10:39 am

Sometimes I forget how crazy flash looks from a distance. Do I really know how all those buttons and knobs work? Seriously? Have I been wasting my life?

Teusday

Things are going pretty slow on Moon Diary. The shots we are currently on are extremely complex, and difficult to figure out. Over a minute has been animated on day 4, and it is no more than one third of the way done. There has been some talk about cutting planned content for day 4 to get it done faster, but since this is a labor of love we decided to just keep plodding away at it. Hopefully by next week we can get a screen shot up of a new setting in day 4, we've been stuck in that dirty dusky ocean for weeks now.

One small update is I designed a website for http://www.thezestylibrarian.com. It's really simple, and only took about 4 hours to get this far once I had started. It was nice to really feel productive again, it's been a while.

Unrelated

So yesterday my friends and I got into a minor discussion about animals and how all they are are nutrient processing intestinal tracks on wheels - brains are nice but not mandatory. One of them qualified this statement by saying that animals all at least have a central nervous system, and I was all like "Nuh-uh-uh, not bacteria." Then everyone said that bacteria were not animals, but I condescendingly disagreed over and over again. Of course, it turns out bacteria are as far away from animals as you can get, much further than plants, and even more distantly related than archaea, which share some metabolic processes with eukaryotes (multicellular organisms.)

Bacteria are freaking crazy! Look at this chart showing the structure of bacteria's protein enclosed organelles. It zooms in on the structure from left to right. On the left we have a bacteria with organelles visible within it. By the time we get to the right you can see actual atoms in one huge molecule. Bacteria aren't that far removed from atoms just floating around, relatively! It's close enough that you can almost visualize a group of atoms just following out their chemically reactive duty, and that's life! That large collection of interacting atoms is alive!

You know the flagella that some bacteria have? Bacteria don't have cells, and therefore don't have traditional muscles. How does a flagella work? "Flagella are driven by the energy released by the transfer of ions down an electrochemical gradient across the cell membrane" So basically the flagella is just an inert piece of filament, which flails in response to a bacteria based motor. It's similar to a muscle, just it's made directly out of molecules rather than cells.

To change gears slightly, now check out myxobacteria. When these bacteria find themselves in an environment where nutrients are scarce (and at this level, nutrients are just molecules (which are just atoms (which are not alive)) that the bacteria collects to make more bacteria) these myxobacteria send signals to neighboring bacteria and join together. They organize themselves by releasing chemicals and different bacteria take on different tasks to form a fruiting body. This fruiting body creates spores that remain dormant until nutrients return to that environment, and they hatch at the same time, ensuring that the bacteria always have a group available. That's a primitive multicellular organism! That's what we humans are! Albeit not primitive.

That's all pretty exhausting to think about, isn't it? Do you know why it's exhausting? Whenever you learn, you are physically changing the structure of your brain. You have to spend a bunch of chemical energy to go in there and reconnect synapses. I had to go in and modify a bunch of misconceptions I had gathered somewhere that bacteria are simple animals (well, they are, but not semantically.) The brain I had this morning is a different shape than the one I have now, after noticing some parts of the brain which were not reflecting reality and concentrating some energy to go in and adjust it.

Isn't that CRAZY?

Olympia Film Festival

Yesterday was the date of my showing of Trans Fat at the 25th Annual Olympia Film Festival. I was personally disappointed, the video quality of it was very poor. It was too bright, too few colors, bleeding of colors into each other (making trans fat the character unrecognizable,) visible video compression in some areas, and then there was the issue of frame skipping during the CPU intensive scenes. I need to spend more hours in the future figuring out how to make my flash videos into not-horrible movie files.

Despite that, I think I got the most decibels of laughter with the punch line, and despite the haze of low quality I think it was possible to tell that it was supposed to look really good, which in some ways is almost as good.

I got a certificate of appreciation from the Olympia Film Society. I'm hanging it up in the studio (bedroom.)

Today starts the 25th annual Olympia Film Festival, which will be featuring my film Trans Fat on the 11th! Since I'm a film maker, I get a full pass and can participate in every film festival activity for free! This more than a $75 value! On the back of my pass it says my name followed by the word "film maker." How prestigious! Any one in the Olympia area should be sure to check me out on the 11th, I'll be there after the shows for a QnA session, where I'll have a chance to plug my next animation, Moon Diary, and my website, yesbutwhatisit.com. Good luck, me!

Keep it simple stupid

Well, two full days of work has amounted to this nice shot. I mean, it's great, but if I spend this much time on every shot I'll never get done. This is just the opening! Today is not over yet, so hopefully I can draw a whale or two, and maybe add some sailors.

Back to work

Day 4 is in the works. In the studio we've decided to make this day one of the longest in the series, adding two large scene changes and story developments that have doubled what this day would originally have been. Shown here are some of the preliminary schematics, original comics, studies, and note cards made out of napkins from the local chinese buffet. Since this picture we've started making even more, and the day still seems vague. Hopefully its not going to get out of control.

Moon Diary day 5

Here's a preview frame from the upcoming animation Moon Diary. We just finished this scene, and I really liked the way this bush turned out. The leaves move in response to the rabbit hopping between them. I wish I wouldn't keep topping myself and forcing myself to make the whole animation more complicated, but look at that bush! How could I not?

Friday Night

It's party time this Friday night. I finally figured out how to use PHP! You have to end the file with a ".php" extension rather than a ".html" extension. I had been doing everything else right all along. I knew it would be something simple yet totally obscure. In addition to that, I just got a new website, three new email accounts, and as of right now, a new blogger account .  Things sure are changing for the better! What more could I possibly want?

Friends?

Bah!