Digital Video Girl


October 7th, 2008

The Kixx Rabbit @ 12:00 am

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I really like the exercise that Eric Goldberg did in his book where he takes start and end key that are identical and then puts a different breakdown between them. The result is completely different motions and feels even though it's the same pacing, same character, etc.

I liked it so much that I decided I'd try doing my own version of it.

I also decided I was tired of Mr. Minimalist and that I wanted to do something that was still simple but had some nice secondary motion. Rabbits are particularly nice for this. The ears can be expressive or simple follow-through but more importantly, they're generally up out of the way of the rest of your drawing, unlike a tail which is always crossing the path of your hands and such.

So. Here's my first motion. I'll be using the same start/end keys for the next couple pencil tests I draw. Though hopefully I'll generally be doing them on 2's rather than 1's. I've been having a mad tendency to draw on 1's lately. :)




Mmm! Look at that secondary motion! ... Just don't pay attention to the business, which kind of fails.

This is interesting really. The motion is nice and smooth and lively, and if you single-frame through it, there's a lot of stretch and squash happening. That rabbit gets really stretched.. But when you watch it at speed, it doesn't appear that he got much more than a nudge. Definitely doesn't read as a good hard kick.

This is a funny thing about animation. The individual frames here look pretty wild. If you deformed that much after getting kicked in the rear, you'd be in the hospital. But for a cartoon character, it's barely a tap. This is why motion-capture looks so crappy. With a real person, we just kind of accept that the way they move is how people move, but our brains actually tend to encode motion as much larger actions than what we really see, so to make something that isn't human move in a 'lifelike' fashion, we really have to deform it.

Ohwell. Comments, critiques, criticisms, or heck, even praise would be much appreciated. :)
 

October 6th, 2008

Pencil Tests @ 11:32 am

Current Music: Sacred Dub: Transmission 043 - Kevin

Did some minor modifications to the pencil tests I posted a couple weeks ago and made a couple of completely new takes. The last one is done after reading Eric Goldberg's book.

Some revisions to the last pencil tests and some new tests )
 

October 3rd, 2008

Maverick @ 04:08 pm

October 2nd, 2008

Apps and Alternatives @ 11:27 am

Come to think of it...

What do you guys do with your computers? What sorts of applications do you own/run/steal, and how much do you use them?

I confess that my computer is more or less my entire universe.

There's the basic set of apps that I imagine everyone runs. Music (iTunes), web browser (FireFox), chat programs (Audium AIM/Yahoo), Colloquy (IRC), Savatar (MU*)) Mail (Mac Mail), Skype, SecondLife, etc. I also frequently play DVDs on my computer when I'm working on other stuff in my studio.

Then there's basic office type stuff that one frequently needs. Spreadsheet, text editor, etc. I mostly run OpenOffice, though lately I've been using GoogleDocs more. I also have google calendar linked into iCal but that's still not fully satisfactory for how I'd really like to use it.

At work I use it to develop in C++. I run XCode with G++4.0. XCode isn't the greatest IDE in the universe. It's got a lot of things I like about it and the debugger is faster and friendlier than GDB but I admit that Microsoft's Debugger is superior (though their IDE is not)

I also do on and off development in a variety of shell scripting languages, java, perl, tcl, and python. Mostly for work, sometimes for personal use. This is where I get into needing the power of Unix on my machine. I have lots of neat little scripts for re-timing and renumbering animation sequences that are stored as individual images. This is extremely difficult to do on Windows. I also have a bunch of scripts for a variety of bot and game projects and other things that I make.

Outside of work, I use my computer mostly for artwork and animation. This is also where I spend the majority of my money on my computer.

