Get Your Outdoor Lighting Right

Choosing the proper lighting that both accents your home as well as keeps it well lit throughout the night is very important for any responsible home-owner toady. For this reason, many home-owners will spend a lot of time searching for that perfect outdoor lighting for their home. Of course finding the right lighting for your home is not an easy task or otherwise everybody would just go out to the local hardware supply store and pick up whatever was available. When it comes to your home’s outdoor lighting, what exactly are you looking for and what is your budget??

These are the things you must ask yourself before searching. It all comes down to your particular budget and how much money you are willing to spend as well as what you are looking for when it comes to choosing the proper lighting for your home. Once you know how much you are willing to spend and what exactly you are in search of, finding that perfect lighting fixture will be a much easier task.
There are just way too many choices to choose from when it comes to finding the proper lighting for your yard. These can include things like the different types of available light bulbs that can range anywhere from LEDs to Xenon bulbs. It can also include things from wired to battery power and even solar powered lighting fixtures depending on the type of light and the amount of light that you are in need of in order to keep your home well lit and secure.

Remember that if you want to make a house truly a home, you have to make sure that everything that is in the home as well as outside the home reflects your personal tastes. Of course we can’t forget to mention the importance of keeping your yard well lit to ensure that your home is secure from any possible intruders or potential injuries as a result of traversing the yard after the sun has gone down.

Actually The Concept Of Animation

Animation is based on a principle of human vision. If you view a series of related still images in quick succession, you perceive them as continuous motion. Each individual image is referred to as a frame.

A frame is a single image in an animated film.

Traditional Animation Method

Historically, the main difficulty in creating animation has been the effort required of the animator to produce a large number of frames. One minute of animation might require between 720 and 1800 separate images, depending on the quality of the animation. Creating images by hand is a big job. That’s where the technique of keyframing comes in.

Most of the frames in an animation are routine, incremental changes from the previous frame directed toward some goal. Traditional animation studios realized they could increase the productivity of their master artists by having them draw only the important frames, called keyframes. Assistants could then figure out what belonged on the frames in between the keyframes. The in-between frames were called tweens.

Once all of the keyframes and tweens were drawn, the images had to be inked or rendered to produce the final images. Even today, production of a traditional animation usually requires hundreds of artists to generate the thousands of images needed.

The frames marked 1,2, and 3 are key frames. The other frames are tweens.

The 3ds max Method

This program is your animation assistant. As the master animator, you create the keyframes that record the beginning and end of each animated sequence. The values at these keyframes are called keys. The software calculates the interpolated values between each key to produce the completed animation.

3ds max can animate just about any parameter in your scene. You can animate modifier parameters, such as a Bend angle or a Taper amount, material parameters, such as the color or transparency of an object, and much more.

Once you have specified your animation parameters, the renderer takes over the job of shading and rendering each frame. The result is a high-quality animation.

The object’s position at 1 and 2 are the keyframed models at different times.

Comparing Frames and Time

Traditional animation methods, and early computer animation programs, are rigidly locked to the concept of producing animation frame by frame. This is okay if you always work in a single format or do not need to specify an animated effect at a precise time.

Unfortunately, animation comes in many formats. Two of the more common formats are film at 24 frames per second (FPS) and NTSC video at 30 FPS. Also, the need for accurate time-based animation versus frame-based animation is critical as animation becomes more common for scientific and legal presentation.

Different animation formats have differing frame rates.

3ds max is a time-based animation program. It measures time, and stores your animation values, with an internal precision of 1/4800 of a second. You can configure the program to display time in a format best suited for your work, including traditional frames format.

Many of the examples in the following sections describe time using the frames method for the sake of tradition and familiarity. Keep in mind that you are really animating using a very precise time-based method, and frames aren’t created until you instruct the software to render your animation.

Identifying Animation Tools

You can locate the basic animation tools in the following areas of the interface:

Track View-Provides detailed animation editing capabilities in several floating or dockable windows. See Track View .

Track Bar-Provides quick access to keyframes and interpolation controls. Can be expanded for function curve editing. See Track Bar.

Motion Panel-Use this panel to adjust transform controllers that affect all position, rotation, and scale animation. See Working with Controllers.

Hierarchy Panel-Use this panel to adjust all parameters governing the linkage of two or more objects. These include inverse kinematics parameters and pivot point adjustments. See Hierarchy Panel.

Time Controls-Use these controls to move through time in the viewport displays. You can move to any point in time, and play animations in the viewports. The time controls, documented in Viewport Controls, include:

- Time slider

Auto Key buttonAuto Key button

• Set Key buttons
• Animation playback buttons
• Current frame field
• Key Mode toggle
• Time Configuration button

How to make a video game in seven days

There is plenty of free software and resources out there that will enable you to quickly make your own video game. All you need is a plan and some persistence. Here is the plan. Today’s software for game making is fairly complete and you don’t need to be a programmer to learn how to use it. It is much like an automobile; you don’t need to know how to build one you just need to know how to drive. With a little bit of effort and some practice you can use the freely available software to make games that will unleash your creative potential.

