MACH SPEED NOODLES

Some incredible images and animation from a new Nissin Cup Noodle commerical directed by Akira and Steamboy creator Katsuhiro Otomo, with a new song by Utada Hikaru can be seen over at the Freedom Project website.




Definitely makes me want a cool motocycle!

THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE BOYS!

Jun Awazu's NEGADON The Monster From Mars, is coming to the U.S. in a big way and he's showing the indie world how it is done! Having already acheived a theatrical release in Japan last year, thanks to Central Park Media, Negadon will be seeing limited time on the big screen stateside. Even if it's little more than a screening in an arthouse theatre that is more than most professional studio anime can boast.

3 years! 3 years, ladies and gentlemen, were spent by Awazu to construct his 26 minute masterpiece entirely in CG animation capturing the look of old Toho Godzilla and Gamera films. How amazing is that? What patience! What daring! And what a pay off! An Outstanding Production Award at the 20th Digital Contents Grand Prix and a Jury Recommended Work at the 2005 Japan Media Arts Festival. He didn't come up short. Normally people say shorts can't make money, but in Japan, and in the world of anime, it is a different story. (please note that by Japanese definition this is still anime) It is distributed in Japan by Comix Wave, the same as distributed the works of Makoto Shinkai.


Awazu is far from alone when it comes to getting out there and getting stuff done. Sam Balcomb & Jesse Soff have a website up for their short sci fi opus, The Ore, shot entirely with the Panasonic HVX 200, the camera that is changing an industry. I wrote about the coming of this camera, and the wake that would follow, but did I mention it was validated by use in pick up shots for Stephen Spielberg's Munich. It is also accepted for production use by History and Discovery HD channels. The makers of this movie made the right choice from the get go.


The first thing that comes to mind when I saw the trailer for this is "production value". While it may contain a good bit of green screen, there are some real locations put to great use here. If I had one complaint, it would be why ramp up and get everything going on such a level to only do a short? Back to what I was saying about shorts not making money, this could sadly fall into that category, and the idea of doing a great calling card piece expecting Hollywood to come knocking at your door is a bygone age dream. You need to sell something and if this were a feature they would likely have a guaranteed sale on Sci Fi channel. Always consider the final result!

YOU BE THE JUDGE

So I dowloaded the voice changer software with the plan to put it through its paces, but was somewhat disappointed to find the demo to be far more limited that I first expected. To begin with, there was a time limit. You could only use the program for five minutes before it shut down, then you had to restart it. That was the least of its limitations.

The demo shows you a wealth of possible voice controls which give the impression that you could change your voice into anything you can imagine. The controls, however, are entirely inaccessible. Only the promise of future power remains. They only allow you to select from a few presets provided and test voice changing among those. From the variety of presets, I can only imagine how far one could go with access to every little control.

Unfortunately, I can't be sure the presets really allow me to go beyond what I could do with Sound Forge, save that I don't have to do it manually for each recording. Frequency alteration, which I think might be powerful, is ghosted in the demo. Another powerful tool, which compares your voice to any other sampled voice, even those of celebrities, could be very powerful. In the demo, you are only allowed five choices and you're not given a lot of time to really tweak things to see how far it could go. It also only records in heavily compressed mp3 files whereas the full version records all formats. I see incredible potential here though. In the full version, once you matched settings to a sampled voice, you can re-enter the main program and simply speak or record with those settings.

So is it worth $99? That's tough to say. I see potential in many parts of it, but I also wish the demo gave me a bit more to play with before making a purchase decision. $99 is not at all steep for how much you get, and even if it gave me little more than Sound Forge, having it all automated is plus enough. The voice matching tool could be the tipping point. Anyway, Even though I tested with my cheap headset mic in an open room, I think I took it pretty far for a demo. Listen to this test file, and you be the judge.

Click here for sample...

TIME FOR SOME CHANGES

M. Hunt of Planeta 3 recently tipped me off to this software which seems like just what the doctor ordered for my next production endeavors.

Voice Changer Software instantly changes your voice pitch and timbre to provide various voice outputs; masks your true identity in voice chat, Voice-over-IP, and online games.

That's what it says on their site. They also claim that you can do voice matching, where you sample the voice of one speaker and it will study its tone, inflection and frequency and then match your voice to that. It already comes with patterns for many celebrities. Needless to say I will definitely be downloading the trail version tonight and testing just how good it is.

CURSED DVD BOX

So I have this cursed DVD box set. Possessed of a ghost I am sure. Back when it came out, I bought the Sennen Joyuu (Millennium Actress) collectors box set, pictured in the image. Like the picture in the image, it was a nice shiny black box with a red printed strip on it. Lately, however, that is not the case.

Strangely, I now notice sometimes that there is an actual picture on the box cover. It shows the actress riding a horse. At first I thought it was just my imagination, or it was always there and I didn't notice it. Either way, I didn't make much note of it.

This morning, however, I saw the picture clearly and I picked the box up to look at it. Sure enough a picture of the character riding a horse was there. So I turned the box over to the front, where the logo can be seen on the red strip, and there it was black. So that was it, I thought. The picture was on the back the whole time and I never noticed it. Makes sense. I put it down with the blank front side facing me and went back to doing what I was doing.

