Goodbye

I'm leaving. I will no longer be updating this blog.

Adios amigos!



Oh btw, I've opened a new blog at http://mountuponwingsofeagles.blogspot.com/

Blender 2.46 Released!!

Blender 2.46 was released today!!! I'm so excited. I've already been using the development builds so it probably won't feel much different but maybe it'll be more stable. :-P Download it from Blender.org.

More Camera Tracking, Domino Style!

I had a lot of fun with my jumbo dotless dominoes yesterday...


Camera Tracking, Dominoes from Matt Smith on Vimeo.

Actually, the dominoes are computer generated.

The camera tracking took 7.5 hours and approx. 12 hours to render! I just love my computer... Obviously there are some flaws like the dominoes falling to slowly, but the main objective was camera tracking which I thought turned out pretty good.

Once again, I used the Voodoo camera tracker and Blender!

Tuxmachines, I Waddle the Waddle!

I was looking at my stats today and I noticed this:






A week from today my visits jumped from 26 to 173! After further investigation, I noticed that the majority of the visits came from Tuxmachines.org, one of my favorite websites. Tuxmachines is basically a great way to keep up with the Linux community. They link to about 30-50 blog posts a day.
Last Monday my post about my awesome desktop made it on Tuxmachines! link That explains the sudden rush of visitors. Okay, I know. Lots of people's blogs get on there. I was excited!

Free the Fish

Want to have some fun with Ubuntu? Press Alt+F2 to open the run command box. Type "free the fish" You'll see Wanda the fish swimming across your screen! Click on her and she'll dart to safety, the edge of the screen. Sorry for the distorted colors at the beginning of the video. Apparently, Something bad happened...

Ubuntu 8.04, My Awesome Desktop!

Yay! I've recently upgraded to the new Ubuntu 8.04 and it's really cool! The new version had built-in compositing so now I can run Avant Window Navigator without Compiz. Compiz was usually too slow to run on my old hardware. Avant Window Navigator (Awn) is an awesome Mac OSX-like dock for Linux. I put launchers for my most used apps on there. Left-to right on the image below you can see: Audacity, (sound editor) Gnome Sword, (Bible Study) Exaile, (Music player) Open Office Writer, Gimp, (Image Editor) Gtick, (Metronome) Blender, (3D suite) Stacks applet, (direct access to my home folder) and a trash applet!

On the top, I have a regular Gnome panel with: (from left to right) a show desktop button, main menu with access to applications, places such as my home folder, devices, etc., and system settings.
Next I have: desktop switcher, system monitor, force quit, (a really useful applet to shut down those stubborn programs) Exaile icon, network monitor, clock, and logout button!
I don't like the default theme for Ubuntu so I installed the Ubuntu-Studio theme which is really great! (I like clean, dark themes)
On the background is the Hardy Heron.
So what do you think? (Poll on the side.)

People are scared...

Something happened this evening that showed me why people don't know anything (or not much) about their computers and perhaps why more people don't use Linux. People are scared. They're scared that something bad will happen. Maybe they think they'll crash their computers. I don't know.
Recently, we bought a new printer. The first thing I did after I finished setting it up was get to know it. That's right, I began pushing buttons. I even pushed the Setup button! This is where most people would stop. They might think, "The printer works fine; If I push this button it might stop working." Browsing around in the setup menu, I found a menu with menu that contained different "printables" such as graph paper, music paper, etc. It also contained a random maze to print. I tested these out and found them to quite entertaining. Later on, one of my siblings decided that she wanted to print one of these mazes. She asked me how, and me being the mean brother that I can be sometimes, didn't tell her. Instead I challenged her to figure it out. I watched as she pushed every button except the setup button. Eventually after asking me several times to please show her how she became infuriated (more at me than the printer) and looked it up in the printer manual. I felt bad because she was pretty mad and I could've prevented it by simply and kindly explaining it. However, I did gain an insight into her perspective. I've never been afraid to mess with things. When I was young and had a computer with windows 98, I made a point to go everywhere that was possible in that OS. But not everyone is like that. Some people would rather stick with what they know and are afraid of messing that up. And I think that's ok; God made us different. However I believe that's a major reason that many people don't use Linux. They're scared.

Poll Results

Ok, I'm closing the polls. Here are the results:

Why do you still use Windows? 25 votes
8%(2 votes) Said they didn't know there was a choice.
28%(7 votes) Said it's full of security holes.
8%(2 votes) Said it slows down considerably after it's been installed for awhile.
16%(4 votes) Said they have to reboot every time they install something.
40%(10 votes) Said they don't use Windows

If you ask me, those aren't very good reasons to use Windows. Ok, I'll admit the poll was a little swayed... Anyway, I was happy for the 10 people who don't use Windows. Congratulations!


