 | IT Happens :
January 2005
Monthly News Notice of IT Happenings |  | |
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Computer
Animation Special
Feature of the Month
New Animation Technology Using Artificial Intelligence
 In many movies today, like the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, dazzling animation is as visible as good acting. Now Brigham Young University computer scientists Dr. Parris Egbert and Jon Diner stein have come up with new animation technology. For instance, in a battle sequence the technology applies artificial intelligence to character animation. In other words, the spaceships have learned to react and adapt.
There's no need for the programmer to spend a lot of time developing the character. He tells it the goals and it will go and do everything on its own. In video games, characters can learn to compete and make it more challenging for the user. In movies, animators can automate characters in scenes so they don't have to tell each character what to do.
It lets them be more productive in the work they do because they don't have to spend as much time on the low-level animation. The characters can learn such that the activity becomes second nature and that requires little processing power. The character can also learn on its own and adapt online to interact with a human. As a result, the character can behave in a very humanlike manner, a very intelligent manner but without having to be told what to do in every situation it can find itself in.
(Source:
http://www.ksl.com)
Quote - IT
"I'm the person that might create a model much like sculpting out of clay, but we sculpt our objects in the computer so we can really push things, like really opening and closing her mouth up.”
- Kamal Mistry -
Personality Of The
Month 
You must have seen the movie “The Incredible” now meet the man behind the making of the characters for the movie Kamal Mistry- the Gujarat born New Zealand educated technical director at Pixar. (California) founded by Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Kamal was mainly involved in the creation of the hair for the characters, the so called cartoony hair with a real look. Marionette, an in house animation software was used to make the hair.
He was also involved in character articulation for Mr. incredible, Edna and other characters in the film. According to Kamal making “The Incredible” involved a lot of hard work but in the end he is proud of his achievement.
IT Snippets
Create Talking Animated Character’s In Minutes
 Now you can create talking animated characters for your website or project in minutes. Sculptoris Voices Studio allows you to create 3D & 2D lifelike characters which export to Macromedia's Flash file format. Voices allows your eLearning course or website to grab the attention of your viewer easily and helps them to retain.
They can be used for eLearning simulations, as a virtual coach or as a spokesperson for your website or online
store. The state of the art lip syncing technology allows you to upload your audio file and text, hit export and in a few seconds you can take your finished Flash SWF file and use it anywhere. You get all the files and don't need to worry about streaming them from someone else's server.
It works with any language. English, French, Spanish etc. It also support's for closed captioning for the hearing impaired or for viewers without audio. Flash files created with SVS are streaming, have a small footprint and can be imported into any program that supports the Flash SWF format. (Flash, Director, Dreamweaver, Lectora). One can download all the files and can use them anywhere.
(Source:http:// www.sculptoris.com)
TOONZ-The Animation Software
Toonz is a complete 2D Cel Animation software for feature films, video, commercials, multimedia and web animations.
Designed by traditional cel animation artists and producers Toonz precisely traces the steps of hand-drawn animation, giving you the familiar tools and process and all the efficiencies and options of a digitized medium.
Toonz includes tools for: input, ink and paint original pencil drawings; compose, move and animate the inked cels over backgrounds, according to the exposure sheet; move the camera and table; add special effects and record composed sequences.
(Source:
http://www.softimage.com)
Web Watch
http://www.flash2x.net
 The above mentioned site provides one with all information regarding Macromedia Shockwave Flash application developments.
The Flash2x Screen saver Builder provides easy solution to build screen savers with one's favorite movie. The Flash Hunter gives information about saving flash movies on web. The EXE Package provides guidance to distribute and protect one's movies as executable files.
The tools are available in few other languages like Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese etc. one is free to choose the language of their choice.
Links to various other sites dealing with information about flash related products can also be had. Also information about many of the new products launched by Macromedia is available on this site. You can even try the new products available for free just by linking yourself to the above site. Also option of getting free newsletter for Flash related products, articles etc. can be had by entering your email id in the newsletter column. So go ahead and log on to update yourself with the new flash tools.
IT Humour
Technology Overdose::5 signs You've had Enough!
You've just tried to enter your password on the microwave.
You call your son's beeper to let him know it's time to eat.
He emails you back from his bedroom, " What's for dinner?"
You chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but haven't spoken with your next-door neighbor yet this year.
You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.
You consider second-day air delivery painfully slow.
IT Quiz
- What is meant by the term Fractals ?
- What does the term Morphing mean?
IT Quiz Solutions
- Fractals are very complex pictures generated by a computer from a single formula. Very often
they are very colorful and look beautiful. A fractal gets created by using iterations. This means that one formula is repeated with slightly different values over and over again, taking into account the results from the previous iteration. The results are then graphed. In fractals, the little parts of them look like the big picture, and when one zooms in more, one will find more and more repeating copies of the original
- Morphing is a very cool looking transition. It is also one of the most complicated ones. A morph looks as if two images melt into each other with a very fluid motion. In technical terms what happens is, two images are distorted and a fade occurs between them.
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