I use Photoshop and Illustrator the most, probably followed by Frame Thief, then ToonBoom or Maya, then Premiere, After Effects, and Flash. I also shouldn't forget my sound programs. Audacity, Garage Band, Sound Booth, and my weird little apps which translate whistling/singing into a score in Garage Band and my guitar tuner app (I'd be lost without that. I can't tune by ear to save my soul)

These are the apps that I'd have the most difficulty finding replacements for on some other platform. GIMP has made a lot of progress but it's still somewhat lacking compared to Photoshop. AFAIK, there isn't an equivalent of Illustrator or ToonBoom for linux, and I'm pretty certain there's nothing that compares to Premiere or After Effects. The closest thing I can think of would be Combustion and ... I got Combustion for free with Maya... After a few days of serious hate, I uninstalled it. It's supremely inferior.

Likewise, I might be able to find a few things that would output flash animation, but ToonBoom provides that for me. When I use Flash it's actually to use Flash's scripting language. I more or less hate Flash but sometimes it's a necessary evil. Maya only recently became available on Linux, and there's Hash and Blender. So I could conceivably switch for 3D stuff.

I'm sure there must be basic sound editors and frame-capture programs, but I don't know if they'd be as full-featured as the ones I presently enjoy.

I have no games on my computer, and I very rarely play games period. Games are probably the only selling point for Windows over Mac,and honestly, most of the good games are on console systems these days, so why bother?


Anyhow... That's what I use and why I use the system I use. How about you guys? What sorts of apps do you run on a regular basis?

 

Bite me 10.5 @ 11:13 am

Current Mood: cranky
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*sigh* So... Right after 10.5 came out, we'd got a family edition of it to install on our machines. Naturally, it turned out it wasn't really compatible with our 400Mhz G4 cubes and it breaks 90% of the applications I own... Unlike a lot of people, I actually buy my software. I'm crazy that way.

Anyhow... It was well past time to upgrade most of my apps anyhow, so I bought a new suite of adobe products, and an update for Maya. Frustratingly, I'd just bought an update to ToonBoom shortly before 10.5 broke it and no free update was being offered. However, since I wasn't animating at the time, I didn't worry about it too much, but I also didn't bother updating my computer to use 10.5

So. Yesterday I went to do some development stuff for work on my home computer and discovered that I could no longer get it to link properly. After a good bit of frustration, I decided it was time to get an update to ToonBoom and switch to 10.5.

So... The ToonBoom update was pretty awesome. I only played with it a bit but it has some new features and things that I was really enjoying. Then I tried to update to 10.5

I'll spare you the swearing and anger. Needless to say, flash forward to 16 hours later and... My harddrive is currently being reformatted. :(

Fucking Hell. I stopped using Windows to get away from bullshit like this. *sigh*

Oh. And before someone goes and says something irksome that will re-direct my ire at them, let me point out that the reason I use Mac is because it's more reliable than Windows, runs all the apps I need/want, and lets me do Unix command line stuff when I need more power. Windows is crap and Linux still doesn't have a lot of the apps I want so Macs are the best solution for me. YMMV but I don't care to hear about it because you and I probably run drastically different sets of applications.
 

September 30th, 2008

Patheticly stupid quizzes @ 05:24 pm

Current Music: Merrie Haskell - EP175: Reparations

1. Do you have the guts to answer these questions and re-post as The Controversial Survey?
You mean am I bored or a pathetic sheep? I'll go with bored, Chuck. If you consider this quiz 'controversial' (other than the incredible spin put into the questions) you need to get out more.

2. Would you do meth if it was legal?
Meth is toxic, addictive, and can cause brain damage. BUT, point of fact, most of you have done Meth. Sudafed is functionally identical to meth except that the delivery is slower. If you take a LOT of Sudafed at once, you'd get the same effects. Demonize it all you want, but lets year your answers when cold season rolls around.

As for me. No. I would not do meth but I really do miss Sudafed.

3. Abortion: for or against it?
For. Retroactively even. Starting with whoever wrote this stupid quiz and followed by my neighbors' 6-children-each-in-two-bedroom-apartments. SEVEN BILLION people is too goddamned many. We're killing the planet.

4. Do you think the world would fail with a female president?
I think this quiz is full of fail. What kind of pathetic loser even asks a question this stupid? Hello. Get off your ignorant americentric world-view. There have been many powerful female leaders throughout history.

