Binary Bonsai

Oy oy! I’m currently working on restructuring the site and getting rid of this whole frame business. It’ll be quite groovy once its done, but there might be some problems throughout the day.

“Then Melkor saw what was done, and that the Valar walked on Earth as powers visible, clad in the raiment of the World, and were lovely and glorious to see and blissful, and that the Earth was becoming as a garden for their delight, for its turmoils were subdued. His envy grew then the greater within him ; and he also took visible form, but because of this mood and malice that burned in him that form was dark and terrible. And he descended upon Arda in power and majesty greater than any of the other Valar, as a mountain that wades in the sea and has its head above the clouds and is crowned with smoke and fire ; and the light of the eyes of Melkor was like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with a deadly cold.

Thus began the first battle with the Valar and Melkor for the dominion of Arda.”

- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarilion, ill. edn, Harper Collins, 1998, p. 21.

There you go! Now that is the proper way to start this blog. Very end-of-the-worldish, very geekish and a beautiful piece of writing.

I’m just up, it’s over noon, dammit I need to get to work on this WWII project again today. Oh well.

Blllaaaarg!! I was up until very late working on my WWII dog-fight animation in the hopes that I could finish it for tomorrow. Now I was about to write “Why do you say?”, but not only would that be a bit cheesy, you’re also probably about as excited about me starting my blog this way as you are getting a cold thermometer up your ass crack.

Anyway, I have a deadline for tomorrow, but that’s not the driving part here. No the driving part is me and Bjørn making a bet about a week ago. A bet that involves the 10 british pounds changing of hands all based on when this particular project manages to finish itself (oh wait… that’s not how it works!).

So yeah, I was lured (in an evil scheme by Bjørn I think!) onto a roadtrip with Pete, Bjørn and Jens (who’s visiting!) down to the William Wallace monument (you know, the guy you’ve heard of only because of Braveheart…)

It was a great trip, and I even got to test my cardiovascular functions for any defects while climbing the sheer cliff wall surrounding the monument! (now I’m sure some, most likely Bjørn, will note in the comments that it was actually nothing more than a slight climb up to the monument… he would be lying). And that’s not even mentioning the stairs inside the monument (it’s a tower of sorts). Yeah well I live to write this, so…

I’ll see if I can’t wrestle Jens for some pictures just to spice up the page :)

Anyway, I forfitted the bet to go down there, but truthfully (and don’t tell Bjørn this) I probably couldn’t get the renders in for tomorrow. Afterburn (which is a volumetric effects plugin for max) is sloooow. It can make some damn cool stuff, but it takes a lifetime to render.

I’m guessing about a week or so of rendertime.

In other news, I’m still preparing to launch this other blog thingie. I’ve still got some changes to make, and I can feel this won’t be a 3D night tonight, so there’s a chance that I’ll have it ready for tomorrow (rejoice!). Now if only it was properly documented :(

A great chance to go over and clean my css while I’m at it, cuz DAMN!