The tree house was loosely based upon a real tree house that you can actually buy from Free Spirit Spheres, which look pretty cool, but seem to me like they would sway a lot in the wind.

The project was modeled over 10 weeks in Maya.  It took over 36 hours to render on my 64-bit Macbook Pro.  I started the render before going to bed one night and it finished sometime during the following night.  And that was just the exterior.  Luckily, I had class most of the day in between so I didn’t miss the use of my computer much during that time.

I have a whole new respect for the animated movies that are coming out these days.  I can’t imagine the amount of modeling and rendering time that goes into them.  My “film” is less than a minute long…not even close to feature length.  Crazy.

I have a new design and logo, some new functionality (Facebook and OpenID) integration, and a new layout that is ready for future projects I have cooking already. I also added a new photo blog which I hope to keep full of my latest work. There’s a few new shots up there to enjoy already with a lot more in the queue.

One of my resolutions this year was to post more often and now I’m ready to begin.

1. KeePassDroid (free) – a companion app to the desktop version, albeit by a separate developer.  I highly recommend the KeePass products (all free) for password storage and retrieval.  The 2.x version of the desktop app can export to a 1.x file which the Android version can read.  Drop it on your SD card and you have all your passwords at your disposal in encrypted secure form.  You only have to remember your master password.

2. Evernote (free) – create and view notes on your phone via text input, photographs, audio recordings, and file uploads.  The notes are synced automatically to the cloud through Evernote’s website (also free, but has paid service for more storage space) so you can view/edit them on any computer or via the web.  It’s like having a second brain.

3. Google Goggles (free) – I’m sure this will be installed on all Android phones in the future, but for now, you have to look for it.  Goggles lets you search the web by taking a snapshot of an item such as a book, landmark, logo, artwork, business, product, barcode, or text.  It will even attempt to “read” business cards and generate a contact for you.

4. Twidroid (free, paid version available) – easily the best Twitter app for Android.  It makes all the lists.

5. Google Voice (free) – full integration with the Google Voice service.  If you use Google Voice, you’ll want this.  If not, you won’t.

6. PingDroid (free) – uses the Ping.fm service (also free) to update multiple social networks at once.  I use it to update my Facebook and Twitter status simultaneously from my Phone.

7. Google My Maps Editor (free) – the companion to Google Maps.  Allows you to edit maps stored in the My Maps feature of Google Maps while on the go.  Great for adding new placemarks to your maps while you travel.

8. The Weather Channel (free) – get the weather report and weather bulletins for multiple locations on your phone.

9. Barcode Scanner (free) – scan barcodes or QR codes and search the web for info.  This may get replaced by Google Goggles on my phone, which shares the same functionality.

10. PicSay Pro (purchased or free edition) – allows you to edit the photos you take on the phone.  The Pro edition has more filters and effects than the free edition, but both are great for color correcting or tweaking your photos.  They both allow for adding fun clipart or text balloons to your images, but that quickly gets old.  Get the app for the filters and correction tools.  The Pro edition includes effect tools like Exposure, Contrast, Saturation, Temperature, Tint, Brightness, Adjust RGB, Sharpen, Smooth, and Blur, color adjustments such as Hue, Colorize, Grayscale, Black & White, and Duotone,  photo effects like Cross Process, Sepia Toning, Invert, Fading Colors, Soft Glow, and filters such as a simulated GND filter, Vignette, Spotlight, and several options for adding borders.  It also includes several artistic and distortion effects that I will probably never use.  It also allows for very simple masks and has a history paintbrush.  It’s pretty impressive.

11. FxCamera (free) – has some quick photo filters that allow you to take photographs that simulate a polariod, fish-eye lens, toy camera and others.

12. Google My Tracks (free) – uses your phones GPS to track your route and calculate trip stats such as distance, time, speed, elevation gain, and other stats usually found on dedicated GPS receivers.  Also allows you to set markers and upload your trip to Google My Maps.

13. Google Finance (free) – track your stocks from your phone, which could be depressing these days.  To cheer yourself back up try…

14. DailyStrip (free) – get your favorite comic strips on your phone everyday.  Currently 98 strips available.  Dilbert and Calvin and Hobbes are my favorites. :)

15. Google Places (free) – get information and user ratings about local business and attractions based on your location or via search. Similar to Yelp.

16. Yelp (free) – similar to above, but with more data as it is a more established service with higher user base.  The current rumor (as of 12/18/2009) is Google is looking to acquire Yelp so these may merge one day.

17. Locale (free) – this is one that I use everyday, but don’t realize it.  It’s an app that lets you program your phone based on your location, time, or even battery status.  I use it to automatically silence my ringer whenever I’m at school.  Now I don’t have to worry about my phone ringing during class.  When I leave school, Locale resets my default volume automatically.  I also use it to silence my notification alerts at night.  I don’t want to get woken up just because an email arrives.  I use my phone as an alarm clock so this was a problem.  Now, it’s not.  There are also a number of plugins available for Locale that add to its functionality.

18. Amazon and Amazon MP3 (free) – shop from your phone.  Dangerous (impulse buys!), but cool.  Also useful for comparison shopping when you’re at a store.  Check to see what prices are at Amazon to see if the store is gouging you.

19. BettrFlickr (purchased) – view your Flickr account on your phone, search for photos, and upload new photos from the Share option in most photo apps, including PicSay.  I bought it mostly for the upload option.  Without it, I had to resort to using Flickr’s email service which doesn’t allow you to add them to a set.

20. ASTRO File Manager – A file browser, task manager, and more for your phone.  Also will allow you to back-up all your non-private applications.

21. Documents To Go (free, paid version available) – view MS Word or Excel documents on your phone.  The paid version is required if you wish to edit them.  Also, Powerpoint and PDF documents are supported in the paid version, but not the free one.  I was fine with the read-only version.

