Maarc

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-24T13:45:24Z

Merry Christmas all! For you east coast non-QLDers, it was 45 mins ago, for us QLDers, in 15 .. and for the rest, happy when it is!

Hope you're all doing great and having fun during this festive season. Take care and don't do too much illegal! Or at least, make sure you know someone who can bail you out quick :)

So Merry Christmas everyone!

Melbourne ahoy!

2005-10-27T15:06:38Z

In .... less than 12 hours, I'll be on my way to Melbourne for the weekend. Nothing huge planned, just wanted a break and a chance to try something new, try out things I haven't done, and it seems easiest to do that in a different city, somehow.

Plus I'm meeting up with a friend, which I think will be great! Really looking forward to this, I think it'll be nice and relaxing. Even if I have no idea where I'm going :P

*jigs* This has got me really stoked!

Now I realise why I'm so tired

2005-09-26T03:04:32Z

I was wondering why I was feeling so tired with feeling so sick. Now I know.

I've lost over 7 kilos in a week.

I used to be a nice healthy 75 kilos. Now I'm barely 66.5 kilos. Not pretty!

The future, in all it's glory

2005-07-30T04:05:12Z

So, University's finished, and I'm trying to figure out where I want to go from here, and what to do. I'm doing a little work for my father's business, and also doing some (should be) paid web work for Carol, redoing her website, so that's a good start. But the question is, where do I want to go from here?

I'm doing a few things at the moment, trying to build up my portfolio. It's more game based, trying to write a mini-Gauntlet-esque style game, and doing everything from textures to models to code, just a proof of concept and capability.

But there are two things I've been considering, somewhat interlinked but they don't have to be.

1) Do I get myself a domain name, just for myself, so I can sell myself? I see others doing it (more the high profile people, like Jason Schleifer), and wonder if it would be good.

2) Do I get myself a professional/business/work related blog? Keep my personal and work entirely seperate, and post all my musings and on going work in a seperate blog.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? I realise that there will be a sum total of 5 people who *might* read this, but I do think feedback would be useful, some thoughts apart from my own.

Scotty, you shall be missed

2005-07-21T06:07:42Z

Today was quite the sad day for Trek fans around the world, with the death of Mr Scott. He shall be greatly missed by all Star Trek fans, and I'm sure everyone has their favourite memory of Mr Scott doing his work. Personally, mine harps back to Star Trek 4, with the whales, where he was standing at a 1980s computer, picked up the mouse, and started talking into it. "Computer!"

But wherever you have been beamed now, Mr Scott, we hope that you have all the dilithium crystals you will ever need, to help with whatever power you require, so you should never be troubled no more.

Madeline's back!!!!!!!

2005-07-11T11:06:18Z

So far, it's been a slow, but great, start to the third season of 24.

Why, you ask?

Madeline!!!! (From La Femme Nikita)

And in a hard arse sort of role too, it looks verrrrrrrrry promising. Hooray for LFN!

La Femme Nikita Season 3!

2005-07-11T05:53:53Z

Ohhhh, the joy.... it's early it's early! *hugs season 3*

Now, I just hope they hurry up and release 4, and the 5 episodes that were season 8... JOY!

The end of university life?

2005-07-11T03:32:11Z

Well, I got my results for this past semester. 3 5's and a 4. I'd hoped for 2 6's and 2 5's (missed that goal by 3%, 4% and 6%, DOH!), as that would have snuck my GPA up to the point where I could have done honours. So close! But oh well....

So now I have officially finished with a passing grade my Bachelor of Creative Industries (Communication Design). And I can't go back to Uni to study again, the whole change in HECS and such precluding me (and somehow I don't think the government would allow a *third* degree on HECS ;)).

So the world is my oyster! All done, and hooray. I think.

Oh well, time to get back to the website design I'm doing. Yippee for me?

I am SO incredibly pissed right now

2005-07-05T04:48:07Z

I'm not in a good mood *at all*. I thought today would be great, they finally return some of our electronic gear they took after the fire. Hooray, I get my computer and TV back! Urgh.... yeah, or so the theory goes, anyway.

I get my computer back - minus a power cable and monitor cable. No biggie, I can scavange one from another computer, live and learn. I was hoping that would be my biggest problem. But alas, no.

I start putting things back together, and see there are deep gashes on one of the speakers - gashes that weren't there when I gave them the equipment. The DVD player has scratches on it's front covering - again, not previously there. I carry up the base of the computer to my room, and it feels a little funky, bit wobbly and loose. That's okay, I think, it'll be fine.

