is because of the shape of the roof and the red support posts.

I personally liked my stairs, 2 cylinders angled and the space filled in with small boxes. I strongly suspect I will have to cut down on my support posts and stairs though to help keep the proportions.

Brendan's house is coming along slowly but he is starting to get a very good handle on the basic use of the tools. If the course went twice as long by the end of it he'd be setting up 3D structures and models in his sleep.

I haven’t seen how any of the others are managing, they seem to be doing fine based on the idea that they aren’t asking for help, or if they are it isn't related to the program.

Leo shared with the group the truth about Mexican beers and the lemons the bar staff try and serve it with. Not that it is related to the class work but it did happen in class.

The housing assignment is due in at the end of next class; with mid term break next week I've got until 2pm 2nd October to get the work done.

Monday, 17 September 2007

Work placement 6

Free booze brings out something in people, something scary and dizzy.

Today was a late start; this was because I was working the exhibition opening.
The early part of the afternoon I spent back on the floor working around the lines finishing up the taping with a new roll of tape.

Time consuming as it was it was very quiet and it didn’t bother strain my body as much as it had the last few days. A short time later I stopped for a meal break and the two second year students who were also called in to work the exhibition showed up.

They did the fine details and tidy up jobs and I did a few other odd jobs like securing valuables, like laptops hard drives and various sorts of cameras and accessories.

My final task for the evening was to serve drinks. This was worse then some of my most awful retail experiences. At least in retail I had authority and completely knew what I was doing and developed ways through and around troublesome customers.

It wasn’t that the people were overly troublesome, everyone was well behaved it was more the attitudes some of the people projected at Zach one of the second year assistants and myself when we didn’t know what they wanted or couldn’t keep up with all the orders. We managed and for the most part people were polite and patient. Just a few unpleasant looks and sly comments ruined it.

On the plus side I was complimented on the way I opened the bottles of sparkly bubbles, it went along the lines of being very professional how when I opened them I never spilled any or sent the cork flying.

I did however make a big noise during the speech marathon. We had just emptied another bottle of the bubbles and a lady wanted some so I opened it and it was rather loud. The guest all looked over at the drinks table and all I could do was say "it was her fault." Pointing to the lady she took it in good humour as did the rest of the guests.

At one point I was worried that we would run out of the champagne (bubbles) I even told Sue that we were running low and it would only be a sort time before we ran out. Silly me, a short time after that as I started moving the other bottles into the other tubs and keeping them close to the drinks table I seen another container. In it was another 8 bottles of the stuff. It was quite fortunate.

I quite like the idea of having more then is needed then not having enough (when practical), and when serving people not to give away how much of anything is left until it is all gone. When they asked for a drink they got a drink eventually, sometimes a fresh bottle of whatever they ordered needed to be opened but no one suffered from dehydration.

No one but Zach or I knew how much of anything was left until the end of the very end of the night, I think it helped keep an illusion going that at this opening what they wanted that could have if they asked there was no one rushing around for fear they might miss out.

I was nice to see a few familiar faces in the crowd, like some of my current and former teachers.

It was a nice learning experience but I don’t think I want that many speeches at any exhibition I have unless it is an exhibition about speeches. 40 minuets of talking got mind numbing very quickly. Maybe I'll have the speech part as a video piece so people can watch them later on and I'll just go down the local pub while everyone else does the exhibition opening thing and come back just before the end of the night when people have seen it and are heading off. That way I miss out on all the brown nosers.

In the end I'll like to say the following;
Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends!

Wednesday, 12 September 2007

Work placement 5

Another early start today, but this time I was well on top of the situation and all it took was a little planning and preparation.

Officially speaking today was panic day. Sue and Enza had a lot to arrange and organise and only a few hours to do it in as the exhibition opens early tomorrow night.

My duties for today not only got my clothes terribly dirty it also exhausted me physically and mentally. The morning's work was fairly simple move so stands around for the television sets to be placed on, number a collection of paintings and collect the titles and lastly go around the floor and lay out black tape to hide the white masking tape from the dark sections of the installation.

The boxes the televisions are to go on are just coloured chip board so they were light. I moved them into position fairly quickly and moved on to task 2.

Sue had her drawing class come in so I worked away from them covering up the white tape with black tape. It was easy enough, precision work but fairly simple. The down side was that it took a lot out of me having to bend down and shuffle around the floor. Thank goodness for the knee pads.

