Barbequed Pixels

Somebody mad?

2011-08-05T08:28:00.002-05:00

YOU JELLY?
I don't know who's mad, but somebody felt inclined to egg my car. Even though it's 10 years old with scratches, it still must be too nice compared to theirs.

Maybe they heard I found work on the internet or something. I've been out of work for so long, why shouldn't I get some opportunities every now and then?

Don't worry though, you'll get yours in due time...

But on the business of work, I'm back to getting a 3D model done. Put in 4hrs last night, and will get more done today. Now that I'm keeping track of time on these things, they take longer than I thought. Seems most of the time goes into prep and then making decisions about where to place the edge loops or whether to commit to a smooth operation. Crazy, but whatever. It's all good.

Sound in Flash Player Broken?

2011-02-13T20:41:00.004-06:00

Anyone know when or which update broke how event sounds play in Flash? I have some old stuff that used to work just fine, and now the sounds don't play correctly or not at all. I figure it had to be in one of the recent Adobe 10.x Flash player updates. This bug has to affect a lot of pages that have UIs or games made in older versions of the Flash authoring tool.

Surely I can't be the only person to notice this.

PMG Messiah:Studio - nice limited time offer

2011-02-11T18:21:00.005-06:00

I figure there's a rare few that may read this blog, so I have some new news.

There's a pretty tight deal for a very limited time where you may be able to get a $1100 suite of graphics software for $40. Pretty much it's professional quality rigging and animation software that various studios use in their production pipeline.

Oh, and if $40 is still too much you can get the "light" $540 software for $10.

And here's the link:
http://projectmessiah.com/x6/shop.html

And for some reason if you don't see the green bar (which was hovering at 75% at the time of this post), you may be too late.

Modeling A Preserve Jar

2010-09-18T23:00:00.002-05:00

A Wings3D video tutorial, in case you missed it. Covers basic box modeling and UV mapping, as well as some of Wings3D vector operations. Dunno who reads this blog, but what the hey!

Quite a bit, isn't it? Hopefully something can be learned from it.

Menus: Dropdown vs Pulldown explained

2010-07-24T17:02:00.003-05:00

I was looking for some reference to clarify this issue on the web, and what do I see in the first couple hits on google? Bad information on the topic. It seems that a lot of sites say there is no difference between dropdown and pulldown menus. Guess what? THEY'RE WRONG!

Here's the difference:

Dropdown menu: When you click on the menu header to access the menu, the menu stays on the screen until a selection is made. Note that clicking outside the box also counts as a "selection".

Pulldown menu: You have to hold the mouse button down to access the menu. If you release the mouse button or drag off the menu, the menu goes away. In other words a PULLdown menu is a DRAGdown menu, but it is not a DROPdown menu!

A subtle difference I'm sure, but it's quite a big one in regards to UI workflow. Also note that a dropdown takes two mouse clicks. One to access the menu, and one to access the menu item. A pulldown (dragdown) only takes one click, but you must hold down the button as with a mouse drag operation.

Now is it clear? I hope so.

Cassius & Cassandra

2010-06-24T16:12:00.003-05:00

This is probably what I'd have for a webcomic if I regularly did webcomics. No, actually I'd have something more random. This is just something from a sketchbook of mine that I figured was funny enough to share. But I'll leave the contents of the previous page up to your imagination.

Spacewar in under 100 lines?

2010-06-11T15:27:00.004-05:00

I'm a little crazy, but I'm trying to code a clone of the ol' classic game "Spacewar" in under 100 lines in ActionScript 2. I did this before with code spread about on different movieclips and had a semi-playable game working. But now I'm trying something a little harder. This time I'm trying to keep all the actions together on the main timeline with the added challenge of trying to make better use of OOP conventions to better cover steps that repeat. So far I got it up to the point where it makes the bullets, but it doesn't quite shoot them. Hell, it's hard enough trying to figure out how I did it the first time around - being that I haven't done much in scripting for a long time. Anyhow... Here's the code:

// This is the section with the actual game.
// Create the Ship() constructor class.
function Ship(rot, xP, yP, player) {
 this.rotation = rot;
 this.xVelocity = 0;
 this.yVelocity = 0;
 this.hitPoints = 100;
 this.player = player;
}
// Adding methods to Ship class.
Ship.prototype.applyThrust = function() {
 trace("Applying thrust to "+this.player);
 angleDeg = (this.rotation<0)*360+this.rotation;
 angleRad = (angleDeg/180)*Math.PI;
 this.xVelocity += (Math.sin(angleRad)*.75);
 this.yVelocity -= (Math.cos(angleRad)*.75);
};
Ship.prototype.turnLeft = function() {
 trace("Turning "+this.player+" left");
 this.rotation -= 10;
};
Ship.prototype.turnRight = function() {
 trace("Turning "+this.player+" right");
 this.rotation += 10;
};
Ship.prototype.fireGun = function() {
 trace(this.player+" is firing their gun.");
 _root.attachMovie("bullet", this.player+"Shot_mc", 10);
 _root[this.player+"Shot_mc"]._x = _root[this.player+"_Ship_mc"]._x;
 _root[this.player+"Shot_mc"]._y = _root[this.player+"_Ship_mc"]._y;
};
Ship.prototype.calcMovement = function(clipID) {
 clipID._rotation = this.rotation;
 clipID._x += this.xVelocity+((clipID._x<0)*640)-((clipID._x>640)*640);
 clipID._y += this.yVelocity+((clipID._y<0)*480)-((clipID._y>480)*480);
};
var P1_Ship = new Ship(0, 10, 10, "P1");
var P2_Ship = new Ship(0, 100, 10, "P2");
for (var prop in P1_Ship) {
 trace("property "+prop+" value is "+P1_Ship[prop]);
}
function testLoop() {
 if (Key.isDown(87) == true) {
  P1_Ship.applyThrust();
 }
 if (Key.isDown(65) == true) {
  P1_Ship.turnLeft();
 }
 if (Key.isDown(68) == true) {
  P1_Ship.turnRight();
 }
 if (Key.isDown(83)) {
  P1_Ship.fireGun(P1_Ship_mc);
 }
 if (Key.isDown(38)) {
  P2_Ship.applyThrust();
 }
 if (Key.isDown(37)) {
  P2_Ship.turnLeft();
 }
 if (Key.isDown(39)) {
  P2_Ship.turnRight();
 }
 if (Key.isDown(40)) {
  P2_Ship.fireGun(P2_Ship_mc);
 }
 P1_Ship.calcMovement(P1_Ship_mc);
 P2_Ship.calcMovement(P2_Ship_mc);
}
setInterval(testLoop, 60);
stop();

Oh, and I'm using only 3 movieclips if you haven't figured it out. And adding sound shouldn't be too terrible either, even though I haven't got to that yet.

SEO in Waukegan is easy.

2010-06-09T12:22:00.003-05:00

Check this out. If you're in a city of less than 100,000 and you localize your information on your website or blog, it's really easy to optimize for a search engine. If you put enough info, it should happen on its own. Regarding that, I'd be willing to bet a dollar that this blog will be somewhere in the first three pages containing the words "SEO" and "Waukegan". And I'm not really trying hard. If you're paying a lot for such services, and you're a small town business catering to a small town audience... Well, you know the ol' adage about a fool and their money.

But hey I'm just one guy that does freelance work as a graphic artist. So what do I know about this kind of stuff? And it's not like you found my blog via those keywords right? ;)

The Smallest Graphic Design Place in Waukegan

2010-06-04T15:06:00.003-05:00

This is it, my freelancing is the smallest graphic design place in Waukegan. I haven't seen a mention of this site in regards to my hometown, so may as well make it be known. (Although I try to do most stuff over the net, but still I think there may be location specific stuff available.)

Some people may claim to be small, but me? I don't even have a large format printer yet, and I'm a one man show. The real problem is letting people know that there's good talent in their own backyard. And short of doing print jobs (which would still have to go outside), I can do some pretty cool things design-wise. If you want 3D visualizations or animations, Illustrations, and Logos, it will be harder to find better bang for the buck.

