Ben Jones | Projects

farmFolder

2012-02-26T10:54:00.004-08:00

Hey I made another script

It's called farmFolder
http://webspace.ringling.edu/~bjones/ACCESS/farmFolder.zip

This script renames the folders created by the renderfarm

So instead of getting this after you send a bunch of jobs:

6820.sgimasternode
6822.sgimasternode
6826.sgimasternode
6828.sgimasternode
6829.sgimasternode

you get something like this:

shot10.6820.sgimasternode
shot10RGB.6822.sgimasternode
shot20.6826.sgimasternode
shot20RGB.6828.sgimasternode
shot20Glow.6829.sgimasternode

The script grabs the name of the job that the you assigned in maya from the log files and appends the job number on the end.

(because the log files include the frame number in their name it adds that too. So the folders will actually look more like this shot10.155.6820.sgimasternode)

Being able to label your shots is really helpful especially when you are compositing different passes.

::IMPORTANT::
To use this script you need to make a new folder on the D: drive called farm
Then copy over the folders from your O: drive to D:\farm\
And then run the script and your folders will be renamed :)

I hope you guys like the script :)

Happy Render Week!!

-Ben Jones

renderBeep

2012-01-30T10:13:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick script that might be useful for rendering

http://webspace.ringling.edu/~bjones/ACCESS/renderBeep.zip

renderBeep plays a sound after you finish a render

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Put the renderBeep.bat file in your scripts folder: Z:/MAYA/2012-x64/scripts/renderBeep.bat

In your render settings in render options paste in this into Post render MEL: system("start Z:/MAYA/2012-x64/scripts/renderBeep.bat" );

Kick off a render, browse the internet, and listen for the beep to get back to work

Enjoy!

-Ben Jones

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Additional Information:

the renderBeep.bat is a simple batch file, if you right click and edit it you can edit the code

Here it is:
START/min mpc-hc /play /close c:\windows\media\chimes.wav

by default it's set to open media player classic, play an audio file, and then close.

You can swap out the audio file for whatever file you want as long as media player classic can open it.

If you open Media Player Classic and go to Help>Command Line Switches you can view more options.

CopyZ - Copy ZBrush GoZ Textures Script

2012-01-19T17:33:00.000-08:00

I made aquick script that copies the texture files GoZ makes and moves them to yoursourceimages folder. I made this for my fellow Ringling CA’s and GAD’s to helpstreamline using GoZ with Maya.

Make sure to read the Readme as youwill have to change the destination path for your maya project.

webspace.ringling.edu/~bjones/ACCESS/CopyZ.zip

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How to Configure:

Unzipto Z:\CopyZ\

Youwill need to change the destination of the files in the script to yoursourceimages folder in your maya project.

rightclick on the .bat file and click Edit

rightnow it is set to the default project folder

Z:\MAYA\projects\default\sourceimages"

Youshould change it to something like this

"Z:\MAYA\projects\thesis\sourceimages"

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Note:

There may betemporary files already in the GoZProjects folder from other people using GoZ.In order to not copy their files into your sourceimages folder I'd recommenddeleting them before you GoZ your models.

You alsoshould install FileTextureManager to help repath texture files:

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/rendering/misc/c/filetexturemanager

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Additional Information:

Theexcludelist file tells the script what files it should ignore.

You may needto adjust the path to the excludelist.txt file

The path isZ:\CopyZ\excludelist.txt by default.

Make sure thescript can find where the file lives.

If you wouldrather the script move the files rather than copy them replace"xcopy" in the script with "move"

If you wantto learn more here is some documentation

http://www.computerhope.com/xcopyhlp.htm

Hope you find this useful :)

-Ben

SR60 Heaphones

2011-11-13T10:44:00.001-08:00

I bought a pair of SR60 Headphones about a year ago and I love them to death. They are extremely comfortable and have excellent sound. Unfortunately, after a year of abuse, one of the speakers would go cut in and out if I tilted my head. I wasn't too surprised that they started to break down, I commute and work in the labs a lot at my school so they spend a good deal of time in my backpack.

