I've been writing way too much in here lately.
The little secret project I mentioned before is now up and around all over the place. The best place to find current links is at the Wondertouch Forum. It was two 1 minute videos showing some of the new features in particleIllusion 3. After watching the promo videos that Maxon put out when Cinema 4D 8 was coming out, I had a hankering to make some promo videos of my own. Since I was on the beta team for pI3 and got to play with all these cool features way before their release, it was my way of contributing something to the demo reel.
I'm really considering dropping 3D stuff for a while and dabbling more in 2D. Moho 4.1 just came out and I want to buy it more than ever. I'm really having fun drawing again in my class at Sheridan. I'm trying to get into a habit of sketching more, but I still haven't weened myself away from the pc enough to get a few pages done. My short term goal is to be able to fill 2 pages of my sketchbook every night.
Well, I'm supposed to be writing today, so I should probably get to it. I'm hoping to get the big action finale written today, before our hero falls into a raging river and dies. Well, no not really, but something similar happens. I'm also getting started on a pI3 Training video. I've written out the first lesson, I just haven't screen capped it yet.
All the xzevlin.com content is now at xzevlin.astoundingadventures.com. Hoorah!
I just switched the site over to a new host. Well at least AstoundingAdventures.com is on a new server, I still have to get ShockingTales.com switched over.
I think I'll be moving all the xzevlin.com content over to xzevlin.astoundingadventures.com until I can get the domain back. It's mighty frustrating not having access to something I paid for.
It looks like my site may not be up at all much longer. From all reports I'm reading, my webhost is dying or something. I can barely retrieve email, it takes forever for me to connect to the ftp to do anything.
Thankfully AstoundingAdventures.com and ShockingTales.com were registered with other companies, so I can keep the domains. It looks like I may lose xzevlin.com for good.
A warning to anyone who reads this- really, really research a company before you pay them for a year of hosting. I didn't have all that many problems with FeaturePrice in the past, but between them losing my domain name this year and the complete lack of tech support I've gotten on the issue, I'm off searching for a new host.
If you need to reach me and can't get through on my astoundingadventures or shockingtales email, you can use zagrebspacefrog@yahoo.com
I finally got some response on Xzevlin.com. It should be up by Thursday if the support people keep their promise.
Somehow, I managed to put together a 1 minute long abstract film out of test animations that I've done over the past year with particleIllusion 3.0. It's almost done. The idea was to create a short entirely in particleIllusion and make it about the beginning of the world, I guess what would be one of the major religions in my novel, and most of the other fantasy/fairy tale works I hope do. Some of the effects are pretty darn cool if I do say so myself. pI continues to amaze me with the amount of things its capable of, with the right emitter shapes.
I did one shot using two of the new features in pI3 and it's really the kind of thing I don't think was possible to do with any software before without a helluva alot of work.
I should be at page 110 of the novel tomorrow. That'll mean 10-15 to go before the second draft can begin. It feels so close.
I sold another model on TurboSquid today. I think if I made the right models, I could make a living off that thing. I'd like to take one week and just make some models of obscure things that haven't been uploaded there yet and see what happens.
Xzevlin.com is still not back up. I guess I'll wait another day before kicking and screaming at my host. I really don't think they'd notice. One guy seems to run the whole place.
I think I'll be adding some of my abstract renders and purchasable posters versions up somewhere when I get the site back up. I was looking at some of them, and they look real purdy in the "Oooh, shiny" kind of way.
Well that's no news at all really. I just opened up Blog to test something out and decided I should write something.
If anyone has gone to the Xzevlin portion of the site, I'm sorry about the site not being there and pop-ups appearing. My webhost screwed up and didn't renew the ownership of the domain when they should've. So right now, I can't even re-register it to myself because they are signed up as the contact person. I hope to have it worked out by the end of the week. If they don't get it sorted out, I'll just put all that content up on another portion of AstoundingAdventures.com
I added a link on the store page to some models I'm selling on TurboSquid. There are two sets of hand to hand weapons up so far, models I made over the last few weeks in preparation for any sort of Castlevania-ish comic or fantasy artwork I hope do in the future. I made $20 selling the arcade machine model, so I thought that I'd put some more stuff up. From now on, any good quality models I make, I'll be sticking up on the Squid. There's a good chance I'll make no money on it, but I figure that it makes more sense for some of this stuff to be out there and purchasable rather than just sitting on my hard drive, gathering bit-dust.
I'm on page 106 of the novel. I don't know if I'll get to write this week, but I hope to be up to about page 112 by next Wednesday. It's getting into the home stretch now. I want to tackle a short story this week too.
I'm really agonizing over not being able to do one of the rhyming fairy tales as an animated film anytime soon. It was written about the whole world political situation, and so if it came out in a month from now, I think it would get some attention. Unfortunately, I have promises to do a whole bunch of projects over the course of the next two months and it's hard knowing what I can tackle when I don't know when I can get started on those.
