Simple as Algorithm, Bird, Calculus

I call it a drip bird. It is made entirely of NURBs shapes for those who know the needed bravery that entails. I don't understand the NURBs fear. Didn't give me any problems.

Well... except for the one thing with the feet, and the seams... and merging the body and neck... and...

Coloring, interestingly enough, is done entirely by ramp shaders. Yup. That's it. Lots and lots of ramp shaders. The feathers are all duplicates. It really was a lot more ctrl + D and scaling than actual modeling with CV points.

Am I talking CG babble? Sorry. I'll stop.

Suffice to say it's still a work-in-progress because, though it's cute, it can certainly be better. Maybe I'll make a family scene with them when I'm done.

In other news, my MEL Scripting teacher is out to get us! No, really. He has a thing for trick questions. It's really annoying. And the Pythagorean theorem? It's everywhere. Maya practically runs off the Pythagorean theorem. So, if you want to be a successful CG artist, start memorizing: a^2 + b^2 = c^2 OR c = sqroot (a^2 + b^2) . Life will be easier if you don't have to relearn this concept once every year.

Game design isn't much better. Game characters move in algorithms. *head-desk*

Grandma Jo

If Heaven has a bookstore (which I'm sure it does because many authors have gone there, and I can't imagine there wouldn't be a use for books), then my Grandma Jo is probably helping an angel find a good read right now. Or maybe she's catching up with Grandpa George and her parents. Maybe she'll even run into Grandma and Grandpa Young (I hear they were always friendly to each other, despite the in-law trope.)

Grandma passed away this Wednesday after a battle with cancer the lasted about a year. I've been living at her house half the week because she's closer to my school, so she has probably become my closest grandparent. She showed me that a lot of my quirks are genetic. Like the love of everything Beanie Baby. Or the dislike of carbonated beverages. Or the need to talk loud when we get excited. Other things I just had to scratch my head at. Like worrying about the dishwasher running properly. Or never having ice in a drink. Or washing her hair in the sink. Grandma was a little odd at times, but in a way that always made you smile.

Grandma was the queen of customer service. She worked at Berean Bookstore for a very long time (I want to say 17 years?). When the store was going to cut her benefits, she relocated to Family Christian Bookstore in Urbana. Her loyal customers followed her. It wasn't the store they liked, it was my Grandma's attention to other's needs. They knew that Grandma would try her best to find exactly what they wanted. Grandma was also a talker. She couldn't always figure out how to use her cellphone, but she maxed out her minutes in maybe the third month after getting it.

I'll miss my grandma, but I know that I will see her again. God did not create us to end at physical death. He created us to live eternally for him.

How to Make Ramen (for computers maybe)

Yes. This is a homework assignment for scripting class.

If anyone is actually reading the blog, sorry for not posting yesterday. I was stuck in a house with no internet connection. My homework for Game Design is to play a video game for 9 hours. Yes, you read that right, nine hours. The game I picked is Viewtiful Joe. Nicely challenging. No, it is frustrating. I've been playing it for maybe 5 hours. I'm on level two.

I'd go on, but it's 9:45 at night, and I'm about ready to drop. More on Monday.

Puppy Board

Have you ever been bored out of your skull with only a cheap, back-flipping wind-up toy for entertainment? Neither have I, but Parkland's Monday Game Design class is now prepared for such a scenario, for we have invented a game and have dubbed it Puppy Board!

Now how do you play Puppy Board? The setup and rules are simple. Find a piece of paper and pencil (standard notebook size) and draw a target that fills the width of the page that looks like so:

The number 1 is always placed in the center, and the number 10 is always outside the target. The placement of 2 through 9 is up for interpretation as long as all numbers are represented in the spaces without repeating.

After drawing the board, find a second piece of paper to keep score on. Find some friends to play with (2-4 players recommended), then wind up the back-flipping wind-up toy, place it in the center, and let it go. When it finally runs out of boing, take note of which space the tail of the critter has landed in (assuming it has a tail), and that is the number of points you get.

If the wind-up's tail lands on a line, the score on the outer part of the line (farthest from center) is given. If the wind-up falls over mid-flip, no points are earned. This happens quite frequently, so don't feel bad if it occurs.

Take turns winding up the toy and add up total scores after each round. If someone has 20 pts after a round is completed, they are the winner. If two people are tied for the 20 pts. They take one last turn for a tie-breaker.

