It's So Heavenly...

Recently, I purchased what analysts predicted would be PS3's Killer App, or rather flagship game. Heavenly Sword has been promoted since the launch of the PS3, but has only recently been released. Personally, I'm glad that they took the extra time to produce this work of art. Before the release of the game, Ninja Theory released five short animations detailing the history of the game's namesake, entitled "Legend of the Sword". The short series served to provide some background on the sword, as well as some of the main characters, their ambitions and motivations.

In Heavenly Sword, Produced by UK Based Ninja Theory, you play as Nariko, the red-maned heroine and daughter of the leader of her clan. The clan is in possession of the Heavenly Sword, a mythical weapon once wielded by a deity sent from heaven to defeat the Raven Lord, a battle which predates the start of the game.

Over the generations after the defeat of the Raven Lord, the sword passed from hand to hand, leaving carnage in it's wake. It granted its owner immeasurable power, yet drained their life at the same time. It eventually fell into the hands of the clan, who vowed to keep, but not use the sword, until the next heavenly warrior appeared.

The game begins as the clan is fleeing from the armies of King Bohen (voiced and acted by Lord of the Rings' Andy Serkis). Bohen, in his attempts to conquer all the lands in his sights, sees the heavenly sword as a means to do such, and is as relentless as he is evil. The story is about Nariko's journey after attaining the Heavenly Sword to free her people and put an end to King Bohen's reign.

Heavenly Sword is an Action/Adventure game which uses the PS3's CELL processor incredibly well. Each environment is beautifully crafted. The models are well made, and versatile, and the animation is seamless and flows very nicely.

One of the most impressive parts of the game is in the cut-scenes. Serkis was made Dramatic Director by Ninja Theory, and thus, coordinated the motion capture for each scene. Not only are the actor's bodies motion captured, but their faces are as well, leading to very impressive facial animation, adding a new depth of realism to the game. The score, produced by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, borrows from both Asian and Indian styles and rhythms, enhancing each scene.

Each of the characters are well written, from the heroine Nariko, her adopted younger sister Kai (who reminds me of a certain Icelandic Pop-Star), to the ruthless Flying Fox and Whiptail. Each character has a distinct persona, and nothing is overplayed or reused, as is a problem in many modern games.

In the efforts to not spoil this game for anyone who hasn't played it, I won't go into much detail about what progresses. The game got good reviews, but also come criticism on two major points. 1) Heavenly Sword is so similar to God of War that some have termed it Goddess of War, and 2) The game is comparatively short, and can be completed in 1 to 2 afternoons. There are certain gameplay similarites between Heavenly Sword and God of War, but they do not detract from the overall experience. Heavenly Sword also borrows from the interactive cut-scenes of Shenmue.

All this aside, it looks like game developers are starting to utilize the PS3's CELL processor better. With games like this and Lair, we can only hope to see more beautifully crafted games for Sony's newest console.

Heavenly Sword (PS3) Trailer - Watch today’s top amazing videos here

We Doth Been All Up in That Piece

On Sunday, I was graciously invited by Kevin and Jane to go to the Renaissance Festival in Tuxedo New York. It's been years since I've gone to a Renaissance Fair, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. Luckily, I was in good company.

As is tradition, we went around and sampled many types of Renaissance goods like swords and leather. Jane spent about 20 minutes trying on pirate boots with lots of buckles and lots of leather while Walt and I fought off the locals who were making comments and trying to sneak a peek.



As a tribute to the Harry Potter series, Jane and I repped it up big after I bought my wand (geek powers, activate!). We would have taken more pictures, but those cloaks itched like hell.






On our way out, we out, we walked past a lonely wizard perched on a hill. As we are not those to miss a perfect photo opportunity, we strolled up to the kindly old wizard and asked if we could take a picture. He started mumbling all sorts of things that sounded like Jane and I were getting married, while Kevin took the picture. Walt stepped in, but I told him that I wasn't into threesomes. After taking the picture and getting the hell out of there, we broke out, back to reality, but not before Walt and I got put away for attempted assault on a wizard.

Maguire attached to Robotech

Tobey Maguire, the guy who made it clear he was oh so sick of doing big budget, comic book movies while on the press tour for Spider-Man 3, is producing and possibly starring in a big budget, anime movie for Warner Brothers. 

