I have added a few photos to my flckr site of these butterflies on a beautiful background. I took the photo in a village called La Mesa, on a plateau surrounded by mountains and beautiful view in Colombia. There were hummingbirds about the same size as this butterfly there, but they were too quick.
Monday 31 May 2010
Sunday 30 May 2010
feeds added
Technorati state of the blogosphere feed and a feed to my delicious account are now on this blog at the bottom of the page. I put two feeds that kind of fit with the site.
Technorati
Technorati is a search engine that searches blogs and rates them with a value it calls "authority".
To have your blog considered register and submit it for inclusion at technorati.
To rate a blog Technorati makes use of analysis of the number of blogs linking to the blog, as well as tags on the blog which set up the way technorati categorises information. (from wikipedia).
Each year Technorati publish a report called "State of the Blogosphere" which aims to give a series of statistics, interviews and general information about blogging:
http://technorati.com/state-of-the-blogosphere/
A good example of the statistics is this article which suggests that to have a successful blog it is a good idea to post about 300 posts a month!
http://technorati.com/blogging/article/day-3-the-how-of-blogging1/
Bernard
To have your blog considered register and submit it for inclusion at technorati.
To rate a blog Technorati makes use of analysis of the number of blogs linking to the blog, as well as tags on the blog which set up the way technorati categorises information. (from wikipedia).
Each year Technorati publish a report called "State of the Blogosphere" which aims to give a series of statistics, interviews and general information about blogging:
http://technorati.com/state-of-the-blogosphere/
A good example of the statistics is this article which suggests that to have a successful blog it is a good idea to post about 300 posts a month!
http://technorati.com/blogging/article/day-3-the-how-of-blogging1/
Bernard
Saturday 29 May 2010
cemetery statues
Wherever I go I like to call in at the cemetery if there is one. I think it says a lot about a culture. These statues come from graves in Ljubljana. It is a very interesting thing to make a likeness of the person who has died on the grave. This adds a strange dimension somehow. I wish I had taken down their names.
I have an idea to do something with modelling and animating some statues in 3d at some stage.
animal textures
I have been collecting all sorts of images as textures for 3d modelling. I think Shila is going to be an interesting monster one day. This is one of a series of texture images that I have just put on flickr.
More from Varanasi
I added some more photos I took in Varanasi. I only had a video camera with a still picture function, but I was stretching it out pretty well.
Now I am starting more 3d model making I keep wishing I had taken more photos there - of textures and the whole experience.
Bernard
vfx, high end, low end, or appropriate to the story
This is a link to a fairly pessimistic article on the vfx industry.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1990803-1,00.html
(via cg society)
I have been thinking a lot about this lately. I need to make a living but I am seriously thinking about alternative ways of doing it with animation in particular.
I don't want to stay up all night on red bull and pizza - I would be dead in no time.
One of the things I see is that the bull is chasing its tail in relation to creating "realistic" visual effects. As technology changes over time it seems to me that most visual effects that are a few years old become more and more obvious. I have a feeling that the first step to a survival strategy is not to be interested in realism, but story telling within a unified style for each project.
This relates to the second point. Many of the flashest special effects are often extremely expensive to create, and unless you have access to meganmillions it is likely that there will be a need to work with a different sensibility or be seriously compromised financially.
Many special effects and a lot of digital animation tends to look the same. Seems to me that a survival strategy that would be interesting would be to use maya to create art that doesn't look like it was made in Maya, flash animations that don't look like flash animations and Zbrush monsters that don't look like they were made in Zbrush. I think part of the reason for many things looking homogenised is that there is a standardising of the way things are constructed in industrial production pipelines and this in turn contributes to conformity with a limited shared visual and technical vocabulary, which has advantages and disadvantages.
So anyway, I am thinking, concentrate on the stories and scripts that are distinct and stand out in terms of story and clarity, make interesting concept development art,go for the highest quality with characters and their interaction, and then, if all these things are in place, the appropriate technology is that which supports the story telling the best in the most efficient way.
Another thing that is on my mind. What are the odds of a small independent studio creating a series of little masterpieces as opposed to a big production company contributing to a megablockbuster.
