SeithCG

It’s been almost a couple of weeks now, but I just wanted to give a big shout-out to the entire animation crew on the Lorax. It’s been a wild ride over the last year-and-a-half, but we prevailed! I have to say I am immensely proud to have been able to help the animators do their best on the project. And I wish good luck to everyone at Illumination-MacGuff on their next project (hint: It starts with a “D” and ends with a “espicable Me 2”)…! 😀

Anyway, without further ado here’s a teaser-trailer for next year’s “The Lorax”:

I think I’m almost done with the frog-thing base texture now. I’ve picked up a couple of things while painting it, so it should make subsequent jobs easier. Just a precision here, since I was asked about it today: the texture is entirely painted by hand, layer by layer (no use of photographs)…

The short answer: we all do. Defensive driving benefits every driver on the road. It makes our streets and highways safer with drivers who are more aware and understand defensive driving techniques that can prevent accidents. But defensive driving courses are beneficial for many drivers, including:

• new drivers
• drivers desiring ticket dismissal
• drivers with a poor driving record
• drivers with heavy vehicle licence
• drivers that need to reduce license points
• drivers that need to reduce auto insurance rates

The Benefits of Defensive Driving

Defensive driving courses can teach you how to be more alert, aware, and safe on the road. And while they’re great for getting you out of a sticky situation on the road, they’re also useful for sticky situations with tickets, insurance, and more.

“On average, over 100,000 people are cited for traffic violations each day in the U.S,” says Chicago lawyer Jared Staver. “Many states allow people to take defensive driving courses to reduce demerit points on driving records, show driver improvement to auto insurance providers, or to avoid higher fines for infractions.” If you are willing to improve your engine lifespan check these effuel reviews.

Defensive driving can:

• Get you out of a ticket.
• Reduce your license points
• Reduce your auto insurance premiums
• Save your license
• Save your life

Defensive Driving Can Get You Out of a Ticket

There’s no mistaking the feeling of dread when you see flashing lights in your rearview mirror. You’re getting pulled over — and probably getting a ticket. Are you a terrible driver for getting pulled over? Not necessarily. Traffic tickets happen — even to good drivers. And if you’re serious about improving your driving skills to become a more responsible driver, you can prove it by taking a defensive driving course that will help you get out of a ticket.

Many states and municipalities allow drivers to take defensive driving to reduce the impact of a traffic ticket. Some options offered in your area may include taking a defensive driving course to:

• Reduce or remove the fine associated with the ticket (however, court fees may still apply, as well as the cost of the course)
• Remove the ticket from your driving record
• Avoid adding points to your license

Often, if you take a defensive driving course, it’s as if your ticket never happened — and a great way to redeem your status as a good driver. You can keep the ticket off of your record, avoid accumulating points, and even save money on the fine.

Keep in mind, however, that using defensive driving courses is not a cure for every ticket. Most states will not allow frequent offenders to get out of tickets using defensive driving courses, as they may set a yearly limit on the number of tickets that can be dismissed with defensive driving.

“Defensive driving courses are the most effective for first time traffic violators who are concerned about the impact of a ticket on their premiums,” advises Staver.

Defensive Driving Can Reduce Your License Points

It’s best to take a defensive driving course before a ticket ends up on your driving record, but if you weren’t able to, it’s not too late to keep points from accumulating on your license. In many states, defensive driving courses can still help you reduce the number of points you have.

For example, New York State offers a Point & Insurance Reduction Program that allows drivers in the state to take defensive driving courses that refresh driving knowledge. Drivers who complete the course may be eligible to reduce as many as four points on their driving record.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have lots of difficulty working with Zbrush. I find its interface and idiosyncrasies absolutely horrendous. I basically have to re-learn the software every time I let it rest for a while and then come back to it. So over the week-end I thought “Let’s try Mudbox”. So I did this little frog-thing here…

The result is: I much prefer Mudbox’s interface and workflow, but it is obvious that it’s not as full-featured as Zbrush. As to the sculpt itself, it’s supposed to be a foot-soldier of some sort, so I’ll have to finish painting it and maybe bang up a props or two. I’ll soon post a picture of the process I followed to quickly block it out…

Been working with the relatively new CryEngine 3 SDK recently. I like it (minus the occasional crash). The tough part is that I used to rely on Crysis assets/settings to quickly get the look I wanted, but now I have to create almost anything in the picture (textures, models, etc…). The ocean, for example, was completely overhauled and it takes A LOT of tweaking to get something I like…

Of course you could just capture the image visible directly in the editor, but in order to take screenshots of a higher resolution than what’s displayed in the view port you’ll have to follow this method. First make sure the console is visible (press the ‘~‘ key by default), then type in the following commands:

e_screenshot_width XXXX (sets the screenshot’s width in pixels)
e_screenshot_height XXXX (sets the screenshot’s height in pixels)
e_screenshot_file_format jpg/bmp/tga (sets the screenshot’s file format)
e_screenshot 1 (takes screenshot)

The image files will be saved in this directory: /Crysis (Wars)/Game/Screenshots/HiRes.

I’ve been reworking the overall organization of my character pipeline, and here’s the result. On the figure below you can see the way a model is broken down into basic building blocks which are then assembled into the final puppet.

The picture below shows in more details the overall Maya folder structure of a single character (let’s say a biped). In the right-hand side is a list of MEL scripts used to assemble all the pieces together.

The great thing in following such a precise organization is that you can then follow the same rules for any character you build without having to stop and wonder where you stored this or that file.