Plug in all the cables, power up, and good to go...... right? Fancy Dell logo comes up, machine posts and bum bum bum.... "strike F1 to retry boot, F2 to go to setup".

I take a deep calming breath, and say a few prayers, say a few nice words... and hit F1. Bam, same message. Reboot, same message. Lots of ranting and swearing later, same message. So I hit the BIOS, have a tinkering around, and as far as the computer's concerned, it's all good. So I whop on out a boot CD, and boot it on up. No problem at all, boots to the CD fine, but, it doesn't see *any* of the hard disks (I have 3).

So I turn it off, go to open it up, and one side falls off (a side that, I would have sworn, was glued or screwed on), and the back looks a bit shaky. I tinker around with the data and power cords, try and piece it back together (I really need some electrical tape now), and cross my fingers... something I did made it boot, so I'm glad for that. But be buggered if I don't think a good stiff breeze will make it fall apart!

But at least I can start relaxing, and then getting to work... had some web design jobs lined up, but couldn't do any until my PC came back.

A couple of days of rest, and then I think it's time for the world to meet me, as a full time employee.... who'd have thunk it!

The female orgasm

2005-06-22T02:50:00Z

Apparantly, the female orgasm is qualitatively different from men's. Seems that when the moment occurs, major areas of the female brain shut down, and so women do not have any emotional feelings.

A small sample, only 13 subjects, but an interesting conclusion if true. So the question becomes.... does this change the goals of the male during sex? For those males who want a quick encounter with no strings, perhaps getting the female to orgasm would actually benefit them?

Though somehow I doubt that there'll be any major shift. But still an interesting study, with an interesting outcome.

Is this the end?

2005-06-20T05:52:20Z

I think it could be! I just had my last piece of assessment... EVER! Hopefully. My exam went fine and dandy, nothing too stumping, just a lot of writing (nearly got a cramp in my wrist by the end :)). I'm glad it's all over. No more assignments, no more exams. All done!

Yippee!!!!

Of course, if I do well enough.... should I do post-grad? :D

Burn baby burn!

2005-06-09T11:54:09Z

Well, it's that time again, burning DVDs and CDs for my assessment. One DVD is burnt, one to go, and one CD to go. Menus and all, wheeeee! Should be easy to hand in, bung on some cover sheets and drop in the box, and it's all good.

I'll be really glad to have it all handed in, because the more I look at my work now, the more I hate it and want to tweak it. It's bizarre, but I get that way after a while. Once I hit the 80% mark of a project, I progressively start to hate it more than like it, but oh well!

I'll be glad to have it all handed in though... Design Project A and 3D Animation 3, done! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

And so we enter, the end game....

2005-06-06T02:59:54Z

Crunch time for Design Project A / 3D Animation 3... I think I've got a reasonable timetable, and I think the work is already at a level that is considered passable (though obviously, I want to do better than just a pass).

So, today - Crunch on the animation, tweak it all up, get it written off as complete, or near complete.
Tonight/Tomorrow/Wednesay - Rendering - first pass colour, second pass shadows
Thursday - Package it up. Make it pretty, put it on a DVD, add menus and sounds and stuff
Friday - Hand it in!

It's my biggest piece, it's essentially the entire assessment for 3d3, and something like 60% for DPA. I think I should do okay.... but it's a lot of work.

And the worst part? During the render time, my machine's essentially useless, and I sit around and do essentially nothing!

Hello world!

2005-05-26T06:05:02Z

My group says HI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're incredibly bored, waiting for a tutorial.

Star Wars Episode 3

2005-05-18T17:18:10Z

Well, I was planning to see it sometime, and I found out that Indro had a few cinemas open showing it at 12:01 AM. Just past midnight. It was worth seeing, went with a brother and his friend. Pretty good night, actually, though bummed that BSG had it's season finale!

I think it fits in *really* nicely, provides a nice join between the two distinct series. Unlike others, I actually do like all the movies. Some of it was humorous at times I don't think it meant to, and some of the dialog... good god, cheese factor plus! But really, it is a good flick, I'll be picking it up on DVD when it comes out, and it was certainly worth seeing.

Especially as I have a 10 AM tute, and it's now 3:15 AM. Hooray.

