GAME ON!!!! WHOOT!!!

Look! Its the final product!

penalty shot

penalty shot, originally uploaded by seraquin.

A poster shot of my project. ITs finally done.

Google Fight : Make a fight with googleFight

This is a funny but pointless waste of time :D

Google Fight : Make a fight with googleFight

Assessment 2- my blog, to date, so far...

In creating my blog I have leaned towards a minimalistic approach to the design. I'm not a big fan of gaudy flash pop ups and bright obnoxious colours. I prefer the kind of website that does not threaten to burn your eyes out the moment you click the link. In this I have opted for a basic design, subdued colours and a sidebar with everything I need.

I have to admit that I would aspire to a webpage as awesome and stylish as this one, but I'm not that good yet, so I'll stick with subdued for now.

I have been very focused on my 303 work this semester, and I've integrated this into my blog through posting up images of my different projects. For most of these posts, for example this picture , I have used the Flickr "blog this" option, which I find awesome and easy to use.

Del.icio.us has been useful in maintaining and managing my research material, as well as other random sites I find worth looking at.

As far as what I have gotten out of making this blog and 104 in general- the inner mechanics of websites are that much clearer to me. I have learned how to correctly use RSS feeds, and not only do I have one for my Del.icio.us account, but I was also able to get one working for my Deviantart page as well. Whoot. I also know how to embed scripts and where to put them, example- Google analytics, resulting in me being able to tell how popular my blog is, beyond the abilities of a humble site meter... The photo-hosting potential of flickr has also been revealed to me, a website I was completely unaware of, and probably would have shunned if I were not forced to use it.

All of this will help me when putting together a portfolio page in the end. Yay.

Who visits my blog!

Honestly I think this is a little overkill, but I implanted Google analytics into my blog and now I have a world domination-esque style command console that tells me whats going on with my blog.

Well as you can see from the screenshot below:



-I have had 11 visits since the little tracker was installed
-81% have been new people to my blog (which more or less means its not the same person looking over and over again since the tracker started working)
-June 5th was my busiest time, with a total of 5 visitors. Whoot.
-All of my visitors come from around Australia. At a guess I'd say Wagga.

the other wonderful thing I have going is my sitemeter. It is at 149 right now. Hooray. It won't tell me more than that tho.

multimedia arts metablog

I thought I might as well put a link up to our Blog HQ, the BA-MA blogspot place. The best thing about doing this is the fact that blogger is integrated into firefox, making blogging faster! Now how cool is that!

All you have to do is right click and at the bottom of the Menu is a "send to" option. Awesome integration mr Blog!

multimedia arts metablog

iTWire - Google Maps becomes “Go Ogle Maps”

It turns out google is once again pushing the boundries of information and communication, but not everybody is happy. Check out the story here:

iTWire - Google Maps becomes “Go Ogle Maps”

The High road

The High road, originally uploaded by seraquin.

Another nature speed painting. Just getting used to the new brushes.

misty rock

misty rock, originally uploaded by seraquin.

Another speed painting. Time to try out some technological scenes...

Like a leaf in the wind

Like a leaf in the wind, originally uploaded by seraquin.

This is a speed painting experiment I did in photoshop. The paiting took 2.5 hours, including the time it made to make the custom brushes. Its good fun.

grounded

grounded, originally uploaded by seraquin.

New photoshop work. Yay.

Aesthetics!

Also known as the study and philosophy of the quality and nature of sensory responses related to, but not limited by, the concept of beauty (from Ackland)

I believe function should come before design, but design should not be overlooked. An aesthetically pleasing website has a greater potential to entice and entertain a viewer whilst the content informs them.

More or less, content delivered in an ordinary or unappealing way will have a harder time getting through to a person than content that is delivered in an attractive fashion.

On the other side of the coin, a website that gluts on fancy graphics, whilst being entertaining no end, can ultimately end up in frustration, as the pretty pictures distract and interfere with navigation.

