Totally worn out :P

I'm totally smashed this week. There's a difference between a 15 hr day in front of the computer and 8 hrs of running around, installing software, figuring out how linux works (GAH!) and plugging cables. Well the end result of that is we had a linux class for that go off quite smoothly, and I spent a day rehearsing/preparing for an Intro to Houdini class that I thought. That went very smoothly yesterday, though I'm quite hoarse today.... well now I'm gonna go back to work on the usual houdini stuff :P

Oh, and if you are curious, you can't use the built in vnc server in Ubutn 6.10 to send OpenGL images over a vnc connection. Install x11vnc instead. Works great :)

Using Camtasia to capture an Ubuntu desktop

Spent half the friggin' afternoon installing vnc servers and fuddling with the viewers and generally not getting windows to speak to linux, I then came across a post on an Ubuntu forum stating that Ubuntu, well Edgy at least, has VNC built in (!!!!) It's inside System >> Preferences >> Remote Desktop

I just enabled it, set the passwords, and used the TightVNC viewer to login from my XP machine. Tada! Now the HDK lecturer next week can do screen caps =)

Life Of Mann April

Remember to check out http://www.lifeofmann.com/ - my ex-colleague's wonderful collaborative project!

Easing Equations.

Title says it all....

http://www.gizma.com/easing/#l

Workspace

What do you carry halfway across the world? Your headphones and your mouse of course :) Oh they got pao pao cha here, but it's bloody expensive (USD3.49?!).

Visiting the beach

I think I'm finally getting into the groove of work/home/eat/sleep so more or less I won't be running around like a headless chicken and can get more stuff done. This was taken last Friday after work. 3 pictures stitched together. Original res @ 4.7k Wish I had a dslr and a fisheye :P Post more soon!

I didn't know Subway had 3 choices of cheese

This is for Adrian Easton, fanboy of Subway Melts. Come over to Santa Monica and I'll treat you to subway melts with a choice of 3 kinds of cheese :) Yum :)

Procedural Houdini Magic!!!!

You have got to check it out. Procedural growing of lots of stuff. Yeah.

http://www.pointy.tv/tmp/vegetation.mov

http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showtopic=5179&st=0

View of the pier

I was out taking shots for use in my Internship projects (Not gonna build cg models - which is why I spent so much time on the Camera Mapping shader!), and took this shot of the pier. I haven't visited the pier yet, probably once I get totally settled in. I definitely want to ride the roller coaster.

Korea Town in the evening

Last weekend I visited this area in LA called Korea Town. I think it's where the majority of the Asian population resides. Everywhere you go, it was mostly well... Asians from all over the place :)

I was standing outside a hairdresser whilst waiting for a friend and took this shot. Original res was 14k wide....

Prototype Camera Mapping Shader!

Spent the friggin' weekend learning vex, and today, happily came across a light projection tutorial in vex. I then re-implemented it as a surface shader, and it allows me to BAKE OUT TEXTURES! Woot! Will do more testing tomorrow to ensure it works perfectly.

#pragma hint map image
#pragma hint camera oppath

surface
GW_camera_map_per_pixel(
string map = "";
vector uv = 0; // For debug
)

{

float uu,vv;
vector pos;

if (map != "")
{
//pos = wo_space(P);
pos = toNDC(P);

uu = pos.x;
vv = pos.y;


Cf = texture(map, uu,vv);
}

else
{
//Cf = {0,1,0};
Cf = texture(map, uv.x,uv.y); // Debug purposes
}
}

Interns @ SESI LA!

Nuff said :)

Learning VOPs

Trying to learn VOPs today, and am starting to figure stuff out. First, the space change vop will "fix" a procedural texture in space, so when you move the camera or make TRS changes at the object level, the texture stays put, and doesn't give the "object swimming through texture effect". The texture node just has the UV co-ordinates piped in, and the multiply node combines the color from the texture, multiplied by the aanoise node (it's like a mask of sorts?) and then multiplied by a constant color value, that is given a greenish tint.

I tested toggling off the UV projection on the grid at the SOPs level, and the grid rendered with the green tinted noise, but not the texture. Interesting. I also tried applying a sin($FF*2)*10 on a transform node at the SOPs level, and the texture slid through space. I checked through the spreadsheet, and yes the Z points were animating (as expected). Perhaps we could have a parameter specifying the animation channels at the SOP level, and then subtract that from the incoming P from the globals? More investigation needed =)

This is the final output:

Upgrading the blog template

Gah! Upgraded the template during lunch hour, and missing some links. Will get those back ASAP :)

Shifted to my new place!

