a friend once told me that the soul always lags a bit behind when you're travelling and i feel it's a good way of describing the feeling when you're moving a lot. Fortunately though, i have a place to rest and call home now!
A bunch of wonderful people from Dresden host me for a six months residency in their lovely city.
Actually having a place to sleep that you can call your own feels good and fits right into the overall excitement that spring brings this year.
After the ups and downs of winter, it is refreshing to walk around with a smile on your face and feel good. Yes, i'm happy, can you tell?
Right now i'm on a bit of a roadtrip to Linz and Munich and Stuttgart where I'll present at FMX next Wednesday, together with long time friend and Machinima Pioneer Paul Marino. And lo and behold, even more friends will come (Ken, Jonas and aga) and everything looks like it's going to be a really nice week full of learning and discussion. If only i would know how to best present this whole Machinima idea to the argueably high-profile audience at fmx... Ideas are welcome...
Life is good to me right now. I used to be afraid of stuff going wrong especially at times when everything was nice and fluffy, but it seems like this anxiety is slowly moving away.
Of course i still kindof don't know what to do after the 6 months are over, but hey. I'm not to complain. If things go south, i can still go find a "real job", right?
The weather is awesome isn't it?
Thursday, April 26, 2007
A bunch of wonderful people from Dresden host me for a six months residency in their lovely city.
Actually having a place to sleep that you can call your own feels good and fits right into the overall excitement that spring brings this year.
After the ups and downs of winter, it is refreshing to walk around with a smile on your face and feel good. Yes, i'm happy, can you tell?
Right now i'm on a bit of a roadtrip to Linz and Munich and Stuttgart where I'll present at FMX next Wednesday, together with long time friend and Machinima Pioneer Paul Marino. And lo and behold, even more friends will come (Ken, Jonas and aga) and everything looks like it's going to be a really nice week full of learning and discussion. If only i would know how to best present this whole Machinima idea to the argueably high-profile audience at fmx... Ideas are welcome...
Life is good to me right now. I used to be afraid of stuff going wrong especially at times when everything was nice and fluffy, but it seems like this anxiety is slowly moving away.
Of course i still kindof don't know what to do after the 6 months are over, but hey. I'm not to complain. If things go south, i can still go find a "real job", right?
The weather is awesome isn't it?
Thursday, April 26, 2007
i seldomly post about nerd programming stuff here but tonight i feel like i want to. I just hit my first milestone on an Animation/Motioncapture tool i am working on for Moviesandbox. The basic idea is simple: You use two regular webcams to film yourself (or a wooden Mannequin in this case) from the front and side view and create keyframes on critical positions in the video.
You then use a very powerful algorithm to find the bones in the two simultaneously recorded videos - human reasoning.
Which basically means that you have to tell the software where the bones actually are in the picture - something that's really easy for the human eye/brain but rather hard for the machine. After finding the bones, the computer does the math (something it's really good at) and sends the rotations back to Unreal - and voila - the pose magically appears!
Note: In future versions, different colors will make it possible for the program to capture most bone rotations, but even then it will be necessary to adjust bones that are covered and not seen by the cameras.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
You then use a very powerful algorithm to find the bones in the two simultaneously recorded videos - human reasoning.
Which basically means that you have to tell the software where the bones actually are in the picture - something that's really easy for the human eye/brain but rather hard for the machine. After finding the bones, the computer does the math (something it's really good at) and sends the rotations back to Unreal - and voila - the pose magically appears!
Note: In future versions, different colors will make it possible for the program to capture most bone rotations, but even then it will be necessary to adjust bones that are covered and not seen by the cameras.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
I just got back from the Laboral Gameworld exhibit (whose website is unfortunately rather basic) after missing my flight back and spending a wonderful day driving from Gijon to Bilbao to catch another one.
Thanks to all the wonderful and inspiring people that i met during the four days of setting up! Have some pictures and videos:
and a video of the Puppet installation "Anisandbox" - unfortunately without sound...
Plus, some pictures:
as you might notice, the overall quality of both the pictures and the video is really really bad. That is due to the fact that my camera is still not repaired and i had to use my laptop webcam for documentation.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Thanks to all the wonderful and inspiring people that i met during the four days of setting up! Have some pictures and videos:
and a video of the Puppet installation "Anisandbox" - unfortunately without sound...
Plus, some pictures:
as you might notice, the overall quality of both the pictures and the video is really really bad. That is due to the fact that my camera is still not repaired and i had to use my laptop webcam for documentation.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
