lineofaction

I posted one more animation. A test I did just to brush up on lip sync. Check it out here. I think it came out ok. There’s actually a few things I’d like to polish (namely the slight pop when he puts the cigarette back in his mouth, and there’s a finger...thing...that occurs when he puts both hands down on the bar). Rendering this took a silly long time, probably because of the refractions I felt necessary to put on the glass. Ah well. I’m officially on another project at work, and once again under NDA and cannot tell people what it is. But this one’s gonna ship for sure, so once it’s announced I’ll blurt it out here.

Wherein Ryan realizes that a majority of clothing is not designed for this body shape…

I guess it’s because most American males are fat, or at the very least full-figured and I am now *not* in that position, that I’ve begun to notice that clothing, predominantly in the shirt department, is generally not designed for people with average shoulders and slim waists. It’s not that clothes don’t fit me, its that they often fit me from neck to chest, and then the stomach area looks like a carnival tent. The opposite is true of smaller sizes. They fit me on the waist and abdomen, and then I look like an overgrown adolescent forcing himself into boys clothing in the neck, arms and chest. That’s because, I have learned, that an “American” cut of shirt does not taper from chest to abdomen (I assume this is because of the aforementioned girth). The solution to this is either find a “European” cut of shirt, which in the States is neither cheap nor common, or get your clothing tailored, which for non-dress shirts is impractical (just a tapering on a shirt is $15-18). I’m not sure what my solution is. For now, I’m going to have to deal with baggy midsectional clothing. I am *pondering* getting a sewing machine and trying my hand at sliming down my own shirts, but I’m not sure if the code of masculinity would be too much in jeopardy if I were to do that. I did just purchase two really nice dress shirts (at a staggering deal) on Amazon which I think I will indeed have tailored, just because if I had actually paid regular price for them they are 60 dollar shirts and I wouldn’t want to ruin them experimenting with home tailoring. Spending 18 more dollars to have a dress shirt that actually looks good on me is a worthy investment I think. Now as for a suit...some day...some day I’ll have a tailored suit. It’s on my list of things to do.

Wherein Ryan once again switches projects and posts some new animations…

So the internal project I’ve been working on for several months now just got axed. All details are NDA, but suffice to say I am not thrilled that my hard work over the span of this prototype is being completely discarded. Thus is the nature of the corporate game industry I suppose, so I shant dwell on it. At any rate, Rainbow has opened up some new animation positions so that I might stick around a bit longer. I don’t have any word as to which project I’ll be working on yet, but it’ll probably all be NDA anyway so let’s just say I’m on a new project and that’s that. I posted some new animations to my portfolio section, as well as a new resume with a few modified lines, nothing special. The animations that i did post I’m fairly proud of. Specifically the backflip animation using the Generi setup. I think the posing and for the most part the timing turned out really well on that one, considering I only spent a day on it. So far things are working themselves out, though I’m definitely starting to realize the business side of things in this industry definitely dictates the art side, and in most cases, the business side is not very pretty…

Wherein all bets are off…

Net Neutrality is the big buzz. If you are unaware of what this is...turn on a tv or something...anyway the basic premise is that a proposal is on the table to transform the internet into a 2-tiered system where priority will be given to certain parties (premium services and those companies willing to fork over more cash to the network carriers) which would allows said parties websites to be loaded faster. All those non-premium sites (personal websites, all the small guys where all the real information and use of the internet is derived) would be taken down to a second-tier routing system which would be much more crowded and thus slower. Basically what is being established here is that some information is more valuable than other information, and the way we establish that is how much money said information-broker is willing to hand over.
On a slightly less urgent note, I’m sure everyone has heard all the assumptions that videogames are to blame for our children’s increased violent tendancies, their penchant for killing cops and their friends and their parents and the like. Well in there lies the assumption that kids are more violent today than they have been in the past...not true, fellow netizens. Take a look at this:

http://www.gamerevolution.com/oldsite/articles/violence/violence.htm

That’s right, there’s significantly less violent youth crime today than there was in 1993. In fact, it hasn’t been this low since the 1970s. So...there’s that.

