Mudbox 2009 in October

Mudbox 2009 is scheduled to be released by Autodesk in October 2008. From the information in Area forum, here I conclude some of the notable features :

1. An ability to match or even surpass Zbrush3.1 in terms of polycount. It is said that mudbox will be able to handle tens of million polygons easily. It means that the performance will be increased by tenfold at least from current version (1.0.7). Also it is available in 64-bit version, meaning that we can maximize or memory usage.


2. 3D painting feature. It's not polypainting, nor screen projection painting it is. SkyCastleMud in the Area forum called it “tumble style painting”. It seems that we can avoid having artifacts with projection painting when some mesh overlap each other from screen. He also said :

-Paint faster than ever without the need to enter projection modes with full GPU acceleration
-Paint in reflection (ie: with mirror X ON for example. Both sides of the a head even with different UVs on both sides )
-Project across multiple high res texture maps within the same scene
-Paint/view multiple shading channels like diffuse color, specular, bump, reflection etc…
-Paint with multiple texture layers with support for multiple resolutions and bit depths within the same layer stack
-Paint using brush tip stamps with color and alpha channels

link to area

Hopefully the painting feature is intuitive and easy to use, unlike polypainting in Zbrush which has too many limitation.

3. Realtime lighting and shadows. Mudbox 2009 supports CGFx shaders and HDRI lighting, which means that you can use your own custom shaders, so that the preview results will be much more resemble to final result in rendering.

link to area


Can't wait to try it in our production pipeline. If it is as smooth and feature-rich as it seems, than I think our texturing process will be a lot more intuitive than now!

Zebruv released

Two weeks ago I have released the ABF++ unwrap plugin, which is ported from Blender, and I called it Zebruv (Zebra+UV). The file can be downloaded at highen3d .

Currently I'm still not that satisfied with the result from Zebruv, compared to Roadkill or Blender one. It seems that there's parameter called "fill holes" that makes the result much better. I'll try to dig into the codes later when I have more time. Currently I have a lot of displacement maps to generate, all 4K. One image require about 1-2 hour to generate, while more complex ones can take half a day, so it's very time consuming. Hope that with the new version of Mudbox, I'll be able to generate maps in much more efficient way.

Here comes ABF++ for Maya!

Finally I have finished a stable version of ABF++ unwrapping plugin for Maya. The result isn't disappointing, but it's still not a 'wowing' tool yet. But it does a good job for most UVing purpose.
Here's the screen shot of my tool (call it dgJustUV for now, I'm planning to choose a better name for him, lol).


I really hope to be allowed to released this plugin for public (in highend3d), so this could be my first contribution to Maya community which has give me a lot.

The box is finally out of the mud!

Two days ago Autodesk (finally) released a performance preview of Mudbox Dali, or officially named Mubox 2009. From the demo video we can see a lot of performance improvement especially from polycount wise by almost tenfold I think. Also the realtime lighting and shading could be a nice plus, although not that essential. We do not need to many polycount,around 10 million should be sufficient(for 1 objects), but we need a stable and robust displacement exporter, sadly this is not the case with ZB. If this is really a solid release, then We will switch from ZB to use it. This is a big possibility, because currently ZB, although massive in polycount wise, but is very buggy and lack a lot of core 3d feature such as an ability to group some objects easily or doing 3D texture painting directly on mesh without the need to project it into 2D. Polypainting is not a solution really because it is limited by polycount, thus is not able to produce high quality uv texture. And with its 2d core, its not that easy to integrate new 3d features, and also integrate with other software such as Maya or PRMan. But we'll see the next release of ZB before judging it to early.

Anyway, here is the performance preview of next release of Mudbox.
http://area.autodesk.com/mudbox_preview

Overtime

This Saturday is officially the first time I worked "overtime" at Digimax. It's not that bad actually. We got pizza treat, and I had free access to PC and air conditioning, which I would turn on in home anyway. Besides, Now I have 8 hours free time to spend on the other days. So yeah, it's not a bad exchange at all.
But I think I had to postpone my project on UV unwrapping. It's on alpha stage now, very unstable, I haven't found whether the problems lies on wrong logic or just memory issue. But I still hope that i can finish at least a stable basic version at the end of this month. Hope that the people at Autodesk are focusing on things other than this feature :p, otherwise I may just have wasting my time.

