Benjamin Taylor's International Blog

My thoughts on College

2010-04-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

At a very early age, probably because I came from a family of artists, directors and linguists, I realized that what would be most beneficial to learn in school to best serve you in your later life are skill-based subjects. The piece of paper you may get from a school can open doors for you, but all-in-all it's useless unless you have real, observable ability. With this in mind, the most challenging subjects I could think of were Art, Foreign Language and Competitive Sports, because they could be learned like anything else, but could only be mastered with years of practice. It was best to start early.

From kindergarten to post-graduate school and beyond, I've been taking summer classes from various universities such as Penn State University, CCAC, Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard University, State College of Florida, BAVC and so on, in that order. Though I may have received some amount of credits for these classes, I didn't take them because I was asked to or I need to, but because I wanted to. I want to learn and be empowered.

Anyway, I'm not writing this to force the way I do things on others or sound braggy, I do it because I personally like it. I just wanted to give my perspective to younger people who might be consider college and have doubts about the viability of a life creating art, using language, etc. I think it's good to have a wide range of skills, but real proficiency only comes from practice. You're not a master the moment you learn something, and in turn, you shouldn't expect to be hire-able right out of college for that reason. Find any way you can to become and show that you're practiced, including pro bono work, freelance, contests, game jams and internships. I still do this sort of stuff regularly.

Thought I'd include this too:

DAVE BARRY ON COLLEGE

College is basically a bunch of rooms where you sit for roughly two thousand hours and try to memorize things. The two thousand hours are spread out over four years; you spend the rest of the time sleeping and trying to get dates.

Basically, you learn two kinds of things in college:

1. Things you will need to know in later life (two hours).
2. Things you will not need to know in later life (1,998 hours).
These are the things you learn in classes whose names end in -ology, -osophy, -istry, -ics, and so on. The idea is, you memorize these things, then write them down in little exam books, then forget them. If you fail to forget them, you become a professor and have to stay in college for the rest of your life.

It's very difficult to forget everything. For example, when I was in college, I had to memorize -- don't ask me why -- the names of three metaphysical poets other than John Donne.. I have managed to forget one of them, but I still remember that the other two were named Vaughan and Crashaw. Sometimes, when I'm trying to remember something important like whether my wife told me to get tuna packed in oil or tuna packed in water, Vaughan and Crashaw just pop up in my mind, right there in the supermarket. It's a terrible waste of brain cells.

After you've been in college for a year or so, you're supposed to choose a major, which is the subject you intend to memorize and forget the most things about. Here is a very important piece of advice: be sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts and Right Answers. This means you must not major in mathematics, physics, biology, or chemistry, because these subjects involve actual facts. If, for example, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into class one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer of the quadrant of a rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with exactly the answer the professor has in mind, you fail. The same is true of chemistry: if you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you. He wants you to come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have agreed on.

Scientists are extremely snotty about this. So you should major in subjects like English, philosophy, psychology, and sociology -- subjects in which nobody really understands what anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual facts. I attended classes in all these subjects, so I'll give you a quick overview of each:

ENGLISH: This involves writing papers about long books you have read little snippets of just before class. Here is a tip on how to get good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a book that anybody with any common sense would say. For example, suppose you are studying Moby-Dick. Anybody with any common sense would say that Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times. So in your paper, you say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland.

Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative. If you can regularly come up with lunatic interpretations of simple stories, you should major in English.

PHILOSOPHY: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and deciding there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch. You should major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs.

PSYCHOLOGY: This involves talking about rats and dreams. Psychologists are obsessed with rats and dreams. I once spent an entire semester training a rat to punch little buttons in a certain sequence, then training my roommate to do the same thing. The rat learned much faster. My roommate is now a doctor. If you like rats or dreams, and above all if you dream about rats, you should major in psychology.

SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and away the number one subject. I sat through hundreds of hours of sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never once heard or read a coherent statement. This is because sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: "Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a casual relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or 'crying,' behavior forms." If you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large government grant.

Ben here. Yeah, I once failed a paper in High School because I wrote it 27 pages long when it was to be 2 or 3. It was on communism. I learned an important lesson that despite my enthusiasm, teachers don't necessarily want to read everything I want to write. It was an important lesson on being terse and understanding your audience.

My robot...

2009-06-19T21:44:00.000-07:00

...wouldn't be too far off from this. Brilliant work!

Mujaki's HINA is my ideal robot! She's piloted with her own custom made controller board, so don't ask about her AI. (I've been seeing a lot of questions regarding that) She's a little more than a foot tall, she runs on a 12 Volt hobby robot battery, and she contains two gyros for stability.

She's also a great hand around the house!

HINA ver. RF09 - Mujaki

Please check out HINA's specs on Mujaki's site: http://clockwork.shikisokuzekuu.net/HINA.html

Congratulations Mujaki on a beautiful creation!

Summer 2009 Update

2009-05-29T02:24:00.000-07:00

I now live in the San Francisco Bay Area in beautiful Berkeley, California. I work at the Stupid Fun Club. What I do there is secret-shmecret, so don't ask. ;p

Instead of telling you about my bosses, Will Wright or Michael Winter, let me tell you about this guy:

Dean Kamen is a famous inventor who is probably best known for designing what would become the Segway. His company, DEKA, makes lots of cool things, including this water purification device:

Dean Kamen

Dean Kamen is also responsible for the FIRST competition, which I wish I participated in in High School. I hope I can be involved with it in some way in the future:

http://www.usfirst.org/

He's definitely an inspirational guy and I hope I can meet him some day. To be honest, I only heard of him recently. It's kind of funny how much more in tune I am with the Japanese Robotics industry over the US one. Maybe I'm just tired of hearing about war robots.. I met the Segway distributors in Tokyo a year and a half ago at Silicon Graphics Japan, and it's general manager named Dai. Great guy. Anyway, Dean Kamen, awesome innovator trying to benefit the world and raise awareness and fun in Science and Technology.