I figured the problem was a broken wire, so I held the cord with my hand and tilted my head to try and find where the wire was broken. I figured it was broken not far from the speaker itself, so I cut the wire to my headphones a few inches below it for good measure.

I unclipped the speaker from the headphones

and gently removed the foam earpad

Using the low setting on a heat gun warmed up the hot glue inside the can. A hair dryer will work too if you don't have a heat gun.

After I warmed it up I quickly popped it open

I cut an old piece of speaker wire and tied a knot in it to protect the wire from being pulled out

I desoldered the old wire. Just touch a soldering iron to the solder and gently pull on the wire.

There is a little red dot on the speaker, I used that to remember which wire I needed to solder to the speaker.

I slipped on a piece of heat shrink tubing and twisted the wires together. I plugged in the speakers and tested them to make sure they worked.

I soldered the wires together

And I used a heat gun to shrink the heat shrink tubing

I warmed up the hot glue and pressed the headphones back together

I clipped the speaker back on

And put the earpad back on.

And it's working great now :)

Interning and Stuff :)

2011-07-09T11:12:00.000-07:00

Ok I haven't updated this in forever so let's do a quick update on everything.

I passed Prepro! I'll post my concept artwork from my Drawing for Animators class as well as my Storyboards from Pre Production class later this fall. My story is about a military robot who learns that war is not the answer. I've been modeling my set, reworking my storyboards, tweaking my designs to strengthen my story.

I programmed another flash touch screen application for the Maine State Aquarium. It is similar to the Build a Fish program I made last summer only this one is Build a Fish.

I'm interning at Cramer, a digial marketing company outside of Boston. I interned there two summers ago and I'm back for more :)

http://www.crameronline.com/

I'm taking an online class through the University of Maine. I'll have all of my liberal arts classes out of the way so I can focus on my thesis :) Spring semester I'll just have my CA class so I'll have plenty of time to do some job searching and finally being able to enjoy the beaches :D (I hope).

I recorded a short video tutorial last night on how to make a contact sheet in adobe bridge, this is useful for organizing a large number of photos on a piece of paper. which comes in handy for DFA and Prepro.

http://tutorials.benjones.us

Web Design Tutorials

2010-12-21T13:26:00.000-08:00

I decided I'd make a series of video tutorials specifically for my classmates here at Ringling on how to design a portfolio website. This tutorial shows the entire process from start to finish. I hope it is useful and I didn't skim over any important details. If you guys have any questions I'd be happy to answer them.

YouTube Playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0A8ABC5723A827B8

Tutorial Website

http://tutorials.benjones.us/

Enjoy!!! :)

Gargolyle Character

2010-09-29T17:06:00.000-07:00

So I really love this character I drew in my Drawing for Animators class and decided he deserved to be sculpted :)

After I sculpted the first one I thought it would be cool to do multiples of him and put him in different poses. So I used some Moulage to make a mold of him. Moulage is a type of alginate that is reusable. You can just microwave the moulage and it will melt it down. I put it in for a minute or so.

I used a piece of wood to apply the moulage (you don't want to use aluminum tools to heat up, or work with the moulage because the moulage will react to it).

I waited for the moulage to cool and then I gently peeled off the mold. Moulage is pretty fragile so you have to be careful. You can use a hardener (I think it's alum) to toughen the mold but I didn't need to reuse this mold many times.

I made a three part mold. I was considering making a plaster mother mold to hold it all together, but again I wasn't going to make many multiples with this mold.

Hindsight is 20/20. I realized after I made it I should have cut off the characters arms and legs and wings and then made the mold because I would be posing this guy in different poses. This would have also allowed me to just use a two part mold rather than a three part.

I didn't make any form or registration so I couldn't just pour the wax into the moulage mold. I ended up cutting off the arms and legs and patching the three pieces together using a soft purple wax.

I'll post some more updates on my progress as I work on this little series of sculptures :)

Update: 10/5/2010

I finished posing all of my wax gargoyles. Now all I have to do is sprue them up and make a mold of them and then cast them in aluminum :)

I'm really excited about these little guys! They are coming out great :)

Update 10/15/2010

I sprued up the five sculptures into one giant tree. Check it out!

