Update

Nearly a year later, here is a small update.

I have uploaded my latest VFX/Compositing demo reel to YouTube. You can get to it here: Joe's VFX Demo Reel, 2009

Hope you enjoy, and I hope to get more info on a regular basis here.

Runaround Fan Film - Day 0

Hello everyone, long time no post. I wanted to let everyone know that I have started a new blog for my newest project, based on the short story by Isaac Asimov called Runaround. I will be keeping everyone apprised of my progress there, and I hope you will visit often.


Runaround Fan Film

See you around

Red B on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Potential environment model.  Maybe?


Red B on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Cool picture

Ok, Flock is officially the coolest browser I have ever used. the new 1.1 beta integrates my Flickr, gmail and facebook accounts right into the browser, as well as my blog account. This will definately make things easier for me so that I can blog more often.

Below is one of the flickr images listed on todays Interestingness compilation. Titled Swanosaurus Rex, it is a very welll captured image of a swan honking at the camera.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Testing new Flock web browser

This is a photo from my flickr account.  I am testing out the Flock browser.  It is very cool and I may wind up making this my default browser for everything.  I highly recommend it, but I haven't been using it long enough to give a full feature list.

Blogged with Flock

Cool video on Break.com

Here is a cool video I found while cruising through break.com.



When Graphic Artists Get Bored - Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

Quick update regarding migration to Google blog

Just a quick update: after migrating this blog to Google, it really flies now. At least as far as publishing new entries and editing old ones. Kudos blogger.com!

New blogger

Well, I have simultaneously updated my IE to version 7, and migrated my blogs over to my Google account. We will see what happens and hopefully nothing goes haywire on me. I recently tried to update my Yahoo mail to the new beta, but while it worked fine for me running Firefox at 1600x1200, my wife hated it on her machine that runs at 1024 x 768. Too many ads were cluttering the screen and she couldn't hardly use the interface. Fortunately I was able to revert it back to the original version of Yahoo mail and everyone is happy again.

Heroes - My favorite show for the winter

Hello everyone. Just wanted to pop in and give you an update. Actually, it is not as much of an update as it is to gush a little over my favorite show on TV right now. As the title implies, the show is Heroes and airs on Monday night at 9pm EST. This has got to be one of the coolest shows on TV right now next to Lost. If Lost had not gone on hiatus for the winter, not to be back on again until February, that would have been my pick for best show on TV. But with it missing for the next couple of months, Heroes is my pick for the time being.

For those of you who haven't seen it, the whole series is based around a cast of characters, who, after an eclipse, begin to discover that they have acquired superhuman abilities. These abilities range from flight and super strength to matter manipulation and telepathy. There is a wide range of characters, each with their own unique ability, plus the usual ultimate mystery bad guy and a man who has no abilities himself, but knows of the others existence and is trying to track them down for his own agenda.

The plot twists on their discovery of who they are becoming occur in every episode and it leaves you waiting the entire week to catch the next episode. If you haven't seen it yet, I advise you to grab the past episodes off of iTunes or some other source and get caught up. They are amazing and I could not give another series a higher recommendation.

Delays Delays

Hey guys, again I am apologizing for not posting anything recently. I just thought I would pop in and give you all an update on what is going on.

As far as work goes, it is the same old same old. Nothing really extravagant there. I am still waiting on the new versions of my software to come out. ZBrush 2.5 is due out by the end of the year I believe, and Silo 2.0 is due out any day.

In the meantime I am trying to come up with lecture material to fill out a Hair and Fur lecture for my animation class. I have lots of cool ideas, but I think I will need to keep it simple so that the majority of them will understand the ins and outs of the different dynamics systems.

On top of it all, I am in the midst of a new animation using a sound clip from the Best of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. It is a 2.5 minute clip of Flip Wilson telling a funny joke. I have blocked out the first 30 seconds so far, and it is coming along nicely. I will probably go ahead and start doing the tweens tomorrow, and with luck I can have a sample uploaded this weekend so that you all can see how it is coming along. I will probably start a new thread on CGTalk as well so I can get input from the CG community at large.

that's about it for now. Feel free to drop me a line so I can hear from any of you. I don't get many comments, so it would be nice to know if anyone actually reads this thing. :)

