Extreme Racing

This weekend I discovered a plugin for Nemu64 (N64 emulator) that will capture fully textured geometry from any ROM. I grabbed the Alcatraz track from the Midway game Rush 2 and decided to start working on a cinematic race sequence. Here's a still frame created as a lighting and compositing test.

And here is the raw textured model as imported from Nemu64.

Studio Production

This past quarter I was part of a small team who built a miniature model of a destroyed city. We then filmed it against a green screen and each came up with our own little composition using the footage. I brought in a futuristic drop ship model I made some time ago and created a little sequence of it scouting around. In the end it learns its lesson not to be putting its nose where it doesn't belong. Check it out here.

All The Pictures

Here's a gallery of all my pictures from the trip. I plan to go through them all again and make a "best of" index just to make things easier.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

The adventure is over. In 13 days, the total travel distance was nearly 11,000 miles. Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Honolulu, Maui, Hilo, Kona, Kauai. Five planes, two buses, two boats, a helicopter, and at least a dozen shuttles & tour buses.

Terragen

Just kidding, its northern Kaua'i!

Fire Juggling

If that doesn't get you all the chicks you want, I don't know what will.

Ok Last Kaua'i Pic

For now.

Falls

Yup Kauai'i again

Wailua River - Kaua'i

Near that little village down there is where they filmed the village explosion in Outbreak. Kauai'i is also where Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Hook, and Gilligans Island were filmed! It never plays its self though.

A Purdy Rainbow

It isn't visible in the picture, but it sprouted out of the water about mid way between the boat and shore. No pot of gold...

Entering Kaua'i

Kona

Da Boat

Deck 11

I havent tried out the ships pool yet. Being surrounded by chairs, it makes it look like you're on stage. I'll leave that to the girls in bikinis.

A Whole Bunch

We're in Hawaii now, and I've been using my sony HDR-SR11 to film and take pictures instead of my cellphone, so I haven't been able to upload them so rapidly. I finally got some internet access, but using the ships satellite internet at sea really sucks. There will probably be only one more of these postings this week besides any I blog straight from the phone.

Family after boarding the ship!

We drove up into a residential neighborhood in our rental car and found some cool houses with amazing views. One (not this one) was for sale for $5.5 million.
Some foggy mountains and Needle Point at Iao Valley State Park.

A secluded waterfall we hiked to on Maui.


Passing by a beach resort.

The port in Honolulu

Some Hawaiian brush

A mossy stump that looked cool.

Pride Of America

A floating 14 story 15,000 horsepower (EDIT: Apparently I should have looked into it rather than just guessing...I know now that she actually generates over 70,000 HP) building docked at Maui.

Aloha!

Ice On The Window

At 45,000 feet over the Pacific. Kind of looks like cracks!

The Next Street

A bit more interesting than the last, mainly due to the touch of yellow.

A Street

Nothing too incredibly special.

From Vista Point

Not the best view of the bridge i've ever seen, but its where the tour took us. 14 million rivets and the final one is pure gold.

Metal Wheels

Besides the cable cars, theres a lot more railed trollies cruising around than I expected. Its also cool to see the web of electrical wires strung over the streets; a lot of buses use them too.

From The Bottom

Another shot of the funkiest road.

Lombard!

I've visited it in many a video games, and now finally in reality.

Some Distant Snowy Mountains

Enroute to San Francisco, probably somewhere over Colorado.

Boarding From the Ground?

First time i've ever done that.

Two Videos For You

Here's my two final projects from Visual Effects class this past quarter. Both of them still need some tweaking, but I went ahead and made a quick breakdown for each. The process is the fun part, so it's nice to see it all broken down into its steps. Clicking the images will take you to a page on toddfx.com where you can watch the videos.

I would upload some full resolution higher quality Quicktimes, but posting just this took far too long thanks to the hideously slow internet my folks in St. Louis are somehow living with. Seriously; it feels like 56k.

The Future

Hopefully one day this barebone layout will be replaced by something much greater, but that won't happen until at least next month. Until then, it will probably be going through various transformations as I continue to explore RSS integration. My plan includes a full website which this blog will be part of.

The Hulk

A convergance of the color green

Lake & Wabash

A test. The first pic (of many) blogged straight from my phone!