Recently I took my son to MOTAT.  Basically this is the museum of transportation and technology.  We had a great time.  There were lots of airplanes, cars, generators and trains.  My son was asked if he wanted to ride in the cab of the steam locomotive that runs there, but he said he wanted to sit in a comfy seat… They didn’t ask me.. Probably because there wouldn’t have been enough room.  I will be posting pictures soon.  There appears to be an issue with my ability to save them on the server…

Talk more soon!

We have lots going on, and I want to talk more, but I am unable to.  However, I’ll give you these three sites instead.  

First, go to Facebook, and become a friend of Cascade Game Foundry (All I can say about it at this time but what I have been busy with)

Second, my wife has been working on a blog about our adventures in New Zealand and how we are managing the transition.  www (dot) porteradventures (dot) blogspot (dot) com.  Remove the (dot) and add a period without spaces.

I learned my lesson about hyperlinks when I posted this blog on a train sim site.  I have Russian spammers sending me hundreds of messages a day.  I am assuming they are fans, but they keep talking about male enhancement and hair replacement.  They are getting a little too personal.

Also you can see a bit of the work my students have just completed here:

itswhatyoumakeofit (dot) com/2009/09/join-our-village/

Remove the (dot) and add a period.

Yea!  Back in business.   Things are going really well with my new job.  I absolutely love it here in New Zealand.  The people are very nice (but they drive horribly)  It’s ok, I have worked very hard to fit in and now I drive like crap too!

Actually I take the bus.  It’s a great view looking out the window of the bus on the bay road.  I still have more news soon.  But for now, I am here and I will be posting some pictures and eventually getting back to posting tutorials and other stuff.

Hope everyone is well.

Porter

Well, it took a long time, but we finally got approval and will be leaving next Friday.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I have been working on several projects trying to get done before I head out.  I should be finishing with the latest just before my computer is packed on Monday.

Once I get into NZ I will add pictures here and updates to the work I have been doing.  I am sure some of you will find it pleasing.  At least I hope so!

Mike

Oh man,  it sucks that I put my link up and I am getting nothing but spam.

Update on New Zealand.  I am still waiting to get approval from the New Zealand gov. on if I am able to come into the country.  I sent my application in last week.  We are waiting on my daughters passport and then we will send the rest of the applications in.

We are ready to be in country and learning our way around, but we have this last step to get through.

Work on the Dash 9 is still underway.  My previous employee and good friend Andre Roux has agreed to give the texture the love it needs.  Hang tight for an huge update soon.  It’s looking amazing.

I am still working on the Dash 9,  things have slowed down because of the trip home and all the paperwork for my visa.  It’s pretty heavy right now, but I am trying something out that I hope will be a really good experiment.

Here is the latest update.

I have accepted an offer to go work for Media Design School in Auckland, New Zealand!  More to come as I get information about when I move and when I start!

I have some very big news coming soon.  Waiting for final confirmation and then I will post here what is going on.

I am also still at work on the Dash 9.  Getting further along.  The good news with high poly is that it makes great normal maps.  The bad news is that it takes much longer to generate.

I am still doing tests with the poly budget I would like to see and how to integrate the interior and exterior into one cohesive model.  This may be more poly prohibitive than I would like, but if you don’t test, you don’t get anywhere with it.

MORE COMING SOON I PROMISE!!!

This is a flip phone idea for a project I am working on.  I thought it would be cool to have all the emoticons right at your thumb tips.

Here is some koi fish I made for Star Trek: Elite Force 2.  These were the fish swimming in the ponds at Starfleet Acadamy.  I also made most of the plants and did a bit on the skybox.  I started the object and another artist came in and finished it.  I was actually working on a different project at the time and was asked to get that piece going.  I am glad someone was able to actually give it more time than I was allowed. Mine was ok, the other artists work was amazing.

The fish are animated with a space warp that allows it to follow the purple wave on the left.  The placement of the additional fish are set up as instances, so the animation information is translated to all the fish.  The other win for me using this spacewarp binding is that as you move the fish around, they take on the aspect of the wave.  There was no extra animation information set up other than moving the fins up and down with vertex animation.