Will's Life

Here is a nice change of scenery. If you eat a lot of snickers bars, you will know what this means.

The magic letter to win $50,000 is 'P' in CHOMPENSATION

Film producers spend a good deal of time and money making getting a fluent shot. Whether it is panning to a new scene or zooming in at the right time. After Effects has a limited 3d world but it is absolutely amazing what you can do with it in terms of placing your virtual video camera where you want it.

I found a free plug-in from video copilot called sure target (sure target plug-in download) that makes it even easier to control the view or your world while still using null objects. Especially since the view of the world you are creating is constantly changing. Also check out wordle.com . Very neat site that allows you to create a word collage from a block of text or rss feed. The video below makes use of the sure target plug-in with a vectorized willslife wordle collage.

So many sliders! I am sure I will have plenty of 'experiments' to post on this one!

It looks cool but I was not trying for this effect. Still trying to get the hang of things.

Here is a looping sequence of flipping tiles or squares made with after effects that we displayed on our netbook pcs we were giving away at our booth.

I figured I have done enough 'fun' stuff and need to get adobe after effects basics down.

The particles that come with AE cs4 are pretty impressive. My biggest obstacle right now is how to move the camera around quickly and 'ease'ily. I am doing better. I figured out that if you attach a camera to a null object it removes the complexity if you simply move the null object around.

Video Copilot Basic Training

This may look really simple but it took me 2 hours. :

There is absolutely no information or results performed on the quadro vs gaming cards so I went through the trouble.

I purchased 2 quadro fx 4500 video cards off of ebay for these tests.


Obviously the GTX 260 beats the evga 8800 GTS but the 8800 does the trick! The Quadro enhances nothing for my computing needs and bottle necks performance because of its dated components. ( Graphics workstation, mainly photoshop and after effects for now)

$200 for a used 4500 Quadro and $130 for a new 8800 GTS

QUADRO VS GEFORCE

Test results ran from:
CPU:i7
RAM:12 Gig DDR3
Display = 2 monitors at 1920x1080
Power Supply: More than capable


THE RESULTS ARE IN:
Windows Experience Index (Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit)

Quadro 4500-
Graphics- 5.1
Gaming Graphics- 4.9

Geforce 8800 GTS -
Graphics - 6.7
Gaming Graphics - 6.7


and here are the results that mattaer in my opinion:

Photoshop CS4 64 bit (time to run filter 'render clouds' at 20,000 x 20,000 72pi)
both cards enabled seamless zooming and panning features

15.6 seconds / 8800
15.9 seconds / 4500


After Effects CS4 (1st 40 frames of logo swirl from aetuts lossless avi render)
62.4 seconds / 8800
61.4 seconds / 4500

2d game Continuum (Windowed 1920x1080)
120-240 avg fps - 300 max fps / 8800
80-130 avg fps - 160 max fps / 4500



Breakdown of what I learned:

The main price increase for the quadro reflects driver support and compatibility.  You will have a hard time getting photoshop support from a gaming card. But who needs it these days? Plus the quadro is made to render 'perfect' pixels vs speed and compression like the gaming cards are optimized for.  So quadros might push dual or triple monitors a bit better without artifacts.  THERE ARE NO MAJOR DIFFERENCES. Save your money and purchase the latest game performing video card.  One other thought is that the quadros have cuda.. and if you have a 'SPECIAL' application that is programmed to utilize this feature it is worthless for ever day uses.

HERE ARE LINKS TO VIDEO CARDS WITH 100% SUPPORT. (just in case)

 

A video Card only helps panning and zooming in photoshop, if you want quicker filters, get a better cpu, more ram (64 bit supports more than 4gb or ram)


PS I have the GTX 260 at home and it only slightly out performs the 8800 GTS so SAVE your money and just keep getting the latest and greatest every 2-3 years (cheapest high performing CPU, RAM, Video Card available at the time) and you will always have one of the quickest graphics machines.

Cydne is commonly miss- typed for the company name cdyne. Cydne is pronounced like a the Australian City name 'Sidney' and commonly refers to a person.cdyne is pronounced like 'See Dine" and is a web service provider based in Chesapeake Virginia.Click the link if you were looking for the company name CDYNE sometimes accidently spelled as Cydne.

Hilltop Gold Exchange is up and running. They buy any kind of precious metal.

Gold prices are at a high while the U.S. dollar is at a low. So alot of people in this area are cashing in while the time is right.