5. Do you believe in the death penalty?
I believe it exists. Another poorly-worded and stupid question. Should the state execute people? Let's ask a different question. Are some people beyond help? If they are beyond help, can we learn something by studying them that might prevent someone else from becoming beyond help? Lots of people are completely worthless. Why limit our executions to murderers? How about old people with no family who live in a retirement home and don't do anything but watch TV? Aren't they a waste of resources?

6. Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
It is legal in several countries and they haven't collapsed. It is at absolute worst, no more harmful than alcohol, tobacco, or deep fryers, and it definitely helps people who have certain eating problems, so why not? Some other people might have fun? OH NO!

7. Are you for or against premarital sex?
Amazing! Another stupid question! If you're talking about religious marriage, that's between you and your imaginary friend. If you mean legal marriage, that's basically the same as asking if you think someone should have sex before opening a business. What kind of pathetic loser would even care?

8. Do you believe in God?
I believe in myself. Interpret that how you like.

9. Do you think same sex marriage should be legalized?
Old people can marry, people of different races can marry, people of different religions can marry. Once again. It's a fucking legal contract. Only a total fucking idiot would conflate it with religion.

10. Do you think it's wrong that so many Hispanics are illegally moving to the USA?
I should have figured you were also a racist. So many hispanics huh? What about Canadians? Is it okay because they're white? Newsflash! Those dirty hispanics lived in the US a hundred years before you assholes got here. Texas won its freedom from Mexico thanks largely to 'hispanics' who were then murdered and had their property stolen by racist fuckbags like you.

But.. Look at the bright side. As bad as Bush and chums have fucked up the economy, soon it will be americans trying to sneak into Mexico for a job and better living conditions. Congrats on that.

11. A twelve year old girl has a baby, should she keep it?
Yet another loaded question. 'has a baby' implies it's born already. A fetus isn't a baby. It has the IQ of a carrot. I'm all in favor of fewer humans but you know. It's really her choice, isn't it? 12 was a common age for marriage just a century ago. For my money, I'd rather have the idle childhood with freedom than be caring for a screaming child, but that's me.

12. Should the alcohol age be lowered to eighteen?
Why not? Alcohol is no more addictive than caffeine and we place no restrictions on that, or fat or sugar consumption. What exactly is the difference? Small amounts of alcohol are not going to kill you or even make you drunk. Was the writer of this really so stupid and brainwashed?

13. Should the war in Iraq be called off?
This question is incredibly vague and naive. The US had no legal or logical right to attack Iraq in the first place. The damage that has been done will be paying the US back with hatred and violence for decades to come. At this point, pulling out would save US taxpayers large sums of money at the cost of jobs geared towards supporting the war machine, but it is too late to undo the damage that has been done. So. We've already fucked up our reputation and right now we're just putting money in the hands of the wealthy by taking it from the middle class with taxes, so it depends entirely on your point of view. If you're a common person like me. Yes, we should get out. If you're a rich asshole like most of the republican lawmakers, No.

14. Assisted suicide is illegal: do you agree?
Here's a simple example of your bias. You assert that it's illegal and then ask if one agrees with that. So you're asking a person in effect if they have criminal thoughts. Very 1984. Yes, suicide should be legal. Yes, assisted suicide should be legal. In the time it took me to write the answer to this stupid question, 50 babies have been born. Very few people are going to miss one person killing themselves.

15. Do you believe in spanking your children?
'Your children'. Another biased question. Many people will answer 'I don't have children' and then you can just use the tired 'You don't have kids, you wouldn't understand!' if you don't like their answer.

And again, your pathetic dichotomous world-view is fucking sad. Define spanking. Most people only hit something when they're very angry. Should a child be hit because you're angry because you failed as a parent in not teaching them better? Probably not. Perhaps you should be spanked. Now. If you're not angry, can pain be used as aversion for undesirable behaviors? ... Sure... It can be used, but hundreds of studies suggest it doesn't work very well and very seldom teaches the lesson you mean to teach.

16. Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars?
Another stupid question. Most people would burn their own mother for a million dollars. They might lie and say they wouldn't but if a legitimate offer was made, you can bet they'd behave different. It's cloth. It's likely made in China and bought on sale at Wal-Mart. Is that patriotism? Waving a little flag? Why is it that every time you open your mouth, stupid comes out.

17. Who do you think would make a better president? McCain or Obama?
'Who would BE a better president?' you fucking retard. How about you learn English. It shames us all that your vote is equal to mine.

Anyhow, in answer to your ignorant question, let's apply a little logic. According to the polls, about half of the people in the country are as stupid as you are. Half are not. Sad but true. What this means is that roughly half the people are going to dislike a majority of the president's choices regardless of who he is. So. Factoring that out, let's consider two other issues. McCain is the same president we've always had. An old rich white guy. Same old same old. Obama is of interracial heritage, as are a growing number of americans. Additionally, to the rest of the world, McCain represents a continuation of the Bush administration's policies and none of our neighbors are particularly fond of that. So, symbolically, Obama is a MUCH more powerful president even if he were to vote EXACTLY as McCain would vote. Ergo, he's a much better presidential candidate without considering a single issue.

18. Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
Honestly, I could care less.

Are you afraid anyone is going to judge you by the ignorance of your questions?
 

September 29th, 2008

Ouch @ 04:57 pm

Current Music: Frank Key - Hooting Yard: Disquieting Ploppy Noises From Behind The Panel

McCain gets totally pwned by Paris Hilton. Gah.

Link to McCain campaign ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHXYsw_ZDXg

Link to Paris Hilton ad: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4468106.ece
 

September 27th, 2008

Oh what a feeling @ 09:42 am

The local Longs was closing out its summer stuff and one of the things they had were LED lights for an outdoor umbrella at a huge markdown.

Decided to put them on the ceiling in my studio.



It's been interesting so far. Everyone who sees them seems to see something different. What do you think it looks like?

 

September 25th, 2008

Fuck you, Amazon @ 02:26 pm

Two weeks ago, I ordered a book listed as 'in stock' with a ships in 2-3 days.

Still hasn't arrived, so I went and looked at my order. The book is still listed as 'in stock' but now has a delivery date of November 1st.

Okay, now see... That's not 'In stock" that's "Backordered"

And just for that extra little bit of piss, because they've fucked up, the order is listed as in process and can't be cancelled without a restock fee.

Seriously. What the fuck?

I sent them a nasty letter, patiently explaining the difference between "In Stock" and "Backordered" and the difference between 2-3 days and "2 fucking months"

They've not responded yet but I suspect that sometime soon I'll get a form letter which explains shipping date estimates to me and where I can look on their website to see my order status.

And that, boys and girls, is why I generally prefer to shop at brick and mortar stores instead of buying stuff through dickish online fuckheads.

Yes, you MIGHT save a dollar but generally it's just not fucking worth it.

 

September 21st, 2008

Awesome. :) @ 10:26 pm

Tags:

I had a nearly perfect weekend. Actually, it started off pretty bad, but I discovered that if you get the bad part out of the way early, it makes the rest that much more enjoyable. So. Even the part where I fell down a cliff face and the part where I got my car stuck in a river turned out to be a lot of fun. :)

Now I'm off to bed. Nightnight. :)
 

September 19th, 2008

Free Idea @ 12:01 pm

I don't have Illustrator handy today, but I offer this simple slogan for bumper stickers in California.

"NO ON PROP h8"

 

September 17th, 2008

That thing @ 08:52 am

September 12th, 2008

Christmas on Mars @ 11:50 am

Current Music: Lavie Tidhar - Pseudopod 104: The Book in the Earth

Hmm.... The Flaming Lips have apparently made a movie titled Christmas on Mars that's opening this weekend... The trailer looks.... Yeah. Who's coming with me once I figure out where this is playing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub-5zlJPnjM

Edit: Damnit. Looks like it's only playing in New York.
 

