Trip to Kelowna

Well after just about a week here is my write up for my trip to Kelowna.

Monday, March 27 2006

I got to the Greyhound bus station at around 6:30 because the bus was supposed to leave at 7:15. Kate was already there with her dad and we were able to get our tickets with no trouble. A little later, which actually was quite late, Jasmine arrived. We got on the bus and started our trip. We got to Canmore, which is about an hour out of Calgary, and Brigitte was waiting for the bus there. She got on and we were all in for the long bus ride.

I had brought some headphone splitters and had downloaded about 5 minutes before leaving an entire podcast audiobook, "The Curious Education Of Epitome Quirkstandard". I started listening to this audio book with Brigitte and it ended up being some of the best British audiobook that I have heard, right after Douglas Adams and the Hitch Hikers guide to the galaxy. The jist of the story is that a man names Epitome, who is rich in 1917, has had all of his servants leave to fight in the war. He is left helpless at home and must learn everything about leading a normal life. I highly recommend this to anyone going on a long trip because it is 26 episodes long, 45 minutes average each. This gave me alot of listening material for the whole trip.

So continuing on with the bus trip. We continued on the same bus till Salmon Arm where we boarded a much less crowded bus and had as many seats as we wanted. This leg of the journey is fairly short and by then my ears where hurting from wearing earbuds for so long. We finally arrived in Kelowna 10 hours after departing from Calgary.

We quickly got a taxi and made our way to the Samesun Hostel. Where we stayed. We had to wait to check in for a little while so we played a few games of foosball on one of the nices tables I have ever seen in the hostel lobby. We got our rooms, me in a single private room with a semi-private bathroom, and Kate, Jasmine and Brigitte in an 8 person dorm room. We then went to Safeway to get some food. Four people shopping takes quite a while because none of us had a clear idea of what we should get our how much food we needed. We got back to the hostel with a good amount of food and made some pasta for supper. Thanks to Kates cooking skills, we didn't starve our get food poisoning.

We then went to bed. I found out that night why hostels are cheap. It is because the buildings are pretty cheap. Everything is fairly well bit, but not really. I had a fairly bad sleep that night due to the ever present cars and trucks on the road outside. And the rowdy teens who came in at 2 in the morning didn't help at all. I learned my lesson that night and would figure out how to get a better sleep the next day.

Tuesday March 28, 2006

This was the first day of the multimedia camp at the Center for Art and Technology. We all got up pretty early due to the sleeping conditions in the hostel and had breakfast. We took a bus and walked some of the way to the Art School. Once we got there, we realized how big the school actually was. It was located in a new tech district in Kelowna, meaning 3 large glass buildings. It ended up that the art school was only 2 half floors of one of these buildings, a little bit smaller than we had anticipated.

We all sign up and went to an introductions assembly in the sound stage they have. We listened to all of the instructors and organizors talk about the school and the medias and the industry. All of this was pretty interesting. One of the 3d teachers asked a question about 3d graphics. He asked whate the effect was called when you can see the light from a flashlight through your hand. I was the biggest graphics nerd in 150 people, so I knew the answer. Subsurface scattering. He was impressed someone actually knew it. He then went on talking about the PS3 and the cell processor. He asked why the cell processor was good, an answer I thought I knew, and still think I know, but he had some other weird answer about a processor sharing thing between different people PS3s. I think he had some misinformation or something.

Some other cool stuff I heard about in the assembly was about new HD cameras that are under 5000 dollars that can look as good as film cameras, a big step forward for anyone in the independant film area. Also, the music teacher talked about the future of mp3s being dynamicaly generated songs that change everytime you hear them. I had thought about this before and am happy someone else is too.

We then had some lunch and took group photos and it was off to the actual classes we were taking. I was taking 3d dynamic simulation, and the girls were in a 2d animation class. In my class that day, we were introduced to the new 3d software and did some little pratice stuff. I was happy to see how well the instructor knew the software and the quality of the instruction. He is probably the first teacher I have had in 3d that has more knowledge then me.

It was soon time to go back to the hostel. We made some really easy supper. Mine came from a can and we hung out for the rest of the night. Drinking tea and talking till bedtime became a nightly tradition. That night, I'm pretty sure Jazz, Brigitte and Kate designed the characters that they would start to animate the next day.