After I did a few sections I had to leave the job for reasons of the bladder. On my return I was asked to number and title the paintings. The paintings were done by a man named Jack Freeland, who for some reason currently unknown to me he painted with his mouth. Some of the paintings were quite interesting others weren't, but it is like that with most things. I counted 63 paintings of assorted subjects from landscape to animals and seasonal greetings.

I moved back on to my taping task once that painting labelling job was finished. While I had been working else where Enza had been working on the other side of the room doing the black tape work so when I came back down there were only a few sections left to do. I finished the roll of tape off which meant I had to find other work to do.

I spent the rest of the day doing other jobs like arranging the televisions this took a lot of time and energy because it needed to look right for the presentation but it also needed to be set up so the DVD players and televisions were close to the power points.

I finished the day there because it was time to go home.

Working again tomorrow the next post will hopefully more coherent then this one

Tuesday, 11 September 2007

Lightwave 7

After the "delights" of last class I made a return to the lab the following day to have another try at the 3D kitchen assignment.

For the most part it was easy I had to remember to save often and check my point counter ever so often.

The danger of working in demo mode is that you are only allowed 200 points. This restricted some of the possibilities and complexities of my creations, but through the restriction I found creative freedom.

I found thinking in simple shapes to be the best solution and I am most pleased with how my sink turned out. The taps I originally thought were going to be the biggest challenge but with my exceptional mind I was able to make a representation of a sink with taps and it looked convincing. Brendan was very impressed when I showed him.

For today’s class I had a spoon, knife and a grater to finish off. The spoon I thought of as a strangely shaped tiny frypan. the greater resembles something I seen on TV once but could just as easily be mistaken for a flyswatter. The knife was my surprise for the day. I impressed myself with my big mean looking cleaver it may have been a little cartoon-ish but I liked it, in fact I liked it so much I stuck it in the wall.

I surprised Stuart when I asked how to use Lightwave. The Lightwave program comes in 2 sections, the first part Modeller where as the name suggests the models are shaped, next is Lightwave where the animation happens. So what I was really asking was how do I use the animation section of the program suite?

The big change to the other half of the program is that when moving the objects that the coloured arrows have special meanings too. Red is left and right, blue back and forth and lastly green which is up and down. Each relates to a particular axis X,Y and Z.

I found dressing the set to be fairly simple once I got used to adjusting the sizes and figured out how to move everything properly.

As this is an arts course the presentation of the finished work is also important. Handing the works up to be graded in a standard CD or DVD case will earn a pass. I decided to try something a little different. I got some graph paper and wrote out the appropriate information on it like name and the project name and on the back cover reversed what I wrote. Writing backwards is hard I don’t know how I managed to do it so well when I was younger. I finished by decorating the spine with a series of black lines to represent an object in the side view.

When I handed it in I got a laugh which is a good sign especially when there are dozens of other expressions and gestures that could have been used instead.

Next week I need to bring in a picture of a landscape with a lot of flat space because we move on to assignment 2.

Monday, 10 September 2007

Work placement 4

Today got my off with a start.
I awoke to find a message on my phone asking me to get West Footscray station for 7:45 to meet Sue so she could take to the exhibition site.

This sent a panic through my system, I moved faster then I have this morning then I have most mornings for a very long time.

I replied to Sue's message stating that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the station in time. Big mistake the bus I caught not only got me to the station in time, it got me there almost 5 minuets early. After a few change overs I got to the second meeting place, the food court at Highpoint where both Sue and Enza were meeting and discussing the plans for today.

My first job on site was simple enough, sort and arranges the clothes hangers into an interesting pattens and shapes within the designated work space. I made a few interesting shapes and designs. Keeping it symmetrical was tricky as I didn't have as many simple wooden hangers as I would have liked or enough coloured hangers to give the design a visual variety. After a little trial and error the end result turned out looking pretty good.

The next task was a way for me to contribute and create a piece for the exhibition using cardboard boxes and plastic bags. For those who have seen the donation bins or the back rooms of the second hand shops these are common sites. The only 2 directions I had been given were make it high and don’t block out the window. After some creative stacking of the boxes and some gap filling with the various bags task 2 was complete.

In context of the exhibition and the ordered shapes and forms of the most dominating piece, my cardboard and plastic creation is the "unseen" back room chaos.

I was warned though that because of the nature of the installation process if a more practical idea or use for the bags and boxes comes to mind that the work could be partially or completely changed or removed. So it was in my best interest to take some pictures early.

