As you may know from previous posts, I’m not a huge money spender.  The blog system I used to use, WordPress, is very, very for-profit (“only $90 per year!”), and I’ve decided to move my Blog to Blogspot (partially because it has free functions that WordPress offers for “only $60 per year!”). My new address is www.jrcomputeranimators.blogspot.com Of course, you wouldn’t expect me to jump to Blogspot without some kind of welcoming, so how about this picture I made in my not very spare time:

DONE with Japanese Part 1 (ぼくは　コンピューターの　びじゅつが　とても　すきです!）, DONE with 3D Art 1 and am resuming with new know-how! I said I’d get back to material-changing, so here it goes! Now then, one of those things I’d like you to see is what modeling looks like from my point of view.  For instance, I decided to do a quick modeling of a TARDIS : Here’s more or less what it looks like while I’m modeling it: Textures don’t show up on the non-rendered world.  That black stick on the right is a lamp.  But I digress–but then again, digression is a professional art of the universe, so as I was saying… 35 MINUTES LATER… So.  Material-changing.  Right.  A little menu to right of this view contains something that looks a little like this: The red, circled bit shows the color of the object (blue) and if you right-click it, then press, “Insert Keyframes,” go forward in “time,” change the color and insert another kayframe then you get a smooth cha...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!  For my final assignment, I was supposed to find an image I liked and make a short animation based on it.  Here’s my choice: a cathode-ray television.  My special addition: I added myself. You never can trust a chandelier these days… The technical (in te ch ni co lo ur ) details: You may know that image-based textures can make pictures show up on objects, but I don’t believe I’ve mentioned that you can do the same thing for movies.  I still don’t know how to put in audio; I had to use a movie editing tool (Windows Movie Maker) to yank the audio out of the recording and save it separately, then (using the same program) add the audio to the finished project. *Of course, I’ll still be taking 日本語の　がっこう、 and that’s not even concerning 3D Art 2: Animation, which I believe I’ll be taking next fall.

Did you notice that there’s always an inconsequential paragraph first, then I get to the actual post?  I added to my first K12 post merely the fact that I’d started the class; in my second k12 post, I’d noted my addition of assignment 2.  My third K12 post introduced my curiosity as to the capitalization of the former letter of “k12″, and… well, you get the idea. Now, project and assignment 7 were kind of “retro” projects: I had to bring together my house (Project 2) and my creature (Project 4).  I achieved this by “appending” an object from one file to another.  I also had to append the armature and “action,” or the animation itself.  I was also introduced to something I had no idea existed:  Bezier curves.  These can actually control the speed of how fast something goes, rotates, or moves across a path.  I used this for project 7′s door:  the door swung open in the “after” animation, as opposed to just rotating the door, whic...

I’m finally catching up on all my blog posts!  I’d hardly had any time at all to blog between K12′s Blender and k12′s Japanese, but thanks to winter break I can catch up here. Anyway, for project 6 I used an entirely new way of modeling: starting with a grid, stretching it into a 2D car shape based on an image file, and using extrusion to make it a 3D object.  As a little addition, I dragged the Monkey from projects 3 and 4, putting it in a driving position.  For the assignment, I was supposed to reshape the car, make it smoother and add some more parts.  My addition there was adding actual lamps for my added-on headlights.  Here they are:

Well, I do tend to be a little bit original with my celebrations.  I even came up with a song for this one! On the first day of Doomsday my true love just told me that the Earth exploded on the TV!  On the second day of Doomsday my true love just told me that there were two giant earthquakes and that Earth exploded on the TV! On the third day of Doomsday my true love just told my that there were three exploding cars, two giant earthquakes and the Earth exploding on the TV!  On the fourth day of Doomsday my true love just told me that there were four hurricanes, three exploding cars, two giant earthquakes, and the Earth exploding on the TV! On the fifth day of Doomsday my true love just told me: there were FIVE KAIJU THINGS!  Four hurricanes, three exploding cars, two giant earthquakes, and the Earth exploding on the TV! On the sixth day of Doomsday my true love just told my that there were six alien landings, FIVE KAIJU THINGS!  Four hurricanes...

But first, an update on the K12/k12 argument: The logo looks like a lowercase “k” to the twelfth power.  However, given that company names are proper nouns, it would then be capitalized.  So now, the only question is this: do we side with the logo or the grammar?  Hmmm… Now then, for project 5, I was supposed to use a stencil texture to make two different textures appear on the same object.  Here’s an example: Here, I made a pink cloud texture and a “magic” texture.  I then used a striped stencil texture to make the pink clouds seem to be striped over the magic.  Essentially, stencils “cut” a texture to make another one show. Well, that was what I was supposed to do for my ground with two image-based textures.  Here’s my standard terrain: I created the hills and valley using Proportional Editing, a useful tool that smoothly forms an object to look more like, well, hills and valleys.  Here’s how it works: when I move a vertex, it a...