So if you've managed to stumble on this, fire off a comment. Or give a hint at your email. Or if that's too much work, here's a hint of mine: pop alpha uniform luck jump snake 7 5 (at) hotmail.

This is for you flash people...

2010-05-23T17:27:00.005-05:00

I know I'm far from the world's best ActionScript coder, but here's a nugget from something I made a good while back that may be fun to look at and play with. (I know it works in AS2.0, but YMMV with other versions.) Oh yeah, I should mention that it goes on a movieclip.

// Set up initializing parameters.
onClipEvent (load) {
 this.stop();
 var inertiaX = 0;
 var inertiaY = 0;
 var angleRad = 0;
 thruster_sound = new Sound();
 thruster_sound.attachSound("thruster");
}

//Stop sound and thruster animation.
onClipEvent (keyUp) {
 this.gotoAndStop(1);
 thruster_sound.stop();
}

onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
 //Turn left when "A" is pressed.
 if (Key.isDown(65) == true) {
  this._rotation -= 5;
  trace(this._rotation);
 }
 
 //Turn right when "D" is pressed.  
 if (Key.isDown(68) == true) {
  this._rotation += 5;
  trace(this._rotation);
 }
 
 //Convert _rotation to 360deg and radians. 
 angleDeg = (this._rotation<0)*360+this._rotation;
 angleRad = (angleDeg/180)*Math.PI;
 
 //Go forward when "W" is pressed.
 if (Key.isDown(87) == true) {
  this.play();
  thruster_sound.start(0, 2);
  inertiaX += Math.sin(angleRad)*.5;
  inertiaY -= Math.cos(angleRad)*.5;
  trace(angleDeg+" "+angleRad+" "+inertiaX+" "+inertiaY);
 }
 
 //Fire shot when "S" is pressed.
 if (Key.isDown(83) == true) {
  _parent.attachMovie("shot1", "shot1_mc", 10, this);
 }
 
 //Keep spacehip on screen by wrapping.
 if (this._y<0) {
  this._y = 400;
 }
 if (this._y>400) {
  this._y = 0;
 }
 if (this._x<0) {
  this._x = 550;
 }
 if (this._x>550) {
  this._x = 0;
 }
 
 //Make spaceship move.
 this._x += int(inertiaX);
 this._y += int(inertiaY);
 
 //Pass variables to shot fired.
 xInit = this._x;
 yInit = this._y;
 
 //Check if enemy shot exists.
 if (_parent.shot2_mc) {
  //Check for enemy shot collision.
  if (this.hitTest(_parent.shot2_mc._x, _parent.shot2_mc._y, true)) {
   _root.p2Score++;
   trace("Hit P2 shot hit P1");
   _parent.shot2_mc.removeMovieClip();
  }
 }
}

PhotoShop Diet Anyone?

2009-12-14T11:23:00.002-06:00

If anyone (is crazy enough and) wants to try a free sample of a "PhotoShop Diet", feel free to ask by commenting to this post. Then I'll try to get in touch, so we can see what I can do with your photo.

That is all for now.

I'm gonna make my own FreeCell in Flash.

2009-09-12T09:46:00.002-05:00

It probably sounds stupid, because it's likely to have been done hundreds of times before already. But I was trying out a Facebook app version of Freecell that had omitted some important key features of this game that has been a staple item of every Microsoft Windows PC since version 3.1 or so. So in my opinion, that Facebook app is broken. Thus if I can make a version of Freecell that works correctly, then I know other people can. And since there's been versions of it since DOS and Win3.1 days, it's not like it's impossible to implement all the rules correctly.

The tricky part of this game is deducting the rules from a programmatic logic standpoint. The problem is that I'm normally not a programmer. So this is a simple logic puzzle and a break from my normal routine. Let's try to think of how the thing works...

First is the layout:
You have four free cells, and you have four open dump cells (Officially its called a foundation, but since I consider it dumping cards out of the game, that's what I've called it.), then you have the cards that get laid out on the table, and you count any empty spaces on the table as an extra free cell. You have eight columns of cards laid out on the table in a random cascade, face up. And generally it's the cards from the bottom (but not only the bottom - important!) of a cascade that are put into play or dumped into the foundation squares.

The actual rules can be found at Wikipedia. So it's known what we have to work with.

Now the first thing to do is initially randomize the cards. This will involve a loop that populates an array. We know we have 52 cards in a standard deck. So we know we need a list that's 52 values long, and contains non-repeating values between 1 and 52. (Non-repeating is important, because there is only one of each card of a given suit and value.) So we use a loop that populates the array. The loop generates a random number between 1 and 52. Then it checks the array to see if the random number matches any already on the array. If there is a match, it goes and generates a new random number and tries again. If there is no match, then it adds the new number to the array. And it keeps doing this until all 52 positions of the array are filled. Easy peasy, right?

Next thing we do... Lay out the cards on the table. This is trickier. I'm thinking of using setting depths (if I recall actionscript correctly) and placing each row across. Since we have the cards in a nice random order from the previous routine, we just populate the table (in more than one way) by drawing from the array. Going across 8 columns, and then down to the next row (and a higher depth), until all 52 cards are used.

Since this is done programmatically, we also need some rules for the suits of the cards. Basically since a simple index number between 1 and 52 is the easiest and most obvious way to identify a card, that's what was done already if you haven't figured it out. But we also need to associate the card's index value with it's suit and it's color. Since I went with diamonds, spades, hearts, clubs as the order of suits, this is how associated variable values are figured out. Index numbers 1-13, diamonds. Index 14-26, spades. Index 27-39, hearts. Index 40-52, clubs. Likewise red-black, red-black. So by pulling up any index number, the function automagically lets you know what the card is. And some simple if-greater than statements and some math routines gives the value from the index number. So now we get the traditional cards suits, colors, and values based upon the index number. And again index numbers are what we use to pick and label any of the cards program-wise.

The easiest rule is for the free cells, thus the name of this solitaire card game. Any card may be placed upon an unoccupied free cell. And no other cards may move on an occupied cell. And any card in the "free" cell, may be put back into play on the table or into the dump (foundation) cells.

What's next? We have the four "dump" foundation places. The rules for dumping cards into the foundation is why we needed that variable that "knows" the suit. So we got to make some if-then statements as some rules. If foundation is empty, an ace (1, 14, 27, and 40 from the index) of any suit may go there. If a card of any suit is in the slot, then check that the suits match. If not, disallow the move. Next check to see if the value of the card being placed is that of the lower card +1. If not, then also disallow the move. Once a card is placed into a foundation position, it's no longer allowed in play.

After that, we need the rest of the rules. Which is tricker to implement. On the table, an empy position can be used by any card. Then if a card is in a playable spot, only a card of an alternate color and a value lower by -1 may be placed on it. However the tricky thing to implement is the moving of stacks of cards. (And this is where the Facebook app that inspired the idea is broken.) If you have a stack of alternating cards in downward order, then entire stacks of cards are playable based on the value of the topmost card. But the playable topmost card of a stack is determined by number of free cells and open columns on available the table. The number of cards that can be moved as a stack are 1 + open columns + free cells. (There's also some programmatic trick in the MS version that anticipates some other moves and allows even more cards, depending on how many table columns are empty.)

The tricky thing is figuring out how to keep stacks together. I'll probably have to to assign variables that tell which row and column a card is currently placed in on the table. Then it's a matter of doing some routine that swaps the depths for all the cards in play so they layout properly from a visual perspective when moved. Scripting is fun (*half-sarcastic lol*), isn't it?

And once all cards are played from the table and free cells and into the foundation cells, the game is a win. If no moves are possible to clear the table (I've still got to figure out how that works programatically, I think I'll just have a manual button in my first implementation), then the game is a loss.

I think I'll give this a shot. I already did the card graphics. Now it's time to start digging into my books and reviewing the actionscript stuff. Other things to add are some stats. Total plays, wins, losses, and win/loss ratio. Maybe some time stats too, like fastest game and average play time. (If other freecell players are like I am, they could care less about other ways of scoring.) I'm also thinking of throwing some quirky goodies into the game, that spoofs the king icon in the MS version. Maybe even have it talk and say random insults when a move isn't allowed, just to make it unique and a bit more fun.