Hopefully it stays for the exhibition.

The guide strings used as preliminary measurements before the sections were outlined in tape were due for removal. It was very physical work and had to be done delicately. I could not disturb the finished sections, or if I did I had to put it back to the original condition as soon as I was done. There was a lot of bending fortunately the ladies had knee pads for that kind of work for me to use. The pads helped a lot, awful to walk in but they made the job more comfortable.

My last few tasks for the day were setting up the television sets with the DVD players. It wasn’t hard for the most of it. A little trouble some with the last set though. As the televisions were all of various makes some needed special plugs so that the DVD players could be plugged in. Unfortunately there wasn't enough to go around. After asking for some help I learned that I had to tune the DVD player into the TV. Once I knew what to do I was fine.

I've had to tune tvs in for a number of personal entertainment reasons. Most of those reasons were video games though and occasionally VCR’s too but not very often.

A side job I had to do was help carry over some of the PA equipment. With the hand trolley it made the job easy. The big wheels rolled up the steps and across the gravel easily.

Well that was my work day how was yours?

Next post some time Wednesday night or later on, it just depends on how I am feeling.

Wednesday, 5 September 2007

Work placement 3

In a strange way I got what I wanted, a very quick reply to a job opportunity. While the position wasn’t what I originally wanted I feel as though I won’t get any where in life if I am fussy and try and pick what help and opportunities I get from people.

Basically if I want help I have to take all of what is offered or none at all, and I see it in the same way for opportunities, until I can effectively read into the future I’ll keep jumping on as many opportunities that come my way as I can possibly manage.

For my placement I am working as an artists assistant, as far as I can tell all this means to me at the moment I do as I am told which doesn’t make it much different to any other job I have had.

Today I was sorting clothes out for the installation piece and stacking them into piles to be part of the arrangement. With so many second hand possessions around it feels kind of strange, all the things were precious to someone and as soon as they stopped being useful they were given the arse (given away). Some things there like the knitted scarves would have taken a lot of time and effort and for them just to end up as second hand shop merchandise is kinda sad.

Still it is better that they be passed on to charity with the potential to be used again then just put into the general garbage.

For the time being I have 3 full days of work Monday, Panic day and second panic day. In normal people terms that is Monday 10, Wednesday 12, Thursday 13 and a few more days later on to be decided possibly including gallery sitting and the de-installation.

Right now the exhibition is looking like a collection of second hand memories.

Tuesday, 4 September 2007

Lightwave 6

What a shit of a day.

Technology, can't work with it, can't pass without it.

Technically speaking today has been one problem after then next.

I came in early to get a start on the kitchen project only to find the computer with my exercises on it has been locked, some illegitimate glow worm (bright bastard) had put a password on the computer, worse then that they made it so that I cannot get in to retrieve my work from other computers on the network. The tech team was not much help, he tried the password combinations I had already tried without any luck and will get around to resetting it later on.

So I've moved to another system this one works at its own pace with the widgets, popping up at will and the windows shrinking down into a group view, the mouse responds poorly and if it wasn’t for the cost of replacement I think I would have ruined it by now.

Now back to the work some of the project tutorials are easy enough to follow others are not. The video started talking about welding without showing where the function is hidden or a shortcut key(s) to use it. Later on I found it in another video as control w.

Some of the software problems encountered are my own fault such as not making enough knife cuts on the polygons to properly control the movements simple objects like bowls and plates are quite nice and easy to make.

A circle shape from the disc or ball tool, some extruding and bevelling and a quick tidy up with the tab key makes something shaped like something you'd eat off.

I am really looking forward to getting back on to MM13 the controls work, my work is there and... Hell I think I'd save myself a headache if I just went and made the project out of Lego I'd use clay but I'm not up to getting grubby right now these issues have sucked the fun right out of me and have left me not feeling my usual self.

On the plus side I'm not as sick as I was and should be back on my feet without a blocked or runny nose or that "delightful" cough.

This project is due next week expect an update then.

Tuesday, 28 August 2007

Lightwave 5

Still sick but I did some work.

Today’s class was a dedicated city trip especially to go and see the special winter exhibition at ACMI the Pixar show. After being greeted at the door with a massive lamp and ball from some of the group’s early works it was straight to business, purchasing a ticket to go inside.