I attached some vents to each sculpture so that when the aluminum gets poured in the air inside has a place to escape.

Its kind of hard to see but I attached some small pieces of wax to the bottom of the sculptures. Once I finish making the mold I will grind down the mold to expose the tips of these pieces of wax. This will allow the wax to escape from the mold without expanding and cracking the mold. I'll have to patch these holes once I finish burning out the wax.

Update: 10/31/2010

I've finished dipping my wax positives in a silica slurry to form a mold. To form the mold you have to dip the positives multiple times letting it dry for at least two hours between dips. The first dip is pure slurry, the positives are then dipped in slurry and coated with sand starting with fine sand and moving up to coarse sand. The final dip is pure silica.

The next step after the mold is made is to grind down the mold to expose the wax coated cup at the opening of the mold. The vents also must be exposed.

I ground down the little nubs from the small pieces of wax I added to the bottom of each gargoyle. This will allow the wax to escape during the burnout process.

I'll be casting these guys very soon now so stay tuned :)

Update 12/16/2010

It's winter break!!! I've been wanting to update this post for a while, but finals can consume a lot of free time :)

I burned out the max in the mold and poured the aluminum in the empty mold. I left the mold to cool down (molten aluminum is rather warm). Now it is smashing time :)

DONE!

Actually I'm gonna rub these guys down with some graphite and then spray fix it to give them an old look. So I'm almost done :)

Drawing For Animators is Awesome :)

2010-09-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

I've been having a blast in my Drawing for Animators class at Ringling. Here is what we've been working on.

We drew tons of silhouettes, not focusing on any shape or form, just abstract black blobs.

Then we looked at images and tried to pull out characters from the shapes of the textures.

And then we made random scribbles and found characters within those

Then we chose a few of the characters and refined them

And then we chose a few of those and refined them

I really enjoyed this process and it helped me think in a new way. It made me draw more unique characters. I'm really enjoying this class and look forward to designing more characters/environments!

Pete

2010-07-20T00:50:00.000-07:00

I'm working on another sculpture, digitally this time. Pete is going to be a pirate :)

Here are a couple pictures of the head. I'm working on refining the body at the moment.

Update:

I've sculpted the body, now I just have to give him some cloths and some smaller details :)

NES + USB Hub + Flashdrive

2010-07-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

I saw an article on HackADay, a hacking blog I subscribe to, about a guy who made an NES controller that also had the emulator built into it. http://hackaday.com/2008/07/19/usb-nes-controller-plus/

I decided it would be a fun project to try and do the same thing. Here are the parts I used:

USB NES Controller (it was cheaper to buy one premade than to convert your own): http://www.amazon.com/Retro-Classic-Controller-Nintendo-Entertainment-System/dp/B00281PFQI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1278695241&sr=8-1-catcorr

USB Hub: http://www.amazon.com/High-Speed-4-Port-Octopus-USB/dp/B002FFT8Z6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1278695131&sr=1-1

Old 256 MB Pendrive: Free

I used the JNes Emulator, you can get it here: http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/nes/jnes.html

I opened up all of the devices to see what space I had to work with. The NES controller has a large pocket of empty space in front of the controller above the A and B buttons. I knew that that would be a good place to put the pen drive. I removed the casing from pen drive and the USB hub.

I removed the rubber base to the octopus hub and cut the female ends off.

Fire works really well for stripping small wires, just light the plastic for a few seconds, let it cool and use your fingernails to pull the brittle plastic off.

I used a pair of wire cutters to snip back the male USB plug on the pen drive to expose the contacts.

I hardwired the hub to the pen drive. I looked up the USB pinout here: http://pinouts.ws/usb-pinout.html

I really like that diagram because it shows you the female one too.

I cut the USB cable coming out of the NES controller and hardwired it to the USB hub. I then connected the male USB cable from the hub to the cable I cut from the NES controller.

I forgot to take some pictures, but I actually removed all of the thick black rubber casing around the usb wires and used small pieces of electrical tape to keep the wires bundled together. This saved me lots of space inside the controller.

