New Plans

Well, so much for staying on top of that Rube Goldberg animation. Don't get me wrong, I am still going to do it. It's just that this semester has gotten completely away from me. As it turns out, however, I have a class that requires me to go go back to past projects and make them better. So now, I get to redo the Rube Goldberg project, still feel good about accomplishing it, and get a grade for it. It's a win, win, win situation! In the mean time, here's a little video game that I created in my programming class. Play it, enjoy it, and look forward to the sequel!

Catching Up

Week of December 6th

So my wife and I have just been totally burnt out from this semester. Hardest frickin' one ever! Anyway, she decided to take me to see Tangled to cheer me up. I know, it's a total kids movie, but I like watching the animation and art. It was a pretty good movie. This is Disney's first computer animated film, without Pixar. I was reading that they had to design their own program just for her hair. She had something like 100,000 different strands and there was an entire design department of like 10 animators for her hair alone. Which, if you see the movie, makes sense since the hair was almost a seperate character in itself. I was really impressed with how exceptional it turned out for being the first of its kind. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone else interested in animation.

Week of December 13th

Yikes, finals week! Ahhh! I'm trying so desperately to keep it all together. After a brief meltdown last night, I pulled myself together enough to get to the Fab Lab and start cutting the wells for my portfolio for Traci's Typography II class today. I was worried it would take me forever to get it all cut, but what would normally take 20 minutes per well by hand, took an hour and a half with the Epilog Laser Cutter! How awesome is that? I'm feeling pretty pumped right now, maybe I can get everything done and handed in. I just might pass this semester after all.

Confessions of an Anti-blog-o-holic

Well, the semester is over and that means no more required blogging. So, why am I still here? As it turns out, despite my negative feelings towards blogs and those that create them, there is something quite beneficial to be gained from the process, something I had initially overlooked. That something is called accountability. And, now that the semester has finally come to a close, accountability is something I need more than ever. So, if I promise myself, and any potential viewers of this blog, that I will be updating this site on a regular basis, I will be forced to remain productive.

I will begin this "period of productivity" with a project that I am dubbing "The Trevor Goldberg Project". Let's face it. I had an awful semester this time around. My life outside of school has been full of so much negativity that it began to effect my school work. And it just keeps getting more difficult. If my life were a game of Mike Tyson's Punch Out, this semester would have been the equivalent of a match with Bald Bull. (From the looks of it, next semester is going to be more like Soda Popinski.) NES nerdology aside, the class that was impacted the most by this negativity was one that I was most passionate about, 3D animation. Who knows? Maybe it was that passion that ultimately lead to my downfall in the class. Either way, I ended up doing quite horribly in the class. Being disappointed in myself would be a grave understatement. Now that I have some time off, I plan on using some of it to try and fix the mistakes that I made in the class, not for a better grade (it's a little too late for that now), but to prove to myself that I am better than this. It's time to stop feeling sorry for myself and actually do something about it.

Which brings us full circle to the "Trevor Goldberg Project". One of the class assignments was to render a working Rube Goldberg Machine. For anyone that doesn't know what a Rube Goldberg machine is, just you tube it. You'll find plenty of examples. After months of trial and error, this is what I was ultimately able to produce:

At first, there was nothing I could do but laugh. But as time goes by, this video has become a major thorn in my side. That being said, my plan is to start from scratch and do this thing the right way. I'll be sure to keep you up to date with the project's progress.

Overall, this semester was quite the learning experience for me. I used to think that over-achieving was an endearing quality. But, when it begins to impede your progress and keep you from making your deadlines, it is quite the opposite. What I need to do is find a healthy medium between creating a spectacular, industry changing animation and K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid). Here goes nothing...

Week of 11-15: Mini Internet just short of awesome.

