DigiBen

Evolving and learning

2010-01-25T00:40:00.000-08:00

Evolution involves screwing up. So does life. I'm a little grumpy that my Gizmo model can't deform (or I just can't get it to deform) as I want it to; the front legs are positioned wrong and the front feet can't rotate around far enough to grip the fridge door top.

So I need to go back and re-work the model. Do the feet at a real neutral pose, not just standing. And figure out how to do this version 1 movie without fur; as much re-working as I'm doing I don't feel like adding the fur to the mix; it can wait till version 2.

Anyway, there it is, time to accept, go back, make it better.

The rigging has been tough; the books say 'think about what you want you rig to do' but until you've gone through with it once or twice, you don't know if you need the spine to be able to stretch. And they don't talk about assigning the skin to the bones, as if it's a snap. Maybe it is and I'm missing it; that'd be cool when I eventually figure it out. The first stab at rigging this one has made me learn a lot, maybe enough to go back to the book and gleam more understanding.

Crawling along

2010-01-15T10:44:00.000-08:00

Bit by bit he's getting there (excuse excuse excuse).

Seeing Gizmo in the kitchen, looking forlornly up at the spot the cake will occupy makes me smile.

Yes he's currently floating; I've been doing test rigs but have not yet completed one I feel like posting a pose from.

Gizmo visits the Kitchen for the first time

2010-01-06T09:34:00.001-08:00

Here is the Kitchen with Gizmo standing at the fridge. I remembered that checking the scale of the puppy at this point may be easier than after I finish up all the rigging.
On the other hand, the kitchen is NOT very complex compared to Gizmo, so maybe I should keep the rigging I've started and re scale the kitchen later if need be.

Freezer has a door!

2009-12-02T15:48:00.000-08:00

woo! Just don't look too close...

Not yet the Kitchen Sink

2009-12-02T09:47:00.001-08:00

Here is version 1 of the kitchen. Minus a real fridge with a freezer that opens and stuff that will fall out, (maybe).
And minus a cake.
So where am I on this project?
The puppy Gizmo has, in draft form, a body, a UV map, and a basic skin. A skeleton was made. It maybe crappy... and it hasn't been assigned to the skin. Not that the skin's final, but I haven't done this skin assignment in more than the brief tube with 3 joints tutorial. we'll see....
There's a basic kitchen.
None of it has been put together, which usually takes lots of work. I think.

SO what I'm going to scramble for:

(While learn facial rigging for idiots from the book)
do an hour's more touch ups on the gizmo mesh
import the old skeleton to the new Gizmo body mesh
Assign skin to skeleton
Try out that rig
Try rigging the face
If the body and face react to the rig well enough for my purposes,
Skin it, not detailed
ship it to the kitchen.
try to have a basic opening shot or something, have one bit of animation and camera work done.

I'll be happy with a dog done and just scenery left, as that has required very little learning so far... but we'll see. Other than a 10 page paper in one class and the final in the other this is the only thing left. And this is what will get me a job someday, not systems analysis or security. Hmm....

A model is never done

2009-11-21T08:42:00.000-08:00

a few comments/critiques from Tisha

Back legs not looking legish
Face and nose more work
toes good, good definition
forehead add brow buldge?
squareish body; back probably ok but tummy and sides needing help
too high poly
snout too square,
build up chin more.

Bolt ears; actually convex things, with fat part toward center and skinny flap towards edge.

TO do list for T break

2009-11-20T12:50:00.000-08:00

(assuming laptop maya works as well as desktop) Setup kitchen. Keep far wall to 4 pics at this point, can always go more in version 2.
Sys paper; the 10 page one I haven't really started yet.
Join CG Society and post puppy project in the WIP section. Ask for comments.
Join Digital Tutors... maybe. 6 month or so I think. FOCUS.
Other homework (Sec, indie study, ect).
Draw
Enjoy family time.
PSU?

Back to the Sketchbook

2009-11-18T09:22:00.000-08:00

Next week I'll be in portland with the family. This is good and important, but cuts off from the desktop and Maya.
I loaded Maya onto the new laptop, but the laptop doesn't have the horses to do work on Gizmo. But it can be used to block out and develop the Scenery (kitchen, maybe the cake).

So here's a rough sketch and initial color palet attempt.

not sure what color to do the fridge. The blue isn't working too well, but it should be more interesting than cream...
I'll do some image research I guess.

Though I walk through the Valley

2009-11-17T22:36:00.000-08:00

Of the shadow of Time and sleep sucking theatre, I will fear no Freaking Annoying UV debacles; for UV Smooth is with me, and though it cause my CPU great distress, I shall see the light of the end of the Mapping process.

Use 'Edit UVs -> smooth' not the little tool in the UV editor window. Remember the anchor points.

Here's my first shot at painting this guy.

Exporting some how added a lot of other things; maybe my nodes are being messed up. THis was a proof of concept anyway.

Now to see if I can apply my Theatre Tech weekend focus and endurance upon the puppy, so it may be presentable at the end of the term

Animatic Vrs 0.5

2009-10-30T16:06:00.000-07:00

Spent most of this labbing time working through this again.
I lost the flash file to the 0.4 animatic somehow. Hence Completely re-doing the end.
I wanted the puppy to get the cake.
Not sure about the middle of the end sequence.

Here's Version 0.5

(yes you still need Flash player)

Rigging course, on my own.

2009-10-23T13:38:00.000-07:00

I'm learning some of the fun things about rigging.
Actually a lot of this makes sense once I figure out what the book is going on about.
Though I'm not sure why it didn't work the first time but did the second.
Picture shows my little hand rotation controlling the skeleton hand.

(google thinks that 'rigging' means with rope, and puts up rope ads. I laugh)

No, really, I'm working...

2009-10-17T19:59:00.000-07:00

I chugged through the rest of the tutorials in my Maya 09 basics book, time to tackle the Rigging book Miles has stashed somewhere.

Oh and I've continued to play with sketch pad, and continued to like it.

There's a mirror function, both for x and y axies... this weird face was fun, kinda a thin man squished out and placed on a wall. I don't really know.

Sketchbooking at home

2009-10-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

Yes. I should be working on Gizmo. But I'm not sure what to do. And this is a new toy.

The Autodesk bundle comes with a little program called Sketchbook. This is like photoshop lite for drawing and painting. Big annoyance is that the 'fuzziness' of photoshop even worse. Better side is that I have it at home, and an old Wacom tablet. Much time wasting ensues.

Sketchbook pro (which has things like Layers which are very nice) is about $100 (less for students I'm sure). And feel easier to sketch with (rim shot) than photoshop.

So here's my latest creation.

Still figuring out brushes mostly, finding what I can create well and what the right brushes (and smudgers and blurings) can help me create better.

Playing with Photoshop and painting...

2009-10-11T20:10:00.001-07:00

Just cause it's fun. If I own this program at home I will waste so much time playing with it...
I like the trees more, playing around whith what happens when you add something like yellow to a green tree, then smudge it...
Wish I could rotate the image while working on it...

My goals for the distant future...

2009-10-05T20:29:00.000-07:00

Here was a job posting for Activision in the San Francisco area:

Lighter/Environment Artist - Activision Bay Area

· Light characters and environments (interior & exterior).

· Understanding of composition and the ability to enhance mood by lighting.

· Expert knowledge of Maya.

· Working knowledge of industry standard rendering programs, such as Renderman or Mental Ray.

· Ability to do UV mapping/modeling/texture work as required.

· Working knowledge of Ambient Occlusion maps, HDR rendering, Lightmap generation, and Global Illumination solutions is a must.

· Knowledge of color theory and strong sense of light and shadow.

· Ability to follow design reference and ability to work with wide range of styles.

· Initial responsibilities will be 50% lighting/50% environment art creation. 100% lighting duties once in production.

Please click the 'Apply' button below

THis is pretty much right up my lighting alley. I just need to work with the rendering stuff and the other bits in the middle of the post.

Still need to finish the puppy first...

Maybe ask Gore-face if I can use his many models to light interestingly....

