Feeling: Restless
Music: Jamiroquai - Virtual Insanity

Added some new work, two UI mockups and a new illustration piece.

The one mockup I'm actually rather proud of, as it's animated using After Effects CS3 - my first attempt at using the application, but I dove right in and picked up the basics rather quickly. It could be because of my Flash animation experience, but to me, After Effects seems much less cumbersome to work in when dealing with bitmaps and non-vector art. The text animation tools are also amazingly fun to work with. When I started working on the project I wasn't sure how I was going to animate the text; turns out AE had it all figured out for me already!

My brain is completely taxed from the past month; I didn't create much "finished" artwork, but I did a lot of thinking and stressing out about things I'm going through. It's not really anything worth bringing up, but I'm still alive, still hungering for my chance at a job.

Feeling: Accomplished
Music: .38 Special - Trooper With an Attitude

Last night, my World of Warcraft guild, Vulgar Display of Power, finally popped its head into Black Temple. We'd investigated it once earlier a month ago, but last night was the first time we went in there seriously. After getting 3 of the 5 bosses in the Hyjal Summit raid down, we were pretty confident we could do well.

We went in, and did pretty well! We had a horrible time on a pull before Naj'entus, the first boss, (2 Coilskar Generals, 2 Soothsayers, a Sea-Caller, and an elemental) but we finally got that sorted out. Once we did that, we did Naj'entus and got him on our third attempt! It was a phenomenal win, and I'm really proud of my guild, as well as being glad to finally be in Black Temple. We kept going afterwards, and got Supremus to about 38% if I remember right before calling it; our tanks kept dying, and it looked like he bugged on the last pull.

This weekend also marks the first time I was specced Protection as a Paladin, since we have a lack of tanks and Paladins are superb in Hyjal. It was really fun, but the above BT night was pretty much a downer; I was only useful on a couple of pulls, and on both bosses all I did was throw heals, which didn't accomplish too much. That being said, I am glad I'm playing a class flexible enough to fill a role that has a hole in the raids, all I need is a respec. Success is always preferable to sitting around not raiding that weekend!

In art news, I'm brushing up on my Flash again, as well as poking my nose into ActionScript 3. I've never touched programming languages of any sort; the closest I've gotten has been HTML and CSS, but so far it's pretty fun, if hard to wrap my head around. I posted a UI design in Flash that utilizes a little AS3 in my gallery, mostly to show graphic design and layout decisions.

Feeling: Nervous
Music: Cameo - Word Up

I've been hard at work on something the last couple weeks. I don't want to talk about it much because it's up in the air, I feel like I may jinx it, but right now I'm waiting with baited breath.

Words can't express the excitement and anxiety I'm feeling at the moment, but things feel electric and explosive. They also feel somewhat tenuous. I want to do more, I want to rush headlong into things, but for the moment I have to wait, I have to have patience. I am hopeful that everything will come together, but I worry that once more things will fall through. We'll see I suppose.

Feeling: Upbeat
Music: Tally Hall - Banana Man



Alright! Got the Desert Domicile textured, along with all its objects; it's replaced the untextured version in my gallery and portfolio. I always forget which way alpha channels work until I get back to doing them, then I remember. I'm sure I'll remember as I do more of these.

Originally inspired by this image, I wanted to get into doing some type of architecture modeling, but I wasn't sure what the best method was. Sweeping landscapes, skyscrapers, entire cities all look amazing in concept, but those can be weeks of modeling and texturing. So, start small, just a building with common objects; sacks of food, a bed and pillow, knife and cutting board, etc.

I thought it would look too much like the original, and while it shares similarities, it thankfully doesn't look exactly the same. It was such a good design to start out with, but after I started I didn't go back and look at the image, so it developed as its own little structure.

I think the best thing I got out of this was that it was extremely fun. I didn't think I'd like modeling architecture, but at least this little building was relatively straightforward and easy to plan and lay out. Good practice as well.

Feeling: Busy
Music: Hall and Oates - Maneater

Oh man! Been hard at work, doing a few local jobs in addition to my own work. Posted two new images in the gallery, four-panel sketches and color keys of environment concepts, and I'm in the middle of getting a new model constructed - it's my first non-character mesh, pretty exciting!


As I'm working on my next model as well as conversing with people I'm working on a project remotely with, I've come across time and again the concept of a polycount, which I understand in the way of optimization for games, but never a definite answer as to what is the proper way to count said polys. Some people say you count by quads, but just as many others say to count tris. Rather confusing!

In my head, I think it's more proper to count triangles, as a quad can be split into two triangles, and those triangles are the simplest primitive plane while working in a 3D package. Game engines break down quads into tris anyway, so it seems to me the only reason to count polys by quads is because a person models largely in quads. Movies may be a different matter, where you have a much larger count and quads make a generally smoother mesh.

When modeling in Maya I have both counts, so it makes little difference which someone says to go by, but in a technical sense, it seems not only proper, but better for a workflow to count in tris. Either way it's a small matter, but it seems rather odd since parties are clearly divided on what the "polycount" really is.

Feeling: Productive
Music: Earth, Wind & Fire - Boogie Wonderland



Updated my gallery with samples of what I've been working on the past few months, and the keyword for this time was Maya. Up until this past November, my knowledge of working with 3D modeling packages was severely limited; I didn't have any real structure for learning anything at SIUC, barring one limited 3DSMax class. But, I got determined this past year that it was something I was going to train myself on, and so I did.

I threw myself wholeheartedly into the endeavour, and man did I pick things up! My first attempts are rudimentary for sure, but in comparing them to other artists' models, I think they show great promise. It wasn't about creating a perfect model anyway, but of touching on multiple subjects, to touch on any subject I could grasp and pick up on a workflow for working in 3D. It was long and arduous, but tons of fun, picking up on varied topics:

• Modeling
• UV Layout
  
• Texturing/Skinning
• Rigging
  
• Facial Blendshaping

Quite impressed with myself, really. Rigging was insane, I was working from guides and instruction for bipedal models, and the Iorek model is quadrapedal. Mostly similar, but at the same time I had to figure things out for myself. All in all, it made the adventure all the more fun, and by the end I could manage a lot on the fly.

I didn't get into animation, simply for the fact that I think everything I worked on up to that point was enough for my poor little brain, and animation more than the rest of the process seems like a beast unto itself. Definitely something I want to pick up knowledge on, but I think it more important to hone the skills I've sown seeds in with these projects.

In the middle of an environment model now, to break out of the character mold, as well as some 2D work to complement it! More to come!

Feeling: Accomplished
Music: Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood

My blog has been integrated into my website! I've had the option available on my Google account but never used it, decided that it would be a good thing to put into my site. It's been awhile since I've updated things, so this should make the process easier. It should also serve as a good place to talk about my experiences, self-training, and all that rot.

I've got some new artwork, and with this complete I'll be working on getting the gallery completely updated! I'm also resizing thumbnails so pages are smaller vertically.

Lastly, the blog has RSS integrated as well, so you can get all the latest updates from me. :D