Oh man, sorry for the delay

Hello everyone, sorry for the long delay between posts. This month has been crazy insane, what with the largest collection of classes we have ever had in our part of the animation department. I was really busy trying to keep track of four different classes simultaneously, plus deal with weekly group meetings with students. It really hasn't left me with much time to keep this thing up to date, but now I have some content for you to read. :)

My new addiction now is collecting all of the Marvel Civil War crossover comics. I kind of hopped into the middle of the series, so I have been going to my local comic shop to buy all the different lines (Spiderman, Captain America, X-Men, etc...) so that I can get caught up. In a nutshell, the premise of this story arc is that a team of young mutant superheros who film their own reality series go into a residential area and try to take down a team of mutant bad guys, one of which has the ability to produce a large explosion with his body. Of course, this particular baddie detonates himself, killing everyone involved, and many people in the neighborhood. This included a school which was in session and many children died. This prompts the government to institute a registration law that requires all superheros to register their real names and identities so that they can be tracked and used as employees of the government itself. It splits the superhero community between those that are for registration and those who are not. Its a cool series and I am having fun getting caught back up with a lot of the superheros I used to read many years ago.

Now that the Fall season is back in session, Mon, Wed, Fri are my television nights. Monday I have Heroes and Studio 60, Wednesday is Lost, and Friday is Battlestar Galactica. A nice spread I must say. If you haven't seen any of these series yet, I highly advise you start. They are excellent programs with awesome writing.


Well that's it from me for now. I hope to have a lot more content for you as we start to head into the holiday season

Fall TV coming back

Well, if you are a TV junkie like me, you should be gearing up for the new fall season. This September we have a few new shows starting that I am hoping will be really good.

The first one that has piqued my interest is Heroes on NBC. Premiering September 25th, it outlines several people who, after an eclipse, begin to exhibit superhero-like abilities. From teleportation and flying, to psycics and tissue regeneration, the show hits on several of the staples of typical comic book fare and puts them into a more realistic setting.

The second one is also on NBC and is called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. This is being made by the people who were involved with the West Wing, and they even got Bradley Whitford, formerly Josh Lyman from the same show. It is about what goes on behind the scenes of a sketch comedy program.

Besides the new shows, some shows are also returning this fall. Lost premiers on October 4th, Bones premiered tonight, and Smallville is coming up soon.

Enjoy.

Ernesto? Hello?

Wow. They cancel classes, I get a day off, and nothing happens. We got a little rain, barely any wind, and now our schedule is jammed for the remainder of the month to makeup the class time we missed today. Weeeee....

Ernesto on its way

Whoa, been a while since I posted an entry here.

In case you didn't know, I am in the Central Florida area, and Ernesto, the first tropical storm of the season, is heading our way. It isn't supposed to reach hurricane status, so I am not very worried. Hurricane Charlie was the first hurricane I had to live through and it turned out not to affect me too much personally. As a matter of fact, with the way our building is situated, I was able to stand on my deck in the middle of the storm and watch everything blow by. That was one of the most powerful storms to reach this far inland, with winds around 100+ mph, and producing some crazy damage to trees, buildings and billboards all over the state. Ernesto is not supposed to hit hurricane status, which is 74 mph winds, but we are in the cone of 50 to 70% probability of having winds greater that 39 mph, but less than 74 mph. I think they are figuring on around 40 to 50mph sustained winds.

Anyway, I had been trying to think of something to post, and this is the most significant thing going on right now. So, I will wait it out here at home, then post an update after it passes by. With winds of only around 40 to 50mph, I am doubting anything goes down, so I may post updates as the day wears on. They cancelled school for tomorrow (I am a teacher), so I have the day off. Lets just hope that my internet and power stay up the whole time.

Can Stallone not let sleeping dogs lie?

I have just been informed that in addition to the upcoming Rocky Balboa movie, Rambo IV is currently in pre-production. When I first heard this, I naturally assumed that this was someone's imagination busily at work. But, I checked on IMDB and sure enough, the movie is in pre-production and a majority of the cast is already set. They have a preemptive release date of 2007, so we will have to wait and see how this turns out. I own the original trilogy, so I am interested to see how it turns out. You can get more info here.

New 3D packages and cheap upgrades

An interesting trend I am starting to see with some of the lesser known 3D developers is providing upgrades to their software for free to registered users. The best one that I have found is from Pixologic. If you are a registered user of ZBrush 2.0, you get to upgrade to 2.5 for free when it is released. The new update isn't simply a patch release, but a major upgrade that adds an enormous amount of power to the artist.