The film is a live action adaptation of one the most popular anime series of all time, Robotech, which is essentially about pilots who take giant mechs into combat against aliens. It may be written by Craig Zahler (writer of the upcoming revenge western, The Brigands of Rattleborge) and doesn’t currently have a release date. 

For more info, click here.

Review: Windows Live

So out of curiosity, I decided to do some checking up on what MSN.com is doing. Much to my surprise, they've been very busy.

 

With Vista out now for a while, and from what I can gather, Microsoft is doing it's best to create as much interoperability between Windows Vista and Windows Live.

 

Windows Vista Start Bar	Windows Live Star Bar

On every Windows Live page, there's an icon in the top left corner that looks an awful lot like the start button on Windows Vista. The operation is exactly the same as well. In Vista, you access your programs, documents and settings through the start menu. In Live, you access all your Windows Live services in the same way.

 

Windows Live Hotmail

We all are very aware of Windows Hotmail, which has been offering free web based email for over ten years now. However, after Gmail hit the scene, Hotmail was nothing to write home about. Gmail offered more space, an easier interface, Google's name and stability. Hotmail had a fraction of the space, and because of it's lack of decent filters, was always riddled with spam. Now, thanks to a complete redesign, enhanced filters, it's established user base, and 5GB of space, Windows Live Hotmail is suddenly a force to be reckoned with.

 

Windows OneCare

While many people may find this a bit intrusive, Windows is offering OneCare, a downloadable application made specifically for Vista that offers protection, performance monitors, and more to keep your PC running smoothly. While the application is not free, Windows is offering a 90 day trial. For those who are not particularly computer savvy, OneCare seems to be easy to use, and beneficial for Vista users.

 

Windows Spaces

Microsoft's blog service is nothing new, and honestly, nothing to get excited about. The design is basic and bland, and the only thing it has going for it is it's integration with Windows Live Messenger. Users can see when new blogs and pictures have been updated right in their messenger window.

Normally, this wouldn't be of much news, but it does lead us into...

 

Windows Live Writer

This is one application that I was frankly surprised about. Windows released a standalone blog writing application for use with it's Windows Spaces blog service. What's surprising is that it's compatible with most other blog services. It's WYSWIG editor is very easy to use, and automatically formats itself to match the look and feel of the blog, taking fonts and CSS into account. Comes complete  with spell check, formatting tools, and more! However, as nice as a standalone application for blogging is concerned, one thing that I found a bit annoying is that unless you have an FTP account handy, embedding pictures is not as intuitive as Google's Blogger service. For this entry, I found myself uploading pictures into SkyDrive (see below), setting them in a dedicated folder, setting permissions, copying the web address for each one, and then inserting that into the blog in Writer. Not particularly intuitive, if you ask me. If you're listening, Live Team, integrate SkyDrive into Writer so that I can Click and Drag files into my posts!*

Well, with all this mention of SkyDrive, lets move on to....

 

Windows SkyDrive

SkyDrive is a web based storage drive, much like Google's Drive extension (which was not very intuitive to use). Unfortunately, as of the time of this writing, SkyDrive was having some issues, and I wasn't able to check it out for this review. One drawback is that SkyDrive only offers 500MB of storage, which may be enough for hosting photos and the random document for transfer between home and work, but not much else.

 

There are more services which I haven't had the opportunity to sample yet, but one thing that I have noticed is that the Live Team has left Beta as a suffix to most of these services.  There are noticeable improvements to be made, but so far, the Live Team is making many enhancements to the general service.

I'm not sure if this will tempt me away from Google's iGoogle homepage, or the variety of services that Google offers. Some may think that this is too little too late for Microsoft, however, it is a welcome change from the bare minimum that was being offered before.

 

 (*Edit: As of this writing, an extension for writer has been made to include files from SkyDrive. It's available from the "Add a Plugin) link, but it's not much help...

No blog today

maybe next time.

Missed a Day, Sue me.

So I'm not letting my missing yesterday's blog posting get me down. Anyways, here's what I was -planning- on writing....

I could very well write a post about work. About how I hate drama, and people who thrive on spreading it. I could also write about how I detest incompetence, especially when it pertains to my job. I could write about how some people, when receiving bad news, take it out of the one giving the news, not the reason for the news it.
I could write about all that.
But I won't.

Instead, I'll write about something that happened yesterday that was very good. For those who know me, or more specifically, my Father and I don't usually see eye to eye, nor do we exchange touchy feely feelings.