Thingamabob

2009-08-25T10:29:00.003-05:00

Pulled this thing I modeled out of my archive and did a render. I'm not even sure what it's supposed to be. Anyhow it just looks cool. Maybe it could be a plot device?

Automotive Design Terminology

2009-08-14T09:26:00.002-05:00

Yeah, this should be an interesting post. Maybe these terms have bounced around elsewhere, but I figured it would be neat to gather them and put in this blog post. At one time way back I even made a wiki of this, but it was deleted a long time back. So now I've got to start over from scratch...

Here it goes.

Cab: The enclosed or semi-enclosed volume of the car that contains the driver and vehicle occupants.
Cab forward: The passenger area is weighted to the front of the vehicle.
Cab back: The passenger area is moved to the aft of the vehicle.
Greenhouse: The upper section of the cab surrounded by windows. Thus the term.
Wheel arch: The definitive shape made by side on view of a wheel enclosure.
Wheel bucket: The volume of the wheel enclosure.
Fender: An area of the car body or an attached piece that surrounds a wheel.
Fender flare: an outward exension of the body surrounding the wheel arch.
Quarter-panel: a section of a car body that is removable from the main chassis.
Wing: Rear topside spoiler. U.K. also uses this term for fender.
Beltline: An implied line going through the vertical center of the lower body of a vehicle. Sometimes accentuated with trim or two-tone paint.
Swage line: A distinctive line or crease added to the body of a car that enhances the appearance of a visual shape.
cladding: Pieces of trim added to the lower body of a car. Also to protect body paint from road debris.
Spoilers: Trim or body pieces added to the car with the intent of adding aerodynamic downforce.
Trunk: Rear enclosed portion of a sedan or coupe. U.K. calls this a boot.
ground effects: cladding or lower body spoilers added for more aesthetic purposes than functional ones.
Hood: Forward enclosed portion of the car that typically contains the engine. U.K. calls this a bonnet.
Brightwork: polished chrome trim pieces added to a car.
Jeweled glass: various facets or shiny reflectors seen in lights and reflectors.
Bling: contemporary term for eyecatching brightwork and jeweled glass.
Roof line: the distinctive shape defined by the top surfaces of a vehicle as viewed side-on.
window line: the distinctive shape defined by the lower edge of the greenhouse glass.
wheelbase: distance from bottom of front wheel to bottom of rear wheel.
overhang: distance which overhangs the wheelbase, front or rear.

What are the rates?

2009-08-10T15:00:00.003-05:00

I suspect people may want to know how much it costs to get stuff done. So this is what I'm starting out with. I figure they may be on the low side, but since supply exceeds demand at the moment - that's what they are for now.

Cover/Advance fee: $40
Hourly: $15
Rendertime: $15/hr

This is freelance work, no refunds, take-it or leave-it. This means one guy and one computer, so you may have to wait if there are other jobs in the queue. Completed job files will be on a CD or DVD. Additional discs will cost extra.

Pretty simple, huh?

And no, rendertime isn't as cheap as you think it is. I don't have a render-farm yet, and my computer isn't anything new. So you may want to weigh how fancy you want to go on the effects before that process starts. Also rendering is done in Carrara 6. So don't bring outside work unless you're dealing with fairly standard 3D meshes (.obj or .3ds) or actual Carrara .car files. Note that I can do the 3D modeling at the above hourly rate, so I'd suspect you're getting one heck of a deal for the meantime.

When I get more regular work, it's likely I'll adjust the rates again and also come up with an expanded schedule. Of course this depends on what kind of jobs come up. The cheap deal you're getting now is because you're catching me on the startup end. So enjoy it while it lasts, before demand goes up, overhead creeps in, and rates go up.

Oh, and if you're wondering why print runs aren't listed - that's bigger overhead than what I'm able to cover right now. So it has to go outside to be completed. Thus you can either take the graphics files to a service of your own choosing, or you can let me take it to a third party and pass on their rates to you. I figure it's fair to be up front about it so you'll know what you're dealing with.

Not all my 3D is mechanical

2009-08-09T22:54:00.002-05:00

In case people were wondering, not all of my 3D modeling is mechanical type stuff. I do some organic things every now and then. It's just that I'm better at doing things like cars and airplanes and whatnot.
Hope you guys find my hamster amusing. It's probably the most favorited images of mine at one of the graphics forums I post at. Of course it's without the text, but this version is for my own promo type stuff.

What's up now?

2009-08-09T21:13:00.003-05:00

Right now, I'm feeling about as scatterbrained as the Colin Bear. And the fact that Sim City 4 Rush Hour is a lot more addictive with the NAM from SimTropolis added doesn't help. I need to get back into the mode of doing something more productive than that.

Anyhow, I got a flyer on my car last week. Apparently someone else local does graphics services. (But of course it was probably targeted more towards my neigbors, being there's a nightclub ad on the opposite side.) I figure I may check them for possible positions, since I'm not the best pitchman when freelancing solo. I'd rather just make art or do fun animations. So if I can join a team, that would help make things easier. If turned down, that flyer may still give some ideas though. I may have to make a small run of promo stuff too. I'm not so keen on dropping stuff on people's cars, but maybe I could find some businesses with corkboards or such and see if I can get permission to post there. Do the thing with tear-offs showing email, etc.

Another option may be using SSID to bring traffic to this site. But I don't exactly like advertizing my wireless. (Which is different than advertizing through wireless. But you have to one for the other to work, right?) I'm sure it can be found other ways, but I'm not keen on making it obvious. However if it helps get something going, that may be a risk worth taking. I'm still not going to give away traffic through the wireless though, since I really don't know who's poking around the park at all times. Friends and trustworthy folks may get access, but that's a limited audience considering where the signal goes.

Yes, I'm still around

2009-06-18T00:15:00.002-05:00

Yes, I'm still around. Just trying to figure out what to do. But mainly I've been bouncing back and forth between posting to job boards and building my own site. At least until get tired of it all and fall into playing with noise makers or video games. It would be nice to have a regular job so I can be forced to focus on one thing long enough such that my other projects would become more interesting in comparison. Then that way I know I'd get them done too. (I know that explanation sounds wierd, but back when I had a regular job I'd write stuff down during breaks so I could get on them a bit during my non-work hours. Being unemployed is problematic with 100 random ideas popping up every day and having nothing make me focus on getting any developed. Having a creative mind is a problem when it gets too noisy. It's a lot like those old cartoons where a character would run in a dozen directions all at once.)

Starting sales at TurboSquid

2009-05-05T07:36:00.003-05:00

Yes, I know I've made fun of TurboSquid in the past because of overpriced junk. But somebody then poignantly pointed out that it's the artist setting the prices. So I guess I can't entirely call the site on that (but they really should bother to do some product review.) I'm going to be selling some items at TurboSquid soon. Why? Well the other places I've done sales through cater mostly to Poser/Daz figures and such. So if it's not some costume or backdrop for virtual dollies, it tends not to move much. And with flagging sales, they tend to drop my items after a few months. So, I'm going to try my luck at a place where stuff is more miscellaneous. Wish me luck!

Minor update: Took me a bit to figure out some things. Also there has been some price markup on items sold at T.S. This is because they don't allow items to be sold for under $10. But relatively speaking it's still a bargain. (Compare the similar goods!) No longer a cheeseburger priced bargain, but rather my things are pizza priced bargains.

And this is my store at TurboSquid. Feel free to take a look.

Disney's Recycling

2009-05-02T23:49:00.002-05:00

Somebody on one of the forums I go to gave this a link, and I thought it was funny enough to put here. It's funny how much recycling they do, no wonder why they don't want it to go into public domain just yet. lol

Oh yeah, you're going to want the linky! Here it is!
The article at Metro.co.uk.

iScribble Rocks!

2009-02-17T15:28:00.003-06:00

I'm sure some stuff in my review of iScribble didn't sound the best, but overall I'm liking that particular web-app. No shortage of people to collab with, and the drawing tools level the playing field where you're relying more on technique than anything else. (No secret "hidden" tools or unusual theory to applying some process.)