Sleepy time... and then to my animation class! (See people, I was studying when I went to see SWE3! Or at least, that's what I'm telling my lecturer :D )

Really bizarre dream

2005-05-16T08:56:06Z

Last night's dream was really bizarre, to say the least. I had a dream where I was travelling around at floor level, sliding around. I didn't realise at first why, but after a while, I noticed that my hips were broken. Smashed. Crushed. Pulverised. And they actually hurt. Don't know why this dream happened, it was weird being chased around by people as I slithered across the floor (hmmm, am I putting myself in the role of the snake in the Adam & Eve fic I wrote for Uni?). But it was really bizarre.

On my continuing quest of hating A Current Affair, the last few days have been awful. First of all, there was the XBox 360 launch. Which they advertised on radio and TV all day. And got it wrong. They managed to call it XBox 3, a game, and something else I can't remember. Couldn't be more wrong if they tried, so sad.

And yet, if they can't even get *that* right... how can they possibly get *real* news right? I mean geez, all of the info they spouted they could have gotten from a press release. And tonight we see an even worse story... Stranger Danger And Forgetful Kids!

In tonight's tale of woe, they get a few parents together to... yup, that's right, journalism at it's finest... ENTRAP their children. Send in a fictional stranger to bang on the door, and see how kids react.

Oh yeah, those kids will trust their parents now. But I have two issues with this:

1) How could parents want to entrap their children that way? Even if just to prove a point.
2) Why are children less than 10 years of age being left by themselves at home, for potentially extended periods of time?

Maybe it's just me, but kids are innocent. They don't really understand evil, or even bad impulses, not till they get older. Entrapping your children then scolding them doesn't help. Neither does leaving them home by themselves.

And what does A Current Affair suggest as a solution to all this? Download a less than one page poster from their website, and tack it on the door. OH YEAH, kids are really going to pay attention to that.

Idiots. And Ray Martin used to be a serious journalist.

I found this interesting....

2005-05-07T01:54:39Z

I'm actually tempted to repost some of my blogging for KCB295 in here, as some of it is interesting anyway. But aside from that...

The Dark Is Rising! I remember being exposed to this when I was young, around 12, when I'd moved to the US for 2 years. My Reading teacher (as compared to English, or Language Arts, all 3 were different subjects... ) put me on to it, I was her favourite pupil I think. But it seems that the film rights for the series has been bought. That's interesting, because I quite enjoyed the series, and I think it could be an interesting romp, depending on how it gets done. Sure, it's childreny, but it's something very fond to my heart, it was something I loved as a kid (and in fact, I bought the books I didn't have a couple of years ago).

Ahhhh, those were the nerdy days.... now I just need to find a book I was forced to read here early in high school, be buggered if I can remember the name. It was post-apocalyptic (there's a shocker!), with mutant kids that could be telepathic, and that was bad, mmkay? But be buggered if I can remember the rest, or it's title....

Which also reminds me, I need to get a hold of Space (space?) Demons, and Skymaze (same author). Another two books I loved when I was younger, and probably grimace at now ;)

This rigging is driving me INSANE!

2005-05-02T13:23:02Z

God this is driving me nuts, I've been at it for over an hour, and just when I solve one problem, another one crops up!

First of all, the native rigging of AniMan isn't working quite right. I get bizarre deformations and all sorts of other weird things, using the exact same methodology I have successfully used in the past. Very frustrating. So I thought... hang on, I'll get aniMan to do the hard work and make all my joints for me, and just manually rig from there... bright idea, right?

So I thought it was starting out okay, and it was looking good... but alas no, doesn't work. I can rig up the knee with a great IK solution, but... the knee bends *backwards*. Hmmm, I say... hmm indeed! So I figure out it has something to do with the pole vector of the IK solution. OK, not a problem, I can deal with that. So I fix the pole vector. And huzzah, the knee bends properly!

Of course, that wouldn't be that easy, right? The *foot* gets reversed. So I try and rotate the foot, and freeze the transforms... alas, the ankle bone doesn't rotate cleanly around the y axis. It's axis of orientation is not coincident with a world axis... *sighs*. I can kind of deal with it, if I rotate the heel joint. But it means the connection from top ankle to heel is just awful....

Gah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In a slight piece of good news, I was at a tutorial the other day, and QUT's done some good stuff with the new CI building. On each floor, they have some projection space where projectors show off works and what not. But I was shocked when I turned up to a tute, and saw some of my work on the wall! Over 2 metres high, bit wider, I was quite surprised. It's not *just* my work, it's the work I did for the fashion design stuff last year (15 comm des students came up with 45 second profiles for 15 fashion students). But I was very chuffed to see it.

And I thought we were open minded....