I have a feeling that it is possible to make a living with a small studio with a high level of creativity and attention to detail that tells stories in an interesting way that nobody else is telling. It could be a lot more fulfilling too.
I would be interested in how others see themselves working in the future.
Bernard
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1990803-1,00.html
(via cg society)
I have been thinking a lot about this lately. I need to make a living but I am seriously thinking about alternative ways of doing it with animation in particular.
I don't want to stay up all night on red bull and pizza - I would be dead in no time.
One of the things I see is that the bull is chasing its tail in relation to creating "realistic" visual effects. As technology changes over time it seems to me that most visual effects that are a few years old become more and more obvious. I have a feeling that the first step to a survival strategy is not to be interested in realism, but story telling within a unified style for each project.
This relates to the second point. Many of the flashest special effects are often extremely expensive to create, and unless you have access to meganmillions it is likely that there will be a need to work with a different sensibility or be seriously compromised financially.
Many special effects and a lot of digital animation tends to look the same. Seems to me that a survival strategy that would be interesting would be to use maya to create art that doesn't look like it was made in Maya, flash animations that don't look like flash animations and Zbrush monsters that don't look like they were made in Zbrush. I think part of the reason for many things looking homogenised is that there is a standardising of the way things are constructed in industrial production pipelines and this in turn contributes to conformity with a limited shared visual and technical vocabulary, which has advantages and disadvantages.
So anyway, I am thinking, concentrate on the stories and scripts that are distinct and stand out in terms of story and clarity, make interesting concept development art,go for the highest quality with characters and their interaction, and then, if all these things are in place, the appropriate technology is that which supports the story telling the best in the most efficient way.
Another thing that is on my mind. What are the odds of a small independent studio creating a series of little masterpieces as opposed to a big production company contributing to a megablockbuster.
I have a feeling that it is possible to make a living with a small studio with a high level of creativity and attention to detail that tells stories in an interesting way that nobody else is telling. It could be a lot more fulfilling too.
I would be interested in how others see themselves working in the future.
Bernard
Wednesday 26 May 2010
website
I made a website about my animation project. As I am writing this what's there is a draft, but I am putting in a few extra things in time for the assessment. And I will update it a bit later as well - when I finish the project.
http://athene.riv.csu.edu.au/~bsulli18/iweb/Site/home.html
Bernard
http://athene.riv.csu.edu.au/~bsulli18/iweb/Site/home.html
Bernard
Project Bluebird
http://www.abc.net.au/innovation/bluebird/
This online ABC series is an interesting experiment in a new form of internet based story telling that utilises on line video, social media real documentation, and even has the characters interacting with the audience. Bluebird is a fictional story about climate change and geoengineering. In my opinion anything like this requires an effort to get into, but one of these days someone will come up with the right balance to make things like this work. Still working out if this does.
Bernard
This online ABC series is an interesting experiment in a new form of internet based story telling that utilises on line video, social media real documentation, and even has the characters interacting with the audience. Bluebird is a fictional story about climate change and geoengineering. In my opinion anything like this requires an effort to get into, but one of these days someone will come up with the right balance to make things like this work. Still working out if this does.
Bernard
Saturday 22 May 2010
Bush images
I have added some references images that I took some time ago in a national park in Sydney. I am using photos like these as very loose references in my animation.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernsul/sets/72157624116099284/detail/
Ipad applications
And I think I really do want to make ipad applications. Iphone doesn't do it for me but Ipad, yes. I think it will appeal to a different demographic than the iphone and now is the time to think about making applications for it. This is not simply because I like the look of Ipad, though from a design point of view it is possible to do something quite beautiful and interesting I think. I think it is a whole new medium and I have an idea for something which will be something half way between a book and a game, with some animation and strong narratives, which is such a good idea that I am not telling anybody too much just yet.
Example links:
http://developer.apple.com/ipad/sdk/
http://mattgemmell.com/2010/03/05/ipad-application-design
Unfortunately, taking a deep breath, it means learning to program, and I have no idea where to start with that just yet.
Bernard
Example links:
http://developer.apple.com/ipad/sdk/
http://mattgemmell.com/2010/03/05/ipad-application-design
Unfortunately, taking a deep breath, it means learning to program, and I have no idea where to start with that just yet.