 I added a function that tracks where a user entered the site so the owner will know where his inquiries are coming from.

Here is more fun with particular. A tutorial from aetuts.com helped me create this effect.  Here is my finished ae file for those of you who like to cheat. :) download aetut

Spent last weekend in San Francisco with beezwax and fmnexus.. Filemaker plugin software and consulting.

Also got to see Randy Hill, an old PenSoft co-worker. He is doing great since moving there 3 years ago. We had some drinks and he showed me around as much as he could for the 5 hours i had.




Me and Randy (Can you tell who the tourist is?)

Another interesting thing happened as soon as I got to the hotel. Right outside the hotel Local 2 was holding a strike for Hotel Workers. Police escorted mob chanting 'Local 2'  'Local 2'



Thank god I am home. I packed waaay too much stuff in for 3 days.

Cheap After Effects Thrills. I have not had as much time as I have wanted to devote to motion graphics lately. I ran across this ae tunnel tutorial and thought I would share. The possibilities are intimidating with after effects. You really have to have the mathematical side of the brain to complete the other half. Sort of like Adobe Flash but this has sooo many more possibilities.

My grandma put together a book from her mothers diary and photos called the 'perpetual diary'. It has daily details of road trip to Colorado in 1930 when gas was 12 cents a gallon. These are one of a kind books, she only had 200 or so printed, so stop by www.chenterra.com and get one.

Here is Sam acting like he is thirsty lapping out of the gold fish pond.. (At my grandparents ranch in Kansas)

I finished a new website this weekend for a local company JClydeGoldExchange.com 

It was a fun project as was www.autohausva.com

What could be better than building websites with Gold and Expensive cars? Not much in my world!

Hampton Roads ( Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Newport News, Portsmouth  )is a very properous place to live.

Since nobody really visits this site, im gonna make it more into a journal for selfish reasons.

Last wednesday my bike started smoking white smoke while in a pack of riders and lost power. Yay

It was hot as hell as I fixed my Daytona 955i motorcycle today.  That is what I miss about my Suzuki 05 500cc cycle.. no maintenance, the trade off of horsepower for a 2 year older bike.

Anyways...  I fixed a ground fault between the ecm to the sub-harness connector that went to the second fuel injector. (The bike has 3 cylinders) The internet is a grand thing. As I avoid thinking that the economy crisis has anything to do with consumers getting free movies online along with the power of knowledge to fix your own car, amongs pther things... i downloaded the factory service manual for my bike instead of taking it to the Triumph certified dealer. I probably saved $600. Speed Triple Service Manual

I am happy to say 1 multimeter and 1 o-ring later ($36.00), my Daytona 955i is back on the road running like a factory bike. (nose up unless easy on the throtlle)

It was a refreshing day, I missed doing little projects out of the norm.

 

My bike is 5th in pic

Horrible snap. But last wednesday Whit and I rode with a new group of riders. From wawa to hooters to the beach again. (The BP  gas station on the strip) Live music was playing in neptune park. They were great. They sounded EXACTLY like the Eagles. The Eagles Tribute Band

I met some local motorcycle riders on meetup.com. Rode a couple hours on Sat and most of Sunday.

My arms are burnt but it was a nice time.


Justin.. co-worker Whitney and a few other riders.


Virginia Beach oceanfront gas station stop.

Riding off-road motorcycles when i was younger has to be one of the largest repititious adrenaline rushes I have ever experienced in my life. I have recently rejuvinated that same spirit I had when I was younger by upgrading my Motorcycle. I sold my bike I have had for about a year now. (Suzuki GS500F Black bike shown below) The reason being is that it has the Sport bike look but actual Sportbikes have 80-180 Horsepower. This bike is good for traiing at 50 hp. So with roughly the same amount of money I sold my suzuki, I got the closest thing I could to a powerful japanese land missile. A British Triumph... Daytona 955i with about 120 hp it has breathed new life into me. With an off-road background I have to keep reminding myself how different street vs dirt really are. Not many second chances when you get past 50 mph.

So I won my new bike on Ebay and flew to Boston to pick it up and rode it down the coast back to Virginia. (Daytona 955i in grey below)



2005 Suzuki GS500F


Anyways here is my new baby half way home at a wendys. Unfortuntely it was a cloudy day and pic taken with lil bitty phone camera. Fuel Injection makes a hell of a difference.





2003 Triumph Daytona 955i