September 11th, 2008

Previous Life? @ 11:22 am

So. I have this weird overwhelming fear of getting sticky things on me.

This seems like it would have been my worst nightmare if I were around at the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster

 

September 10th, 2008

Stay Puft @ 04:51 pm


At four points in the tunnel, the scientist will use giant magnets to cross the beams and cause protons to collide.

I thought I'd chime in on the necroequinesadism just because proton beams and crossing the streams reminded me of something I saw once.

As for the whole 'micro blackhole destroying the Earth' thing that people have been going on about. Wouldn't it probably be the case that if that happened, we who're far away from the LHC would have a nearly infinite amount of time to figure out a way to escape the effect? The event horizon would be tiny and time slows to nearly a stop at the event horizon (if I understand things correctly, which there's a good chance I don't) But probably it would take a very long time before we'd have to worry about it.

Weird thought. what if black holes are entirely new universes, each containing their own universes, our entirely multiverse just being a bit set of sieves pouring one into the next, each one containing an infinite amount of matter and an infinite amount of time. What if our universe is at the bottom of a black hole and all the 'missing' matter is the material from that universe that ours hasn't absorbed yet or all of it we've poured off into the creation of the next level of universes.

Heh. Even more tangent idea. Wouldn't that make a neat story? Universes live at the bottoms of black holes created by the sentient races and the ideas and beliefs of the people at the 'ground zero' planet of that creation comprise the rules of the child universe. Earth and all the life on it is nothing but the DNA of a single egg cell for the birth of the next universe/god-creature, and every other black hole we've seen in our parent universe was formed by a sibling. Perhaps we've been the angels dancing on the head of a pin all along.
 

Reincarnation? @ 04:27 pm

Tags:

Buh? ... My next incarnation will be exactly like my current incarnation?

Your result for Reincarnation Placement Exam...

Reclusive Artist


We think we've found a place for you.



Your answers indicate that you're very fond of the fruits of civilization... for example, education and technology. But, in some twist of irony, you're not too fond of the pressures of civilization... you know, human beings and crowds and working together. We found you a place where you could enjoy an erudite existence, live a life that's intriguing and not entirely secure -- but far from the madding crowd.



Removed from civilization and humanity, yet educated and sophisticated, you'll make the perfect reclusive artist... An eccentric that produces irresistibly attractive masterpieces. Your art will make people swoon, and yet you will despise your audience. Your audience will probably dislike you as well, though they will go on admiring your work. So it all balances out, and your patrons will leave you alone to shape beauty in the wild, dangerous parts of the world where people won't pester you so much. Probably, you will write under a pseudonym, and mutter a lot when a rare admirer comes calling. If you feel really adventurous, you can pursue the role of a political dissident.



As you age, you will grow into the role of an incorrigible curmudgeon.



You artists, you're all the same.

Take Reincarnation Placement Exam at HelloQuizzy

 

September 9th, 2008

The Bitter Dryad @ 03:32 pm

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The Bitter Dryad rough cut with no editing posted to [info]dvnt_spirit account.
 

September 8th, 2008

Split Personality Assessment @ 03:57 pm

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It's been a few weeks since I split my journal into DV_Girl, [info]dervish_girl and [info]dvnt_spirit and so far I'm feeling a bit mixed about the results.

DV_Girl has continued to be my primary focus, which makes me somewhat happy, but dvnt_spirit seems to be languishing a bit. I have many more projects in store for her but I've had so much minutia to take care of that they've been back burner. I definitely feel like I should be spending more time on my spiritual and fantasy life.

Meanwhile, most worrying is that by separating out dervish_girl, it seems that side of myself has become much more hateful and caustic. Sort of standing on a soapbox and screaming at everyone who passes by. It's like a subset of the greater internet fuckwad theory. Even though the account is openly connected to 'me' there's still a feeling of added insultation. I wonder if perhaps I should set her journal to friends only or make it more difficult for me to post there to balance out the aggression that journal seems to contain. I'm just not interested in being such a hateful creature and I'd like to purge or at least master that rage.

