ModoPhotoBlog

This is a photo from Burbank of the aftermath of the alien attack on Pismo Beach. Pismo is over 100 miles away. These giant smoke clouds were that big!

From August 2009

I made a bench

2010-02-03T16:25:00.000-08:00

From August 2009

Hawaii Pics

2010-02-02T23:47:00.000-08:00

Please refer to my post from august 2nd. It's got the link to the hawaii photos.

Getty Villa Trip

2010-02-01T17:28:00.000-08:00

This past July I got to visit the Getty Villa in Malibu with Alexa, Erin, and Dug!

From July 2009

All right, let's get the people shots outta the way first...

From July 2009

On to the Ancient Stuff:

From July 2009

And now a sampling from our fine selection of architecture:

From July 2009

4th of July Hike

2010-02-01T17:20:00.000-08:00

Janelle came up to Burbank to visit!

From July 2009

After quickly assuming it was a 4th of July Terrorist Attack, we realized that there was a squardon of old planes flying in formation and doing smoke designs in the sky over Glendale.

From July 2009

Sorry for the Candy, but I love me up some Circular Pola!

From July 2009

Handsome Grant

2010-02-01T11:17:00.000-08:00

From July2009

Parson's Landing

2010-02-01T10:58:00.000-08:00

Look who came!

From Parson's Landing

We hiked from Two Harbors to Parson's Landing campground out on Catalina Island.

From Parson's Landing

The trek was harder than we expected. We came in later than we thought we would. Most of us jumped right in to the water a just floated for a while. That night we eat meat, potatoes, carrots!

The next morning:

From Parson's Landing

Then we started the long hike back.

From Parson's Landing

I saw some pirates!

From Parson's Landing

We made it back to Two Harbors right as it became hot.

From Parson's Landing

Storage Space and the Cloud

2010-02-01T10:52:00.001-08:00

The Cloud is coming! It's already here!!! RUN!! :)

So I think the last set of photos I uploaded to the web we're from last May! Yikes. The second half of 2009 has been pretty busy not to mention that I ran out of storage space at picasaweb. So I decided to upgrade my google storage. 5 bucks a year ain't bad for 20GBs. I've got a lot of photos from 2009 to upload.

I had a lot of adventures in 2009, I'll be posting some new photos in the next several weeks.

Still busy, busy, busy....

2009-11-02T11:00:00.000-08:00

I guess this hasn't been the year for photography and blogging. I'm still working away though. Let's see if I can get a few samples up of my most recent projects, in the coming days.

19,457 so far...

2009-08-11T14:54:00.000-07:00

I'm organizing my photography work from the last 3 years, and found I have around 20, 000 photos to manage!!!

Hawaii Pictures

2009-08-02T02:44:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody,

I've been in Hawaii these past two weeks and will be leaving soon. In the mean time, check out the pictures I've been taking along with the pictures from Alexa and my parents.

All of our pictures are in one place on the web: hawaii.erichann.com

It's not complete, I'm still adding more each day, but it's got today's panoramas already loaded!

Enjoy!

Everything Looks Better with a Lens Flare

2009-07-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

Give in to your inner Lens Flare!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

2009-06-29T11:11:00.001-07:00

What's that you say, you don't like my lack of posting. Well, us here at ModoPhotoBlog at working to change all that. Keep an eye out for more posts coming soon.

In the mean time here's some links to the sites I've worked on over the last 6 months.

Sony Pictures Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
http://trytostumpthemonkey.com/

3 Days of Peace and Music
http://www.youtube.com/user/SuzieDoesWoodstock

20Q at Game Show Network
http://www.gsn.com/cgi/free/index.pl?game_id=57

Get Obsessed with Ali
http://www.getobsessedwithali.com/

Ultimate Frisbee Sundays!

2009-04-20T09:30:00.001-07:00

Here's some shots from a the Ultimate Frisbee game Noble and I went too on Sunday. I sure am sore today, but I'm looking forward to next weekend's game. I only made it thru 2 of the 4 games that morning, but while I caught my breath I tried to grab a few good shots.

From Ultimate Frizbee

Groove Shark

2009-03-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

It's worth checking out.

listen.grooveshark.com

Type in a any song name or artist and start listening.

I went to a party where someone died.

2009-03-02T15:59:00.000-08:00

From Metro 686

Shat happens!

From Metro 686

From left to right: 1."Damn it, Jim!" 2. "Kahn!!!" 3. "To boldly go where no man has before..."

Here's the highlights:

From Metro 686

Get Nuked!

2009-02-05T01:49:00.000-08:00

Why? Cause I am!

I've decided to become a Nuke compositor. about a week ago I signed up for some online training for new compositing software. The software is called Nuke from The Foundry. Nuke started as the in-house compositing software at Digital Domain. A few years ago it was sold to a software company in the UK for further development called The Foundry.

I'd like to up my skills and become a little more pro in the area of compositing, that I decided to gain some experience on a high end software. Nuke seemed like a good choise.

So far I'm loving it. I'm having a blast learing it. I'm currently scheming up a few plans on how I might be able to afford it. It's a pretty pricy program, but sells at a competative price in the compositing software market. I guess it's only pricy for broke-old freelancers like my self. :)

Anyway, I found a great starter set of free online videos from the same guys that I'm taking classes from right now, (fxphd.com), here:

Training Videos!

Check them out! You never know they may awaken that inner compositor that you never knew you had inside.

2 days left!

2009-01-22T13:13:00.000-08:00

To download the public Windows 7 beta. I just got mine up and running in Virtual PC. I've got to say, at first glance looks pretty cool. I'm looking forward to doing some in depth testing.

From Drop Box

Up the 2

2009-01-19T14:33:00.000-08:00

We went up the 2 as far as we could.

Proof:

From Up the 2

We took pictures along the way.

From Up the 2

We found the snow!

From Up the 2

I took a few self portraits.

From Up the 2

Hit a huge traffic jam on the way out of the forest.

From Up the 2

Walked down the road and found something big!

From Up the 2

We walked down to the emergency crews to find out more.

From Up the 2

A car rolled down the cliff, from here to there.

From Up the 2

Then we saw the car at the bottom of the hill.

From Up the 2

Mike and I talked to her and she told us they all survived with minor injuries!

From Up the 2

A nice Sunset.

From Up the 2

Insta-Fan

2009-01-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

Found it on this blog.
http://www.dwell.com/daily/blog/37538144.html

Here's the original story.
http://www.eikongraphia.com/?p=2671

My City

2009-01-16T09:24:00.000-08:00

From Drop Box

MMIX

2009-01-15T13:51:00.000-08:00

Well it's the January 15th, and I've already had quite a few adventures. I'm looking forward to what the rest of the new year brings.

We started the new year right by trying to go camp at Pismo on new years eve night without reservations. We'll now we know to get reservations next time. :) we got there and the place was long past sold out and all we could get was a day pass good for two hours at 9:00pm. We had to be out by 11pm. If it weren't for the giant lit signs that read "illegal camping fine, $270 bucks", I might have tried just staying. Anyways, the crew and I resorted to Motel 6 Camping! We had a good time watching the ball drop and playing Uno into the night.

