Updates and what not

May 7, 2008

It seems that since I began school this blog has gotten more and more deserted. I was reading through old entries last night and I feel that things may be beginning to get empty. So, here I am once again poring forth my soul into the void that is known as the internet.

Last month ended my two month journey that was motion graphics. I am sad to have to leave these classes as I seem to have found my calling in mograph. To be frank, I had way too much fun and I probably created my best work ever in those two months. Of course, just because I'm not in the class doesn't mean I won't be dropping it and forgetting about it. No, I plan on doing small projects through out school that I can dump into my demo reel down. Even now I am working on a small advertisement for a friend. After that, there's a Dockers "make your commercial and have it aired on TV" contest that I'm thinking of entering. The more I can get my work out there, the more chance I have of going immediately into the industry after I graduate.

But enough dwelling on the past (or the future), and let us reflect on the present. This month I have probably what is going to be the easiest class off all time: web development. For anybody who doesn't know me personally, I've been involved in web dev for going on eight years. All that YPN stuff and what not. Of course, for those of us who are already fluent in web dev they're going to try to get us to use modern and clean coding practices (tableless design, emphasis on CSS, etc). Oh, wait. I already do all that. I feel like a jerk talking about this class like it's useless crap, but it's really not their fault. However, I don't want to be talked down to as if I know nothing or am new to the whole web stuff. As with most technologies I've taught myself, I not only learn forwards, but backwards as well. I'm well versed in tricks of old as well as new. Alright, enough of that borderline ego stroking.

My other class, which I haven't actually attended yet, is, or will be, developmental psychology. I really don't know what this class has in store for me, but at the very least it should be more interesting than web dev.

Today, I got to get my feet wet in the field of game testing. EA's Tiburon division, which develops most of their sports titles, resides just seven small miles from my house. Once or twice a month they bring people in to do a couple hours of game beta testing in exchange for a free game. I've been on the mailing list since December after Ian Cummings, lead director of the Madden series, put in a recommendation for me after reading my Rock Band drums post. Of course, that was for a full-time job doing game testing, but being a full-time student as well these two hours sessions were the next best thing. But, I digress.

Anyways, I got to go to the EA building, which I must say is very, very nice looking. I even got to sign a non-disclosure agreement that forbids me from telling anybody what I played or what I saw. Kind of cool, actually. I will say, I enjoyed what I played and the best part of all is I obtained myself a free copy of Command & Conquer 3 for PC. I haven't actually installed or tried the game yet, but I'll probably post something when I do.

Well, I suppose that about wraps things up for now. I'll be putting up a post about my final project for motion graphics soon (currently waiting on something). Oh, and for all those tiny little updates be sure to check out my Twitter account. I've also placed a convenient little box above the RSS feeds that shows my latest tweet. Until next time, keep your staplers running.

Tags: general full sail school motion graphics web design web games twitter

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Full Sail for Girls

April 15, 2008

Not going to put a whole bunch of useless text on this one, however I will explain things a bit. This is yet another project for motion graphics. The criteria on this one was to create a commercial for a demographic outside of my own. So, I decided to market Full Sail to women (because we don't have near enough). Enjoy.

Tags: full sail school motion graphics video

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Stuff and Nonsense

May 18, 2007

The list of things I have to do to prepare for college is getting shorter. Currently I'm working on picking out a roommate and after that we'll work on finding an apartment. Then I'll need to secure funds and come September 20th[ish] I'll be moving my stuff out there. So nothing new on that front, I'll move on to other things. Actually, I lied. I got a call from them the other day making sure I wanted to take the Digital Arts and Design degree because they think I'd be happier in Animation (I promptly said I'd be happy anywhere in that school). But I had actually been thinking of double majoring in either DAD and film or animation and the more I think about it animation and art as a whole has always been a big love of mine so I'm giving that some serious thought.

I'm currently getting ready to do another film project this time spoofing Elite Beat Agents. I'd give off more but I don't want to ruin anything. I'll be trying out greenscreen stuff for this. It seems Blender now has the ability to do professional green screen removal (with a little finagling) so I'm going to try that out. In particular I'll be filiming seperate elements against the screen and combining them into one shot. But I have yet to actually build the thing, something I was going to do on days off (Tuesday and Wednesday) but I felt too lazy to drive out to Lowes to buy the stuff. I suppose I'll do it next week and in the meantime I can flesh out a script. This is something I don't do often because I have the vision in my head pretty clearly and I don't want to go through the trouble of writing or storyboarding it out. I'm lazy that way and it's something I'll have to get over before I go to Full Sail.