Here's some links to my works or collabs there, enjoy!:

http://www.iscribble.net/gallery/drawing122876-Hamster-and-a-Yak.html
http://www.iscribble.net/gallery/drawing105098-Time-Killed-for-a-Pretty-Face.html
http://www.iscribble.net/gallery/drawing120797-Moon-Buggy.html

A Portfolio Review

2009-01-24T09:07:00.003-06:00

A review of various CGI renders and "PhotoShopping", in case anybody visiting wants to get an idea of how diversely I can apply such skills. I would think that the selection is entertaining enough without being too gaudy or odd.

Edit--
Oh yeah, try not to notice the clipping of images too much. I tried scaling down the cross-linked images enough already, and the blogger CMS still leaves a few rough edges. So there are some things to be desired with the presentation, but I need to get on with doing some other things.

I have this sort of love/hate relationship with 3D rendering. I love it because I can make things that look almost real, and I can make and have stuff in a virtual world that I wouldn't be able to afford otherwise. I hate it because my computer isn't the newest thing, and trying to do some things requires processing power and ties up my computer such that I can't be doing those other things. Some renders take hours, and I'm not at a point where I can build a render-farm just yet.

I just noticed an "oops!" on my biplane above. (Did you notice it?) But since this isn't any commercial project and took some hours to render already, I'll let it go this time. If it was for something more important, I'd re-do or take a money hit on a deadline snafu to make up for it.

Ahh... Good ol' PhotoShop. There's a reason why it's an industry standard. And this is done with an older version. Either 7 or CS, nothing newer than either of those. Anything CS or later is pretty much icing on the cake. Still it makes me wonder why they'd call something stripped down to less than 7 "Essentials". They should just release 7 or the oldest CS under that name, and it would be groovy. Want the extras and toys? Then get the pro version. Still it's neat that I can make my car resemble a micro-machine toy in under an hour or so.

And here's my shopping cart 3D model. Perhaps it's not the most impressive thing to some folks. But guess what, this particular model has actually made me some money. Not huge, "OMG it's a business venture success!" kind of money. But rather, I can get a tank of gas or a pizza every now and then kind of money. It still wouldn't come close to covering rent or anything like that. And the price on it isn't at some ridiculous TurboSquid trumped up value. Nope. It's a reasonable $5.50 or so. Around the price of a typical meal at Burger King. And if you want to download it for that modest sum, it's over at Renderosity.com.

One place where brand identity could be better

2008-12-18T14:51:00.003-06:00

On most things, I think being a little too tight about brand identity is silly. But I have found one place where it's lax to the point of annoyance. That is, it's too easy for the consumer to be mislead about what they're getting. And what product is that? Pencils, of all things. Yeah, you'd think that there wouldn't be that big a deal with some of the cheapest writing instruments around, but if you're a person who draws a lot (like myself) it's noticable. The thing I notice is that an Eberhard Faber Ebony pencil is a lot better than a Sanford Ebony pencil. But Sanford does make a nice Mirado pencil, however when going back for more Mirados, there's yet another company making pencils by that name. So as a consumer I'm being left uncertain or even mislead about what quality I'm getting. So yeah, it's really annoying.

Also on another tangent, what happened to Bic pens. I can't find 'em at the store. I thought they were a pretty established brand and a staple item in the writing instrument aisle. Sure, sometimes their quality varied, but they were consistent more than not for the cheap price. Now they're not there... I guess if I miss a cheap pen, what would it be like if certain auto companies would disappear if I wanted to see what product they had. (But I wouldn't be in the market for a car, until the stupid economy straightens out so I could get paid "real" money to work instead of the namby-pamby stingy bullshit paying jobs out there right now.)

Line-up of the interactive drawing programs.

2008-12-02T22:48:00.003-06:00

Ok. I ended up finding yet another interactive drawing program. So now I'll write about it but all while doing a comparison to the other ones I know.

The "new" contender I found is iscribble.net, which is a flash based web app. It's neat because not only does it allow you to share the drawing space at the same time, but it puts a username by each cursor so you can see who is drawing what. And it also features a chat window, so you can communicate quickly and without using up the drawing space. The downside is that it's a little restrictive. Even though they request that users are over 16, you're still not allowed to do much of anything considered risque under their site rules. Also new users have to go through a probation type period where the toolset and site features are reduced. So if you're fresh, you more or less have to wait for somebody who has been around longer to save your work or submit it to the gallery.

The next one I'll go over is Flashitool. It's a neat web-based Joomla extension type app. And it allows drawing in a manner similar to iscribble.net, but without some of the additional features. In some ways it's pluses can be seen as iscribbles minuses, or perhaps the other way around. But one thing that I do like is that what tools it does have aren't restricted to a subset of users. And it's probably the most open and anonymous of all the interactive drawing apps.

After that, there's Drawball. It has a really limited toolset, and it's big attraction was anonymous access to one large common drawing space. It's a big grafitti space and used to have some pretty wild and crazy stuff. And it attracted a lot of 4chan people, so it had some freaky rule 34 wtf? kind of stuff amongst the art and grafitti. But now in the process of cleaning it up, a lot of the insanity has been erased and it's more restrictive. So although it may be safer, it's also not quite as fun as it once was.

Then last but not least is probably THE classic interactive collaborative drawing program. Unlike the others, openCanvas 1.1 is a standalone drawing application that runs under Windows OS. Since it's a dedicated art program rather than a script under a web interface, it has the best toolset and responsiveness. And it's a great app for drawing even outside of the network interface. However, it requires some techical aspects to networking if you have to get past a router. (Ports and such must be unblocked.) Also, by being a standalone app, it's restriction to Windows might put off frieds who use Mac OS or Linux.

So here's the quick overview:

iscribble:
Pros:

web based
nice interface
good toolset
big audience
reduced anonymity
gallery feature
interactive portion of design is best so far

Cons:

web based (sometimes it hiccups, or server goes down)
toolset is limited for new users
gallery feature is limited for new users
drawing subjects are limited to PG-13

Flashitool:
Pros:

anonymous (draw whatever the hell you want)
everything goes into the gallery (if you remember the link, you can share it)
no restrictions on newbs
web based
unrestricted
Part of FOSS web content system
Available at more than one website (in fact you can have it on YOUR website - for FREE!)

Cons:

anonymous (no official way to claim participation in a drawing)
can be slow or buggy sometimes, not every feature works properly
everything goes into the gallery (think backlog w/ poor search features)
no rules or restrictions (people can mess up your art)

Drawball
Pros:

One big drawing space for everything (it's like a gallery in a big map or something)
~~anonymity~~
cool art
interesting interface design

Cons:

very limited toolset
some stuff was too wierd (but it's mostly gone now)
forced restriction of "ink" resource
One bid drawing space for everything (to do new stuff, old stuff has to be drawn over)

openCanvas (specifically openCanvas version 1.1 b 72)
Pros:

Standalone application (more responsive than anything on web-based Flash or Java apps)
Best toolset (Does really neat things with color blending and is pressure sensitive)
Good program for drawing even when not using network feature
Records the drawing process, and saved files can be replayed

Cons:

Windows OS only
Networking program may require some knowledge of computer networking
Networked mode only allows four users maximum
Program was early "beta" poorly translated from Japanese (Some dialogs produce gibberish)
Cache in networked mode prone to glitching on sessions over an hour (remote user input fails to render correctly after that time)
Audience for networked drawing is limited (finding other people willing to draw with you isn't as easy as it should be)

Fun with lightbox

2008-11-23T00:29:00.003-06:00

Basically I made a kludge of a device for diffuse lighting on close-up shots of small items. Nothing too fancy. But I know there's junk that can be sold on eBay or whatever. But it's artistic in the sense that I can use it for photos of things I'm making too. Or random stuff. It'll be handy.

Addenum: Looking how others implemented this with studio flashes, I just came up with a great idea for "ghetto" strobes for additional lighting on the cheap. Basically it involves the the blinker type bulb for the small holiday "twinkle" lights, a 9v battery (or two), and some aluminum foil for a reflector. Being that it's the season, the blinker bulbs should be available in stores now. Just gotta go hunting. And yes, the strobe can get very hot and is bright enough to burn your retina if you look at it. (I made one before as a kid so I learned some things, but had no real good use for it. Now I know of a reasonable implementation and the memory came back to me. *grin*) But it'll be handy if you set it up properly for taking photos. Just don't stare at the thing and handle it properly.