2 projects ongoing

Recently i have been busy writing some tools for Maya. For current time i have 2 projects in hand:
1. Animation baking.
2. ABF unwrap plugin.

Hopefully I should be able to finish both in a month.
I think I'll release the UV plug-in for public use, since some of the codes are taken from other softwares such as Blender.

Spain win The Euro 2008!

Finally Euro 2008 ends, and with excitement (at least for me). Though i'm not a hardcore fan of Spain NT, but i'm happy that they win, since there are some players I enjoyed watching like Cesc, David Silva, and David Villa. In fact, I think they fully deserved to win this cup, since they played with full confidence from start to end. But there's some nervous moments in the final match when they looked shaky at the beginning, played a lot of wrong passes, and seems to be afraid of those Germans. But slowly they found their rythm and played with more fluid passing.
The particular player I like to watch in Spain team is Cesc, obviously because he's the Arsenal player. He's not having a good (but not great) tournament, partly because mostly he came in second half. But he has some good moments too such as setting up 2 goals in semifinal and scoring 1 in group stage. Hope he can keep improving and most importantly stays loyal to Arsenal!
Bottom line : Viva Espana!!

Fotball (soccer) fate in Taiwan

It's really shitty that football is so unpopular in here (Taiwan), such that there's no live coverage of Euro 2008, one of the most popular event in the world in this month. All they're showing on TV are baseball, baseball, and baseball. My Goodness!!
The Taiwan people here adore New York Yankee like it's their national team. And it's all just because one of the players is coming from Taiwan. Though it is respectable, it doesn't mean that you need to cover all their matches 24 hours a day (ok, not that much, but almost 23 hours i think).

==continue==
Maybe I'm biased, but I really think that baseball is not a good choice for "national sport".

1. It takes a lot of time for a match (3-4 hours).
2. Most of the time it's just boring throw and catch. Once in a while you'll see home-runs and some nice catch, but that's all.
3. It's not intense & continuous action like football,basketball, or badminton. You'll see the pitcher do some pose, and the batter swinging his bat waiting for ball, etc. That's why you see a lot of players who are overweight(like pics below):






But sadly I don't think the sport trend in Taiwan will change in any foreseeable future, at least when some (or even just one) of their players are playing in MLB. it's a pity....

start it again!

wow, it seems that i've stopped posting on this blog for almost a year. Well, i'm now in mood to start over again LOL.
First, Blizzard has announced its new game to be DIABLO III ! i'm very excited right now. Haven't played any game lately, the last game i played was in fact Diablo II, some months back!
The Blizzard site is very lagged right now, so I couldn't check the gameplay. But hope that it won't be exclusively online multi player, since I don't have that much time too play online.
Bottom line, GO GO Blizzard!!

edit: Just saw the cinematic trailer and gameplay,and i gotta say: WOW!! (not world of warcraft) , it is astonishing!
I'll buy a new PC just to play this game. Considering that my PC is 5 years old now, it shouldn't be able to render those amazing scenes. But I don't think it'll come soon though, so i should have enough time for saving .

More info on Diablo III:
http://eu.blizzard.com/diablo3/

logo: (looks very nice)

we are big, and small.

Here I found a very interesting pictures of comparison between earth and other planets/stars.
Although it is common knowlodge, i'm still astonished to find out how small earth is compared to the whole universe.
Here's the pictures(don't drop your jaws, you have been warned!)


The smaller planets compared to the Earth


Smaller planets compared to Jupiter


Planets compared to the Sun


Sun compared to Arcturus, Jupiter is 1 pixel in size and the Earth is invisible as this scale


Arcturus compared to Antares, at this scale Jupiter is invisible and the Sun is 1 pixel in size.

And Antares is just the 16nd brightest star in the sky !!! (according to wikipedia).