I have officially joined the 3G generation and I have to say, ...ehh.. Maybe if I had gotten into it when it first hit the market I would've been more impressed. Sure it's cool that I can jump on facebook and the such (I'm using my phone to blog right now). But there still seem to be a lot of restrictions. Streaming video is of horrible quality and flash is non-existant. Could be the phone or the service provider, but I can't really complain. $25 for unlimited internet is pretty decent. Oh well. In the mean time I'll be happy with what I've got and wait until 4G is cheap enough for me.

Week of 11/08 - Television: a Cruel and Tempting Mistress

This weekend I was reminded once again how much influence television has over our lives. Let's face it. Before there was a home office in every house and a computer in every home office, there was a television in every living room. And before the blogosphere and internet advertising dictated our every day lives, TV programming did the same. For me, this weekend, the programming of influence was a show by the name of Man vs. Food. This guy gets paid to travel the country and eat until he gets sick. And, every once in a while he travels to our neck of the woods, showcasing some local eateries that I wouldn't normally take much notice of. This weekend, my job had me rushing off to Boston, Massachusetts to work at a blood drive at Gillette Stadium; tough work for an Eagles fan but times are tough and money is in short supply. It just so happens that a few nights prior I was watching an episode of Man vs. Food on Netflix (which I can stream through my Wii now) which took place in, you guessed it, Boston! The place from the episode that stuck in my mind was a little shack on the harbor known as the "Barking Crab", a little hole in the wall restaurant that served up ridiculously large portions of seafood. Since my wife and I were in the mood for some authentic New England seafood, and since the best places to get authentic Philadelphia cheese steaks are little holes in the wall, I figured what better place to eat? The food was fantastic and smashing open a whole lobster with a large rock brought out my instinctual hunter side that hearkened back to my neanderthal ancestors. I left the "Barking Crab" that night with a full belly, a satisfied grin, and a touristy t-shirt sporting the slogan, "Everyone should have crabs". Unbeknown to me at the time, I also left the "Barking Crab" with a horrible case of food poisoning, one that left me violently ill for the better half of a week. If there is a lesson to be learned from all of this it is, "don't trust everything you see on TV". Now, off to Zagat.com to figure out what's for dinner tonight.

Weeks of 10/25 & 11/01 - Computer issues / Fab Lab

10/25 - Computer Issues

As of the middle of last semester my home office has been collecting a disturbingly heavy amount of dust. The reason? My desktop had crashed and I had neither the time or the money in order to fix it. And, since my laptop was holding me over (very surprising for a $200.00 Black Friday special) I didn't see the need to confront it at that time. Well, here we are, my second to last semester and classes are picking up in requirements and my laptop is no longer cutting it. So, a couple of hundred bucks later (granted I still didn't exactly have the time or the money) I've upgraded to a 64 bit processor with 4 gigs of ram running windows 7 64. There's still a huge gap in my tower where there should be a dvd drive but funds kinda ran short. Giant computer vacuum of dust aside, I am now able to run Adobe Master Collection CS5 and Lightwave 9.6 with ease.

11/01 - Fab Lab

I went on my first class field trip since grade school today with Josh's Advanced 3D class. Our next assignment will require us to construct some sort of functioning mechanism and then print it three dimensionally. Que Northampton Community College's Fab Lab. Here, you can bring in your Lightwave design and have it molded into reality in a few hours. Some of the examples that we were shown included various gizmos with cranks and gears, statues, and a working hand wrench. The highlight of the tour was a hover craft / race car with wheels that actually spun on axles. The most impressive part was that is was designed by a fourth grader, effectively transforming our next project into a ridiculous TV game show hosted by a washed-up redneck comedian.

Flying AirTran

Flying home was interesting. Airlines are now offering Wi-Fi service...for a fee, of course. I purchased usage for my flight home out of curiosity. I was able to watch a little bit of "Bizarre Foods" via my NetFlix account. However, it kept pausing and loading. Obviously there's still a long way to go to perfect certain new media options while traveling. My guess is that the plane was moving to fast for the satellite hookup to keep up with. Nevertheless, it's fascinating to see how far technology has come over the past few decades. Seeing the paths that technology is currently traversing is just mind boggling.