Job Hunting Sucks

2008-11-17T13:45:00.004-06:00

Job Hunting Sucks... so I made a short funny animation about it. But what the hey. I guess I consider the worst offenders those who post as "entry level position" but require 5 years experience. Guess what? If the job actually requires 5 years experience, you're lying about it being "entry level"! And what I find amusing is that the HR ass-clowns (pardon my terminology, but their behavior obviously put them in the category) don't understand why they're not getting qualified people. Do they understand what entry level means? Entry level means: amateur, beginner, and absolute noob. Now I doubt you'll find people smurfing (as in gaming) in the creative industry just to get their jollies at lower pay. If you want the experience, say so up front and expect to pay for it! Otherwise, give people who need to get into an industry an honest shot at trying. And if newbies on the job aren't up to snuff, fine, get someone else three months later. But don't post nonsense on job listings and not expect to get nonsense applications in return. It doesn't work that way.

Oh yeah, my rant video... (Or at least what I made in under a day, or five hours even.)

Actually I could do better quality, but there are still other things I'd do with my time besides perfecting a rant video. (I just needed to get some stuff out of my head.) Now if someone wanted to spend money so I'd take a week or so making and polishing an animation for them, I'm all for it. Would around $20/hr be out of line?

I hate to rant on my art blog, but sometimes I have to share such things with a bigger audience than my normal "rant" blog gets. But next post will definitely be art related randomness again.

Square Smoothed Holes in Wings 3D

2008-10-29T10:59:00.002-05:00

Two demos I made showing how to make square holes stay square when smoothing them in Wings 3D. Enjoy.

And method number 2.

Oh, and not to forget an equally good third method. (Thanks to Fonte Boa!)

Another Shuttle Vid

2008-10-18T11:35:00.002-05:00

This one is less advert and just a plain ol' flyby. Perhaps someone out there will appreciate my 3D modeling. Sometimes I wish I could do something more showy in the vid, but when it takes about 2 hours of computer time to render... I just don't quite feel all that productive doing that. If only I knew someone with a Carrara based render farm that didn't mind being generous about giving away some machine time.

M-Balla-balla?

2008-10-03T16:05:00.002-05:00

Spotted this hilarious vid posted in the IRC group #rendergods. I'm not sure what the hell the dude is saying, but the animation is nicely done and funny and the music is pretty cool. If anyone cares to translate what little dialog there is, feel free to post in the comments or on the video itself.

Quick Shuttle Preview

2008-09-30T20:51:00.002-05:00

Just watch the vid, it's pretty short and still gives a nice look.

Oh yeah, you might want to download it...
Here's the link: http://www.sharecg.com/v/28809/3d-model/pauljs75_NasaShuttle

Yes, this place is random.

2008-09-28T05:26:00.003-05:00

I know, some of you see my link associated with 3D stuff (which I do enjoy making) and expect to find more info on it here. But then you see my other random artwork. Yes, I am an artist in general. So that means not everything will consist of 3D polygonal meshes. Sometimes I do get bored of 3D, so I do other things to stretch my legs in regards to other artistic aspects so I don't get too rusty. But in the end, I do come back to doing 3D. Perhaps it's more tame than other things I enjoy making, so it probably is a suprise when you come here and see ridiculous cartoons and drawings. Hopefully it entertains more than offends, even if it seems less sensible sometimes. :)

But for the update in this post, I've uploaded a pretty neat model of the NASA Space Shuttle orbiter with UV maps, and plan on making a bare-bones version of my OH-6A model available soon. Thanks for dropping by, and if you do - comment. I've yet to see any on this blog. It would be nice to know if there are actual visitors, because then I just might be inspired to make more interesting content.

Photoshop Poop Pt. 2.

2008-09-12T01:09:00.002-05:00

Just having some fun with the ol' hamster pic and some other funny pic I snagged off the net. Nothing too major, but maybe lol-worthy.

Moar PhotoShop Poo

2008-09-08T16:18:00.002-05:00

More PhotoShop poo, because who ever bothers to look at this blog anyways?
This time its some cutie pootie random anime inspired thing. Why? I don't know.

PhotoShop Experiment gone wrong

2008-09-07T18:15:00.002-05:00

Just playing around with some different stuff because I got bored a bit. Trying out various brushes and things to see if there's any interesting results. Didn't find too much of importance, but the practice couldn't hurt anything.

Faster faster faster!

2008-06-26T01:59:00.003-05:00

Too bad cheering on a render can't make it go any faster. But that's the way it goes sometimes. Almost makes me wish I had at least two decent computers instead of one. So that way one could render and the other could be used for other productive stuff. (Not sure if web browsing or chat could be considered that productive, but at least I can do those two and leave 99% of the other cycles free for Carrara to render on.)

I think I'll have a really spiffy airplane pic once it's all done though. Hopefully the volumetric clouds assigned to a particle emitter in order to produce a believable smoke trail are worth the wait.

The better "Ebony" pencil is...

2008-06-18T10:32:00.004-05:00

If you like to draw the ol' fashioned way on occasion, sometimes you go to the art store and buy pencils and such...

Anyhow I went and got some extra "Ebony" pencils, because they draw nice and dark and fairly smoothly without a lot of pressure. So when doing quick random sketches, they're hard to beat.

You would think they're all the same, but there happens to be more than one brand with that label or designation. I found in my own testing that the Eberhard Faber ones draw just a bit darker and smoother than the Sanford ones.

So take note if you see both brands available at an art store, the Eberhard Faber ones are better. (At least for the "Ebony" type pencils. Your results and consistency may vary for other types.)

Thinking of some page design stuff...

2008-06-16T11:17:00.002-05:00

I'm wondering about something now in regards to web page design. It seems like the trend is that monitors will be getting higher and higher resolution in the future. It is such now that XGA size is the most common (which is good, since I like it. It's sharp enough, yet refreshes plenty fast). But in the future even that will be towards the SVGA and VGA side of display resolutions. Also the market for widescreen aspect monitors is going up, so even that has to be thrown in the mix in addition to the 4:3 ratio screens.

Why is this a problem? It will make things more difficult to design properly by the pixel. What looks good on one screen will look itty-bitty on a high-res display, and will bleed off the viewed page in a horrible manner on a lower-res display. What can be done about this?

But I've noticed one thing that's really cool in the latest and greatest (as of this blog post) Firefox 3. When you use the page zoom feature, it properly scales the images in addition to the text. And the browser rendering seems to be able to do so in a smoother manner than forced sizing of the past. (Doesn't tend to get too blocky scaling up, nor aliased/oversharp looking scaling down.) What does this mean? Well, I'm thinking that HTML/CSS should (if not already does) support declaring image sizes by pts, inches, mm, or other sizes independent of actual pixel resolution. So you can have a 1"x1.5" pic on a page regardless of screen resolution. Throw in font size set by pts instead of px, and the layout stuff becomes a lot more consistent. Almost like print.

Now there is one downside I could think of too this, but it falls upon either the stupidity/ignorance of the OS or even the computer user. And that is an improperly set display dot pitch ratio. If it's wrong, the images on their screen will not scale properly to the physical space on the screen. Currently a lot systems assume 72dpi for screen display, but this is obviously wrong. A lot of newer stuff is more like 96 or 120dpi, and can even go higher for those occasional crazy-big monitors. But then again, I think some newer setups have more plug n' play built to correct this... So designing a page to dimensions rather than pixels may be the sensible way to go.

Flashitool raid! (Part II or whatever)

2008-06-06T13:21:00.003-05:00

Some more fun with Flashitool. Maybe they won't find out it was meeeee. *Grin* Oh wait, this gets indexed on google pretty quickly, doesn't it? Oh well. Anyhow, if it was your site I raided - I hope you don't mind too much.

Here's the latest works that I did which I thought were halfway decent.

Some chicky with who know's what lurking behind...
At a site about random stuff.

