The Elbow Joint

Here is a study of the elbow joint that I did for a class assignment. I think over the summer I would like to do studies of other joints.

Fight Animation Cycles

Some fight animations cycles done from video reference shot in class.

New Icons

Some updated icons for TK Cale.

UV unwrap.

After a day and a half of trying I finally got this UV unwrapped. Going to do all my hall tunnles and then texture them!

Assets to Scale

While reading in 3D World I came across a useful tip I should share. Build your assets to scale. Seems simple right? Wrong. A lot of people in my Level Design class weren't doing that, they weren't even building all their assets to scale with their other assets.  

If you do build everything to scale you can quickly have a whole library of assets ready to use when you need them. Also this helps with making your textures to scale so you don't have giant wood grains on one object and normal sized on the other.

The article also said to build one asset in each file and build them at the origin. That's something I didn't do when building my super tunnel.

Here you can see I have a whole tunnel system ready to build and in any configuration I want.

Team BSP UDK Level

For Level Design Team BSP made a graveyard scene. Team BSP included Joseph Cassano, May Solis, Matt Schwartz, Rob Martin and me. Keep in mind we are animation students and don't really know how to model we had to come up with animations for our assets as well as some static meshes.

Here is the tunnel I made there are falling beams and dust particles.

Here is my spider, the room is filled with assets from other team mates.

There is a video fly through of the level two but while the lighting looks good in the level and when you render the file when you play it it is too dark to really see anything. We will try to fix this so the team can post the video with our animations in action.

Global Illumination and Reflector Test

This image is my scene with two spot lights pointed at the wall with a ball in front of it. The intensity of the lights are turned down a lot because I will be added some global illumination.

Here I have global illumination turned on, you can see the light bouncing off the wall and light the scene there is also light being bounced of the green ball.

Here I added a reflector to bounce light back towards the ball to light it from the front. You can see the refection of the reflector on the ball.

I did this while following an online tutorial to better help my understanding of global illumination and reflectors.

Visson(s) of Abyssea

So I've been playing this wonderful game called Final Fantasy IX (FFXI) and I've been playing it since its release in North America (about 6 years). 


The last few years I haven't played much because of school but the last update they did has made me coming running back to my beloved FFXI. And its all because of Abyssea.

Yes leveling up there is great (if you get a goode party) but I'm actually more impressed with the story or idea behind it. I only hope that I can convince people to be pulled away from their leveling to help with quests.

I can't wait until the next Abyssea expansion comes out and hope my school work doesn't suffer too much.

Places of Interest: Xeniversity

I hope everyone had a goode Christmas, sadly no one loved me enough to get me a X-Box 360 so I could play Final Fantasy XI again.


I decided to start a new series of post about places of interest that I have found (or have been shown to me) in Second Life.


To start off here is Xeniversity. (Link takes you to a location on there world map of Second Life click to teleport to location, you will need a Second Life account.)

Xeniversity is a multi function sim. It serves as a store for their sculpt maps and other objects, it provides links and sign up options for talking classes for Maya (I wish I had), it has an in world class room and it has a sandbox.

There are two things that really impress me and make this sim stand out from the others. First the textures, here they aren't photos that have been made into textures. They are more cartoony and are almost all solid colors with shadows on them. 

Second the buildings are made of blocks in a very unique way where they take advantage of the fact the Second Life isn't like the real world. The real world rules of building don't apply here and avatars have to fly to place to place on this sim.

Here I am standing next to a model of the building I'm standing on.

Ninjas of Bountiful

Long time no post but here is something I've been working on. Loki and I started a group is SL called Ninjas of Bountiful. It's just a group of ninja loving SL-ers that like ninjas, it's a place to hang out, talk ninja and showoff cool new toys and HUDs.

Once I have the clubhouse done I'll give the address for it. Maybe I'll post videos of some of the cool HUDs in use too.

Music Videos

To very funny music videos for anyone who plays MMO's or goes into virtual worlds. These where first show to me by Kaline Hax.








Let me know what you think or give me links to any other virtual world music videos like these.

Product Toshi

Toshi is a cool brand of clothing in Second Life it has a Naruto like and cartoonish feel to it. I have a few of their backpacks and shirts too.

This is the Tagger outfit that I have, the shirt and backpack are cool. I'm not so sure about the pants but I do have shorts that are sort of the same that I wear a lot.

The design of their store also fits well with their style. These guys have done a really good job with the style and brand identity, well except the scarf they have.

Link to the store is here.

You need to have a Second Life account to access it.

Vaishali No More!

It figures as soon as I post about the Stargate RP group the leader decides to close it. I'm kinda surprised considering how much time and effort he put into it.

I'm still planning on finishing my Omega Site and opening in up for other RP groups (not just Stargate ones) to use for role play.

Here's a sneak peak at the model I made for it.

The building itself is pretty much done, I just have to texture it (I want to make the textures myself so its taking awhile) then pretty it up w/ fixtures and equipment.

Stargate: Vaishali

I miss MMO's too bad I'm poor, or maybe not. I found this Role Play group is Second Life. It's pretty cool so far, though sometimes people just go blah blah and I zone out.

They have a blog (they just started) so go check it out.

http://vaishaliexpedition.blogspot.com/

I'll post more about it here too and about my own upcoming SG-V project, the Omega Site.

Wacky PJ Party!

While in Second Life on Friday Kaline told me she was going to a Wacky PJ Party (though she didn't stay very long). I arrived at the party as a crasher. It was cool because I got to see some of the people that hang around the AoA islands and a few familiar faces.

There was music and dancing and a wacky PJ contest. I received comments about my Toshi backpack it looked like I came prepared people had said.

In the contest Oshee Yumako placed second and TK Cale (thats me) placed first!

The people in the picture include from left to right: Skyler Fredrisksson, Becca Highfield, Sweet Frequency, Silverfall Sixpence, Kaline Hax, Mathoni Zuhrah, Eralcym Shoreland, TK Cale, Oshee Yumako and Di Lowenhart.

My Second Life begins!

This is a blog to help me document my exploration of the virtual world known as Second Life. I have basic knowledge of graphic programs such as Illustrator and Photoshop but how I would go about using them to create my own 3-D objects in Second Life I know not. I am also hoping to learn to create 3-D objects in other programs as well.

I am hoping you find the data I collect useful to you as well.

My Second Life avatar is named TK Cale.

For more information about Second Life and how to join (its free) go here: http://secondlife.com/