I completed two games this week (the world must be ending). The first one was Super Paper Mario (Wii). It was, as I thought it would be, a comepletely enjoyable experience. The dialoge was top notch, as always, packed with plenty of laughs. The flip mechanism never got old and was always used cleverly. The story line was fairly predictable (I had the ending figured out about half way through). However, next to Zelda it's the best single player game out there for the Wii so if you own on I'd suggest picking this up.

The second game I completed was Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All (DS) which, I admit, I probably enjoyed more than SPM. It's definitely not a game you buy for the graphics or sound because they're meh at best (the art's not bad, I will admit). What is crucial to this game is story and it delivers 110%. The first case, being the introductory one, wasn't the greatest but it gets you into the swing of things well enough. The second case was awesome, and probably one of my favorites. The third case had me stumped (to the point of cheating, I'm ashamed). The last case was simply amazing. Just when you think you had it figured out everything was turned on end. They also introduced some things that made things harder and raised moral questions. To say that this game on a whole was absolutely phenomenal is an understatement. If you like story type games (RPGs, text-adventures) you absolutely have to buy this game. If you're more an action type gamer you probably wouldn't enjoy it much, but rent it at least. It'll do you some good. On that note I'll be buying the first game and third when it comes out.

Now that all that's out, I'll leave you with this piece of art I finished this afternoon. Cheerio!

Tags: full sail college art phoenix wright ds super paper mario wii games

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Saturday News Update

May 6, 2007

Firstly, pictures. More importantly, however, I need to quit with this "firstly", "nextly", "that other thingly".

In case you've been living under a rock today was my big tour of Full Sail. Up till now I've been referring to it as "Full Sail, college of awesomeness" however I think I'll have to start referring to it as "Full Sail, college of kick ass!". It is seriously that freakin' cool. When every classroom has computers in it (with the exception of one) you know it has to be cool. I'll try to describe the experience as best I can, but I won't be able to do justice to it. Please note that the accuracy of the order of events may be questionable.

It all started in a sound stage where the whole opening presentation was treated like a live talk show. The camera came over our heads for a nice sweeping crane shot and came to rest on the guy giving the opening monologue. There was another group in the adjacent sound stage who were watching in on what went on in ours. Once the opening ceremonies were finished they broke the group into the seperate degree sections (Digital Arts and Design for me) and began the "global tour", i.e. seeing all of the facilities.

We were first led into one of the lecture rooms and were given a rundown of the "LaunchBox" initiative. What that is is the Full Sail and Apple have teamed together to give every student a Mac Book Pro loaded with fancy software such as Adobe Creative Suite, Final Cut Pro, and 3DS Max to name the ones I remember. After they rambled on about that and the masters degree program we actually started looking at the cool stuff.

The first place we visited was the new dubbing studio. If you've ever watched making-of documenteries you've seen the giant sound board and the little couch behind it for the big wigs. Well, it's all there. We were seated and shown a clip from Return of the King. Apparently the guy who did sound design for the collapse of Barad-dur was a Full Sail graduate.

After that we went into one of the recording booths were some dudes were giving off a live performance. We didn't stay there very long, but I will say this: it was very, very loud. Also, we passed the server room on our way out of there. Very, very cool.

Next we were led into the motion capture studio. Sadly, the software wasn't working quite right and the 3d model's right ankle was twisted in all sorts of crazy manners. Still, how many other colleges have a motion capture studio, I mean, c'mon. Killer!

I'm not completely sure, but I believe after that we went onto another sound stage which was dressed up as a inner city street with a theater at the end. Apparently this is used to teach lighting techniques. This I look forward to because all the video projects I've ever done have terrible lighting and it drives me mad. When you're going for a specific look and it you don't have the tools or knowledge to make it happen it gets a little disheartening.

At this point we began the degree specific tour. It started out in the room without computer that I mentioned earlier. It had a bunch of art desks. If I had to guess this is where I'll be taking my art history course.

After that we went into a classroom filled with twenty-four mac pros. Here we were lectured on the art of 2D print and how it relates to the design process such as company logos and product design. Apparently Illustrator is going to be an integreal part of this class.

Once done there we headed off to hear about motion graphics. This is the part that I'm most excited about. They showed a demo reel from an old student there who went on to do commercials for the likes of MTV, Nickelodeon and the like. It was impressive and I'm definitely looking forward to this. Oh, this room was filled with a bunch of Windows computers.