Then an ol' fart with a machine that's too complicated for him.
I believe this is on a Tasmanian site about horses. (Of all things.)

Randomness video

2008-06-04T04:58:00.002-05:00

I'm having fun trying to make some Flash video to some random thing I found on Archive.org. It's going to be pretty funny when it's finished. Here's a little exerpt of it showing the current progress.

Sphereical UV mapping in Wings3D

2008-06-03T11:28:00.015-05:00

UV mapping is quite a powerful, if not well understood aspect of Wings3D. Someone asks, "How is spherical mapping done?" So here's a quick overview of the process.

First start with an object that terminates with a pole on each end. Yeah, it's called "spherical" mapping, but it should work with anything that has poles on the ends. (But a sphere is typically the most obvious thing that terminates in poles on both ends when it comes to polygonal 3D modeling.)

Select the sphere in object mode, then click UV Mapping. You should get a segmenting mode window. For spherical mapping to work, just select a single line of edges that terminates at both poles. Mark these edges for cut in the segmenting window.

Right click, and pick continue. For mapping, pick spherical. You should get something like this. If you don't mind extreme pinching at the poles in the your map, you could finish it like this. I'll show you how to relax the pinching by a bit. (Although not perfect, it's better than none.)

Select the pole vertices in the chart like so.

Then switch to edge mode. It will automatically select the edges that are connected to the vertices you had selected in the previous step. Hit alt-L to extend the edge selection by one segment for all selected edges.

Then right click and pick cut. You should notice some slight spacing between the edges you had selected.
Select the whole chart in object mode, move to center, and scale to 90%. This will give a little room to work with around the map.

Select all the vertices as seen in the pic. Notice how the verices that are along the edges that were cut apart earlier are not selected.

Now without deselecting those vertices, chose unfold from the right-click menu. If you did it right, you should have something like the above pic. It's actually not too different from Mercator (I believe that's the method) mapping of a globe. By no means perfect, but it relaxes some of the distortion going to the poles.

When done creating the texture, you should have something like the above pic. Now that wasn't too hard, was it? Easy peasy really.

I wonder if I'll get through...

2008-05-27T19:33:00.005-05:00

Yet again I'm trying to break through that experience wall and get a job doing this stuff. No go yet (I followed up on a job lead, but still didn't meet that one arbitrary requirement), but that doesn't stop me from trying. Maybe no "entry" jobs (the existance of which seems to be the cruel joke of the industry), but perhaps plying for a paid internship or settling for freelance scraps that I just might be able to grab.

Also I've got a great little biplane model up on ShareCG. Developing it into a complete (as with UV's and being preconfigured for at least one program) been an ongoing recent project of mine. Only thing slowing stuff down with its development is that the "select similar" command in Wings3D has gotten very balky in one of the more recent releases. After hitting select similar, you can go for a hike, read a book, take a bath, eat dinner, go to bed, wake up the next day, eat breakfast, and it's still not done. It's slower than some renders I've done. Dunno what got broken there, but that command used to work pretty quick in older versions. (Like in under 2 minutes quick on stuff with high polys.) It's really stumping my workflow on my project, otherwise I might be onto making some different texture sets instead of just waiting to get the UV mapping done.

I think I saw one of my models in a TV ad

2008-05-16T00:01:00.002-05:00

There's no definitive way to prove it, but I suspect my $6.25 shopping cart ("PJS Shopping Cart" in the Renderosity Marketplace) is in a TV spot for Kia. That'd be funny. At least somebody got a good deal out of using it for a job ($6.25 for an item in a production spot that probably went for $1000s... If only I could pull that off... *shrug* It's cool even if they did use it though, as commercial use is allowed under the sale licence.) Now I'm tempted to do a parody render of that particular spot, dunno if they'd ever notice since I typically fly under the radar. (Unfortunately I'm under the radar on work prospects too, but that doesn't stop me completely. At least until the savings runs out.)

Googling "Flashitool" is fun.

2008-04-05T15:13:00.004-05:00

I'm sure you've heard me mention Flashitool at least one time before. (People do read this blog, right?) But googling it is pretty fun, since you can find all sorts of places for anonymous public exhibition left wide open. Sure you've got your typical 12 year old who thinks pee-pee and poo-poo and various scat and pron is funny when hitting those sites. Bah! That takes no effort nor skill. (At least in all the crude examples I've ever seen.) As for myself, I just like leaving art droppings at various sites. This is where you push flashitool to the limit and bother to do shading and color transitions and maybe even work in fine detail. Such "works" are fun, because it's a marked contrast to the typical vandalism that hits bulletin boards with the flashitool feature. I find more hilarity in making an old smiley crudely drawn with a mouse transition into a Mona Lisa portrait than phallic doodles. But that's just me.

Only catch is to do art droppings you've got to be pretty good with the Wacom. Sure you could mouse it, but then you have to be crazy-like. I'm suprised the Chinese haven't hit those things, because some of them are pretty impressive at what they've done on Drawball. And that has more limitations than Flashitool. It really isn't about the tools when it comes to drawing programs, but rather in how they're used.

My useless degree. Or is it?

2008-04-02T09:08:00.004-05:00

I found I actually had my transcript stashed away afterall. And I had a GPA that was slightly higher than I thought it was. Still there are some extra (but required) courses on the thing that I sucked at anyways. But for the most part, not too bad. I did a lot better in the first two years though. (Had honors for my Associates.) I guess I started to wear down later on. Might be interesting to share...

Now if only I can get a job related to it. Been practically two years since graduating now. Still no bites, I suppose I'll update the resume and use my transcript as part of it. 'Tis a lot better than what I could remember and had written. (Yeah, my memory isn't so great at some things. It's crazy, I know.)

Going to try selling some stuff soon...

2008-03-12T16:57:00.001-05:00

Got the DAZ3D thing signed up for, going to try my hand at selling a few models. As much as I like making freebie stuff, I'd also like to recoup a bit by having pay-for models. So look for my shopping cart model to show up soon, since that one's going to be my first try at this. Don't worry about the price, it shouldn't be much more expensive than a fast-food meal provided I have any say.

New vid up...

2008-02-08T13:12:00.000-06:00

A spoof on the ol' game known as Gyruss, but also a bit self-promotional of Barbequed Pixels. There might be the odd chance that it could get somebody to look at this crazy blog. Dunno what that's worth though, but hey - why not?

Flashitool vs Flash-gear...

2008-01-20T21:22:00.000-06:00

Was going to kill some time goofing off at drawball, but had this weird trippy video instead of the typical ball insanity. But then noticed a tiny little message in the status bar. Something about flash-gear.com. Has a neat drawing thingy, but I'm not sure how it compares to Flashitool. Flashitool has more features, but this flash-gear site has linking and appears that you don't have to run your own website or server to manage the thing... Hmmm...

Here's my flash-gear thing as it is now...

provided by flash-gear.com

Drawball fun - Be careful what you ask for!

2008-01-11T00:58:00.001-06:00

As usual on drawball, be careful what you ask for. You might actually get it. Whoever did the my little pony asked to rebuild, but they never said *how* to rebuild it. Damn skippy I'm going to get my LOLz in there while I can! So there you go!

Cthulu Trys out for Talent Show.

2008-01-07T20:34:00.000-06:00

Seems I managed to acquire this rare footage where Cthulu makes an entry for a vocal talent contest. It's so bad that it's funny!

The Warpaint Comic

2008-01-05T10:01:00.000-06:00

A little something involving the Warpaint Project...

Anyone interested?

New model recently...

2008-01-02T10:12:00.000-06:00

Not sure how many people would be interested, but at the end of last month I released a 3D freebie based on what few drawings and pics of the Bede BD-5J that I could find with some degree of detail. You might remember the plane from James Bond Octopussy or even something more obscure such as Microprose's AcroJet game/sim for the C-64 or Atari computers. Not sure which memory was more inspiring, but that's besides the point. The point is that I made a fairly decent (if not entirely accurate - too much variation or low res between pics) model that you can download for free. Not only that, but it can be used for pretty much anything because it's released under GPL v2. So feel free to throw it in your sim, game, image or whatever. Just don't forget the rules/terms of the GPL release concerning files & documentation.Feel free to download this neat freebie from it's page at ShareCG.

