Monkeying around

Blender comes with a built-in monkey. Well, just a head actually. Her name is Suzanne.

I finally made my first animation. Its a very short one, just 4 seconds. You take your fixed model, and move, rotate, and scale the objects in it at specific frames. You don't have to do every frame, just key frames, and Blender interpolates for you to do all the ones in between. You can have multiple objects moving simultaneously.

As the banana swings into view (on a very thin and invisible line), rotating as it does, Suzanne turns and moves towards it, and as she sees it, a smile breaks out on her face. The smile, and the crinkling of the eyes, is done with a different set of animations that involve deforming the original mesh.

All of this is controlled with a set of curves that define how the motion happens, how it speeds up and down, and even lets you create a special Time curve where you can make time itself speed up, slow down, even stop, and go in reverse. Which I use to make the banana swing away and Suzanne get sad again, without having to add specific animations to do that.

If you play this in a loop, it looks smoothly continuous, as if Suzanne has only a two second memory, and is repeatedly surprised and then saddened by the appearance and disappearance of her favorite food. Feeling sorry for her yet?

Animation is really cool. But of course it takes longer. Will be spacing my posts further apart as time goes on and my projects get more ambitious. The actual rendering of this animation only took a few minutes (which will grow as I add objects), but it takes longer to edit the animations themselves. Luckily Suzanne is a very patient monkey.

Click to see video

The quality of the video is not as good as I would like. The raw movie looks much better. Except for the banana - I didn't do a very good job on that.

Seawater

Not long ago I visited the Hamptons, and had a great day at the beach with some fun people. The water was a bit too rough on the sea itself, so we went to a beach on the other side in the bay. Much smaller waves, and not so windy. Charlotte had to chase the giant goose as it was blown down the beach (I didn't say not windy at all). You are probably wondering what a giant goose is doing on the beach - it was a blow up one, and we floated on it on the water. Not your first guess I imagine.

Everyone enjoyed themselves. Ari got a bit of a shock when he woke up and found himself nose to claw with a spider crab. He likes fish and turtles, but is not so fond of crabs. We had a nice lunch, got a little too much sun, and heard a fun story from Emily about her first visit to the States, how she was stranded, and how everyone in a strange town looked after her so well.

The water was perfect shades of blue, as you can see in the photo below. Perhaps though after looking at this you realize there is something wrong with this picture. Can't put your finger on exactly what it is? Or maybe you have guessed already.

Actually, its not a photo at all. It is of course another pic generated by Blender. It is 3 separate layers, each one perfectly flat, but transparent, and with procedural textures added to them to create the illusion of waves. Large waves, and medium and small waves. And affecting the way the light reflects off it. It is amazing what some random numbers and the right algorithm can do.

That evening we met a lovely couple that lived in the area, and went out to a seafood place that served the freshest fish I have had in a long time. It had probably just jumped out of the sea that afternoon. I could render some fish next, but they just won't be the same as the real thing.

Blender

Ok, its been 2 years since my last post. I've been busy. Sue me. I promise the next post won't take so long.

Have discovered 3D modeling. In a program called Blender. It is an awful lot of fun, creating objects from scratch, spinning them around in full 3D, then "rendering' them (creating an image from a specific camera position and angle, at any size you like).

The program has extensive tutorials, which anyone can follow. The interface seems somewhat overwhelming at first - its designed for power users not novices, so you just have to take your time and go through the tutorials and become a power user. Very powerful, has a ton of options, and lots of functionality, up to and including procedural textures, animation, and particle effects. But I am a long way from learning any of that yet, for now am just doing basic modeling.

Here is (nearly) my first model, that started as a sphere, and was pushed and pulled into something vaguely resembling a penguin. Not that he would fool any real aquatic flightless bird for a second.

Sounds

I wish you could hear these sounds. So many, and so varied.

I'm sitting outside in the front yard, just finished spraying some roundup to kill the weeds on the driveway. The sounds of modern day life are not very far away, even here where we are supposed to sort of be in the "country". Cars drive by on the road up front. A plane flies over. I even crane my head up to see a helicopter go directly above our house, flying low.

But then there are the other sounds. The waterfall provides that constant calming white-noise background. The wind blows softly through the trees. The leaves rustle in the undergrowth, probably a squirrel or something rummaging for food. And most obvious of all are the birds. Not one species, but dozens, each with their own unique sound, some short and to the point, others loud, complex, and ostentatious. One sounds like an owl, somber and low, maybe a great horned. Some chirping, others warbling, yet others twittering, from all directions, a cacophony of noise, grating and mellifluous all jumbled up together.

Its very peaceful out here, the sun will be setting soon, that magical time of day just before dusk. I just wish all the cars were gone, or replaced with quiet electric ones perhaps. Nearly time to go back inside to the even noisier family.

The Herd

Charlotte gave a scream of delight as she opened her eBay purchase, 7 Schleich horses, a rider, blanket, 2 saddles, and a bridle.




She added them to the rest of her family, including the real and makeshift stables.



I think we might have enough horses now :p

Udderly Irresistable

Charlotte tonight told me a bed-time story, since I couldn't think of one to tell her. She made it up as she went along, which was surprising, as the whole thing fitted together quite well. Its quite short, and it went something like this:

There were once four animals, a horse, a dolphin, a rabbit and a cow. Each represented a different aspect of life.

The horse, majestic and free, represented the soul, proud and strong.
The dolphin, quick and playful, represented the mind, intelligent and creative.
The rabbit, cute and cuddly, represented the heart, emotional and compassionate.
The cow, slow but content, represented the stomach, empty, full, and everything in between.

