Archive for February, 2009


Busy weekend

Like my last post said, I’ve been busy with the lighting course. I’ve made some pictures of the set-up, I don’t think much was changed on Friday (maybe some more decoration).

chair in the summer

chair in the summer

summer and winter

summer and winter

But I didn’t had the feeling that I was learning anything or was doing something interesting. Maybe that was one of the reasons I didn’t find it necessary to go to the presentation on Friday (I talked of course about this with my group) and stayed in Stockholm. Which was great, the Prodigy concert was the most awesome thing I’ve seen in a while. The audience is one giant moshpit, truly energetic. I think the concert was a bit short, the played around 1 and a half hour. But I had a great time and bought this flag!

some wall decoration (finally)

some wall decoration (finally)

The day after I met with Tove; one of the Swedes that I knew back from Istanbul. I’ve seen them all, now. Quite hard, because all of them are somewhere else or doing something different. Tove, Robert (who also went to the Prodigy) and me had some lunch at a Japanese restaurant. Swedes are really fond of buffets, I noticed (Sushi ‘till you drop). I went with Tove to the city center afterwards. Robert had a date, still wonder if it went successful :D . Really fun to see Tove again, but I had to hurry in the end to get my train back to Eskilstuna.

In the evening I’ve went to a preparty, they wanted to go to a Swedish artist afterwards. But I didn’t went there because it were Swedish songs and I thought it was a bit cheesy music. Instead I went to another preparty, where everybody was already drunk. I didn’t stay for long and went to another preparty (o joy). Met some interesting people over there. One of them was a dude who has tattoo’s of 8-bit game characters all over his arm. He told me some funny and interesting stories. So finally we went to the student pub, where there was a raggae party, that sounded more like hip-hop to me. But at the door they hold us back and said that the pub was full. I was kinda surprised, because normally the pub is as dead as a rest home for the elderly. So the others went to a club, but I didn’t feel like it. It was late already and was tired of the last 2 days. So I went home after a night of pre-party’s. Awesome.

New course…

Well, like I said, I started my new course last week. Its kind of weird, because a couple of things got changed because the teacher didn’t wanted to speak English. I am going to do two weeks of project work (building a theater light set-up) and then switch to another course, which is almost the same (sound and light design). I don’t have to follow any lectures or doing any tests, so that’s an advantage. But I think it sucks overall, because I don’t have the idea that I’m learning something by doing so-so project work.

I also find the people totally different then my first course. Way harder to reach and a bit distant (do I have a bad smell?). I think they are afraid to speak English or something. Every time we have a discussion they switch back to Swedish. I asked a few times if they want to speak English while I’m around, but most of the time I get a reaction like “my English is quite bad” or something like that. I really have to pull reactions or opinions out of them. I think it’s quite offending, but I’m sure they are not aware of that.  Swedes are offending by not trying to be offending.

I’m a bit ranting over here, but there are of course a couple of people who are very nice and speak willingly with me. We are quit a large group, so maybe this is to problem. Or maybe this is the obvious problem of being a foreign exchange student between local people…

The assignment was to make a setting and change the mood in two extremes. Like warm to cold, angry to happy, etc by using lights. We chose to make a “fika” in the winter and the summer. So we change the lights from cold to warm, and hereby we lay focus on the objects that lay on the table. Like for example sunglasses or other season related objects.

Unfortunately, the presentation is on Friday, but I have the concert of the Prodigy tomorrow. I was planning to stay the Friday and even the Saturday in Stockholm. I’m also here to have a fun time, and I think it would be a good balance to skip this presentation. Fuck the system!

Fuck the Systsem

Hopefully I wouldn't be fucked…

finished animation

Last Friday there were the presentations of the animations. I’ve been working from Thursday 10 am until Friday 7 in the morning.

6.30 in the morning, installing Premiere CS4 for the editing, Hendrik working in the background.

5.30 in the morning, installing Premiere CS4 for the editing. Hendrik working in the background.

I slept one hour and went to the school. I felt like crap and looked like a zombie. The presentation went well, but I had the idea that it was more about camera angles and storyboards then 3d animation.

But here, my movie!

Personally I think it is kind of a mess (bad camera angels, influent animations, overall crappy design), but I have to blame the shortage of time for that. Everybody in my class was complaining that 5 weeks is way to less to make an descent animation, and the most of them had an advanced course in 3d modeling before. I totally agree with that, but I had to learn everything from scratch (poor me). So in the end I’m quite pleased what I produced. I think only half of the class had something to show. Sounds just like my school. Now I have to worry about writing a evaluation paper of 5 pages. O crap, I also have to finish my internship report. Complete waste of time, writing this kind of stuff.

Somebody complained I have to make more pictures, so I try to make and upload some photo’s. The point is that I don’t have descent camera. I also think that making photo’s all the time is bad, because you are more busy trying to cease the moment than trying to enjoy it. But anyways, here pictures from last night. I’ve been to a punk band, so here a blurred dark picture of the night.

band playing before the main act.

A lot of piercings and long hair.

Was standing here with my white hip sweater, between pierces long haired dudes with band shirts of Motorhead and Iron Maiden. Nikki does not care. Felt like the old days when I listened to this kind of music.

Next week I’m going to start the new course. It’s again a mess, because the teacher doesn’t want to speak English. But we’ll see about that on Monday.

Stockholm

Yesterday night I came back form Stockholm. Today I’ve been busy with cleaning my room and doing some stuff for the 3d course (but way too less).

But anyways, Stockholm is a nice and beautiful city. It’s a shame the weather was crap, there was a thick fog the whole day, so the sightseeing tour (with guide) was kind of useless. I surely want to go back someday when I have more time and the sun is shining. Afterwards in went to the centrum to walk around and buy some stuff. I also picked up my ticket for the Prodigy, who is giving a promotional concert for the new CD in the end of this month. I’m going with a couple of Swedes, so I think it would be fun. In the evening we went to a bar, luckily the fog went away, so we saw the old city at night, which was very nice. In the end I had to run for my train back to Eskilstuna, because I forgot the time, but I made it eventually (the doors closes behind me when I got there).

Also some kind of trend in Stockholm to walk around with a silly hat.

Silly hats!

Silly hats!

This week I finished my main character for the animation. At the moment I’m busy rigging (giving bones, to animate properly) the model. But here some renders.

penguin

This is not the finished model btw

penguin front

penguin front

Personally I think the penguin looks a bit like Tux (Linux mascot), unintentionally of course. Others said it looked like the evil pinguin of Wallace & Grommit (click & Gromit penguin" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUEoLn2NWcM" target="_blank">here to know what I mean). But I’m quite satisfied, especially this is my first from scratch made model.

I have to finish the animation before the end of the week, so it will be a week with a lot of caffeine and sleepless nights.

Update Schmupdate

This week I put a lot of work in learning the basics of 3d (again). I started with some basic modeling for my character and environment. Below are some sketches of my character and props.

Penguin

Penguin

Props for the animation

Props for the animation

I will tell later what the story is about. But it has a penguin, a cocktail, sunglasses and a nuclear explosion in it. Wicked.

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