Disney's Spaceship Earth - Week of 10-11

My wife surprised me with a last minute vacation to Florida last week! While down there, I got to speak with a number of staff (excuse me, cast members) including a higher up that is setting me up with a one-on-one with an Imagineer during the winter break. More relevant to this class, however, I got to ride on Epcot's updated Spaceship Earth. As the script made references to the history of communication, the narrator also slipped in innuendos to modern media; monk's copying books by hand were the first file back up system, trade roads in ancient Rome were the world's first world wide web. This is a smart way of engaging a younger generation. The ride also sported a new touch screen menu in each of the vehicles that, after snapping a picture of your face and uploading it to the ride system, presented you with a map (to input where you were from) and a few multiple choice questions about what type of future you wanted to have. At the ride's finale, you were presented with a video staring two cartoon characters (featuring your super-imposed head from earlier) acting out a future based on your answers to the questions. As you exited the ride, a giant monitor displayed the images of the various riders and where they said they were from. Apparently, social networking has now gone as far as infiltrating theme park rides.

Star Wars Eternity

I recently heard that all six of the Star Wars movies are going to be re-released into theaters. My initial response is, "How much more can Lucas milk this franchise for?" I know I'm going to go see them and give him more of my hard earned cash, but I can still be frustrated that he continually dangles the same item over and over, just freshly polished each time. Once I started venting to my wife, though, I realized he's probably made billions off of the original releases, VHS, dvd, probably laser disks and PSP disks, books, video games, merchandising, Disney's Star Tours, and that's when it hit me... Disney is slated to convert their Star Tours rides into Star Tours 2. It is scheduled to open in May 2011 and will supposedly be a 3D prequel to the series. After checking, I found out that LucasFilms will then be re-releasing the Star Wars Episode I "The Phantom Menace" sometime in 2012, but in 3D. I have a sneaking suspicion that someone recently bought stock in the newest 3D technology. Again, it's smart of both Disney and LucasFilm to update something that's proven to be big money makers for them. This is a great way to entice Granddads and Dads everywhere to take their grandkids and kids out and share in the Star Wars phenomenon, which will result in exposure of an entire new generation of fans. I wouldn't be surprised if one day the news reports Lucas is dead and while watching his televised funeral procession, the camera zooms in, and there's R2-D2, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, and Boba Fett as the pallbearers....in 3D!

Video Game Art - NMT&D

This is my first post of the semester. I had completely forgotten about it until my mother-in-law said I should be doing a blog. Let me catch you up on the past few weeks I've missed.

Week of August 23rd

Classes started up for Fall semester. This is my next to last semester. Last chance to make a run for the Honor Society. My wife made it, and it's her last semester. I just feel like so much crap has happened to us over the past few years. When does it get easier to balance it all? Anyway, the school had said they would be updating from CS3, and I thought they said they'd be doing CS4, but as it turns out, they went right to CS5, which was just released. That's really cool because it's better than what many of the studios will be using for now. By the time I get my bachelors, I'm sure it'll be dated again, since that's how fast technology evolves, but at least now I'm going to be developing my skills at the same rate of development of those in the industry. I had already been working with CS4 last semester at home, so I can't wait to see what refinements and new techniques CS5 has to offer.

Week of August 30th

We went to see "Avatar" this week. I had wanted to see it when it first came out, but with all the hype, and my brother-in-law making fun of it, my wife decided she had no interest in it. I had mentioned after the fact that I was disappointed we never saw it on the big screen, so when she saw it was being re-released, she bought us tickets as a surprise. Then I came down with Strepp Throat, so we couldn't go cause my wife made me go to the doctor instead. I was so bummed. Once my fever broke, we were able to convince the manager to still honor the tickets for another showing. I'm so glad we got to see it on the big screen. It truly was epic. My wife says it replaced "Enemy Mine" as her favorite. I'd say it's in my top 10. I think they could have easily have turned it into a trilogy, but I get that it was such a new concept that they didn't know how audiences would respond. It's a shame how much business dictate the development of art, but I get it. This movie had such amazing color choices and the animation was near flawless. I'd be so proud to put my name on a movie like that. I hope I can keep up with everyone else once I'm out of school and in the industry.

