Gerry
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Posts posted by Gerry
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Well, as for them wanting new versions of what already works, I would suggest watching some cartoon channels. Unless you've done so recently, it might not be what you expect. I especially recommend Adventure Time, The Regular Show, and Gravity Falls.
And the internets certainly get around the gatekeepers, but there's no way I can do Nightcallers myself, which I was wrestling with back last year when the pitch opportunity came up.
But more than all that, I've always known the characters weren't designed optimally for animation. They need more characteristic silhouettes, more suitability for lines of action, etc., etc. Which means some sort of wholesale redesign at the very least. I've actually filled several sketchbook pages in the last week working on this, but I go back and forth on how much energy I want to spend on it, or whether I should move on.
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I did have an experiece with toon rendering, where if you have any transparent decals it creates a lot of artifacts and unwanted toon lines. FWIW.
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I've been a bit out of touch here since I came back from the Kidscreen conference to pitch Nightcallers to TV folks. Partly because I've been slammed at work, on a very interesting case regarding an AR (augmented reality) patent which is going to trial next Monday. I had to create a couple of 3D images and used Thom, who came in very handy, as well as one of the boy models from the library.
But also, having been through the extremely interesting and educational process of meeting with and pitching to TV animation execs, I've actually been able to SIT AROUND AND DO NOTHING once I get home from the office, a novel experience that has taken some getting used to. I sit in front of the TV and each evening it slowly dawns on me that I don't have to do a dang thing if I don't want to. Been strumming my ol' guitar a bit, and in the runup to the pitchfest I actually bought a nice Yamaha keyboard to use in operating Garage Band, but which it turned out was not needed. But now I've got a pretty nice electronic keyboard (for like $129) and I've wanted to learn piano my whole life, so here goes.
For those who are interested, I can tell you some things worth knowing about TV animation programming, chief among which is that I'm not sure I'm cut out for it! As I said, it was educational, but so was the Project Management class I took last Fall. "Nightcallers", if I was to massage it for TV, needs some serious work and there are a couple of directions I could go with it. But having developed and developed it for nearly 20 years, I need to just take a step back and see if I can continue working on it profitably, and I don't mean money. I think the characters aren't well-enough developed for the story I've always wanted to tell, and if I were to tweak it for TV there are maybe three or four ways I could make adjustments, but I haven't decided yet what if anything I might do with it. I feel like I'm simply too close to take a fresh approach.
I'm also looking at my other projects and seeing what if anything I can do to make them pitchable, just for practice. Now that I have these TV contacts, pitching doesn't need to be expensive or time-consuming. I spent a couple of bucks on nice color copies of my pitch materials, only to find that NO ONE AT THESE CONFERENCES WANT TO CARRY ANYTHING EXTRA AROUND. They just want me to email pdf's after the conference.
I may also switch gears altogether and start a new project, a graphic novel version of one of Vicki's plays, called "Wildcatter", about the 1950's Oklahoma oil fields. But really, who knows what's next. I'm just chillin!
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Interesting, I'll have to look at that. I've only got a couple of things on Vimeo but I keep meaning to beef up my presence there.
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Okay, I'll have to check that out. I've been off FB for some time and I need to recheck all my security whatnots, I believe that's what they're called.
EDIT: but more important is that it's not Mark's email.
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Mark, just got another one. Looks like your email might have been hacked.
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Hey Mark-
I got an email back on the 5th that purported to be from you, with a link to a Boy Scout troop website. Sound familiar? Did you send it? Here's a screenshot...
(Obviously return email address is all wrong)
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Happy Birthday Mike!
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Hi and welcome back!
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I want one!
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If 40 is your deadline for getting something done you probably shouldn't do it!
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Lol I wouldn't doubt it Gerry, reminds me of this.
that's hilarious! Thanks!
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$99 is still quite a hefty price for what should essentially be a new battery. Especially if aside from the battery there's nothing essentially wrong with your current Ipad. You already paid around $500 for the thing in the first place.
Yeah, well that's the system they set up. Not perfect by any means, and I did think I'd have some sentimental attachment to my "original" iPad, but the dang things are completely identical to each other. Apparently they refurbish the ones turned in and sell them *again*!