Just moved into my new place yesterday, and was too tired to setup the internet so I just took a picture and stuck it into my flash drive. I'm sharing the new place with a roomate, so it's like good ol' times back in BMT. I bought over the ex roomie's bed for US40, and then bought some bedsheets, pillow and comforter for about US39. Oooo. But it's great, I'm definitely shipping the stuff home come November =)

Out my office window

Finally brought my camera to work, this is the view out of the meeting room at about 8.30 in the morning. Man.... wanna go walk the beach :-)

Sony F717, F4/100, 4 pics stitched together in PS. Original PS'd image is 5200 pixels across. USM applied, no color corrects.

Today at work.

Ok so I'm slacking. My housemate has Gnomon's Houdini Rigid Body Dynamics DVD and I'm supposed to watch it, not blog. Bwah. Anyways.

Today we had a intro to fur class. It's very interesting to see how fur is implemented in houdini, I think of the 3 fur systems I've had a chance to play with (3ds max, maya and houdini), houdini is probably the most confusing, but it would definitely be *the* fur system to use in production. The ability to control stuff like fur clumping, length, color etc is very flexible. It's hard to describe, I'll probably try to produce a video tutorial on it using the fur proto install.

I was told that this is the same system used by Framestore CFC to produce the Rexona Go Wild commercial, except that they used PRMan and not Mantra for rendering.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9dbF2gg4v0

I think Framestore has a slightly less compressed version on its site.

Apart from that... one of my colleagues took us out for lunch at Wolfgang's Express (DUH! lol), where I had a BBQ Beef Foccasia melt and a side of salad. Definitely delicious, and positively EVIL =)

Went home at 6 on the dot, and bought some frozen foods and snacks at a nearby Ralphs then headed home. I heard that Albertson's may be on strike soon? That sucks as I prefer their deli there =)

Alright, heading offline to bathe then do the Houdini RBD dvd till midnight, then I'll turn it.

Auf Weidersehen!

Alvin

The week in review.

Ok, this IS kinda late for a week in review, especially on a Tuesday night. But I got my stuff down on my pda and never got around updating here, so there :P

Hmmm what did I write here... oh... I think I'm gonna talk a little about the public transport here. I'm in the west side of California in Los Angeles, where I work in Santa Monica. I take a bus from my current residence (with a friend) to work on the Metro. It takes about 40 mins to get to work. There are *many* other services running, like the Big Blue Bus (bad tongue twister), Culver City bus and others I can't identify. Yet.

The bus services here are quite interesting. I've only taken the Metro so far, payment is by Cash, Tokens (prepaid, think of it like arcade tokens back in the day), and passes. Other bus services have card services like back home (I think....), and the BBB actually allows you to top up the cards on the bus. Very nice!

The metro buses I take are also VERY disabled friendly. I've had the chance to see this in action, the metro runs a variety of buses, and the one I saw in action had a folding step to allow wheelchairs to board the bus with ease, and onboard the bus, it's very spacious to allow movement, and certain seats fold up to accommodate the wheelchair. This makes me wonder how back home.... how is a wheelchair is supposed to actually get on an SBS bus? The width of the SBS passage ways just... doesn't work out.

Another feature the bus has are bike racks on the front of the bus? Those are so cool.... I wish I'd brought my bike over. The buses have a rack on the front to mount (from what I see) two bikes. It's nice as the bus I take goes all the way to the beach, and a weekend cycle there would be excellent, especially with the weather warming up and all.

And oh, I think I forgot, but Adrian E. if you are reading this, a subway melt tastes the same here. And I asked another friend over in NZ he says subs taste the same there too.... so Subway must have some very good QC :)

Chat in a while....

Alvin

Hi from LA!

Hi all! Well to whoever reads this barely-updated blog :P I'm currently in Santa Monica, LA doing my Internship with SideFX. They're the developers of Houdini, and I'm attached to their LA office working on Intern stuff (Brewing Coffee!) and the key point, learning Houdini.

So far, I'm slowly getting on track, more or less fine with traveling to-fro from work back to my friend's place where I'm staying, and will be getting my own (shared) room this coming April. The weather is really cold when I arrived, but I was told it is now Spring, so it should be getting warmer. It was very VERY cold a few days ago, was freezing my head off. But yesterday the skies cleared (was foggy the first few days I was here), and I was totally blown away as I was able to see from the office all the way clear to the horizon, and the amazingly greater-than-32-bit-probably-HDR gradient of blue, without a cloud in the sky. Today, the skies were somewhat cloudy, with some really UNREAL clouds. They looked like something out of a Bryce render (no offense to Brycers!).

Food is rather expensive, IMO, to this foreigner. A meal costs about 7USD, which adds up quite fast if you think about it. I'm now buying frozen food from the supermarkets to bring to lunch, and eat at dinner as well. Today I got some Hungry Man frozen dinners, for USD1.77 each. They taste like well frozen food. And for me I'm not too picky about food, so it goes down well. So long as I have my after-food tea, I'm fine :)

Will check back soon, getting sleepy and need to rest.

GW

Python, anyone?

A fellow student sent me this link for python tutorials! http://showmedo.com/videos/python