Itchy Animation's Light Tutorial

Lighting in 3D animation makes the biggest difference. That's my opinion. You can model the greatest looking Chinabean in the world but lighting is what really makes it magic. The best looking scenes in movies, 3D and otherwise, look that way because of the lighting. Getting great lighting is difficult though, especially if you don't know what you're doing. When it comes to lighting, I don't have a clue. That's probably why I found this lighting tutorial (http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/light.htm)
) so interesting.

Itchy (or whoever the dude is who wrote the tutorial) really goes into the technical detail - getting you to think about all the light that makes up a scene. Its really in depth, I even learnt quite a bit about lighting in photography. Parts 5, 6 and 7 didn't exist when I wrote this, but I hope he will be adding them soon. It is a great read for any 3D artists, and maybe even photographers and artists could get something out of it.

AFI - Decemberunderground

Well, it really sucks to go back to work while everyone else is on holiday. Can't say I recommend it at all. Unfortunately I tried to get leave and it got booted so I'm here. Fortunately that does mean that I get to listen to the new AFI(myspace) album Decemberunderground , which we actually got for my brother but has some how landed in my car:), and it is fantastic.

Now I wouldn't ever go and get a "Best Of" AFI, well ... not again anyway. Their older stuff is really not great, actually crap you could say, bad, not good, generally not worth the time - but Sing the Sorrow and Decemberunderground - now there are two fantastic albums. They would definitely sit in my "Best Albums" CD rack (that is, if I was that organised).

It took a couple of listens before I really got into Decemberunderground, but that is standard issue for most new CD's I get. If you're not an AFI fan you may take a bit longer, they definitely have a unique style. Its hard for me to pick out my favourite track at this time, although 3 and 7 do stick out.

Summary: Its a pity that I didn't get to listen to it before I whacked out my pick for 2006 entry (If you've been watching Heroes you'll know you can't change the past). It would have definitely been a contender.

Whilst my brother hasn't heard his CD enough yet to know if he likes it or not, I on the other hand can give it a 9 out of 10. What a band, what a CD.

Awesome Astronomy Picture of the Day

Awesome, just awesome. Check it out here.

Deweirdifyer Plug-In for Gimp on Windows

If there's a software application worth paying for its Adobe Photoshop, but at around R4,500 its a staunch price to pay. If you're not going to be making money from it, its an even bigger burden to take on.

A much better option is to use The Gimp. It has all the most useful features of Photoshop, and is surprisingly powerful. All the graphics on this site was made with it and it is my free editor of choice. A really nifty portable version has also be made here. Unfortunately the interface does take quite a bit of getting used to and turns a lot of people away. Thats where the Deweirdifier
plug-in comes in. I found it whilst stumbling (surprise) and tried it out on my portable version. There was some tweaking necessary, so if you get stuck then let me know and I'll help you get it working. For all the simplicity of what it does (just adds a background window and groups all the windows together), it makes Gimp a whole lot easier to use.

I can really recommend this plug in to new Gimp users. 9 bananas. It'll get 10 when the bugs are worked out. Also its only for Windows users - I haven't yet found a Mac or Linux equivalent :(

True Combat:Elite

True Combat Elite is an entirely free game based on another free game Wolfenstein Enemy Territory. Both games are available for Mac, Windows and Linux and can be downloaded here.
Its a FPS (first person shooter) with awesome graphics and physics. No AI though :(

Also, the download process wasn't the best, in fact it was downright horrible - I had to try more than a couple of times to get the whole thing. It was pretty irritating, especially the AusGamers web site which didn't allow more than two download streams. Of course it was only after about 100Mb before they cut you off, apparently for no reason. Eventually I found a small side note spelling out the "Thou shalt have no more than 2 streams" rule. Forget about resuming your download as well. In the end I just got it from another mirror.

Remember to download the 200+Mb of Wolfenstein first, you need it to play TC:E. All in all its a download of 600-700Mb. Pretty big, but the free game is definitely worth it. 9 Bananatjies.

Either White or Nerdy

Got a great score on being White and Nerdy! I passed with 50% so I'm either White or Nerdy. Guess which one? Thanks Briany for the link. Check it out here, but make sure that you watch the Weird Al video first :D

Mike's Pick of the Year 2006

Credit for this one goes to my friend Rich. On Sunday we were trying to decide on our album of 2006. Last year's album was definitely Relient K's MMHMM (Even though it was actually released at the end of 2004), but this year there weren't any clear winners. So instead I have compiled a number of other categories which are listed below. I might add some more as I think of them but in the mean time feel free to add your own list of favourites from the year in the comments.
Here are my favourite things from 2006:

• Album of 2006

  As I said there were no clear winners. These two did stand out for me:

  • Thursday - A City by the Light Divided.

  • Goldfinger - Disconnection Notice

    Technically 2005, but we only got it this year :)
  
  And the closest to winning would be this one:

  • Further Seems Forever - Hope This Finds You Well

    Just pretend that Bye Bye Bye isn't on the album.