Wherein Ryan goes to the City of Angels for some J-time…

We had a nice 4-day weekend, so I decided to take a trip to Los Angeles to visit my friend Jeremy. It’s a 5 and a half hour drive, made longer by the addition of Hank to the equation. Yes, I decided to take my dog to LA. It was an easier notion than trying to find someone to pet-sit for the long weekend, and Jeremy didn’t seem to mind the idea. Anyway, besides the fact that Hank shivered in terror for basically the entire trip there and back, otherwise he seemed to have an excellent time. So did I, for that matter. It was a weekend of relaxation, eating and hanging out. All things I enjoy. The first evening we had a barbeque, consisting of a great spicy shrimp recipe we found on Foodtv.com and tons of grilled veggies. The second evening I made my newly famous stuffed pork chops, and the third we enjoyed some very nice LA sushi. Also we hit up a great California breakfast place called Hugos. Lots of organic stuff, fresh ingredients, vegetarian fare. Monday we went to a very cool dog-walking park where they let you unleash your dogs. It’s a nice long trail, and while it was tremendously hot, it was a good hike. We completely wore poor Hank out. He slept the rest of the day. I met some cool people, talked about comics a lot, played Super Smash Brothers, drank a bit of beer. We also saw Superman Returns on a 3d IMAX screen on Monday. I actually quite enjoyed it, though I could have completely done without the 3d scenes. It was more distracting than cool. I returned to Phoenix on Tuesday with enough time to head over the Meredith’s to watch some fireworks and have a few beers. A good long weekend.

Everything else is pretty normal. I’m playing a new game on the 360 called Oblivion. It’s a massive single-player RPG with a very detailed world with lots of quests and avenues of completion. It’s really good. It’s really time consuming. I’ve also picked up the old DS again to play Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. It’s an RPG that it takes good advantage of the DS dual-screen feature. I’m enjoying it so far, but combat is remarkably repetitive so far. It’s similar to Paper Mario but as of now Paper Mario has more interesting and diverse combat options.

Wherein Ryan looks at his progress…

It’s not as visible a change as from 221 to 200, but I think you can see some difference in 200 to to 187.

187…

200…

221…

On a sadder note, I just got word that my grandparents cute ol’ puppy Sheila passed away at the vets of heart failure today. She was a good, sweet puppy and she will be missed. At least we know that all dogs go to heaven.

As of last night’s scale reading, I according to standard Body Fat Percentage vs. Weight compared to age blah blah blah, I am officially out of “overweight” category and into the “normal” category with regard to fat percentage. I clocked in at a slightly inaccurate 17.6% BFP last night. Averaging that into my other recent readings, I am around 18.7%. That’s pretty damn great, considering I was nearly 30% when we started this ride. I know I talk about this a lot, and I apologize, but I’m a little addicted to this process now. My weight has remained constant for the last seven or so days. I’m floating around 188 and not really going down anymore, but now it’s all about moving that percentage down. 12% would be a good goal. I’ll try to get another comparison picture up tonight. I need to remember to bring my camera home from work…

Wherein Ryan sees Cars a few times and is inspired to animate…

Through work I managed to get a sneak peak at Cars a week before release, now that it’s out, I saw it again to catch things I missed. Pixar once again, does not let down. Ironically, this is Pixar’s most “human” film to date. It’s really a story about a town re-discovering itself, and not about NASCAR. Thank goodness too, because I was really scared I was going to be inundated with inane redneck jokes (I mean...Larry the Cable Guy *is* in the movie.) But it was not disappointing in the least. The animation was staggering, the backgrounds and rendering and lighting were just awe-inspiring. I am so jealous of their ability to put a great film together. I guess it helps to have hundreds of dedicated, talented employees. At any rate, I took a day off of working on my thesis (which I have been doing daily for about a week now and have made *tons* of progress) and I did a little animation. Funnily enough, it was not Cars that inspired me to do a test animation, but a little french animation called “Burning Safari” that I suggest you google and try to find. It’s a great piece, full of zippy exaggerated movement, something I don’t get to work with much on my current project. So I made this little robotic character and threw a test animation on him, inspired by the piece.

The Core - test animation 1

For only spending a few hours on the whole thing, I think it’s pretty strong. I’m happy with this style and I’m going to experiment further with it. Otherwise things are good. Nothing exciting and new to report other than the above.

Till next time.

Wherein Ryan brines some pork chops…

Next time you are going to grill pork chops, do this…
First off, always get chops with the bone, not boneless. It’s way to easy to get dry chops with boneless. For 4 chops, take a cup of Kosher salt and a cup of light brown sugar, a tablespoon of peppercorns and a tablespoon of mustard powder and put it in a sealable container capable of holding all four chops in one layer. Next take 2 cups of cider vinegar and heat it to a good boil (don’t stick your face over the boiling vinegar while it’s boiling, it’s really strong). Pour the vinegar into the sugar and salt mixture and mix it up so the sugar and salt dissolves. Now take a pound of ice and add it to the hot mixture. Most of the ice should melt. Now dunk your chops right in there, shake it up and make sure the chops are at least mostly submerged. Let that sit in your fridge for two to three hours. After that, take the chops out of the fridge, get them out of the brine and wash them off, then pat them dry with some papertowels. put some olive oil on em and grill those puppies to an internal temperature of 125 (the last 10 degrees will happen off the heat.) Let them sit for at least 5 or 6 minutes before cutting into them. I recommend serving them with a baked sweet potato and some broccoli. So...awesome. Alton Brown is a damn genius.