Week of September 6th

We were up in New Hampshire this week and heard about this transportation system called the Megabus. It goes through Canada, New England down to like North Carolina or something. Anyway, it can be dirt cheap, I guess the seat cost goes up the more full the bus becomes, which is just strange. But whatever, better for me. I think we might take it to come back up and visit Salem and Boston during the fall break. It's cool, not just cause it's cheap and I don't have to drive, but it has free wi-fi on the bus! I'm not sure how that works, but I think we may be able to watch NetFlix during the drive. At the very least, we can work on our schoolwork and get it out of the way early in the weekend so we can have fun and than again on the way home to wrap up anything we haven't finished. Good way to use time effeciently and effectively. It's amazing how much our society depends on the internet nowadays. But I'm with them, three things I can't live without are airconditioning, a car, and internet.

Week of September 13th

My parents were out of town this week and we had to house/pet sit. The don't have a wireless router, so I had to bring ours, since it would be excessive to bring both our desktops. There's really nothing to it. It takes maybe 5-10 minutes. Also, this week while we're at my parents we'll be watching cable. This might not be exciting to most, but we gave up cable when we moved here three years ago to cut down on costs. We're so behind all the time on news, series storylines, movie releases, new shows, etc. It's funny, but I think I miss the weather channel and commercials the most. It makes me feel like I'm back in touch with current events. I have tv show dvds, but watching movie previews and consumer commercials make me feel more up-to-date on technology and such. Discovery channel is cool too. Actually, a good example of how isolated I am sometimes is when I mentioned I liked Discovery Channel my wife mentioned about the hostage situation from two weeks prior. Times are getting strange. I think the stress of the economy is making some people just snap. Anyway, back to the cable. RCN seems to be starting to catch up to Comcast, but they're still not quite there, I hope the next place we move has Comcast. Not only were they cheap by comparison, but they had more features and never went down like RCN does.

Week of September 20th

We knew we were going to see Resident Evil 3D, so we went back and watched the first three Resident Evil movies to refresh ourselves of the full storyline. Out of all four, the first still stands as the best. The second was kinda campy, but good. The third sucked, but the fourth was at least better than the third. The fourth started to pull in more of the video game aspect, which was kinda cool that they used the movie to promote video game interest. The announced that Albert Wesker was going to be in MvC3 around the same time as the release of the movie. I love when storylines are communicated through multiple New Media mediums. It's so much more complex feeling and more interesting that way. By the end of the movie, all I wanted to do was play some old school Resident Evil, but I had homework. Never seems to be enough time to enjoy video gaming anymore.

Week of September 27th

So my wife saw that the Smithsonian Art Museum in Washington, D.C. is going to be having a video game art exhibit from May to September of 2012. They'll be showing the art graphics of the video games I grew up with and have a display of the evolution of gaming stations. I can't wait to visit! I wish they already had something like this somewhere. I already have my own collection of systems and handhelds that I plan on displaying when we move in January, so it's cool that I'll have my own in house museum. But I am excited by the art work and feel that it's about time this medium be recognized as artwork. People take for granted how much hard work and ingenuity go into developing these storylines, images, and the coding to manipulate through the game.

It's been a while....

Been a while since I posted here.... I don't even really think that anyone knows this blog exists, let alone looks at it. Oh well... here's one of my latest projects. It's a flash video! Yay! Lyrical music video to the tune of Still Alive from the video game Portal. Check it out.

