sig

Playin around with cs 5. Doodling this guy over and over, trying to figure him out. Panel body, long limbs, skinny offset head. That's what's up.

from the sketchbook

Doodling some little silhouettes. Made a little wasteland guy, not sure what he's holding. Maybe some little improvised climbey-piton things.

box bot done got modeled.

Threatened to and thus I have, made my crappy sketch into a crappy model.

Box bot is, in theory, able to transform from cube mode to crawly spider mode and back, relatively seamlessly. Stage two is figuring out how to properly rig this up.

Depth of field + pixelation = pixel depth?

Or depth of pixel?

Been toying with this idea of a lens-effect that would somehow pixelate based on the relative focus levels in a shot. So, what's in focus has a high-pixel density, and what's out of focus is heavily pixelated, with some kind of progression between completely in and out of focus. The progression itself seems like the trickiest part.

If, say, you had a flat landscape extending to the horizon, with a part of the midground in focus and the rest out, the progressively-large pixels (moving away from the midground), could be alligned horizontally with no need for breaks. Almost like little bricks shrinking with perspective.

The problem would be, I suppose, if your focal-gradient (my own BS term there) wasn't in line with the horizontal or vertical. Suddenly the boundaries of different pixel-density would make jagged lines that wouldn't necessarily fit together.

This made me think one could get around this if one we able to cordon off areas on an image at a given level of pixelation with a matching grid. i.e. if a level-of-focus is at 16 pixels per square inch, then it's boundaries are all "snapped" along little 1/4" square steps. From there, you could make an adjoining area with a higher pixel-density fit squarely into the 1/4" area by making it's density, say, 64 pixels per square inch, so that they density seamlessly steps up by a factor of 4 across the boundary and everything still fits. The issue is who does the cordoning. Better left to a 3D engine programmer and some tricky rendering.

Leads to interesting questions though. What happens when a single leaf, out of focus, is drifting in front of an in-focus surface. Should this hypothetical lens/renderer render this leaf at 1/4 the pixel-density of its background, and let those pixels break the "grid" of the backdrop? Or maybe it should all snap-to? If it all snaps to the pixel grid you've established, I feel the sense that the leaf isn't just a smudge on the backdrop might be lost, but if you used transparency somehow, and broke the leaf from the backdrop's grid, it might all work out.

All gibbering aside, I futzed around briefly. Winged it on the changes in density, and areas of focus, using a couple layers.

Prototype #1:

Diiiiip

Shit.

So I moved, and was without internet (so hard to resist cute pet-names for this essential utility everytime it comes up, almost typed the 'internets' initially, then got brave and tried 'interwarps' for something new, then chickened out) ... for quite some time.

Will resume regularly scheduled programming as of this week. Will take a moment now to share two of my finest creations. 5 minute little doodles on iphone's Brushes app, made upon request via text message.

Thus,

"octopus riding a sea unicorn."

and of course up top is "turtle excercising."

done&done.

thumbscape

New term, I'm coining it.

Thumbscape: it's a thumbnail, of a landscape.

Engbot MK. II and his family

An excerpt from a presentation by Apnadirex Industries CEO Ches Berg:

Where the original Engbot set the stage for an entirely new level of unmanned Hostile Environment Resource Prospecting, the Engbot MK. II continues to lead the pack in innovation and field performance.

However, on bigger asteroids, with more profitable deposits, and with more heavily entrenched and aggressive xenomorph colonies, physical human oversight is still a necessity. So the question arises, what can we learn about what we would do in an emergency scenario, by studying what we can force our robots to do in an emergency scenario?

Apnadirex Industries was handed a mandate: to show their stockholders and competitors that it's possible to tell a human story in the very midst of their experimental defense technology trials in the Bosporos cluster. To do this, they would need more from their flagship AIs, Gunbot and Engbot both, than had ever been asked of them before. What's more, the results would need to be watchable enough for the behavioral psychology department to have gained some new insights at the conclusion of the trials.

So, how to bring a little opera into space, when all of your actors have brains made of silicon? How to model the human capacity to prioritize and perform under duress, perhaps with a declining sense of self-preservation, perhaps after witnessing several loved ones pass away, perhaps in the context of a xenomorph swarm-attack?

Given AIs that can already prioritize for repair and defense, the solution required a new point of interest for them:

Significant Proxies. Placed so as to guarantee "casualties".

(pause for laughter)

What did Engbot and Gunbot do? What did we learn?

Over the next 6 hours, we'll be talking about the implications of this new demonstrative technology, all of which is based completely on the new Utils 3.0 software line, and thanks to which, at least in the Bosporos cluster:

(change slide)

There is no tragedy. There is just insight.