Later I looked the box again and to my surprise, there was a picture on the front! I picked the box up and sure enough there was a picture of the character from the film on the front of the box now! I turned it over and the picture on the back was gone! Now I had to find out why! Was it light? I put the box in the dark and in different lighting and nothing changed. Was it heat? I held it up to bright lights, which are hot, for a time and nothing changed. I even put a lighter to it for a time and nothing happened. What could it be but a curse?

The thought came to me that the box set always sits near my PS2, which is always on. The PS2 has a vent on the back that is constantly blowing out heat. One could surmise that the heat from that vent slowly brings out the picture which is hidden in the material of the box cover and back. That does make sense. Still I wonder. It could be the wraith. It could be a curse.

Bring on the Time Travel Films

Apparently this man, Professor Ronald Mallett of the University of Connecticut, has designed a machine, based on Einstein's relativity theory, which could perform the experiments which might lead to actual time travel! The story of how he came to this be a movie in and of itself.

In light of this causal “safety,” it’s kind of ironic that what prompted Mallett as a child to investigate time travel was a desire to change the past in hopes of a different future. When he was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age 33. After reading The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, Mallett was determined to find a way to go back and warn his father about the dangers of smoking.

This personal element fueled Mallett’s perseverance to study science, master Einstein’s equations, and build a professional career with many high notes. Since the ‘70s, his research has included quantum gravity, relativistic cosmology and gauge theories, and he plans to publish a popular science/memoir book this November 2006.

That what it says in the article on Physorg.com, a science, technology and space news site. How close to the truth were all those science fiction writers when predicting this millennium? Without even a concept of the exponential growth of technology. Think about it. Compare human advancement in any 100 year period to the last 100 years. There is no comparison. SO will this news lead to a new string of time travel movies?

CROW'BARR

James O'barr, the creator of the immensely popular franchise The Crow, has an interesting special feature on the collector's edition DVD. To view it takes you into the mind of an independent creator with no plans to give into the system. You know he is telling it straight when he describes Hollywood's handling of his work. "It's like a beautiful tree, and every dog that comes along has to piss on it."

His independent spirit is not what interested me most, though. It was the way he worked and the way he devoted himself to his work, even while keeping down a day job at an auto body shop. It took him nine years to finish his master work, done in very short chapters, the reason being, according to him, that he could only stand to do a little bit at a time. He had no plans to ever publish it or sow it to anyone.

What I find most interesting, though, is that he describes something that related to a problem I have. He states that he could not stop working in a single sitting until he got to a particular point. Things had to have a since of completion. If not, if it were to be left unfinished, he would come back the next day and critique it to no end and not want to do it or talk himself out of it. The result is nothing gets done. Hearing it spoken really opened my eyes. It made me remember what projects really worked for me and what didn't. I remembered mind animation and thought I saw my best results there. I am looking forward to testing some new ideas.

TROUBLEMAKER

JasonN said that he wanted to see the character that caused all of my troubles, so I decided to go ahead and post an image here. I had to calculate the cloth over again as that too was apparently lost in the calamity of the night.

Let there be no doubt that I am not now , nor have I ever been unhappy with the results gained from the use of 3D cel shaded characters. 3D cel shaded characters may not have the life or look of hand drawn material but they do have a charm all of their own. Mixing them, and doing it well will be the real test. This does not mean that I intend to give up on 3D characters altogether. I still feel that every technique has its place. "The right tool for the right job" is what someone wrote in the comments below. I agree with this totally. In this case, sometimes the right tool is not 3D.

Remember this little test from some time ago? Testing is, in fact, precisely what I think is needed here. The above movie was done before I had the Mirage Nomad. I can draw a lot faster and better with it than when I did that. I believe that until testing is done, nothing can really be said on the viability of changing paths.



In response to the comment about Justice League Unlimited and the amount of drawing done, I can only say that a typical anime episode has more like 6000 drawings and not 35,000, and the question for me should not be, can I draw as much as Justice League Unlimited has done, but can I draw what Understanding Chaos has done. That is what I do and the only thing I need to compare to. In the digital, paperless world of Mirage, there is no penciling, inking etc.. The thing is, what I have noticed from looking at the Mirage forums regularly is that many independent artists are creating their dreams completely in 2D, by their own hand, and getting them done. I, on the other hand, have not done anything noteworthy in years. What, then, is the meaning of speed if the results don't speak to its usefulness?

I have a lot of ideas. I think I know what is best done in 3D and what is best done by hand. There is also the balance of what I want to do with what I can do, considering my schedule and other obligations. I know what I would like to see, and I know what I am willing to accept. All these things come together to determine what will be in the final image. It's probably a very volatile process, never settling at anytime. Sometimes, a combination of every skill in the pot makes the best image.

DO I LIKE 3D?

I just spent a good part of this night setting up something and working out an image that I could have long since drawn on my tablet and gone to bed. On top of that, thanks to an error in Lightwave, the end result of all my work is nothing. Yes, nothing! I have no image to show for my time spent.

