Another classic, raped by Hollywood and trotted out for the cookie cutter masses…

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2008/03/21/keanu-reeves-brings-different-message-with-him-in-day-the-earth-stood-still

I am ashamed of what entertainment has become…

So on a lark, Lewaine and I went to the Bass Pro Shop by Ray Hubbard (we were having dinner next door)

It’s a huge place, and full of stuffed animals and all the wonderful things rednecks love.

I did notice that there were alot of raccoons in various action poses, but this one was the best, I thought.

So Lewaine and I had our first anniversary this weekend, back at the little pub where we had our first date.

Awww, so romantic!

So I have an idea for an animated story, so last night I started the base mesh for the female characters.

My goal is to build a male and female base mesh that I can then derive all the other characters from, to keep a certain stylized look to the project.

I have patterned her loosely around a Bruce Timm designed female. I will keep posting more as the project comes along.
I will also go into how I rig and animate this character as well.

So I got a v4 character into Maya with textures and skeleton using Collada export out of Daz|Studio 2.0.

The exact sequence was to open the .pz3 file in DS, export as Collada, then I imported the Collada into Maya.
I had to download the Collada importer for Maya from here. You have to register, but it was worth it to me.

I know Feeling Software is supposed to be dropping support for the free Collada-Maya plugin, but I saw an Open Source project on SourceForge that is supposed to be handling the development of the free plugin from now on.

Only the hair on the mesh gave me some problems. I will explore this more and document it further. I know there has to be a simple setting for this that I am simply overlooking.

I also got that same character into MotionBuilder and back again.  I did have to use the FBX exporter in Maya 2008 to get the file into MotionBuilder, however.

Rock on!

I should really start charing for my Wordpress work.  I have a knack for designing blogs, but I don’t really have the time to maintain all the ones I would want to run.

and I finally got one of my goals for MasteringMaya.com accomplished tonight.   It’s a pdf of most of the hotkeys in Maya 2008.

How much do I love the NFL Network showing condensed replays of games on sundays?

I finally settled on a theme for masteringmaya.com and installed the forum software.
Now I need to configure configure configure.

So lately I have been experiencing creative overload.

See, I have this vision of starting my own production company, and I want to hire the kids to work it as they get older.
(See, I have alot of kids, and they are pretty darn creative!)

Now, I have owned my own businesses before, some pretty successful ones at that, so I am no stranger to getting started.
It’s just that there is so much to do, and I am hesitant to hand off certain elements of my projects to someone outside the family.
Call me paranoid. Well, not really paranoid in as much as its alot to do and I simply haven’t fully mapped out everything yet.

I am a firm believer in that if you can say it, that if you can visualize it, you can do it. So I guess I have a whole lot to say.
I have 3 white boards filled up with tasks to do this whole year.

Writing, drawing, painting, 3D work, compositing, audio. It’s a full plate.

I handed off HowIWow.com to my son Seth to manage.
I think it will be a good exercise in writing and learning how to customize Wordpress for him.
He will see how to setup and run a monetized blog.
I don’t expect him to get rich, but it will be a good experience.

My advice is to stop trying to learn anything and instead try to make something.