rain delay

Didn't have a chance to post yesterday. Really shouldn't today, but my attention span is waning. Regardless, all I had to chat about yesterday was just some waxing over modeling styles. I've got even less today, so here's more of the same.

I'm working on a head model for a music video right now. It has a weird shape, almost horse like, but with a dragonesque flair at the end of the snout. I want to use patches to model it. The first step, as I was taught, in patch modeling (in Maya) is to mold a sphere into a pretty close copy of the real model. From there you draw your curves on the model and start making your patches. Now, personally, I hate molding a sphere into a more detailed model. Not sure why, really, but I do. That's probably why I haven't tried sub-d modeling.

So anyway, I did a brief sphere manipulation to act as a guide, and now I'm working on a sock loft. The main types of non-patch modeling of a head (as I was taught) are the breadslice method, sock method, and radial method. With breadslice, you draw the profile of your model, duplicate the line, move it over, manipulate the line as needed, and repeat to the edge of the object, then "loft" the lines/curves in order, wherin the software interpolates a surface from curve to curve. Radial is similar, exept you rotate your curves along the Y axis (so the rotation goes from right to left or vice versa). The sock method is like radial only you rotate along the Z axis, which usually runs through the head's mouth.

So, the plan is, sock method, then draw the patch curves on the that model. Why? With the sock method, you get a lot of unnecessary geometry in the cheek areas to the side of the mouth. You can eliminate that geometry with the patch method, making the model easier to rig for animation.

Actually, though, I'm tempted to skip the sock step and just start freehanding curves for patches. Especially since I have the upper 1/3-1/2 of the head curves done. For this model, the lips aren't a huge concern, so eyes/nostrils/ears/horns are the biggest problem. If I loft the curves now, I've got that section done. That might be what I do.

Yeah, nobody cares. I'll keep going anyway.

The next model for the video is a big gelatonous tentatcled piano player. Think the Gibbering Mouther from 2nd edition D&D (might be in 3.x, too. can't remember) with octopus tentacles. That model's a prime candidate for practicing some sub-d modeling. The real decision here is directorial. Do I want the monster to have so many tentacles it just plays with them all, or do I want it to be able to morph it's tentacles into extra digits, essentially growing a hand when necessary. It'd be a cool animation effect, but there's no real lead up to that in the tune, so I'm thinking the former for simplicity in camera work.

The drummer is still in limbo, and the bass is most likely just gonna be a cool digital effect laid over the whole thing after the models are composited into the stage background. *shrug* We'll see. just gotta find out if Im' flying solo on the piece or if the PhilmcKraken is in on it....
Oh yeah, and I have to fix Pete's eyes in a coupla photos.

trifecta

Here I am, looking for something to blog about, struggling through a haze of cold induced thought disruption, when, what do I find?

A teaser for Spidey 3. That's hot like a plasma torch

06 Dodge Caliber

This weekend we rolled to Ohio for my cousin's wedding. My car's in the shop, and the loaner smelled like ashtray (not to mention the body shop said 10c per mile if I left the state). So, I rented a car for the weekend from Enterprise. Got it for $100 for 4 days. Not a bad deal, and cheaper than the loaner for the trip. They gave me a Dodge Caliber.

I'll start with passenger comfort. The front seats were comfortable and the ride was pretty smooth. I missed the steering wheel stereo controls on my Mazda, but that's a minor quibble. A/C kept us comfortable, wipers did their job front and back (and we saw A LOT of rain). All was good. The driver seat had a vertical adjustment, which I took full advantage of. After 13 hours in the seat, my ass was only slightly sore, which is a marked improvement over the Aspire and slightly better than the Mazda 3 even.

Didn't spend any time in the back seat, but my little bro like it. The hatch/trunk space was small, though. If you eliminated the extra vertical space from the station wagon shape of the car, it wasn't any bigger than my Mazda. Of course, the rear seats fold down to make more space. So does my Mazda's, though. So the difference is only really noticeable if you're cramming in a bike, keg, or mondo camping gear. That's my opinion.

Driveability wise, I missed the "zoom zoom" of my Mazda. A couple times when I had to flip into the other lane to avoid idiots (and once when I thought a guy was speeding up to merge, but he slowed down instead) I knew I was in a wagon. Likewise, while acceleration was ample, it wasn't fun. My biggest beef with the drive train was the auto tranny. It'd down shift or hit the "passing gear" at times when it wasn't necessary, like when just maintaining speed on a hill that even Wendy's Aspire wouldn't shift on.

We averaged about 27 mpg on the trip, with 29 being the highest point, so not much of an efficiency spread. I blame the dip on construction. We might have hit 30 without the A/C, but the only reason that was off was due to rain, which meant we weren't cruising at optimal speeds anyway.

