I don’t write much about my family here, but it’s time for an exception. I have one of the coolest dads ever! This year for my birthday, he got me a new kite. A few years ago at a kite show, I saw a special kite I really liked. It was a 4 string American Flag flown during the National Anthem. For my birthday present this year, he had one similar made for me, but it’s much more impressive than the one flown at the show was.
In typical fashion for my dad, it wasn’t enough to get me this amazing kite… He had to go over the top. At a recent kite show, for the National Anthem my new kite was flown by the same lady who flew the one at the show I first saw a similar kite at 5 years ago. The announcer also mentioned that this flag was made for me and would be shipped to me right after the kite show.
One of the really cool things about this kite is the colors are all separate cloth sewn together. Every star was cut out and sewn in separately. The quality of the workmanship is very impressive. I’ll post some more pictures of it after I’ve had a chance to fly it (something I haven’t found a good location for in Korea yet)
Well we have a great deal working out for us as we start off Mattang. My dad found some great warehouse space and got it to use as storage, but he decided to try to offload it as it’s too big for his needs. Combined with him though, it’s a great size for both his stuff and for Mattang to start. To work on the layout, I modeled the space using Blender Check out the layout.
I’ve made a few posts now about using Blender and I have to say I’m SOOOO glad I started using it. It’s taken my graphics capabilities to a whole new level. I thought I was doing pretty good with Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, Flash, Fireworks and others, but now that I’ve started using Blender, it’s SOOOO much easier to create great looking pieces of art.
I’m still working on learning how to do animation and what to do with the 3D models after I create them. For a brief description of the differences, take for example the following drawing of my brother. He drew this as a concept for a piece of jewelery. I wanted to draw it on the computer but none of the programs I was using before could accurately handle the 3D part of the overlaying part of the Celtic knot in the middle.
I knew that in order to properly do this, I would need a 3D model. This is why I started looking for a good 3D program and found Blender. A month later (while participating in the biggest joint military exercise in the world and planning/conducting multiple rehearsals for a visit by the Secretary of the Navy which was canceled 3 hours before he was supposed to be here) I can finally say I have made the model of the drawing I started Blender for.
I recently found some old files and ran across something that made me do a google search for Animusic. I was amazed with what I saw and I have to say I’m very inspired by what I’ve seen. Check it out.
This is the first one I saw, check out the rest of this post to see the others I was able to find on YouTube.
After spending a lot of time this last week learning how to use blender (standby for some posts about some of the projects I’ve been working on) I have finally been able to import a file we did as vector graphics in Illustrator directly into Blender and use it’s wonderful capabilities to turn it into a 3D model. There are so many things we can do from this point with our designs and I’m just getting started in seeing what is possible.
These two pictures are almost identical except that one of them had the Mattang logo placed between the sun and the object to cast a shadow on it.
Well I’ve been loosely following a tutorial I found about how to create a low-poly tree for use in the Blender Game engine. I gotta say, the more I use this program the more fun it is! Here’s a render about about 1.5 hours of learning. And learn I have. The things this program can do are amazing!
It’s been many years since the last time I did any real 3D work in any programs. I’ve been a little reluctant to start again because I knew I would have to start from scratch. I used to do quite a bit when I was in High School but that was 13 years ago and back then all my 3D work was in AutoCAD. I’ve heard about a lot of the different programs out now, 3DMax, Maya, Mudbox, Z-Brush etc. I didn’t really want to pay for any of them because I knew I would never have the time to learn to the level where I would be able to justify the expense. Well recently I stumbled upon Blender and s0me of the videos people made with it and I will admit I was blown away that something so capable is completely free. Not only that, it seems that everyone has jumped on the bandwagon and the speed of development plus the commercial/professional grade of the program is extremely impressive. There are alos a ton of free tutorials out for it that are providing a great starting point.
After watching about 1 hour of video and doing a little reading, I made my first image. A Chess Pawn that I applied a texture to and sat on a chrome like surface. I am really impressed at how easy it was to make this. Here are a few of rendered images.
So much going on in our lives right now. Work seems to always have another emergency or a hot situation that needs attending right away, projects keep piling up, more VIPs want to visit, more people keep making dumb decisions or turn it shoddy paperwork that wastes my time… but overall, I don’t think I’ve never been happier than I am now. The job I have for the navy is the best I’ve ever had and I think I’m doing a pretty good job at it.
My home life with my wife and daughter are better than I ever imagined it could be. Just look at the picture of Anastasia, every day she does something new that puts a smile on my face. A couple weeks ago she said Papa for the first time! While I heard her say, “Mommy!” once when she was 3 months old and we say that was her first word, she has yet to repeat it so her first word she can say repeatedly is Papa or Abba!
I’ve also been working a lot on the setup of what I hope will be our future. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be staying in the Navy but next, I’m getting out and instead of going to work for someone else, we’re trying to start our own business. So much to learn though, so much to setup, but I know that God has blessed us and it seems that at every step along the way, He provides exactly what we need for the next step along the way. There have just been TOO MANY COOINCIDENCES along the way to think that this doesn’t have a divine blessing.
Just updated my iPod Touch to the new Firmware 3.0. Started testing it out but not sure yet if it will make a big difference. The main thing I’m interested in is knowing if I can now keep skype logged in as long as I’m on a wireless network?
I don’t write much about my family here, but it’s time for an exception. I have one of the coolest dads ever! This year for my birthday, he got me a new kite. A few years ago at a kite show, I saw a special kite I really liked. It was a 4 string American Flag flown during the National Anthem. For my birthday present this year, he had one similar made for me, but it’s much more impressive than the one flown at the show was.
Check out the layout.
