Ousted. sort of...

Not that I'm terribly disappointed mind you, but I am officially off the senior project. Things were not coming together at all. They have chosen a new direction. They will keep the backgrounds and some of the props as CGI, but they are going to turn all the characters into traditional 2d animation. I think this is primarily due to them already having the entire movie in 2d format. However, I have no 2d experience yet, so I'm off the project. Voluntarily. I could have stayed on, but it's to important to the seniors.

This does not mean I am devoting all that extra time to school work. I'd burn out if I did.

I have a friend whom I met in my first Digital Media class. He's in for game design and is using his schooling to recruit modelers and animators. He has already started making some games for the xbox360. I have begun making models for his future plans.

The first model he asked me to make was a gunship. the way he described it over the phone, it sounded like he wanted a submarine shaped spaceship with a gun attached. The more I thought about it, I decided what he really needed was a big gun with a spaceship attached. I know it sounds the same, but the distinction is kinda important.


This is what I sent him. He dropped his idea in favor of my design. Next up was deciding upon a color scheme. I had this idea that soldiers of any kind like traditions. To that end I decided that the fleet should look like it came right off the Pacific Ocean in World War Two. So, three color schemes, two variations of Battleship gray;


and the blue color scheme of the battleship on which the VJ Day treaty was signed.


The Dark gray was decided upon and work commenced on detailing. This is the first ship I have finished, and I post it here with Permission. This is the Gun Ship, kind of a space floating sniper rifle. The fleet using this ship are not the good guys.



I'll be posting more later. Currently I am working on the fourth ship in this series.

Hangin' back at the crib.

In an effort to make this baby more real for the both of us, we've added an important addition to Lilly's room: the crib.


Craig's list helped us score once again, a crib pretty much exactly what I wanted, in good shape and cheaper than new. Samantha was wonderful to share this cute, not too girly, crib set with us. (Thanks again)


Brian was very tolerant of my photo taking of the crib process. It seemed like such a cliche and he did it so well...

So...now we just need Lilly. (And the million other things that come with a baby.)

Due date.

Well, we had the 20 week appointment. Because of this we found out we are actually at 18 weeks, not 20.

Consequently, we are only 98% sure that it's a girl. Lilly Elizabeth Olson is due on December 16th.



Side note: Let the embarrassing photos that all parents are obligated to share begin. :)

The best thing about being pregnant...

...is that you no longer have to make excuses for buying toys. :) -Paige

That's right folks, we went on a toy shopping spree. We looked back on the toys we had as kids and the ones that brought us the most fun. Our first presentation is the classic wooden train. My brother had one of these, and I loved it.

We did all kinds of stuff with it. They actually sell these at Ikea. They have the basic figure eight set, plus 2 add on sets. We bought one of each. Then we went back and bought one more main, and one more add on. This picture is of the whole shebang.
Additionally, a store at the next off ramp up the freeway sells this little beauty.

With the minor problem that it's to tall to fit under the traditional bridge. One of the add-on kits can bu used to make an uber-overpass. Or, you can put all the bridges on separate loops, and not worry about going under. I like it. In addition to these three cars, there is a tanker and a box car and a Caboose. They aren't as cool though. These simple wooden trains were originally called a Lincoln Log train, as the Lincoln Log company originally made them.

Speaking of Lincoln Logs we also bought a set of these classic "Fontier Logs". The Actual "Lincoln Logs" brand is owned by a company in India, has almost as many plastic parts as Legos, and the wood logs come in all the pastel colors of the rainbow. Their just not brown. These are from a different company, but have most of the same pieces. The roof pieces are way different. Actually kinda cool.

As with the original Lincoln Logs brand, this set comes with way more 1 notch pieces than you need. By law, thesse must be used as either fence posts or cannons, as seen here. My children will be given these and will be forced to completely follow the directions inside to make the "Pony Express" cabin pictured on the barrel. Once. After that, I will probably hide the instructions. Once they have mastered creativity with too few logs, I will have a "little" surprise for them:
What does a geek do with the eight feet of redwood railing removed from his deck in order to put in a porch swing? He makes MORE Lincoln Logs.