Wherein Ryan gets sick, visits Vegas, sees a show, and such…

If a waitress in a Cajun restaurant in the middle of the desert tells you that it’s ok to eat the oysters because they fly them in daily and that story about months with ‘r’s in them is just an old wives tale, don’t believe her. I know it was probably sorta silly to order them, but I wanted something light, seafoody and cold, and oysters sounded perfect. They didn’t sound perfect later that evening, when the only thing I could hear was the roar in my ears as I puked my brains out for a few hours, then stayed up all night nursing the trots. Oh yeah, good times. I’m better now. On a complete tangent, last week encompassed the long Memorial Day weekend, which I took advantage of by making a trip to Las Vegas, a first for me. I went with a couple of co-workers, to lessen the cost of the hotel room. We stayed at the Tropicana, which is central strip. It’s old and kinda cheesy, but we didn’t really stay there much, so it didn’t matter. The main reason I was there, other than to witness the debauchery and adult recess that is Vegas, was that I got tickets to Ká, one of the two big Cirque du Soleil performances there. It’s a slightly less acrobatic performance than most of their other shows, more story driven, with a huge complicated (and mechanically awe-inspiring) set that can be both floor and wall depending on its orientation, which changes throughout the show. I was very impressed. I did a small amount of gambling, enough to know I’m not really into it, and basically wandered around all the hotels. One of the heights of the trip was visiting the Ferrari-Maserati dealership in the new and luxurious Wynn hotel. I’m not much of a car person, but I think that every car Maserati has ever made is profoundly beautiful. It was well worth the side-trip. We also had dinner on Saturday night at Emeril’s. Originally we were planning on going to Nobu, a pretty famous sushi restaurant off the strip, but it was booked up. Emeril’s is right in the MGM Grand, which is also where Ká is performed. Emeril’s was a real treat. I have been to his restaurant in Orlando, and had a great experience, and it was just as good, if not better, this time around...also just as expensive, but hey, ya gotta live. So now it’s all things back to normal I guess. Still working hard on this new project at work, trying to impress upon corporate that we really need to make this game. Hank is good, he’s due for a checkup, my car is good, it’s also due for a checkup. I’m good, and I’m...I don’t think I’m due for a checkup yet. Oh, I’m posting a graph of my weight loss since April (when I started keeping a log each day). I will update it consistently so if you’re at all interested, check it occasionally. I am at 189 lbs now.

Check out the graph - Ryan’s Weight Loss

Wherein Ryan has a culinary adventure…

The development team decided to go on a little food adventure today, driven by the proddings of our modeller. We went to an Ethiopian restaurant, which if you have never experienced, is completely sublime. It is similar to Indian food, meats in sauces with garlic, ginger, peppers… but it’s decidedly not Indian food, mostly because of the portion/presentation, and the condiments. Ordering at this (and most, I gather) Ethiopian restaurants involves picking 3 or 4 different dishes - dried beef sauteed in an onion and rosemary sauce, lentils blended with onion and mustard dressing, potatoes and cabbage in curry, for example. It’s very easy to eat vegitarian or vegan as there are many veggie dishes. They are served in small portions, about 5 or 6 ounces per, and are presented in little piles with a really fantastic flat sourdough bread made from a grain called Teff. This bread is your silverware. Its got a chewy, spongy consistancy is very slightly sour but mostly designed as a way to get all the great flavors to your eagerly awaiting proboscus. I also had the house iced tea, which tasted of cloves and a little cinnamon. The whole experience was terrific, under 10 bucks including tip, and I was very full when we left. If you have an Ethiopian restaurant near you and you’ve been to afraid to give it a try *doooo iiiiiit*. It’s an experience not to be missed.

Wherein Ryan hits the 200 lb mark…

I bought my first HD tv yesterday, a Polaroid FLM-3232 32” widescreen job. It looks dead sexy with my XBox 360, which really comes into its own in HD. I don’t get HD with my DirecTV service, but I have an HD antenna on the way that should pick up the local HD broadcasts for free, so I’ll at least have that. DVDs look stellar. The only thing that doesn’t look fantastic is regular digital cable. It’s a little fuzzy because of the native resolution of the LCD screen. Ah well. The big update today is I got a picture taken that so many people have requested of me sans the 23 lbs I lost since December. It’s just a close-up but I think you can get the idea from the image...Oh and I put a picture of me in February for comparison.

As usual, click on the image for a bigger version. Everything else is good. Oh yeah...and I paid off all my credit cards. No more credit card debt for Ryan. Woot.