And on another note, I'm trying to figure out how to revive Project Warpaint. I've been having the lousiest luck at doing so in my last couple of attempts, so I need someone with some better online charisma to get the ball rolling. It's a great little project too, I always thought being able to draw with a few other people in real time through the internet was a cool idea. Unfortunately the few fans it did have have jumped ship or completely lost interest in it. Also finding newbs to pick up the slack has not happened just yet.

Ahhh... Sweet robotic pastimes...

2007-11-14T21:54:00.000-06:00

None of my work this time - busy at the moment...

But a look back at a cartoon series that died young. One of the better parodys out there of various cartoons, videogames, and things '80s and '90s. Not quite sure if it could be resurected properly anyways given the couple years that have passed. But it's still fun to look back since it can be found on the 'tube...

Megas XLR, episode I:
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Hope you enjoy...

Wheels a spinning...

2007-11-05T22:55:00.000-06:00

But not getting much traction as of yet. Trying to pull in some graphics or 3D modeling gigs, but getting the whole starving artist thing to work in the online world doesn't seem to pan out as well. But yeah that's the case. So if I ever disappear for a good while - that might be it. Hell I don't know if I can even pull insurance for the upcoming period... So I might not even be able to drive to a job even if offered one. Crazy, huh? But luck might hold out and I could get an advance to cover some loose ends or perhaps they could be kind enough to let me telecommute before the 'rents get too tired of me or something...

At least schools going ok, but the wheels are also spinning and going nowhere on the Flash project I'm supposed to cook up. It's one thing to have ideas flash by, but it doesn't help when none hook up well enough to be grounded where it does something useful. I guess my mind gets too spastic sometimes.

Anyhow I saw someone posting at R'osity about their new blog and took a look for the heck of it. It's called CGcontentWatch and it's plenty amusing, since it highlights what is utterly crap-tastic in the 3D modeling world and then goes about disecting it. Great fun, and I get a laugh. (Also goes into some general CG related topics too. Which may or may not be interesting depending on who you talk to.) But there may be one thing about the creators of some of those awful examples out there, they somehow manage to get jobs... And there I am going around online "knocking on doors" (Hello?!?) while possible employers hide with the lights turned low and pretending like they're not home... WTF? Ironic, huh?

Hunting for some decent .swf hosting...

2007-10-23T06:58:00.001-05:00

I've been needing to find a good place for .swf files. Seems there's little in the way that allows direct linking or hosting of those things. And those that do have a file size ceiling that's too low. And those that don't have the ceiling have some other requirements of content (Has to be a short or game, and below such and such rating, it disappears) that makes hosting tricky... There's got to be at least one good place for experimenting with interactive content of a more random nature... Or maybe I'll just have to dig up an old website and see if I can still get into it. (Dunno if I remember the passwords even.) Probably won't do the remote linking thingy I'm looking for though.

Anyhow, I wonder why blog places will host a 100MB movie, but not a 10MB .swf? Seems funny.

At least I can get under 2MB stuff onto imageshack.us. Which is nice. Now if only their servers weren't so darn spotty...

New Grounds "My Art Post" Memorial Monument

2007-10-18T16:35:00.000-05:00

Dearly beloved "My Art Post", how we hardly knew ye. You disappeared from public reckoning at an age so tenderly young. Missing in action with hardly a report on status or what exactly was wrong. Not even an inbox message nor appearance of warning, nor locked thread. Shall it be an ever shortsighted TOS or lack of flexibility in what constitutes a proper thumb, or an admin pulling the trigger due to complaints about forum GUI absurdity - we shall never know. But in your memory, we erect this monument here in cyberspace at this blog. May all the pictures you contained for purposes of sharing live on in this blog and elsewhere in the freedoms of the internet for which you were one to soldier on.

Images that were featured in the missing post:

Yey for spam!

2007-10-17T08:39:00.000-05:00

Ok, not the spam you get in your email box - mind you. I still hate that kind. But rather my little quick plug on Google Video for one of my freebies. Somebody just might run across the thing and drop by here or take a look at the freebies I'm offering at ShareCG.

Wheel Modeling Tutorial

2007-10-04T12:43:00.000-05:00

If you're a fairly new Wings-nut and want to know a fairly quick way to make a halfway decent car wheel model, then I've got a video for you. If you've got a couple minutes to spare, then you can follow along and see how it's done...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7858053698225117796&hl=en

Some new vids

2007-09-22T21:00:00.000-05:00

Just some cartoons with talking characters that I animated in Flash. Took a while, but made a run with it... Crazy stuff!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2993695146740577803&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8808706858802806630&hl=en

Same ol' freebies, brand new home

2007-09-15T17:11:00.000-05:00

So it appears that I'll have an online equivalent of "moving day" soon, since my friends site, www.digitallights.net, is going in another direction. Gotta say it was fun while it lasted. It was great having a place to share content with fellow artists, but now the content is taking up space - and hi-res photography is the new thing. Bandwidth isn't free, so time to pick up and move out. Which might be a good thing, since I may get more exposure of my freestuff and whatever 3D skills I may have at a site dedicated in particular to free 3D models. So you'll see the same ol' freebies you may have known me for before, but now over at ShareCG. I figure it'll work out.

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(Update 10/18/2007) Turns out just some organizing going on. So some old stuff is still over there for archival's sake. But I'd still take on opportunity to get new exposure, so things got copied over to ShareCG anyways.

Wings3D couch speed modeling

2007-08-29T21:09:00.000-05:00

Just for shits and giggles, I speed modeled a couch. Probably because of something in a discussion in one of my classes at school. (Already have my degree, just trying to get a refresher and maybe fill in some gaps regarding cursory rather than in-depth instruction.) Someone said they wouldn't touch Wings3D. Maybe 'cuz they saw Blender at one time and assumed all OpenSource 3D apps had the difficult-to-use cooties. Who knows... Anyhow they said that in a 3D class one of the projects was to model a couch of all things... LOL! Ok, it's on! Gimme mah Catmull-Clark subdiv polygons! So the task was to fire up the good ol' Wings3D and poo out a couch as fast as possible.

On a side note: Might also be a good tut kinda thing for Wings newbs too. Shows bevel being used to produce paired edges to control smoothing tension, why the ring and edge loop selection tools are handy, and why slide is more than useful.

And on another aside... Tried the drawball.com thing recently. And now instead of infinite ink, I have practically 0% no matter what. Turns out that some time or other my broadband cable IP address rolled over at some point. Maybe some lucky bastard (if they ever go to drawball) will get to enjoy that infinite ink... But in other news, Warpaint is getting more active again. Which is good, since openCanvas is a much better and responsive interface than the Drawball Flash app despite some other limitations.

Warpaint is back online! Really?

2007-05-14T07:36:00.000-05:00

Good news for those who think the idea of collaborative drawing in realtime is pretty cool, Warpaint is back online. More or less it's a nifty server program that makes it easy to join an active openCanvas 1.1 session through a web based interface. It's fun, and unlike drawball - you can control it to some extent (provided that you're the server host).

Yey! More Drawball fun!

2007-04-12T09:03:00.000-05:00

Chicago Theater sign I painted in Drawball. I think this one earned me some infinite ink. Woohoo! Now hopefully I'll try to be nice enough to keep it (the infinite ink that is).

And here's a birdie I did before the Chicago Theater sign. This one was just a bit of fun and goofing around.

Hey folks, I'm available for freelance work...

2007-04-07T07:57:00.000-05:00

In case nobody noticed, I'm available for freelance work. I know this blog is the most unlikely conduit, but what the heck. The one thing that makes this tricky is I'm not exactly a focused person when it comes to creative design work, but more of a jack of all trades. I do flash, html, 3D modeling and rendering, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.
Finding a place that will let me get my foot in the door is akin to storming a fortress solo. I don't quite have the ninja skills to climb walls, so I have to wait that moment for a door to open up unguarded. It hasn't happened just yet. So the challenge and difficulty of the task at hand is rather steep. In the meantime, I'm relegated to part-time stuff that doesn't even begin to utilize any talents I may posess. (Data entry and stuff like that, which pays half what I need for my own place even.) It's fustrating.
So what should I offer for freelance work, since a regular creative-type job seems to pass by on the wayside? I suppose I could make custom 3D models. $50 up front, and another $50 for a completed work. Just the mesh and UV, since rigging is another thing I don't have the tools for. $100 U.S. for a complete custom made 3D model. That's probably cheap considering what you could get elsewhere. Anyone?