Dem Teef be nearly done

2009-10-02T15:46:00.000-07:00

Woo copy and paste!
I have pulled out the teeth into different objects, as per recommendations. Then I shamelessly copied the secondary teeth, nearly mirroring top and bottom. It will annoy me later and I will tweak them more then, but for now I feel really good to kinda have all the teeth.
Add a tounge and that's all the body parts. Wow. Even in crappy first effort form, I'm making strides forward. Or stumbles. Like a drunken sailor. Who should be able to walk well drunk, after dealing with the challenges of walking on a ship at sea... anyway.
Gods this all would be easier to do in real 3d. Maybe I'll invent a holo deck where you can manipulate these things in all 3 dimensions at once.
Yeah, I'm tired, it's been a long first week.
Repeat to do list:

Sys lab1,
indie study projector thing,
drag myself in here this week end and add the tounge (how many faces should it have? I don't know..)
and start tweaking this model.
Work on psyc ward stuff?
Feels like I'm forgetting something...
Grad Project! sketch sketch sketch ideas. look up and see if I can do it in C# for the learning...
(My current Grad project is a 2-d game of this Corgi versus the forces of evil squirrels. Pretending this game is commissioned by a dog treats company, the corgi gets dog treat power-ups to overcome obstacles. Maybe there should be a goal different from the squirrel chasing.)
Oh, and the Corgi may get named "Gizmo." It sounds better in my head than it looks on paper.
Also I may think about doing the game in 3d, over the shoulder like the old Spyros. Hmm concept theft....
p.s. yes I'm re-posing this Grad stuff where it belongs, in the other blog.

Still Teething.. a little lip too

2009-09-30T16:51:00.001-07:00

Vampire puppy. I need to zoom out more often. Maybe teeth and gums will help, maybe I'll have to futz with the teeth and make them more kid-friendly.

Oh and lips. How do you model Lips that will be deformed a lot? sigh...

Expert advice from Trisha is to put the teeth on a different object so the deforming of the lips doesn't screw them up.

Another link

2009-09-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JamesGonzalez/20090827/2859/AAA_Game_Jobs__How_to_Prepare_Yourself_To_Get_Hired.php

Another 'how to get a game company job' link...

Animatic Re-Post

2009-09-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

Here is the Animatic

(You will need flash player)

Art 450 again

2009-09-29T08:21:00.001-07:00

0. A working title:

Hungry Puppy

1. Project goals:

Create a 3d animated short.
Learn the technical processes included in such, and have something to show for it.
Make it fun to watch.

2. A project description:

A 3d modeled Welsh Pembroke Corgi of about teenage years making various attempts to get at a cake on top of a fridge. And it's funny.

3. Specific products of study or deliverables that you will be creating for your project.

The finished, polished movie clip. The corgi model which can be re-used for other projects. The 'story board' which is really a "low production quality" 2d flash video, but shows I thought it out before doing it.

4. Visual and/or written research for your project. Stuff done by other people.

Lots of picture of adorable dogs. Lots of tutorials, several books I actually paid for. Disney's "Bolt" as an example of a 3d animated dog whose teeth don't scare little children.

5. Treatment visuals for your project. This is stuff done by you. This can consist of links, a bibliography, images, etc.

All those photos (see tag 'puppy refs'), the story board anamatic.

6. A written description of specific technical and research issues you will need to address during the course of your project.

Modeling organic things accurately-ish is hard, and requires trying several things before finding the right way to do it.
I've never skinned something like this (or anything other than a box).
Rigging? What's that?
Animating a complex model?
Lighting it
Capturing it (woo render farm nights...)
Polishing the final capture is really beyond my current experience. I'm sure I can figure it out with help from resources, I've just never even used any of that software.
Finally, my creative adviser (My girlfriend, who, when I mused last year "I should do an animated short..." immediately shouted out "Make it about a puppy!! Trying to get food!! from the top of a Fridge!!"), anyway she still thinks I should try to get fur on the dog... which would be better but more work.

7. A timeline of your project. When you will be doing all of this good stuff. You must include specific DEADLINES (for example: "January 27th", not "some time in January."

Well.
Working on the model 3 times a week,
Work on the animatic for 2 hours a week or more as sanity allows.
Finish the teeth and tongue Wednesday 10-14 (2 weeks from today).
Finish the eyes/forehead the week after that (10-21)
Final touch-ups by the following saturday (10-24)
Rig it for 2 weeks (Nov 7)
Skin it for 2 weeks (Nov 21)
Test drive it, start animating.

Honestly... I would like to keep to this schedule but I don't feel confident that I can. I need to schedule regular work time more than goals; if I work it then it will get there.
My schedule as a 1 year CS Masters student is a little rigorous. And not completely to my liking. But this is my year, and i will do with it as I want to.

More Teeth

2009-09-15T20:07:00.000-07:00

Now up to 8 somewhat-questionable teeth. I'm not sure how accurate I should be going here... I like the idea of Simpler, Blockier teeth more than realistic scary wolf teeth.
Somehow I'm seeing lips being even harder with the poly smooth...

Just to see if I could

2009-09-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

First I was wanting to sketch out some teeth ideas, in photoshop. I've been doing paper drawing off and on over the summer, and have made progress with my technical drawing and shading skills. It looks like they've transferred well into photoshop. The light stuff isn't bad, though it's harder to get the even field. Also it's harder to get the solid dark shading. I should play more with size of brush and such. Sigh, to own these and play with them at home... buy anyway. Here's my little sketch.It would benefit from a border, at least in the editing view. And the eyes are weird. But it's SO nice to be able to have a big digital paper and zoom in and teak the little things. like the fore-paw bottom shading.

Ok time to do some Maya modeling.

Finding my direction

2009-09-15T09:26:00.000-07:00

[Alternate title: fumbling around for a compass.]

I take a moment to ponder. What do I want to do? Is coding really my forte? The security sequence sounds interesting, but is it for me? SOU's master's program has assistantship money but no mentoring in the field I've become so attached to: 3d art, game creation- stuff. My corgi is cute, I hope the video will be good too, and I hope I finish it. This summer wasn't nearly as productive as I hoped it would be when it started. Time off is good, playing games is good too, but only after work has been done. But back to the subject.

Is this masters degree pursuit of a year or two going to be what I want to do, help me get to where I'd like to go? Making video games is a strange, vague, nice-sounding fantasy to me; I don't know what it's really like. Imagining is all I can do and that worries me. But it sounds better than the other stuff I've thought about pursuing. Is 'it sounds better' sufficent to choose a life-changing path?

It's time to leave the rogue valley, maybe to leave Oregon. Rather, it kinda feels like it maybe time. Time to find a city and place with learning available in person as well as from books and the web.
I found relative success in Theatre by the help and door-opening of the faculty here, by proving to them that I got it. Then proving (kinda) to those they introduced me to.

I guess I could take that success and go with it, and keep games as a hobby.

Mom and Dad say 'find a job that makes you happy and has health insurance.'

I'm inclined to be quiet, stationary, an introvert. Sometime I feel the need to break out of that shell, then I go back in for a stretch. It takes a lot of hermiting to build up the break-out energy.

A data point that is solid is the joy of a progressing, well done model. I haven't done many but they've been fun.

Project idea: find an excuse to make something in Zbrush. Just play with it. Maybe make a squirrel for the 2d game Idea, or just make a thingy.

And I ought to exercise more. And Draw too. And scan and post the drawings.

Ok, moving on. This is the part where I make a to-do list for the near and long term, of which I'll follow a little then get distracted playing Braid or something.
-Finish book work like I should have at the start of the summer.
-Finish the puppy, and try Rigging then lighting.
-Maybe ask someone if they'd let me play with their models to do lighting...
-Hike/run.
-Draw.
-Find myself and my center.

-This term, Schedule out and stick to a work schedule. Drop one of the classes if need be. Try them first though.
-Talk to Pete about System Analysis and if it really is worth the time/money to me.
-Stretch.

And here are some websites to look at more:
http://www.gamecareerguide.com/

http://www.gamasutra.com/

Look at dog Teeth

2009-09-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

In an effort to make the teeth/mouth section of this model go faster than the toes, I'm actually studying the subject a little first.

Real do teeth are scary, pointy things that remind us that dogs are decended from carniviorus wolves who figured out a good way to stop the deer/caribou/moose from running away: tear out the hamstring.

Looking at a few images from Bolt shows a specific choice: blunt the incisiors and other teeth so we don't scare the kids. Much like the Monsters Inc. characters tended to have large 'pointy' teeth, but in a rounded way. Also bolt's other teeth appear far more uniform and less pointy. The overall effect is more of a cross between human and dog, which helps Bolt look reasonable when talking human words.