Ractopamine (瘦肉精)

A much debated issue here(taiwan), yet the term 瘦肉精 is very unintuitive. After searching for a while, i finally found that it is actually called Ractopamine. Here's some explanation of this chemistry term, taken from wikipedia:

Ractopamine is a drug that is used as a feed additive to promote leanness in pigs raised for their meat. The feed additive Paylean®, produced by the U.S. company Elanco Animal Health, contains ractopamine hydrochloride. Paylean was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration on December 22, 1999, and has also been approved in more than 20 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and Thailand.^[1]

Ractopamine in feed for animals is responsible for dramatic muscle growth, yet it is not a steroid or hormone, but rather a compound known as a beta agonist. Only a trace amount of ractopamine need be added for a marked increase in protein and decrease in fat accretion in animals, in particular swine. For the last 90 pounds of live weight gain, a mere 18.5 grams of ractopamine added to a ton of feed (20 ppm) will increase protein by 24% and decrease fat by 34%.^[2]

In July 2007 Chinese officials seized U.S.-produced pork for containing ractopamine residues.

or in chinese:

俗語說的好，豬養肥了就要殺來吃，但是怎麼讓豬能夠產出最多的肉，賣更多的錢，我們必須讓豬吃的飼料裡面，含有讓它可以更紥實的物質。目前主要用於改進動物體組成的方法，有以下幾類：一、生長激素；二、腎上腺素受體促進劑﹔三、營養調節；四、合成代謝類的類固醇。

最近鬧的沸沸洋洋的瘦肉精就是屬於第二類，事實上瘦肉精是一個統稱，有很多種化學物質都可以有這個效果﹔目前衛生署公布可以核准使用的就是 Ractopamine(Paylean培林)，Paylean是在在一九九九年經美國ＦＤＡ核准上市，在肉豬上市前二十八天加二十ppm的 Paylean於飼料中，可使每頭豬隻增加瘦肉五公斤，降低脂肪三公斤，節省飼料十八點五公斤，並且可提早四天達到上市。體重另外一個毒性較高的是 Clenbuterol，衛生署正打算核准中，天呀!!為何要核准毒性較高的瘦肉精，台灣人真是眾人騎，沒人疼嗎??(參考電影悲情城市)。無能的政府你 們在幹麻??

Ractopamine本來是禮來藥廠預計研發在治療氣喘的用藥，但實驗中發現Ractopamine要達到能治療氣喘的藥量會產生極大的副作用，因此不適用人類使用，但在動物試驗中偶然發現，少量用於豬隻時卻有提高豬隻精質瘦肉的效果，就如GSK公司開發憂鬱症藥物Zyban，而意外發現可以戒煙一樣。

在台灣較常使用的則是Salbutamol最為普遍，因價格便宜，它的毒性比Ractopamine高，比Clenbuterol低。

腎上腺素受體促進劑(agonists)主要有類似腎上腺素和正腎上腺素的結構，能夠大量提高瘦肉率，在近二十年來深受重視。但是世界各國幾乎都已經禁止使用，剩下美國還採用大量的高標準，只是不知道是不是都用來輸出給落後的第三世界國家，例如台灣。

modeling TD

I have been assigned as modeling TD today. So now i need to be very capable of manipulating maya's modeling tools. Hope that i can give some contribution to the team!!

3 years for a siggraph paper

I have made a target for myself. Three years from now, i must submit a paper to SIGGRAPH! Whether it is accepted or not isn't a problem. At least i have to try.
The process should be like this:

• First year for understanding maths behind the previous papers.
• Second year for reviewing the existing papers.
• Third year for writing the paper itself.

I know it's pretty demanding task given my lack of depth in maths, and without any specific tutor, but i truly believe i can do that, so yeah, add oil!!!

in memorial of...shrek

After playing a while with maya, i decide to render a satisfying image.
This image was rendered with maya renderer, using scene from 3DRender.com, and the 'pitiful' shrek picture was taken from tx.technion.ac.il using google image search.

Click on the image to see the full-size one.

what i need to master a month from now

1. MAYA and MEL
This software's complexity is tremendous, and the learning curve is quite steep. But if learned properly, it is a very powerful tool.