Yesterday, I spent some time with him, and spoke briefly about my future. That is to say, we both spoke in "Man-Code" which is making allusions and implications instead of saying it outright. While he originally kinda disagreed, I think that we eventually reached a conclusion that I have to do what I feel is right for me. I have to walk down my own path.
I think that he and I finally see eye to eye on something.

That made me feel really good.

A Blog A Day

For the sake of others, and for my own, I'm going to try to write a blog a day. I have never been very good about keeping a journal, but hopefully this will change. I just have to try to find out what to write about.

This past weekend was mostly good. I spent some good time with good friends who wouldn't let me be alone for too long at a time, else I'd start thinking about things that would hurt the mood and throw me into a depression again.

Jane and Kevin have been fantastic friends during this low point. Jane has been very good to me over the years, and it's good to have someone that cares for me so much back from her travels and local. Kevin has surprised me very much. I met him once years ago, and now that he's living in Stamford as well, he's been very good and calling me even when Jane isn't around, just to see how I'm doing. I've never been very close to guys, but Kevin is a great guy. He's someone that I can talk to, that doesn't try to throw the whole, "We're Dudes! Dude's don't have feelings! We're Butch and Spit and Fart and Belch and Check Women Out" mentality that I hate so much. They're good people, and I'm glad that I have them in my life.

I'm going to have dinner with my old friend Amy from my Umass days today. Amy's always been a sounding board for me, and me for her. She lives a few towns over, but we try to stay in touch as much as we can, even though I've been neglecting her a bit in recent months. Amy's family has been great to me as well over the years. Her mother said that anytime I would like Korean food, feel free to drop by. I wish I took more advantage of that over the years.
Hopefully, Amy and I can spend more time together, as she's been absolutely fantastic to me in the past.

Much to the dismay of my real hobbies, art and music, I've found a new one. Ladies and Gentlemen, Guitar Hero II is addictive. Those who are not READY TO ROCK need not apply.
With a great soundtrack, fun and colorful visuals, a guitar controller, dueling guitar functionality, and 'Tilt the Guitar to activate your super star rock out power' function, it's a good time for everyone. I picked it up last week, and showed it to my roommate, who immediately went out and got his own axe as well as Guitar Hero II: Rock the 80's for his daughter.

Check out this set list:

1. Opening Licks

• "Shout at the Devil" – Mötley Crüe
• "Mother" – Danzig †
• "Surrender" – Cheap Trick
• "Woman" – Wolfmother
• "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" – Spinal Tap † (Encore)

2. Amp-Warmers

• "Strutter" – Kiss †
• "Heart-Shaped Box" – Nirvana
• "Message in a Bottle" – The Police
• "You Really Got Me" – Van Halen^[3]
• "Carry on Wayward Son" – Kansas (Encore)

3. String-Snappers

• "Monkey Wrench" – Foo Fighters
• "Them Bones" – Alice in Chains
• "Search and Destroy" – Iggy Pop and the Stooges
• "Tattooed Love Boys" – The Pretenders
• "War Pigs" – Black Sabbath (Encore)

4. Thrash and Burn

• "Cherry Pie" – Warrant
• "Who Was in My Room Last Night?" – The Butthole Surfers †
• "Girlfriend" – Matthew Sweet †
• "Can't You Hear Me Knockin'" – The Rolling Stones †
• "Sweet Child o' Mine" – Guns N' Roses (Encore)

5. Return of the Shred

• "Killing in the Name" – Rage Against the Machine
• "John the Fisherman" – Primus
• "Freya" – The Sword
• "Bad Reputation" – Thin Lizzy
• "Last Child" – Aerosmith † (Encore)

6. Relentless Riffs

• "Crazy on You" – Heart
• "Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart" – Stone Temple Pilots
• "Rock This Town" – Stray Cats
• "Jessica" – The Allman Brothers Band †
• "Stop" – Jane's Addiction (Encore)

7. Furious Fretwork

• "Madhouse" – Anthrax
• "Carry Me Home" – The Living End
• "Laid to Rest" – Lamb of God †
• "Psychobilly Freakout" – Reverend Horton Heat
• "YYZ" – Rush (Encore)