So what am I gonna do? other than the feet I've tried to stay very close to realism so far. I still wonder if that is a good choice or not. Maybe I should have pushed more and scaled back later. I'm too used to doing lighting in the theatre, where we usually are going for a "realism that lifts slightly into theatricality" effect. Lessons learned: think more about and sketch more of your character. (Character design becomes more and more an interest to me...)

ANYway... It would be easier to model blocky teeth that have few gaps between them (like Bolts) rather than the strangely spaced out reality. Also it's just weird doing teeth with Polygon Smoothing involved, but I'm still hoping that'll save me in the end.

I guess I should keep sketching before trying... teeth are hard to draw too. Fine distinctions of shading have never been my strong point. The technique being the hard part. I guess start with a bigger image (I still do tiny thumbnails far more often, so I can work on the spacing of stuff and easily start over when I screw up. I should scan some of this stuff...)

Blah. It's a partly cloudy warm saturday. I should enjoy the out of doors a bit too.

My First Tooth

2009-09-10T17:07:00.000-07:00

I didn't bother to poly smooth because it's very early. Theatre took up all my time recently, so yeah excuse.
It's about as tall as I'd like, but is actually too thin. Being thicker will make it less menacing I think/hope.

Teef refs

2009-09-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

Taken from the internet, for reference only not for making money.

Ok, Goals, right...

2009-09-01T14:02:00.000-07:00

Well, I accomplished my goal of having a bottom-line functional set of toes today. So what follows?

Tomorrow (at work) find reference pictures of dog's mouths. (DONE!)
In the afternoon, study Jen's croc rig for how she did the mouth, then setup my model (open up the mouth, ect)
Thursday morning Put in 2 hours on the mouth, unless i have to drive to grants pass..
Thursday work on the mouth, rough in the teeth and tongue or at least where they will be.
Friday will probably be spent working on theatre.
Saturday spend a full 4 hours working the mouth, hopefully my vast experience gained from all this other work will let this go faster. (assuming theatre doesn't take up time.
Sunday off. ( can you say COD 4? or Crysis MP... or disc golf in the woods... mmmh...)
Finish mouth next week, about Wednesday.

Toes are now in Beta

2009-09-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

The toe saga continues. Yes I copied and pasted for the back feet, but they are bigger and elongated. I might tweak a little bit more, the heights of the two big middle toes should be the same I think, but it's difficult with polygon smoothing to achieve. But anyway, this is generally what they shal be.

Stepping back and looking again, they look large and cartooney. Kinda like the bolt feet I've been referencing. The cartooney is fine, but they may be too big. I'll check them versis the archive photos of corgis, I remember a certain petite-ness...
Oh yes, and I added nostrils. The nose may need more work, but that's touch up. Oh and I grew the ears, need to see how huge and goofy they can stand to be.
(The seam in the middle is an artifact and won't be there when I really 'bake' the final product)

Here be the reference photos for you to compare this with...)

More freakin toes

2009-08-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

These represent a big shift, with many thanks to disney's Bolt's toes. The actual digits are shorter, but there's a crease (for the middle two) suggesting longer. I think. And I hope it works. The 4th toe that you can't see in either is half/morphed, and so I tried not to show it.

Puppy references

2009-08-25T18:11:00.000-07:00

These are posted for study and reference, not to make a profit. Dog feet are weird!

Nothing like a deadline for inspiration

2009-08-17T17:58:00.000-07:00

So I've frankly sluffed off the whole working on Psyc ward props thing. Then there's a meeting on Thursday or so about it, and I'm suddenly inspired to put in some work. re-learning and hammering on skins mostly, with a little model tweaking that you can't really see here. Next up bump map I think.

More toes

2009-08-03T16:01:00.001-07:00

More toes work. I'm departing more from realism with these; real dog toes are skinny and hinge oddly. Animated dog toes are fat and stubby (I would post more examples from Bolt, but they are on a different computer).
This example shows that even really tired you can do some good work.

Mouth 'n toes

2009-07-24T15:26:00.001-07:00

The puppy now has vague front toes. They are still in development. Ok, they look like human toes more than puppy toes; this was harder to see whilst zoomed in playing with verts. I think I'll need more detail (more lines and verts) to really get them. Then on to the back feet. Woot.

Puppy forging ahead in the Summer

2009-07-11T14:43:00.000-07:00

This is the latest Sketching-out animatic/story board for my Hungry Puppy project.
I worked on the model today, Adding in the inside of the mouth. Somehow I'll need teeth, maybe lips and a tongue too.

Still no luck porting it straight, click here to see the video.

To see the model in progress, click on the 'Hungry Puppy' label.

Meeting Notes

2009-07-09T16:48:00.000-07:00

Met with Kyle, here are notes posted so I can't lose them.

Divide up rooms/props with Michele so we don't work on the same thing (she's making a list so that should help get us started).
Ward style is relatively modern, believable as a real place, only small things going on that are weird and out of place.
Possibly Cel-shaded (cartoon-y) for the whole level; making the level of reality several notches away from Full realism (which we cannot afford in time or effort)
Story isn't really nailed down
150 tris per prop a good starting place for sinks and such.
Multiple level of detail settings available- low mid high.
Lambert skins only, Engine won't run other skins at this time.
Yard sale collected sofas, not matching.
Portraits and landscapes on the walls, again yard sale.
Game objects and skins are in the Tutorial Base folder.
(I need to figure out the adding to game process and placement)
Use Show tool to check work-- make sure it works on Mac.
Style guides: find picture to serve as style guides for this non-specific, non-time period Ward. Check the good ones with Kyle.
Game code. Hack into it and figure out how it ticks.
Demo completion date: end of Fall term.

Enough for now? I think so.

More Ref pics, cabinet and bookshelvs

2009-07-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

Woot more ref pics. Searching 'medical cabinent' led to stranger and creepier things than 'creepy hospital bed.' Who knew?

Computer and Body storage refs

2009-07-07T10:41:00.000-07:00

These photos are for the computer props and for the med room cadaver storage. It feels like I'm getting stuff accomplished when I'm just googling images and pasting them... but they'll be useful references someday. really.

Exterior ref shots (maybe)

2009-07-07T10:24:00.000-07:00

Bored at work, so trying to look up interior design references for the Psyc ward game. There's a band, or was one, named psyc ward.
I didn't have any luck on interior, but these are from a hospital built somewhere out in the boonies. The shots are acutally the worker's 'homes' built a quarter mile away from the hospital, as there wasn't enough housing in the surrounding area for the workers. one of the buildings caught on fire at one point, which I felt was a possible neat touch for the game, depending on where the story goes.
I have forgotten what the time period of the game is, but these 50's-60's block homes could fit many periods, depending on the level of decrepid-ness.
Kyle mentioned a city, but maybe this could be a hike or a load screen/bus ride away. I guess sand box and load screens don't really go together. Blah.

Skinny sink

2009-07-06T16:01:00.000-07:00

This is the sink with the first, in-maya pass at the skin. I need to work the UV map a bit more to get the details to work, but this is a good start to work from in photoshop for the real skin, then bump map...
They won't all be bloody, but that's just a matter of swapping skins I believe.
I'm assuming that I'll be able to use this in Photoshop, we'll see...

Some work, and Some news

2009-07-06T14:59:00.000-07:00

I hopped into the ole saddle and mozied on down the tutorial path some more today; working on skeletoning. They had some stuff I'd seen before and some I had not. The next chapter is on attaching the skin, which has always seemed like a dark art portion to me, but after seeing some to the graphics looks fairly simple. We'll see.

On another front, I was poking around Blizzard's help wanted page today, and found something to warm my heart. In addition to having great 'What to have in your reel/resume/coverletter' stuff, they describe the depts and jobs within. And in that description is a preference for generalists who can help out on various parts of a given pipeline. Instead of excelling at one part so they can stick you in one spot on an assembly line, they want you to be able to jump around and help on story and tech and lighting and rigging and modeling and concept and maybe even quality assurance :)

This thrills me, as I am drawn to learning all sides of a creative effort, not just excelling at one. The stuff I'd been reading about the movie industry suggested that a niche specialist was what was wanted, and that made me a little sad.
The little catch being I haven't played WOW and it or making mods for it are mentioned on most of their "preffered" sections... right now I really cannot afford it, either, in time or money. But it's not like I'm going to be job hunting this next year...
We'll see if I can get better at being a 'functional addict' with the gaming, using a timer to limit my binges and keeping up the rest of my life before I try the Wow crack.

Starting with the kitchen sink...