Featured Publications

2009-04-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

Affordable Personal Robotics - 2009 Edition

2009-02-08T10:44:00.000-08:00

Most everyone that knows me knows I LOVE robots. I've loved robots ever since I was very young and even the handle: Infinity Series has absolutely EVERYTHING to do with robotics (but that's a story for another day). If you like robots too, but don't have large government grants or hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on a Honda Asimo, I've researched a few "cheap" outlets for buying kick-a** robots!

My situation might be different than yours. I want a personal robot that I can customize so I can consider it my very own. I would like to dress it up, paint it and even animate it the way I animate a 3D character model. I might not have the money to get what I want, but times are good, and I'm close.

Here is my 2009 wish list:

Zeno - Hanson Robotics / Dr. David Hanson - $1500

Why this is cool: Hanson Robotics does one thing, hands down, better than anyone else in the robotics industry: Realistic human expression. This is precisely why Zeno has a face. You might know Hanson Robotics from their Einstein robot which was a joint project with my buddies at KAIST or Jules, the disembodied human head, often times consider off-puttingly creepy for it's realism. Even Kokoro's HRP4 and DER2 faces don't compare to Hanson's proprietary skin technique. I think Zeno's face is really cool and expressive, but I wish I could change the hair... If I got one of these, I would definitely chop of the hair and remove the black cloth on his body. It should also be stated that for the level of quality that you're getting, $1500 is a steal! And, supposing you live in America, shipping from Hanson Robotics's lab in Texas wouldn't be prohibitively expensive.

Manoi PF01 - Kyosho Corporation / 高橋智隆 (Tomotaka Takahashi) - Compete Set: 283,500円 ($3000) / Base Set: 199,500円 ($2100)

Kyosho's Manoi PF01 Complete Set Webpage

Why this is cool: Tomotaka Takahashi of Kyoto University is a superstar robot designer. He has fantastic taste and styles robots like a mangaka. The Manoi PF01 is one of his most stylish robots. I've seen a lot of the people who've purchased them do great custom jobs on it, and I'd love to do a gunmetal gray with pin-up art up the side of it. The price is good, and they can get away with it because fans'll pick it up for the style and for Asian robot battle comps. (Robot battling in America is more destructive and industrial with spinning buzz-saws, etc.) I might like to do casual, asian style battling someday, but that's not quite my bag. Also, the PF01 isn't my FAVORITE model... If I could get a hold of his Female Type (FT Model)... I'm not sure I could hold back on that purchase. Absolutely gorgeous!

Do you think there might come a day when I could fully design the outside look and movements of a robot? That would be a dream come true...

- Benjamin Taylor

Glenelg - The Making Of

2008-12-18T20:41:00.000-08:00

Two months ago, I set out creating a 3D character from the ground up with the intention of using new dynamic techniques available in Maya 2008. Details about that process are available in the links below. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Glenelg Link Index

Concept and Ideation

Building the Head + Cloth Physics

Building the Body and other Base Geometry

UV Unwrapping + Texturing

Environment Building

Shader Development

Wrapping Up

Glenelg - Making Of: Wrapping Up

2008-12-17T21:27:00.001-08:00

Glenelg is nearly complete. There are just some other straight-forward things I intend to do in the future to really finish him up. My other projects are in their final stages and wouldn't it be the case that major computer functions on my desktop seem to be failing. (including the use of maya) This being the case, I won't be able to apply the things I'm suggesting here and now, but I can still let you in on the process.

First and foremost, I've rigged and put a base texture on Glenelg. A lot of tweaking has to be done to make his jacket react exactly the way I need it to, but here is an example of how he works with and without his jacket in a couple animated playblasts:

Rendering, as you may already know, can be a lengthy process. I intend to render with Mental Ray (a rendering suite included with Maya 2008). There are things you can do to expedite your rendering process, which I would like to apply to Glenelg in the future. For example, if I had access to a render farm or Pixar's Renderman, I could send my renders off to be handled by another piece or pieces of hardware, leaving my machine free for me to work.

Global Illumination is something that can either be done using Mental Ray or Renderman, or it can be cheated using a matrix of directional lights. Additionally, Ambient Occlusion can be handled using these same two plug-ins as well, or it can be directly baked into a file texture and used as an AO map. These sort of methods are ones I intend to use when I create final renders for Glenelg upon my arrival in America during the Christmas season.

Thank you for following along and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Glenelg - Making Of: Shader Building

2008-12-11T03:41:00.000-08:00

Shader building is something in particular I'm trying to become stronger at and they say that if you're able to teach something, it means you know it pretty well, so here it goes. There are two custom shaders I built in this scene. I'll tell you how I did it and some problems I ran into.

Here is an overview:

First, I wanted my night sky to be starry and dramatic. There are various ways to pull this off. I started based off of a Laika tutorial I read a few months back. I grabbed my sky dome (world sphere) and I applied a simple lambert shader to it in the Hypershader. For its color attribute, I threw on a 3D "Granite" texture. Then I made various tweaks until I got the result I was looking for (I did this by checking how my scene rendered in not only Maya Software, but also mental ray, which will come in more when we talk about water). Additionally, I threw a single spot light in the sky radiating from where I placed the moon geometry. Here are the exact values I settled on:
Color 1: Black
Color 2: White
Color 3: Bright Gold
Cell Size: 1
Density: 0.2
Mix Ratio: 0.6
Spottiness: 1.0
Threshold: 0.5
And I turned "Creases": Off

Next, I linked that same 3D granite node to the incandescence node of that same Lambert texture in the Graph Network. This allowed the stars to really shine. Finally, I tweaked the glow attributes in my scene. First locally on that particular Lambert shader and then on the shaderGlow1 (shader glow) shader included with the default base Lambert shader when you open a new scene. There, I set my "Star Points" value to 4.0

And the sky, it glowed and twinkled! But alas, it twinkled WAY too much... I had remembered that you had to reference the 3D texture to get it to work properly, and I did so, but the sky just looked like a fireworks show and wouldn't stop moving. This is what I ended up doing: I grabbed my World Sphere and then my StarrySky Lambert Texture and I went to Edit>Convert to File Texture in the HyperShader. Light Baking is something I have to do often for objects and textures to be used in a real-time engine where lots of lights are oftentimes too computationally intensive to be feasible. (I owe my knowledge of Light Baking to Ivan Ortega, ETC alumni) Here is the file texture that was created from Maya Software:

Once in place, I simply added glow attributes again this time using that file texture as a map, and I got the desired look I wanted without having sparkles left and right.