Since then I've done a bit of exploring around pasadena. Here's some pics I took of a ugly little house I found in an old, overgrown, janky neighborhood.

From Gamble House HDR

Thanks Chuck and Henry!

Wow!

2009-01-13T00:16:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I last posted. I'll have to get back on the publishing trail soon!

Camping?

2008-11-09T00:39:00.000-08:00

Tonight I'm sleeping at Ryan's place since I'm heading to San Diego on the morning. I met up with Ryan, Janelle, Kevin, and for a short time Nate Bell. We watched The Big Lebowski and then decided to hit the sack. Since I was spending the night, and it was getting late, Janelle decided to spend the night too. Janelle and I both had sleeping bags in the car, however I also had my tent! Wouldn't you know... Having a tent kinda demands its use, so we pitched it in Ryan's living room!

Someone's Watching You!

2008-11-08T14:55:00.001-08:00

I am!

...[V]iew the Christian market as ... a difficult grilfriend:

2008-11-04T16:44:00.000-08:00

"...Right now, the love affair is in limbo. After a rocky start, the studios now seem to view the Christian market as it would a difficult girlfriend: elusive and hard to please; ultimately, you keep your distance but still take pains not to irritate her."

Yosemite Pictures

2008-10-22T16:39:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I hiked to Half Dome.

Wow.

It's a hard hike. But we tried this hike under less than ideal conditions. I don't mean weather conditions, the weather was perfect, but ready-for-hiking conditions. Let's see, I'm seriously out of shape, I live at sea level, I was sick, and started the hike at 3am after the 4 hour drive from Burbank all night, and we all had been up all day. By the time it was finished it had been a 14 hour hike and around 17 miles, some how up hill both ways! But more on that later...

Compared to many of my adventures, I took relatively few photos. Sorry folks, but most of this hike I was cross-eyed with exhaustion. In survival mode, my mind couldn't often get the shot. But out of what I did get, here's the best. I hope you enjoy!

I had some fun with the photos I did take on this journey. Here's my process for the following photos. Took three shots of the scene. Combined the images together with the HDR Merge tool in Photoshop. Tone Mapped the shots in Picturenaut with the photoreceptor physiology tool. Or, I took the HDR image into After Effects and used the Color Profile Converter to map the scene referred data into a Film Profile! But enough with the words, onto the images.

A few more shots... Most of these are straight out of the camera with little to no processing.

Nearing the Base of 1/2 Dome.

A few hours past complete exhaustion, I still had this to go:

And have come this far:

I stopped a bit above where Alexa and Sidney headed down and where the rest went on to the top. After about 20 minutes of indecision, I went on, quite literally on my hands and knees. For about 3 hours I had been light headed and dizzy. I couldn't take too many stepes before feeling like fainting, a bad time to faint!

Finally, after quite a slow ascent:

I made it.

Here it is!

I'm not sure I could appreciate the view as fully as I could on a full sleep tank. Nevertheless the Yosemite valley from that vantage point is grand and sublime and a little terrifying. It's spectacular!

Oh. Already? Time to go d0wn? Alright... We stopped at the base to take a nap and rest for the walk down. But as we all just laid down to rest, we knew that if we fell asleep we wouldn't wake up for a few hours! So after about 15 minutes, we started down.

Here we are, on the way down!

Here's the Noble!

a dear.

The
End.

I must live in Calfornia...

2008-10-20T23:42:00.000-07:00

Ah, it's that season again. One of the 4 seasons of the California year... Fire Season. Ya know, the 4 seasons? Earthquake, Winds, Fire, and Drought.

From ModoPhotoBlog

On our drive through Yosemite, there was a forest fire in progress! It seemed to be a controlled burn, whether or not it was started by the forest service or not, I don't know. We came upon it after it was dark, sometime around midnight or later. The fire came all the way down to the road's edge.

What a sight! I've never seen anything like it before in my life. The pitch black night forest defined in silhouette by deep orange and red glows. The flames were relatively small, which is why I have reason to believe it was a controlled burn, but there was glowing ash and embers all over the place, for quite a distance. From a short distance, every view of the burning landscape looked like stars on the forest floor. Little points of glowing orange light scattered around and dancing with heat and smoke.

Makes me want to drink orange juice... tasty tasty orange juice!

37°44'9.64"N : 119°30'52.60"W

2008-10-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1918
http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/27506/Half%20Dome%20Hike%20Photos.kmz

Fires From Space!

2008-10-15T09:36:00.000-07:00

Evidently NASA got a few shots of the fires too! Here's a great one:

Bigger:
NASA Fire Shot (Large)

This was taken Tuesday on LA. Over here in Burbank, we haven't felt many of the effects of the fires. The wind has carried most of the smoke and ash the other way. Looks like most of it has headed out to the ocean.

Marek Fire Shots, in Lake View Terrace, CA

2008-10-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

From Marek Fire - Lake View Terrace

"Real breakthroughs are not found because you want to develop some new technology, but because you are curious and want to find out how the world is."

2008-10-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

- Anton Zeilinger, Vienna University

Spread Spectrum Transmisison!

2008-10-09T14:46:00.000-07:00

Put on your nerdy hat it's time to dance! "Nerd Dance"

DID YOU KNOW THAT:

Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) is a method of transmitting radio signals by rapidly switching a carrier among many frequency channels, using a pseudorandom sequence known to both transmitter and receiver.

The concept of frequency hopping was first alluded to in the 1903 U.S. Patent 723,188 and U.S. Patent 725,605 filed by Nikola Tesla in July 1900. Tesla came up with the idea after demonstrating the world's first radio-controlled submersible boat in 1898, when it became apparent the wireless signals controlling the boat needed to be secure from "being disturbed, intercepted, or interfered with in any way."

NOW YOU KNOW!

"Uh, right Bill...."

I guess I'm on a Indiana Jones kick...

2008-10-09T13:56:00.001-07:00

Then again,when am I not on an Indiana Jones kick. To go along with the theme of my last post I've discovered these amazing icons and computer backgrounds.

Indiana Jones Icons

They're amazing, so download them and put them to use. As of right now, the crate with the ark of the covenant in it, is my recycle bin. When the bin is full it's got divine scorch marks across the Nazi symbols, and when it's empty, it's goes back to regular. My documents is the Hat. Ah yes, the Hat. And the My Computer Icon is the Grail Diary.

When she wasn't looking, I replaced Alexa's home folder with the Nuke'd Fridge and her documents icon with the crystal skull. :)

However, from the same people who made these icons I found a few backgrounds. I've got Indy's Desk and Alexa's got the Tardis! Check'um out!

Mine:

Alexa's:

For their background try this link: link

I've been making icons as of late, I think I'll do a post about that experience soon and show off a few of my favorites. That's all for now.

I want one!

2008-10-03T11:35:00.001-07:00

Can You say: "But my diary's in Berlin!"