8. Face-Melters

• "Beast and the Harlot" – Avenged Sevenfold
• "Institutionalized" – Suicidal Tendencies †
• "Misirlou" – Dick Dale
• "Hangar 18" – Megadeth
• "Free Bird" – Lynyrd Skynyrd † (Encore)

Bonus Tracks

• "Raw Dog" – The Last Vegas (Winner of the "Be a Guitar Hero" Contest)
• "Arterial Black" – Drist †
• "Collide" – Anarchy Club
• "Drink Up" – Ounce of Self
• "Elephant Bones" – That Handsome Devil
• "Fall of Pangea" – Valient Thorr
• "FTK" – Vagiant
• "Gemini" – Brian Kahanek †
• "Laughtrack" – The Acro-brats †
• "Less Talk More Rokk" – Freezepop †
• "Jordan" – Buckethead
• "Kicked to the Curb" – Noble Rot
• "Mr. Fix It" – The Amazing Crowns
• "The New Black" – Every Time I Die
• "One for the Road" – The Breaking Wheel
• "Parasite" – The Neighborhoods
• "Push Push (Lady Lightning)" – Bang Camaro
• "Radium Eyes" – Count Zero
• "Red Lottery" – Megasus
• "Six" – All That Remains
• "Soy Bomb" – Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives †
• "The Light That Blinds" – Shadows Fall
• "Thunderhorse" – Dethklok
• "Trogdor" – Strong Bad †
• "X-Stream" – Voivod
• "Yes We Can" – Made in Mexico

A few songs of note are Free bird, and Trogdor, Yes, TROGDOOOOOOR by Strong Bad.

The ability for one player to play lead guitar and the other to play rhythm guitar, or one to play guitar and the other to play bass, makes for a fun time. I think the most fun that I've had was when my roommate (who's a pretty big, jacked guy), picks up the tiny guitar controller that looks like a ukelele to him, and rocks out to Mother by Danzig and sings along.
I'm waiting for Rock Band to drop in November as well though.

I don't know what the rest of my week is going to look like, but I have to keep busy. I threw on LW again last night and modeled something for my everything but forgotten story. I have to really force myself to get back into that, because as someone at the NYC Lightwave Group said, "If you don't do it, someone else will. Then where will you be?"

Group Mentality

This is something that I should have done a long time ago. With the exception of two semesters at UMASS under questionable tutelage, I have never had any official training, or professional contacts with those in the CG industry. For a big city, Stamford, CT has a very small CG community. This, of course, has the unfortunate side effect of me pretty much being an island as far as networking goes.

This is where I get the “Duh, stupid… Look right in front of you!” award. I live about 45 minutes out of NYC, and there just happens to be a NYC Lightwave group that meets monthly. These are people who (like me,) are hobbyists, but also professionals. From what I understand, they get together, discuss what the software can do, talk about personal/professional projects and the best way to complete them, talk about news, and generally have a good time.

Like I said, this is something that I should have gotten into a long time ago. I have a hard time with motivation if something isn’t concerned with my current job. If I’m not getting paid for it, it’s hard to force myself to get into something, no matter how much I like it. Recently, everything –besides- my passions have taken the drivers seat in my life, and to be honest, I miss the things that I used to love.

I’m going today into the city to go to my first NYCLightwave user group meeting. I hope to meet a lot of like-minded individuals, make some contacts, and try to find some of that flare that used to be so at hand. I need to find it and get it back. I have to have something to strive towards and keep my mind occupied.

Here's the postcard that they sent to remind us all of the meeting.

Color me excited.

Watch That First Step

The famous lawyer Eugene Ware once said, “All glory comes from daring to begin”. Now, if Gene was alive today, I’d probably ask if I could buy him a beer and ask him what the hell I’m supposed to do next. I don’t know if it’s truly glory that I’m looking for, but I do agree that ‘daring to begin’ is the key to any success.

I’ve been stagnant, going through the motions, but not really moving for a while now. I have a path ahead of me, but taking that first step, and then the next and so on is the hard part. Now that I have the reason to move on, it’s the motivation I’m looking for. Well, that’s not entirely true, it’s the drive. The drive to get off my ass and begin. I know that it’s important, and it’s the rest of my life, and I owe it to others, and more importantly, myself to get going. That first step is always the tricky one. I have to make moves, big ones, for my personal and professional growth. I’m going to dare to begin. I just hope that the ‘glory’ is worth all the exhaustion and heartache that it’s going to take to get there.