Next, was the water. Early, I created a 2D Fluid container or "Pond" to set my boat in. At first I was pleased with the results, but the dynamic movement wasn't to my liking, and there were some problem areas.

I knew that what at work here was a spring system, so I added an emitter so that I would have a bit more control with the movement. Eventually, I tweaked the movement to how I liked it, but I was now faced with a massive glare on the water.

I had read the maya documentation on the topic of fluid bodies before diving into this and suspected that using the "ocean" shader as opposed to the "pond" shader might be a more versatile route. After tweaking and tweaking, I was sure of it, so I cut my losses and threw in an ocean shader in its place. In the end, the result was more flexible and game me more freedom to delineate the color and light distribution in my scene. I didn't want the water to be the focus, I want the boat to be. Here is what it looked like now:

Finally, I tweaked the shadow depth maps in my "Moon" spot light, so that a distinct self-shadow could fall over the boat:

Next, I'll go into some rendering techniques that I intend to apply to Glenelg and this scene in the future.

Glenelg - Making Of: Environment

2008-12-11T02:57:00.000-08:00

Sticking with Glenelg's story, I'm going to make him a boat. Namely an Irish shipping vessel for the transport of meats across the Belfast Lough from Donaghadee to Carrickfergus. On the trip, while the others are asleep during the dead of night, the Boobrie will emerge from the darkness... So, to set the scene, I'm going to create a number of objects. First, I quickly throw together a boat using some reference pictures from across the net. Then, I make some crates which I duplicate, scale and translate across the ship. These are the only elements I intend to have Glenelg interacting with. Here is a playblast:

It's important to note that I unwrapped the crates BEFORE I duplicated them or made any other sort of changes. It would have been a nightmare if I had to unwrap and texture them all after the fact. I created two different file textures for the creates and since they're fundamentally cubes, I exposed/textured each side differently and tried to change up what faced the camera. In the end, the scene has some decent variety and layout. The little bank of creates that touches the right side of the ship is where I intend for Glenelg to sit later. Here are the finished UV's for the crates and the ship, and their corresponding base textures:

Ship

Crates

Base File Textures

Next, I quickly make a world sphere which I use to encapsulate my scene, a moon which I suspend in the sky, and a fluid container for a 2D water effect, which I'll be explaining in more detail in my next post. These objects are just simple primitives and will be using procedural shader networks I'll be making shortly, so no need to unwrap.

Glenelg - Making Of: Texturing

2008-12-11T02:46:00.000-08:00

Next, instead of really plugging away at building detailed textures, which is something I find myself doing quite often, I've opted to leave as much visual appeal to my rendering method as possible. I still have to unwrap and put on file textures for my objects, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the process as it's relatively straight-forward. I will say however that it is a good habit to get in to organize your meshes and UV's into quads. Doing so will allow you to subdivide smoothly without encountering unexpected errors like misplaced triangles and jagged edges.

As I said in my previous post, I needed to unwrap Glenelg's head, body and coat. The eyes and the teeth can use procedural shaders and don't need file textures in this instance. I didn't use any special pelting tools or unwrapping plug-ins, this is good, old fashion planner/shape mapping. However, I did use a trick/method for achieving uniformity in my UV's. This is universally known in the 3D art world, but it never hurts to bring it up.

Sometimes applying a checkerboard can help you spot where you've got crude seems or stretched UV's on your models. Personally, I don't use a checkerboard like so many others. Instead, I use a grid matrix. The reason I do this is because this texture consists of lots of lines and the sort of distortion that often happens in my file textures is what'll happen to this if there are problems. (Stretching lines, visible pixels, etc.) Here is the exact type of file I use:

After checking and tweaking and make sure I can commit to these, here are the UV's:

Head

Body

Coat

Areas that I'm thinking I may like to add finer details are afforded more realistate in the map. (However, those details will be put in when I polish this later) For now, I just throw in some local color using my concept art as reference.

Next, I'm going to create some environmental elements for Glenelg so that he has some space to exist in.

Glenelg - Making Of: Base Geometry

2008-11-16T17:09:00.000-08:00

I've been very busy with other projects recently, but last night I was able to put in some work because of a snag in one of my project's pipelines. (A snag other than me. ^^)

I'd like to unwrap Glenelg quickly and get some base maps going so that I can work on him out of the office. So I quickly knocked out his geometry.

First, I loaded a base body rig I had made previously and still had on hand. Then I made a lot of edge loop and basic geometry changes to match the anatomy I laid out in my concept art, which you can see in the previous post. Next I added some detail and extra edge loops where I wanted to start defining his clothing, so that he wouldn't lose any form with smoothed geometry. Finally, when I finished his body structure exactly the way I wanted it, I modeled his coat.

While modeling his coat, because it will use simulated cloth physics, I carefully considered how I would stitch it as if it were a real coat. I wanted to make sure I matched my concept art even when the cloth was live too. (You'll notice that I have some instances of non-manifold geometry, but when using maya cloth, it's more of a pay off it seems to work with flat planes, as you can see in my cloth tests in previous posts) Here is the final geometry with soft body/rigid body collisions and gravity:

Click here for High Quality Version

Next I'll quickly layout my UV's in two or three maps (body, coat and head) and work on high poly displacement and geometry detailing in Autodesk Mudbox.

Glenelg - Making Of: Head

2008-10-25T02:48:00.000-07:00

After doing a handful more concept images and turn-arounds to flesh out my character, I started on Glenelg's head.

First I pulled up a starting boy head that I made so that I could have a save some time and have something to build off of.

Here are some images of my starting boy head.