The other upgrade that I discovered is from Nevercenter. Anyone who bought a copy of their 3D application, Silo, after July 1, 2004 will be entitled to a free upgrade to version 2.0 due out sometime within the next few months. As with Pixologic, this isn't a run of the mill upgrade, but a major enhancement to the core product. This app probably has the most drastic changes, adding displacement and a multitude of new tools that I didn't think were even in development yet. Check out their site to learn more.

Both of these apps are going to help me personally, as I am a registered user of each and I get my upgrades for free. I think their low price points and occasional deals like those mentioned above are going to do a lot to curb the piracy that really seems to have spread throughout the 3D industry.

Keep watching here to see what I think of these new apps when I get them in.

Character and effects project

Starting this week I will be modeling, rigging and animating a new character for the class that I teach. The final character will incorporate cloth, hair and fur, so this will be quite a challenge for me. I may go ahead and also incorporate a muscle system as well, but we will have to wait and see. The character is based off a design by Tony DiTerlizzi, who illustrates the Spiderwick books, as well as many of the Magic the Gathering cards and AD&D manuals. I will be posting updates here, so check back every so often to see how things are going.

Comments fixed

It was brought to my attention that you had to be a member to post any comments on my blog. That has been remedied, so now you no longer have to sign up to blogspot to post comments. I will try and make sure this doesn't get abused (damn the internet, or at least the losers who abuse it), and if it gets to be a problem, I will turn the restriction back on.

Maya 8 - Let the insanity ensue!!!

Ah yes, it is that time again when Maya (my 3D app of choice) comes out with a new version. This release, however, seems to be sparking a lot more speculation and nit picking than a major release of the program normally would. This is because between version 7 and 8, Alias was bought out by Autodesk, and Maya was integrated into their product line. So, version 8 is the first release with Autodesk's name on it and people are just itching to find a reason to bash this latest iteration. What really tickles me are the people who are basing all of their speculation, concern and hate towards Autodesk on the fact that the initial announcement only listed five or six major changes to the software. It was by no means a comprehensive list of every new little tool or function, but something to get people to take notice of a few of the significant enhancements that had been made.

I have been getting info from people who have gotten the latest version via the Web upgrade, and there is a lot of new and cool stuff for us to use that I feel will make our lives much easier as 3D artists. If what they are saying is true, this release will be a significant improvement over what we have been using and our workflow will be much more streamlined.

While I hope that Maya succeeds in living up to the expectations of the general user community and provides us with a much more stable and reliable tool to creating great 3D art, I really hope it does something to squelch the jabbing posts and comments I am seeing on CGTalk and Highend3d. Stupidity in anonymous online forum posting just irritates the heck out of me, and I hope these jokers get what is coming to them.

80's Remake Songs

I am all for songs from my generation being remade by some of todays popular and upcoming bands. Provided, that is, they are not redone as rap/hip-hop songs. I am pretty much an anti-rap kind of guy.

That being said, there are two that have come out recently that I feel are noteworthy. The first is from Disturbed and is a remake of the Genesis song "Land of Confusion". You can see and hear it on their myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/disturbed . It is a pretty decent metal version that maintains the integrety of the original, but giving it that hard edge that I like so much.

The other is a remake of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" by Lacuna Coil. You can also see and hear this one on their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/lacunacoil. This is a goth style band with a female vocalist that does a supreme job belting out this tune.

Both of these renditions are excellent in my opinion and I highly advise you check them out if you get a chance.

And so it begins...

Well, this is the first full-fledged blog I have ever created. I tried in multiple formats on my own web site, but the pain of moving from one web server to the next just became a major hassle. I actually tried to do this kind of thing on Myspace (HAH!!) but that turned out to be an even bigger hassle and has proven to be quite a waste of time. One good thing that came from MySpace though, I have been able to reconnect with some old, old friends from back in the day. People who I have not seen or talked to in years managed to find me through some bizarre chain of people, and we have managed to reconnect at some level.

Anyway, this will be my space to rant, rave, ponder, and whatever else I feel like doing at any given point in time. I will be throwing in my two cents on movies, books, people and events, plus I may just throw in a nugget or two about things that are happening in my personal life, just so I can get your take on the way things may be going for me.

Well enough for now. It is closing in on 1 a.m. and time for me to hit the sack. Tomorrow I will see what I can do about getting you all some good reading material. Until then, adios, and I hope to see you back here real soon.