The show itself was quite nice show a little of everything covering early animations to stills and storyboards from the new film. Perhaps this sample of everything was what let it down instead of focusing strongly on only a few projects.

It was interesting to see the models and drawings around for a group that is largely known for working in 3D computer animation. It makes sense that there is going to be a lot of paper used in the work for drawings, rough sketches and character developments instead of going straight in to the 3D software blindly without any ideas of what is coming up next, or even how it relates to the rest of the project in terms of continuity.

Basically it was about 5 stages in development before they works were fully rendered, ranging from rough drawings, to coloured pastel works and then lastly a 3D object or location. I'd imagine that at any stage that these could be cut form the story too as they no longer fit with the main themes or ideas of the project.

The artist they have working with them were amazing with one of the sculptures being born in the 30's and others in the 60's and 70's. Age doesn't matter only how well you do the job by the look of things, which I think might be a good attitude to have with employees, except that means that you'd also be employing their ego too. I hope egos don’t need a separate pay of their own.

With that I'm off track and out of here

See you in a week.

Tuesday, 21 August 2007

Lightwave 4

Out sick come back next week

Sunday, 19 August 2007

Lightwave 3

What can I say about this week’s class?

I feel it was probably my most successful yet; I managed to do the assigned tasks, eat something and go home all in the one day and with minimal need to swear, threaten or break the computers.

The major focus figures with a low polygon count. Easy enough done following the instructions. The real treat is pushing the Tab key and smoothing out the edges on the figure.

The Boolean and bevel tool were the ones most commonly used, as well as the symmetry function for creating multiple things that look alike, in this case arms and legs.

We used the text tool I had limited success in bending it however but am fairly sure that I'll get the hang of the bending and stretching later, until then I had a word that looked like a tornado.

A few extras that I added to my polygon person I put in butt cheeks and a helmet. I'm not good around childish temptations and the symmetry function made it so easy with the click of a button or two and the dragging of the mouse.

Next week more work.

Tuesday, 7 August 2007

Lightwave 2

Ah Lightwave, what can I say, I think I am starting to get the hang of doing some basic things in the program. I still find a few ways to mess up the work I am doing but most of that comes down to not knowing all of the basics of the program.
This means I know enough to help Brendan out but not enough to completely finish my own work.

Today was frypan day the most holy day in the uni calendar... we celebrate with offerings of fried eggs, bacon pancakes and other assorted foods thrown for varying amounts of time until the food is cooked. This is not true for television chefs they only "cook" the food until it is pinker and bloody on the inside then the outside.

On a more relevant note the class started the kitchens today by making the frypan. It is fairly simple in construction provided that all the computer and program's settings are on zero or neutral (poor Tash had one with some crazy settings) Basically it is a disk that is stretched and bevelled into a bowl shape and a rectangular prism shape stuck on the side and shaped to look more like a handle.

Already I can see a lot of potential for me with this program but that also means a lot of room for some horrendous mistakes. Still I'd like to try and "sculpt" a dragon it may be a little too ambitious at the moment but if I can find a copy of the program and a computer to run it on it'd be nice to give it a whirl.

Well that’s a lot of text I'm off for another week.
Not to be confused with off because of expiry dates as I wasn't born with one unless you are some kind of super natural type person then you can just keep that information to yourself.

Till next time

Monday, 6 August 2007

Work placement 2

Not much has changed since last week.
There is still no where for us to go but we have been placed to the top of the list of people to place which is something good. I spent the morning reading comics then class started we talked about the skills we needed for the jobs we are aiming for a lot of the skills were interchangeable and others were specific to what we were doing. The last group activity was looking at possible job adds in the industry we wanted. After that left to our own devices I made notes for the graduation exhibition. Hopefully next week the writings here will be of more relevance

Tuesday, 31 July 2007

Work placement 1

This blog here is to keep track of my work done during my work placement class.
As it is week one and an assortment of problems have come up like the rest of the class we do not have our work placement job sites yet. As placement has yet to start the information in the posts will become more relevant and useful. Until then it is nonsense or nothing, as you can see I made my decision.

Lightwave 1

There are two versions of this week’s Lightwave class, the short version and the long version.

The short version ran a little something like this, welcome back, here is some new people to introduce and here is some work to do.

The long version goes for about 3 hours and is in real time, and seeing as I already lived through it I'm not going to put write that down.

Today we started on the 3D program Lightwave, it comes in two parts a modelling section and a filming section. It is one of the most complex programs I have seen, with the use of both mouse buttons and case sensitive hotkeys.