This game was our first group assignment in Game Design, and is named Puppy Board because the original wind-up was... well... a yellow puppy dog.

Lots of Snow

We've got about 6-8 inches of snow accumulation on the ground right now. It is the second snow-day in a row for my brother. I'm glad my own classes haven't started yet. I have a feeling that Parkland wouldn't stop for a snow-day. Parkland doesn't stop for anything.

I want to hope, though, that the UPS truck doesn't stop for much either. This year to save money, I ordered my textbooks online through Barnes & Nobel. That was Tuesday. No books yet, but I'm crossing my fingers that the first might come today, if road conditions don't stop them that is. I just want my books before I have to use them. Maybe I should've ordered them on Monday... Have to say though, used books on the internet are dirt cheap, if you jump quick enough.

I've started reading another series called Warriors by Erin Hunter. It's a little below my reading level (Ok, so I should've picked this book up in 6th grade if I wanted it at reading level) but a good book is a good book. It's about feral cats who live in their own tribes. I won't ramble about the details. If you have any 6th or 7th graders you need to keep occupied (or a really bright 5th grader for that matter) Pick up this series. If the rest of the books are like the first one, then they're going to be good.

I was also poking around on hulu.com the other day and found a clip on the making of Avatar. If you know anything about motion capture and computer animation, or simply get as excited as I do about seeing what raw footage looks like before all the computer stuff is added, then watch this. Warning: it is 10 minutes long. What struck me as really cool... Well, they have these alien beasts-of-burden in the movie that are kind of like horses. People ride them and stuff, but one would assume that the animators completely added them in from scratch. Nope. The actors, decked out in their motion capture suits, were riding real live horses on set. Which is, by the way, inside a warehouse. With lots of expensive camera equipment. It's a wonder the horses didn't break something, but it makes for a believable performance so kudos to them.

One more weekend till school. I don't know whether to be happy or sigh in disappointment.

Post-it's, Dragons, and Tropes

Beth: What's with all the Post-it notes?

B.E.: It's for an experiment. I'm seeing how many ways you can disrupt class.

Beth: Post-it's?

B.E.: You'd be surprised.

Today I finally checked out the second book of the Temeraire series. It's a series that I've recently gotten hooked on (because anything with talking dragons catches my interest frankly). It's an alternate history of the Napoleonic wars where the "what if dragons were real" question is answered with "The air force would've been invented sooner, and it wouldn't have involved airplanes." It's a good read, and I'd recommend it for anyone who likes fantasy or can easily imagine a British accent on all the dialogue. Written by Naomi Novik if your interested. First book's called His Majesty's Dragon.

Another bit of reading that I've found wildly entertaining is the website TVTropes. A trope is something in fiction writing that generally goes unquestioned by an audience, whether or not it applies to the real world. The website utilizes it's own terms such as...

• Fridge Logic: Errors and fallacies that a viewer may never recognize, except for maybe after the show while they're en-route to grab a cold soda.
• Jumping the Shark: The point at which a good movie suddenly turns into a lousy one.
• Chekhov's Gun: If a weapon is briefly mentioned in the beginning of the book, odds are it will be used later by the hero in the final showdown.

Check this website out if you're into fiction writing (not just books, but movies and games too) or if you just want a really good laugh. Warning though, if you read too many of these, you'll be recognizing them in every movie/show/book/videogame that you see.

New Year and the Expected Resolution

I have never been very good at keeping a journal. Unless there's a grade to be had, all diaries, logs, and records usually fall into neglect when they're in my hands.

This has happened with my blog, and though I'm not sure anyone is currently reading Penguins With Jet Packs, I know that no one will read it if I don't update it more regularly. Sort of the "build it, and they will come"? The inverse is "neglect it, and they won't".

Posts on Mondays and Fridays with random doodles posted as much as possible. That sounds reasonable for a blog, right? At least, I know if I were following something online, a weekly update is appreciated. This Blog began as a Graphic Design assignment. I want it to continue as a timeline-portfolio so to speak. Where as in a real portfolio you toss the old and never label the dates on the new, this blog should begin to show continuing improvements in my work. If improvement does not occur, than clearly I have a problem.

Happy New Year to all who read this.

--EY

One vending machine...

Three pennies...

And one very clueless dollar bill.

Hilarity ensues.