Jer's Life

2am thoughts

2008/06/09 / Jer / 0 Comments

Can’t sleep. A burst of inspiration and confusion. Seeing everything I’m doing wrong. The things I’m doing wrong is that I’m NOT doing things. Not making the changes in my life that I know are healthy. For months I would dance at the bus stop, listening to my headphones. I tried to avoid areas with people, but if someone walked past me and looked at me as if I was a crack head, I smiled and kept dancing.

I warmed up whenever I could (45 min per day, average). My “workout” consisted of pushup bars. Gotta thank Slis for the heads up on these things. I again have a pullup bar & it’s not one I need to be afraid of breaking loose. It’s a custom make and is built right into the supporting 2x4s in the framework of an extra-wide hall / doorway. Meditation/quiet time/breathing practice/dancy/stretching/yogaish type stuff is key. I was somehow able to do it without music. The music was in my head… man.

Houdini and Mr X Inc

2008/06/08 / Jer / 0 Comments

I just finished watching Resident Evil Extinction. It’s the third movie of the Resident Evil series and I was pleasantly surprised. If not for any other reason, the FX don’t feel so fakey and the action is continuous. How about the story? Mad Max w/ zombies? It worked for me.

beatiful Houdini 9 UI

Working in the industry, it’s hard for me not to take note of the effects that make me loose my breath as I gasp “whaaaaaa?”. The effects are killer (pun intended) and they reminded me of another action/horror move I’d seen recently, Silent Hill. Mr. X Inc. was responsible for the FX in both Resident Evil & Silent Hill, and the Houdini software upped the awe factor. From what I’ve read, Houdini’s procedural workflow was essential in speeding up the process in receiving director feedback. How? Well, if something needs to be tweaked or a step backtracked, it’s instant with Houdini. No build history is lost, which makes it a snap to make modifications to prior steps. Fantastic! <insert geek snort here>. This also makes the program a dream to work with, as you can rely on networks of nodes instead of spending your days writing lines of code.

Been reading some other interviews about how Houdini is improving the lives of TDs around the world. I plan on improving my life as well, just as soon as I find a little more time to dive into the free 3D Buzz online class. Speaking of which, even if you have no prior experience in 3D applications, I’m sure you’d be able to follow along in Buzz’s free video tutorials.

Rigging Wizard – Masaki Togashi

2008/05/30 / Jer / 0 Comments

Claus, a very talented and technical animator friend of mine and I were talking of the recent events in the company. We were talking about some key things that can really set most rigs apart from the standard. This includes custom icons (locators) instead of just NURBS curves, or broken hierarchies which make it easier to post character silhouettes to camera.

He told me that his favorite rigger was a Masaki Togashi. I looked him up and apparently he was the sole rigger on Ghost in the Shell 2. I guess the guy really knew his stuff, though other riggers found him difficult to work with. A “my way or the highway” approach. In his defense, I can understand what it’s like what you try and go outside the normal boundaries in order to make innovations. Hope to meet the guy one day.

Cosplay Heroines

2008/05/13 / Jer / 0 Comments

At the very least, you have to appreciate the Ghost in the Shell paint job. Came across this while searching for the discontinued Motoko PVC figure. From here, I also ran into the Cortana photos. If only they airbrushed a nice glowing effect.

More Major Motoko Kusanagi photos @ GirsEntertainmentNetwork.com

Halo’s Cortana photos @ GirsEntertainmentNetwork.com

Voice Recognition in Linux

2008/05/06 / Jer / 0 Comments

I’ve been using voice recognition, on and off, for over a year now. It has advanced way beyond what I would have dreamed. I mentioned it to my mother and she said, “Yeah, that’s great to hear. It’ll put me out of a job.”

I was sorry to hear that, but it sounds like we ALL could save our typing fingers from overuse. It also helps me practice at speaking clearly, as it doesn’t like when you mumble.

VoxForge was set up to collect transcribed speech for use with Free and Open Source Speech Recognition Engines (on Linux, Windows and Mac).

We will make available all submitted audio files under the GPL license, and then ‘compile’ them into acoustic models for use with Open Source speech recognition engines such as Sphinx, ISIP, Julius and HTK (note: HTK has distribution restrictions).

I’d be very disappointed in myself if I didn’t donate my time to this.

Wikipedia has a nice list of other Voice Recognition projects for Linux.

TRON in Stop Motion on Dailymotion!

2008/05/06 / Jer / 0 Comments

Tron
by freres-hueon

Solve Them Puzzles with a Little LSD

2008/04/17 / Jer / 0 Comments

Some theorize that psychedelics create a state of mind that can lead to some profound spiritual or scientific discoveries. Others believe it just makes you loose your mind and hallucinate. Well, all I can say is that Cisco systems are slightly more complex than Legos and I’d prefer a hippy over alcoholic working in my I.T. department.

From Wired.com:

It must be changing something about the internal communication in my brain. Whatever my inner process is that lets me solve problems, it works differently, or maybe different parts of my brain are used, ” said Herbert, 42, an early employee of Cisco Systems who says he solved his toughest technical problems while tripping to drum solos by the Grateful Dead — who were among the many artists inspired by LSD.

~ Kevin Herbert

Paranoia: While you sleep

2008/04/17 / Jer / 0 Comments

Don’t want aliens, zombies or terrorists disturbing your rest? Well have no fear! The Quantum Sleeper is here to the rescue!

How paranoid are we are all becoming? At first sight I thought it was a joke and it is…

…isn’t it?

“Soap” pointing device

2008/02/04 / Jer / 0 Comments

Any research into improving our user interface devices is good research. Sharing how to make your own at home, that’s got you some bonus points.

I was able to meet the inventor at Siggraph. He was very friendly, but a little hesitant to let attendees test drive his last unit. Apparently everyone who picked up it squeezed too hard and broke a half dozen of his other units. A training session lasted a minute or two…

…or you can just make your own! Yes, please tell me how us how we can replace our 20+ year old pointing device, the mouse.

Please checkout “Soap”.

The Liam Show

2007/01/27 / Jer / 0 Comments

I’m sure you’ve seen “shoes”. If not, please do so on Youtube or Liam’s home site. Too bad he pulled those good quality Quicktimes off his site. Youtube’s not so pretty, nor are the beats as funky sounding, but it’s all you got now.

Where did the inspiration of “shoes” come from? According to this interview:

I was at a party once talking to a girl about our expensive vices, mine being making short films all the time, hers being shoes. “These shoes were three hundred dollars,” she said. “I got them anyway because I wanted them.” That stuck with me.”

Mr. Crack Spider

2007/01/21 / Jer / 0 Comments

Effects of various drugs on spiders.

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