It's a URAL. It's a Russian Motorcycle with side-car! Starts around $13, 000 I first heard about these bikes from Nathan and found their site via Alexa's help. Check out their marketing, they got a cartoons page on their website! http://www.imz-ural.com/downloads/cartoons.aspx

I can just picture it, Alexa and I rumbling down the road! Me, wearing a scarf and goggles sitting in the side-car, and her, hair blowing in the wind wearing a classy leather jacket, driving around Burbank. Ah the perfect life.

I'm gonna start saving my pennies. Maybe one day we can get one.

A few new pictures!

2008-10-02T23:14:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while, regretfully, so here's a new slide show to re-start the conversation.

Lorem Ipsum...

2008-09-26T16:56:00.000-07:00

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean ipsum purus, facilisis a, varius vel, ultricies sit amet...

Two new books!

2008-08-12T12:52:00.001-07:00

I just bought two books. I think these two books are particularly representative of my current interests. If you know what these books are about then you will have a great insight into my interests and even ways of thinking. If you have no idea what these books are, then I highly recommend then to you... No matter who you are or what you are interested in. I haven't gotten far into them yet, but one is a guaranteed winner. The other has the potential for greatness. We will see.

The Illusion of Life
By: Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston

Sculpting in Time
By: Andrey Tarkovsky

An interesting quote resides on the cover of "Sculpting in Time", it goes, "The most important director of our time." This praise is quite a statement on its own terms, but context and source make all the difference.

If a fawning film critic sung these lavishes, it would be one thing. If the quote was by-line'd by his mom, Mrs. Tarkovsky, it'd be another. If, let's say, it was proffered to him by a colleague, then it would carry the weight of respect and admiration from a knowledgeable source.

But, if the praise comes from a person who is known by many as the greatest artist the filmic medium has ever produced... what can I say other than it's a must read for any body even remotely interested in understanding film-making.

The quoted is a little known, nobody named Ingmar Bergman. I really have no idea what's gonna be in this autobiography, but how could it be less than compelling and highly informative. I hope to find out why Bergman calls Trakovsky, "The most important director of our time." I'll let you know what I find out. :)

The other book I bought is by two total un-knows who sit around all day drawing little pictures over and over like mad men. Or at least they used to... :(

"The Illusion of Life" is kinda like the bible of animation. I've found that a lot of live-action film makers that I run into don't have a very good understanding of just how much animation has influenced the whole art of movie making. sad. It's as important to modern film making as the cameras themselves.

But don't take my work for it. Da Dat Dah!

Camped at Mammoth

2008-08-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

Ya know, I had been 15 years since I last camped at Mammoth. Long enough that most of it was rather un-familiar. There was the occasional location or view that seemed to jog a memory, but it was kind of like I was there for the first time, again. Still very beautiful. I was able to snap a few pictures while I was there. Enjoy!

It was dark when we arrived:

We visited an area where the trees were dying due to toxic levels of CO2 coming up from the ground:

The trip home is always a beautiful view:

Ennis House

2008-08-05T11:25:00.001-07:00

It's one of Franks! It's also the house in Blade Runner!!

Check it out:

Sweet!

Philosipher finds Alexa's Blog

2008-07-07T16:30:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody! I thought this was cool. Over lunch today with Alexa, she told me that a professor of her's found her blog and made a link to it from his recently. Pretty cool

Doug Geivett was Alexa's professor for her undergraduate apologetics class. I've know of him as a contributing author in many of the books I've tried reading on philosophy. His blog has a much better description of him.

From Doug's Blog:

Doug is Professor of Philosophy in the Talbot Department of Philosophy at Biola University (La Mirada, CA). He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the areas of epistemology and the philosophy of religion. In addition, he has taught courses on the new atheism, and on film and philosophy.

I guess Doug saw something he liked in her comments and thoughts. Not hard to believe, I've enjoyed the same thoughts and ideas for years now! It was only a matter of time until others found out anyway.

Here's a link to Doug's Blog. Click Here. Here's one of the books I've read that he's contributed to:

In Defense of Natural Theology

Bridgeport Trip Photos

2008-07-07T16:00:00.000-07:00

I decided to post these photos from my trip in a new way! It requires Flash to view them, so download flash. Click on a photo to see it up close, click on it again go back and view them all. Enjoy!

Just shooting the Galaxy atop a Volcano

2008-07-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

:( We spin too fast.

Place Taken: Noble's Lake House, Bridgeport, California, United States of America, Earth, Milky Way, Universe.

Wow! In LA the sky glows cause, somebody left the lights on. In Bridgeport, the sky glows because somebody forgot to turn off Outer Space! Weird blog title, huh? Well here's the volcano part...

Recent Work

2008-06-09T01:02:00.000-07:00

Here's a few test stills from "Roseville - The Movie". They are very early versions of the color-grade. The color and tonal range are a rough outline of what I might want this to look like. So these shots are subject to change, big time!

The dark and mysterious woman!

The drive across town.

The late night stop for gas.

The bathroom.

The Office.

The Interview.

Green Is Universal

2008-06-01T00:42:00.000-07:00

This past saturday, Alexa, Aaron, and I went to Universal Studios! Alexa was given a pair of tickets from a friend of ours at her job the day before. (Thanks Corri!) So we convinced Aaron to join us and we set out to give it a try. The last time I was at Universal Studios was 15 years ago and Alexa had never been before. Overall, it was a good day. I had a lot of fun and so did Aaron and Alexa.

The three of us are Disneyland addicts, so we knew how to prepare for a day-trip to a theme park, and it made a big difference. In my opinion... Uh.... Well, the jury is still out on what I think about this theme park. I'll have to go again before I can evaluate it appropriately. Here's some shots of us around the park or in line!

Every single garbage can in Universal Studios has a big sticker on the side of it saying, "Green is Universal." That annoyed me. :)

Griffith Park + Hike = Ice Diving?

2008-05-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I went on a hike in Griffith park! It was a great hike with a great view. I went up the trail with David Cole. It was a bit strenuous at different steep slopes, but we had an enjoyable time walking and talking. When we approached what we later found was the end of the main trail, we passed a jogger who was doing some up hill sprints. David and I noticed that we had seen this man earlier on our hike back down on a different trail. We exchanged a friendly: -"Hey!" -"Sup!" as we passed him. We hiked on and found the end of the cleared trail way, David wanted to charge forward through the brush, down towards the Hollywood side of the park. I suggested we head the other way, up the last little rise to find the top of the hill.

Stick with me, this gets better...

Anyways, we found the top of the peak and when we looked around I realized it was probably the highest point in Griffith park! Cool! Great View:

Towards Burbank and Glendale. (Click image to see larger view)

Towards Downtown and the Beach Cities. (Click image to see larger view)

After a bit we decided to head down. We got to the car in good time and decided to drive toward David's apt. On the way, not too far from where we had hiked, we saw a guy hitch-hiking. As soon as I noticed him, I heard my mother's voice come piping in over the loud-speaker of my brain nagging-ly saying, "You should never pick up hitch-hikers, they'll probably try to kill you or at least take your money." Whether or not, she's actually told me before, I don't know, but I'll admit I hesitated. As we approached, David and I saw that it was that jogger we had passed multiple times on our hike. I guess I figured that since he didn't try to kill me out on the hiking trails that this wasn't that stupid of an idea. So David and I decided to stop.

