Beowulf

Beowulf is probably the first mainstream CGI film made solely for adults. They use the R rating to include copious amounts of gore and nudity. I'm not really sure what I think of the movie. I'm certain it isn't a great movie, but it is a stepping stone for others, and should be looked at carefully.

I'm fairly certain that the intention of the filmmakers was to recreate human figures in computer graphics to the highest degree possible, except of course they were held back by technological and financial limitation. This film showed a wide variety of quality levels, all depending on different factors.

Most objects in the people that were made of metal looked extremely realistic: crowns, spears, swords. Except of course some of them looked too perfect, and again did not fit in.

The character models for the most part looked pretty good. The old king in the movie was especially good, with great facial details. Some of the woman however certainly did not look very good. They lacked a feminine quality which I suspect was the result of trying to build a woman from a male model that had already been built. There are certain details which I suspect were overlooked, such as the fact that womans joints generally can hyper extend more than men's based on the formation of the bones.

In terms of facial animation, most of it was very stiff, which is most likely caused by the insensitivity of the motion capture system that was used. These systems have become much more powerful even in the last few years, so this issue may soon be a thing of the past. The only way they may have overcome this would have been through the work of skilled animators, but skilled animators are expensive.

The other sore point of animation was the hands. The biggest culprit was the hands of many of the background characters, they often would have completely stiff hands that wouldn't move throughout a scene. This lack of quality creeped into the main characters as well in certain scenes.

Another technical limitation was the clothing simulations that were used. While they did look like cloth, they didn't have the necessary resolution in the simulations to form any realistic looking wrinkles. This resulted in very boring looking clothing that was completely unrealistic.

The most successful character in the film was probably Grendel. I really cannot imagine a more horrible creature ever created for film. There were so many layers to his grotesque anatomy. I could barely even comprehend how the modelers would go about creating such a character.

The camera in the film was a little bit weird. Because they have complete freedom of the camera movement, they often used it to it's fullest, but in doing so made many scenes in the film appear more fake. Some particularly fast camera pans made me flinch with how awkward they seemed.

One less noticeable failure of the movie was the foley. Foley is the practice of making sound effects for a movie. It simply was not well done in this film. It was not convincing.

I guess the main point that I can draw from this film is the importance of consistency. Some parts of this movie were extremely well done, other parts pulled those down into the realm of lame 3d animation. I am however excited that such a film can open doors for more films to come. I'm enrolled in 3d animation course this year, so I hopefully have my own work to show.

Kyler

Cemetery

I went for a walk today up Mont-Royal, through the cemetery behind it, and over to l'Oratoire Saint-Joseph. I was caught off guard by the thoughts I ended up having when I got to the cemetery.

I had assumed the cemetery would be a tranquil place. I thought I would have interesting thoughts there. I was however overwhelmed with thoughts that all raged around a single theme: it's sheer uselessness and extravagance.

The first issue is the size of the cemetery. It is easily bigger than the actual Mont-Royal park. Row upon row of headstones and monuments scatter the land. It is a beautiful park with majestic trees and filled with the sounds of insects and birds.

In spite of beauty all I can see there is row upon row of dead persons egos attempting to use up space in the world. The more money they had at death, the more space they take up now. It was easy to see that thousands of dollars had been spent on each and every headstone, meaning that millions of dollars of work were lining the area. But it is a futile attempt at attention. There is such a cacophony of headstone that there no rest, they all beg to be seen, but together they negate each others purpose.

And than I think of the value of the land. While I wouldn't suggest building on the land, I would hope it could be put to a more redeeming purpose. The whole enterprise seems like a horrible trick to take the money of those who die by renting them out a little plot of land.

In a world with six billion people, it would be insane to allow everyone such a luxury as to be buried. It feels like a last, selfish act which serves no one any purpose. What finally makes me most frustrated about the cemetery is that it is protect by the mystical forces of being "sacred" land. Any attempt to get rid of them will be thwarted.

The living should have precedence over the dead. Be thoughtful when you die. Donate your body to those who can use it. Donate your money to a worthy cause. If you want yourself to live on past your life, allow your work to live on. Allow your children to live on. Allow your influence to live on. But whatever you do, don't leave the world with another useless plot of land and another headstone.

Kyler

P.S. I wish not to anger the living who use the cemetery as a place for remembrance and to grieve. These are definite needs that need to be filled, but I don't think cemeteries need to be the only option. A creative mind can think up thousands of more personal and effective alternatives.

New Design

I finally just had to sort of mash a new blog design together. I find blogger extremely confusing to start from scratch, so I had to just mess with a template until I got what I wanted.

I am still going to be working on it in the future, but I hope it works for now.

