WOW - What a cute girl!
Yeah. Here is something I found for people who are studying 3d modeling:
Digital-Tutors “Creating Stylized Females in Maya” DVD set. It teaches you how to use May(3D Software) to create a 3d cartoon character from head to toes.
It covers modeling, UV layout, texturing as well as rendering, from start to finish to create a good looking 3d character also with some nice personalities.
The price tag ($59.99) is quite reasonable considering you will get over 6 hours of video tutorial.
The End of War for Next Generation DVD Standard?
The news saying the war for next generation DVD standard is over and SONY’s Bluray won the battle with TOSHIBA’s HD-DVD. But is the war really over? And SONY can laugh from now on and watch the sales of its Bluray machine goes up to ceiling? I don’t think so. Because the time for a few of manufacturers to dominate the market is over. Now is the era of Internet!
New P2P technology and upcoming broadband technology promise much faster Internet connection speed for on-demand video service. Hollywood and Bollywood are already using new P2P technology to deliver their online video services. The new generation of Internet users will give much more preference to the quantity of the contents with acceptable video quality than expensive Bluray technology. To them, Bluray will be an expensive option. If they have money, they might buy it. Otherwise, they would rather go with online version.
If Bluray is not going to reduce its high-end price rapidly enough, its fate is probably going to be the same as HD-DVD.
The new video revolution is right ahead of us. If SONY is not seeing it (or rather deliberately ignoring it), we the average Internet users will see it coming.
Create a good-looking Web2.0 style real-time clock on your website
Ever wanted a good-looking real-time clock on your webpage?
Here is something you will be interested in:
All you need to do is download the file and run the “clock.html” file.
If you want to use the code on your own site. Follow steps below to add codes to the pages you want the clock to appear:
Step 1. Unzip ‘clock.zip’ and Upload all the files to your websever.
Step 2. put this code in the place you want the clock to apear: (You need to change the ‘clock.js’ to include proper directory structure. For example, ‘js/clock.js’)
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”clock.js”></script>
<p><div id=”clock” name=”clock”>Loading Clock…</div></p>
Step 3. Modify the <body> tag to this:
<body onload=”StartClock()” onunload=”KillClock()”>
This line will start the clock when the page loads and close the clock when the page closed.
Note: You do not have to change anything in the “clock.js” file.
Here is the author’s website >>
Global Warming in Action
China got the worst snow fall in the recent history and caused so much demage which counts for billions of dollars in lost. Who are to blame? I think it is ourselves.
Looking at the following two pictures, you may feel good.
And this is beautiful, right?
But definitely not this…
What will you think if this happens in your country and just a few kilometers away from your house?
What will you do to contribute something to change this?
…….
CrazyBump - Convert Normal Photo to Displacement Map, Normal Map and Fake Occlusion
CrazyBump - Convert Normal Photo to Displacement Map, Normal Map and Fake Occlusion
Download this magical beta application here>>
Ever wanted an easy way to convert a wonderful texture to displacement map, normal map or fake occlusion? Here is something
you need to check out:
The Forbidden Kingdom - from Jackie Chan and Jet Li
The Forbidden Kingdom - from Jackie Chan and Jet Li
What will happen when two biggest Kung Fu action stars in the world are leading the same movie?
My answer is: it has to be great.
Check out the movie posters here:
Jackie Chan:
Jet Li:
Liu YeFei:
Michael Angarano:
Li BingBing:
Houdini 9.1 Released
Side Effects Software, an industry leader in 3D Animation software announced the release of Houdini 9.1, which for the first time will include access to the new FBX importer. This addition gives studios a clear choice for interoperability with other 3D applications making it easier than ever to leverage Houdini within an existing pipeline. “I need Houdini to work with a variety of different 3D applications,” says Visual FX artist Miguel Salek. “With FBX support, I will have a common file format that works with them all.”