The Barbicide Jar

The keys jingled in Pat's shaking hands as he unlocked the door. Detecting his presence, the barbershop's lights activated. Pat took in the room: the chairs, mirrors, and combs. For all its scientific prowess, humanity had yet to replace the barber. Vacuum-bots scurried into position, waiting to suck up chopped hair. But there wouldn't be any. Nobody wanted to visit a barber whose hands shook.

Even in old age Pat's hands were strong, beautiful, and slender. But the Ciboscis virus had robbed him of that. Most days he wished the damned virus had been allowed to run its course. He was a Barber. Couldn't be anything else. That's why he had made the choice and agreed with his son. He would have customers again.

A bell jingled as Pat's son entered. “Jesus, Dad, what are you doing here? We're due at the clinic in an hour.”

Pat didn't respond. His son grew silent, realizing: his father wanted to open up his shop one last time as a whole man.

The boy put an arm around his father. “Come on, pop. Let's get you some new hands.”

The surgery went flawlessly. The rehabilitation therapy was faster than most. And before he knew it, Pat was back in his barbershop. Once word circulated that a barber with bionic arms was in the city he couldn't get through his customers fast enough. Many asked him to remove the synth-skin, marveling at the insides. Pat told stories, comforted wives, and gave children sweets. He even regained his sense of humour.

At the head of his desk he kept a jar of blue barbicide. Mothers cringed, men stroked their chins, and children stared wide-eyed. Floating in the jar were Pat's old hands, finally still. Taped to the jar was a note: “Retired”.

Narco-saint

Father Valdemer Juarez rapped his wooden cane against the bars of Luis' cell. Inside, the prisoner wound coloured threads into a black cloth. Father Juarez recognized the figure: La Santa Muerte.

“I have come to help you repent, my son,” said the Father.

“I'd rather you brought me dinner,” said Luis. “A nice roasted chicken. Some baked beans. That, to me, is heaven.”

“What was the last meal eaten by the prisoner you killed, I wonder?” asked the Father.

“It was a sacrifice, Padre. Payment. For La Santa.”

The Father swallowed; another sacrifice.

“There are real Saints for these times. St. Jude Thaddeus, Saint of desperate causes.”

“He is for some other Mexico,” said Luis. “I used to work for a tourist company. Then came the swine flu. No more tourists. Then the drought. My mother can't even grow vegetables anymore. The cartels are the only way to survive, and their god is The Skinny One.”

“I'm from Sinaloa. I used to run with traffickers before you were born. Before del Golfo started the wars. Then, one day...” Father Juarez tapped his cane against his leg. “But the Lord saw that I should live.”

“And what a life you have, begging dogs like us to say we're sorry.”

“There. I saw it. In your heart you know The White Child is false. I'm leaving now.”

Luis whipped around, angry. “You're not leaving! I see you here! You're just as much a prisoner as we are!”

Father Juarez coughed. “Perhaps. But when I'm hungry, I eat. Right now I feel like a nice piece of spicy chicken.” Luis lunged for the Padre through the bars. But he couldn't reach the old man, who was already hobbling away.

Scape the Goat

Was day-dreaming to myself a little scene.

We're in a windblown desert, at night, thousands of years ago. A nomadic band of humans, nestled in some forbidding rock formations, have taken shelter from the sands and found an oasis. They've been camped here for several weeks now, trying carefully to manage their resources as best they can, but tensions are high between members of the group. Food is not plentiful, and the stormy weather is not permitting them to travel safely and find more elsewhere.

A cloaked man stands on a promontory and looks out over the desert. He anxiously watches the horizon. Lighting strikes, and in his hand he slides another bead down a length of string with his thumb.

Cut to our hero, Scape, a male goat, who stands tethered to a tree amidst the shadows and shelter of the rocks by the water. He watches some of the men arguing whether to head out and brave the storm, or hold out where they are. The women and children move about in the background, some are at play, some sit worried.

One child stands close to Scape amidst the sparse bush, clutching a doll made of filthy rags and twine and papyrus, watching his strange square pupils and trying to make sense of them.

The man watching the horizon sees lightning strike again. He raises his chin in acknowledgment and puts away his beads, and returns to the camp.

Scape watches him step between the arguing men and present a decision to all parties. They look amongst themselves, then the look to Scape.

