My Blog
If you have an RSS news reader, you can click on the image
below, and add my page to get the latest updates to my current project,
when they become available, without having to come back to check.
A
News Aggregator (News Reader) is a program that you can download
and use to get updates to content and news on your favourite
websites. Only the Headlines from sites that you have subscribed to
are displayed in the Agrregator. Headlines can be clicked on, to
go to the page or site containing the Headline.
Aggregators come in different forms, some are just a small strip called a
"News Ticker" that is placed on your desktop, and displays Headlines which
scroll across the ticker. More elaborate Aggragators look like a browser
with a side panel to display Headlines, and the Webpage in the right panel.
This can save you alot of time going to webpages only to find that there
is nothing new to see or read.
If you think thats cool, imagine that instead of updates being
displayed on your desktop, being able to automatically download
new audio and video thats just been posted.
Podcast
That is the name of a form of content distribution that is being used by people across
the internet. Its called Podcasting and you will hear alot more about it in the future.
There is audio and video content all over the web already covering all
kinds of subjects. Some people are using this technology to create mp3
for download from their Blogs, and they generally follow the format of
a bit of music the person who owns the site talking about some things
that they think you might like to hear about, and abit more music. Some
of them are very funny and definately entertaining.
My link is the small orange XML image titled "video update" at the
top of the page. Just right click and copy the link, and paste it into iPodder.NET
The link that I have provided is to a file on my video page which is
just to show how Podcasting works which will be updated. If you would like
to find out more about Podcasting contact me.
It already has a few Podcast links in it for starters,
and you can add more as you go.
Just install it and start it and right
click on the icon in the task bar. Make sure your connected to the net
and click retrieve. It will then download the latest Podcasts from the
links installed. The first link is to Adam Curry ex MTV presenter,
who helped create the program. His Podcasts (Which he calls The Source Code)
are often 45mb or more and update daily, and will download another one each day.
The other links are to other members of the team who helped develop the program.
If you would like to find other links to podcasts Adam Curry's Blog is
a good place to start.
Orc Project.
I did this project as my first modelling exercise. I modelled the head poly by poly to get an idea of how the head was put together. I did not mirror the 2 halves because I wanted to do the whole head as one form, too practise modelling eye, ear and mouth modelling skills. I used Grays Anatomy as ref for the parts.The destortions represent the horrific injuries sustained by orcs during their lives. Like getting run over by oliphants or trapped in gates or machinery or falling off cliffs. I tried to keep the loops in check but found it very difficult when the head had been modelled this way. I learnt a lot from my mistakes on this. I cleaned up the edgeloops later but was'nt happy with it, he was never the same Orc again, you can see the two here side by side.
I textured him, and experimented with bump and layers, like veins and skin. I did'nt realise the importance of spec and gloss maps until later, thanks to Leigh van der Byl on CGTalk for that.
I modelled and textured the rest of his body and armour as seperate pieces, right down to the rivets and buckles. I then cut his body into seperate pieces, after seeing a doco on the making of Walking with Caveman by Framestore, and rigged him for animation, using techniques that I learnt from my good friend Eek at CGTalk.com...thanks Eek. Follow the Animation link at the top of this page to animations of the Orc that I have done to practise my animation. I've learnt from this exercise the importance of having good modelling proportions (Amongst other things).
A project I am working on, to model, rig and animate a female character. I have'nt modelled any human other than the Orc (whose obviously not human either). I will do some morph targets of the head to use for lip sync, and build some muscles into the rig that will deform under the skin. just to see the results of tests I have already run in action.
I am cleaning up the mesh (Editable Poly) after laying out the edgeloops, at the moment. I have only roughed in the hands and head so I still have a bit of work to do adding details.And have just created an ear, which I am ready to attach. Then when I am satisfied with the mesh, I will join the two halves.