The balance it seems, these days, is to have a website that delivers its information with an aesthetically pleasing look, and a functional design. This is what I see as beautiful on the web, a page that is simple, attractive and efficient.

Google.com is a good example of an attractive layout that does not get in the way of navigation or functionality. A single picture, your search bar, some other options. Strait to the point without scratching functionality. Now thats cool.

Another more graphic example is 3d buzz. Its a nicely Illustrated wesbite, easily navigated and with a simple dark color scheme specially designed for eyes that have seen too much monitor tan.

Ugly websites- ick. Just visit any site at all from Geo-Cities. They are pretty bad. On the other end of the scale I really dont like overdesigned websites. I mean, yeah, pretty. Look once, throw it on the pile. It makes me sick when I have to look through a page of absolute chroma, oversaturated crappy cheesy teen boppy pictures with the same navigation interface as a thrown brick. Chief example: myspace pages

Then there is a third option. Those that have been so overdesigned that they once again become cool. Tokyo Plastic. Navigating this webpage intigues and entertains me, but probably only because the little swirly things are so cool and Im not actually at the website with any intent other than to look at the pretty pictures.

A couple of examples of functional and then pretty are:

Functional


Awesome!

As far as my blog goes I need to lean more HTML before I can really make it something worth looking at.

3dandstuff

3dandstuff, originally uploaded by seraquin.

My 3d compotive continues to evolve. Go the digital double!

Kyledigdub

Kyledigdub, originally uploaded by seraquin.

This is what I have been working on latley. a digital double of Kyle for use in the Soccerball project. I like modelling characters. Its fun.

RSS- Really simple Syndication.

1. write a blogpost answering the following questions with links to appropriate sites :

info found at:
( XML.com)
( and another cool site)

XML-eXtensible Markup Language-

RSS is a form of XML that allows a website or blog to be constantly and automatically updated with new information in the form of links, pictures and short extracts.

I have decided to use google reader to make my RSS feed, as it compliments the rest of my google accounts (IE, blogger, gmail and docs). Keeping it in the family I suppose.

SEMINAR DONE!

20th post! YES! Anyways, I finally finished my 303 seminar. Its online and everything. Go on and take a look at MY SEMINAR here!

Whoot!

Blog Review

Rapidly approaching assessment, It is time to do the 500 word review of my blog, and what I have been doing on it. I have been quite happy to find that Flickr is a great place to host my photos (previously I was using village photos, which until recently had a very small amount of storage space) and Del.icio.us is one hell of allot easier to manage and access than your standard browser favourites tab.

Now why is this blog interesting? Well, more or less its a hub for me, where I put links to my other works ( like my DA site ) examples of my current works ( like my comic I am working on ) and funny stories about what happens when special effects experiments go wrong, like what happened to Ormo...

I am finding Flickr to be a good way to share photos that is saving me having to burn multiple copies of CDs. Its also turning out to be a good place to host all my other photos, like concept art and misc drawings that are unsuitable for my Deviantart page. Online storage space should never be shunned! Another surprise is that people see and comment on photos that you had only just put up. Its nice to know that someone other than yourself can see them.

I have joined the MPI104 network, and through that I came across Matt's Animators Guild which I also joined, being in a joining kind of mood.

As for my Del.icio.us, its been very helpful keeping track of all my online research for my essay. As before mentioned it is easier to manage bookmarks using Del.icio.us than firefox, and even seamlessly integrates itself into the browser.

Other than the posts, you can probably see that I have started to really customise the blog itself. Hit counter, links etc. As soon as I work out more HTML I want to make my own template with pictures and such. It'd be nice.

On with the world!

What the hey?

After a lot of assignment work everyone wants to take a little time off. This ended up with this:



shot at 2:30 in the morning during a hardcore compositing session I took a break and did a quick motion track. Im not sure why, but I think I had a couple of wires loose.

page2frame1draft

page2frame1draft, originally uploaded by seraquin.

Page two of the Demi Graphic novel. I am currently drafting the third page in PS.