2. RSL
Combined with maya, they can produce the most realistic images available now. So it's also essential tool to be mastered.

3.Python
Powerful, easy-to-learn, easy-to-read, this is the must-have scripting language.

In the future:
4.Advanced Computer Graphics knowledge
This is also a must-have for RD department. Without this knowledge, i'll forever be a pawn that performs the low-level jobs.

5.Maths required for computer graphics
To accomplish no.4, this is the essential knowledge.

Seems a lot to learn, huh?

Bypassing MegaUpload Toolbar

source link: another blog
If u want to download from MegaUpload, yet u don't prefer to install the toolbar first,
here is a way to bypass it:

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.5 tweak:

1. Go to address bar and type about:config . Press enter
2. Look for general.useragent.extra.firefox using the filter and double click on it
3. Change the default text with this: Firefox/2.0.0.5 MEGAUPLOAD 1.0

if u use IE 6 or 7, go to the source link.

Ubuntu

if u want to free urself from using illegal softwares, and wanna try another
operating system beside the crash-all-the-time windows XP, i recommend using
ubuntu (most popular linux distro for desktop).

some pros and cons compared to windows XP, (based on my own experience)

pros:
1. no need for antivirus, which eat considerable amount of memory and CPU time
2. major update twice a year, to encompass the latest features.
3. LOTS of nice applications, and mostly open source (free).

i can do almost all the things i usually do on XP, including:
1. BBS
2. P2P
3. mail client (outlook express on XP, evolution on ubuntu)
4. MSN
5. microsoft's famous office application(using openoffice)
6. audio&video
7. browsing (firefox feels exactly the same on both OS)

you see that if u're using ur PC/NB just for these general purpose, ubuntu
is more than enough.

4. the spec requirement is not high ( especially if u compare it to vista)
5. The GUI is cool and better compared to XP (i haven't used Vista,so i don't
know how it feels).

cons:
1. if u use some unusual hardwares, u may encounter drivers problem.
2. u can't play most PC games coz they're exclusively designed for windows/mac
3. u need some knowledge of using command line (command prompt on windows XP,
though command prompt's functionality is extremely limited).
4. Software installation can be a complicated task because of dependencies or
insufficient knowledge about how linux works.

those are some i can think of.

Lots of tips and tutorials can be found on ubuntu's forum.
http://ubuntuforums.org/

Here's some positive responses using ubuntu compared to windows XP:
http://linux.sys-con.com/read/382946_p.htm
http://aaronjlynch.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/6/13/Ubuntu-VS-Windows-XP-part-2
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=199201179

u can find a lot more by just googling "ubuntu vs windows"


Here is a demonstration of the cool new GUI desktop of Ubuntu based on
Beryl Project:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD7QraljRfM

new box, new feel

I've moved into a new room after graduated from NTU. Actually i had the option to stay in dorm until September, but i refused it since i old dorm is under renovation, and i had to move to another dorm just for 2 months. So here i am, at my new "home".
Pros:
- It's located in downtown and close to night market, so it's very convenient.
- Finally it's MY OWN ROOM, so more privacy.
- Almost all i need are provided ( minus a place to cook, not necessarily a kitchen).

Cons:
- A bit expensive ( NT 8,000 a month)
- A bit too small.
- The internet runs like turtle. Its much more slower than my dorm's connection, especially the upload part.

More on it later.

Graduated!!

Finally i'm graduated from NTU!
But I've grown to love this uni and especially my department, CSIE. The staff and teachers there are very nice, also my classmates are nice ones. Very recommended major and department for someone who want to study here.
Here's the pics of my graduation sertificates in English and Chinese:
english
chinese

Beware of Google Desktop Search...

....if your diskspace is low, because it takes up considerable space. In my PC, the index file size is about 1 GB + . I thought i would be much smaller, but maybe google puts something more into its indexing algorithm so that the size grows bigger. But on the other hand, the search time is definitely faster than native windows XP searching program, so it's still worth the cost.
Anyway, since most of us have hundreds gigabyte of harddisk space, it wouldn't be a big problem, except that you're like me who like to install a lot lot software into the system =.=