Mission: Space

My final project. *sniffle* I going to miss this class. An architectural re-imagining of a building of our choice. I chose the building for the attraction Mission: Space, located at Walt Disney World's Epcot in Florida. As with many of the ride buildings at this theme park, this one features interesting architecture that is relevant to the attraction contained within. The lines painted into the asphalt draw your eye towards the building while the large-scale model of the solar system incorporated into the architecture creates a fun and exciting wave that draws your attention up towards the night sky. Although a thrill-based, flight simulator at its core, the ride promises to entertain as well as educate guests about the possibilities of future space travel.

Type Portraits

Ugh. More self-portraits. Agonizing for someone with a low self-esteem. Never-the-less, much like the first self-portrait project, I learned a lot from this one as well. The shape image was, by far, the most fun to create. For the line image I used a picture of my sister and myself. The type used to create the lines was repeated, obvious words like shirt, hat, and hair. The value project was a little more personal. The image I used was a photograph of my wife and I at our wedding reception table. For myself I used my wedding vows and for my wife I used hers. For the balloons in the background I used a combination of the two.

Starbucks Logo Re-Design

As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, the current logo says “Starbucks Coffee”. However, we’ve decided to drop the written word “coffee” from the logo and replace with images of coffee beans. Our research shows that Starbucks has been partnering with several other companies in order to expand beyond coffee. They’ve developed ice cream that you can purchase at the local supermarket, bottle cappuccinos that you can find in most convenience store coolers, and they’ve also developed a line of tea called Tazo Tea. They are trying to reach beyond the boundaries of being known as merely a trendy coffee house and we want to support this by helping them become a name brand. To do so, we determined that it would be best to replace the word with an image of coffee beans to remind people of where this company originated and of the quality in which it has served consumers over more than three and a half decades. We also made the choice to leave the word coffee out because of Starbucks current efforts to expand internationally. We want to show that we support this growth, too. That is why we didn’t want our logo to be too English based, and we didn’t think there should be a need to translate “coffee” into whatever language the country in which you are currently marketing in speaks, but we felt to not do so would be limiting and disrespectful. So, we decided that by dropping the word and replacing it with an image would make the logo more versatile and internationally friendly. The idea was to ensure the longevity of the logo.
After additional research, we have surmised that Starbucks prides themselves on being environmentally conscious. They also see themselves as being community and industry trend-setters who lead by example.
Starbucks is “working to develop a recyclable paper cup that minimizes its environmental impact over its entire lifespan…” Although developing the perfect recyclable cup is their current main focus, they’re also currently examining the environmental impact that their packaging has. Starbucks, as members of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, is actively exploring more sustainable alternatives to conventional packaging and evaluating ways to analyze material choices. They consider the issues of recycling so important that they’re even looking into the environmental impacts of the manufacturing, what materials are used and how they’re disposed of. Over the past 3 years alone, Starbucks has saved over 300,000 trees just by incorporating 10% post-consumer fiber into their hot beverage cups.
Starbucks has set two goals to achieve by 2015. They plan to have recycling available in 100% of all the stores where they control the waste pick-up and they are working toward making both their hot and cold beverage cups either reusable or recyclable in order to ensure that each cup is 100% non-harmful to the environment.
This information led us to incorporate the recycling logo into our Starbucks logo. You’ll notice that we’ve made sure that it was emblazoned onto the cup, since this is what the company is leading their recycling change platform with. We also used an earthy color scheme because we wanted to subtly remind consumers that Starbucks is Earth conscious and that its main products of tea and coffee are derived from the ground, hence all the brown and green. In support of Starbucks efforts to go green, we’ve also made sure to print all of the stationary on paper that is acid free, processed chlorine free, and 100% recycled. Unfortunately, due to the time constraints necessitated for this class, we were unable to find recycled card stock or envelopes. However, if we were delivering a pitch to Howard Schultz, we would make a commitment to work closely with Starbucks to ensure that their marketing material would be an added goal to be fully recycled and recyclable with manufacturing conscious productions by 2015.