Kicking around the drawball

2007-03-29T05:48:00.000-05:00

Drawball is this random thing that's like an unattended (mostly so, since the admins are pretty lax) graffitti wall. It gives you a stingy (about 15%) amount of ink every day, and then it's up to you to eke out something in whatever niche you can find with what you've got. But don't expect your work to last more than a day (or hours) even, unless you can get a group or hired minions to maintain your drawing.

Anyhow, here's some samples of goofiness that I've pulled off there so far. Usually because of the skimpy ink allotted, I end up building around or extending on something rather than trying something completely new. But it's still fun if you wait about 2-1/2 days. Just note that if you wait too long, it rolls over back to 0% and you've got to let it cycle again. Which is a drag, but what the hey...

Drawball Cat: A play on the ceiling cat internet joke. What makes it funny in this instance is how it's aptly located on the main board.

Ms. Fugly: Found a spot where someone was practicing drawing eyes and mouths. Made a face by adding a nose, and soon enough this happened. Being intentionally bad, it wasn't long before it got erased. But before that happened someone wrote, "OMG! NO!". Which had me laughing.

Seal of Approval: Another image, like the ceiling cat - its humor is based on where it's located. Vandalized already, apparently typical drawballers lack the skills to develop their lowbrow humor beyond empty threats and weak phallic doodles. So when something funny in a similar but more technically developed manner, they get envious and have to destroy it.

Ugh, no sauce!

2007-01-11T00:32:00.000-06:00

Ugh! No bbq sauce for these pixels. Which is why they're so dry and not tasty. But who even goes here other than to "lol" anyhow?

Experimentalism is ok, but eventually this place will need a real plan.

I predict rennovation, and the possibility of a suprise attack involving 3D modeling, cars, and Wings3D tutorials in the future.

I n33dZ a n3w Th3m3z0rs...

2006-06-25T15:25:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know I need a new visual theme for this blog. (No it's not going to be all that leet, I'm just trying to humor some guy named Rayraz. I think he's a fan of this place.) I've got an idea of sorts, but it still needs to be worked out. (It's in the sketch book phaze.)

I've just got to figure out a decent motif that shows the RGB components of pixels being torched to the point of absorbing flavorful goodness. (Like otherstuff that gets barbequed.) Which isn't quite going on right now. (There's the coals, but not much meat.)

Yey Warpaint...

2006-05-09T23:50:00.000-05:00

Ok, more like a gripe at the world in general. Nothing against Warpaint really, but rather the seeming unwillingness of others to participate in the fun. Ask people to install and run the Warpaint download and then click on a link so that they can join an ongoing OpenCanvas 1.1 session. What happens? I run a server for over an hour and only get tumbleweeds and the sounds of crickets chirping. Not that I haven't tried. Anyhow, since I have OpenCanvas up - may as well draw something anyways. Made this little graffitti dude and threw in some text as a free plug for the warpaint server client thingy.
Also I think another noisome thing is firewalls and routers not being too clear when it comes to configurating... (Is that a word?) ...Or configuring or whatever. Anyhow the default port that has to be forwarded or triggered is 9001 for Warpaint/OpenCanvas, and I doubt it's used much in common protocols so it's likely to be sealed up more often than not. I have explained to some extent what needs to be done, but most folks don't even know what a port is - let alone how to pull up the configuration settings for their particular router and/or firewall. Meh...

First video tutorial of sorts...

2006-04-20T08:04:00.000-05:00

Alright, I just created my first Wings3D video tutorial. It's probably the first Wings3D specific thing on Google Video, so that's pretty cool. I'm still new at doing the screen recording and video editing, so it's probably a kludge job of sorts. Also I ran into some software problems with the desktop recorder that caused Wings3D to crash (normally it wouldn't, the particular version is stable under normal circumstances.) Basically it's for modeling a car, and it's almost the same as a tutorial I posted at Wikibooks. I think I'll redo it in a while. Also look for some more tutorials on Wings3D. I just have to get the process of recording these things sorted out.

PHP and CSS hijinks over at R'osity

2006-04-09T17:20:00.000-05:00

Within the last week, all the forum servers at Renderosity have been converted to a new PHP format. At first everyone was stuck with certain formatting, but later on they gave us some CSS to fiddle around with. If it weren't for a lot of layout still locked up in tables, there'd be a lot of neat stuff that could be done - similar in layout to this blog. (Or what's possible on any Blogger blog.) Ah well...

On a side note... If I somehow ever startup a full fledged web design studio - I'll probably use the name you see here. I don't have the money/experience just yet, so I'll try to get work at some other design place... But if you see the "bbq-px" name on a business, say hi sometime. (And if for some reason it's not me, I claimed it first. I did a full search for the name, and nobody else had it. So I know it's original. Thus my copyright... Let 'em know.)

Hmm... Wings3D v0.98.33 not so good on 98/Me

2006-02-27T21:27:00.000-06:00

Seems that v.0.98.33 is broken on Win 98 and Me machines. Hopefully this will get fixed soon. In the meantime, I'm going back to using v.0.98.31 (it's more reliable).

I guess that's it for today.

Something nifty for 2D drawing fun.

2006-02-20T09:40:00.000-06:00

Check out www.warpaint.se. The guys there have been working on a server client for an ol' classic that I just discovered called OpenCanvas 1.1. Although it doesn't have many features as a drawing/paint program, what it does do is pretty great. It's like the Wings3D of 2D. But in addition to being quite responsive to stylus input, it also features two other great abilities which are networked drawing and event recording. Networked drawing means that you can paint in realtime with up to 3 other users on the same common canvas. The event recorder is pretty neat, because it replays the whole drawing process. So you can download from other people to see how they went about drawing something, or you can save your drawing to an event file and show others what you did. Not bad for a free program... Oh yeah I almost forgot, the WarPaint Server client. Duh! Anyhow it's a little proggie written in Java that allows others to see your networked session online via the WarPaint website so others can join. It also features more advanced controls over a drawing session so you can boot troublemakers, have new people resume from when a session started, etc. Pretty neat stuff that goes one step beyond what OpenCanvas 1.1 does in networked mode.

Check out the vid of some OpenCanvas 1.1 drawing in action.

Some Wings 3D tutorials!

2006-01-08T20:36:00.000-06:00

Hey anyone who actually looks here, I posted some tutorials for Wings 3D at wikibooks. Might be useful if you're looking for some tricks in using that program. Might also show some useful box modeling stuff if you use a 3D modeler that isn't Wings 3D.

Box modeling an all quad car
Duplicating around a center

How does it look so far?

2006-01-05T14:33:00.000-06:00

Ok I know it's nowhere near perfect, I'll need some feedback on how to improve this thing.
There's quite a bit of classes in the Blogger template and I'll have to sort 'em out. Mostly it will be getting the right colors and fonts to make this readable. Maybe a change of background will be due later on.

So tell me what's good, what's bad, and what's ugly. That's what the comment button is there for.

Getting some backgrounds setup

2006-01-05T13:06:00.000-06:00

See this didn't take too long. I'm uploading some background images. Not sure how to do it otherwise.

Heh, don't mind the mess right now. Just getting some pieces together for the site. You may see these images already in use as screen elements by the time you read this.

Edit... 9/25/07-
Loading some completely different backgrounds.

First Blog on the BBQ-Px

2006-01-05T11:46:00.002-06:00

This is my first blog created specificly for topics relating to computer graphics design. Expect to see topics involving 2D image editing, HTML, 3D modeling, 3D rendering, CSS, Flash, and anything else related. This is quite unlike my other blog which is completely random.

First agenda will be getting the layout revised in the template so this blog will appear worthy of the topics discussed. Hopefully it won't be plain-jane for long as I pull together some nice CSS and images. That's it for now.