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As you may know, Apple has a policy for when an iPad battery runs down. since the units are too tightly sealed to open up and replace the battery they just give you a whole new iPad for $99.
Pretty sweet!
Except when I went to the local Apple Store, after researching this for days, I was told at the store that to get a replacement would be $249. I tried to explain but the salesboy insisted, so I left, heartbroken and confused. I continued to do online research and COULD NOT find any exception to the $99 price, so I printed out the Apple website page with the info and returned to the Apple Store.
Again I was told, by an Apple Jeenyus, that the service was $249. I asked him to show me the $249 price anywhere on a publicly available website, and he said he could show it to me on their store system, but he didn't know where it could be seen on a public website.
I showed him what I'd printed and he said, well you could have printed that out from anywhere. So I went to the Apple site and showed him the freakin page. He said he'd never seen that before and went to find a manager.
He returned with a genuinely shocked look on his face.
Apparently I was absolutely correct, and he said that they'd been charging $249 for this service and I WAS THE FIRST ONE TO EVEN QUESTION IT. He was really upset, saying that he's a customer too and he wouldn't want to be overcharged like that.
I said, "Any day I can explain something to an Apple Genius about Apple products is a good day".
The final question was to run a diagnostic on my iPad because the rule is, only if the battery is below 50% capacity do you get a new unit. My battery was still well above 50%, but he said don't worry about it, here's your new iPad.
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Dang, that sounds good! I've already got so-o-o-o many tuts to watch (only half way, if that, through Lango's tutorials, and I've been re-watching Barry Zundel's modeling videos) that even if I boughten them it would be years before I watched them.
But I prolly will get 'em!
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I'm sorry, could you repeat that?
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No, apparently all videos uploaded here are converted to a flash format. I get an odd icon like a triangle in a circle with the line through it.
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I finally got to see this, nice work Stian! I often check the forum on my iPad, but I can't play any of the videos! Finally remembered to check it out on a "real" computer!
Also, nice test on the Minute Maid commercial, Matt!
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Thanks again, you helped me make it *better* but it's still off in gmail and a couple of others. I think we're gonna just send it out with fingers crossed.
EDIT: I just copied and pasted your first long post into a word doc and I'm saving it!
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Thanks, I'll give that a try! So inline styles can be used for emails, but not css?
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Hey Gerald, I have one more issue that maybe you could look at. The html email is giving me problems in the footer, with spacing etc. and it's different (of course!) in different email apps. I don't know if the problems will be apparent to you, depending on how you view it.
In the footer, the blue rule should be flush to the top of the white box. I previously had a blue pixel stretched to fill the space, but in one person's gmail, several spacer pixels disappeared and were replaced with the actual html link code appearing in the layout! Yet it was fine in another person's gmail. (I replaced it with a horizontal rule but the spacing problem either gets worse or stays the same.)
Never seen anything like that before. If anything jumps out at you, please let me know.
http://www.visualexllc.com/newslettervol2/...Vol2Digest.html
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Wow, great catches! Thanks so much, adding the 0 margin worked great. I've been trying to weed out the old font tags and whatnot too, and every time I think I'm done I find some more.
Danke!
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Wow, that's quite a stack of information Gerald! Most of it I've been figuring out over the last week and managing to get it done but it's great to have all this in one place.
Now I've been coding the actual newsletter and using css for the first time in ages. It's coming along okay (in fact I just finished it in the last hour) but there's one spacing issue that I just can't resolve. Been looking at it since friday and I'm stumped.
If you're *curious*, the newsletter is online at http://www.visualexllc.com/newslettervol2/ClarityVol2.html and the problem is the extra space below the first article title in the "In this issue" sidebar.
But only if you're the curious type!
Audio gear questions
in Off Topic
Posted
I've come across some sound recording equipment that I think I might be able to use, but I don't know enough about it to tell.
Item 1 is a Mackie 1202-VLZ Pro 12 channel mixer.
Item 2 is a Samson DA80 Desktop mixer.
Anyone know what these are? I've downloaded the manual for the Mackie item but have not read it yet. On the company website it's listed as discontinued, but the manual is copyright 2003, so it's not completely obsolete I would think. I'm still reading, but if anyone knows of these items' usefulness that would be great!