So far I can see a vast opportunity to make some real stuff ups, the main thing to remember is after finishing with a tool to press spacebar otherwise the last shape will stretch to where the mouse last clicked.

Assessment project 1 is to make a surreal kitchen; it only has to be surreal so we do not get too stressed out about the fine details. So far the best idea I've got is a zebra skin teapot I'm sure things will improve as I learn more of the program.

Seeing as I've nothing more productive to write on the subject today I am signing out catch you next time folks

Filler 6, 7 and 8

Filler 6 through 8 went out drinking and never came back in time to be posted.

Uni has started back so regular posts relevant to the my lightwave class and my work placement class starting very shortly.

Gotta go back and start paying attention to what work I'm supposed to be doing now.

Monday, 2 July 2007

Filler 5

As the title suggests more filler

This toilet wall
With all it's wit
One would think
Shakespear himself
Came here to shit

Stick around the quality of these things has not even come close to touching bottom yet.

More filler next week.

Dont worry uni starts back in a few more weeks.

Wednesday, 27 June 2007

Filler 4

4 weeks of holidays with minimal activity is getting depressing.

I kinda hoped to have a job by now, or at least an interview, or a human rejection instead of being ignore or the copy past "you are not what we are looking for" email.

On the other hand I have seen plenty of sunlight and had a resonabe amount of sleep and close to 50 hours of game play. which isnt too bad considering I got it last Thursday.

On the other hand almost 50 hours of recorded game play is an awful lot of time to spend playing games in under a week. Thats not counting the unsaved resets and everything else that I have done.

More filler next week

Wednesday, 20 June 2007

Filler 3

Just another one of my weakly updates to keep the page running.

Less then 24 hours to go until the rellease of my new game.

I dont expect I'll see much sunlight or sleep a great deal while I break it in and learn all the new fun features.

Stay safe, warm and dont eat the yellow snow.

Wednesday, 13 June 2007

Filler 2

Just more filler to take up time and space on the grand human made universe the internet.

Will probably add more to it when I feel like it, or next week when I add more midless filler

Enjoy

Thursday, 7 June 2007

Filler 1

Just an entry to keep the account active,

Im on break now so these new entries could get a little silly before the new semester starts.

Catch you later on

Tuesday, 29 May 2007

Blog 12 The Grande Finale

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls and all those who don't fit into the previously mentioned categories.

This is the final work related blog for semester 1 of my 3rd year of university.

I hope you have enjoyed it or at least not hated it.

I like the feed back on my final project, heck I just liked the final project.

Without any actual work to do until next semester aside form finishing this blog off I'll be doing a great many other things like glowing in the dark and playing with the digital camera.

Note to self: take photos of textures over the break. Look into light wave.

I guess I'll try and do some thinking in 3D too or maybe even 4D with real time being the extra dimension, well I hope time has to do with the assortment of dimensions.

Plan B through to Plan L is adding extra things in a just saying they are an extra dimension by them selves, like peppermint and bikini models and spores.

Take care and enjoy yourself world

And remember I support mould because it is the only culture some people get.

Sunday, 27 May 2007

Blog 11.1 As predicted

Today's update is just to say I went back and did something I was meant to do such a terribly long time ago.

Correct my frequent spelling errors, stuff ups, keyboard mashing and anything else I did to get the spelling of perfectly logical words looking like some kind of phonetic vomit.

4 hours of class to go on Tuesday and that'll be it for another 9 weeks.

On a side note Blog 7 was my best post with only one error, the others weren't as impressive.

Tuesday, 22 May 2007

Blog 11 The penultimate blog

What a wonderful day.

There is weather outside I'm inside and except for a final check I have finished the final assessment. Brendan and I have been working hard over the last few weeks to get these projects to a close. I wasn’t easy with "minor" computer issues such as some of the Macs not playing sounds in director and the problem with the numerical keypad not working all at the same time the project is done.

I have sounds that work on rollovers, backing tracks and I am happy with my achievements.

On a slightly sad not Tash and Kim failed to turn up to hand in their projects so I still don’t know what they have planned. Brendan made his basketball game, I had my city/ room greyscale thingy and Florian's was something like a photo gallery that worked as a series of rollovers, form what I seen if he had a little more time to work on it and refine a few little things it would be an incredible piece. Alke's blog talked about reverse evolution, from what I seen of her work she had Superman and from what I could tell something like a fingerprint or the lines of an old $20 note. I'd like another look at the fingerprint thing, maybe even blow it up to a big display size and print it off. I mean blow it up without gun powder or anything else like that, which turns big things into little things with a loud bang.

