This is by far my favorite story of all those I have written.
After all, I undertook to tell several trillion years of human history in the space of a short story and I leave it to you as to how well I succeeded. I also undertook another task, but I won’t tell you what that was lest l spoil the story for you.
It is a curious fact that innumerable readers have asked me if I wrote this story. They seem never to remember the title of the story or (for sure) the author, except for the vague thought it might be me. But, of course, they never forget the story itself especially the ending. The idea seems to drown out everything — and I’m satisfied that it should.
–Isaac Asimov
I’ve always enjoyed Asimov’s short stories and this is by far the best. You can read the full text here.
Xia Xiaowan - Return
Inspired by x-ray photography, Xia Xiaowan creates his works on layers of glass while exploring the absurd and strange qualities of realism. As one walks around the installation, the image changes along each shift of perspective, blurring the line between painting and sculpture.
View more of his work at the Galerie Urs Meile gallery.
Published on
November 13, 2008 in
Humor.
Tags: Humor.
More like a flicker I should say, and then Photoshop seems to have hung. Well apparently the window is still there, its just off screen. Press ‘esc’ to close it and try File->save again. If it still doesn’t show up, use the following combination:
Alt key, Space bar, ‘M’
and use the arrow keys to guide the lost dialog back to your screen. If pressing left doesn’t work, try pressing right. Have fun.
For more details:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb403268
While maps have become a common site on the net, who knew they could be used to tell stories too?
http://www.wetellstories.co.uk/stories/week1/
Check out Christopher’s reel on character rigging and animation at http://www.christophercrouzet.com/showreel.php
How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity was Ed Catmull’s speech at Siggraph 2008, worth a read for anyone in the creative industry.
A few years ago, I had lunch with the head of a major motion picture studio, who declared that his central problem was not finding good people—it was finding good ideas. Since then, when giving talks, I’ve asked audiences whether they agree with him. Almost always there’s a 50/50 split, which has astounded me because I couldn’t disagree more with the studio executive. His belief is rooted in a misguided view of creativity that exaggerates the importance of the initial idea in creating an original product… read full article
After the rigging a few characters using IK chains in maya, its hard not to wonder when maya would have a equivalent of 3d studio max’s Biped. Well it happens that Maya HAS one, and due to my ignorance I had only just discovered the cool FBIK.
Full Body IK (FBIK Solver) was a feature from Kaydara MotionBuilder that got integrated into Maya when Alias bought Kaydara. It simulates complex real body kinematics that is hard to achieve using manual IK. An example would be having your character reaching down to pick up an apple from the ground. With FBIK, the whole body follows the hand movement, creating realistic bending of shoulder, spine, hips and knees. With traditional IK, you’d probably need to key all the aforementioned handlers by hand.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find any good tutorials online, the closest I could find was Mastering Maya 8.5 on google books. However a detailed explanation and tutorial can be found on Maya’s help, although a tad more difficult to follow, nonetheless provides all the information you need to get a working rig.
I’ll post my adventure with FBIK when I have time during the holidays.
Some tools to help you work with FBIK
FBIK CharacterControl – simulates Motion Builder’s native character control UI
BipedFactory – Helps you build your skeleton in minutes
Another Tutorial on how to setup a FBIK
http://tutorial.jcwcn.com/3D-Graphics/Maya/Character-Setup/2007-06-23/1437.html