As you can see, my set has the old style standard roof pieces, just no roof gables yet. These classic roof slats can be used for roofs, decks, boardwalks, or beating ones cannons into fence posts. My kids will grow up thinking the pioneers clear cut the land like the second coming was tomorrow. They'll think the "old west" was desert because they removed all the trees first. This set, so far, contains 1,2 and 3 notch, just like the store bought set, but it also contains 4 and 5 notch pieces, allowing for complex interaction as you observe here in the "Fort Whatsitoya" playset. completely cross compatible with any store bought set, these as of yet un-sanded and unfinished classic logs will teach my children to be creative within rigidly defined parameters. Much the same way I struggle to in my English class.

(Paige would like to make a note that Brian is claiming all credit/blame for children that come from our marriage...this could be fun!)

More Busy Semester.

This semester I am also taking a basic drawing class. We just finished the section on drawing perspective. We had the assignment to pick a place within UVU's Computer Science Building and draw the perspective we saw. Upon seeing my finished product, The teacher explained that what I had done was what he would expect from his second and third year students. I post it here for you to see. Click to see it bigger.

Busy Semester

First block of summer semester is over, and second block is well under way. I thought I would take a moment to show you what I did in my Principles of 3d Animation class.

The Instructor had us each purchase a stuffed animal that we would first model, then texture, then animate. Here is the Stuffed Animal I chose.


And here he is again on the computer.

The model has a skeletal structure hidden inside. Both the model and the skeletal structure are real easy to mess up if your not careful. One of the ways we prevent this is to make them untouchable, and instead we give ourselves "Controls" to work with. That is what those colored lines are. Since it is easy to get turned around when animating, my controls are color coded. Red for Right, Blue For Left, and Green for anything down the center. This makes it easy to identify certain body parts using a shape, then add a color for the side. Then you can move him, like so:


Here are a couple of animations I made with him. First we have a walk. Note in the final 3 seconds the moving colored lines.



Next I have a run sequence posted. Initially, I liked the walk better, but in retrospect, I think this run is best.



In related news, The senior Animation project is floundering and several of us new to the 3d program were recruited to assist in the animation portion of it. I really don't know that I'm going to be able to contribute very much, but I'm giving it a go anyway. It's not for school credit or money or anything, but having my name in the credits as an animator won't hurt a resume.

Summer Vacation V, the Voyage Home, and other finishing thoughts.

Well, I thought I had a bunch more summer vacation pictures to show you, here are just a few more. By the end of the week, we were sunburned and mosquito bitten beyond our worst fears. The vacation was nice, but going home was the greatest. Here is a shot of the plane that took us home. The airport is so tiny, that they have no jetway, just the classic stairs. On both the way in and the way out, we traveled through the rear door of the Airplane. How often does that happen!

One last thought about Maho Bay camps. They recycle most glass that the campers generate right there on site. Every night they do glass blowing demonstrations. Pretty cool.

This Moderately old House II

I have more pictures from vacation. But I already wrote this one. Sorry.

So I had some clever story I was going to use to introduce these photos. I've completely forgotten it. Not a speck of it left in my mind. Okay, that is not entirely true. But to off set the minor untruth is the rather large truth that I no longer have time to write a long story. I'm not all that convinved it would have been that entertaining either. But back to the topic. Observe the following pictures from the Pergolla Post. Specifically, observe the Deck.



Note how old it is. In our last episode of This Moderately old house we discussed ways to make the deck look new by adding a porch swing. While the porch swing was great, the deck failed to achieve newness of any level.


Note the grayness of the deck. When this moderately old house was just a measly 17 years young, it was chocolate brown. This led me to believe that it was not, in any shakes, good lumber. A fact that interior projects would reaffirm over and over. A Couple years back in the Summer of Pressure Washing, the gray revealed yellow underneath. This led to the general assumption that said wood was probably pine or alder or something else not realloy suited to outdoor construction.

The Summer of Pressure Washing was a project intended to restore This old deck to newness in much the same manner the porch swing didn't. A coat of "Penetrating" oil based sealent of redwood tone was slapped over the yellow wood.

Due probably to a lack of proper medication, rejection of the new coat occurred within 2 months. The gray returned with increasing vigor each subsequent summer. At the time of completion of the swing, it was decided that something must be done for the deck. We didn't know quite what. So, using the railing pieces that were removed to make way for the swing, we tested some chemical stuff. None of it worked to any degree. So we tried sanding. Can you imagine the surprise encountered when we discovered that the whole thing is redwood?

We dismantled the whole railing and stripped and sanded it piece by piece. For the floor boards we rented one of those drum floor sanders. The end result is complete as of last monday, and I show it to you now.