Opinion on latest camera tracking video? 10 votes
60% (6 votes) Said Awesome!
10% (1 vote) Said Not bad.
10% (1 vote) Said So-So.
10% (1 vote) Said Not impressive.
10% (1 vote) Said I'm wasting my time here.

Thank you to the 6 people who thought it was Awesome. As for the rest of the votes, thanks for the constructive criticism. Some advice for Mr. (or Mrs.) I'm-Wasting-My-Time-Here: I don't advocate wasting time. I think people should use their time efficiently. Therefore, I won't blame you if you don't visit my blog again. Though, you are welcome here. :-)


Have fun everyone! And if you have any ideas for more polls just post them in the comments!

Vintage Sewing Machine

I made this picture in Blender and framed it for my sister's birthday on March 15th. I didn't finish it until the day after her birthday so I didn't end up giving it to her until yesterday. (She lives away.) She seemed to like it and, I hope you will too! It's been probably one of the more fun projects that I've done. I also did a lot of post-processing with Gimp so what you see here didn't come straight out of blender. :-)

Windows Vista Source Code Leaked!

Broken lcd

Lesson learned: Baseballs are for outside use only.

3dbrickfilms and Lip-syncing

My friend Joshua (graphicsforgod.blogspot.com) and I are going to be working on short lego animation made in Blender. Our blog for this project is www.3dbrickfilms.blogspot.com I have been experimenting with lip-syncing which has been pretty exciting for me. :-)
You can find a video of the lip-sync at our lego blog! Maybe we'll get some more visitors from here. :-) Check it out!

Peach Open Movie Project

Big Buck Bunny, the open movie is currently in production at the Blender institute. Well, It's almost done! You can watch the trailer below:


Big Buck Bunny - Official Trailer from Andy Goralczyk on Vimeo.

You can watch the HD version here: http://www.vimeo.com/798022

Check out the official blog at peach.blender.org

More Camera Tracking - Free Move!

Yay!! I finally got some decent results with free move video! (no tripod)
Check out my old Voodoo test video that I made using a tripod: http://redmoose3d.blogspot.com/2007/09/voodoo-camera-tracker-test.html



I've been trying for a long time to figure out how get a good track with non-tripod video footage.
Btw, the blue tape was to help with the tracking. I'm going to have to figure out how to remove that...
Please vote (if you want) in the Poll on my sidebar.
Edit: the poll is now gone. Click here for results!

Poll: Why do you still use Windows?

Please vote! (Notice the poll on the sidebar)
This has been my most popular poll so far.
Congratulations to the two people who don't use Windows!
Enjoy! I may do more polls in the future. Any good ideas?

Blender Node Editor Video Tutorial

This is a video tutorial I made on the subject of the Blender node editor. This tutorial covers the aspect of using the node editor for Green-screening. Sorry the sound is so low... You might have to turn the volume WAY up. Just remember to turn it back down when you're done or you might scare yourself. :-)

Hope you enjoy!

Burning Ants

Ever tried burning ants with a magnifying glass on a sunny day?
Now you can do it with Blender/Yafray! (Actually, It's been possible for a long time.)
Sorry, I didn't make the ants yet.

Red Moose desktop backgrounds

These are some desktop backgrounds I rendered a while back. They are 1600 by 1200. They should be high enough resolution for most desktops. Sorry, no wide-screen.
Enjoy!

sudo rm -rf /

Can you guess what "sudo rm -r -f /" does? If someone ever advises you to run this command on your Linux computer do not do it!

Lets break it down:
"sudo" gives a normal user the ability to run administrator commands.
"rm" remove (delete) files or directories
"-r" an option of rm. If a directory is to be removed -r will also remove every directory below it.
"-f" an option of rm. It will delete without confirmation.
"/" The file or directory to be deleted. In this case it's the root directory!

Running this command will permanently erase everything on your current partition on your hard drive. Your computer will instantly shutdown and will be un-bootable. Luckily it requires you to enter your password.

I actually tried this once. (on purpose) I did it with Ubuntu running in a virtual machine.
No explosions or fireworks but it was still pretty cool. :-)

The Easy Way to Install Programs in Ubuntu Linux

I thought this article was pretty funny!
If you don't get it, the article is mostly sarcasm.

Have a great day!