More games should be like this:

Gitaroo man!

Confessions of a Broken Heart

I do read it, and it does matter to me. I read it all.


What Makes Someone Brave?

I believe it's doing what you think is right, no matter how much you hate doing it. And I hate doing it...

I've been wondering over the past day-and-a-half if I'm some kind of masochist. I sit by and watch the pain that I've caused others unfold before me, reading every letter of every word of every sentence at least twice. It kills me. It kills me to think that I did this, that I made a decision that hurt someone that I care for probably more than I care for myself. Maybe that's the point of it all. I don't like it though. I don't like seeing her this way. She deserves better, she deserves all the love in the world. She deserves to be happy, and light, and love herself. Over the years, I've caused trouble and pain for someone who didn't deserve any of it. I can only blame myself for the problems that stemmed from my own faults.

I tried. I really did. I wish I was able to do more. Anything that I could do, or allow myself to do, I did, just to see a flicker of a smile on her face. Sometimes it was there, lots of times, it wasn't. If I could have collected every single tear over the past 5 years that she shed, I'd put them in a crystal vial and look at them every single day as a reminder that I screwed up. I screwed up big. I don't want to keep screwing up, but I won't forgive myself for making her cry even once. She deserved better than that, and she deserves better for herself now.

Love at least once in your life...

... or else you'll never experience of the most fantastic things in the world.

Making It All Work

3D art is not easy.
Putting together a single scene in 3D involves many different disciplines. As in many art forms, you first try to visualize what your end result should look like. This involves deciding the mood, the focus, the color scheme, the emotion and probably many other things I'm forgetting.


You build your models (which include principal actors or a focus), which involves an understanding of scale, spatial relationships, thinking in more than two dimensions, an attention to detail and understanding complex shapes.



Texturing objects involves understanding the physical properties of materials, how light reacts with an object, be it how color is affected, the mysteries of reflection, specular and gloss, light absorption, refraction, diffuse and other properties of light.

Laying out a scene involves, orienting and placing each object,
as well as a main camera, in order to match as closely as possible what you originally visualized. Understand space and scale and how the eye works in general is critical.

Lighting the scene takes into consideration not just your sun or moon,
but also the different properties of different man made light, as well as how light bounces of objects and in a sense, travels around your scene.

Animation, maybe the most popular of the disciplines, involves a strict understanding of natural motion, physics, acting, and concepts related to telling a story.

Each one of these steps is incredibly involved. Many books have been written by artists great and not so great, and many larger studios employ teams of people to handle each one of these stages.

I've somewhat wrapped my head around modeling, both hard-body and organic (although I could stand to get better), I understand the fundamentals of UV/Texture mapping, again, with much room for improvement.

However, there are the three other things that I'm still learning how to do.

Because of the fact that I haven't really attempted much animation, I'm saving that for last, but for the life of me, I can't figure out scene layout and lighting. I've bought books on lighting in the past, but most of it still alludes me.

Falloffs, intensity, the difference between the effect of an area light, an omni directional light, a linear light...

The difference between ray traced shadows and shadow map based shadows...

Global illumination, HDR imaging...

Then of course, there's layouts. What's the scale? How do you define scale in an image? What about the backdrop? How does the atmosphere and the time of day come into place?

I think that if i figure out the concepts behind all these things, maybe I can fly off this plateau that I've found myself grounded on for so long. I want to put things together, not just objects, but scenes. I want to put together little tiny bits of reality, one piece at a time. I want it to look damn good.
And I don't know what I'm doing wrong so far...

Getting Back To My Roots

Taking a break from cel shaded fantasty stuff, I thought I would delve back into the more realistic types of modeling. Inspired by god knows what, I thought I would try my hand at making a sort of futuristic, high quality, luxury hoverboard (i'm thinking honda or toyota, not sure yet).

Making something that's not bulky, but streamlined and sexy, as many luxury transportation vehicles are, I decided to go with spline modeling as opposed to poly or box modeling. This will allow me to 1) plan out the curves and contours before I start modeling, 2) keep everything sleek and sexy and 3) help me brush up on my high-poly spline modeling.