Well, Mark is a writer. Not just any old Donald Kaufman, but a investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Wow! On the short drive towards Los Feliz, he said he had just gotten back from doing a story about ice diving in the north of somewhere! And recently completed a article on the stray dog population of Moscow. I guess Moscow has the largest number of stray dogs of any major city in the world. He made some comment about how the behaviors of the dog packs has changed and adapted as the city has changed from being under communist rule to a booming capitalist metropolis. I think, "pretty fascinating", is an under-statement.

We exchanged emails and later that night Mark sent me a link to one of his articles. Check it out:

Beneath the Ice - WSJ.com

Pretty cool adventure for only expecting a nice hike! The other surprise worth mentioning is that it was a uncommonly clear day and David and I could see Catalina island from Griffith park. Every time I go up to those hills and look out I wonder what it was like for the early explorers of the area, to look out over this land and see it's potential. Like John C. Fremont? Is what I see from the top of those hills what William Mulholland pictured as he looked at early Los Angles?

In the vein of Journalism, I'll add another freebie to this post. My friend posted this on his blog a short time ago. It's a wonderful presentation of a photo-essay about Crab Fishermen. Inspiring photos and great narration. Worth a watch! Click here.

Enough for now.

It's photo time!

2008-05-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since the last time I posted some of my photos. So, I dug around in my Lightroom library and found a few recent shots worth posting. Not all of these photos are my best work, but a few are kinda fun.

(By: Beej)

I've recently taken interest in panoramic photography. I've been doing some research into that field and have been doing a little experimenting. I'll upload some of my early test shots in the near future. I've realized however, that panoramic photos can be tough to make and require some pricey gear, little of which I have. So in the mean time I'll be shooting some good ol' 3:2 landscape or portrait shots!

Touch and Re-Touch

2008-05-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

Nice family portrait. Bet you'll never guess what I did to it!

Star Light, Star Bright, First Star I See This Morning

2008-05-28T14:56:00.000-07:00

K9 Studios - Ah, the good ol' days!

2008-05-28T11:27:00.001-07:00

This is a throw back... look who I found out on the internet:

Not everyone who reads this blog will know what this is, but the few, the proud, the K9 will! Hey Mr. Sullivan, if you run across this post call me, we should talk! :)

-"You're a,.. uh, Teacher?" -"Part Time!"

2008-05-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

When the communist forces break into the government warehouse to find the Crystal Skull, and blast open the door controls to the hanger, I'm pretty sure that the sound FX for the blast is the same sounds they used for the light bulbs blowing up when the Nazi's are opening the ark of the covenant at the end of Raiders.

The new film is filled with sound design stolen from the first three films. I believe that most of it helped make this new Indy feel more like the others. However, I guess it's not really stolen sound design, it's all Ben Burtt's to begin with. He tends to do that quite a bit. Remember the Wilhelm Scream? Oh yeah, it's in a ton of movies, not to mention a few that Ben has worked on too.

Clean, Mean, Website Machine

2008-05-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

I decided that I wanted to update my website a bit. So I set out to re-build the whole site in such a way that it relies on CSS much more heavily than before. My code isn't much cleaner but my design is. Now when you navigate from page to page, it doesn't jump and shift by a few pixels for now good reason anymore. The spacing and text layout is much more uniform and now it'll be easier to update in the future. Enjoy a browse if you'd like! Take comfort in the sleek design and lack of weird glitches. Now the main page has hints of future developments. Possibly a Cinematography section? We'll see...

Way to go Wachowski Brothers!

2008-05-12T18:02:00.001-07:00

Good ol' John Gaeta and his team did it again! Check out this sweet set of articles on how they pulled off the special FX for Speed Racer. It's got some amazing FX work. They movie bombed opening weekend, and I think I know why, but I definitely enjoyed it. I'm not going to get into my theories on why it bombed, instead I'll just let you check out the article.

Here's the Link: Vrmag.org

Volcano Sweetness!

2008-05-07T16:47:00.000-07:00

Well at least the pictures are sweet. I don't know very much about what the eruption has done to area or people near it. But check out some of these photos.

New stories with amazing photos:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/photogalleries/volcano-photos/index.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Weather/popup?id=4803224

Here's some of the shots:

Interesting

2008-05-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

An article I found about lighting: I'm not sure I agree with all of this writer's ideas. But he proposes a few concepts about the 'reality' of lighting and it's motivations. His examples are undeniable, i.e. Kubrick or Storaro. Take a read...

Xterra Mod

2008-05-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

I've always thought that the roof-rack on my car looks a bit like it's made of giant lego pieces.

No, not these legos...

Right here, where the the cross piece connects to the rail...

It' kinda looks like one of these:

or one of these:

Last time I went out to camp on the beach in Pismo, I brought a shovel in case I got stuck in the sand. But, I found it annoying to have to load it up in the back end of my car. It's rusty, dirty and would scrape up the plastic siding of my trunk. A quick trip to lowes and...

Ingredients Include:

2: 1 1/2" to 3/4" threaded PVC T-pieces (Approx: $1.30 ea.)
4: 3" hose clamps (Approx: 87¢ ea.)
2: 3/4" nipples (Approx: 47¢ ea.)
2: 3/4" threaded 1" snap-on PVC T-pieces (Approx: $1.06 ea.)

Total: $9.14! (before tax)

Red One

2008-04-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to shoot a short student movie on the Red One camera, by Red Digital Cinema. Before the shoot, I had read quite a bit about the camera and the raging debate around the new technology. Finally being able to use the device on a project, and test-drive the work flow, play with it a bit. I've got to report that I'm a believer.

We'll keep this post short and just say, I hope to have some pics and maybe a shot or two up in a few weeks. I'm a little tied up right now, I'm trying to make an 8 year old grow wings and fly.

Enjoy!

While standing on the toilet bowl the other day, I slipped and hit my head...

2008-04-11T04:36:00.000-07:00

And when I came to, I saw it! The Flux Capacitor. It's what makes time travel possible!

So I hooked it up to my Xterra and took it for a spin...

It was awesome!

HDR Lightprobe Acquisition - The Shinny Ball!

2008-04-10T14:57:00.000-07:00

So, you wanna make a lightprobe, huh?

This is the ultra stripped down version of how to make a HDR spherical reflection panorama.

Mount the base, (the eye hook and baby pin) to a c-stand or light stand.
Set the stand approximately where the lightproble will be taken. (the goal is to place the spherical reflector on the set at about the same place where the lighting needs to be sampled. If the lighting on the main character, let's say maybe some kid with wings, needs to be sampled for digital reconstruction later, then set the ball at about the same place as the actor on set!)
Mount camera to a tripod
Set shinny ball on the base screw and wipe it clean
Raise the camera to the height of the ball. (so the middle of the lens is at the middle of the ball.)
Set the camera to shoot in RAW mode. Take a few reference photos of the ball before you begin. Try to match the white balance of the scene.

Alt: If you have a Macbeth Color checker chart shoot a few shots of it in the lighting conditions.