Next I gathered real boy reference. I decided that Haley Joel Osment would be a great face to use because he's cute, but not overly feminine, which was the direction I was going in. He's grown up quite a bit now and he started his career when he was VERY young, so I had to find his middle ground images. Anyway, here is a playblast of the finished head geometry:

Finished Character Head Geometry(Smoothed) Playblast:

Finished Character Head Geometry (Unsmoothed) Playblast:

So, the head topology is to my liking. Next, I had to do some tests with Maya nCloth to make sure that I modeled accordingly to the software in order to get the final results I wanted. First, take a look at Glenelg's outfit in more detail:

In general, I was very pleased with my silhouette's shape, and I decided I could make that work and like the details if I made the coat look like that. My friends agree that it was a cool design, so I'm going with it. A lot of questions came up with this design, so I had to run tests. Here are some of my tests compiled into a video:

Now that I've a better understanding of the details of maya cloth, I'm confident enough to carry on making his outer coat.

Glenelg - Making Of: Concept

2008-10-12T05:11:00.000-07:00

In the next two months, I'll be making a high-poly character model from scratch during my other two projects. This will involve doing some things I do regularly and some things I've never done before. In either case, it's going to be a learning experience and great practice and this time, I'll share my progress with you! If you've never made a character before, I would recommend looking at my "Character Creation 101" blog post for some basic pointers.

So, the best place to start before you do absolutely anything is to set some goals, I find. I'm a very goal-oriented person, so delineating objectives is really important to me, or often times I won't get anything done. Like, To-do lists are the best... Here's what I want:
1st. A Male, high-poly mesh. (My portfolio is overrun with female and anthropomorphic animal characters, and also relatively low-poly characters, so I wanted to add some variety to show that I can do something different. The characters that I'm currently showing are actually all from projects or games I've made in the past, so something 3D made for myself is not quite as common, especially high-poly)
2nd. Real-time physics-based cloth. (Cloth is something I never get to use because our engines or prototypes can't handle it, but this time it's an option)
3rd. Custom Shader swapping. (Despite being high-poly, I want to make this a real-time render character, so I'm going to have some file textures, but I'm also going to write some of his other shaders by hand in GLSL/COLLADA, and allow the user to swap out "costumes" just for fun in real time. Also, shader writing is great practice that I need more of)
These are my three main objectives I've set out for this project. Others include: Improving the DCC pipeline in code, bind basic premade rig for posing, finding a balance between real-time lighting and occlusion/light baking for best look, etc. Why am I bothering with real-time geometry at all, you ask? Nowadays, GPU's are so sophisticated that you can have a real-time 3D scene rendered so nicely, you'd think it's pre-rendered, so I'm interested in seeing how far I can push it and saving my tracks with several LOD's. Also, doing it this way forces me to really delve into the code and understand how things work, whereas if I just rendered frames, I wouldn't be learning anything new.

Okay, was that boring? It may have been, but it's important or I'd have just spun my wheels for two months with nothing to show for it at the end. Anyway, here is the fun part: I have no idea what it is I'm going to make... So, there are a lot of methods for churning out ideas and the more starting ideas the better. Sometimes, I'll use a needed eraser and smoosh it around and see if ideas come out of that, but I'm in Japan right now, and I don't have any of my traditional media, so I'll go the digital route: Silhouettes. Any professional animator or character artist has done silhouettes before. Perhaps you've heard of the infamous "Skillful Huntsman" which is noted for having some of the most beautiful silhouettes ever, or El Coro of Massive Black, one of my personal favorites for working out characters from silhouettes. Let's just get to it:

I don't get a ton of free time, but a few weekends ago I got to visit my best friend Mike Smith who lives in Nachikatsuura near Shingu in southern Wakayama. During that time, I brainstormed:

In this last one, I found this one silhouette that really talked to me. It's the top middle one. This was a little description of that image I came up with: He's a young prince who adores swans and rides a magic one. That's what first came to mind because I was thinking of Neuswanstein, a castle I visited once in the Alps of Bavaria where the guy who lived there was big into swans and this would be his story as a boy. I know, it needed work, so I slept on it, got my friends' opinion and fleshed him out a little. Everyone kept bugging me, telling me that it didn't look like a swan, it looked like a dragon. I sort of agreed, but a boy and his dragon... that was so old hat, I wanted to vomit. What it made me realize was that what I didn't like and had to steer away from was that I was making it too feminine. I wanted this kid to be cute, but I thought that the dichotomy of having a cute kid with a terrible monster, like a dragon, was good, but I also wanted something that felt fresh. So I looked at my silhouette and I noticed that I did draw him with a sort of weapon or wand or something, and also, I liked the idea of him flying around or interacting with water, because it might give me another application for physics in 3D, so I didn't want to scrap a flying creature. I conferred with my friend from Ireland, Beccy, and we sort of settled on this great mythological bird called a Boobrie, which eats meat, has sharp scary claws and attacks ships at sea. It had water, it was scary and it really melded with my concept. The boy followed nicely:

I would name him Glenelg (A coastal town off of Adelaide, Australia, I've been visiting a lot recently due to one of my projects) because as an American, I find it unique and I think it has a great ring to it. He would be the friendless son of a butcher who, while attacked at sea, befriends a Boobrie by luring it with big slabs of meat on the end of his long meat-hook. (That's what I decided his prop would be) It was unique to the extent of being down right weird, had a great balance or scary and cute, and it had the right magic. I just felt a lot of potential, so there you have him, Glenelg:

Two months and two projects means Grumblenook the Boobrie is a task for another day. Glenelg will be my pet project for now.

So, the concept is as fleshed out (perhaps more than it has to be) and I can move onto the technical aspects in my next post.

Evangelion:1.01 - You Are (Not) Alone

2008-04-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

The new Evangelion series just came out today in Japan. I went out this evening and bought a copy, and just finished watching it, so here is the scoop.