The best thing to do is probably to try converting that anger into positive things. Art, music, animation that will (hopefully) make others see my point of view better than just shouting and being angry. Of course, the problem is that there are so many things to be angry about in the world today that it's impossible to vent it all that way, and sometimes one needs to just say things RIGHT NOW so they can focus on more important issues. So maybe dervish_girl does have some positive aspects as a vent to keep me from exploding. Defaulting her journal to friends only probably wouldn't be a bad plan though.
 

DarkAge @ 11:49 am

Current Music: DARKAGE: Episode 32
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Aw man. DarkAge ended today. Save for Chasing the Bard, this has been my favorite podcast for the past several months. It's not the absolute best writing but it's one of those that took me back. The premise is much like the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. A group of people from Default World get swapped into their characters in the Realm of Dark Age and stuff happens from there. If you want to load up on gaming nostalgia, definitely check it out at http://www.kirkcast.com

Speaking of podcasts, I might as well give a quick run down of other stuff I've been listening to.

Chasing the Bard ended a few weeks ago. It was definitely far and away my favorite podcast series. Shakespeare, the fey, and excellent writing. Good stuff. :)

Nocturnal is Scott Sigler's current story. While he's still not my favorite artist and I enjoyed some of his other worlds more, I have been meaning to mention for a while that he seems to be doing a bit better at portraying female characters lately. I can't lay my finger on exactly what's different but they're feeling less superficial than some of his earlier work. He's definitely maturing as a writer and becoming better for it. Heh. That reminds me. I never mentioned that he did a panel at Baycon and, just on a whim, I went out to the hall, bought a beer, wandered up to the front, said "Beer-o-gram", dropped it off with him and left. :)

Last one I'll mention for today is 12 Volt Theater's Down the Road It's a bit like Svankmajer's take on Alice in Wonderland crossed with a Choose Your Own Adventure book. It's a weird little ARG with a pretty solid surreal setting. I have sort of oddly mixed feelings about this one. The story itself ranges between interesting and grating for me, but the world-building and flavor text is consistently hitting interesting buttons for me. It's probably got pretty strong appeal for most PBM people.

Okay. That's it. I need to get back to work or I'll be here until midnight. :)
 

September 5th, 2008

SCIENCE @ 05:20 pm

Current Music: Lorenzo - 041-Erowid: "Grassroots Peer Reviews of Psychedelic Information"
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So. In the realm of "It pays to keep yourself informed"...

A few months ago, I'd heard from a respectable professor giving a lecture at UC Berkeley that a paper had been published which said that even in normal club-level doses, MDMA caused some long-term brain damage.

I've had MDMA three times. It's pleasant enough but not really my thing so this was not seriously a sad discovery for me.

However, I'd passed along this information to friends and some of them were a bit saddened by it. However, I was listening to Lorenzo's program (see Music) and he mentioned that there was a huge scandal with the paper in question and that Science had printed a retraction/apology/etc. Turns out that the original author, Ricaurte is one of Bush's little weasels and he'd ACCIDENTLY confused MDMA with Methamphetamine. GEE, what a mix-up!

Here's a google search string if you're interested in looking at the various articles

This makes me angry on a couple levels. First because I've been part of their blanket of misinformation because it's my nature to want to keep my friends and loved ones safe. But moreover it bugs me because while their lie made HUGE press and I saw it in several different reports and have subsequently heard it mentioned a half-dozen times by anti-drug groups, the RETRACTION was printed nearly TWO YEARS ago. Better yet, this bozo continues to get fat grants from the Bush Administration to keep up his smear campaign research My tax dollars hard at work! :(

Anyhow, to anyone I passed bad information along to, I do apologize. The source I heard the information from was a credited (and drug-positive) professor whose information was based on a peer-reviewed scientific publication. Just goes to show that anyone can be duped.
 

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