22. ExFlashlight (free) – turn your phone’s screen into a flashlight.  Also, has a red light for easier night vision and will flash a S.O.S code.

23. DroidLight LED Flashlight (free) – uses the Droid’s twin LED flash as a flashlight rather than the screen.

24. Shazam (free) – let it listen for a few seconds and it will identify what song you’re hearing and locate it on your favorite music store.  Works surprisingly well.

25. SportsTap (free) – follow your favorite teams and get game time alerts and stats on players.  I haven’t been able to watch the Packers or Badgers much this year, but I always know how they’re doing.  Follows the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and NCAA as well as other football, auto (NASCAR), soccor, golf, tennis, and local teams/events.

26. UltraCron Lite (free) – a basic, yet speech enabled, timer and stop watch.  I use it so I don’t forget to take the pizza out of the oven…nobody likes burnt pizza.

Others I have, but don’t use very often or haven’t fully tried yet include: UStream Broadcaster and Viewer, wpToGo (wordpress blogging), Quickpedia, OpenTable, Pandora, Last.fm, Google Sky Map, Layar, Google Listen, Mobile GA (Google Analytics), Photoshop.com Mobile, Portland Transit Lite, and Voice Recorder.

Last term, I had 3D Modeling and Animation I.  We modeled a local restaurant call The Chow, which was converted to a restaurant from an old gas station.  We also worked on a few ball drop animations.  The video below shows my animation of a bowling ball and a beach ball rolling and dropping off of a table and bouncing to a stop.  It then shows the model of The Chow.  I added some additional features to my model like fog, flickering patio lights, and bugs buzzing around the lights.  I think it turned out pretty well for my first time.

The video is a combination of live action footage, rendered CG backgrounds modeled in Maya, several still images, and some visual effects created in Adobe After Effects.  The live action footage was shot in my apartment with my Canon 5DMK2.  The compositing and rotoscoping was done in Apple Shake (a requirement for the class), which has got to be the most crash-prone piece of software that I have ever used.  Thankfully, Apple has discontinued the product so, hopefully, I won’t have to use it much in the future.

If you are familiar with the Matrix Trilogy, you will probably recognize where the idea came from for this video.  Granted, my version is no where near as well executed as in the Matrix films, but my budget wasn’t as big either.

Enjoy!

So here’s 3.5 hours of my life I’ll never get back, condensed down into 2.5 minutes and set to a catchy tune.

Astonishingly enough, 3.5 hours is pretty short as far as assignments go.  I’ve discovered I can easily spend 6-8hrs or more on a single assignment for some of my classes.  Creativity takes time.  It worries me to think about how much time I’ll be spending on assignments as I progress into advanced classes.  Hopefully, they will at least be more fun.

I get a four day weekend every week.  Sweet! :)  Classes start this Monday and run until the end of September.

I moved to Portland two and half weeks ago.  Initially, I stayed in an extend stay hotel out in Hillsboro while I applied for school and figured out where I would live.  I decided to give downtown living a try and signed up for student housing.  The school has two apartment complexes that they use for student housing.  I’m in the building called “The Arthur”.  There are single and double rooms with shared baths.  I applied for a single, but they were all full.  I am currently in a double with a roommate.  However, upon check-in, I was told a single room would be opening up in a week or two and that I was first on the waiting list.  So, it looks like I’ll be moving down the hall soon.  So much for unpacking and getting settled before classes begin.

The screen shot below was taken in Google Earth and shows downtown Portland looking southeast.  You can see the Art Institute’s location in the lower left.  The Arthur, where I live, is located in the middle to upper right by the yellow pushpin (the white building).  It’s about six blocks from school and very close to the heart of downtown Portland.  So far, I love living here.  I can walk to everywhere I need to go and there’s a MAX station just a block away if I need to go farther.  The only downside to living here is that there is no place to park my car.  I couldn’t find any long-term parking nearby.  I ended up putting my car in storage out in Beaverton.  I have to ride the MAX, take a bus, and then walk a few blocks to get to it…definitely not convenient.  I may just sell it soon and rely on public transportation, Zipcar, or car rentals in the future.

By the way, Portland is pretty amazing to look at in Google Earth.  As you can see, almost every building in the downtown and surrounding areas has been modeled in 3D.  It’s worth a look.

A couple of simple shots from a trip to the Botanic Gardens here in Denver a couple of weeks ago.

Have you ever watched snow melt?

There is a fix posted by Adobe on their website.  You can find it here: http://www.adobe.com/go/kb405074

The fix actually introduced me to two features of Lightroom I didn’t even know existed.  First, if you double-click on a keyword in the Keyword List (right pane in Library mode), you get a dialog with options for that keyword, one of which is to “Include on Export”.  Nice.  Now I can use special keywords to help organize my photos, but not have to worry about sharing them with the rest of the world when I export them to Flickr, SmugMug, or Facebook.  How did I miss this feature?

The second feature was the Scripts menu that appears if you follow option one in the fix.  I didn’t know I could write user scripts that would appear in the menu.  I wonder what other kind of scripts could be written to automate tasks in Lightroom.  For instance, for trektrax.com, I have created multiple export presets to export my images in various sizes for uploading to the web, using in the video slideshows, etc.  Could I write a script to run multiple export presets with one-click rather than having to manually run each one?  That would be nice.  I’ll definitely have to look into this.

Update: Apparently others had the same idea.  Here’s a response from Adobe on the user scripts that I found in the Adobe forums:

At this point we won’t be providing any more information about this scripting interface beyond what’s available as a solution for the Keyword bug referenced in the KB article. It’s an API that the development team can use for troubleshooting or solving specific issues.