2009-06-29T15:32:00.001-07:00

After an hour's trouble with getting Maya to work in the lab (I needed to delete and have maya remake my default projects folder and the Library stuff) I made a little sink. 160 some tris, 20 min of work, no reference photos, no skin yet... but it's an ice breaker away from the summer time goof off haze that has gripped me. Now if I can just go to the lab instead of napping/gaming all afternoon every day...

Creepy Med ward ref pics

2009-06-15T16:58:00.001-07:00

These are reference photos from the internet of hospital settings and creepyness. This last one is for a possible visual effect of a drug the hero is forced to take that makes everything look cel shaded or cartooney and bright.

Psyc Ward Game

2009-06-15T16:48:00.001-07:00

I forgot what the exact working title of the game is, but it is a 3d puzzle/adventure/shoot down the bastards who killed your family and erased your memory as soon as you find them game.

Kyle Umbenhower has been heading the project in his 'copious' spare time for a little over a year now. For one-man or volunteer work they're come along the road a fair bit, and 4 publishers have expressed interest in a demo run/reel thing.

Kyle's letting me come play.

My first projects are:

Model props for some of the Psyc ward rooms (then figure out how to import them...) meaning sinks computers phones office stuff. Very low poly.
Concept sketch out then model props and furniture for the Med ward section
Dive into the AI they've scraped together from the Internet and figure out how it ticks.
Change the AI so it can be either 'NPC' or 'Nice guy in lab coat yelling at you and firing an AK until you get back into your room.'
Bug Kyle to set out a clear concept for the demo, then list out what needs to be done to get it off the ground, then get 'er DONE; thus increasing the chances of funding for the project and maybe me.

Vague goals list for summer

2009-06-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

My to do list for this summer will be vague enough to enjoy some time off before knuckling down full time on Grad level classes next term.
By end of this month, finish the tutorial book.
By end of summer (september), finish pre-work on Puppy.

On the side I'll be working with Kyle and others on the Sanitorium game. I don't know how much or when, but I'll add hours to the schedule for it.

Oh yeah, schedule.
Not counting my during-help-desk work sessions, I plan to Art lab from 2-5 pm two days a week, and game lab the other two days, and friday off for Crysis, or finally finishing Gears of war.
If I hold myself to that, I'll expand the hours, or get another paying job (that'd be nice, money wise) or something.

Non work or project summer stuff: read books I haven't read before. Journal. Hike. Explore on foot or bike. Find new house or new roommate for old house before the Middle of July. (anyone looking for a room? $350/month including bills, w/d, house with back deck and pond, secure wireless, gamer friendly etc...)

Much falling out of chair

2009-05-29T18:27:00.000-07:00

This is now my desktop background.
I watched "Bolt," from Disney Animation studios recently, as it is a whole movie of a 3d animated puppy. Jen was right about getting expression from the eyebrows: they need a lot of play in the model. Anyway I really liked most of the movie; though some parts were over the top cheese and the story was very predictable the characters were still likeable and the situations they got in amusing. Like this one, which casued me to fall out of my chair laughing, rewind twice, then stick the DVD in my computer to get this Screen shot.
OMFGosh and Golly Jeepers it's so cute and funny and... sigh. Yeah, did I mention that I turned 25 this April?

From tutorial land...

2009-05-27T22:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, I should be doing tutorials on skinning and rigging.. but there were really good lessons in this one.
Like working with the smoothed poly mesh (hit number 3) not the blocky one; sliding edge loops, inserting edge loops, extruding multiple faces for fingers and toes, working one one object with the move command set to mirror the world (much like having a copied instance, but it's really all one object).
For my own reference I stopped on page 202.
For your information skinning begins on 220, and the pages are big on pictures and small on text.

Suitable halloween decor

2009-05-26T22:59:00.001-07:00

My first skeleton. I have no idea what is good and what is bad about it, but hey it's a start.
And yes maybe I should have simply skinned this puppy (heh heh) first, as I'm more famililar with that process, but oh well.

What? Review Day?

2009-05-21T15:19:00.001-07:00

Smooth is 7,000 tris, Blocky is 1,700.
I know I need to :
Add a mouth, add toes.
Find a final level of Detail.
Skin/fur.
Rig.

But I'm not sure how; more book work!

2009-05-17T13:22:00.000-07:00

Blocky and smoothed versions of what the puppy. I added eye orbs.

I realize that I don't really know what to do at this point. My feeling is that I'm getting close to the level of detail; if it's going to be cartoony and/ or covered in fur. Ironicly, if it's going to be real cartoony, I'll have to change things like the legs and ears and general size...

Anyway, time to look at more tutorials.

And add a mouth, when I figure out how.

Fatigued...

2009-05-13T22:40:00.001-07:00

Can you see the difference from another hour or so's work? I don't know if I can, I can't see the other version...
That's all for tonight.

[edit] Ok, looking at the renders below, yes this is looking better, and I'm feeling better. The shape of the head is coming a long well, now for the rest of it...

I really should take a sculpture class if I'm going to do this a lot...

So far,

2009-05-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

hour and a half's work. Trying very hard to not cut in more detail. Bad thing is that I'm sculpting from memory; I looked at a lot of Corgi pictures earlier in the term but not that many. On the other hand the detail is very general, and I'm just going from 'block' to 'roundish block'.

This last one is rendered after quickly hitting 'smooth polygon,' and is for Bridget.

Time to dust off the saddle

2009-05-13T19:01:00.000-07:00

I've been gone about 2 weeks now from the lab and this project. It feels like longer; I've been working as the Technical director of Rogue Valley Opera's "La Boheme," the only opera produced this year between Eugene and Sacramento. It was a good show, for an opera. And it paid pretty well. In a lump sum that I'm faintly tempted to splurge on computer parts or Maya for my home...
But not yet, must feed self first.

Anyway.
There's half of week 7 left, and by week 11 I'd hoped to have a working model rigged and ready for animation. If I knew what I was doing I'm sure that would be possible. But I've spent my time using my degree instead of learning new stuff, so I've fallen behind. So a little triage. What's my goal?

Finish model, skin and hair model. Model set. By week 10. week 11 trying to rig. Because it's my first one I'm guessing I'll have to do the model over when I get to rigging, so a draft model is my goal. The fur should be pretty reasonable to adapt if it's a different shell.

So, let's draft this puppy. literally. I crack myself up.

Fuzzy wuzz was a puppy....

2009-04-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

Lookin ahead a bit. A classmate asked "are you using fur?" I hadn't thought about the skin much yet, having forged ahead to modeling.
So the search for maya tutorials on fur begins. It looks like it'll add a level of complication... but other than being "french" once I can figure it out It should bring good results.

Tutorial using seperate UV editor.

Quick run down without much explanation of Maya fur.

It looks like I'll be creating the model, then making skin objects which will be slightly smaller and will provide the area for the fur to grow on. I'd rather just do it all on one, but oh well.

This is from just slapping on some fur, tweaking the color a bit. Color-wise I'm kinda liking it for the warm brown of a lighter colored welsh corgi.

First Whack at the puppy model !!

2009-04-27T22:58:00.001-07:00

Um... 3 hours. Organic is hard.

What I've been up to

2009-04-27T10:14:00.000-07:00

I told myself that I wouldn't put personal stuff here because I tend to rant and drivel and it's just not a happy thing for those in reader-land to experience.
But, I'm stressed, so here I will let off some steam and try to get everything in perspective.
Here are the things on my stove burners:

This Project. It's at a murky stage of "Spend the next 2 weeks hammering out a model, and learning anything needed to do so." I have sketches of the front and side view, and tried last night to set them up as image planes, with most success except for a critical bit. But hey, everyone laughs when they see the sketch out.
Programming 3. I'm doing quite well in the class, currently ahead on homework, but I need to learn all I can or the Masters in CS will hurt a lot.
La Boheme. An opera, produced by Rogue Valley Opera. I'm the Technical Director. Meaning I need to hire a run crew to move the scenery around, both from city to city (Central point to Grants pass to Medford to Central point again) and during the show. The budget is small but I think I can do it with 6 people. I had 4 signed up, but one just dropped out. So I need to find 3 more people by about Thursday. And get a lot of stuff moved from SOU to Grants Pass. And many other things. Silver Lining: it's paying theatre work.
I was supposed to fix a friend of my Mother's printer weeks ago. They live somewhere between Grants Pass and Medford. I was bad a didn't call back their messages a while ago, and now they wont respond to mine, unless I got the wrong phone number.... If I ever do get around to this they'll pay me.
I turned 25 two weeks ago. "Welcome to the quarter-century club!" quips my (older) sister. [Insert lots of 'I'm getting older' worries and such here.] So I ran a mile on the track and timed myself: 7 minutes and 44 seconds. I'm kinda proud of that... Though I should exercise more often.
Takeing the GRE, so I can get into the Masters in CS program. Need to sign up, need to study. The better I do, the better chance of overcoming the competition for Assistantship money.
I finished the online application for the MCS just now, and forked out $50. On the up shot, I have my under grad diploma. Need to get a fire proof storage thingy for that and other important papers (Birth certificate).
Find 3 faculty to write letters of Recommendation for said MCS.
Write my own 'letter of intent' for MCS. According to an inside source (Dan Harvey, who will be reading this letter) the point is to get me thinking about what I want to do, not to prove that I have clear intent. Which is good, because I have no idea. I like coding at it's core (more so when it compiles than when it does not), and I like the 2d game I started last term (Tank Game on the blog) and I like making things in Maya (ask me again after working on this puppy for a week...). I'm shoving that one off the stove for now, hopefully it will congeal more in the pit of my subconscious.
Kids. They're everywhere. They seem cuter than in years past. Things I read or see wax poetic about how family and raising the next generation is the only true lasting reward in life, and I don't gloss over those parts anymore. Do I have a biological clock? Last summer I hung out with one of my co-workers and her friends. They are Mormon, and invited me to several of their church functions. I never was looking to convert, just hang out and explore the religion a little. One of the things I realized was just how important family is to them, and not just in the lots of kids sense. To put it simply, some of this family first philosophy stuck too. It's creepy because I'm not ready, monetary or self development-wise. This kids-family just bounces around in the back of my mind rather than occupying the front, but it's there.

I can't really say as I feel better, but that could be the small breakfast talking. I guess I feel good that I can have all these plates spinning up in the air and only one has dropped, kinda.

OK, time to remember math for the GRE...

Still boarding the puppy

2009-04-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

That's an old sentance out of context.
This one has 2 endings based off the trampoline, let me know which seems funnier to you.

I...
Need to crack down. In theory I start modeling next week. That will need to include time to flesh out what the dog looks like. 2 weeks after I try to start to rig....

Simply drawing and re-drawing still works as a brain storming idea, if i keep up the speed and don't worry about quality. Though practice has helped that a lot.

Wait, what am I doing again?

2009-04-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

Say whoa and take a step back.

I’ve been leaning very strongly away from complicated ideas and extra props. I’ve been refining the timing on the middle of a sequence when I don’t know how to end the sequence, or the short!!!

Ok. What Am I Doing??

A funny short of a dog getting or tying to get a cake from the top of a frige.

The hops, doesn’t really work, just establishes the area more, and now I have a relatively good opening to do that for me.

The run and jump. Though my best timing, a surprise gem from the start, I need to work on it. It is a great sketch but not yet a great bit.

My original brainstorm had a lot of quick tactics, not this 3 slow ones.
(influence: how much work goes into these. But that shouldn’t stop me from finding what is funny, what is worth it.)

Hm. Chocolate is bad for dogs. Is there anything else I could substitute? Should I change it so the dog doesn’t get the cake ? Should I add more characters? Should I tip over the fridge at the end?

OK, having watched other amateur animated things for the past… I don’t know how long, you tube is stealing my life.

Funny: character getting crushed at the end.

Idea: puppy grabs freezer door, it pops open, hundreds of things fall out, and puppy climb sees mountain to top made.

I do want the puppy to win, so the last shot is the puppy with a huge belly and cake crumbs. Just how to get from the opening to there…

The end must be a surprise however.

Well let me post the modified opening at least. Also There's an idea for the ending that I did before writing all this. Comments welcome...

StoryBoard v0.3

2009-04-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

Trisha already pointed out that the opening needs an introduction of the character first, then the cake. And suggested to act out the jumps and such timing, with my hand if nothing else. I see camera rental in the future; flash got me somewhere but not all the way

More Ref Pics

2009-04-15T21:18:00.001-07:00

The first is a real picture, the rest are screen captures of the below mentioned You Tube video, of Goro Corgi.

How does the dog run across the road...?

2009-04-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

It's been years since I've been around a dog more than, oh, 20 min a week. I don't know how dogs run, I've never paid attention. Well, THANK GOD FOR YOU TUBE and dog owners who post surprisingly long videos of their beloved pets just running around and jumping and doing stuff!!

OK, I should look at more but that one is 8 minutes of this corgi. Running, jumping, swimming. Some of it even in slow motion ( time stamp 32 to 46 seconds), which overcomes the crappy you tube compression. Kinda.

1242

2009-04-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

No, not a year of historical note, that's how many frames my lil project has. 57 seconds. 24 frames a second. and it'll grow with intro and finishing stuff..
Hm, this is kinda big after all...

[ assuming 5 minutes to render each frame, that's 4.31 DAYS to render]
It'll probably be less, I tell myself...

Input from the Vetran

2009-04-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

Trisha was nice enough to look at my sketched board for the puppy. Her advice and comments included such gems as:
-More props means many more hours modeling.
-You can keep it relatively realistic or you can go way beyond reality to cartoon land. Half way doesn't really work.
-Need logical believable reasons for things to happen (like puppy falling off trampoline
-Keep it Short!! Keep it Simple!!
-Good story makes a model seem so much more and a video work.
- Good model doesn't make good story.

I am currently leaning toward developing what I've got and keeping it simple that way. The ideas scrawled on the chalk board involve more props to build and going further from reality.

So, work on Opening sequence.
Split up flash file and have real timing instead of just doing 1 frame per second.
Look at ways the trampoline can end it.
Figure out how to end it.

Some ref pics

2009-04-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

[Edit, added more pictures]

Some of the many corgi pictures i found today. They really do have a weird body shape...
I have a 'negative space' image of just the outline, but Blogger decided to stop uploading so I can't show it.
Anyway, Need to keep working on the tactics, figure out which ones I want to use by like next week so I can board em nicely and try the timing.

puppy ideas

2009-04-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

New tactic/shot:
Don't show piling of things, just show puppy on top of pile (which wobbles) streaching and almost getting the cake before falling.

For the long jump, have slow motion shot in the air, with puppy perspective as the cake floats closer, then at the last moment puppy cam tilts down, then edit out to seeing puppy impacting on the fridge front. (credit: Bridget)

Generally I've got 2 ok and 1 good ideas; need more ideas. if I have 2 weeks to model, 3 weeks to rig (including learning to rig), then I just have 5 weeks in the term to story board... and I've used 2 of them up.
Also need to skin and light...

so here's some more brainstorming

Ok, what else can the dog do?
How else would a person do it?
Grappling hook
Stilts
Flap ears
Glider
Catapult
Slingshot
Cannon

How to make Trampoline funnier: zoom in for the almost, fly above, hit celinng. or
Series of shots just of cake, puppy nearly there, puppy too far away. One bounce or severeal?

Climbing suction foot thingys

Puppy pole vault

Ninja wire harness

Magic (spells chants, bag of stuff)

Use just mouth or paws too?

Combine boxes with trampoline

Plant instant ivy, let grow, climb, slip, tangled, stuck, sigh.

Comic transformation of puppy or keep realistic? (same as paws question.)

Like cannon idea…

Here's is the extended sketch out of ideas, with a leetle work on the first three and 2 new sections. Storyboarding went really slow at first; tried too hard to use the image research I've been doing to make realistic puppy. would be much better and faster without.
I'm tempted to take these storyboards a step closer to real animation with the frames and timings, don't know if the time spent is worth it...

Sketching Out

2009-04-08T21:36:00.000-07:00

I hesitate to call this story boarding, but I guess that's what it is. The fun part about doing flash, other than the onion skinning and auto straighten-line bits, is you can make little movies!