I also wrapped the pen drive in electrical tape and hot glued it to the NES circuit board right above the A and B buttons. I also hot glued the USB hub to the back of the NES circuit board. I taped a couple wires down to keep them in place and closed the NES controller and screwed it shut.

This was a fun little project and now I can plug this controller in to any computer and run the emulator right off the controller itself.

Just a note, the USB hub is terrible, it only does USB 1.1, but for this instance it was fine, we aren't dealing with large files so the transfer speed isn't a big issue.

Build A Lobster Touchscreen Application

2010-07-05T23:02:00.000-07:00

I finished building a couple touch screen applications for the Maine State Aquarium this summer. They were recently set up and have been doing really well. I filmed some people playing with the program. Its really cool to see someone you don't know enjoying something you've made. It really gives you some motivation to keep creating.

Traditionally Sculpting

2010-06-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

I've been working with a local sculptor this summer. Right now he is starting to sculpt a Labrador so I decided I'd try sculpting a Pug. Here are some pictures of the arms and leg armature and the head of the Pug being sculpted.

Update:

I've been working on my pug sculpture some more. I've named him Otis after my old landlord's dog. I ran out of the darker harder green clay so I started to use a softer green clay that I had extra of. Thats the reason why there is a slight color difference between the head and the body.

Update: I added the legs and the arms and made some adjustments to the model. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I learned a bunch from Forest Hart on sculpting and now it's time for me to move on to my next piece.

Gravity Gun

2010-06-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

My roommate, Sean Benson, and I are building a functional gravity gun. By functional I mean it will light up, make noise, and recoil when fired. We started a blog to document our process, check it out here:
http://www.gravitygunblog.com

Still Life

2010-05-10T22:53:00.000-07:00

I finished my still life assignment a few weeks ago, but I've been busy and forgot to post it. It came out alright.

I've been working on coding another touch screen application for the Maine State Aquarium. I'll post a video when its done.

I'm also waiting to hear back from a couple of places about an internship this summer :)

Cemetery Texturing and Lighting

2010-04-26T21:43:00.000-07:00

I finished texturing and lighting the cemetery project last Friday. It was the first time I had done any real compositing for animation (I've done stuff in after effects while interning last summer, but it just for commercials).

Hope you enjoy my graveyard :)

Our final project this semester is to light and texture a still life. Here is a quick render of what I've got so far. I've only just started to rough in the placement of the objects, the materials and the camera position.

Sit Stand Animation

2010-04-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

I finished animating my sit stand assignment. The assignment was for a character to enter the scene, sit, have an emotional change, stand, and leave the scene in 15 seconds.

The story of my animation is that my character is really excited to have his school picture taken. He strikes a "cool guy" pose, but the cameraman tells him to be serious. The character is disappointed and poses seriously. He gets his picture taken and then he slumps off screen.

Check it out:

Maya Augmented Reality Documentation

2010-03-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

I added some video tutorials to the Maya documentation for Augmented Reality. Check it out! I should be done with the Maya documentation this week. I'm slowly but surely fleshing out this website :)

http://ar.benjones.us/how-to-make-ar/maya#TOC-Animation

Lighting Sit Stand Animation

2010-03-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

Unlit scene

Lighting Study

I've got my set modeled, and the materials kind of roughed out. I also have my first pass of animation down. Now I'm going to start lighting the set so I painted a little lighting study to get a feel for how I want to light my set and character. This painting also will help with getting the materials down.

It was nice to do this painting because I just thought about colors and tone and I realized that my character needed to stand out more. The photographer's backdrop was originally much lighter, so I darkened it to make the character pop out against the background.

Update:

I was pretty excited to start lighting after I finished painting the lighting study, so I lit my scene and adjusted my materials. It's pretty close to my lighting study.

Lit Set

Skype + Windows Mobile? Yes :)

2010-03-15T16:25:00.000-07:00

This is an update to a previous post I made about Skype and Windows Mobile. I bought an LG Incite a few months ago and I've been customizing it like crazy. I installed Skype for Windows Mobile and audioRoute and Skype is working fairly well on my phone.