One of the exciting things for me in making this is exploring Seraquin's past. He is one of the original characters from the Demi-verse and still features heavily in the main story.

The other thing I am excited about it RAIDING AN ENTIRE STARSHIP! Imagine all the things that could happen within... MWa ha ha ha ha!!!! Yes... evil lurks in the lower bays Seraquin... beware... mwa ha ha

PAGE ONE

PAGE ONE, originally uploaded by seraquin.

Demi- Blindside...

A comic based on the exploits of Seraquin, a character from the Demi-verse whom I named my DA site after.

This is page one, draft 2. Feel free to critique and comment.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
You dont have to read the backstory to get the comic, but yeah, I included it for those so inclined.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backstory-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Four hundred years ago a massive war raged between humanity and their creations, the Demi Sarconis and their cousins, the Demi Toranis.

After years of bitter conflict, the exodus of the Demi Toranis and defeat after crushing defeat the Human empire was finally brought to heel by the Sarconis warlord, Demi Akara.

Having destroyed or disabled all of Earth's defenses, the Warlord took it upon herself to burn the planet to cinders. The entire surface was wiped clean of life, and so it was that the Empire collapsed into Anarchy, having lost its head of state, and Earth, the one unifying link between the planets.

Anarchy raged for three hundred years, ending only with the foundation of the Federation out of the five strongest houses. The war was finally over, and it seemed that the past could finally be left to lie.

But in places there are ghosts of the past that refuse to die, and for some the conflict continues still, from all those years ago...

BATCHING IN PHOTOSHOP!

So, lets say you have 24 photos and you have to down res them all, or maybe put a border on each and every one of them. You want to do that to the whole lot? Yes! But sortof NO! You want the computer to do it for you! Anyways, in the spirit of sharing, Amelia told me how to do it and now I pass it on to the land of the Fatal Error...

Here goes...

Example for greyscale/200dpi/7cm wide

-In photoshop open one of the images you plan to batch
-WINDOW-VIEW ACTIONS
-CREATE NEW SET(tab)
-Name the set- use an obvious name
-CREATE NEW ACTION (tab)
-Name the action- similar to above
-Press RECORD
-Red dot comes up
-Begin actions to be recorded:

IMAGE/IMAGE SIZE/WIDTH 7cm
Change resolution to 200dpi
(check that actions palette is writing the actions as you go)
IMAGE/MODE/GREYSCALE/OK
IMAGE/ADJUST/AUTOLEVELS
FILTER/SHARP/UNSHARP MASK/>200%

-HIT THE STOP BUTTON (the square black dot)
-close file, do not save


To start batching process:
-FILE/AUTOMATE/BATCH/choose set/check action
-SOURCE/open folders or import files-choose files
-supress colour profile
-DESTINATION/FOLDER/Choose folder (on a PC it must be an existing folder- you can't create a new one at this stage)
-If you want to convert TIFF to Jpeg include SAVE AS as the last action and then tick the "OVERRIDE SAVE IN COMMAND" in this dialogue box
-tick all compatability options
-OK
-Then it should start!!

Thanks go to Ameila P for this tutorial. Whoot to you!

Great balls of fire

Great balls of fire, originally uploaded by seraquin.

I think the whole punchline of the photo is that if you can do something in real life, you should. CG is all well and good, but lighting a soccorball on fire is probably the better option.

(This photo is part of a 303 assessment. We get to light balls on fire. Fun!)

Flash- Lip sync test

Well... Its been a while since I used flash to any real extent, so I opened it up and made a short lip sync test. You can take a look at it here:

Testing out Twango

Here is a test of the uploading powers of Twango, using a time lapse shot of the Wagga sports center in the afternoon. Believe it or not, thats about 20 minutes going in 47 seconds. Next time I am going to brace the camera more, as the wind was making it wobble a little too much for my linking.

An update from the land of the Fatal Error...

Hello Blogland, and welcome to yet another post by me. It has to be mentioned within the first paragraph or so that this guy here , Aka Matt, ihas hit the ground running, and thats for sure. click the link and check out his Blog. Kudos to you.