I know this is part of the game when doing 3D, but the question must be asked, Do I really like doing 3D? Why didn't I just draw it? When I think of the experience of using new programs like Vue 5 Infinite, Sketchup, Vegas Video and Mirage, I start to question the legacy of some of the older programs I use. Have I simply been trained to accept mediocre programs from the vendors because there is nothing else? Well there is something else. I have seen it.

The user experience in some of the new 3D programs I have picked up have proven to me that using complex software doesn't have to be about preparing to crash every so often and tools not doing what you want or expect. It just doesn't. Don't let anyone, not vendor, not user, not programmer tell you any differently because I have heard all that crap and it is nothing but lies. There are programs that work the way they should, and allow hours, if not days, of working without a single crash. Mirage is one of them. Vue 5 is one of them in my experience. Vegas has yet to crash on me since I started using it. I can't remember the last time Mirage has crashed, well except tonight. It crashed loading a bad image from Lightwave, an image no program can load.

Why did I buy this tablet? What was the intended use when I put down a considerable sum to get it in my hands? Was it not for this work? Maybe the time has come to see it put to the use it should have been since it arrived. I really wanted to show an image tonight. This image would have included new cloth dynamic techniques, new cel shading and line drawing techniques, perhaps one of the best 3D characters I have built so far. In the end, though, not even counting all the time spent making the model and correcting it, two days ago, so it would render without nasty gashes and polygon errors, not even counting all the time spent, the previous night, testing it for rigging and deformations, but only counting the time spent doing what should have been a simple pose and setting up cloth and doing a render, it would have been far faster and yielded far better results, not withstanding that there would BE results, if I had simply pulled out the tablet and drew what I wanted. I am really starting to rethink how this film will be made.

NO FOOLING

Now this is apparently real. According to this writing on engadget, This HAL Cyborg suit was presented at the International Robot Exdpo in Japan. HAL stands for Hynbrid Assistive Limb and is meant to enhance the bodily ability of the disabled or those needing to carry extra heavy loads in their work.

The "hybrid assistive limb" suits are going to be used by two mountaineers to ascend the peak of a Swiss mountain while carrying a 43-year old quadriplegic man and a 16-year old student with muscular dystrophy. The two climbers will start 930 feet below the summit, with one carrying the 43-year old Seiji Uchida on his back, and the other dragging the 16-year old Kyoga Ide in a sled.

Is this science fiction becoming reality or what?! More and more I a moved to believe there is a lot of say on the robot front as far as movies go. Maybe I really do need to make something. The thing about this suit is it's not in development. The ten year development cylcle is over. It's going to mass market.


Each time the wearer takes a step, bioelectric sensors attached to the skin monitor the movements, send the data wirelessly to an attached computer worn in a backpack, which in turns tells the robotic limbs to take a step right along with the user, adding strength to the movement. Potential applications for the suit include helping people with brain and spinal injuries as well as act as a wheelchair replacement for the elderly.

Of course the people at engadget would raher have it for crime fighting purposes, and that might make a better movie. Still, at $19,000, I don't think I would want to test it just yet.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND MYSTERY

Archaeologists excavating in Nigeria were shocked to uncover a bronze sculpture which was labeled only as King Tupac Shakur of Benin. A tablet found with the sculpture had on it a single inscription, "I'm representing the West Side now."

The Kings of Benin ruled a civilization that was part of the Yoruba culture and was well established in Southern Nigeria in West Africa. The Yorubas are said to have originated in Southern Egypt and migrated about the time of the Exodus. Other sources place some of the Yoruba in the Southern part of Arabia, one of the original homelands of the Black Adites and Black Sabeans.

While scientists are puzzled by the uncanny resemblance to the popular hip hop artist who lost his life in the mid 1990's, many note that Tupac Shakur was a common name in Africa of the time and there may be no meaning to it. Fans of the rapper however have a few different theories.

Most fans (over 83% in a recent survey) still hold on to the belief that Tupac Shakur may still be alive. There are many suspicious details about his departure that contribute to this. After leaving the Tyson fight on Saturday September 7, 1996, Tupac was alledgedly shot 5 times. He lived through the shooting and was taken to a nearby hospital. He was pronounced dead on Friday September 13, 1996.

Some say this sculpture represents the 13th king of Benin and that he began his reign on Good Friday. It is also claimed that this king faked his death in order to escape the rigors of the life of a ruler. Archaeologists have yet to comment on this information. Tupac fans however note that the rapper uses the alias of Makaveli, based on Machiavelli, the 16th century Italian philosopher who advocated the staging of one's death in order to evade one's enemies and gain power. In Machiavelli's book Discourses Upon the First Ten Books of Titus Livy, in Book 2 Chapter XIII he says "a prince who wishes to achieve great things must learn to deceive".


Tupac enthusiasts are finding an all new meaning to this information and the race has begun to find other evidence of the appearance of this figure in history. It is unknown whether the images which are surfacing from this effort represent the truth or computer aided trickery, but some believe there is a real case for this figure having more life to him than it originally seemed. As one believer mentioned:

So what you got here is a guy who's been creeping around since at least 1700. Pretending to croak every once in a while, leaving all his possessions to friends and assuming new identities.