Skype for Windows is not longer supported by Skype (they are probably focusing on the new Windows Phone 7 Series) however you can still download it off cnet

http://download.cnet.com/Skype-for-Windows-Mobile/3000-2349_4-10319520.html

Install that CAB and then go download audioRoute

http://www.teksoftco.com/index.php?section=freeware

After you install audioRoute run the program, it may not appear like anything has happened but if you look at the top of your screen you will see a little letter "S" at the top of your screen.

Click the "S" and then click the button farthest to the left. This will make Skype use your earpiece rather than the speakerphone.

Now all you have to do is keep Skype running in the background and if you get a call your phone will ring and ask you if you want to answer the call.

The voice quality on the conversations is ok. It could be better, but its definitely usable.

Now the only problem for me is remembering to turn off and on wifi when I leave and come back to my house.

Enjoy!

3ds Max AR Documentation Finished

2010-03-12T02:04:00.000-08:00

I finished the documentation for 3ds Max for Augmented reality.

http://ar.benjones.us/how-to-make-ar/3ds-max

This page shows you how to install the DAE exporter and build your model for Papervision3d (papervision is the 3d renderer FlarManager uses). It also goes over material setup, and both transformation animation and skinned geometry animation.

Laser Scanner Update

2010-03-10T00:34:00.000-08:00

I haven't had too much time to spend playing with my laser scanner, but tonight I got side tracked and decided to mess with it. This is a single scan sped up. I did a total of 6 scans, but I need another 3 scans to get an accurate scan, but my setup won't allow me to get the angles that I need right now.

Augmented Reality Repository Website

2010-03-09T17:25:00.000-08:00

I've started to work on a website that shows people how to make augmented reality. The website shows the process and proper setup for 3D models in 3ds Max, Maya and Sketchup. I'm also adding information about Papervision3d and Actionscript to the website so that people can build upon just displaying a 3d model on top of a tracker. The website is still under construction, but I'm working on fleshing it out some more.

Check it out!
ar.benjones.us

Augmented Reality + PowerPoint

2010-03-04T21:29:00.000-08:00

I've been playing with Augmented Reality and I remembered that last summer during my internship, one of my coworkers was giving a presentation and wanted to use AR in it.

I told him to open the augmented reality first, and then open up the power point and start the power point and then to alt+tab to the AR when he wanted to show that.

But it would be better to just stay inside of the power point. So I figured out how to add AR to a power point.

Z Sorting Issues Solved in AR!!

2010-03-04T01:04:00.000-08:00

Notice the weird triangles on the flattened box. This is Bad Z Sorting.

This is the same box with the QuadrantRenderEngine, notice the perfect Z sorting on the box.

I figured out how to fix the Z-Sorting issues in the AR i made. I was learning more Papervision3d today and I was browsing through the documentation and stumbled across this:

http://papervision3d.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/as3/trunk/docs/org/papervision3d/render/QuadrantRenderEngine.html

I did some more googling and found this guy: http://blog.zupko.info/?p=177

He has an awesome little demo showing the QuadrantRenderEngine here: http://lab.zupko.info/quadtree/

So I did some editing to the code for my augmented reality and fixed the mangled intersecting faces of my models.

More Augmented Reality :)

2010-03-02T23:46:00.000-08:00

I made this little augmented reality box for a friend. She is doing a paper on augmented reality so I made her a little sample to present to her class. The tracker is the same one that is on my business card, but I also included a pdf of the tracker encase you don't have my business card.
http://www.benjones.us/ar2/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgmkUMk2cC8

Laser Scanner!!!!

2010-02-28T19:04:00.000-08:00

I got my laser scanner working really well last night. I reprinted the calibration pattern. I plan on making a bigger pattern, but this one will do for now. I wish I could talk about this more, but I have to finish up some homework. Here are some screenshots I took around 6 this morning.

I didn't do a enough scans to go completely around model but you get the picture. I'm really excited about this. Once I get this process nailed down I'll talk about it some more, but I really must get back to homework. I can't wait for Spring Break!!!

Wax Model 1 (update)

2010-02-21T00:48:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to post an update on one of the models I made out of wax. I remade the model in ZBrush. I wanted to scan it using my laser scanner, but I need to make a couple of adjustments to my laser scanner to get better scans (its working right now, but it could work better).