Bernard
HTML 5
I am planning to research what is happening with alternatives to flash like html5. Though incomplete it seems pretty straightforward so far. I figure that this will be pretty useful in terms of internet stuff over the next year or two. I think this is at the core of the debate between Apple and Adobe. In the end the non proprietary thing will win I think, at least in terms of performance and quality, and you will be able to make it in a wysiwyg way in dreamweaver and flash anyway.
Here is a link to the first HTML 5 and CSS3 capability add in for Dreamweaver.
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/html5pack/
And this link has code snippets for video and audio in the html 5 format.
http://www.w3schools.com/html5/html5_reference.asp
Just click on the specific tags to get more code and information on how to apply it.
It seems that HTML 5 video, so that no plug in like flash is required will be well supported before too long, with options for it already in vimeo for example.
I understand that not all browsers have much support for the basics of html 5 yet. Still I think it is worth working towards where things are going rather than where they have been. Otherwise it is a matter of learning things that are obsolete before I have chance to work with them in a year or two.
It seems from this comparison that it is primarily internet explorer that is the prime problem (as usual).
http://caniuse.com/
Bernard
Here is a link to the first HTML 5 and CSS3 capability add in for Dreamweaver.
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/html5pack/
And this link has code snippets for video and audio in the html 5 format.
http://www.w3schools.com/html5/html5_reference.asp
Just click on the specific tags to get more code and information on how to apply it.
It seems that HTML 5 video, so that no plug in like flash is required will be well supported before too long, with options for it already in vimeo for example.
I understand that not all browsers have much support for the basics of html 5 yet. Still I think it is worth working towards where things are going rather than where they have been. Otherwise it is a matter of learning things that are obsolete before I have chance to work with them in a year or two.
It seems from this comparison that it is primarily internet explorer that is the prime problem (as usual).
http://caniuse.com/
Bernard
historic glimpse at Disney
I found this documentary about Disney is interesting from a historic point of view, especially as now Disney is doing 2d again. I think one of the most interesting things in animation is the culture of working collaboratively. I would like to do some research on that one day. This is an example of how to wreck that.
The video I put up which has now disappeared from Vimeo which was a documentary by Dan Lund about how 2d animation finished at Disney less than a decade ago. I can't find another copy online and I didn't write down the title...
But Bec, if you are interested in the less sweet side of Disney you could start with this doco on Walt Disney:
The video I put up which has now disappeared from Vimeo which was a documentary by Dan Lund about how 2d animation finished at Disney less than a decade ago. I can't find another copy online and I didn't write down the title...
But Bec, if you are interested in the less sweet side of Disney you could start with this doco on Walt Disney:
Wednesday 12 May 2010
character sheets for walking animation
After starting the animation I realised I didn't know the character well enough to animate him consistently. I have been drawing him repeatedly over the last couple of days until I came up with this. Still discovering him, but I should be able to draw him consistently now anyway.
Link to the set
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernsul/sets/72157623921221399/detail/
Tuesday 11 May 2010
landscapes for walking animation
I posted a few samples of the backgrounds for the Walking animation on flickr. I am aiming to finish all the backgrounds this week while I figure out how to solve some problems with animating the character.
Click on the image to see the other images in the set.
Wednesday 5 May 2010
FTP
File transfer Protocol is a protocol for sending files from one computer to a server or another computer.
One primary everyday use for ftp is for uploading files from a computer to a web server for display in websites.
Another use is for transferring large files (too big for email), particularly for graphic designers doing pre press work and sending files electronically to a printing company.
Another use is for transferring files from one computer to another (when they are configured to do so).
One of the problems is that it isn't particularly wysiwyg to use normally though it can be fairly straightforward. There have been concerns with a lack of security with the way files are sent using ftp.
One primary everyday use for ftp is for uploading files from a computer to a web server for display in websites.
Another use is for transferring large files (too big for email), particularly for graphic designers doing pre press work and sending files electronically to a printing company.
Another use is for transferring files from one computer to another (when they are configured to do so).
One of the problems is that it isn't particularly wysiwyg to use normally though it can be fairly straightforward. There have been concerns with a lack of security with the way files are sent using ftp.
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