We were then led out by the coolest guy there (very happy and up-beat) and inot yet another room with a bunch of Macs. He filled us in on the wonders of the web not only about the designs but the backend (which will be focusing around PHP). Luckily I've got a good deal of experience in both those fields so that should be an easy class. Before heading on to the next stop we passed through one of the labs where final projects are done. Apparently we'll have more or less free license to do what we want there.

Our last stop in campus was the green screen room. They've got equipment that replaces green screen in real-time. The guy who did the lecturing here was practically giving lessons on how to use the software.

We then proceeded across the street to what I am currently calling the auditorium. Essentially it's a concert stage with the lights and the smoke and whatnot. This place is where any bands come to play and put on a show. Here we were luctured on career development and given a speech by the president of the college. If I wanted to I could've gone on a behind the scenes tour of all the light control equipment and stuff, but I was hungry so that was the end of the tour for us.

Like I said earlier words really can't describe how cool this place is. You have to see it (in person) to get how freakin' awesome it really is. The only caveat I see to this all is that I still have to wait five months until I start. It's going to feel veyr unsatisfying to go back to cart pushing after this.

One thing I want to say about Orlando (possibly Florida as a whole). The whole place smells like it's been perfumed. It's a scent I noticed stepping off the plane. I first thought it was indigineous to the airport but it's like everywhere. Almost like another place we've heard about....

Well, that was really, really long so I'll wrap it up. At noon tomorrow (Eastern time) we depart for Memphis again. Until then, peace out.

Tags: full sail florida college

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Silence be lifted!

May 3, 2007

I've been holding out on this news for quite some time now, but since everything seems to be falling into place like a well played game of Tetris I will let all the cats and their friends out of the preverbial bag.

First, and most importantly, I have finally gotten my GED. I will brag a little and post my scores:

Reading - 96%
Writing - 82%
Math - 99%
Science - 95%
Social Studies - 99%

Now those little percentages are how many people taking the GED in US are stupider than me, to put it not so nicely. Rather surprising, really, because I found the test to be incredibly simple. IMO, my essay did suck pretty bad. I was supposed to write about how I expected to be remembered which was kind of a lame topic to begin with. I am, usually, a fairly concise writer so coming up with 25 sentences on this topics was really, really hard. In the end I kind of wandered off topic talking about something else completely, but I had about 5 minutes to come up with an extra paragraph so I expanded on something I'd touched on earlier. It sucked, trust me.

Since I have now hurdled hugh school the next logical step is college. Funny thing is that was lined up before my GED was. I have been accepted at Full Sail's school of awesomeness and will be taking the Digital Arts and Design degree. This means I will have to relocate myself to sunny Florida. Do I mind? Hell, no. Do my parents mind? I don't think so. Does everybody else mind even though it really isn't their business? Yes. I've gotten more "why would you move to Florida" comments than I care to count. But, that aside, I'm going to be attending the "behind the scenes" tour this weekend so I'll have plenty to blog about whilst I'm there or when I get back. And don't worry, there'll be pictures and maybe some video.

Speaking of video, I'm going to be making another faux commercial. I've got the script ready, all I need to do is film, write some music, make some visuals, cut it all together in iMovie HD and put it up on YouTube.

Speaking of music, Chris got his electric guitar Monday and has been teaching himself to play (as have the rest of us). I will say this much: playing guitar is a bitch. I thought the piano was bad. At least it's pasture is much more spacous. Chris seems to be concentrating mostly on memorizing chords while I went and taught myself how to read tablatures and am trying to play stuff that's way out of my league (in my defense, however, I can play the first three notes of "Sweet Child O Mine").

And, speaking of iMovie, I kind of moved away from OS X. I'd been using it exclusively for quite some time and then Photoshop died. So I decided I'd redownload it for Windows (I'm a bastard that way) and I haven't really booted out of it since except to copy some files. I've finally gotten more or less used to Vista. The interface, IMO, is more complicated now than it had been (especially the network dialogs). So I am, once again, a Windows man.

Well, I believe that shall tide the masses over at least until the weekend. Keep coming back as I will be blogging down in Florida (assuming our hotel has complimentary G, but it looks grim at this point). We shall see... we shall see...

Tags: ged full sail college florida os x windows

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Updates and what not

May 7, 2008

Full Sail for Girls

April 15, 2008

Stuff and Nonsense

May 18, 2007

Saturday News Update

May 6, 2007

Silence be lifted!

May 3, 2007

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