Autodesk® FBX is a well known open-standard 3D file format that promises a high quality interchange of 3D content. As an official Autodesk Authorized Developer, Side Effects is providing early access to the FBX importer with Houdini 9.1. The importer remains in development and will see a variety of enhancements over the coming months. For now, it supports geometry, attributes, lights, cameras, node and joint hierarchies, animation and geometry caches. Support for FBX export is planned and will be released in Q2 of this year.
“Since the release of Houdini 9 last year, we have grown our base of boutique and commercial production studios,” says Kim Davidson, President, Side Effects Software. “Now with FBX support, these customers can more effectively transfer their work between Houdini and their other software tools.”
Optimized for Production
Houdini 9.1 is available immediately for download and includes a variety of enhancements and optimizations to fluids, cloth, character rigging, animation, lighting and UI.
The user interface now ships with an alternative dark color scheme and the ability to download a variety of user-defined color schemes from the net. The Network view and Channel editor have been optimized and the timeline interaction has also been streamlined to make it faster and more intuitive. Animators can now work more easily by using the Channel List to select objects in the 3D view.
New Fluid emitter tools have been added to the shelf and the surfacing of particle fluids are up to 60 times faster than before. Cloth simulations are also faster and more reliable especially when interacting with dynamic volumes.
Houdini 9.1 includes a richer library of production-quality materials and rendering has been optimized to be more reliable and faster, especially when working with many textures. There is now support for triangle strip primitive rendering and for vertex normal rendering.
You can visit the Online Docs for a more detailed list of enhancements.
Now Available for Apprentice Users
Houdini Apprentice users can Download the new version right away and Houdini Apprentice HD customers will find an updated license ready in the Houdini license server. Houdini Apprentice HD customers have all received free upgrades to the new version due to the recent release of the HD program.
Wistron Shows New Upcoming Google Android Phone
Wistron GW4 Home Screen
The Wistron GW4, which could become the first Google Android phone, right now runs a variant of Montavista Linux. It’s fully functional, though; here’s the main menu.
Wistron GW4 Weather Widget
The Wistron GW4 comes with the Opera Web browser and various Web-enabled applications, like this weather widget. The phone uses GPRS and Wi-Fi to connect to the Net.
Wistron GW4 Google Maps
The GW4 already runs Google Maps, one of the applications it would run if Android was installed on this Linux phone.
Wistron GW4 Stock Widget
A stock widget running on the Linux-powered Wistron GW4.
Wistron GW4 Back
On the back of the Wistron GW4 is a 2-megapixel camera.
Wistron GW4 Opera Key
On the Wistron GW4 keyboard, there’s a dedicated key for launching the Opera Web browser.
Jumper - SciFi Movie
Jumper (From the director of The Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith )
A genetic anomaly allows a young man to teleport himself anywhere. He discovers this gift has existed for centuries and finds himself in a war that has been raging for thousands of years between “Jumpers” and those who have sworn to kill them.
Google’s new service brings visitors to Google’s China site
The heavy snow in China gave Google, the search engine giant in the world but not in China, a chance to attract great deal amount of visitors to their site by providing real-time weather conditions and freeway status to searchers on Google map.
Google Map for Spring Festival Traffic provided a great way for travellers to check if the road they are going to travel is actually closed. It includes majority of freeways in China. Google staff updating the data constantly to provide real-time status. It is getting very close to Chinese Spring Festival, the most important holiday in China. People who have worked the whole year in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, will go back to their hometown to celebrate the new year with family and friends.
This winter, China encountered unprecedented snow falls and many southern parts of China are covered by thick snow which caused many tragic accidents on freeway. This service will greatly help travellers to reduce the risk while they are travelling.
Although Google is the number 1 outside of China, but Baidu is the number 1 search engine in China. It is quite hard to understand why but certainly Chinese people have different cultures than western people. The ideas worked in Western world does not always apply to China. But I think Google is starting to get it. This new service does not cost much to set up because all the technologies are already available and mature. Yet it is very USEFUL to people in China. A great product does not have to have high-tech, but it has to be wonderfully useful.
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