I’ve finally bought a domain name (www.anecdote.org.uk), and it has a wordpress blog, so from now on there won’t be many (no) updates on this blog, so why not check out the new blog@ www.anecdote.org.uk .

Recently made this animation of a strange organic tube with an eye on the end (dubbed “robot eye”!).

Right click, Save Target As… to download. (~4.6Mb, Quicktime)

I just randomly re-found-out about YafRay as an external rendering option with Blender when I remembered something about the fact that YafRay can render caustics.

Unfortunately YafRay gives huge rendering times. For example today I rendered a scene with full GI with caustics and it took like almost an hour. I also found out that YafRay can do DOF.

I’m currently rendering a fluid simulation in Blender using YafRay with Medium quality GI. I decided not to try and use caustics as this would definately make render times shoot up! Currently it’s rendering at about 2.5 mins per frame or so.

UPDATE: I’ve now uploaded the video to Google videos:

I’ve just completed a simple composite test of a shuttlepod hovering above the sea. Basically I was just trying to get the reflections right, so the lighting on the ship isn’t so good (plus I still haven’t got around to properly learning how to do good lighting).

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Shuttle Model:
http://www.blenderwars.com/popup.php?mod=travelpod
Original Modeler – Matthew Parker
Converted by – Rashid Al-Marri

After clearing out my room today, I found some sketches I made when I was like 8/9 years old. Almost 90% of them are something to do with me trying to draw people sitting down on a chair (failing miserably), and for some reason they have long necks.

One of my sketches that I found particularly funny…(Click to enlarge)

Another sketch…

After clearing out my room today, I found some sketches I made when I was like 8/9 years old. Almost 90% of them are something to do with me trying to draw people sitting down on a chair (failing miserably), and for some reason they have long necks.

One of my sketches that I found particularly funny…(Click to enlarge)

Another sketch…

I’m currently making a short film with my friends called, “The Case”. Below is a “rough edit” (REALLY ROUGH!!). Basically it’s about this person who steals an important case from this high security building (my house).

Original Music: “Redshift” composed by Jan Morgenstern   (www.wavemage.com)

Just did a little test to try and animate the organic robot model I made. I now realise several big mistakes in the model that stop any GOOD animation being produced from using it. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to scrap trying to animate it properly!

Anyway, click here to view it (894Kb, AVI).

Right, it’s time to let out my anger on EA games!

Today I spent aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages trying to set up a network game for playing The Battle For Middle Earth (BfME) against my brother. By the time I got it set up, I tried playing a network game afer lots of crashes on the other pc (because of McAfee!), and one simple message “popped up”:

Your Serial code is in use by another person

I tried playing an online game instead, but to no avail. Basically EA Games want me to buy another copy of BfME just to play a network game, even though BfME II is already out and making them tons of cash!

Three words in conclusion: I hate EA Games!

Hmm that might count as four words… oh well so much for a well written ranting post.

I went to Newborough beach today, and just decided to take a few snapshots. This view was basically me chasing a wave (unfortunately the camera got a bit wet in the process… if only I had an underwater camera case!!).