Take a bracketed series of photos at a set f-stop interval, ranging from where no highlight visible in the ball's reflection is clipped white all the way open to where the most black corner of the reflection is exposed to visable. (IMPORTANT: Choose an aperture number that allows the entire ball to be in focus, AND use the shutter speeds to create the bracketed sequence. The interval should be 1 or 2 f-stops apart.)

When attempting to expose for the darks in the series, make sure not to giggle the camera while the long exposures are being taken.

The goal is a tack sharp, perfectly aligned, bracketed series that covers the entire dynamic range of the scene visible in the reflection on the ball.

Here's a few links that may help clarify a few things:

HDR shop's tutorial on Lightprobe gathering.

http://gl.ict.usc.edu/HDRShop/tutorial/tutorial5.html

Here's an example gallery to show you what you're aiming for...

http://www.debevec.org/Probes/

Here's a mini gallery of a bracketed series of what you should be looking for.

This is a quick un-wrap of the first image in the series.

Snowboarding Trip

2008-03-24T15:36:00.002-07:00

As promised, here's the photos...

Sweeded Shots!

2008-03-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

Here's some views for yous to examen.

I went to the mountains last weekend with some friends and hit the slopes. And we hit them harrrrrd. The first day of ice-boarding was rough. It wasn't the freshest sno-cone ever and when we fell down, it fell back up at us harder, (or at least just as hard, says Newton).

The second day was much better. The clouds came in over night and got stuck to the mountians. They left somewhere between 3-6 inches behind of nice, soft, fresh, ground-cloud! I guess this trip I went a little Pano-rama-lama-ding-dong! Maybe it's because most days my outdoor views are about 22"s big and usually of something I found on Google Image Search, like trees or crown-molding.

I'll be getting more shots up from the trip soon! Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

I'm Rendering!

2008-02-25T23:52:00.000-08:00

Ha HA! In the last week and a half. I've recently quadrupled my rendering power. Kinda. To get through my current job, I recently built three new 2.2ghx quad-core computers. Woohoo!

That means that I'm rendering on 16 processors with a total of 10GBs of RAM. Three of them, are 3.0 ghz procs and the other 12 are 2.2ghz. As weird as this is I can't seem to figure out why the 2.2ghz chips are faster than the two dual-core 3.0ghz chips. I built all three of these bare-bones systems are for around $1,500. Not bad. Especially when one 8 core MacPro starts at $2,700.

Here they are!

You caught me, I cheated....

2008-02-19T01:58:00.000-08:00

But, in my defense, a little hearty digital processing never killed anybody. I used some split toning on these pictures. I'd never played with this feature much before, but I had some fun and like the way these turned out. I took them about 20 mins ago.

I think I've found it!

2008-02-07T17:47:00.000-08:00

I've been looking for a way to calculate between a incident light measurement and an approximate measurement for the corresponding luminous flux of the of the source. Here it is! Check it and and appreciate the coolness.

Converting Between Geometries

Converting between geometry-based measurement units is difficult, and should only be attempted when it is impossible to measure in the actual desired units. You must be aware of what each of the measurement geometries implicitly assumes before you can convert. The example below shows the conversion between lux (lumens per square meter) and lumens.

Example:

You measure 22.0 lux from a light bulb at a distance of 3.162 meters. How much light, in lumens, is the bulb producing? Assume that the clear enveloped lamp is an isotropic point source, with the exception that the base blocks a 30° solid angle.

Solution:

1.) Calculate the irradiance at 1.0 meter:
E1 = (d2 / d1)2 * E2
E1.0 m = (3.162 / 1.0)2 * 22.0 = 220 lm/m2

2.) Convert from lm/m2 to lm/sr at 1.0 m:
220 lm/m2 * 1 m2/sr = 220 lm/sr

3.) Calculate the solid angle of the lamp:
W = A / r2 = 2ph / r = 2p[1 - cos(a / 2)]
W = 2p[1 - cos(330 / 2)] = 12.35 sr

4.) Calculate the total lumen output:
220 lm/sr * 12.35 sr = 2717 lm

Once in lumens, I can calculate for candelas per meter squared. cd/m2

lm/4(pi) = cd/m2

Ha HA!

Thoughts on my last post about HDR images.

2008-01-22T03:16:00.000-08:00

While the HDR image from my previous post contains all the dynamic range that I could see in that particular environment, it actually is not the most accurate representation of what my experience was like in the conditions. The dynamic range of this particular environment exceeded my eye's "at once" maximum range. Meaning at any given instance, when I would look at a part of the scene in front of me, the world was contrastier than my eye's could handle.

But the HDR image is true to the range of brightness I was able to see while studying the views before me over time. When I would look at the clouds directly, my iris would adjust to the conditions and I would be able to see the clouds in much greater detail than what was available in the periphery of my vision. When I would look around at street level, my iris would adjust for the specific conditions and I would be able to see more detail in the darks and shadows.

I would be inclined to state that the RAW image with the highlight squeeze is more accurate to my "at once" vision experience in those conditions, but it would still not be true. Since human vision also has the added benefit of a kind of "local adaptation" effect, either my brain or my eyes would adjust automatically for the high contrast of the scene in a spatially dependent way.

(eric shows you this picture and then laughs, "Ha ha, I just messed with your brain!")

Good old test of your spatially dependent local adapters! Yeah, I made this term up, but the basic idea is this...

Too much or too little contrast is a bad thing for our vision. So, our eyes and brain working together help balance things out a bit. The image above is an optical illusion. The gray bars in the center of the bigger boxes are the exact same shade of gray. :)

From here out I speculate...

I assume that our eyes are being charged with more energy from the lighter square, and therefore our brain chooses to dim down just that part of our vision to compensate for it. Being that the smaller square is surrounded by it it kind of get caught up in the mix and begins to appear darker that it's twin. Likewise, the darker gray square is sending much less energy to our eye, therefore our brain beefs up the sensitivity of just that part of our vision to help us see it better. Again the gray bar in the middle of it, kinda get caught up in the mix and begins to appear brighter than it's twin bar across from it. All this is simple proof that within the same view, our visual sensory system is both brightening and darkening what our eyes receive to help us see it better-er!

Lesson: Keep this in mind the next time you want to trust your eyes as a reliable tool for comparing tones of gray, black and white, or any color. It's all about context.

I have no hard number to base this estimate off of, but I'm willing to make the guess that without the help of local adaptation in our vision, our sight is only capable of around 9 stops of range. The next 4 or 5 stops attributed to our vision is due to this amazing function of our visual sensory system.

Another thought...

What constitutes realistic or naturalistic when making art or imagery is wildly dependent on context and experience. What one person had judged as real another person may judge as stylized. I'm willing to bet that this wide range of responses is due in part to the highly varied experiences of the viewer in the environment from which the art in question is trying to capture or re-create.

HDR 2 (the rescue!)

2008-01-21T15:35:00.000-08:00

Here is a HDR photo I took today while walking back from Starbucks with Alexa.