Lightwave semester 2 it is a 3D animation program, I haven’t 3D'd in a computer for many years (maybe 6) I think it was studio max and I wasn’t too fond of that program but to meet the ends of the criteria I'll tolerate most minor issues like not liking the types of computers or not being able to use Photoshop because painter is better. Actually once I got to the other side I didn’t mind the painter program and well Macs are Macs. I'm waiting for the chance to melt them down and feed them to something else. Like a Mac-nivore.

Yeah a Mac-nivore is a rare creature that only eats Macs and it is highly at risk of being killed for its high quality plastic fur and big headlight eyes.

Well I'm tired and at the limit of BS this side of lunch so I'll wrap this up, just not with a bow and paper. See you next week in Blog 12 unless I add some kind of minor post before then.

Tuesday, 15 May 2007

Blog 10 Almost done

Welcome one and all,

Judging by the comments it is just welcome one*.

Today was quite entertaining and I made a great deal of progress I finally got the timing right on the exit of the window and the introduction to the interactive section.

All that needs doing now is the display case and the addition of sounds. Brendan is doing some very interesting things to his little basketball. I have no idea what Tash or Kim are doing* they seem to have a great time in class but most of that time is away from the Macs. There could be a link.

As for my own work I am sure I have enough to meet the minimum requirements for interactivity am fairly happy with what I have got but I there is something missing, most of the screen is full of roll overs of some description. But I want to add something special that will make my work stand out, above and beyond everyone else’s work. I'll keep thinking about it in the rear section of my brain while I let the front section deal with the more pressing issues.

I was pleased to hear the positive feed back on my work and my choice to work mostly in the grey scale. I myself am happy with the way the limitation of colours has tied my work together. Usually I have a hard time getting a theme I can work consistently on and that is acceptable for the teaching staff.

With only 4 hours of actual class time remaining the pressure is on to get the work finished, I am looking forward to seeing the final products on all the works.

Well until the next update I off again

*true at time of post

Tuesday, 8 May 2007

Blog 9 Towards the goal

I started early today on my final assessment, I am quite enjoying the work in the grey scale, although it does get a little tricky when trying to animate in layers to keep the colours different form the colours on the surrounding layers when there is about 8 or 9 shades of grey to use before they are too close to black to be practical or too close to white to be useful on the white back ground.

My idea has changed slightly instead of anvils and colour explosions I'm having my city scape as part of an opening animation that takes the viewer in through a window to an undecided space where the audience will be able to interact with the work.

I don’t have any issues, thoughts or opinions I want to force/ push/ share with this work, I am just happy working and making just for the sake of making art. I suppose the main reason is because of the assessable task.

It is a free choice piece and must use as many of the skills picked up in class to create an art work that needs then to be professionally package as a final product. At the moment I am thinking I might take a few screen grabs and design something out of the captured images in the way of a CD/ DVD inner slip cover thingy.

I am quite pleased with how the blinds turned out, it was quite tedious work using the built in paint program to make these flat shapes but this kind of work is the same reason I like working in Flash. Partly play and always working towards my own goals.

Well I am talking in geometrical shapes again mostly circles so I think this as good a time as any to clear off.

Until the next post... stay away form my Tasty Toobs
In fact just stay away form all my snack foods until I am willing to share.

Tuesday, 1 May 2007

Blog 8 Final project

Well today was all self assigned work in the build up and completion of our final works.

The first idea I could come up with is toothpaste. I was thinking the kind with the 3 stripes red white and blue.
Later I decided to add an anvil to squash the toothpaste tube and send minty mess everywhere.

Right now I have neither I've got a greyscale "city" scape the rises out of the bottom of the screen and clouds that roll in form the sides. Right now I plan on having the clouds rain an anvil and animate the drop on to the toothpaste and add colour form there as the interactive feature.

If I make the toothpaste colours blue orange and white I can justify the work as some kind of limited pallet further adding to the main theme and make decorating the final CD and case a lot more manageable. Coloured stripes with some text are what I have in mind at the moment.

I spent some of today helping Brendan he is quite enthusiastic about making some kind of work about a basketball. If we can bridge the gap between his ideas and our abilities in a timely and effective manor we should have some fantastic works.