I'm just exploring different work flows and seeing if I like them.

So here is imp model I've been working on.

I changed the upper body a little bit. Now he has some shoulders which will help a ton with animating him.

Google Sites Presentation

2010-02-17T13:35:00.000-08:00

Today I gave a presentation to the Liberal Arts Faculty on how to use Google Sites. They were really interested in adopting Google sites to help manage their classes. Currently most of the faculty use Sakai, which lets the faculty easily upload files, and assignments and distribute them to students. The problem is that Sakai is very unintuitive for students to use and most students don't even use it because the user experience is lacking so much.

Google sites are actual websites, rather than just a space to upload files to. The layout and navigation on Google Sites are incredibly user friendly and you don't have to spend much time sifting through pages to find what you are looking for.

The tools to make a Google Site are simple. I've been working with a "less than tech-savy older" art history professor and she picked up how to use Google sites in only an hour.

I made a little handout for the presentation today. They are specific to the Ringling College of Art and Design, but they should work just fine for the more general tasks.

Have fun with Google Sites!!!

Animation Exercises

2010-02-08T17:06:00.000-08:00

I finished animating a set of exercises using Arty (he's a rig that we were given by Ringling). Animating Arty was hands down the most fun I've had animating anything. I've never really used a good rig to animate and man it was a huge difference from past animations. I added the animation to youtube. I'm working on embedding it in my portfolio section.

In my portfolio I'm using this free flash application called AutoViewer (http://www.simpleviewer.net/products/) to show pictures of my artwork, but I want to show a video. AutoViewer really isn't set up to take in videos, but I've been hacking it a bit. You can make it load an swf, so I'm going to set up a flash video player to play movies I make in AutoViewer. I've gotten it to load a video, but it just loops right now. I want people to be able to scrub through the timeline.

(enjoy the surf rock)

Update:
I realized that my animations were playing a bit fast in my flash gallery. It was brought to my attention by one of my classmates. The flash gallery that I use, Simple Viewer, is playing the video at 30 fps, my animations are all 24 fps. So.... I think I'll just upload a still frame from the animation to the gallery and add a link to the picture that makes a pop up with a Quicktime movie in it. In the future I might buy a licence for the source code for simple viewer.

555 Timer

2010-01-28T15:50:00.001-08:00

Hey I've been working on making a 555 timer circuit and I got it working last night.

Eventually I'm going to use this circuit to make a speed controller for an electric powered bicycle.

Wax Model 2 (and a clay model)

2010-01-20T12:51:00.000-08:00

The wax sculpture is an otter and the clay one is a wolf.

I sculpted a wolf out of clay last night. I'm not a big fan of clay, but I never really gave clay a fair shot. So I spent a solid 2 and a half hours trying to sculpt a wolf biped character for my computer animation class. I'm not too happy with my results. Wax is better medium to sculpt in than clay (in my opinion).

Clay has two states, cold clay, and warm clay. When clay is cold its hard to manipulate with your hands, but you can carve into it. When clay is warm its really easy to mold the clay with your hands, and it will carve as well. One of the annoying things about clay is it likes to stick to your tools. This causes the surface of the sculpture to be pulled along with the tool when you carve into it. Clay takes a long time to cool down which is a problem if the sculpture fall over and smashes it's face on the table. Any bump or hard touch leaves an impression on the surface.

Wax has four states, liquid, cold wax, warm wax, and a state between liquid and warm wax. Wax melts really nicely with a heat gun and smooths the surface of the model. Wax is extremely mold-able and it cools down at a nice rate. The sculpture is very solid when its cooled down. I just find working with wax to be a much more flexible and enjoyable experience.

Wax Model 1

2010-01-18T21:24:00.000-08:00

My lasers have arrived in the mail so I can build my 3D Laser Scanner. I bought two flat laser line modules off Ebay. I only need one, but it was cheaper to buy two from China than one from the United States. I'm going to use my webcam and David Laserscanner 3D to scan in objects from the real world into 3D models on my computer.

