softmonkey.co.uk

Wow, its been a while

James — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:01:42 +0000

Just logged in an saw the last post date. It has been way too long!

So, just saying I am still alive and kicking. More posts to follow…

Wordpress Upgrade - Ella

James — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 16:05:35 +0000

Just updated the site to Wordpress v2.1 (Ella). Everything looks good, except for my links page. I will have to check it out a little later.

This release should speed things up, and I have taken the opportunity to reduce the time on the page fade from 1 second to 0.5 seconds. Hopefully the site will feel a bit more sprightly all round.

Another small change to the theme has been the default font size. Before it was 10px, which was fine on most operating systems, but since I have been using linux at work I have found it a little small. The new font size is now 11px, but these changes haven’t been propagated to the other options. I’ll get around to this after fixing my links page.

We’ve got Death Star

James — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:54:31 +0000

Yey for me!

My lovely girlfriend splashed out this Valentine’s Day at The Animation Art Gallery, and now We’ve Got Death Star. Or to be more precise, a great limited edition print of the Death Star in a “That’s no moon” pose.

The Furry Invader

James — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 22:38:01 +0000

On the weekend Julia caught our tormentor alive - a small female mouse. Being a hamster lover we decided to put the mouse in a small container with some bedding, food and water. Here are some photos…

A little jumpy at first, the mouse soon calmed down, ate some food and went to sleep. It was a happy mouse for a few days… Returning from a day in London, we decided to think of a name for the mouse. We came up with Euclid, after the Greek mathematician, known for his work in the field of Geometry.

Unfortunately, when walking through the door 2 minutes later, we found Euclid dead. As Gandalf says “Breathe the free air again, my friend.”

Euclid, RIP 2007-2007

Snow at 5AM

James — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 06:05:50 +0000

Its snowing!!!

(Yes, I should be at home in bed.)

New CGI section

James — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 10:29:14 +0000

With my new job, I’ve decided to add a Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) section to the web site. This aim is to make a little section to show off some of the work I have been a part of.

For now, all of this is a placeholder, so that I am spurred into action. I am thinking the finished article will be along the lines of the Photos section.

Stay tuned…

Farewell Softimage… Hello The Mill

James — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:10:29 +0000

Well this is going well, isn’t it? My post rate has dropped right off over the holidays, but with a new year comes a new start. Here’s the latest news.

First of all, I have changed jobs. Having worked at AVID Softimage for a number of years I decided to move into production. So at the begining of January I started at The Mill. It’s a great change, best of all I am actually getting to use XSI daily without the need to talk about what I am doing as I used to in demos.

So a big “THANKS” to everyone at Softimage over the years, and “Hi” to the guys and girls at The Mill.

Bring on 2007 (and cake).

Back from Venice

James — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 18:38:31 +0000

We got back from Venice yesterday, after a few days walking around the city.

A strange trip, lots of great buildings and okay weather - but the food was awful. Being half-Italian, I was shocked. It wasn’t cheap either.

Enough complaining, here are the photos…

You can see the photos a little larger under the photos page.

Creating materials for Behavior Actors

James — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 20:18:00 +0000

Here are some instructions for using materials created in XSI for Behavior simulations, in order to make the viewer content better looking for movie or image capture.

My 360 is alive

James — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:43:37 +0000

Hear ye! Hear ye!

My 360 came back! Which is great, so I can dig into COD3, Table Tennis and MotoGP. And I picked up my vision cam as well - which like all 360 accessories came in packaging that took a knife and a good 10 minutes to open. Why do they do this?

Hopefully I’ll get my Gears on at the weekend.