I got the results for my first assignment and I am pleased and I know what areas to work on for this final one to hopefully bring my score up to a HD.

The main parts are making the final piece look more finished, jagged edges and that sort of thing and my buttons need some special care also. I'll have to watch the sound I was unlucky that it didn’t work last time due to technical issues but it wont be an excuse this time.

Well I'm off to do things away from this paperweight with blinking lights and speakers.

Blog 7.2 Edit button

Today I learned of the most fantastic function this site has to offer the "little pencil button" that lives at the bottom of the posts.

I deleted all the extra copies of my Blog 7 Technology.

I'll have a new post up later today... probably unless something happens and I get side tracked.

Wednesday, 25 April 2007

Blog 7.1 Technology

I apologise for the extra copies of the Blog 7,

There was an error on the webpage and I could not see if the update went through, which resulted in the mess you see posted before you.

A bad workman blames his tools, by that measure a responsible workman would dispose of the faulty tools. Unfortunately this option is denied to me mainly for reasons of economics and the penalties for following through with these actions on school property.

So as a form of compromise I write this instead, my way of throwing out the faulty computer. Lets face it is several times cheaper then trowing out a computer that "works" and replacing it.

Take care

Tuesday, 24 April 2007

Blog 7 Return to work

Well the holiday blog 2 was wrong being sick and sleepy does not help the spelling out at all.
Aside from that it is good to be back working again even if it is only for another 6 weeks before another break.

Week 11 a finished form of the final project is due.
Week 12 the work is to have any last minuet problems ironed out, and sharp edges to be sanded down and anything else to be debugged.

The topic of the final project is anything we want as long as it uses director. The condition is to show what we know about the program which will now include sounds, cursors, rollovers and maybe some use of the scripting language lingo.

Right now I a considering the use of a drawing tablet as part of the final project interface. If I put a "line" drawing/ screen shot under the plastic of the tablet then the user can use the stylus to interact with the work.

It would be interesting in a gallery setting except I don’t trust people* and would mean I need to chain the stylus to the tablet but that would ruin the stylus.

On a side note ink settings matte can be used inside director for the design of custom buttons.

A few questions/ points I have to put a lot of thought into is the graphic user interface, why make work in this program and how and how would a person choose to spend their time looking at the work that I have done.

I really need to decide on a final project really soon with time running faster then a cheap pair of stockings.
Once I have an idea I can really use I can build off the rest of it. The only thing in mind is toothpaste, maybe the 3 strips will lead to the colour settings (limited pallet) or maybe something I can use. Maybe I can hand the project in with a collection of mints to add a dimension of smell.


*Generally speaking I do not trust people as a collective group or species, individuals I can feel different about although there are plenty of individuals that I don’t trust either.

Tuesday, 17 April 2007

Holiday Blog 2 Mildly productive

It has been a week since I last pushed the keys on the keyboard in combination that bought the last post.

Today I thought I would follow a simular formula and keep pushing buttons in various combinations to produce the slightly addictive, mildly unpredictable, less then acceptable blog you see before you today.

As far as actual work goes I have done some, but not for this subject (digital image) out side of the blogs, I have however posted off my part of the group application for the end of year show and started on my proposal assignment for another class.

I'm feeling sleepy and unable to hold too many thoughts together at once for terribly long although I get the feeling that this may have helped my spelling out somewhat.

I'm off to rest, play games and eat tasty jacks and marshmallow... possibly all at the one time.

Tuesday, 10 April 2007

Holiday Blog 1 Nothing productive

For the last 6 weeks I got into the routine of getting out of bed to make the trip out to St. Albans. 5 days ago the Easter break started and I haven't been remotely productive since.

On the plus side the same is true for all my classes this semester and not just this. In fact this blog is the first lot of school work since Wednesday afternoon, and that was a pretty poor example of work then too.

Well I'm of to do something remarkable... probably or download something only time will tell.

Tuesday, 3 April 2007

Blog 6 The thing about macs

Such a delightful day, there was sunshine, clouds, and many other things associated with the weather today. For the middle part of my day I spent inside "playing" at the computer.

Today’s class was dedicated to the completion of the first assessment. Sounded easy and working simply it was easy enough right up until it came to sound.

I have the basic theory of sound and noise in director.

Option 1 for a mono track of background sounds just drag and drop on the upper section of the stage.