I'm going for a porcelain/fiberglass frame, with rubber bumpers/foot padding.
Things yet do to:
Finish modeling details
UV Map
Shade and Texture
Produce Particle Emitter effects
Rig with basic character

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far

APPLESEED was a joy to watch.
This is not news, as it's been out now for three years.
Not only was the story intriguing, but it was one of the first cel-shaded action movies from Japan to make waves in this country. Being a huge fan of cel-shading, this was a huge inspiration to me.

Appleseed, based on the graphic novel by the same name, was written by Masamune Shiro, and the graphic novel was so well received that it won the 1986 Seiun Award for Best Manga. Shiro, a fan icon inthe cyberpunk scene has gone on to pen many more stories, but for a large group of fans, Appleseed was a crowning achievement, followed only by the Ghost in the Shell series.

Two things come to mind when thinking about stories by Shiro; his frequent use of strong, female leads in his stories, and his philosophy on mecha and its limitations. For as much as I've seen, Shiro's stories have always had strong female leads, something which I admire. Let's face it, guy's and dolls, there are a lot of kick-ass women out there who hold their own just as much, if not more than men. Recently, there have been more heroine's in major media, Lara Croft, Ripley from the Aliens series, Battlestar Galactica's Starbuck and more that I'm sure I haven't mentioned. This is not to say that Shiro makes them larger than life necessarily, like so many male heroes have been, but he shows a determination and inner strength, as well as physical prowess that matches the boys. It's this fan's opinion that doing such was a great move by Shiro, as it not only set his work aside, but it finally gave the spotlight to those who deserve it.

Shiro once created a Rules of Mecha article a while back detailing the physical limitations of mechanical augmentations to the human body. Why is this significant? Well, in most movies, books and film, the artistic direction is completely implausible. Let's say you have Joe Action who loses both arms while fighting off a ferocious tribe of pygmy armadillos. Joe gets back and has bionic arms grafted to his body. Now he can lift up cars, steel vault doors and the like. Nope, sorry Joe, no dice. According to Shiro's articles, while the bionic arms themselves may have the capacity to lift an incredible amount of tonnage, they are still grafted to Joe's original bone structure. Due to the transfer of weight throughout the body, the shiny new arms would be fine, but the rest of poor Joe's bones would shatter. He's probably cry too... pansy.

Observations such as this changed the way that mecha (specifically human augmentation) has been designed. For example, all of the physical augmentations that deal with strength have been written to include fully reinforced skeletal structures.

So why do I bring all of this up?
Because there's a sequal coming. It has been announced today that Appleseed Saga Ex Machina, the sequal to the first movie, is now in production and will be released Q4 07 in japan (so most likely Q1 08 stateside). From the trailer available on the official Appleseed Saga Ex Machina website, the technique and direction has significantly improved, as well as the quality of animation. Its being directed by the #1 fan of slow motion doves, Mr John Woo, so expect a good amount of gun-play and eye candy.

So am I excited? Oh hells yes. Not only does the fact that the series is continuing excite me, but seeing the cutting edge technique is something that I've been waiting for. Don't get me wrong, I like my share of ogres, donkeys, talking cats, talking, gingerbread men, talking penguins, talking toys, talking rats, surfing penguins, lost zoo animals, superheroes, talking mammoths and talking cars as much as the next red-blooded American, but I'm growing older now. My tastes have changed. I'm glad someone, somewhere has notices, and is making movies accordingly.

Dave Loves DAVE Loves 9.0

GEEK POWERS, ACTIVATE!

Ladies and Gents, you are now looking at one of the newest accepted applicant to the Digital Animation and Visual Effects School, affectionately referred to as the DAVE school. Lemme tell you about this place I like to call Heaven.

The DAVE school is located smack dab in the middle of sunny (and from what I hear, friggin humid) Orlando, FL. It's actually in the back lot of Universal Studios, FL. It features a slew of computer labs, motion capture green screen room, recording room, and some of the best instructors that a CG hopeful could ever ask for.

The DAVE School program runs for one year, and is broken up into 4 sections called "blocks". Each block focuses on a different levels of proficiency, starting with basic modeling and knowledge of Newtek's Lightwave 3D program, architectural modeling and rendering, character modeling and animation, bluescreening and compositing, and finally group dynamics, leading a team. During the program, aside from digitally compositing yourself into any movie of your choice, creating a good amount of portfolio and demo reel, you work with your team to create not only a half live action, half CG short film, but a completely full CG short film.