Neato Comparison!
The photo, unaltered, is displayed first. Then, being that I took the photo in raw format, I show the photo with the extra highlight latitude squeezed in to the image in Lightroom. Last is the HDR image combined from three pictures. I used the AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) feature on my camera and took the series hand held. Finally, after creating the 32bit OpenEXR HDR image, I tone-mapped the data into a 8bit image using Photoshop's local adaptation function to achieve the results seen here.

Interested but sounds like gibberish? Check out this book! HDRI Handbook.

Original Image! (shot RAW and rendered in Adobe Lightroom)

RAW with highlight squeeze in Adobe Lightroom

HDR generated in Photoshop, tone-mapped with Photoshop's Local Adapter Function.

The Beaching Tradition Continues...

2008-01-13T01:31:00.000-08:00

Last year, and maybe the year before that; Noble, Alexa and I have tried to start the year right by attempting to go to the beach as early in the year as possible. Therefore, the first weekend we have available, we'll drive down and end up on the sand. We try to maintain this habit by going to any beach we can, every weekend thereafter, hoping that we'll be able to keep the streak going as many weekends in a row as possible.

The last post, "Bellafonte Shores", was record of our first beach trip this year. It was raining and windy, but we made it out on the beach. Here are some picks from this weekend's beach trip. This time our adventure found us at Huntington Beach at sunset.

I'm sure that one of these shots will end up soon on my new site gallery. This was another run-of-the-mill, boring, old, southern california sunset. Ya know, there's a reason why the rest of the nation envy's my state. Except of course hawaii.

It's Begun

2008-01-10T20:15:00.000-08:00

I've started work on a new website. Version 1.0 has gone up at www.erichann.com. I figured that I'd post about it here in case some of you don't use that address to get to my blog. Hopefully a few more iterations of the site will go online in the near future.

I plan to keep updating this blog even as my new site takes shape. This will probably be my primary blog until I create my own on my site, but that won't happen for quite a while.

Hope you enjoy the new page!

-Eric

Bellafonte Shores

2008-01-08T10:39:00.000-08:00

More from your favorite three So-Cal explorers.

On a journey into an undiscovered region of So-Cal, we happened upon a rarely seen phenomenon. It' was a liquidly substance and it fell from the sky in surprisingly large amounts. I'm not sure it's ever happened in LA before. Therefore being the first to discover it, I've called my new discovery, "Falling Sky Water."

I got a picture or two of it before it returned from whence it came.

All right, who am I kidding. So the real details are this...

Picture taken parked along PCH at Will Rogers state beach. This was the begining of another adventure. We ended up in Belmont Shore just near Seal Beach. Somewhere back up in Hermosa Beach we were starting to get hungry and began the, "where do you want to eat" game. One of the options stated was Lucille's BBQ. But we only knew of one of them and it was quite aways away, over at the Brea Mall. So we reluctantly crossed it off the list. 45 Minutes later, we find this cool little street with shops and restaurant in Belmont shores. We all started naming off places to eat. Mexican, Italian, fast food, coffee shop, Lucille's BBQ, More Mexican...

WAIT! Did you say, Lucille's?

So we ate at Lucille's and it was one of the best meals I've had in weeks! Hence the expressions of elation on our faces in the top three pictures. We concluded that we'll have to return to this cool street of shops and things in the day time, when it's not pouring down that, "Falling Sky Water", stuff.

Themes

2008-01-06T00:54:00.000-08:00

Of all the themes central to my story,
Water and Light have to rank near the top of the list.

Nice Dynamic Range!

2007-12-05T18:06:00.000-08:00

Abundance Title

2007-11-29T16:10:00.000-08:00

I recently made this title animation for a dude with one of the coolest names ever, Rusty Rhodes. Anyways, As far as I know it's for a short film.

"I put instant coffee in a microwave and almost went back in time!"

2007-11-26T23:16:00.001-08:00

This s a free font archive website. Font Garden.com

But to display each font they have typed out a famous quote or a clever saying as an example. Some of the quotes are really funny. Have a blast readying them.

Pano-Rama Lama Ding Dong!

2007-11-21T01:42:00.000-08:00

Lamest blog title ever. But you'll get over it.

It's a panoramic photo taken from the top story of Aaron Noble's apartment building.

It's actually a stitch from 5 different photos. Unfortunately, there it a little chunk missing on the bottom right hand corner. Just don't look at that piece. :)

Check out the software that did the stitching, it's pretty awesome and it's free.

Hugin 0.7

HDRA = High Dynamic Range Awesome!

2007-11-16T12:27:00.000-08:00

So I just got this book, for my Visual FX class. It's awesome! Can't put it down. I'm half way done and it's only been 18 hours since it was put in my hands.

I started looking around on my computer for Lighprobe Images I could start to play with. I found some sequences that I had forgot I had, from Project X.

These renderings are the final product of the whole HDRI Lightprobe work-flow.

The simple version of the HDRI work-flow is this:

Take 10 or so pictures of a mirrored sphere/chrome huge ball bearing at different exposures. Basically shoot a bracketed series starting from where nothing in the image is white (blown-out, clipped, peaked, over-exposed, whatever) all the way stop by stop until there is nothing in the image that is black (Zero, under-exposed, no signal).

Let the computer take the bracketed series and compile a new image that holds all the data of the entire set of pictures in one new one.

Crop this new HDR image down to where the ball is the only thing left in the frame. Apply this new circular image to the inside of a computer modeled sphere, stretching the flat circular image across the sphere like putting a beanie on a basket ball.

Lastly, put any computer models you want in side this new sphere shape with the image wrapped around it and turn off all the lights.

What happens next is the cool part! Because the image is the total compilation of that bracketed series, it hold the entire range of brightness values that was in the real world. From the brightest brights to the darkest darks. Think about it like this out doors at noon on a clear day, a white tee shirt is white, right? Well, kinda. But ask your self what it brighter white, the t-shirt or the sun?

When stuff gets too bright for our eyes we see white. But that doesn't mean that everything white is the same intensity. The same goes for black. when things are too dark our eyes only see black, but often not everything we see as black is the same darkness. So, that series of images captures the whole range of brightnesses that exist in front of it's lens. Not automatically, no camera can see all the levels or intensities of brightness in the world, but because it's series of different exposures it can picture by picture capture all of it. Combine it into one and now you can have an image that contains the whole mess of intensities possible.

Bring that really cool new High Dynamic Range Image into the computer animation software and set it up. If you were to set the level of white in the software to t-shirt white than anything above that brightness would actually glow! Shine, like a light bulb or the sun. If the image is a full wrap-around, a 360 degree image, of the world from where it was taken and contains all the dynamic range available, then it would shine from all the same directions that stuff out in the real world would shine if you were standing where the photo was taken and it would shine at the same brightness too!

Complicated? Yeah, I don't understand it either. :)

Nevertheless, the five images up top are little computer made chrome balls that are reflecting the CG world around them. Because I setup space around them to show the panoramic HDR image that I made , they reflect the image perfectly, not to mention that the HDR image is shining down on the flat surface from the many angles from where the lights were when the HDR image was made. That's why the ball in the picture has a shadow.