Project proposaL:

2009-04-08T19:38:00.000-07:00

0. A working title for your project
Hungry Puppy
1. Project goals (personal? professional? exploratory?)
Continue learning about maya in its near-infinite facets. Modeling the puppy, rigging the puppy, animating the puppy, getting a reasonable skin for the puppy.
Out putting a video. Storyboarding a video. Lighting. Sound?? Big if.
2. A project description.
(PreProduction planning for) A short (1min) video of an 3d animated puppy getting a cake from the top of a fridge in humorous ways.
3. Specific products of study or deliverables that you will be creating for your project.
A 1 minute movie clip (dare I say ‘demo reel?’), and a rigged puppy for future possible use.
4. Visual and/or written research for your project. Stuff done by other people.
Reference photos of kitchens, dogs, cakes, trampolines and other props used. Find a good soundtrack?
5. Treatment visuals for your project. This is stuff done by you. This can consist of links, a bibliography, images, etc.
Paper or electronic storyboard sketches of puppy ‘cake getting tactics,’ reference photos and sketches of puppy design, kitchen design, props design. Lighting reference photos. Maybe animation timing and movement reference clips
6. A written description of specific technical and research issues you will need to address during the course of your project.
Modeling for this kind of output (less low-poly than game). Rigging this model. Animating this model (sitting in on Miles class is key here…). Skinning this model. Lighting. Post processing, whatever that is…. ☺
7. A timeline of your project. When you will be doing all of this good stuff. You must include specific DEADLINES (for example: "January 27th", not "some time in January."
This I’m really not sure on. I’m feeling conservative and saying Pre production this term, and moving into modeling and setting up the scene next term, with finishing the term after that. So.
• Storyboard out the ideas I’ve got and come up with more by next Thursday April 16th.
• Next find puppy references and get a solid character sketch, for use in modeling, done by Thursday April 23rd.
• Meanwhile Ref pics of kitchen and props needed for tactics. Kitchen and prop sketches by the following Monday April 27th.
• (Continue sketching tactic ideas all this time of course).
• Maybe make hand wavy video for timing references. I have no idea how long that would take so I’ll say may 21st, the last critique day.
• This far out I’m not sure. Begin modeling the puppy.

The proverbial oops...

2009-04-08T18:57:00.001-07:00

Yeah, of course I've done lots on my project since last week. We only present tomorrow. (no, I haven't put anything down on paper or done much thinking)
Well thinking "I should work on that" doesn't cont. Working at home with distractions doesn't help, or rather doesn't work, period. Even if the damm home and end keys work there and not here.
Ok, I did do some brain storming talk about the project with my muse girlfriend Bridget.
Puppy type: droopy ears, beagle (though I like basset hounds too). or pointy up-right ears like a Irish corgi.

puppy tactic: trampoline. potentials of puppy hanging from cake by jaws going "now what?" or flying up past cake too high going 'crap.'

I really need to storyboard sketch this stuff.

but first drafting out the statements.

Hungry Puppy

2009-04-02T14:19:00.000-07:00

For my art 450 project, I am going to steal the idea my girlfriend suggested, a hungry puppy trying to get a cake off the top of a referidgerator.
Here is my brainstorming for the story or the shots:

Puppy jumping up to try to get at cake.
Opening. Pan up fridge to cake.
Rotate around cake to see puppy down below.
Cut to camera behind puppy, seeing back of puppy’s head and cake on top of fridge.
Cutie to puppies face drooling.
Cut to cake.
Cut to puppy trying things below, with an edit each time.
Tries:
• Standing jump
• Run and jump
• Stack and build something, tips over and falls
Cut to puppy laying, panting, and giving up.
Cut to puppy staring at the problem, seeing counter or alternate way (camera zooms to show audience what puppy is thinking).
?? cut to puppy having dawn of idea?? (need set up blackout ending…)

Black out,
Fade up on puppy laying after eating all cake.
the end.

The really fun part is I would like to do this in Maya. I'm thinking it's about a minute of video, give or take.
So this term may be taken up with pre production stuff, like learning then building a rigged dog of suitable cuteness, skinning him... making the room... yeah. I'll try to list it all out later.

3d last edits

2009-03-17T13:38:00.001-07:00

Assuming this looks similar posted as it did in the render view, this is my final of my scene for 353, or whatever the class is that's on maya. Using both a warm and a cool from similar angles for the front light, and some side fill from around the corner. It reall became all about framing the gobo figure in the end, I don't even know if people will realize that there's a turn at the end. But it's time to stop futzing and say 'done' (see previous post on 2d final about being done on time). I'm happy with what I've learned, at the end focusing on lights almost felt like being back in the theatre at the control board again, only the render times make it less fun. The new machines should help that for little scenes like this one (can you say 10 gigs of ram? sheesh).

Out of Time

2009-03-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

Well, the wire is fast approaching for the final projects. In the theatre, on of my former professors had a saying of sorts: "Completed mediocrity is better than incomplete genius." A half finished project will never be as good as a finished one, and when the curtain goes up you'd better be finished.

For the tank game, I feel I've learned a lot. Using as3, using classes, creating things at run time or setting them up on the stage and referencing them; learning wise this was a successful project. Playing it is kinda fun, but it is very obliviously not finished. I never did get the wall collisions down, and the rest of my many to do lists.. AI is the big one I want to still get at, as it is a big learning goal. Setting up levels and a reset button and a score board are smaller hops. Here's where I say that even though this is it for the class project, I'll still finish the game. Well, I don't know if I will; I tend to get distracted by new projects and leave off the last 30% of details and polishing, which feels like 50% when your doing it.
Anyway, links. Here's the Fla file, then all the supporting classes: Wall, Crosshair, BadGuy, Main, Shell, and Turret. Download if you want to see my conglomeration of code. Most of it is in Main, which is both the 'class' for the player's tank and the controller that calls to all the classes through pointers, or arrays of pointers. The walls each have a different instance name, and the player tank doesn't need one as it uses the Main class. The others are created at run time.

[edit] Please let me know if the links are broken.

2009-03-13T11:52:00.001-07:00

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

Lost my way, but had fun

2009-03-12T14:54:00.001-07:00

I really don't know what I'm doing with this scene anymore. I had fun toying with a gobo to create the shadow, and added some NURB 'wires' which kinda look like the figure is holding a spear or something. But really... I just don't know. I learned a lot getting here but I'm not sure if this is all it is, or if I could have divine inspiration/drive to make it something... else. better?

I should play with skinning in the uv mapping way, on something more complex than the trash can cubes.

Note to self: Old maya books apply perfectly well to new maya stuff. It's not like there have been any changes on the order of Word 03-07. Now if only maya could read the old files...

Trying to make sense of the Art dept web page

2009-03-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

Well.
First, finding the thing. We all know the SOU web page search engine sucks like a hoover, but in this case it kinda works; the top 10 hits are the 'meet the faculty' pages, which are actually in the art dept. section. (Usually the web page search brings up some news article instead of a website location.) The department listings may not be in your hands, but you could get and link something like SOUArtHomePage or something.
Ok, the top page.
Can you tell they're pround of their new/refurbished/existing building? And their windows? nevermind describing the acutal environment, let's talk about tonnage of steel and window counts (including skylights and doors). This feels like the builder's logo should be at the top, not the department. The buildings are nice, sure, but it's how their used that would be interesting to prospective students. Student art galleries? Labs with windows or projection screens? large studios for drawing painting sculpture, kilns, ect.
I'm one of those part time students that rarely get around to graduating; I've been here since 2002, and I think the buildings weren't quite new then. You can't still call them the 'new' CVA.
Try talking about past students finding success to lure in outsiders.
Have you heard of a slide show? One picture that doesn't even show the buildings doesn't help, it hinders.
Meet the faculty: get pictures. Get blurbs from everyone, maybe a quote.
Advising: what is this page here for? Why doesn't it tell you?
Facilities: here are good pictures that should be cycling through on the 'home' page. The writing is still terrible though. Consider your audience, do they want a huge paragraph of commas and semi colons, or key items in a nice list pointing out the important things first?
Staff directory and catalog links work. And are pretty good, for current students who know what they are.
------------------------
It seems to me like this web page is trying to cater to 2 audiences: current and prospective students. Jumbling them both together may or may not be a good idea; it can work if you start each page informing the user what the page is for and maybe who will likely be using it. (ex: Advising: here student can find the applications to the various degrees offered by this dept.)
Or you should just separate them, so you can be lazy on the current student pages and not need to explain everything as much.
For a good example, check out the School of Business
This critique has been rambling and jumbled, the web page shouldn't.

Tankity can't shoot through walls

2009-03-09T15:49:00.000-07:00

But, if he works at it, he can drive through them. Normally he bounces off, like he's supposed to, but... yeah. I'm working on it. I should use bitmap collision detection, but I think doing so would mean re working the tank's code at a very fundamental level, so I'll try this for a while instead.
Beware of rotating near walls.

And enjoy shooting your friends.