The instructors at this school are second to none. People here have worked on a variety of blockbuster movies, fantastic television, and more. They teach what they know, they teach what they love. These are people that left various studios, companies, and firms to teach people like me how to work together in groups like this, how to put together a demo reel, how to use what we have to create fantastic images and video.

Not only that, but after graduating, graduates can still use all the facilities that the school offers. Demo reel hosting, access to all new classes and new professors, access to green screen facilities, etc. All this for the low price of $29.5K. There inlies the biggest hurdle. Financial loans are available, but that's still close to $30,000.
Kinda makes me really think seriously about it. Not that I would ever miss this chance, but more like I would work harder at this than I ever have; ever at school, and ever at work. I have to put all I have into this. And I plan on it.

In other news, I just purchased the upgrade for my personal copy of Lightwave, bringing me up to version 9.0. This one has a slew of new advancements, and hopefully, It'll help me find my groove again, and get back to producing (and hopefully finishing) many many products before I move over to Florida.

Clock's ticking. Time to get to work.

Motivation

(fixed so that anyone can post)

So I’m a day late. Sue me.

It’s been a while since I’ve touched Lightwave 3D. I have no good reason as to the hiatus, except for the fact that I’ve been very busy. My full time job has been consistently taking precious hours out of my day, as well as hours away from sleep. The recent move that I’ve made, from downtown Stamford to North Stamford, was an ordeal, but is just about done. However, because of the lull, motivation is lacking.

Every now and again, I hit a motivational valley in-between the motivational highs that I usually find myself in. Lightwave is there, just a click away, but I have no drive to start creating. These times usually coincide with depression or frustration that can be attributed to the other facets of my life.

For the past few years, (has it been that long already?) I’ve been trying to put together a story, one that I’ve become very invested in, and passionate about. I’ve wanted to tell this story to the world, for no other purpose than to tell it. However, after constant rewrites, constant artistic changes, technical issues, and general time constraints, I haven’t worked on it in a while. Like a puzzle with missing pieces.

After a recent trip down to Florida to see the DAVE (Digital Animation and Visual Effects) school in the hopes to eventually enroll, I think I’ve seen a spark of that motivation that has previously been so elusive. Seeing groups of like-minded people working together for a common goal, to produce something out of nothing but hard work, creativity and talent, lit the fuse to the creative barrel of gunpowder sitting within my artistic soul. I’m just waiting for the bang.

In the meantime, to do what I can to self motivate, I’m trying to think of what would look good in my demo reel and portfolio. As of right now, I don’t have much that I’m proud of anymore; amateurishly laid out scenes and models, less than decent texturing, shoddy concepts. After seeing the work that my peers have created, it’s clear as day that I have a lot of concepts to brush up on, theories to remember, and generally a long way to go. A while ago, I picked up some books on fantasy art, as well as figure sketching. I think it’s about time that I picked those up again, and taken pencil to paper again and started trying to find what is lost to me now.

Until then, if you render, keep rendering. If you write, keep writing. If you draw, keep drawing. And as always, keep rockin’.

Welcome Home

So, here I am.
New blog when I have a moment tomorrow~

The Saga Continues... Sort of...

So things at work have been so busy that I haven't had much time to really update.
'Tis the holiday season, and as much as i'm learning not to like it, I work in the retail industry. That's not really condusive to personal creative products.

As you can see to the right, I've been trying to find new ways to make the art that i've been working on better. It's coming along slowly, but I do believe that the effort will certainly pay off.

I've finally started on the first page of artwork based on the every changing script I have, and it's interesting to feel even a slight sense of accomplishment with what i've done so far. I just hope that i'm not so burned out after the holidays that I can't find the motivation to continue.

It's a good story if I do say so myself, and it would be a shame if I couldn't end up telling it.

Moving right along...

So i've finally made some (very little) progress in Nevergreen. Not a whole lot, but as the ancient chinese would say, "The longest journey starts with the first step"... or something like that....
Sometimes it starts with a beast-drawn cart!

I found a new way to rig characters (for lightwave) that has sped up the process of setting scenes up for shots tremendously. (Thanks T4D!)
With that, I'm able to really look at how I want certain shots to play. Now it comes down to working my writer to finalize the script, then format it for a comic page.


Next, i've been working on layouts after reading Writing and Illustrating the Graphic Novel. Got some good results, albiet not very many, hey but it's a start!