The best way to explain what you're seeing is this, those shinny balls are completely computer created and look exactly like what a real chrome ball would look like if set on a sheet or paper under the lighting conditions from where the photo was taken.

Better Yet, the five images up top are exact lighting reproductions of the movie sets we made for a student film in college. We were going to have a 3D computer animated monster runn around in the shots so we were going to need a way to light the computer monster as if it was in the real locations.

Ya know, I'm not even sure why I wrote all of this. It's complicated and has many poorly written sentences. Maybe it was for therapeutic reasons. Writing and writing and writing just helps a person feel better when under stress sometimes.

So, there you have it. My hack job at explaining HDRI for 3D animation. :)

P.S. Kevin, if you want any of these for the FX you're working on just email me and we can hook up!

Disneyland, here we come!

2007-11-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

Alright, we all went to Disneyland on saturday. Most of the credit goes to the requests of Kevin and Ryan. We had attempted to take Kevin on a previous trip but had to retract our offer due to some changed circumstances. We gave him a I.O.U. for the future, so Saturday he took us up on it and we had a blast.

These photos were taken by myself and others on this visit to the park. I'll post them here in chronological order.

Monorail Trip to find some food!

In line for Space Mountain!

A great day for all! Even for those two weird dudes behind these lovely ladies!

I think I'm gonna have to split this into two posts! Look out for post number two! I might have to arrange the posts in reverse order so that the photos stay lined up chronologically. I don't know yet I'll give it a try.

Disneyland, here we come! [part 2]

2007-11-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

I posted these in reverse chronological order so they would appear in order on my blog page. So don't be scared if you get confused. Take a deep breath, sit back down and start at the top of the page. It'll be fine, trust me. :)

In Toontown, checkin' the mail!

by Kevin Christensen

by Kevin Christensen

by Kevin Christensen

by Kevin Christensen

by Kevin Christensen

by Kevin Christensen

by Kevin Christensen

by Kevin Christensen

by Kevin Christensen

by Kevin Christensen

So, we rode the teacups! And, as always tried to make our selves sick!

Photos of the Writers Guild of America - On Strike!

2007-11-07T10:38:00.000-08:00

This group is out in front of Disney Studios! So I had some fun taking these photos!

Hey Look It's Joss Whedon!

I wasn't the only person taking pictures!

Pismo Beach - Revisted

2007-11-05T09:18:00.000-08:00

So, I went back to Pismo. Slept under the stars. It was amazing! This return trip had a slightly different crew however.

Aaron

Ryan

Alexa

and Myself

We drove up after Aaron got off work, sometime around 10:30pm and made it it record time! Got to the beach around 1:00pm after a quick stop to 7-11 where we picked up the essentials. Oreo's, Doritos, a Duraflame Log, Arizona Green Tea, Water, and Trail Mix. Made a fire in a pit we dug with my virgin shovel and stayed up.

The nice thing about this stretch of beach is how much space there is between the water and the dunes. At places, there's probably 100 yards of flat dry sand. We laid out the tarp and setup our beds. We went to bed around 2:30 and we all got some sleep. There was still the occasional ATV or truck that went buy in the night and there was a light cold breeze that picked up around 5:00am.

We could see the whole milky way above us. It's worth driving up there and sleeping out on the beach just to see that view. For me, it is always a profoundly changing experience to see the the galaxy. It always makes me think of the way life was meant to be. With the earth underneath me and the stars over head, I feel that's how we're supposed to spend our nights.

So, here comes the pictures...

I got up before dawn and started taking pictures.

Arrrgh, this is normally my bed time.

"We put a log in the hole and burnt it!"

Ryan and I got in the water.

by Ryan Grant

by Ryan Grant

by Ryan Grant

Beeeeeeeach!

by Aaron Noble

by Aaron Noble

I'm gonna getcha!

by Aaron Noble

by Alexa Hann

by Alexa Hann

For the first time, I realized just how tall I am!

by Alexa Hann

by Aaron Noble

by Aaron Noble

by Aaron Noble

Mayan Ruins or Burbank

2007-10-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

10 point to whoever can tell me where these are in Burbank. Well, maybe near Burbank. I don't know it I was still in Burbank when I found these ruins.

Thatcher's First Commercial DP Shoot

2007-10-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

I was the 1st AC. We had a good time on set, but it was a long day.

The Dusty Roads of Burbank

2007-10-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

They're repaving Alameda between Disney and Joy Feast.

I found a few more on this particular photo hunt.

VFX Prep... The Coming Disaster

2007-10-12T02:57:00.000-07:00

Well it looks like we will be crashing a sizable meteor into the 5 and 91 interchange. It's gonna be sweet!

Probably more from this angle.

Machines!

2007-10-01T02:53:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm breaking form. But, come on, they're robots! Check out these videos and pages. There's come pretty cool stuff out there on the web.

Japanese model maker created this...

Inspired by a Dutch physicist who created this...
here, and
here

Also, tripods were made for walkin'

Link here

What a Hike. What a View!

2007-10-01T00:19:00.000-07:00

What a Hike. I woke up this morning and said to Alexa, "We should go on a hike." She agreed, so long as we played tennis as well. So we rounded up the gang. Mainly, Noble and Sidney, and took off for Brand Library Park over in Glendale. here

I found this park on accident, one day while looking for apartments in Burbank. This was before we moved up here. I was driving through the nice neighborhoods at the base of the of the foothills saw a park so I turned in. Since that day I had wanted to come back and take a hike out the back side of the park in the dirt trails the lead up the hills.

Noble and I had gone to check out the park much more recently on a previous adventure in Burbank/Glendale. I wanted to show Aaron the Japaneses gardens that were on the grounds but as we neared the entrance to the gardens we were stopped by the ground keeper and told that it was closed for the day. However, the grounds keeper mentioned that the Glendale police had put the word out that a gang fight was to happen that day in the park. This peaked Noble's and my interests, but our better judgment won out over our desire to hide in the bushes with my camera.

I must admit, I wanted to hike the trail for fun and for some much needed exercise, but starting up this steep incline I quickly realized two very important things.

1. Don't eat a lot of Taco Bell before doing hard physical work.
2. Don't do hard physical work while being fat and out of shape from eating too much Taco Bell with out warming up to the challenge.

It was horrendously difficult. Way harder than it was supposed to be. Given, it was a very steep grade. But, wow-wee, it was a rough climb. So, my conclusions are to do it again, and again until I can do it with ease. That should at least put a dent in my Taco Bell gut. However, Alexa led the pack! She just about flew up the trail. Putting us all to shame. She Rocks, the Docks, and the Ducks!

But, as many things worth doing go, it takes getting through the tough stuff to find the diamonds in the rough. (Speaking of which, I haven't re-watched Aladdin in a while, I should do that.)

The View from the top of the hike trail was, uh... uh...

This is Downtown Glendale.

Copyright, Aaron Noble 2007

We never made it to tennis, so Alexa said we can go play it later.

Huge Panorama

2007-09-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

I took this last saturday, didn't stitch it together until today.

Wokring Away!

2007-09-26T17:34:00.001-07:00

This is a frame form the VFX Class's First Composite Project.