Evangelion 1.01 is a remake of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion animated series. It's completely redrawn and has a new story, which at first look may seem very similar to the original; Shinji still fights and kills the same angels in similar ways, but the underlying story is completely different and get this: MAKES SENSE. That's right, Evangelion 1.01 has been made to be understood. (which is a big qualm the Japanese people have with the original)

Evangelion 1.01 is part 1 of 4 DVD sets. (1.0 - 2.0 - 3.0 - FINAL) The series has been truncated and a lot of the filler and needless humor has been removed. (Misato no longer has a comic scene where she forcefully takes the JSSDF's positron rifle / Shinji doesn't comically expose himself to Rei / No weird flash back that breaks up the destruction of Sachiel / etc.) Also, this series is far more graphic and areas of nudity and gore that were tamed for the original television series come unfettered. (Rei has nipples / When S2 Organs rupture, they spew blood / Angels violently scream when killed / etc.) Finally, action scenes have been intensified with all new storyboards and the general look has been pushed both stylistically and with the addition of 3D CGI compositing. There are no openings and the ending theme is not Fly Me To The Moon. Original action music is now peppered with intense Opera and crashing pianos.

Evangelion 1.01 includes Shinji's battle with the first three angels that appeared in the original series. The Seele Monoliths are back, but only 7 have appeared so far. (I believe only 7 will exist in this series as well; One for each eye) The "Plan zur komplementaritat der Menschheit" (Previously the Human Instrumentality Project) has been introduced. Kouryu has already been introduced...on the moon. Asuka has yet to appear, but she will. The ending preview introduces a never before seen character: a girl with brown pigtails named Khara. The role she plays in the series is unclear. (Her name means "Shit" in Arabic, heh) I don't want to say anymore in fear that I might give something away.

I'll be seeing the next installment in theaters shortly. If you have any questions, please comment.

Everyone will die. It will be glorious.

Warhawk Plane Designs

2008-04-17T03:16:00.001-07:00

A while back the PlayStation G.A.P. has a contest for designing body art for the planes in Warhawk for the PS3. I had a little free time and came up with these:

A Dive bomber design

This design is inspired by one of my favorite books: Go Rin no Sho (Book of Five Rings) by Miyamoto Musashi

Videos from Osaka

2008-04-16T05:32:00.001-07:00

Over the past couple months, I've had the great fortune of being in two televised programs for the city of Osaka, Japan. Here they are:

This video is from the Official City of Osaka DVD. You can see me giving two autographed pieces of my art to the Mayor. Later there is a shot of me working at my desk in Illustrator while a Maya playblast is playing on the other screen. (Since so many people of asked me about it, you can watch that playblast too here: General Takomura )This was during the grand opening of our campus in Osaka at the Asian Trade Center in Suminoeku.

In this video, you can't see much of me. Hahaha. However! You can see my lovely desk with all of my cool figurines. It's the desk where Don Marinelli is talking to Pittsburgh via Skype.

- Bennosuke

XO GameJam - Fruitix

2008-04-02T03:41:00.000-07:00

On Friday, November 16th 2007, Myself, Ari Rubenstein, Luther Patenge and Elizabeth Barndollar were tasked with making a full, working game in 40 hours for the XO Laptop on the operating system Sugar. We did it, and we won 2nd place. Our reward was knowing that more than a dozen kids thought our game was one of the most fun! (And some rockin' X-Arcade arcade controllers) I'd say that's worth missing a little sleep. To play our game, right click and download the executable below:

A game where you gather fruit and avoid hungry primates. (Windows exe Download, 4 MB) ( XO Activity Bundle Download 2 MB)

The game was made for the XO Laptop which, for one reason or another (namely the screen type ;p), means the resolution for the game is large, so you may have to go to your highest screen resolution to fit it all. Luther and Ari are my fraternity brothers that I talked into helping me for the project. Elizabeth Barndoller is an incredibly nice girl who was put on our team by the XO Game Jam staff and was a huge help to us. Her website is www.elizabethbarndollar.com. Here are some pictures from the Game Jam:

We're in the center!

Me - Luther - Ari - Elizabeth

I love this game! I even had fun playing it during the presentation!

Ari and I didn't go home and barely got any sleep the whole weekend. Zonks!

I'd like to thank Yoshi and the whole XO Games team for having us! Their website can be found here: http://www.olpcgames.org/

Wheel Deliver Cover Art & Scion T-Shirt Design

2008-02-22T03:20:00.000-08:00

There were two Pittsburgh contests I participated in during the Building Virtual Worlds bootcamp of my graduate program. I usually am doing a contest or a freelance job during major project work unless directly told not to or am under contract not to. There are a lot of reasons I do this. For one, it helps me learn how to multitask, but most importantly it gives me a feel for the art scene in the area and allows me to meet new people.

I happened to win both of these contests. The first was for a magazine cover design for a city-wide publication called "Wheel Deliver". The service is a directory of restaurants across the city that don't have their own delivery service. Instead, they have Wheel Deliver index their food, handle the ordering and deliver with their drivers around the city. Lots of businesses use the service. Here's my cover:

The second contest was for a mono-chromatic T-Shirt design for Scion. I heard about this one late from Fred Gallart, a friend from the ETC and CEO of Electric Owl Studios in Pittsburgh, so I had to whip this out in a little less than 48 hours. I did the original sketch on the back of the flier. Here's the back of that flier:

Pittsburgh is big on Pirates, and I wanted to have a high energy illustration that made the Scion look fun. ARRRRRRRRR! Here's my design:

宝塚！- Takarazuka!

2008-02-17T22:29:00.000-08:00

令名の風Ｐｏｓｔｅｒ

I cannot say I knew what to expect when I was first told we were going to visit a place called Takarazuka. It was explained to us that we would first visit the Tezuka Manga Museum and then see an all woman performance also by the name Takarazuka. Tezuka was a name I was very familiar with from my studies in art school. I knew of him as one of the great manga-ka (comic artists) of all time among the ranks of Go Nagai and Akira Toriyama, but with the special distinction of being the father of Japanese Animation with the creation of Astro Boy. However, Takarazuka stage performance was completely alien to me, so I quickly went on Wikipedia to learn more about it. I was intrigued by the distinctions in troupes and by the fact that every role was played by women, but as I read on I realized that I had seen Takarazuka before. I had seen how it inspired a lot of animations and manga I was very familiar with like Utena, Kakumei no Shojo (Revolutionary Girl Utena) and Sakura Taisen (Sakura Wars). In fact, I would later learn that the relation was so established that titles like Berusaiyu no Bara (Rose of Versailles) were being advertised as perfect adaptations of the manga and performed recently. I was excited and despite reading into the facts behind the art itself, I had no idea what to expect. I took the time to study the meanings of the kanji that make up the name of Takarazuka: “Takara” meaning “Treasure”, and “Tsuka” meaning “Mound”. Truly, there was great fortune awaiting me in Takarazuka.