• Movie of 2006

  Cars (Disney/Pixar)

  This was a clear winner for me. Especially considering what a let down I thought it would be. I remember seeing the trailer for Cars before the Incredibles and feeling my heart just sink. We eventually went to see it just before it closed its run here and I was amazed. Great story, great cast and above all a fantastic looking movie. A real Pixar classic.

• Website of 2006

  BlenderNation

  There are many good sites out there, but BlenderNation stands out as my favourite. The site is constantly updated with tutorials, improvements, plug-ins and other interesting links, mainly aimed at a Blender users but useful for any 3D designers. Definitely my favourite for the year.

• Christian Event of 2006

  Casting Crowns Concert

  There wouldn't even be this category if it wasn't for this event. I cannot express how much I (surprisingly) enjoyed this concert. It was so refreshingly real. I'm really not into any Christian worship bands, but Casting Crowns have such a different approach to what they do. It gave me a real sense that Christianity isn't about expensive equipment and overhyped anthems, there was no need to have an AWESOME experience - or feel left out if you missed it. Great band, great concert.

Themed Fonts at TypeNow

Yes, I finally managed to update the logo on the page, and it only took three days to blog about it. If you're wondering, I got the Lego font from TypeNow. There's a whole bunch of really cool movie, game and band themed fonts there. Great for any purpose, especially themed events. I would read up carefully on the license before using it for anything commercial - They are free, but I would still be careful. Eight bananas.

Wii have a problem

Nothing really special about this site, it just gave me a good laugh. Check it out here. Its a site solely dedicated to the injuries incurred to household furniture at the hands if butterfingered, over enthusiastic Wii players.

For those who don't know, Wii is Nintendo's latest game console running in competition to Sony's Playstation 3 and Microsoft's XBox 360. The console comes with a remote that you can swing around to control your player. Wiihaveaproblem is a collection of what happens when the remote flies OUT OF CONTROL and the strap breaks. Its very funny.

Wikipedia's Entry on the Fine-Tuned Universe

I actually found this whilst reading about the atheist Anthony Flew. It explains the idea that life in our universe would not be possible if the constants (such as our distance from the sun) that govern it were changed slightly. If one of these were tweaked by even the tiniest amount it would be utter chaos. Well, more like utter nothing, but utter chaos sounds cooler.

As with most controversial topics, I prefer reading the Wikipedia entry over a specific Christian view, mainly because you get to see both sides' views. This isn't always true however. The entries on Wikipedia are written by the public and are subject to the bias of the writer. Keep this in mind whenever you're researching something there.

Be warned that this may not be everyone's chocolate moose, or even their chocolate yak, especially if the word universe sends you to slumberland. If you're like me however, this one is right up your milky way. I'd give it 8 bananas.

Custom Mouse Pointer in XNA Tutorial

Its been a while since my last pick - I've been really busy at work preparing for a new release so there hasn't been much time for browsing.

Today I came across this tutorial on getting a custom pointer texture in XNA. Granted, its not rocket science to get this right, but Mykre's Space does it so nicely. I have become quite a fan of Mykre's blog over the last couple of weeks, there are some great articles for all you game developers.

SketchUp and Google Earth

Wow. I was honestly blown away when I discovered this combo. I have to take my beanie off to the guys at Google, they come up with some fantastic ideas. I'm talking about SketchUp and Google Earth. At some point SketchUp was obviously taken over by Google because its now toting their flag and much like their other products, is available for free download.

For those of you unfamiliar with SketchUp, it is a simple yet really powerful 3D modelling tool, mainly for use architectural design but can be used for anything really. Getting a good looking building together literally takes seconds, but here's the really cool part: Google's version allows you to place your building anywhere on Google Earth. This allows you to see your building right over the satellite image of your home, with all the contours and everything.

If you're really a contributing sort of person, you can upload your creation to Google's database, which I am assuming will one day replace the blandish looking, poke-your-eyes-out grey buildings they currently have in the program. I'll give this one 8 bananas, but only because it's not everyone's slice of pizza.

My favourite Firefox Add-ons

One of my many favourite things about Firefox is the add-on support. The only problem is that there are a ridiculous number of them available and it is impossible to know which ones are cool. Here's a list of my favourite ones:

• TabMixPlus - Enhanced tab browsing options. I can't emphasize how much I appreciate this add-on. There was a small time when it didn't work with firefox 2 and I was lost without it.


• IE Tab - This simple extension allows you to view a page using Internet Exploiter as a tab inside of firefox. Very useful for those sites that look all screwy in the 'fox.


• DownloadThemAll! - A great download manager, very easy to use. "Add another chunk, Mr. Ahab, he's not coming down fast enough."


• StumbleUpon - Say goodbye to work and hello to the top ten browsers list.


• Selenium IDE - Warning: this is a nerdy one. Unit testing for html pages.


• Tab Catalog - Nifty little add-on which shows you little previews of all your tabs. This is a nice built-in feature in IE, so its great to have it in firefox too.