Scape has a strange ornament affixed to his collar as he's lead to the edge of the encampment. All the humans stand at the edge of the firelight in their rags and watch him. He looks back. The man who watched the horizon says a few word over the gale to the group, then a few words to the twisting storm outside. Then the man kicks Scape viciously in his hindquarters, almost sending him to the ground under the force. Scape panics and darts forward but then circles back tightly out of the wind. The man whips at his legs, and face, and haunches. Scape scurries confusedly between the man and the windy dark, as the crowd begins to shout and jeer. Try as he might, his former keepers won't be having him back.

The searing pain of the whip eventually overrides his fear of the dark and the wind, and he begins to wobble forth into the wasteland.

box bot. cube bot. cubot.

Wanted to design a little dude that would be really easy to store once he packed himself up. And also potentially easy to model up in max, which I'm hoping to do just for fun a little later.

Three of the cube sides, specifically the top, bottom, and back facing, split into the pieces that form it's little limbs. Maybe it can reposition it's limbs a bit relative to the other three sides to protect them, and guard it's softer robo innards.

I dunno.

from the sketchbook

Couple quick silhouettes. And a dude with stuff on his pole. Sounds upsetting.

I've been reading through a book called the Skillful Huntsman. It's basically Scott Robertson guiding you through with three of his students as they iterate various designs which come to form the visual bones of a fantastical reimagining of the original tale by the Brothers Grimm. The book puts an emphasis on silhouette work, both generating them for ideas and later working off them. They fill a page with 40 some odd thumbnails for one dude. Me I'm just trying to get the cob webs out here. 

I'll try figure out a worth while individual who deserves 40 takes.

Mandy

The man took a seat next to the other parents and watched his daughter play. She threw sand in the air.  She bounced on a tire. She swung on the monkey bars. He watched her, thanking god over and over that he still had Mandy, even if her mother was gone.

It had been four months since the truck. No amount of nano-surgery could restore his wife's crushed chest cavity. But Mandy was lucky. The debris that had ripped into her skull was removed and her damaged brain tissue regrown. She had a biotic eye and a skin discoloration. She would need to go in for synth adjustments every three months until she was fully grown. But she could lead a normal life. Better than normal, they told him. Part of the nano-heuristic that helped her brain regrow its tissue was now consciously manipulable. She would have an amazing memory, they said.

She ran up to him with a handful of daffodils.

“These are beautiful, honey,” he said. She smiled at him, looking so much like her mother.

“You know, these were your mother's favourites,” he said. She cocked her head, curious.

“Baby,” he said, “You remember mommy, right?” A sly childish grin was all he got.

“Mandy,” he said sternly, “Do you remember mommy?”

“Daddy,” she said, drawing out the word as if she were annoyed, “I know I have a mommy I just don't remember her. I erased the bad memories. There's nobody there. Nobody, nobody, nobody.” She sang the word to herself as as she rejoined the other children.

His heart caught in his throat. She deleted the memories of her mother. Of course she did.

He watched his five year old daughter play and wondered who she was.

from the sketchbook

Been a long time since I've been at the tablet, doodling.


It shows.

image check

Hmmm. More nonsense. Will this work?

whatsup with chaos whales

I’ve been a Heartbreaker for fiffteen years, ever since I first emigrated to Europa. I remember watching the news reports when I was a kid. The Chinese landings. Cracking through the ice. The oceans below. It was life! It was intelligent! And some of it, we learned, was angry. Never forget, they started killing us first, the Balaenoptera chaoticus. First blood belongs to the Chaos Whale.

As much as the other races are subservient, the Chaos Whales are vain and domineering. They’ve been kings of their world for millennia. Then we arrived and shattered their worldview.

Unlike the other marine mammals, the Chaos Whale feeds off the the hydrothermal vents that pock-mark the crust of Europa. They can stay down there for decades. We don’t have submersibles that can withstand the pressure. We have to wait for them to come to us.

Their skin is impregnable and dense. Bullets, harpoons, explosives? Won’t scratch them. Short of poisoning the water or mini-nukes – something we’ve only done twice, at untold cost to the ambient life – there’s only one way to take them down: intravenously.

We wait for the beast’s attack, then rumble the water to disorient it, and I get launched at the dorsal fold. Once I’ve drilled my way in I crawl to the nearest arterial vessel. Their deep, rhythmic pulse only pumps blood once every nine seconds. I get to the heart, deploy my batteries, and then the hard work begins. It takes hours. When I finish, I sleep. I always have such fantastic dreams. I’m still asleep when they cut me out.

People ask if I feel sorry for the aliens I’ve killed. “No,” I reply. “I’m a Heartbreaker. You don’t want your heart to get broken, don’t fall in love.” And then I laugh.