In other news the forums are finally back up, and rumour has it we might have a lab working as well, which means workshiops and general education all round. Hooray.

As Joh has mentioned in the BA-Ma blog this site is worth a lingering look- Twango, especially for those of us who are still looking for a decent place to display our wares- videos that is. Best of all it costs very little. Nothing infact, which in the land of Education is always a bonus.

In production news the Demi production pilot has been hosted on You Tube for those of you so inclined, and a new Demi Graphic novel has begun development.

So its all ahead full in the land of the Fatal error.

Keep your eye out for updates as far as the special effects situation goes. Yay.

The pains of being... well... covered in plaster...

Myself and some friends have recently been trying to make a head cast for some special effects makeup. It should have been fairly simple. It should have been over like that. It wasnt.

You see, even with liberal amounts of Vasoline, the plaster mask (about 2cm thick and very sturdy) stuck to my friends face- by the hairs. Everything. Eyebrows, eyelashes, beard regrowth. What had happened is he had had a shower beforehand, resulting in the hairs of his face being waterlogged. The Vasoline clung to his skin, but slid right off of his hairs, allowing each and every one of them to bond to the plaster.

Well...

$16 worth of bandages, $4 worth of plaster, a butter knife, spoon and trip to the hospital later he was once again plaster free. The sad thing was that the cast would have been perfect, even getting the detail of his pores. The worst thing is that eyelashes take their sweet arse time growing back...

Lesson-
-If you are using it as a lubricant, only apply vasoline to dry hair!
-Use something other than plaster if you are willing to fork out. You can find better stuff here in the form of alginates, a spongy foamy material made out of a kind of sea weed. Expensive, but designed specifically for life casting.

Interested in this sort of stuff? We experiment in Vacume forming, armour, costumes, prop creation and monster/alien/special effects mask making.

Want to know more? Drop us an email at:
monster.menagerie@gmail.com

THQ announces Company of Heroes expansion pack...

Being a big fan of Company of Heroes, I have really been looking forward to the day that Relic announces an expansion pack for it. And that day has come!

"Opposing fronts" will feature two new campaigns, and include the British forces in the game, as well as the German panzer elite.

For those with hardcore computers the game also supports Dx10 strait from the box.

Another winning point about the game is the fact that they are yusing the same approach to this expansion as they did to the Dawn of War expansion pack "Dark Crusade". Although it is an "expansion pack" it does not require the original game, and can be used stand alone.

Hopefully some official modding tools will be released with the game, but so far I dont know.

Check out the full story at IGN

Z-Brush 3... looking swish!

Pixologic's Z brush program. Its a love/hate relationship.

On one hand, its frying my brain. The combination of 2d art and 3d space, cunningly called 2.5d, is enough to make anyone bleed from the ears.

But what is mroe it the absolute potential of the program, once you work out how to use it. You thought Maya was hard? Well Z-brush is like learning how to use a computer again from scratch, but by god is it worth it!

Take a look at the Z brush 3, the next step demo reel , and let me tell you, its bloody awesome!

Yum Yum, its Del.Icio.us...

Well, the web can be something of a confuising place, and bookmarking every page you come across that seems remotely interesting can cause more trouble than it solves... but then thats where Del.icio.us comes in. Its a dynamic web site that allows you to organise and catagorise your bookmarks. Not just that but you can also tag them in such a way that other people can easily find what you want them to see.

Here is a link to my Del.icio.us account. Take a look- it links to all the blogs in 104. Yay.

Jamming up the works...

Like most of my Generation, I was brought up watching ABC and Sesame Street, always slightly bemused that all the characters loved eating their peanut butter and Jelly samwiches. Big Bird and the rest being my role models at the time, I wanted to be like them. I couldn't manage the big yellow feathers so instead I tried something closer to home. Peanut butter and Jelly. I was so excited that I didn't give the Jelly enough time to set and it was like eating peanut butter trifle with soaked bread (wholemeal) instead of sponge. After that terrible experience I always looked at American tastes with a suspicious eye... untill the other day...