Thats all for now, but there are tons of great ones out there. Check out Mozilla's recommended add-ons here.

www.stumbleupon.com

StumbleUpon.com is a crime. Sites like that just shouldn't be allowed on the web. Its really just a site that you plug in your interests and it sends you to a random page that it thinks you would like. Before you know it you have been caught up in a hopeless cycle of finding cool sites. Its definitely worth getting the toolbar, but if you do, then don't expect to get any work done. You can spend hours just clicking the Stumble button.

Brabys maps and Shell Geostar

Ever been looking for directions? Here are two fantastic sites worth having a look at:

www.brabysmaps.co.za/brabys/directions.asp

and

www.shellgeostar.co.za

Both give you step by step directions to your destination with distances. Braby's gives you the speed limit as well. It also provides you with the option to change your route, but I couldn't for the life of me get it right. That feature would have been nice because both sites sent me down some extra roads. For example, for my trip down to Plett it sent me off and on the main highway a couple of times.

Either way the maps did end at the right place, and they even started pretty much from my house.The distance and time feature is also really handy for calculating long trips.

Updated: Found a lot more bugs with these sites. Still quite handy though (especially if you're trying to clock up kilometers on your car allowance :D) for generating maps to functions and emailing them.

Lately I have found Google Maps quite handy. I used it to find my way out to the last church camp out past Magaliesburg, and it was great. The roads were all there - well until we got to the dirt road, but I had no pie-my-eye dreams of seeing that so it was fine.

Knocked it down a notch as promised. Got you're spice weasel? BAM!

www.wheretostay.co.za

Here's another nice site I found useful in searching for holiday places to stay. The web interface is really nicely done and the site is so easy to use. The information on each resort is really good and up to scratch. I'd give this about an 8/10.

www.wheretostay.co.za

neatfonts.com

I found this catch on blendernation.com. Neatfonts.com is a free online font library. I always find it hard to find a good font and usually end up going with something plain, so I am always looking for good font sites. Neatfonts.com is nice and easy with a ton of really nice looking fonts and quick and easy download.

www.tripadvisor.com

Lately we have been looking around for somewhere to go on honeymoon, and it has been sheer agony. The volume of places that you can go is unbelievable and it is easy to get overwhelmed. The thing I struggled with most was trying to distinguish the good from the bad from the horrible. Most resorts seem to have cave men designing their webpages and you're lucky it they have more than one picture and text that isn't size 72. Finding the official website is also challenging. I eventually found the one place by entering in the postal address into google.

Eventually I found TripAdvisor. There's nothing visually fantastic about this website, but it has reviews and forums. After a little bit of searching I found the ups and downs of a couple of hopefuls and managed to chuck out the bad.

The site is an international one, so I didn't find a couple of the places in SA straight away. Doing a general search however brought up a number of forums with very heplful comments from south africans.

If you don't manage to find the place you looking for there and you have to resort(pun intended) to google, then I would suggest looking for reviews rather than the actual place. That way you can get an opinion of someone who has actually been there rather than a person trying to sell it to you.

Moofx and Script.aculo.us

There’s actually two websites for today. The first is moofx, which is a simple javascript library that allows for cool dynamic html effects. Probably the coolest is the accordion effect, which is really effective. Click on the headings of each section and see how they fold up. Fantastic. I didn’t get round to using it, but it looks really simple and has minimal extra code to use.

http://moofx.mad4milk.net/

The second one is script.aculo.us which is a more hardcore javascript library with some fantastic effects. This one is for the more hardcore web developers, and might require a bit more to get it working with your pages, but it sure is worth it. Be sure to check out the demos page.

http://script.aculo.us/

www.brick.com

Yes, this is the site of Acme brick company, which naturally sells bricks. Not too exciting at all, but also on the site is an architectural tool which allows you to choose the exact brick, brick laying style and even cement colour. The final image can be saved in a number of image formats making it the greatest tool I have come across for generating realistic brick textures.

A fantastic tool for anyone doing 3D architectural models. For more details see the latest blenderart magazine (http://www.blenderart.org/).

Cons:

• Textures are non-repeating - however you can make the textures really large.


• Bandwidth heavy - downloads textures from the net as you need them, so you will need a fairly good connection

XNA

XNA is a game development framework from Microsoft built on the .NET framework to run on both windows and the new xbox 360. It is unfortunately also built on top of directx and does not cater for opengl L. If you can stomach having to stick to Microsoft sponsoring technologies it definitely makes the process of making simple games easier.

Be sure to check out the Game Studio Express (free).

http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/default.aspx

Gantt Project

Here is a fantastic open source project organizer similar to Microsoft Project. It is cross platform so you can use it on mac (X only L) and linux as well.

http://ganttproject.sourceforge.net/

I have actually known about this for a while, but I saw it in action on the MakeHuman (which is also worth taking a look at) site.

There are also lots of third party tools, which I haven’t played with, so I can’t really say much about them.