2005-04-13T04:51:09Z

I saw this on ShackNews, under the auspicious title of "Hungary Hungary Hookahs". http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=8156956

Seems Hungary is extremely open minded about prostitution. And it looks like they'll be allowing prostitutes to set up shop, so to speak, at local shopping centres. The only catch is, they can't do it in the shopping centre. Which isn't all that bad, I would expect.

Truly fascinating.

Woot Woot! Season 2 baby!

2005-03-29T03:10:28Z

I'm now in a *very* good mood!

LFN (La Femme Nikita) Season 2 just arrived. I ordered it 2 weeks ago through Amazon, and have been eagerly anticipating it.

Go Nikita! Gotta love Section One....

Oh happy day!

OK, so, it's an 80s movie

2005-03-28T05:41:42Z

I watched Star Wars on Saturday night, and a really fantastic 80s movie followed it... The Last Starfighter. It was an 84 movie, I think, and I remember I absolutely loved it as a kid. Couldn't get enough of it. I was truly excited to see it when it came on the TV! Not something I tend to do, I don't usually get upbeat over stuff like that.

Sure, it's not the greatest movie, but I still think it's pretty cool, even as an adult. And the theme music was fantastic, stuck in my head, couldn't get it out of my head since. I don't know what it is, but it's just struck a chord with me.

Somehow, even as an adult, I still think that TV and movies were better in the 80s. Go figure.

Desktop Meme

2005-03-22T04:29:29Z

How? Easy! (Taken from LizBee)

01: Take a screencap of your desktop.

To cap a desktop:
1) Press "Print Screen" (prt sc) button
2) Open your graphics program-o-choice
3) Press CTRL + V
4) Save image as a JPEG

02: Upload the screen cap to your image server.

Don't have one yet? Use Photobucket. Or Imageshack

03: Reply to this entry with your screencap or a link to your screencap. Along with any explanations you feel are necessary.

04: Post your cap in YOUR LJ along with these instructions.

UV Mapping is a tool of the devil

2005-03-21T06:20:57Z

If it's one thing I've learnt when doing 3d computer animation, it's that UV mapping (and to a lesser degree, rigging/skinning) is the tool of the devil. It's such a gods awful cumbersome way of doing things! It's long, it's boring, it's *extremely* time consuming, and it's an ongoing process that's just a pain in the ass. I don't know of any real alternatives, it's something that has to be done, but god I hate it.

But to be honest, it's really a matter of money. There are tools and other such things out there that allow for more automatic skinning, rigging and UV mapping, but they're not cheap. And I know it's a learning process, but still, it's really bloody annoying.

*sighs* Off to paint the helmet texture, at least that's a *little* more fun. Ho hum!

So... 2 people, 2 helmets, 2 swords, 2 shields, a bow, arrow, musical instrument, and terrain all done. Soon I'll be able to make them do something apart from sit there and look (somewhat) pretty!

And damn it people.... where's my LFN season 2?! It shipped a week ago from Amazon...

Science says nature enforces a wealth dichotomy?

2005-03-13T03:09:39Z

New Scientist had an interesting piece about wealth distribution, and how it seems to reflect similar behaviour, in the main 97% of people, as spread of energy in gas laws.

While it's interesting that it seems to reflect the behaviour of natural laws, I have to question... surely it could be changed, if people actually cared to do it? Maybe, maybe not, but if it's true, it seems that someone's always going to get screwed. I realise life's not fair and all that, but still... sheesh!

Are we dead yet?

2005-03-11T04:14:07Z

If this is to be believed, then it looks like there's a lot of life that gets regularly eradicated. Sure, it's a *very* long cycle, but a cycle is a cycle, right?

It mustn't be a lot of fun trying to come up with theories for the eradication of many species that happened so far outside recorded history. It's much of a needle in a haystack, I'd have to say!

Better them than me :)

========================

As another fun note, I've had to install yet another blog for University. Hooray! So I have one for Design Project A, and I have one for Virtual Cultures. What... fun. And we're using Blogger. I don't like Blogger, it looks yuck to me. Very yuck. Almost like a kid's toy. It just really rubs me the wrong way. But oh well, such is life! At least I can delete it once the semester is over :)

(oh, and for those that care, here's the URLs - I don't expect many, if any, to visit :))

Virtual Cultures - http://daniel2214032.blogspot.com/
Design Project A - http://student.ci.qut.edu.au/~n2214032/805/wordpress/

Feel free to comment if anyone cares, it can only help me out during the semester :)