So this past Sunday Dan and I set off a bunch of explosives, hiked and scaled rocks in 100+ degree desert heat, ate mediterranean food, and fired machine guns. No, we’re not stationed in Iraq, we’re just enjoying the offerings of lovely Las Vegas. That was Dan’s joke, so if you like it, please tip generously. We also watched Nacho Libre.
Add that to Saturday evening’s wine tasting at Matt & Kari’s and later a visit to The Whisky, and that’s about as much fun and excitement I can handle in one weekend. No worries, just five days at work should get me back into shape for next weekend.
you ever get that feeling?
yeah. yeah, I do.
You know, I got your message. And the reasonable thing to do would be to have given you a call. But since there was this crazy synchonicity about it, I got caught up. You see, the very day you called and asked about that dolphin thing, I had just spent hours converting all the telepresence stuff that I had into quicktime files. Isn’t that weird? I hadn’t looked at that stuff in at least 8 years.
To answer your question, no, the splash wasn’t that great. Meaning it didn’t look “real”. But I think it worked in an artistic sense… meaning it was stylized and visually pleasing.
There were a few bits I had forgotten about. I’ll send you a DVD when I have it all compiled.
You the fuckin’ man. Did I ever tell you that? You the man.
not “real”? no, I guess it wouldn’t have. well, we’ll always have the speckle map.
Okay, I’m still gonna do the DVD, but here’s the 1994 new england emmy-nominated Telepresence Demo Reel, available for the first time online.
Specklemap! The most useful texture file ever. You remember how we created it, right?
To appreciate the reel I have to put myself back in 1994… like that flying over the dunes at the end? At the time I thought that was the coolest goddamn thing I had ever seen. It was like pure magic to me. Now it looks pretty lame. I really don’t like my bouncing head thing. But overall I still think it’s a pretty decent example of an early 90′s 3D demo reel. The subtle beauty of Die Planeten gets lost after a couple VHS generations, unfortunately. You were definitely the master, bro. Your models and surfaces were the shit.
But the best part is the memories of making all that stuff happen. Dealing with all the limitations. Figuring shit out together. Eating like monks. The trampoline. The bike ride. The near-accidental creation of the demo reel itself; tying together all our random experiments into something almost cohesive.
Yeah. What’s that you say about coming around the corner?
Yeah. It might be you.
Speckle Map Recipe:
Take one cheap vhs camcorder and one off-white wall. Point the camera at the wall in low light conditions and take a snapshot. Then put six small red potatoes cut in halves into the microwave for 10 minutes. It really is the solution to everything.
Hey, I may have made a cool model or texture in my time but that book was all you, man, and that’s the shining point of the video. You could put everything together and make it work, both conceptually and in the layout part of the program. I hated motion paths but they would bend to your will.
I actually redid the book and I think it came out better, but Paul didn’t want to include the newer version because Massachusetts didn’t pop up, and he thought that made it less interesting. He was probably right. But the pages and stuff looked much nicer in the second version.
yeah, I remember. it was much better. I don’t recall my opinion on MA popping up back then but today I think it’s pretty lame. doesn’t make sense that we zoom into a popped up MA only to view the water which didn’t pop up, (are there dolphins off the coast of MA anyways?).
Oh: that demo reel I just posted is not complete. Only an asshole like me would post that and claim it was the Telepresence demo reel. In fact, that’s just the first part of the demo reel, the part that I had something to do with.
The second part is a fine traditional animation by Scott San Giacomo and scored by David O’Malley. I’ll post that eventually when the rest of the stuff is up.