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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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