That night, my nose was a bit stuffy, so I took a decongestant (or antihistamin) which made me sleepy and I had a much better sleep.

Wednesday March 29, 2006

Again we went to the school, in almost the same way, missing a bus or something, and we had to walk.

My class was pretty easy. We learnt some basic animation stuff and how to use the physics simulation stuff. I got to play around alot more with the 3d program and started to set up the final scene I would create.

In the 2D animation course, I'm pretty sure they did that metamorphise between all of the different characters so that in the end, all of the animation could be put into one continuous loop.

After class that day, we went to Boston Pizza for supper. We went back to the hostel and watched 4 episodes of family guy because one of us had brought it on DvD.

Thursday March 30, 2006

On this day we did alot more work in the 3d animation class. I got my main animation done and really started just to play with the physic in the program. I made all sort of simulation. And everytime I always double or tripled the size of each of my simulations until they were overly computer intensive. I made a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't save that was pretty cool.

After class that day, we went to safe way again to get more food. At the same time the Jazz, Brigitte and Kate wanted to get their animation teacher, Jeff, a goofy present. They ended up deciding, after about 30 minutes of discussion, on a chocolate shrek, a easter balloon and a bottle of scope, just because they saw it.

We made steak wrap things and watched the Matrix that day. I finally figured out how the matrix makes lots of sense. Let's assume that the computers in the Matrix are prgramed with Asimovs laws of robotics, mainly that they must keep humans safe. This law lead to the robots controlling the humans, as in Irobot. Now lets assume that the computers thought that the best way to keep humans is in pods. Now the whole movie makes sense. The energy thing that is explained in the movie doesn't really make sense if you know anything about thermodynamics (they also say they use fusion, so energy really shouldn't be a problem for the robots).

More tea, more very interesting conversations.

Friday March 31, 2006

On this final day of classes I got to do some really fun stuff.

My teacher (whose name is Fransico by the way) gave everybody who had finished their 3d simulation the job of drawing each other in poses. So a bunch of use went to a drawing room and took turns posing and drawing. We then were given a very well rigged 3d character to position in the same poses that we had drawn. I found this very enjoyable because it is pretty much character animation which is alot of fun. Especially with such a well built character.

Fransisco also should me some of the other characters that he had. They have so many controls compared to anything that I have ever used that it is almost daunting.

I also showed Fransisco my movie from film fest last year, Enrikey, and I think he thought it was pretty good. The animation is a bit stiff in that, which he commented on, but overall, he did think it was good.

After everybody was done all of their simulations, we all got to watch all of them and vote on which were our favorites. Lots of them were longer, and fairly complicated domino simulations and got more votes than mine. Mine is alot different then all of the other ones. I will post it very soon, once google video approves it for viewing.

After that, we got to go see all of the other groups work. I was very impressed by the music and folly groups. All the stuff they did was really professional and well done. The video composition was less interesting, as was the video editing.

The animation done by the animation group was really cool. It was lots of work but all of the different character formed a really cool looping video. I will try to get a copy onto the net if I can.l

The last day was really good getting to see all of the cool stuff that had been created.

After everybody had left, we stayed at the school for a little bit longer helping Jeff add some more audio to the 2d animation and talking to the teachers. We also got some directions to the movie theater.

We walked to a Moxies for supper and had some good food. I was feeling a bit sick by then, but I had some good cold medicine and I wasn't going to be stopped from having fun.

We then made our way to the Theater where we saw the movie V for Vendetta. This is one of the best movies that I have seen in a long time and recommend it to everybody. It is a must-see. Everything about it is great.

After the movie we had a good adventure getting back to the hostel accross the city at 10:00 at night. First we didn't know where the bus stops were, or when the bus came. But we found a whole bunch of stops and people and figured out our way home. I will post some more interesting stories in more detail when I have time. This bus trips will be one of those stories.

Saturday April 1, 2006

It was time to go home, so we got ready to leave, called a cab and made our way to the bus station. Nothing overly interesting happened, except for the hostel was now much more populated by foreign tourists, which thankfully hadn't been there all week (it would have been pretty crowded).

The bus trip home was good. We had double seats the whole way and had alot of fun on the whole trip.



That was pretty much the whole trip. I will need to add more links and details in some more posts. And be ready for a giant load of pictures. All in all, it was probably my best springbreak ever.

Kyler