Sheer hot-ness on wheels

If you're a petrol head, here's something to add to the list of cars-I-want-but-probably-can-never-afford :

This is the Lamborghini Reventón (Pronounced Re-ben-ton), the latest in Lamborghini's line of exotic sports cars. Although it is essentially a Murciélago LP640 under the hood, the Reventón is styled after a F-22 Raptor stealth jet, with distinct angled lines, LED lighting and my favourite: rims with angled spokes designed to draw air in to cool the brakes. However, the theme does not end with exterior.

The designs of the interior dashboard's digital display are also inspired by fighter jet cockpit displays, including a G-force meter in the middle, to name a few.

Unfortunately, it is reported that only 20 units will be manufactured, costing about a million euros each (about RM4.7 milion) hence making it the most expensive Lamborghini car ever. Seems the only opportunity to drive it is if it gets included in the next Need For Speed game.

But hey, if you're looking to buy me a car, I'd settle for a Murciélago if it means less trouble for you :P

geek P/S : Considering how many hobbyist 3D modelers like to model exotics, plus the off-the-scale coolness associated with this car, I would expect 3D models of the Reventón to be all over the CGI community soon. Let's see if someone comes up with a Transformers version :)

Blender - the UI from hell

For the uninitiated, Blender is *the* open-source 3D software that is quickly catching on in the CGI industry. It was initially developed as an in-house tool that was released under the GNU General Public License when the studio went bust. It is currently being developed and updated by the Blender Foundation: a coordinated user community that contributes in improving and developing new features for the program. They have even released an animated short named "Elephants dream" (titled the Orange Project), created entirely using Blender with other open-source softwares; a second movie project titled "Peach" is in the making as well as a game project called "Apricot".

For a free software, it is amazingly choke full of features. This was one of the reason I downloaded it the other day and see if I can blend it into our pipeline (pun intended). I was looking for something that Lightwave 3D lacked in it's current incarnation, namely advance UV mapping tools, fluid dynamics, sculpting tools and so on. Heck, it even comes with a built in game engine and a node-based compositor.

BUT.

I knew Blender was notorious for it's difficult user interface; now I know why. In the past I was able to pick up a new software and become productive in a matter of days (OK, not that proficient, but enough to handle the tasks at hand). Yet with blender, I honestly had no idea where to start. Granted, I haven't got the chance to go through the tutorials and manual, but in my experience it really shouldn't be so difficult.

Maybe I'm too old for this, or maybe it'll just take more time than I anticipated. I believe Blender is still a promising alternative for production quality softwares, if not better, in certain aspects. Best of all, it is totally free!

Now, if I can just get past the damn interface....

anim watch: USAVICH.TV

It's a Japanese site; I don't understand japanese but thankfully it doesn't have any dialog. But here it is: cute, weird, funny and disturbing all in these 1.5 minute episodes...

The Japanese do comes up with the darnest things.

Website thingy

A little something-something I'm working on very diligently (perhaps a bit TOO diligently).

As I said, it's still a work-in-progress so it looks sorta bland right now, I'm looking to finish it by the end of the month. Kinda happy with how the glass bottle turned out, but all those raytracing bells and whistles just for that bottle took the render time way over what should have been for a relatively simple scene.

Touchy~!

Another prop for the short film:

Some sort of futuristic PDA but roughly the size of an A4 paper. Why gadgets like this grow bigger instead of smaller? so that you can touch the screen with your finger instead of poking it with a bloody stylus!

Geeky details:

You might not see it here but the screen is actually transparent, the user can look through to the other side when using it. I designed it so:

- The device can interface with it's environment or other electronic systems when the user holds it up and "look" at the subject through this device. Imagine looking through the screen and snapping a picture, the picture will be captured just the way you saw it through the screen.

- The user can hold it up and read sms'es while driving. (not advisable)

Bread maker

One of the props for my "planned" short film.

What is this?
A thermo nuclear explosive device. Or a metallic banana.

What does it do?
It blows up and sometimes vaporizes people.

Is this an accessory to your darkest fantasy?
No. If it is, it would be a Cougar with my high school computer class teacher's limb in it's jaws. Did I say that out loud?

Street Fighter IV

I was never a fan of fighting games, but this one got my attention.

I'm really digging the shading style employed in this game. Basically it's 3D fighting game (what isn't 3d nowadays...), but it retains the hand-painted look of the original games instead of just the oh-so overused normal-map shading .

Kudos to the look-dev department for coming up with such a unique style that, IMHO, set it apart from other fighting games in the market.

Download the gameplay video here

Happy 2008 !

Here's something for my geek readers to reminisce about

Have a good one this new year!