As for the stereo, there is a 7 or 8" speaker in each door. That makes for fun bass. Didn't go well with Wendy's headache, though. Apparently, you can get a package that has speakers on the hatch door that fold out for tailgating. That could be cool. I didn't like the button arrangement on the stereo, but that's a personal taste thing.

Let's see, what else did I like/not like. The dash on our model was white, and lit up blue. Kinda cool. Had gauges similar to my Mazda, so I felt right at home. Oh yeah. The steering wheel is adjustable. I'm guessing that's why it's covered by a cheap ass piece of rubber, rather than a full enclosure. That's annoying if you drive with your forearm, while you hand is through the wheel resting on the column. Feels cheap as shit. And one more thing. There's two glove boxes on the passenger side. In the big one, there's a shelf that's shaped for bottles/cans. That seemed to be colder than the rest of the car, so it might chill your sodas. It kept our cough drops nice and cool.

Overall, I'd say I give the Caliber a B+/A-. I'm not a big fun of the SUV for many reasons, and this car drives like a station wagon trying to be an SUV (without the 4 wheel drive and associated suspension). I like my cars zippy and maneuverable. BUT, the Caliber isn't made to compete with those cars. It's a wagon with a fun look for those people that demand better than the 12 mpg you get from driving a waste of resources. It performs its wagon duties full on. It's a comfortable ride, gets better mileage than a lot of similar sized cars on the road, and probably has room for a couple of kids and luggage to visit the grandparents for a weekend. It doesn't, however, seem to have the LATCH system for car seats, so if you've got a little un, you might wanna look elsewhere.

So, B+ for me personally, cause it's not a car I'd like to own, but if the grandparents or someone said they bought it for me, I'd keep it. A- for people that are in the market for a car that does with the Caliber is meant to do. It's a solid Mom Rod.

Get in the ring motherfuckers. I'll kick yer bitchy little ass, punk.

It's not too often I use l33t speak in a serious fashion, but it's about the only exclamation that can sum this thing up...

OMFG! This is the funniest damn self centered semi-self felating thing I've seen in quite some time. Heard of Uwe Boll? If you're not a movie freak, game freak, spend a lot of time trolling those types of forums online, or a fan of game to movie conversions, chances are no, cause apparently, the dude hasn't made a real film in the U.S. at all. (If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Honestly don't have time to waste on him researching his filmography.) He makes, as you've probably figured out by now, movies based on video games. Blood Rayne, a few others. Working on Postal, Driven, and a few others.

Personally, I've not seen any of his films. Hell, I didn't know most of them existed, and it's a rare CG film I'm not aware of (especially from 2005) even if I didn't see it. Reviews say his work sucks. Other directors say that. Just about every online anything says it. They say it hard and fast. People hate Uwe Boll, but somehow, he keeps getting money to make supposedly bad films. That means they're prolly making enough cash that producers see him as a good way to either make a house payment or take a small loss and not pay so much in taxes. Either way, win for them, and they get the gambling fix out of the way to boot.

ANYWAY, Boll's so pissed at the negative feedback that he's put out an open challenge for the top five critics (and he called out Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary) to meet him in the boxing ring on the set for Postal. Good stuff. Hell, I'd hop in just for the novelty of it, except for two criteria I don't meet. First, I've not written any reviews for him, cause I've not seen his action. Second, I'm not between 140 and 190. I'd have to go back to basic training to hit 140 again.

Sucks being small. No one wants to risk you beating their ass. Of course, with my light, frail bone structure, a boxing match would result in a fractured orbital plate and my left eye would probably sag a bit after that. No good for Wendy; she likes my cheek bones.

gettin sum

Today, I woke up at 5am. Woke up again at 5:30am and rolled outta bed at about 5:45. Except for actually getting up, that's pretty standard. Usually I fall back asleep, though. Not this morning baby. This morning, visions of polygons and pixels (actually NURBS curves) were dancing in my head. So I got up and showered.

Then, I started some modelling. Started on the two headed trombone player for Country's one man show. It's like a cow head shaped lizard thing with antelope antlers and tiger stripes. It's cool. I promise.

Anyway, I haven't animated in something like a year. Let me tell you, I feel like a man that just left the priesthood and got laid. By a woman. Not a young boy. And without the associated guilt of turning my back on God. For carnal pleasure. And maybe some Cheetohs. See, you can eat Cheetohs as a priest, but not off the naked body of a lithe Asian woman that charged you $7, even if she supplied the Cheetohs.

recap

Spent the weekend winning over Wendy's friends. :) My charm goes really well with alcohol and Australians. Well, fake Australian accents anyway. Who'd a thought that playing SR4 on Sundays would have a net gain of a few hotties? Well, me, but I live in a fantasy world bordering on narcissism.