I had noticed in the Supermarket that there was, on sale, what looked suspiciously like Jam. 2 Jars for four Dollars. I grabbed them instentaniously, as you do when you are a Uni student, and rushed home to try my new yums.

BUT

They werent Jam! They were "conserve" ... What? Who? How? Who is this third party?

The explaination is as follows:

Jam and Jelly to most people are the one and the same. Made of fruit, spread on bread, has a weird name in America. But why then, if there is no difference, is there a distinction made between Jam and Jelly?

Its all about how it is made!

Wikipedia tells us that:
"Jams are usually made from pulp and juice of one fruit, rather than a combinations of several fruits. Berries and other small fruits are most frequently used, though larger fruits such as apricots, peaches, or plums cut into small pieces or crushed are also used for jams. Good jam has a soft even consistency without distinct pieces of fruit, a bright color, a good fruit flavor and a semijellied texture that is easy to spread but has no free liquid."

Aha! But then why is there such a thing as Jelly? What makes it special enough to deserve its own name? JELLY is JAM that has actually had the fruit pulp removed by a filter! Ahha! Its pure Juicy Jam. The mystery is solved! Or is it...

What is Conserve then? Why do we have conserve in Australia... are we going brand mad?

Dum dum daa!

(To be continued)

Things to take a look at...

So the Majority of people looking at this blog are going to be students of Multimedia? Take a look at some of my links on the side bar- sites such as High End 3d and 3dbuzz are great sources of plugins, and in 3d Buzz's case, Video tutorials.

If you want to get into Maya, take a look at 3d Buzz- if you want to get into compositing and after effects take a look at Creative cow- but remember, if you want to get into anything at all, you've got to get into the program and mess around a little.

The Uni labs are there! Use them! :D

(This is an example of a shot created using both Maya and After effects)

A man being made...

I am currently working on an animation with a crew of four other people. One of my jobs is character design- a reasonably challenging task. All in all there are three characters that appear in this animation; The main character- a gaunt man, a doctor and a Nurse.

The doctor and Nurse only appear briefly, but the Gaunt man is a main focus through the entire duration, so he must be made to look as good as possible.

I have been going for a somewhat exagurated look, but I am avoiding going as far as "Cartoony"

you can have a look at it here

The body is a work in progress but the head is more or less complete.

Internet revolution...

I have not really been taught about the Internet yet. Thats why I am in MPI104.

I mean sure, I can use it. But I dont really know how to post a webpage up thats anything slightly more complex than a blog. I maintain a DA site, and this blog, but they are all more or less the Web's version of a pre-packaged microwave meal. I need to learn a little bit more about coding my own webpage. I need goals. I need to create a portfolio page.

Thats the mission. :D


(Links in Safari must be in HTML...)

HTML is formed using code tags, enclosed within <>.

HTML Example one- Making a clickable highlighted link:

A link is formed using the following tags and format:
The opening tag is < A HREF= followed by "(website URL)" and a closing >
The Display text is inserted immediatley afterwards and closed with < / A >

The end result will look like:

This links to my first post

Definate sarcasim

I like to think of product placement as a game. Its like where's wally, only easier.

And then there was Blog...

I am Jeebuz. This is my blog.

I could say welcome.

I could say I'm all chirpy and so enourmously happy that you have seen my blog, honestly I am, and that your little visit will mean so much to me and possibly, yes, quite possibly change the way I look at the world and even, gods willing, live my life.

But quite honestly, Im not that worried about it. More than likley, I don't know you. Post if you want, but yeah, don't go out of your way if the content of this blog does not interest you. We will be as passing ships in the night. Hi, hello, begone.

BUT remember- in this world of computer anomnity, random names- hidden identity, do not go at liberty to abuse or insult those you meet, even if it is in a somewhat non-existent way. Although I do not know you, and you not I, manners should be universal.

Cut me, and do I not bleed pixels?

Yours in virtual sincerity
-Jeebuz