Wherein Ryan decides to give this mountain climbing thing a try…

I have been bouldering for the past several months, which consists of small, near-ground but very strenous rockclimbing maneuvers without equipment. Today, I went a step past that. I never thought I would ever do anything like this, but today I climbed, with ropes, harness, belay, carabiner, the whole works, up a very steep 60 foot rock face....twice. I couldn’t have picked better people to do this insane pass-time with, one of the guys I was climbing with is a professional climbing instructor, and another has been doing this for 15 years. The type of climb we were doing is called top-roping, which involves hiking up to the top of the climb and setting up an anchor system and then climbing up said system with the rope always supporting you from the top. As far as climbing is concerned, it’s about the safest way to climb, since there is never any real threat of someone slipping and falling. Don’t get me wrong, you’re still way...way up there. The first climb I did has got to be one of the scariest moments of my life, since my lack of experience gave me no trust in the equipment I was using. I was shaking and near-panicked all the way to the top. I “fell” once, which consists of dropping about a foot until the auto-belay catches you. After that one fall I realized that this rope I was on probably wouldn’t break if I hung an SUV from it, so I relaxed a little. It was quite a rush getting to the top of that climb. The trip down is just as nerve-wracking on the first go. You basically have to lean back until you’re perpendicular to the rock and “walk” down backwards as the person supporting you rachets the rope down. I slipped on the way down and scrapped my elbow a little, but it helped me figure out what I was doing wrong. The second time I went up the wall was *infinitely* easier and less stressful. I trusted my equipment and my belayer much more and actually had fun doing the climb the second time. Is this the start of an extension of my new hobby? Probably, in the long run, yes. I have my own harness and I’d be up for going again. Unfortunately Summer is right around the corner, and climbing on a mountain in 118 degrees in the middle of the desert isn’t that appealing. So I’ll stick to bouldering for now.

Wherein Ryan talks about dropping pounds, eating and online health…

I’m at 203.4 lbs as of this morning. In 2ish weeks I’ve dropped about 5 pounds, from a combination of going to the gym/climbing every day and changing up my dietary habits. The “diet” I am on is called The Abs Diet, and the subsequent book is written by Men’s Health Magazine editor David Zinczenko. It’s not a hard diet to follow, nor is it a system where you have to deny yourself stuff you like to eat. Basically it lists 12 “powerfoods” that you should incorporate into your meals (stuff like almonds, blueberries, yogurt, whey powder, flax meal). You just need a few or even one powerfood in each meal, and of course you watch your intake of empty carbs, added fat, etc. Nothing shocking. The trick is, you eat 6 times a day. I won’t say its been difficult eating...basically all the time...but it’s definitely different. My actual “big meals” like lunch and dinner end up being a whole lot smaller because of all the snacking. Apparently you advantage from the “slow burn” of calories instead of getting everything in big blasts. I’m definitely seeing results and eating a whole lot healthier food on a consistent basis now. I’m having fun at the gym and really starting to get into the whole rock climbing thing. I whimsically picked up Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods” again the other day, and have had a hard time putting it down. It’s such a funny, compelling adventure and it really urges me to get back on the Appalachian Trail again. In case you were unaware, I hiked the trail when I was...12 or 13 or some such thing, for...I think it was 2 weeks. I was miserable, too young to make the trip, and the people I was with abused my youth quite a bit. But...in the end I had an amazing experience and I would like to try it again. Lastly, I’ve decided to pay for an online workout system. I’m still staying with Hyperstrike, but I’m predominantly using a system I used when I was 19 called GymAmerica (http://www.gymamerica.com). Good...stuff.

Wherein Ryan starts climbing on stuff…

I recently “switched” projects at work and am working with a much smaller team (about 7 as opposed to 70). We’ve already started working on the...thing We’ve got a tight deadline. Everyone played musical chairs in the studio last week, and I am now settled in my new desk, in a little cubical area by a window. It’s not bad. On a much more entertaining note, I’ve found an outside activity that really piques my interest. I’m sure plenty of readers are going to freak out when I describe it, but it’s called “bouldering” and it is, in the most basic sense, rock climbing without gear. However, the areas or “problems” that you are working with in bouldering are almost exclusively right near the ground, usually only 3 to 5 feet high. The only thing the climber has is a pair of climbing shoes (which I just bought), a crash mat (provided by my fellow bouldering friends), and a spotter to make sure you don’t fall on any sharp rocks. I’m definitely bunny sloping it for the time being. I need to get my shoulder and back strength up significantly. I should probably be able to do some pull-ups. My current weight check-in is 210 lbs. I’m between a 36 and a 34 waist. Ever-dropping. My goal weight is 180ish, maybe a bit higher given muscle-mass. As a little plug, I’ve been using an online fitness program called Hyperstrike (http://www.hyperstrike.com) that’s given me good results. It gives me a workout plan tailored to my week and my fitness goals...and at the moment it’s free. If you can’t tell, I’m definitely back into the fitness craze.
Things are otherwise good. The next few months are going to prove to be very interesting, whether that be a good or bad thing, we’ll see. ‘Till next time.