But here's the bad news. Dead deer. Friday night. Passenger doors won't open. Car being taken in for repairs today. Fortunately the car is drivable, so I wasn't left sitting on the side of Hwy 29. I'll post pictures when I have time to dink around with the camera. They're not super detailed because, despite the damage, the car is still super shiny, so you get more glare than contour.

Random thought: Whenever I try to think the word Mandarin, my Star Wars brain replaces it with Mandolorian.

Ninja High School

I used to read the fuck out of NHS when I lived in Michigan. What's that got to do with anything? Nothing. Just wanted to make that known.

Actually, I was just thinking it would be fun to set up a goof off anime campaign along those lines. Intergalactic Space Born Big Eyed High School or something. Just a bunch of teens in a high school in space. Aliens, super heroes, ninjas, pirates, robots, mutants, whatever. They're all there. If the DMs kept the adventures short, it's definitely a setting that could make a back burner campaign open to anyone to run and any players that could make it.

Could be a good time.

dad's day

I didn't post yesterday because I spent my free time looking for the best Father's Day gift money could buy.

I just lied.

Actually, though, I did stumble upon that very thing today. Here you go. For $99 you can get a TP dispenser that docks to your iPod. Oh yeah, it mentions in the article that there's a new Swiss army knife with mp3 capabilities, but I couldn't find that anywhere. :( I want one.

Here's one for the gamers

Been awhile since I've talked about gaming in any sense, I think. This month is full of travel for me, so SR4 is on hiatus and between birthdays and injuries that D&D and whatnot has been hit or miss. The video gaming is full throttle, though, and the d20 writing is cruising down the frontage road. Besides all of that diary BS that the blog has once again degenerated into, here are couple of links for the video gamers among us.

The first: A HUGE BEANBAG.

The Sumo Omni has good reviews from the couple of gamers that reveiw these sorts of things, and it looks like a great prop for some carnal relations as well. Scroll over the third position on below the image, and you'll be glad they say "nothing can stain it." Looks comfortable for parties and sitting in front of the PS2, as well. Looks like it's too big for my living room in the present configuration, though. (BTW, the photo gallery has photos from the Playboy Superbowl Party)

Next: A new game controller.

My buddy, Scott, has the Z-board keyboard for playing BF2. He likes it, but his chief complaint is that it's hard as hell to type with that thing in, and even the replacement normal keypad is too small for him. Enter the Fang. The Fang doesn't replace the keyboard. Instead, it's a game controller. Looking pretty when you're not playing and fully functional when you are. Ambidextrous, too. I wonder what the learning curve is like going from WASD keyboard and mouse to just a Fang. For $35 it's cheaper than a lot of the 2nd tier game controllers out there that just look like USB PS2 controllers... I'll prolly grab this once I've got some spare change. Hence, after the trip to Wisconsin, then Ohio, then Illinois, then Indiana (go Gen Con!). So much for fuel conservation on my part.

Anyway, I'll leave you with that. Remember, you can't have functional without a little fun in there. Yeah, my fingers are burning just for typing that one. ouch.

Lemme down

T-Mobile's running a contest. You pick the winner of a certain FIFA World Cup game each day. If you pick right, your name goes in a drawing for 25K. I've picked right 3 out of 4 days. The one I picked wrong? The USA, man. I mean, as an American, I can't pick the Czech Republic to win even though the US hasn't won a World Cup opener in 8 tries now. Damnit.

In other news, "Zoom Zoom" is fun. We figured it out tooling around backwoods Wisconsin this weekend in theMazda. Nice to have confidence in the car's ability to pass someone over 35' of road. :) One spot might have been 25' of road.

I was going to write a little about an article that was on MPR this morning, but I can't find any news on it anywhere (not even on mpr.org). Basically, there are A LOT of wind farm and wind energy projects that are on hold right now because Congress demanded there be a study on whether wind mills would interfere with aircraft and ground based radar installations. Here's the thing - the FAA and other organizations associated with these concerns have already signed off and given the projects the green light. Then Congress stepped in. Why? Speculation is that the huge wind farm on the east coast near some high value properties (a couple belonging to senators) caused the delay. Trouble is, the delay is causing a lot of land leases and what not to be screwed up, and that's costing a lot of people a lot of money. Like the farmers that are leasing their land to the electric and wind mill companies.

That leads me back to a thought I had in response to a bit also on MPR concerning the amount of fundage Klobuchar has got from the national party for her run in Minnesota. Here's the trouble with Congress as it stands. There's a great divide right now between what's good for Representatives and Senators and what's good for the rest of the country. Kind of confusing, really, since the rest of the country gives them their jobs, but between national parties and lobbyists, someone can continually get reelected through heavy spending and great soundbites.

On the bottom end of things, I'd like to see lobbyists gone entirely and an end or severe limitations on pork barrel projects that get slipped into bills on the back end. Rebuild the congressional buildings out of glass (metaphorically) and put cameras in every corner broadcasting live 24/7 on C-WESEEYOU.