Stuff to remember to fix:
-Tank speed (Too fast)
-Shell speed (too slow)
-Wall bounce at corners (probably should just re-work it)
- Walls around perimiter, or something.
-Reset button

Friends of Tank

2009-03-08T18:40:00.001-07:00

Tankity Tank has friends, the red tanks. Tankity can shoot them, and they go boom. What? Don't we all wish we could do that now and then?
Cripes I've been sucked in by the interactivity class blood lust....

Ok, anyway, now that the links working, what do I do next?
-Add walls, around the perimiter and interior.
-Add backwards ability to main tank.
-Make the enemies move
-Make them shoot
-Make them shoot roughly at the player
-Make opening splash screen, and reboot level options
-Make several levels
-Add lives to the player tank, simply restarting the levels when you die
-So forth and so on
-Points?

Without anything better to do.

2009-03-05T14:49:00.000-08:00

I think I'll blame the weather. That's easier for me to accept than any personal problems of enthusiasm or motivation or lacks there-of.
I almost didn't come to 'class' again. I was reading at home a freakishly addicting book called "Water for Elephants." I don't know what it is that makes you not put the book down, I guess a combination of 'everyman' believeable ness or characters that are larger than life without doing anything steriotypical, riding a fine line between subtle hints of their dark parts and - I don't know. Anyway, the book is short (I've been reading it since this morning at 8 and am half way through) so it won't suck my attention too long.
So I do manage to guilt myself into coming to class. And I sit at the computer. I look through my blog to see where I'd left off on the 'scene.' I look through some classmate's blogs to see what they're up to. It all looks better than mine. I watch Cody's posted link to the Warhammer Trailer, which I've seen before but still looks really cool. It stops and I literally sit and stare at the screen.
I want to... sleep? I'm not that sleepy just tired. Lacking ummfh. Maybe a slurpee, surgar and caffiene... Something. Or go home and nap.
Then, staring at the last rendering of the scene, remember mile's suggestion to photoshop it to check lighting ideas...
I do.
I think of something to work on.
I start working.
And now an hour has gone by, with some profit to the scene; I like it better anyway. Still need to skin things, I think that'll require me to do the lighting over. Lit fog is kinda fun, needs to be subtle of course. Helps show where the light is coming from.
So. A to do list for next time:
Lit fog light around corner.
Skin the other things.
Darken the trash cans.
Work on the dumpster skin (don't know how that broke down).

And get sleep or whatever I'm lacking. Maybe a multi-vitamin.

Tankity turret follows the mouse

2009-03-04T15:33:00.000-08:00

See it here.
Trig put up a good fight, and Flash added some great difficulty of its own, but I over came and it works.

[update] Now it shoots too. poping out instances of the Shell class. they are stored in an array, and when one leaves the screen it is removed from the array. I had to use a 'splice' command to remove an item from the middle of the array, then loop through and scoot eveything up a place, then remove the last spot from the array (so nice to have re-sizable arrays), so you can have a 2nd shot stop while the first one keeps going. Also you can only have 5 shots 'in the air' at once.

And, dear followers (like anyone other than Miles or Bridget sees this but I can dream), you might have noticed the tank got really small. That's much closer to final game size, so there can be a couple tanks and some walls on the screen.

Woot! A good day's work.

Tankity To Do list

2009-03-04T13:08:00.001-08:00

- Link the turret's rotation to the mouse pointer, so the turret points at the mouse.
- Make it shoot a shell.
- Add a bad guy to shoot.
- Add walls
- Bad guy AI (... hm... what week is it?)

And that's good for now

Scene chugging along

2009-02-26T14:32:00.001-08:00

I completely forgot what I'd planned to work on, and just futzed with the skin of the dumpster and the ground; after the Lucas presentation.

Still need to add lines, power cables... and figure out what the focus is. Still dumpster focus drawing... how to make that the point?

Game 2 steps forward

2009-02-25T19:10:00.000-08:00

I feel like jumping around and dancing with joy. And eating a whole pizza first. Or maybe second would be better. I got the Tankity Tanks game 2 big steps forward today:
I cut off the turret top and made it a seperate object, as mention earlier, which was a big programming leap of faith that bounced around painfully a few times before landing well.

And I added the mouse target cursor. For some reason the update of such didn't work well unless the mouseX and mouseY were forwarded to the update function, instead of called from there. Also the mouseOver events are really screwy, but I think it's by-passed for now.

Also trying to use the google sites to link the files to instead of the SOU one, which will someday go away.

Added note: you have to click once in the screen before the tank will move

Surgery successful

2009-02-25T15:42:00.000-08:00

I have successfully removed the turret and made it a seperate object, which is updated each cycle to the tank's position but has no rotation, yet. I did understand the linking from the examples, but I'd been neglecting the turret's constructor method.
Figuring out how to get the turret to point at the mouse will be fun. So far I can't remember enough trig to take the mouse x/y and the tank x/y and get the angle between the two. Then I'll have to convert that to whatever flash wants.
But first to find that mouse icon including tutorial for a cheater's way to figure out the mouse inclusion.

Ok really Stopping now

2009-02-24T15:52:00.001-08:00

I stepped away after the last post, came back and moved the wall like I talked about. I think it's an improvement, but now the dumpster in the corner draws the focus. All the lines kinda point at it... maybe I should re work the 'story' to fit something sinister in the dumpster.

Dusting Out the Alley way

2009-02-24T15:08:00.001-08:00

Having hit a few bumps on the happy flight of point pushing modeling, I decided to come back to the Scene thing that is kinda the final. I touched on the bump maps of the trash cans again, threw together an eletical box greeble/nurnie, then dove into tweaking the lighting and camera angle. I wan the audience to wonder what is around the corner, and the bright point source back there does kinda beckon, but it needs more stuff to hit than the two greebles. Also I'd like more interesting lines, some power lines crossing or hugging the walls (which are really blank). I know that should be possible....
Finally, part of me wants to push out one of the walls, the stairs one, by about a trash can's width. I think I'll start next time with that.

Back in the code saddle again

2009-02-24T11:13:00.000-08:00

Playing with the tanks code was like a sunny day for the flower of my coding synapses, now they want more.
I tried to pick up an old project, a final for a class that I did OK in and which I could improve my grade by re-submitting the project (if it was better).
The project is open ended enough, and my needs and goals are contrasting enough that I don't really know what I'm doing. So I'll blab about it here.
The project guidelines are to use Visual Basic to create a little program that is useful. And provide documentation and comment the hell out of the code.
My idea is to have an inventory system for the Lighting Fixtures over at the college theatre dept. All this really needs is an excel file and the know how to have a few equations, allowing one to have totals that change as instruments are purchased or used.
However that doesn't use VB, and doesn't streach the learning muscles. So i'm trying to have a Database of some sort, and use either SQL or hard code in VB the functions for the totaling.

Today I worked at remembering all this stuff, and setting up the database, and trying to do some SQL queries. VB doesn't play nice with Access for me, so I'm trying to use VB's preferred MS SQL server lite 3.5 or something like that. You set up the tables through VB (lame), do the sql through VB (really lame), and can only view the thing through VB (lame). And the VB's way of doing SQL kick my butt so far. I want to lean, but this doesn't feel useful, so I don't want to learn it.
So, I'll hard code the math part and whack on the SQL till it just gives me some Select commands and an Update to reference.
Later, for now it's time to decompress with some web comics.

Miles suggestion

2009-02-23T14:27:00.000-08:00

Miles suggested to combine the Tankity Tank game with some visuals of 3d creations, importing still renders and Photoshoping some drop shadows.
Also I could ask Cody if he'd lend me his little arsenal of tanks and such for it.
This post is so I don't forget

Working Loot

2009-02-22T20:25:00.000-08:00

I stole this code, nearly completely. But it was still about 2 1/2 hours to make the few small modifications to get it to this point, with some good as3 lessons on the way. The code was taken with many thanks from these tutorials (2 parts). It all makes sense and I guess I could have gotten there on my own... in a few months of work and head pounding. Anyway, I'm satisfied with this Sunday's work so far, now time to go home and cook/eat dinner. Then back to modeling in Maya...

Oh, if it works, I don't know why it floats up after most move commands.

Use the arrow keys.

Good weekend, in some ways.

2009-02-22T17:55:00.001-08:00

It's been a good weekend, in the LAZY way.
My girl made it through her Lighting Design and so we rested. But other than some messing around with the extrude style modeling, I haven't done any work for either class.
So, now that it's 6pm sunday night, it's time to do some work.
List:
- Flash tanks, make tank sketch, import one from a class, and move in at least 1 direction.
-3d Keep working on goblin head 2. I had no luck importing it into the 09 version at home, so I haven't done anything on that either.

