Exhibit: The Art of Digital

The deadline is August 6 for entering work in The Art of Digital Show

http://www.artofdigitalshow.com

which will take place in San Diego October 6 - November 19, 2006. This looks like a very interesting show, and it would be great to have the work of ATEC students included!

Media Lab in Dallas

This is an interesting article on Corgan Media Labs. They are doing just the kind of work I am interested in doing.
http://www.wcnc.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/columnists/chall/stories/DN-hall_02bus.ART0.State.Edition1.16f1fd3.html

After reading this article I did a search to see if Corgan Media Labs had any job openings, and I did find a want-ad from them specifying that skills were desired in the following:

3D Studio Max
Maya
Combustion
Premiere
Photoshop
AutoCAD
Illustrator
Flash
Director
HTML
Any game development/level editing packages

Architectural Visualization Conference

I'm really going! I can hardly believe it, but I have my tickets to attend the VisMasters Design Visualization Conference in Boston. I'm really looking forward to seeing some presentations by pros in the architectural visualization business (3D computer modeling of buildings, especially those yet to be built or remodeled).

A Friend's Exhibit

This weekend I was pleased to attend an exhibit in which a friend of mine was showing her work. I knew she was a great photographer, but the digital imaging she was exhibiting just blew me away. This work has a magical quality, and speaks of young women searching for identity through exploring their own nature. Many of the digital photos in this album were in the exhibit, and her other albums are well worth a look, too.
Album
Click "Digital" on the drop-down menu near the top left of the page, then click the play button near the bottom of the page to start the slideshow.

It is really inspiring to see friends creating fine work like this. I hope I can approach her level of photo manipulation skill, someday.

That's a Wrap!

Please check the June archives for some screen shots of a 3D modeling project my partner and I did for a summer class. I am really grateful to my partner Rayminatti for helping me take the first step into 3D modeling, something I have been wanting to learn for a very long time. I really appreciate classmates who are willing to cooperate and help other students reach their goals, because we can learn a lot from each other.

I want to stress that we really need to learn skills. Industry is going to change, so learning all the ins and outs of a particular industry is knowledge that may be obsolete in just a short time. Technology is advancing so quickly that we don't really know what media will be available and how our skills might be useful in a few years. We might find ourselves doing really crucial work in medical and scientific fields or civil engineering. The first step is to learn the skills, and having real skills is going to be crucial.

I'm very proud of this first phase of our 3D model based on the Hopper painting "Nighthawks." We had just a few weeks to work on this project, and we had a rank beginner making up half the team -- that means me. We have the basic structure in place, and now the next phase would be to improve the textures, fill in the details, and add the characters. I'm thrilled with what we have accomplished so far!

This was a joint project but as to individual accomplishments I did the scene layout, the basic structure of the building and counter, and the lighting. Rayminatti put in the floor and ceiling and made them fit the rounded corner of the building, made the glass windows, and modeled the coffee urns. Rayminatti did the Fraps we showed in class.