The train ride leading outside of the city of Osaka was wonderful in itself. It was such a relief to see rolling mountains and green forests. As soon as we crossed the bridge into Juso, the scenery seemed to completely change. Suddenly before my eyes, the cold, Americanized city life of Osaka was peeled away to reveal a glimpse into the old, traditional Japan I had only read about in books. The grey concrete and rusted steel of the city was replaced with warm, tiled roofs and dusty temples. Somehow, the air seemed to lighten and the constant stress of being in a dense urban metropolis was gone. It would not be long until we met Yoshi in the Takarazuka station build.

After lunch at Mr. Donut, which I had no idea even sold lunch, we headed out of the station to see the Tezuka Museum. Along the way we saw photos of the stars of the Cosmos Troupe we would later get to watch on stage. The Tezuka Museum seemed to borrow a lot from a number of American attractions, or perhaps vice versa. The first of which was a sort of parody of the Walk the Stars attraction of Hollywood where famous actors immortalize their handprints in concrete, however here we saw little miniaturized hands of Tezuka’s famous characters: Astroboy, Blackjack, Kimba, etc. Upon entering, the insides looked like a mix of the Disney Store and Tomorrow Land. We were given our admissions tickets and a little more than an hour to look around. I first set out to document everything so that I could refer back to it if I ran out of time. I recorded nearly every area of the museum and would later post my videos on the ETC Osaka blog. After doing this, I slowed down and allowed myself to enjoy some parts that interested me, one of which was a video autobiography of Tezuka. Tezuka seemed like a very kind and down to earth person. One scene showed him making an onigiri (rice ball) and eating it as he worked. His childlike playfulness, that I had before only seen in his animations and manga, was visible in his candor. He was not the sly, business man Disney was, but rather more of a simple entertainer. I believe it is this down-to-earth nature that made him so appealing. Later, I would meet Michelle in the gift shop and convince her to come down to the animation corner with me where we both had fun and ended our tour of the Tezuka Museum.

Now it was the moment of truth. How this next performance would play out was to be seen. What obviously was not on the Wikipedia page was that today’s performance was part of a Valentine’s Day Special, and that there would be a large number of couples. Perhaps this gave me a skewed perception of the real, female dominated Takarazuka. The presence of men made the crowd I was to sit amongst far more welcoming, I am quite sure. As an additional note, I intend to return to Takarazuka on a future date to see another performance on my own, and perhaps get the full experience of a show by and for an all woman crowd. The lights dimmed and after a few short words by lead cast members, the show was about to begin.

The first performance was Reimei no Kaze (A Morning Breeze). Right off the bat, I was intrigued by the concept of seeing a play about WWII from the Japanese perspective in Japan as an American. Talk about role reversal! Imagine my confusion and surprise that my favorite character would be a Japanese woman playing General MacArthur. Obviously, I could not hope to follow all of the Japanese, but the intensity in their acting was palpable. Joy, anger and pride were amplified in an attempt to immerse the crowd and mask true genders. The male leads were chummier than most guys, MacArthur flopped around his home in the Philippines like his team just won the Super Bowl, and female characters flirted and flaunted their whiles so that there would be no mistake that they were beautiful women surrounded by starkly macho men. Voice modulation, height, cut of the clothing; the sheer act of how these women portrayed men was the most entertaining part. They had male mannerisms down to an exact science. You could say it is due to my lack of fluency, but I suspect that the nature of the performance is simply an excuse to give these women something to say and act. Not to say that their acting did not appear well done, but it is the androgynous charade that was the heart of this act. The same curious appeal that made Glam Rock intrigue so many people two decades ago.

If the musical play was not so much your flavor, next was a grand production showcase called Passion – A Journey of Love. The second half consisted of nothing but intense song and dance, one after the other. A sort of speed acting, the two “male” leads would switch off taking on a new role during every sequence. At one moment, a spot light would be on Yu Todoroki, a cold-as-ice debutante with a cunning, seductive look with a tinge of annoyance, and suddenly the next moment out of the back of the stage would raise Yuga Yamato, a baby faced Madonna with a youthful, always animated expression. The two played off each other very nicely. They were seducing woman after woman on stage with their distinctly different yet equally appealing approach. One’s head could spin at how these two could enter and exeunt with new roles, new songs and dizzyingly sequined suits at the drop of a hat. The only constant that seemed to exist was that these two were the studs, attaining any woman they set out to woo. That is until the third to last sequence knocked me on my back and turned everything upside down. Yuga Yamato comes out as a woman and dances with Yu Todoroki! Was it lesbianism? Was it male homosexuality? The world was already flipped upside-down, so to do this after all that I had experience was an utter shock. I just could not get a grip on what was going on. It is like something in my brain just snapped and my mind could not pick up the pieces. I just watched, flabbergasted. Looking at the program now, it says that Yuga was the “charmant” while Yu was the gentleman, but still, even in hindsight, it is difficult to get my head around. The ending was spectacular and hugely over-blown. There were seven finales. Smoke machines, disco balls, Can Can dancers, rotating, lowering stages; these were only some of the things that made up the massive production that was Passion. Rivaling Las Vegas and Broadway, it was an experience I could never forget.

Takarazuka was an unprecedented treasure to behold. I will return to that beautiful town and witness another performance as soon as I can. I just hope that was not one of the last performances of Yuga Yamato and Yu Todoroki I will get to see in person. I want to show them to my fiancée and family if I can talk them to traveling here in the future. See you soon Takarazuka.

- Bennosuke

Life in Osaka

2008-02-02T19:09:00.000-08:00

As the title suggests, I've finally found my way to Japan and am currently living in the Suminoe area (住之江区) of Osaka. My apartment is pretty large, however the hardwood floor makes it pretty cold this time of year. Once I move in a little more, I'll be sure to take some pictures and post them here. The weather has been kinda gloomy too, so not the the best for photo ops.