I'm experiementing with a different workflow. If I sculpt something out of wax, scan it, and then optimize it, will it be faster and more effective than just sculpting it in ZBrush or in Maya, or 3DS Max?

I finished sculpting a little imp guy out of wax. He's pretty cute. I gave him some sweet pants. I'll post an update once I get the scanner working :)

Touch Screen Kiosk Application

2010-01-13T22:59:00.001-08:00

I just wanted to post a video of the touch screen kiosk application I made.

Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QI_Ictx1mU

Polar Bear Game Model (Update 2)

2010-01-09T23:53:00.000-08:00

I finished sculpting the high poly polar bear model in Zbrush the other day. I had an issue with mirroring on the hand, but I decided to just move on because I really only needed one good side (symmetry would fix it later). I sculpted the polar bear from start to finish inside of Zbrush using a ZSphere armature and then using ZSketch to flesh out the muscles. I unified the mesh and defined the skin. I used both human and polar bear reference.

After I made the high resolution mesh I redid the topology to make the model suitable for video games. The tri count is a little less than 3000. Now all I have to do is UV and texture him and he'll be ready for rigging.

Windows Mobile + Skype?

2010-01-01T20:31:00.000-08:00

I've been looking online for a phone to replace my Nokia 1208 Prepaid Phone on the T-Mobile network. I was first just considering getting another super cheap phone, but then I heard about Skype Lite.

http://www.skype.com/download/skype/skypelite/

Skype Lite works on a who bunch of Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, and LG phones.

Its basically a Skype App that uses either your data plan, or a wifi connection to make a call. I was really interested in using a regular cell phone to make Skype calls over Wifi as well as regular cell phone calls using my T-Mobile Prepaid Sim.

So I went down through the list of phones and did a search for each one on Google Shopping and made a new list of the ones that were in my price range ($200 at the absolute max). I went back to each phone I wrote down and checked each one to see if they had wifi capabilities. Sadly the only phone that could connect to wifi was the G1. I like the G1, its a great phone, but I really didn't want to spend $300+ on an unlocked phone. I was really excited when I found one for $79.00, but then I figured out that it was a G1 Clone. So then I saw on the side of the Skype Lite page Skype for Windows Mobile.

http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windowsmobile/

I have heard about Windows Mobile in the past, but I haven't really met anyone who actually had one, (or someone that shoved the phone in your face saying that they had an App for that). I started looking at different windows mobile phones and found some that were in my price range and looked pretty fancy. I picked one that I really liked. I chose the LG Incite CT810. I plan on buying a refurbished one in very good condition for a little more than 100 dollars.

I did some more reading on Skype for Windows Mobile and I found out something kind of annoying. Skype's Windows Mobile App uses your phones "speaker phone" speaker and not the ear piece speaker. So any conversation you have would be heard by everyone in room. It isn't Skype's fault though. They would liked to have the sound come out the ear piece, but the windows mobile phone manufacturers haven't released the code for it.

After I read about that I was a little let down, but I read a little more and found out that the sound will work fine if you use a plugged in headset or a bluetooth headset. I didn't really like that solution, but I started to think up how I would make an adapter to clip onto the top of the phone.

http://www.teksoftco.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1995&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I did some more reading and googling and found out that someone had made a little hack to get it to work. The program is called AudioRoute and it takes the sound that would be going out of the loudspeaker and sends it to the ear piece. I don't know why Skype didn't integrate this little work around into the Skype for Windows, but AudioRoute should work just fine (I hope). AudioRoute was pretty much made just for Skype and Fring and other forms of VoIP for Windows Mobile.

I plan on selling my Belkin Wifi Phone, they are seem to be going for 90-100 dollars on ebay so that should help with the cost of this phone.

So why am I going to go through all of this? Well, I can condense my two phones (and maybe even my ipod) into one device. I'll even have a GPS built in for an added bonus (I'll have to download all of the maps and store them on a microsd card while I'm in Wifi).

I'm not going to be using any data (because I'm using a prepaid sim) so I'll have to install a program like this one to disable EDGE and 3G usage: http://www.myblackjack2.com/applications/utilities/modaco-no-data/

But after all of this trouble I'll end up with a pretty sweet phone, with the power of unlimited calling with Skype and the coverage of T-Mobile when I'm outside of Wifi.