Option 2 much like option one except the second audio track is used as well to create those soundy, panny, swapping between speaker sounds.

Option 3 works just like flash on buttons, in the behaviour inspector window (not to be confused with the property behaviour window) label the action then set it according to the appropriate mouse action i.e. mouse over and then set the action to play sound.

I personally tested and had good results with option one, unfortunately it was on Brendan's work, but it is a minor victory.

For reasons beyond my comprehension to technology gods found it necessary to stop the sound function working in director. Although it could just be a case of Mac sickness but the usual remedies all failed, threats, attempted violence, restarting the program, restarting the machine and even physically moving to another machine all ended in a project suitable for the hearing impaired.

Well it is off to mid semester holidays where I'll be working hard... or hardly working

Wednesday, 28 March 2007

Blog 5 I learned something!

Well the end of another class and the time to begin my weekly blog. Today we covered imbedded text, the use of sound in director, and masks in Photoshop and the possible practical applications for surgical lasers in practical jokes.

The last one wasn’t done in class if at all.

I made great use of my time I shot/ animated a rocket out of the toilet with sound effects and minor behaviour commands like go to frame and exit.

The one thing that we couldn’t figure out was why the exit command wouldn’t take to the sprite. This problem was solved by shutting the program down opening it up again and following the steps through again except of applying it to a sprite apply it to a lump of text. Once I had the correct command in the cast as a function I just applied it back on to the sprite.

The house project is due next week and I just have to script/ lingo the abomination together with all my pretty little arrows and thingies and what ever else it is I need to do before 2pm next week.

So I'll keep doing my thing until it becomes impractical, impossible or illegal.
My money is on option 1

Tuesday, 20 March 2007

Blog 4 sound, screen and everything else

I lied there isn’t everything else.

Audacity is the free sound editing program that will be used. Stuart shared with us some poetry from TISM, charming stuff.

Under the project settings on the top bar allows a new audio track.

Generate and Effect has "shit loads" of options to improve the found audio settings.

Project has to have user initiated sound and a constant background track.

To get sounds in go Project > import > audio.

Consider my font type too for the project as not all fonts are supported by the assorted OS.

Behaviour inspector will let me do the fancy things I could do in flash like sounds on mouse down and so on.

Hold current frame is my favourite library option to date.

Tuesday, 13 March 2007

Blog 3.5 Doing my work this time

To tell a story in a straight line or to let the audience have their way and decide how things are going to work.

The ideas for the mid semester project so far follow the ideas of the old adventure games in the attempted 3D in all the pixel glory. The display will be a key thing at the moment I am considering some kind of doom screen display.

New lessons using the property manager I can adjust the alpha settings, fame start and finish and other magic things I don’t know yet.

Window > library > navigation
wait for click or key press I think I'll use the go to frame X setting more as it is much more like the flash work I have used.

Consider doing something to the Macs either something productive or something not productive it doesn’t matter; either is good because Mac sickness is a dangerous condition.

Blog 3 wall nuts

This here blog has no purpose other then to satisfy Brendan's need to see this,

Walnuts, walnuts, walnuts, walnuts!

Tuesday, 6 March 2007

Blog 2 the not as great follow-up

Today’s class we started using the program.

I need to think about the frame size too for the up coming project working at mobile phone size might be interesting except my phone cant receive or play the video.

The tempo options sound like it will be quite interesting for the productions of my final pieces.

Window > align will adjust the bitmaps to suit my needs.
Bitmap frame rates are hidden in the preferences under sprite.

Homework get more stuff for project, sounds, images and maybe video?
Need 2 story lines linear follow a set path and non linear i.e. teleport where ever I want.

640*480 screen size.

Started and finished class exercise about tension. My little man pushes the spring back and gets pushed off screen real quick.

Bye for now

Tuesday, 27 February 2007

Blog 1 the great beginning

Look on the screen it's a bird, it's a plane nope it’s a big steaming blog.

Well this here is the first blog and I'm not too impressed, hand written notes are more fun and have much, much more chaos and drawings.

Ideas I could use for the project are

-something that wont run (something produced in a way that wont run unless it meets my whims)
-program won’t run until computer time reads 12:01am for example
-Joe's work the life in pink life story....
-animated idea of birth, living and death
-something like a brainstorm links leading off on wild paths eventually linked back to a common theme.
-learn how to put in graphics to illustrate point.

Good night folks.... Good afternoon