It's strange being 14 hours in the future, but I'm starting to get used to it. My basic day consists of making rice in the morning and having milk tea. Then I pack a lunch with the leftover rice and walk to the station. I then take the Newline Tram to the Asian and Pacific Trade Center (ATC) and go to my office on the fifth floor. I work for several hours, eat my lunch, maybe grab a drink at Lawson, and then I head out. If I come in early enough I get to say goodnight to people. In the nights, I may go to Don Quixote (which is a sort of convenient store) or even Nippombashi, Osaka's den den town (電電　like akihabara). I still have yet to find a good arcade here that has DDR, ITG or PUI. On the other hand, there are Pachinko parlors everywhere! I don't like gambling and I don't have a lot of spare money, so Pachinko definitely isn't the thing for me. I've got my PlayStation 3 and PSP here, but it seems like a waste to play them when I should be out exploring and enjoying the culture.

Actually, the first time I've played a PS3 while I've been here was last night outside of SofMap in Nippombashi. They had a demo for Devil May Cry 4 and I had to play it. The video of me playing is below. Enjoy!

- 辨助

Space Travel (or lack there of)

2008-01-21T01:49:00.000-08:00

To make the "going to the moon" joke about going to Japan any more appropriate, I'm currently staying at the Ames NASA base in Mountain View, California. I'm staying here because for the last week I've been waiting for the Japanese government to process my COE forms so that my visa can finally be in order and I can safely leave the country. Apparently the hold up is with an official office in Osaka, but whatever. I'm just tired of being in limbo, and I'd be making a bigger stink about it if I didn't love the San Francisco area so much.

For one, I get to visit and do my work at our base in EA Redwood Shores. Secondly, I recently bought a slate. A slate is a tablet pc that doesn't fold or have a hinge, instead it's all one piece. It's a Fujitsu Stylistic, and it is SO COOL. I've been doing a lot of art on it, including some costume designs for my director friend Joe Toretti. It only came with a weird piece of software called Evernote, but I've still managed to make some fun things. I can't show you most of the things I've done because they have to do with my current project, but I can show you the concept art I just mentioned! Just click on the image below:

So, I've been keeping myself busy and been doing a lot of skyping to brainstorm. In a few months I'll show you what I've been doing. Oh, and the above image wasn't done in Evernote, it was done in Painter. I really need the Adobe suite on it, but I'm still waiting on my program's IT department to hook me up.

Happy MLK Day, by the way! He was a great man and I like to think about him and his achievements on his birthday.

- Benjamin Taylor

West Coast trip

2008-01-12T15:02:00.000-08:00

I've just spent the last several days in California visiting and enjoying some really wonderful entertainment and game studios. I would have made a post sooner, but I was staying at several Embassy Suites locations and to get on the internet costs an arm and a leg. Let me give you a run down.

I flew into San Diego on the 3rd, and the next day visited SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) and SCEA (Sony Computer). SOE was definitely one of my favorite places. Like all of the other places I visited on this trip, I was under NDA at SOE and can't go into detail about what I saw, but I loved the art and was inspired by the enthusiasm of the people I met. Especially a fellow named Edwin Rosell who is a concept artist previously from Naughty Dog. Other great guys were Joe Shoopack, whom I had met before as a recruiter at Ringling, John Hayase, the GM, and Robert Mitchell, a Senior Programmer who exuded a lot of passion and love for his job. I was really inspired. It was definitely a place I'd work at if I had the chance. After SOE, I visited SCEA. Now those are some facilities! I watched some of the content I had seen on the PSN that they had made there, like the Lair sizzle video. The guys in the sound studio there were notably the nicest people I met on the entire tour.

Afterwards it was off to LA. The first company I visited in LA I initially didn't know much about as they're not a game company. They were called Thinkwell. They do a lot of things, one of which is design large environmental experiences, but their official wording is: "Content Master Planning". Think theme parks. Anyway, most companies just show you around, let you say hi to a couple people, and if you're lucky see some of the new things they're working on, but Thinkwell took us into their entire white boarding process, letting us meet and work with a large number of their management. I don't want to give away any details, but it was really an eye opening experience and I'm really grateful that I got to be a part of it. In fact, I ended up getting to take a leadership role during the process.

The next day I visited Naughty Dog. What can I say, it's just an amazing company. I already loved the fact that they were a Sony company, but it was the people that really sold me. The people there are so competent and self reliant that they don't need producers! I had the pleasure of meeting two of the concept artists there, and they really knew what they were doing. Their names were Shaddy Safadi (http://www.shaddyconceptart.com/) and Robh Ruppel (http://www.robhruppel.com/), and I really appreciated that they took the time to talk with me. You can see a lot of their art in the Uncharted strategy guide. After that was Obsidian, which was interesting also, however I didn't get the opportunity to meet with anyone but the CEO, Feargus Urquhart (Awesome name, but not an artist).

The next day was Treyarch, a division of Activision. The trip was awesome! A lot of people were there on the tour with me, but I still felt I got to learn a lot on a personal basis. However, instead of connecting closely with the artists we met, one of which was even from Pittsburgh, it was a game designer I was really impressed with. His name was Brian Douglas and he was on the tour to tell us more about how people on the company layout levels, something no other company has ever shared with me. It was great, he was really charismatic and informative, and he even spent his entire lunch break talking with us! It's great to meet people that care, and he was really down to earth with all of us. Lucky me won a Guitar Hero bundle in a business card raffle. I'll talk more about Activision when I get to Shaba (one of my favorite companies).

Next was Electronic Arts LA. I'm writing this journal entry from the Ames NASA base right now, and let me tell you, this place seems to have less security than EALA! Seriously, it was like walking into a jail, and nearly everyone that talked to us seemed to have an uneasiness to them. Really, I think it must have been because I've had the pleasure of going to EA Redwood Shores before, and that place is so open and comfortable that the contrast with this place was stark. Please don't go by my impression of EALA, visit them for yourself and gather your own opinions. I love EARS, so my visit with that particular LA location must have been a fluke.