Skype, Prepaid Phones, and My Experiences with Communication

2010-01-01T19:37:00.000-08:00

I've been interested in VoIP for the past 6 years or so and I've always been a big fan of Skype. Last year when I flew down to Florida for I gave my mom's cell phone back to her and rather than pick up my own cell phone with a two year contract I decided to try something. I bought a one year SkypeOut and SkypeIn subscription for $60.

It was nice to know that I could talk to anyone for as long as I wanted and I didn't have to worry about minutes. I'm not a big talker but at the time I had a girlfriend and it was handy.

I ended up buying a Belkin Skype Phone to make phone calls more convenient. The phone worked pretty well, but I realized that I couldn't put it on the college's wireless network because the college required a web interface and the Belkin didn't have web browsing.

I was considering returning it, but then I had an idea. I went into the settings on the Belkin Phone and I found it's MAC address. I wrote down the address and turned off the phone and pulled out my laptop. In the network adapter properties of my laptop I changed the mac address to be the same as my wifi phone.

So the college's wireless network thought that my laptop was my wifi phone. I went through the web authentication on my laptop and then disconnected from the wireless and reset my laptop's MAC address.

When I turned my Belkin Wifi Phone back on it connected to the wireless network with no problems :)

The Wifi Phone was nice and it met my needs as long as I was in range of a wireless network. But that was the problem, I found that I needed a phone the most when I was outside of Wifi.

So last spring I caved and bought a Prepaid T-Mobile phone. I bought the cheapest one and I have done a pretty good job managing my minutes. If it's not an important call I just tell them that I'll call them back later.

So now I had two phones (and still do) to carry around. I had the awesome unlimited calling capabilities of Skype and I had coverage outside of wifi with my prepaid phone.

I was really excited when I got a Google Voice number because I could just give people one number and it would ring both the prepaid phone and the wifi phone. I also set up my SkypeIn number to forward to my prepaid number after it rang for 10 seconds. This way people who call my wifi phone number will still reach me if I'm outside of wifi.

I know that this setup is kind of confusing, and most people don't really get it. But, I've saved a good deal of money and it's worked fairly well for me. I've only spent around 100 dollars on my prepaid phone and I've spent about 220 dollars on Skype over two years (including the purchase of the wifi phone). If I had signed up for a traditional 2 year contract I would be paying 40 dollars a month. $40 x 24 months = $960. so if you do $960 - $320 = $640 you get how much money I've saved by using Skype.

I have had some issues though. The Belkin phone likes to randomly disconnect even when it's sitting right in front of a wireless router. This usually doesn't happen too often and it will reconnect right after it disconnects but if your in the middle of a call it can be annoying. Also my screen on my Nokia 1208 Prepaid Phone has recently stopped working. It'll work for a few minutes after I've let it charge for the night with the cell phone turned off, but after that it'll turn into a dark blue color.

*Phew* that was a bunch of information, but now your up to speed on my experiences with communication :)

FLARManager

2010-01-01T19:23:00.000-08:00

I've just started to read Independent Consulting. It's a book on starting your own business. I'm working on putting together a proposal for a project using augmented reality.

I've also drafted an email to ARToolworks to find out what the licensing fee will be to implement a commercial augmented reality solution.

New Years Resolution 2010

2009-12-31T00:07:00.000-08:00

So I decided what my new years resolution will be. I'm going to flesh out this blog. I've been pretty busy and just haven't made time to upload my artwork.

I've finished part one of a two part project for the Department of Marine Resources. I've been contracted to build a flash based touch screen kiosk. What I've built is a set of flash templates that pull all of their content from XML files. Right now I just have some fake content being loaded in. I'll post some screenshots. (all of these images will be replaced, I just put temporary images in it for now)

I'll see you next year!

-Ben Jones

Hello World!

2008-10-12T18:04:00.000-07:00

Hello, this marks the start of my art blog. I plan on uploading pictures and videos of all of my artwork that I do here at the Ringling College of Art and Design.