Cherokee Jewelry.com

I would like to open by apologizing in advance to Mr. Jimmy Warnell. His jewelry designs are beautiful, however, his web design is hideous. My redesign incorporates some more recognizable Cherokee images, such as the dream catcher and bone necklace, which serves as the link bar for the remainder of the site. I've also incorporated some of Jimmy's more intricate pieces to showcase his amazing silversmithing skill. I finished the page with the seal of the Cherokee nation, reminding all of the site's visitors that Mr. Warnell is an official Cherokee jewelry crafter. You can still visit the original site at www.cherokeejewelry.com.

Starry Horizons

Oscar Wilde once said, "Life imitates art far more than art imitates life". But, what if the two were one in the same? I have attempted to do just this in my dreamscape, which I have entitled "Starry Horizons". I began with a very recognizable, and one of my favorite works of art, "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh. I then began incorporating some still images from reality, such as the cliff side in the foreground, the New York City skyline, and the astronaut on the moon. Next, I added additional images from other works of art by such notable artists as Michael Parks and Salvador Dali. The image of the moon comes from a poster for the 1902 French, black and white film "A Trip to the Moon" (Le Voyage dans le lune). Some vintage images of hot air balloons fly through the wind while John F. Kennedy gives his famous "We Choose to Go to the Moon..." speech to a group of curious hikers. It's hard to find it all at first, but I assure you that it is there. Additionally, I inserted an image of myself peering through a very stylized telescope, depicting my interest in the cosmos. Finally, I blended an actual image of a star filled sky with Van Gogh's, completing the blend of art and reality. I feel that all of these images work quite well together without feeling too busy. Vincent Van Gogh's famous paint strokes help to guide your eyes throughout the work while giving, almost, a feeling of movement or life to the piece. I had a lot of fun with this project and hope you enjoy viewing it as much as I did creating it.

Time and Place Project

The Time and Place project was easily my least favorite of the projects. That being said, I feel that I was able to learn the most from this one.

For my project I selected the DVD cover art for the television series King of Queens. Although it may seem that there isn't much thought that goes into choosing a sitcom for this project, it is quite the contrary. Having recently purchased our first home, my wife and I have had to make some tough decisions regarding certain luxuries in life, forgoing a cable bill in order to ensure that the mortgage is paid on time being one of them. Whenever we come across some extra cash, we throw a portion of it into what refer to as the entertainment fund, which we will use for dining out, catching a movie, or, in this case, satisfying our lack of cable with TV on DVD. This sitcom happened to be a natural choice for us, as our lives closely reflect those of the characters in the show. Up until the economy took its unfortunate turn, I was holding down a blue-collar job while my wife worked as a secretary, much like the show. We were friends with a married couple who were going through a divorce, also like the show. Most importantly, being newlyweds ourselves, we struggled through very similar situations to those that the main characters faced, giving us the opportunity to sit back, laugh, and better cope with the pitfalls life had presented us with, making us a stronger couple in the long run. I was faced with many challenges with this project, the first being a lack of more professional equipment. A better camera and scanner would have given me higher quality images to work with. It also does not help when your computer is struck by lighting half way through your project. In the end and given the circumstances, I feel that my finished product is quite decent. I spent an exceptional amount of time trimming out my selections, so much so that my wife, who is always ridiculously supportive of my work fell asleep watching me. And she would have been there for quite a while had it not been for my snoring, not to mention the extremely annoying beep that my computer was making thanks to my holding down ctrl + T for an excessive ammount of time. The only problem that I have with this project is the graininess of the image. This is directly related to my lack of better equipment. However, given my budget, and what I had to work with, I am quite proud of what I was able to accomplish.

Galaxy Traveler

My first computer graphics project... Take an image and turn it into a magazine cover. I found an interesting image on NASA.com of two galaxies apparently coming into contact with one another. I felt that this would make for an interesting cover story. However, I did not want to do a traditional astronomy magazine, so I ran with a fictional idea that became this campy, sci-fi magazine devoted to space travel of the future.