Some other things happened while I was in LA. For one, I ran into some awful weather and ended up spending a lot of time with my best friend Mike Smith, who lives in Valencia. I got to go to the mall there and they actually had a Singstar Playstation truck set up inside. I had seen pictures of Playstation trucks on their website before (I mean, the ones with the games and flat screen televisions inside), but I had never seen one in person before because I'm from the East coast. It was cool, but Mike was unimpressed. He seems to be pretty fed up with the LA area already after only living there for a little while. Another thing that happened was that my good friend and classmate Josh "Yoshi" Seaver has his birthday. We celebrated at a good Japanese restaurant called Taiko near LAX. That was a great place and a great evening.

Then it was off to the amazing city San Francisco! I love this city, and it would turn out that I would spend more time here than I had originally anticipated, but more about that in the next post. It would turn out that Janice, one of our coordinators would have to stay at the appartment and take care of some things, so Josh Yelon took the liberty of taking me off of one of my top choices, Tell Tale, and give me the responsibility of being in charge of the group going to a company called Three Rings. I did a little research on the company a few months in advance, but didn't really know much about them besides the fact that they were a casual games company with a bit of a cartoony style. I would later find out that they were a lot more fun that I had originally made them out to be! We headed into the city and met with the Three Rings CEO Daniel James at his company. What a guy! People say this about me, but he really did seem like he came right out of a video game, and, I don't want to give away any surprises, but so does his work environment! I urge you to look more into Three Rings Design (http://www.threerings.net/), because it's a shame I hadn't known more about them sooner. I spend so much time following consoles games with my addiction to anything PlayStation, that I miss a lot of the great things going on on the internet (Minus NCsoft titles). One more thing, Three Rings is very supportive to people looking to develop games and even offers tools on their site. Check it out.

During our lunch break, I went with the lovely Laura Lantz to the Sony Metreon for quesadillas. I love that place with it's PlayStation, Sony Style and TFAW stores. When we were done, we hiked to Shaba Games. Shaba is also a division of Activision, like Treyarch, but seems to be a little bit smaller. However, it is because Shaba is smaller that it might seem more comfortable and personal. I also love the people there and was happy to learn that a handful of the employees are from my program. Can't give away any details, but the love of art there was alive and well. Also, Activision's notably lovely recruiter ladies that I know from visits to the ETC and Treyarch were also here. Activision takes first prize for shwag. In fact, I'm wearing one of their shirts from the trip right now. I'll return the favor though, and be sure to bring something cool back from Japan for someone at Shaba. You know who you are!

The next day were the final stops of the tour: EARS and Cryptic. I had been to both places before, but both had gone through a lot of changes. Cryptic for example was in a new location not far from where they previously were. Also Susan Gold wasn't with me this time, which is definitely a loss. EA Redwood Shores was as cool as ever, but this time I really didn't get to see any game development. We saw a powerpoint from an alumni, but didn't get to see any work spaces. However, there was some concept art up in the lobby of the main building where I got to have lunch with Carl Rosendahl, founder of PDI and new director of my program's West coast base located in EARS. I can't wait to get to work with him in the future! I swear to God, the ETC is run by some of the coolest people in the world. Don't let me get ahead of myself though, for the next few months I get to work with another genius from EA named John Buchanan. More on that in future posts.

So, all of those companies plus alumni dinners in each of those cities and that is how the trip went. Luckily, my team and I managed to meet a few nights in my apartment before we went our separate ways. Some great ideas came out of that, which we're developing more now. Hopefully I'll have some art with my next post to spice things up a little.

- Ben Taylor

What's Up - 2007/12/11

2007-12-11T13:30:00.000-08:00

Right now I'm getting my things in order at the ETC and working out visa verifications. Apparently a handful of Japanese officials are looking over my information as I write this and determining whether or not I should be allowed to have a visa; this is all part of the Certificate of Eligibility all Americans applying for a visa must fill out. Last night I stayed at my parents and gathered some of my old Japanese learning tools, including my all import electronic dictionary. Tomorrow I'll have dinner with Sono Hayes, a Japanese professor with Carnegie Mellon. I hope I get to enjoy myself and I'm not just grilled on my Japanese usage. heh

Anyway, for those of you who don't know, which is most of you because I'm awful at keeping in touch, I currently live on the third floor of the Kappa Sigma fraternity Delta Alpha chapter at Carnegie Mellon University. Below is a picture of my door. A few months ago I drew a pin-up girl on it (along with a couple other doors in the house). The symbol behind the girl has significance to the house, but it's a secret! All I'll say is that it's called the Star and Crescent.

The next few weeks will involve a lot of getting back into the swing of using Japanese. I'm also going to try to make a real attempt to reach my old Harvard Japanese professors Sato, Kanazawa and Ono sensei. I also have to make sure that our new computers in Osaka will have all the programs I need to function. Take it easy everyone.

- Bennosuke

P.S. - I honestly have no idea who this girl is.

。。。

2007-05-10T21:47:00.000-07:00

てすと

Welcome

2005-12-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

It's really amazing how much can change in the matter of only a couple years... Infinityseries.blogger.com will act as my future blog, documenting the happengins of, at least, the next three years. The entries will be in both Japanese and English and I oppologize in advance for any confusion this might cause. However, this is an international community we live in and the only thing I ask as a viewer of my blog is that you keep an open mind.

Also, I work in a careful and surprisingly strict industry, and there will be many things I cannot say or post about. Therefore, do not ask that I divuldge any particular piece of information and be patient when I'm forced to talk in round-a-bout ways. I'll try my best to give entertaining posts despite my having to be a bit secretive.

Thank you for visiting my blog/video blog. Here is just a little about me:
My real name is Benjamin Parry Taylor and I am a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA. I am an artist from a family of artists, my mother being a portrait painter and my father and grandfather working in advertising. I have two brothers and one sister who are much older than me and have one different parent, so I am in some ways also an only child. My educational history includes Penn State, Harvard University, Ringling College or Art, and Carnegie Mellon University, in that order. I am a member/brother of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. I am engaged to be married to Dawn Rivers, a computer animator from Miami, Florida USA. For more information about me, please visit my about section of his blog or my website at http://www.infinityseries.com/.

- Bennosuke