My intentions are first of all to make my blog easier to read. I'm trying to make the text as legible as possible by making it black on white, with an easy to read font that is fairly large.

I've gotten rid of all of the extraneous design because I didn't make it. I dislike having had used a template that had someone else's aesthetic in it. So I'm starting from scratch.

This new template of extreme simplicity also represents how I like to type on the computer. I use a full screen text editor that actually looks a lot like how the blog looks now.

And finally I wanted to make sure the posts were central to my design. The title of the newest post is now at the top, and the blog title has been put to the side.

Any comments about the design will be useful as I am still working on it. Does it work in your browser? Does it work with your screen size? Is it actually easier to read?



Kyler

Love is not Chess

After my varied experience with girls and relationships, I think I have been able to distill all of my thinking and knowledge into one fairly simple bit of understanding:

Love is not chess.

You can’t use logic to win at love. You can’t use a strategy to win at love. You can’t play a few steps ahead. You can’t predict what is going to happen. Never let yourself fall into any habits that you might associate with playing chess and you will do better with relationships and love.

I suspect that this advice might have little meaning if you don’t play much chess, or simply if you have a different outlook on things than me. It has to do with how your mind works, everyone’s will be different.

So I guess you will have to figure out your own strategy (except of course I mean the strategy is actually to relinquish all strategy).

Kyler

Summerhill Apartment

I tidied up the apartment and took a whole bunch of photos and than fed those into the computer and here is a photosynth of our apartment. Works on both Mac and Windows now.



You can actually travel between all of the rooms and look out the windows. It's a little bit annoying to move around, and I took a lot of pictures to ensure that it would work more accurately. Please enjoy.

Kyler

Video Game Asthetics

After having watched a very interesting video about video game physics, I’ve been hit with a deeper understanding of the video game aesthetic. When I speak of aesthetics I’m talking about what is particular about an art form. What makes a movie a movie? What makes it different than a book? What an a movie do that other arts can’t? When I speak of video game aesthetics it means I am asking similar questions about it.

In many video games, skill is a very important factor. This is fairly apparent in many racing games, where how you drive is the focal point of the game. It was amazing to see in the video how very mathematical this can become. The physicist in the video explain how the cars slipping physics is able to be explain by a complex 3d curvature of space, and it is the players ability to stay within some of the limits of this 3d shape that will help them drive well to maximize there speed.

Now after seeing the 3d curve, it seems rather simple, but the fact is that video games require the user to infer the system that is behind the game. By playing the game, the player is creating a model of the game in there head which they then use to win the game. A skilled player will make a highly detailed model, and thus they will be better at the game.

I find this interaction between player and game to be central to my understanding of video game aesthetics. Video games are really about figuring out the system behind what you see and than being able to take advantage of it.

What comes after this system is the fact that a player needs to be motivated to learn the system. Are you going to lure them in with points, high score, story, exploration, adventure, human competition. Is there some underlying truth to the background system that is actually valuable enough to be a motivation? Perhaps a driving simulation is so effective that you actually learn to drive from it?

A game is truly effective when it has both it’s hidden system and motivation well worked out. If the system is not fully fleshed out, and not complex enough, there is no interest in it. If there is no motivation to learn the system, no one ever will.

I’m sure Mory will probably have a response to this. I feel like I might be reiterating things I said before, but I feel I am being a little bit more precise with what I am saying.

Kyler

In Montreal

Well I have been in Montreal for almost two weeks now. Most of that time has consisted of outfitting the apartment which I have moved in to. I don't really want to post pictures until we actually finish setting everything up. I'm still trying to find some couches for the living room. After that, I will be pretty much satisfied.

I have also been starting to warm up my brain for school. Reading books, doing math, drawing, looking over old stuff. I'm fairly certain that this will be one of the years that I work the most in school. I'm excited for every class.

To comment on living in the city, my favorite part about it is that I can leave home on foot and get everything I could possibly need without the use of a car. It is incredible that I have at the very least, 4 grocery stores which I would consider in walking distance.

I'm living with my friend Stuart, and as far as roommate situations, I don't think it could be any better. We are both fairly inexperienced when it comes to living alone, and I feel completely comfortable experimenting with things. Take for instance my first week here, I sleep on the floor on some blankets and a jackets. It may not have been very comfortable, but it wasn't that bad. I'm happy to know that really, beds are a luxury that I wouldn't want to live without. It feels like I am starting to develop a better first hand knowledge of what it means to live.

The other great thing about living with Stuart is that there is a never ending stream of games we play. It started last year with chess, but has moved through many different games. Some boards games, some video games. There is competition, but we also play somethings cooperatively, and it becomes more an exercise in improvement for both of us.

I am going to continued posting about the trip, but I will also keep up with new posts like this one.

Kyler