Goblin head truckin

2009-02-17T15:20:00.001-08:00

Well, 2 and a half hours pushing points leaves me a little phased (need to blink, my focus is too much like playing COD 4 where if you blink some jerk will sprint by with an MP5 and spray you... to an instant re-spawn. but I digress).

I found a way to get a big boost when I think I'm doing nothing and going no-where: smooth polygons. A one click way to change this:
Into this:Much happier to the eyes. Though he looks more like a monkey...

Tank game sketch out

2009-02-16T13:54:00.000-08:00

This is me figuring out some of the fundamentals to the Tank game for the final in Flash class.

What follows is a big chunk of psudo-psudo code for the game.

Game name: Tank-ity-Tank.

Conceptually stolen from the tanks game for the Wii Play. The hard part is creating the code and the content.

Concept: Player controls a Tank and shoot enemy tanks. Shooting all enemy tanks lets the player advance to the next level. Getting hit reduces the player’s life counter. No lives: game over. Life’s gained by score, which is gained from killing enemy tanks.

Elements:
-Player tank,
-Player tank health, can take a few hits and collect health power-ups left by some enemies.
-enemy tanks of various ‘type.’ Can tell apart by color. Differ in smartness, speed, shooting. Or just a lot of simple AI dummies if I can’t figure out different levels of stuff.
-Shells by player and enemies, can ‘hit’ other shells or a target.
+ hope to add bouncing off walls
-Walls. Cannot be destroyed.
-Life counter
-Score counter (score based on enemies killed)
-Splash screens to start and at the end.
+ high score initials entry?

Additional stuff if I can get to it:
-mines laid by player, some enemies, area blast, triggered by going too close or getting shot.
- Destructible walls, destroyed by mines.
-Health levels: player has better armor, can survive a few hits. Need to track and display this data.
-Powerups. Either just there or from killed enemies. Health, lives, different shots, exploding shots, faster shots, tracking shots?

That’s enough I’d say.

Controls:
-moved by keyboard arrow keys, or bindable so people can set up their own keyset.
-Shoot with mouse, using mouse cursor to aim.

How the hell is this supposed to work?

It’s all on the x y coordinate system, so it should be possible to use that and collision squares for most things. Class files to have Tank, shell, and wall objects that I can populate the screen with, so each level is just a lot of instances.

What I don’t know vaguly how to do: shell paths based on target x/y from mouse click. Bouncing of shells off wall. AI scripting. Most of the expandable stuff.
Powerups actually should be easy, just edit the player tank and support it visually somehow. Powerup objects and collision events.

To do, where to start:
Have tank class,
Move tank with keys.
Have turret on tank
Have shell class
Tank shoot shell
Tank shoot shell at mouse click.
Add bad guy tank from tank class
Shoot bad guy tank. Collision script
Add walls.
Shoot walls
Run into walls.
Ect.
AI programming of bad guys

What I've been up to this weekend

2009-02-16T12:32:00.001-08:00

When I wasn't sleeping off that slight cold/sinus infection thingy, I was plodding through an 'intro to Maya' tutorial in a book I bought. To mile's credit, less than half of the stuff so far has been new, but still I feel it's been worth the $40, and there's lots more coming. I just hope I can get through it before the 30 day trial ends, or that the trial does simply look at the system clock for the current date. Meh.

Heading Forward

2009-02-12T15:35:00.001-08:00

Further work on the head. Tutorial has broken down on the key area of Cleaning up triangles and 5 sided things; he says do it but doesn't really explain how.
Also I'm getting sucked into Shifting around all these little points. Now I know now what they meant by keeping to the broad picture and doing the little details later. Must find ballance of point picking while cutting more and more bits into this thing.

Crayon Scribble of a model

2009-02-11T17:38:00.000-08:00

Following the tutorial, as well as I can. Hopefully I'll learn a lot about fixing ill made points as well as doing over stuff. This... example of a first effort was only about a hour of a half, though I spent some time trying to do many points at once, which ended worse than just rapidly doing one at a time. Whew. Still, it's fun.

Flashy Game idea.

2009-02-11T13:29:00.000-08:00

Trying to spark my interest and find something that will stretch my Coding muscles in flash: I 'll do a Flash Game somewhat like Tanklin.

I want to be able to shoot with the mouse. Any one play Tanks on the Wii? Such a simple little game my roommates and friends and I have wasted HOURS with.

This site shows you how to replace the mouse cursor, and I think some clues as to getting x y coordinates from the mouse cursor, so that the shooting can be aimed.

Here's another one, less good maybe.

It would be nice to have: Levels, score, lives, bad guys with actual AI. The tank turrett face the mouse aimer. Tank shells to shot enemy shells. Sound effects.

Well that would be more work than I want to put in. So I think I'll start by stealing mile's takin, changing the graphics and adding the mouse aim shooting stuff.

BumpMappin

2009-02-10T14:57:00.000-08:00

Playing with Bump maps... It's odd. Mostly maulally adding stuff to the trash can lids.
As I understand it, the shades of grey on the map create levels or bumps which react to the lighting to form these shaded areas. It's really counter intuitive at this point, I should stick to grey-scale-ing and leveling the skins instead of adding my own stuff.

Futzing with 09

2009-02-10T11:36:00.001-08:00

Looking for a command that's been moved in 09? Under help, theres a "Find Menu" option. This pops up a little window that finds commands in the menu system. Very useful when working with tutorials for old versions.

An actual Tutorial on Modeling

2009-02-10T11:09:00.000-08:00

And it's actually interesting and useful, to me.

A bit of Truth

2009-02-05T09:49:00.001-08:00

Stumbled upon this gem, a syllabus of the hard knocks.

At work on help desk ramble/ web findings.

2009-02-05T08:52:00.000-08:00

I want to do a few things. When I reached a certian point in my theatre educaiton it was time to design my own show, and then to intern at the world renown Oregon Shakespeare Festival, trying my hand at being a 40 hour a week lighting tech. Actually I did both during the same term which made both harder and less informative and successful. But even so they turned out well.
For various reasons I didn't leave to pursue a wildly successful yet sadly underpaid career in a big city, and now I've been nearly fully side tracked into this computer stuff. Coding, drawing in Photoshop, and now 3d modeling and rigging.
I know enough, barely, about 3d that I want to try it out. Reading the CGsociety page I can see that doing just one model and lighting it and slapping up some background scenery takes A LOT of time and effort, and is 'normally' done with several people working on it. This makes me pause.
I'd like to somehow intern in this field, try it out. But I don't have the kn0wlege yet to do so well. And, for me, the 3d class is plodding along slowly. I feel I could be moving much faster, but I don't know where to head towards or what resources to use to self teach.
Looking online everything is in Maya 2009. The books in the cabinet, that I've looked at, are for maya, like, 4. Hm.
I COULD activate the 30 trial copy I downloaded then forgot about. I COULD use the online tutorials, or even fork out the big $30 for a 'getting started' book. I would have to make myself do this, at home, where the distraction of all my beloved games are right there. Waiting to be played. And I've been kicking pixel and taking names on COD 4 recently.
So we arrive at the real reason for this post: shameing, convincing, motivating, whatevering myself into self study.
And wondering when/where I could do something like an internship after training up a bit.

Online animaiton schoolmaster interview

'Best animation schools' - but are they reviewed or just advertising here?

Maya tutorials - some broken links, some that looks like useful stuff, and even free.

And another thing: After reading the interview, I realized I have no idea if I want to go for Animation, rigging, modeling, lighting. Or all of them. I have to try them first. I guess modeling is the first part...

"Calendar" with sound

2009-02-04T15:38:00.000-08:00

Looking in the help files revealed some confusing instructions that I wrastled into this semblance of a little tack-on to the program. The song is just something I had handy from doing a Light Design last year for Altar Boyz, it doesn't fit with the program at all but I was focusing on the code.
Here's the sound-tracked 11 weeks of term calendar... thing.

[Edit] Ok it's broken but I'll fix it later.

[Edit] Should Work now.

My advent callendar thing.

2009-02-03T20:32:00.001-08:00

I'm just linking Y'all to my advent calendar thing.
It's the 11 weeks of term, with a useful goodie each week.
Enjoy!

Link may or may not be working. Of Course.