At the higher end of things, I've been kicking around an entire redevelopment of the electoral process that gets rid of Pres/Vice Pres running together, splits the Senate down the middle and opens up the House to a lot more than just a dual party system. The House is giving me the most problems, and the whole thing is pretty low on my priority list right now anyway (specially since it's a bit to radical to go anywhere in the current environment of "I'm not doing anything that won't get me reelected.")

Anyway, I digressed a bit there. Guess I had something worthwhile after all. Well, that depends on whose reading, I guess.

Subtle attempt at Masterba...Manipulation

Let's see if we can get this honky to work today.

The World Cup started today. Germany's off to a rockin start (I hope) playing against Costa Rica right now, and at the 89 minute mark it's 4 to 2. If they win, I get a ticket in the 25K drawing T-Mobile is having. Woot.

Unfortunately, the only places I can get it online are BBC (but only if you live in London), ESPN 360 (but only through certain ISPs and the hellspital doesn't have access), and XM radio online (but only if I pay $8 for a month's service after I sign up for a three day trial period). Damn.

That's about all I got. I spent most of the good rants over the last few days, but all of them were lost in the ether.

Well, this is the third day in a row that blogger's lost my post trying to update it. That aint cool at all.

A weight off my mind.

OK, one more time. Here's an article about a program being tested down south. Schools have changed food menus, soft drink producers are voluntarily removing heavily sweetened beverages from schools, and kids are getting weighed at school. They're sending home letters with the reports cards if the kid's body/mass index indicates obesity.

I'm of two minds on this one.

The first is, good that they're taking childhood obesity into consideration and changing both diet and behavior at school to help, not to mention educating both family and students about healthier living, eating, etc. Innumerable studies have shown that teaching kids healthy eating habits sticks with them for life. Why's it matter to someone like me? Insurance premiums. Healthier adults means my health insurance is cheaper.

My beef with it is that I'm worried about the body/mass index. I remember it being a bit questionable because the height to weight ratio was skewed toward extremely skinny. Not good. It sounds like the whole system is set up to not give kids a complex about their weight, but it's still a touchy subject.

Regardless, it might be a step in the right direction. It's working well enough that other states are trying it. Now they just have to figure out a way to teach parents the results of another study that shows that strict disciplinarians have a higher percentage of obese childrens (eating becomes a stress reliever), with parents that don't care and parents that let their kids do anything being tied for second. The best parents are those that set rules, have reasonable standards and are emotionally connected to their kids. Go figure.

Cod Piece of Glory

What are some other things that go well with "of Glory?"

Pickle of Glory
Shuriken of Glory
Caterpillar of Glory (also works well with Armadillo)
Chrome Exhaust Tip of Glory
Moonroof of Glory
Screen Door of Glory
Kleenex (R) of Glory
Shoestring of Glory
Shoestring Potatoes of Glory
Fit of Glory
Spasm of Glory

The list goes on and on. What I'm getting at is that I spent too much time on the Gen Con forums reading costume design and suggestion threads, left there with a burning need to wear a costume, but not the ren fair pirate costume, only to still have no ideas about WHAT costume to wear, but needing an idea that incorporates Nick, and somehow deciding the whole thing needed to be announced in one big run-on sentence. Yep, I got nothing. And the post I'd originally posted regarding having nothing wasn't able to be posted because Blogger collapsed around the shock that I might actually not have anything worth talking about but still post anyway, unlike the masses of posters that have something important that everyone should read everyday, some of which still don't post everyday despite the importance of their thoughts, thereby depriving billions of souls with a little bit of insight that might make the day infinitely more tolerable and save lives by keeping some poor fool whose new puppy just dumped him for the milk bone in the mail man's pocket from jumping off a bridge into heavy river traffic, causing an accident, possibly involving chemical waste, screwing up the drinking water for a major city and bringing about the destruction of our great nation's economy; which we all know really supports the rest of the world. :) If you read all of that, you like me more than I thought. hehe.

Damn only killed five minutes. It's a long day.

I got nothing.

Oh no!

Man. I got sucked into a thread at the Gen Con forums about costuming and what not. Don't expect a good post from me today, I'll be reading that for sometime.

Whistle Beep Whirl Buzz

Whoohoo! Androids on the International Space Station. Right now, it's all about maneuverability and coordinating light, cheap satellites. That'll change, though. Remember when computers were just overpriced giant calculators? Once there's a reliable AI locomotion package for tightly organized groups of satellites, how long do you think it'll be before it's applied to a 2d plane and added to cars? I'm not too hip on that, cause I love driving so much, but there's A LOT of people that just shouldn't have control of a vehicle. And that's just the easiest logical step.