I’m going to try to keep this updated every hour with our progress.

* Note: I know Sherman’s March was originally from Atlanta to Savannah, and that it took place during one of the darkest eras of our history’s past, but I believe this endevour will prove to be more… pleasant.

8:27 AM (EST): We’re just getting out of New Jersey, and it’s foggy as all get-out. Colin has to pee, and Joey seems apprehensive about stopping.

Stay tuned.

8:56 AM (EST): Success.

Colin’s bladder is relieved.

Also, Joey has Gobstoppers and we’re just driving by Baltimore. I’d make a The Wire related joke, but I can imagine the disapproving grimace Eric would make upon reading it, so I will refrain.

More updates comin’, hopefully less about Colin’s innards.

10:27 AM (EST):
Colin – “I’ve got to pee again.”
Adam – “You’re a woman.”

Number of songs from RENT we’ve listened to in the last hour: About 10.

We saw a truck carrying what Adam stated was the successor to the Hummer. It looked badass as hell. It also had “Osh-Kosh” branding on the front. Does the children’s clothing company have a defense arm?

We just passed the Virginian border, and are rocketing our way ever Southward.

1:30 PM (EST) :

Sorry for the lack of updates, we’re super tired. Joey and Adam have switched places, so Adam’s now commanding the wheel.

(And doing a good job, might I add.)

We’re just hangin’ out, listening to the Avett Brothers. Modern GPS technology still has our position mapped as in Virginia. I’m personally excited to stop by South of the Border, right over the border of N. Carolina to S. Carolina. It’s a rad joint, with fireworks and mini golf and other mischievous activities/trinkets.

Also, Maggie, message recieved, Colin’s applying a herculean effort to control his bladder.

I leave you with what I believe to be a beautiful picture. Sleep easy guy, you deserve it:

3:58 PM (EST):

That was a good nap, now time for an update.

We’re currently in the middle of North Carolina, rapidly approaching the border for South Carolina. About 10 minutes after the last update, we ran into a fair amount of rain. It’s still raining, but not as much.

Driver update: Joey and Adam have switched again.

Colin urinary syatus update: He just peed again, sorry Maggie. He tried.

Current ETA (as per Joey’s TomTom): 8:05 PM; 244 miles to go.

Current cacaphony: Plastic Beach

Eric: Enjoy the Magnetic Fields show tonight! Can’t wait to see you tomorrow!

Kyle: We love you, and will be there soon.

I WANT TO SEE THEM.

I WANT TO SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE.

I’m so happy I get to use the “hallandoatesfuckyeah” tag again!

In a previous lifetime, I was the guy in the glasses. Dats whats up.

Hey Juicers. I have an announcement to make.

Luster is now in public beta. Download it here. It is available for PC and Mac. I promise that it if you install it and want to uninstall it, you can uninstall it easily as you would any program.

Luster is our platform for creating interactive 3D applications. Like Flash, once the Luster runtime is installed on your computer, you can run Luster applications. Luster applications can be hosted on a website through major browsers or as applications on your desktop.

So what are you going to do now that you have installed Luster? Well easy! Download and play Blocks.

Blocks is a game we have been working on at the Darkwind Media offices to promote and test Luster. You can download Blocks for free and run it on, again, Mac or PC. Its small. It does not require installation. Just download and play, delete when you are done.

If you could give us feedback on any bugs you encounter in Blocks while playing it, that would be great. Email us at feedback@luster3d.com. Once Luster is downloaded, you can also check out some of our other demos. If you don’t want to download the demos, please at least check out our gallery.

Thanks Juicers. You are great. Huge thanks also to Brian, Choof, and Chris for putting in so much work and making this happen.

Check it out.

It’s from the animated film Allegro Non Troppo by Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto.

One could call Allegro a parody of Disney’s Fantasia at first glance, but I see it more as another attempt at doing what Fantasia attempted to do; create beautiful animated works to go along with classical pieces of music.

This section from Allegro is based off the piece Valse Triste (Sad Waltz) from the play Kuolema.

(Just like Fantasia, there are live-action interludes, but I’d argue that Allegro’s interludes are more comedic on purpose, as it seeks to poke fun at Fantasia).

Federal Bureau of Illustration’s Logo…

more like...Federal Bureau of Imitation...am I right? I mean am I right?

And…the logo I created for our internal team while @ bigspaceship :

Literally, Badass.

At first I thought to myself, “Boy, my logo must not have been very original.” Then I remembered that Big Spaceship was featured in a Harvard Review Case Study in Early 2009, which is why I had to make the logo in the first place (aka, this image was actually published). I do realize that it’s not very likely that he saw my logo in that huge, multi-page Harvard Case Study…but come on…its HARVARD we’re talking about. I would imagine that shit GOT AROUND.

AT THIS POINT,  I’m a little bit annoyed…so I do some minor investigation.

FIRSTLY,  I realized that this guy has a copyright on his website for 2009….

THEN I realized that I uploaded this jpg to my personal server in 2008…and it can still be seen to this day, in a couple different stages of design, might I add.

THEN….naturally, I realized that I win.

(of course, I’m able to accept the fact that my idea isn’t that original and it could all be a coincidence. And of course, I am also able to accept the fact that my version is much more badass either way.)

The fact of the matter is, he may have designed a logo with a completely different style and tone, but when it comes down to it, he has used almost every single element of my logo in the exact same way. Come on now. I am all for appropriating ideas and being inspired by things you see on the internet…but…this is a little too similar to me.

Let it be known that I am aware that I might be tooting my own horn here….and that the odds of him seeing my design are pretty minor, but it still strikes me as being a bit interesting. I also realize that when you type in ‘US eagle’ in google, one of the first images that shows up is the US mint logo which appears on the quarter (which is where I got my idea in the first place).

Is this a result of the collective unconscious, or the sweet, sweet, nipple of the internet being sucked on by every man, woman and child in existence?

Oh internet…

Well, it took a while, but for the last 6 months or so I’ve finally taken the time to finish this project up so I can officially be a graduate of the Game Design and Development program at RIT.

Here is a video of my final work. The characters are being rendered in real time in an interactive environment in Luster.

I am not a character modeler nor animator. I have worked in Maya before and done some shotty rigs and animations in the past, but this was a huge learning experience for me. Not everything came out the way I wanted, but I am thrilled to have created what you see here. I am no Kyle, just a noob, but I am a proud noob.

Oh, and also, a little on the two characters:

iCat was rigged and animated in a fully forward kinematic system, which gave me a lot of control but made a lot of animating very tedious and difficult to get appropriate results (for example, making sure the feet stay on the ground)

Josie was animated in a fully IK system, which gave me a lot of nice tools for keeping feet on the ground, bones in place and extra realistic motion from her movements. It was also, however, very complicated to operate with pinning and pull and all that stuff, so making a wrong move would lead to a lot of frustration and other terrible things. Obviously very powerful, but something that I am sure takes practice and experience to master.

I am seriously puzzled by this video. The amount of work that went into this is astounding. Whoever created this basically pulled off every visual effect trick that has created Avatar to be such a stunning success. For example, painstakingly real facial animation that had to be mo-capped in some way as well as a pretty damn good job of composting to polish it off. Who made this!? Juice it.