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20 June 2001
Making Movies: with Lego - Legos "Movie Maker Set" includes a film set, a video camera and an edit software.
The set is more than cute, and the Film School on the Lego web site explains the art & science of movie making in a nutshell. Steven Spielberg has promoted the set, and indeed: one of the little Lego men looks surprisingly similar to him:
A director's job is also well explained: "What kind of movie, or genre (pronounced "zhan-rah"), are you going to make?" A zhan-rah?? Anyway, the camera included in the set is more sophisticated than the Betacam SP monster we have: its loaded with video cassettes AND has two film rolls on top. The end of the conflict between celluloid and tape. Mum, I want one...
And ACTION: The Lego Porn Series (thanks, Dave) (June 20., 2001, )
15 June 2001
So give me my digital hub already - Stephan Somogyi ZDNet News has an interesting article about media and meta-media.
"I recently wrote about scripting languages, and digital hubs would be a perfect use for them. The technology providers need to create engines that can acquire and process media and metadata from sources as diverse as cable, terrestrial broadcast, satellite, and the Internet. With the help of high-level language bindings to those engines, I could put together my own customized system that records the media that I want for time shifted viewing (or listening) and/or archiving. " [ more... ] (June 15., 2001, )
9 June 2001
Kaffeetassen-Kaustik - Aus der Serie "Da werden Sie nicht dümmer von": wie eine Kaffeetasse eine 3500 Marks-Software schlägt.
Beim Schreiben eines Artikels über ein 3D-Programm kam mir die passende Klugscheisserei für alle Mit-Kaffeeholiker in die Quere:
Cinema 4D kann in seiner neuesten Inkarnation auch "Caustics". Ah-ja! Nach ein wenig Herumgooglen stellte sich heraus, daß in Physiklehrer-Kreisen die "Kaffeetassen-Kaustik" wohlbekannt ist. Es handelt sich um die Lichtreflektionen, die auf der Kaffeeoberfläche entstehen, wenn die Sonne schräg in die Tasse scheint. "Auch Teetrinker können die Erscheinung beobachten, vorausgesetzt, sie tun etwas Milch in den Tee." tröstet die TU München (Vorsicht, pdf-Datei). Wieder mal ist die Natur auch der ausgefuchstesten Software himmelweit überlegen - Milchnachgiessen geht mit Cinema nämlich nicht.
Und falls Ihnen jetzt mal wieder jemand mit "Caustics" dummkommt - mit dieser Weisheit können Sie garantiert jede Party sprengen.
P.S.: da weisst jemand gerade völlig zu Recht darauf hin, daß Cinema 4D XL7 nicht 3.500, sondern 4.000 Mark köstet. Aber Milchnachgiessen geht trotzdem nicht... (June 9., 2001, )
8 June 2001
Toons go OS X - Toon Boom has released a public beta of Toon Boom Studio for OSX, and Cambridge Animation has promised to bring ANIMO to OSX.
Hope I can make Mananging Chief Head Creative Art Director for Cartoon and Animation Karl install MacOS X and try this stuff out. Toon Boom is just downloading via the satellite. ZZZZoooommmm...
As reported earlier, also CAS has announced that it will bring Animo to Mac OS X. Cambridge Animation Systems' cartoon software ANIMO was one of the highlights during the European research project EUROPORT D that we helped to promote in 1998. (June 8., 2001, )
6 June 2001
In Memoriam Sculpt - Good stuff doesn't die. If its good enough, its genes are passed down the generations. Even if its software.
1986, in one of these rare moments, where technology and witchcraft are merging, "Juggler", a demo animation featuring a robot juggling three mirror balls was released by Commodore. This tiny animation really rocked the world. I remember staring at the Juggler for minutes, wondering how on earth this was done. The program, in which this technical demonstration finally resulted, was Sculpt 3D for the Amiga, released in the fall of 1987. Sculpt 3D was coded by Dr. Eric Graham and sold by BytebyByte. When Graham retired to New Mexico, Sculpt 3D was ported to the Macintosh, and thats why I bought a Macintosh when they costed 2.3 Million Dollars and such.
Soon after, the development of Sculpt came to an end, until a young Irish university professor named Dr. Stuart Ferguson reverse-engineered and re-programmed the Mac-Sculpt to DOS and Windows, naming the resulting software SoftFX. SoftFX was marketed by BytebyByte again, but never really had a breakthrough comparable to Sculpt 3D. Finally, after some years SoftFX vanished into nirvana, byte-by-byte, following his predecessor and leaving nothing but memories and dusted floppy disks. For me as for many other devoted 3D artists, the seemed to be the end of an elegant professional 3D animation software, although I still use it as an editor, when modelling simple techncial 3D pieces.
Today I found the successor of Sculpt and SoftFX. OpenFX is released by Ferguson under the GNU terms, runs on Win32 and plans are afoot to port it to Linux platforms. It features physics simulations, NURBS support, kinematics-based animation, morphing, and an extensive plugin API.
Eric Graham, the grandfather of OpenFX, is now running a 3D company named direct algorithms. (June 6., 2001, )
5 June 2001
raytracing im Spiegel - Der SPIEGEL über 3D-Programme. Und nicht nur das: ein Workshop. Was ist passiert? Ist 3D jetzt salonfähig? Oder kriegen die die Seiten nicht voll?
Cyberspace im Eigenbau heißt der mehrteilige Workshop in SPIEGEL online, der sich im ersten Teil mit kostenlosen und preiswerten 3D-Programmen beschäftigt. Gut Ding will ja sicher Weile haben, aber wenn man überlegt, wie viele Jahre (Jahrzehnte?) 3D als Medium schon zwischen Filmhype und Fricklernische hin- und herzappelt, ist es schon verwunderlich, daß die alte Tante Spiegel jetzt plötzlich und unerwartet sowas schreibt.
Passend zu diesem Artikel (oder umgekehrt) war ich heute bei Maxon, der einzigen deutschen 3D-Software-Schmiede - die der Spiegel-Artikel prompt unerwähnt läßt -, um für einen langen Artikel in der MacUp über die neue Version 7 zu recherchieren. Unser gemeinsam entwickelter Netzrenderer Cinema 4D NET ist - wie schon vermeldet - jetzt Bestandteil des Programmpakets.
Mehr dazu in der kommenden Ausgabe der Macup mit spannenden Details über Cinema 4D, "Gladiator" und MacOS X-Icons.
Ende der Werbung, zurück zum Programm. (June 5., 2001, )
2 June 2001
Why 1984 wasn't 1984 - 15 years ago, Ridley Scott ("Alien", "Blade Runner", "Gladiator") produced a 30 second TV spot that was broadcast only once and still today is incredibly suggestive. The legend is alive.
"On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you will see, why 1984 won't be like 1984". As a devoted owner of two Macintosh Classics ("Knubbelmacs"), - both in good health and connected with the modern world via the Internet - I command every Windows user to read this article by LowEnd Mac that is adapted from a series of articles and sidebars in the February 1984 issue of Byte magazine. Here is another tribute, cupertino.de , an excellent site that features every single of the dozends of brilliant TV spots Apple has ever produced. Sit back and enjoy "1984". Bet there won't be a "2001" from Microsoft... (June 2., 2001, )
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