bTraffic progress

I'm currently working on a particle based Maya animation tool called bTraffic.
What this allows an animator to do is to draw a series of lines in Maya and auto-generate traffic that drive along the lanes.
Further updates will add in extra functionality such as inner lane changing, exit road options, density controls and replacement of cubes with custom models.
Click the image to see some demo videos.

barcamp leeds...

Thought I'd do a little bit of advertising for barcamp leeds here seeing as I'll be going along and having a look at what 'barcamp' events are all about. It looks like an interesting lineup and has some people there that I used to work with back in the days of hardcore web programming. It's also at the Old Broadcasting House in Leeds which has facilities available for our current Masters group project (more about that when it is complete). It's a rather swanky place, nicely laid out and kitted out with some cool equipment.
Should be fun :)

you tube updates to the site...

Just a little note to say that I've uploaded my 3D videos onto you tube and linked them straight to these pages so people wont have to download movies before seeing what they are.
I've also split the 3D section into relevant categories so that it is easier to follow.
Finally all the videos that I have uploaded can be accessed from the following you tube page: My videos

An example can be seen below:

Boids and flocking...

Currently I'm working on creating a tool called bFlocking in Maya to simulate artifical flocking. This system called 'Boids' was originally created by Craig Reynolds.
My first tests were conducted in Flash using Actionscript 2 and I have now progressed onto writing the system within Maya 8.5 using Python.
If you want to look into what boids are then the best place is to start is at Craig Reynolds website at http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/
To see my experiments and to download and test the current version of the tool go to my tools section at: http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/tools/bFlocking/

dvd drive disappeared?...

Well this was an interesting one. Today I was about to do some DVD backups of my system only to find that my DVD drive had strangely disappeared from the system. I've also got an external DVD drive which I bought when my laptop DVD drive packed in and plugging this in even came up with the same error - that windows could not use the drive.
After some digging around it appears that this can happen occasionally on XP machines (XP 64 in my case) and even on Vista machines...
To fix the problem you need to:

1. Click on the start menu.
2. In the search box type in 'regedit' without the quotation marks.
3. Maximize the HKLM and then go ahead and browse until you reach the key listed HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11­CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
4. In the right panel you’ll see something along the lines of 'UpperFilter' and 'LowerFilter' or maybe either one or the other - you want to click on each of these keys and hit delete. Click yes when it asks to confirm if you wish to delete the key.
5. Restart Windows.
This seemed to give me back my original DVD drive and also let me access the external DVD drive. A bit wierd but all in a day's work using Windows ;)

Si

prototype game...

Well today I can reveal a prototype game I've been developing for Uni. Its done in Virtools, a game development system that makes things a little bit easier than jumping into all that crazy coding you hear about in games (although you can still do that).
The game is called Warcones and the instructions in the game tell you what its about and what to do ;)
You first need to have the virtools life player browser plugin installed and then once thats on you can go to play the game.
It's only basic and is a prototype so dont expect rocket science but I hope you enjoy it.

Si

futuristic city scene...

Here is a completed version of the futuristic city I've been making recently. While doing it I've learned about render layers which is basically rendering all the different elements of the scene into different layers so that you have a lot more control in modifying it later. I've also touched on matte painting - digitally painting over source material (photos, 3D renders etc) to create a final image, and it is good fun to attempt.

update needed...

Well I've not updated for a while (thanks for reminding me warren ;) so straight to it:

First up I've posted a panoramic quicktime VR of the Botannical Gardens in Sheffield. It was created by taking about 18 shots around a central point on a hand digital camera. These were then cleaned up in photoshop by altering the lighting and levels and finally stitched together and imported into VRWorx where the quicktime movie was created.

Next up is a couple of HDR images that I have created for use. They are basically around 10 or 12 different exposure shots of a spherical object (the back of a dented ladle in my case) which are then imported into HDRshop and the HDR image generated. Download the first and second HDR images if you want to test them out in a 3D program.

Third up are some test renders of a bathroom scene I created especially to play with basic external single point lighting through a window. They were rendered using mental ray and after a lot of playing about with settings things started to make sense. Check them out (and the other bits) in the 3D section.

Next up is a test futuristic city scene I'm creating for a poster. For the first time I'm using render layers which basically mean you render different elements of the 3D scene out into layers such as a shadow layer, colour layer, specular layer etc. This means that you dont have to keep rendering the whole scene out every time you make a change, just the layer where changes have occurred. It also means you can import the layers into photoshop and play about with them to get a better effect than from the full render. Finally it means you can paint over areas in photoshop with new elements from photos or just hand painted things and this can give you a good final piece. Thanks to Jay and Steve from SimplyMaya for explaning and showing what render layers are about and how they can be used :)

I've got a few more things on the go but they can wait for another posting soon ;)

particles and dynamics...

Well I'm on the course at Leeds Met doing what I wanted. Got a few weeks to catch up on but its going ok so far. We've had lots of cool things to look into so far, panoramic VR scenes (which I should have some stuff to post on soon) and looking into particles and dynamic effects as extra work. I've just updated the 3D section with some example tests I've been playing with recently.
I've also been playing with Mudbox 3D, a new scuplting tool a bit like the sculpting parts of ZBrush but apparently a lot easier to get into. Again check out the 3D section for the first try with it on my Emperor Hadrian mesh and a second try as a freeform experiment.

no more course...

Well the specific course I was about to start this wednesday is not running. I got a phone call last week saying that it wasnt running due to lack of numbers and that they had screwed up as all the students should have been informed in December but were not. Not good when you leave a full time job ready for the course!
Anyways I'm still deciding whether to go for the 'alternative' course or whether to go back to work (maybe part-time) and enroll on a course at Animation Mentor (AM). I've spent quite a bit of time over the last few days reading AM student blogs and haven't found anything bad yet about the course or the way it is taught.

On a side note, dont buy a standard SapphireTech x1950 Pro card. The problems in one of my previous posts amounted to something on the card going pop and giving off that lovely metallic burning smell you sometimes get in PC's. Needless to say it was returned and I decided to risk going for the SapphireTech Ultimate x1950 Pro which has a Zalman top class fan and completely revised heatsink and the card is running like a dream - BF2142 and Call of Duty 2 fly along great.