This is just a test to try Talkr functionalities. You don’t know about Talkr? well let me tell you something… THAT ROCKS!

“blogging software vendors (hereafter called “vendors”) will allow you to change your blog template so that certain links will appear every time you post (with no additional effort by you). This step explains what the link to Talkr.com needs to look like. Note that the steps you need to take will vary slightly for each different blogging software vendor, and that the person that makes this change will need to be comfortable editing HTML”

Ok this is my new deadline. http://www.gamecareerfair.com/. As the name suggest, a game career fair in London 😉

I don’t play games, I don’t like games (except Jail Break, Ghost and Goblins, The Maze of Galious, Knightmare, you see 1980’s games…) but who knows, maybe they will like me!

I have 2 weeks to improve my shots. Thats quite tight but who knows….

There are few websites I regularly visit and thought it would be a good idea to share those links with you. I have now updated my links on the right hand side and also added something that is supposed to help people to keep track of updates on the blog. I still have to understand how it works but I think I have done what I am supposed to do to make it work. If someone can explain to me how it works exactly I will be very happy. At the moment I use the Sage plugin for Firefox and I don’t really understand what the fuzz is about.

Now regarding blogger, the system works ok and does the job for many people but lacks of few features for me. Sometimes Blogger server takes for ever to upload my posts, there is no keywords option etc… I originally thought about developing my own solution but I am not too sure how to handle the archiving. I looked at other solutions like WordPress but couldn’t figure out where to put the settings for my ftp and don’t feel like having my infos stored on a third party server (well…).

Ok that’s it for today. I will create a new post with my latest AM assignment in few minutes.

[edit] I just realised that I plugged 4 PDI people. It’s not because I worship that company even if Madagascar was just the BEST CG CARTOON EVER 😉 but more because those talented people happen to share a lot about their knowledge.

Funny how people would rather go for something convenient than something better.

Why do we go to Mac Donalds instead of cooking some fresh food bought from the local market?
Why do we listen to Mp3 when CDs have got a much better sound quality?
Why do we buy TFT screens when the traditional CRT screen has got got more vibrant colours and a much higher responsive time?

Has the world lost its mind?

Here is something I am working on, this is gonna be good if I can pull it through!!

Regarding my renders, why do they always look so ugly? Well blame Maya for that. Maya is a highend animation software so it doesn’t do what 95% of 3d animators need: A RENDER TO QUICKTIME THAT WORKS!!!! Maya doesn’t even render to Quicktime 😉 you actually need to render an avi playblast first then import it in an editing software then export it to quicktime. Talking about an artist friendly software 😉

I was chatting with my friend Julien today and he was telling me that he was going to the mountain twice this winter. This made me realise something.

Since I moved to London 6 years ago, I only went snowboarding twice. Can you believe that? At university I used to teach Snowboarding and skiing every weekends!!!! Bummer. Yes I can snowboard 😉 here is a pic I found on my old website. My friend Andy is in Vancouver and if I didn’t have so many responsibilities here I would definitely go to visit him.

that was pretty much the last time I used that board… some of you know the terrible story that followed :-

This is reply to one of my Animation Mentor classmates and I thing it could be usefull to other people. I was worried to post my grudge towards Maya since future employers could think that I am reluctant to use Maya but I now got used to its issues and tamed the beast

“I started using Maya with version 1 or 2, can’t remember, I also bought the book, bought the Tshirt ;-).

Being Power Animator’s successor I thought it would be an amazing software but very quickly came to hate it: Unix kind of ugly interface, no polygon modeling at that time (just Nurbs) and other weired issues that 3dsmax didn’t have. People were doing amazing stuff with it though, just look at Bingo!

So yeah, I went back to 3dsmax and have always been happy since especially for rendering and polymodeling work but I am not closed to other softwares.Let’s face it, Maya is king (or Queen) in the feature film industry.

After so many years using Max I realised that 3d softwares are so complicated nowadays that if you don’t have someone to show you which button is really usefull and which one is useless, you are gonna waste your time.

That’s why I am trying Maya again since AM provides training and support for that very ackward software. I give myself few more month to learn all the stuff I need for animation, then I will try XSI. There is more work in commercial and feature film on XSI in London and pretty much all the AM students based in London use XSI.

Maya really failed to impress me, so far, for the reasons I mentioned in the forum and in my workspace. Lack of full Avi and Quicktime support. Clunky default interface, inconsistents shortcuts (why can’t we move keys with a left click in Translate mode while in the graph editor?).

The funniest of all is definitely the fact that I had to define the front camera in the Global render settings when I wanted to render the side view for the Obstacle course.

Has anyone had fun trying to install LowMan rig? My impression so far is that Maya is targeted more for TD people than artists. If you don’t know Maya inside out before tackling a full project, you might run into a brick wall. I now wear a helmet, that helps 😉

One note before I finish my ramblings 😉 I am not saying Maya is a bad software, just look at Pixar’s work …oops no they use Marionnet, look at Dreamwork’s work …oops no they use Emo 😉 well any blockbuster, but once you know the software well, try to learn an other one with someone who knows it, and you could be surprised to see the the grass can been greener on the other side!

Maya is not a bad software, it just very clunky, I will put my troubling experiences on my blog when I find the time.”

Olive

After receiving one more misleading email from Dell today, I have decided to expose their techniques.

Their last email was featuring a Dimension 3100 that was previously advertised for £369 and now selling for £299. The picture is representing a nice looking computer with a TFT screen. Click here to see the Email advert

An Intel Pentium4 2.8ghz coming with XP home, 160Go HD, 1024 DDR2 ram for £299!!! what a bargain but it says Excl. VAT and Delivery… Oh ! there are also 2 asterisk… Let see the small print…. “** Now Price quoted includes Free Delivery and special Price Reduction Offer if any”

Hum… Ok I am lost here…. Let s click on the More details button then !

What have we got here…. didn’t it say £299 before ??? Yes ? so why is it saying £383 now?? That s even more expensive than the price the Computer was going for before!!! and it now says with no asterisk “VAT and Shipping NOT included”. And where is the TFT SCreen??? oh it is now an option for £40! Nice one! But ok, it now says “initial price also includes and upgraded support service for your added protection. Alternatives are available” …. What the hell does this mean??? I see a grey box towards the bottom of the page. It says, “The following options are default selections included with your order” “1-Year Collect and Return service” … Would that be the trick?? Hold on i saw something above.. in the section called “Cover it with Dell Support Services” oh I see, by default, what they call the “Basic: 3-Year On-site service & Multimedia E-Learning [Included in Price]” has been selected and just above you have an option called 1-Year Collect and Return service [subtract £84.00] Nice one 😉 I thought it was the default selection! Alright enough said! If this is not a misleading advert with pushy techniques what is this ? I wonder if someone could bring such techniques to a Small Claim court… I might investigate the idea one day if I get bored.

http://tooninstitute.awn.com/lessonplan/lesson.htm#top

Here we are, I go so pissed off with Webfusion nearly 24hours with a malfunctionning mail server for the 8th time in few month that I jumped on the MediaTemple bandwagon.