One day the horse, the dolphin, the rabbit and the cow came together for a party. Everyone brought something to eat, that they might all share with each other.

The horse brought cookies, the epitome of soul food.
The dolphin brought bananas, food to enrich everyone's brain.
The rabbit brought candy, little valentine sweets to make everyone smile.

The cow didn't quite understand the whole concept of party food, being, as we said, a little on the slow side, but nevertheless brought something that seemed appropriate, at least to her. Although the others were not exactly impressed with her choice.

"Can you guess what it is dad?", asked Charlotte, stalling a while so she could make up the ending in her mind. "No Charlotte, I can't."

'C'mon, guess, please?"
          "Um, was it grass?"
"No."
          "I don't know, tell me Charlotte."

Charlotte thought for a moment more, and finished the story with one quick statement, that sort of summed the whole thing up in a nutshell.

The bright bovine brought a cowpie.

Waterfalls, horses, alpacas, and animals of all description

On the way up to Mohawk Mountain today we saw an interesting waterfall, and had to scramble through the brush to get a good view. Then we stopped off at a farm and two horses came up and had a talk to Charlotte. Half a mile up the road was a lovely lady with 6 alpacas and a pony - Charlotte had a great time walking amongst them and having a nice chat (to them and to the lady).



Charlotte had a wonderful time on the slopes. She is really starting to get the hang of skiing, doing her turns nicely back and forth across the snow. This is the second time this year, and before that it was five years ago, so she has made fantastic progress.



We stopped for a nice hot chocolate at the half way lodge half way up the hill, and took off our skis and loosened our boots. Boy it felt good :)

Charlotte near the end of the day wanted something a little more challenging, so we tried another ostensibly easy slope, Ledges, which turned out to be more difficult than we thought. Charlotte got through the top section, but then came out further down going too fast and couldn't control it, and ended up falling head first on to the hard-packed snow. Ouch! Even with a headache though, she got back up the slopes for a final run.



On the way home, we found a guy who made metal sculptures in a unique style, animals mainly, very artistic. All in all it was a great day, and Charlotte really enjoyed herself - except for the minor concussion of course - lucky it was a no-school day the next day :P

Charlotte's Daemon

My Daemon

Charlotte's Dream World

The Golden Compass, a wonderful story of a strange world where everyone's soul is physically manifest as a creature, a bird, a lynx, or any of dozens of different types. A world where the proud ice-bears fight with terrifying power, where fantastical machines and futuristic blimps roam the skies, and where witches fly without broomsticks. A world of stunning beauty. Don't miss it.

The only downer was nobody warned us that it was only part 1 - the movie ends rather abruptly right in the middle of the story. Will have to see part 2 of course.

Slithering Serpents

Charlotte has been begging for a dog for months now, but so far all she has gotten has been two catfish (the irony is not lost on us). Jake decides he wants a pet too. A cat perhaps? A bird? No, he has become obsessed over the idea of getting a reticulated python.

He is quick to point out all the advantages, the ease of looking after, the low dietary requirements ("just one baby pig a month Dad"), and the wonderful show-and-tell opportunities involving hysterical girls at school.

One wonders how discriminating the snake will be when it has to choose between a piglet and a dachshund.
Update: its been changed to a Boa Constrictor, since reticulated pythons can only be looked after if you are over 21.

Colorful Cocks

In India they color baby chicks, by injecting the eggs with dye. It doesn't hurt the chicks, and the kids love it. It lasts for only a couple of weeks, until the new feathers grow out.

So instead of just little cute yellow ones, you have little cute yellow, pink, green, and purple ones. "Chicks?" asks Bright facetiously, "you mean, just the female ones?".

"No, no, not at all" replies Sruthi, 'they color the, what do you call them, um, the cocks as well."

Well, I don't know, but for some reason I just can't get the image of glow-in-the-dark green condoms out of my head. As the founder of that particular company said, "We would like to give the phrase 'rise and shine' a whole new meaning." :-)

You ktupid jackakk!

Warning: this makes no sense unless you were there.

Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood (from Whose Line Is It Anyway) leave us laughing our insides off at the Palace Theater tonight. From unicycle riding elephants juggling and writing poetry, to hippopotamuses getting strangled with spaghetti, from alligator wrestlers peeing their pants to double entendres, we are never left with a straight face for more than a few seconds.

The series of piano skits in styles from western (John Wayne) to roman (Clyamydia), and sci-fi (Yoda) to chick flick (chocolate), has something to tickle everyone's funny bone. Brad's sound effect of an elephant falling down the stairs covered in tambourines is outdone by the letter substitution snowboarding limousines, where every s had to be said as a k (and the image of socks hanging out of windows is forever impinged on our minds). And we will never forget how to pronounce Chickahominee.

And to finish off the night of improvisation, Brad and Colin sing a moped mechanic opera with sentences starting with letters ranging backward through the alphabet from X, and navigate across the floor shoe and sockless, and blindfolded, while 100, ok, 95 mousetraps viciously attack their toes and fingers. And other parts of their anatomy. Ouch. And double ouch.

"Did I roll over Flat Ted?"

Looking through some drawers we hadn't checked out in ages, we find Flat Ted, a pure wool teddy bear, designed to be flat so babies could easily sleep with it. Very cuddly and warm. On Jake's zeroth birthday I had bought it for him from the hospital gift shop, to put in the crib. He's 13 now, and of course had grown out of it years ago.

Upon seeing it, he thinks for a moment, and has only one sincere question. "Dad, did Flat Ted come like this, or did I roll over and squash him one day?"