Compositing made unnecessarily complicated!

2007-09-26T16:16:00.000-07:00

This Composite flow...

Made this animation!

Whoo. I'll post the whole thing when it's finished.

On their way out of town, the clouds stopped and posed for my camera...

2007-09-22T23:57:00.000-07:00

Ryan took this photo!

and this one too!

I took these photos...

This one is better when it's viewed as big as possible.
Try it out in full-screen mode, or make it your desktop!

A Storm's Coming

2007-09-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

Working away in modo!

2007-09-20T21:18:00.000-07:00

It's not quite done. I've been working on this scene for two weeks now. Lots of modeling, wooh! I know, I know, it needs more detail. I'm workin' on it.

Descanso Gardens

2007-09-17T00:08:00.001-07:00

Pretty Neato!

Worth a visit. Check it out here.

It's here!

2007-09-11T08:27:00.000-07:00

modo 301 is running on my computer!

downloading....

2007-09-10T15:41:00.001-07:00

modo 301 is out!

2007-09-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

What a great way to follow up a awesome weekend! modo 301 just released! here's quote form the luxology.com information fourm:

Brad Peebler writes,

We are overjoyed to announce the release of modo 301. At 1:50pm Monday September 10th, 2007 we shipped the first pre-order of modo 301.

This comes from me at the best possible time. I am currently working freelance on a graphics project for a web marketing company and the project goals we're far more complicated than I was ready to tackle. But, modo 301 now solves all the the difficult challenges that were ahead of me before and will allow me get the project done with much greater speed and quality.

As of this post, I have not yet downloaded it, but I expect to be able to soon. As promised, I'll be posting some of my early samples and project completed in modo 301 here soon.

More to come!

(speaking of more to come, check out "Days to Come". This is a great artist and his newest album is better than ever.)

Weekend in Pismo Beach and Big Sur

2007-09-10T09:53:00.001-07:00

Last Friday night I got the adventure itch. It was great! After Alexa got off work, we packed the car and drove up to Pismo Beach. Alexa and I had received a email earlier that day about how Nathan had just started a blog, and found a link to check it out. Subsequently, Nathan had created an entry about his adventures out on Pismo Beach and detailed that he planned on driving up the coast.

Later that same day, I had mentioned something about the post to to my mom, and she replied, offering that if he was passing through sac on his adventures that he could stay at their place for the night. That got me thinking, "I wonder where he's going." So I called him...

Come to find out, he was still in Pismo and was planning on being there that night as well. After a quick check in with Google Maps, I realized that Alexa and I could easily go hang out with him. So we did!

What follows is the ultra-short account of the weekend events/highlight!

Friday:
7:00pm - Decided to go on an weekend adventure!

8:12pm - Left the house and drove to Trader Joes.

9:05pm - Got on to 134 west and headed out of town.

11:25pm - Pulled in to Pismo Beach here and went to bed.

Saturday:
7:30am - I woke up and went on a picture hunt.

8:30am - Packed out great and decided to go off-roading in Nathan's car.
-Had a blast!
-Got stuck in the sand, had to dig out.

9:30am - Went into town to make the day's plans, got food and left Nathan's car in Pismo.

10:00am - Started heading north on 101.

11:50am - Stopped to check out Hearst Castle's Gift shop.
-Citizen Cane was not on sale in the gift shop

12:30pm - Got rear ended. here
-By two people, one from Denmark and the other from Sweden.

Here's there car.

Here's my car.

Back on the road...

3:oopm - Pulled in to Big Sur, swung a deal to sleep in the campground's host site since every spot was taken. here

4:00pm - Went on a hike, to the campground beach.
-Saw a small group of dear on the way.

5:00pm - Discovered a private beach we could hike to and it was beautiful! here
-Nathan's Jumped in the water!
-Alexa, Nathan, and I went dune diving!
-Found tide pools and Alexa and Nathan picked up a crab!
-Watched the Sunset into a fog bank!
-Talked about movies. You should go see this.

8:00pm - Hiked back and cleaned up; went into town and got Diner!
- I had fish and chips.

10:00pm - Set up camp and the Laptop. We watched The Office.
-Might I add, laying under the milky way, on a tarp, in wet sleeping bags, in total darkness.

Sunday:
12:00pm 'ish - Went to bed.

1:00am 'ish - Woken up by Ranger, telling us we couldn't sleep there!
-Because we were sold the host spot, they thought we were squating.
-It worked out fine and we went back to sleep.

Sunday Morning:

5:30am - Woke up and packed up.

6:30am - Got on road and headed back to Pismo

7:30am - Heading south near San Simeon

9:00am - Entered Pismo Beach, got some coffee and repacked our cars.

10:00am 'ish - Said Goodbye to Nathan and Headed out.

11:45am - Stopped for a potty break.
-When I went in to the restroom, the gas station store was empty. When I came out, there was a 8 person line for the bathroom. Funny, everyone was frowning at me.

12:59pm - Ran in the house back here in Burbank. Changed, showered, unpacked and ran out the door again.

1:40pm - Downtown LA. Picked up Aaron.

2:09pm - Got off the 605 in Downey and dropped Alexa off at Evy's bridal shower!

3:00pm - Knocked at JB and Toni's door.

4:30pm - Picked up Alexa from the shower, and met up with the gang.

5:45pm - Went to chili's and met Michelle and Ryan.

5:56:14pm - We ate.

7:35pm - JB and Toni took off for home, the remaing went to "3:10 to Yuma"

7:48pm - The movie started.

8:30pm - I laughed

8:59pm - I was scared

11:25pm - We stopped to say bye to JB and Toni and headed home.

Monday:
1:00am - I fell asleep

Sunday's Driving Statistics: here
Woke up IN Big Sur, CA
Saw a movie in La Habra, CA
Went to be din Burbank, CA.

Sunday's Total Mileage:
368 mi.

Sunday's Total Drive Time:
9 hours in the car.

This Weekend Was Awesome!
-and a little tiring :)

modo 301 is coming out soon!

2007-09-07T16:01:00.000-07:00

In fact, next week modo 301 comes out. I'm not sure the day or time, the prez of the company has setup a guessing game for those who read his weekly posts. So he won't release what day it'll be released because he want 's people to guess. All that being said, I'm getting excited and will definitely post some of my first modo-mations on this blog when I get my new copy of modo and start dinking around with it.

This is a little 'top-secrete', but a friend of mine and I are preparing to build a plug-in for modo 301 as soon as it comes out and we have time to work on it. It'll be related to VFX work and modo. I hope to use it in the Visual FX class I'm teaching right now to help out our work flow issues. It'll be simple, being that this will be the first plug-in that I have ever written, but if it works right it'll fill a much needed gap in my prod pipeline. More to come...

Here's what I've been up to.

2007-08-31T10:15:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, but I'm back!

2007-08-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

This is my first post to my blog in over 4 months. Hey, I was busy. Oh well, for now I think I'm going to try to get it back up-to-date. See ya soon! Oh yeah, and for fun if you type in your web browser...

www.erichann.com

This is where it brings you! Pretty Cool, huh?

Later,

-Eric