Alias! Sold out to the man! For Money!

Who knows if anyone even reads this site, but just so folks know, Alias just got themselves bought out by Autodesk, who I'm pretty sure make 3d Studio Max.

http://www.alias.com/glb/eng/press/press_release_details.jsp?itemId=3600004

Who knows what this means for fans of Maya. You could soon be using 3D Studio Maya Max. I'm sure it will add more serial numbers, and a few dongles to the copy protection.

Shreds of Robot Wars

Over the wisdom of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Jay and I decided to end, or at least pause, our robot war. Hopefully in the future it will return.

Here's what I have so far. It's large large large, so please right click and save-as this file. Unless you're running duel T3 lines right into your desktop, your connection just ain't gonna cut it.

Robot Wars, Act 1

Don't wanna brag, but R2 would totally own that fight.

My Processor runs a little hot

I've been a dilequant with Maya as of late.... the PC that it's on is in our living room, which we've kind of sealed off for the summer because it's about 97 degrees in there. Third floor livin' is fantastic. We have AC, but not in that room due to the fire escape. Nothing moves the design process along like sitting in a puddle of your own sweat.

Thankfully the iBook comes out into the kitchen with me, where the AC is on full blast, so I'm at least connected to the outside world, but it's a wee bit underpowered (and, er, under-licensed) to be running Maya. Maybe if I could find a version of Maya 2.5 to play on, I'd be set.

Willard Scott has claimed a bit of coolness is coming our way this weekend, so maybe that will grant me a little time to work.

Jay you been working on robot wars at all?

More about Intel in Mac's, or how Steve Jobs got an iPod shuffle lodged in his brain

Here's the lowdown. Right now, IBM manufactures mosts of the processors used in Macs.... PowerPC G4's and G5's. I think Motorolla may still make a few. This isn't the first time Apple has switched it's processors... and it pisses off developers because they esentially have to write two different versions of the same program to accomidate old users and new users.



Apple's decision to switch to Intel, based on the hearsy and rumors I've created, is based on cost and availability. Intel processors are less expensive, and under constant development. IBM processors are more expensive, and are on a slower development scale. Right now IBM is swinging its efforts to develop the processors that will power the new Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo Revloution, leaving the G5 processer largely ignored. Not good if you're Steve Jobs promising 3.0ghz processors in your G5 Laptop (which don't exist, and probably never will). Intel is already at 3.0ghz, and soon to be at that speed in laptops (if not already).

Will you be able to put your Windows XP install CD in a Mac and have it work? Probably not. Will Alias save a boatload of development cost on the next version of its software? Possibily. Will they pass savings onto the users? Uh, no.

More here, at News.com

I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing. Intel is not in the best shape of its life, and Apple already pissed off a lot of people when it swiched from the older OS9 to OSX platforms. Eitherway, my iBook is still a pimp computer.

FBX!

R2.fbx

stumped

click to enlarge


Jay! Why does your robot's head shoot off to into the void whenever I move the whole body around?! It's downright wacky!

I'm stripping the robot down piece by piece trying to learn it's secrets.

Oh, but don't you doubt it, this Robot Challenge is still most definatly on.

Waiting is the hardest part

Waiting for these freeking images to render is a pain. You take ten minutes to adjust the camera, move some polygons around, click "batch render" and wait overnight for like 80 frames of animation. I guess this is how its done. Jay is there a better way?

Right now I'm exporting individual .jpg frames, and then popping them in as a sequence in After Effects. Seems like the way to go.

What's the method to your madness?