Linkaroos

A couple of nifty links found this week...

http://uvlayer.com/

uvLayer aims to redefine online video. With uvLayer users can easily manipulate their media, collect and publish to the web, and share videos with friends ...

This is really cool, I really enjoy the interface, it's kinda like a desktop where you drag videos around and everything isn't as sterile and linear as you might be used to. Only thing missing is more functionality between uvlayer and selected services, comment and favourite youtube videos through uvlayer would be even more awesome.

http://www.makeuseof.com/
Has a directory of links to various neat sites, software and lots more; like the Art category which contains a number of not-to-be-missed links.

84 Amazingly Useful CSS Tips & Resources
Rounding off with some web design related stuff.

OnLive

Something to keep an eye on.

Will have to try it to get a good impression of what it's like, but just the idea, and the possibilities is just...mindblowing.

Is this the beginning of the end for console gaming? Not having to upgrade your hardware, get the newest console, games can be made for one system alone since the end user doesn't have to bother wether he/she likes 360/PS3 or whatever better.

Maya rotating cubes - the video

Maya rotating cubes

Here's a little script that'll rotate an x,y array of cubes, based on an input textures u,v colors.

A friend of mine showed me this neat effect, and we talked over various ways to do this, I proceeded to try replicating it in Maya; this is what I came up with finally. Basicly a script which does everything needed for the basic effect. It can be improved further for more advanced settings. What it does now is create a grid of cubes along the x and y axis, binds an expression on each cube to drive it's x-rotation by an input textures' color at given u,v coordinate. It's meant to be used with an animated texture to make them rotate over time.

I'll post a clip of how this looks on youtube this weekend.

The (quickly hacked together) basic mel-snippet is as follows :

$p = `polyCube -ch on -o on -cuv 4`;

$countCur = 0;
$mx = 64;
$my = 48;

for($y = 0; $y < $my; $y++)
{
$prevsel = `ls -sl`;

for($x = 0; $x < $mx; $x++)
{
$countCur++;

string $sel[] = `ls -sl`;

float $u = (1.0 / $mx) * $x;
float $v = (1.0 / $my) * $y;
$v = -$v;

$string = ("float $col[] = `colorAtPoint -u "+$u+
   " -v "+$v+" "+$animNodeTexName+"`; rotateX =
   20.0 * ($col[0]+$col[1]+$col[2]);");

for($sa in $sel)
{
 expression -o $sa -s $string;
}

duplicate -rr;
move -r 1 0 0;
}

select $prevsel;

duplicate -rr;
move -r 0 -1 0;
}

Spring cleaning

Well it's that time again. Time to do some cleaning. Mostly this means I'll clean up my google accounts, fix my google ig page, I really need to organize my links better.

A couple cool stuff picked up this week, this blog, which is kind of design'ish related, I dunno, mostly gone through the stuff filed under typography so far, but I'll keep checking it out. I found this nifty font resource through that blog.

A friend sent me this link, which says Tales of Vesperia is coming for PS3. And it also mentions a new Tales of game for the Wii; happy days. Hopefully not related to april fools, most likely not as a PS3 release of Vesperia has been kind of a given.

iPhone GUI elements nicely separated and laid out in a photoshop file, only chopped up imagery, no recreated effects or such for the most part, nice to check out if your into interface design.

That's about it, happy easter. Time for another go at Folklore before bed.