Day 1 - Gather up the necessary resources and get familiar with it

You will need a computer and if you are reading this article you probably already have that! You should also download the necessary game development software. There are two that I recommend. Either get the Genesis 3D game engine or the Reality Factory Game development software. Of the two I suggest the Reality Factory software but if you have a really old computer and are concerned about your ability to run software then get the Genesis 3d software. Both these programs are readily available and easy to find on the web. Just do a search engine check for keywords Genesis 3d or Reality Factory. Install this software and run it. Tinker with it and get familiar with it. Experiment with all of the different screens and setttings then go through the help files and tutorials. Get an initial understanding of what it will be like to make a video game with the software.

Day 2 - Begin learning the software

Get a notebook and label it “My Video Game Making Reference Book” Locate a tutorial on the web for the software you have used. Don’t rush through this process. There are plenty of available tutorials for both of these programs. Take your time and go through the tutorials and take notes in your book. Keep a page for tips, keystrokes, and routines for getting things done.

Day 3 - Take a break from the computer

Now that you have an idea of what the software is all about you can design your game on paper. First write down the concept and goals of your game. For example: Your game will be a game about how the player has been trapped in a dungeon and has to fight his or her way out to freedom. Or someone has been captured in a dungeon and the player has to break in and rescue him. For your first game keep the concept relatively simple. Something like you want your player to explore a dungeon, kill all the creatures, and find a treasure chest is perfectly good. Make it a small game with maybe ten to fifteen rooms and some outdoor areas. Sketch out every room and place in all the doors and major items like stairs, furniture, treasure chests and monsters.

Day 4 - Build the empty shell of your game world

Crank up the computer and using the game software build just the buildings, rooms and structures of your game world. Do not yet populate it with furniture, doors, monsters or any other type of extra. Just build the structures of the world. Apply only basic textures to the surfaces in the world. Do not at this point worry about the colors, lights or textures of anything. You want to just build the grey shell of the world so you can text it and see if it works properly and if it is how you want it to be. After the world is built insert a character into it and walk around to see if it is as you planned it.

Day 5 - Add the details to your game and make it look real

This is the day where you work on the look of your game. Go over all the structures and add textures, lighting, models, characters and all of the other accessories that will make it look right. Right about now you might be thinking: “How do I do all that?” But the great thing about the software you are using is that models, characters, tables, chairs, doors, and lights are all pre-built and come in a library with the software. You can just click on them and place them right into the game.

Day 6 - Have somebody play your game and give you feedback

Are your platers clear on the objectives of the game? Do they understand what it is all about? Do they have to ask questions? If anything is unclear to the player of if anything is difficult start up your software and modify the game.

Day 7 - Complete the game

Add any extras like a splash screen that displays the name of your game or add sound effects. If you are ambitious you can create your own models or textures to give your game a unique look.

Making a video game is really not a hard process. If you have a plan and the discipline to put some time into learning the software you can have a small but complete game one week from today.

Modern Architectural Design

Modern architectural design employs a wide suite of architectural design software to achieve architectural building design like never before. Today, architectural design firms execute projects of such flawless quality and at unbelievably fast turnaround times.

Modern architectural design softwares allow quick integration of modifications to the entire architectural design project. Therefore, there is no repetition of work. Softwares like Chief Architect, Revit, can seamlessly allow changes in all three dimensions, when any change is brought about in only one dimension. Thus, it saves time out of making changes in all facets. With the application of 3D animation softwares like 3Ds Max and Maya, both architectural building design and architectural interior design have been elevated to a new paradigm.

Architectural interior design has entered into a new zone entirely. Today, there is such huge emphasis on building interiors that clients are ready to spend as much as the building construction cost itself. Subtle elements of architectural interior design like lighting, shades, contours, and space utilization is regarded with intricate detailing. Clients want to have the best living spaces money could buy. Be it architectural home design or architectural office design, people view their living space as an extension of their persona.

Architectural house design too has become increasingly complex in design, due to greater flexibility allowed by technology and building materials. Even standard architectural design firms give the finest in modern architectural design styles inspired from creative movements like cubism, structuralism, post-modernism, de-constructivism, etc. Pre-fabricated building components are in greater preference by architectural design firms.

Architectural design softwares allow awe-evoking arrangement of steel, concrete, and glass to create complex building structures that might resemble a beetle or a lotus flower. The Sydney Opera House and the Guggenheim Museum are two solid examples of such architectural design finesse. Architectural design firms too have become highly competent and find new ways of implementing latest technology drawn from diverse fields into architectural building design.

3D Animation Studios

3 dimension animation is more prominent today than ever before. Movies are faster, bigger and better than ever before and studios have enabled that to happen. Of course, all studios work in a different way, so they all use certain processes that they feel will work for them. Some of the most popular and well known studios are Pixar and Dreamworks, which both offer exceptional quality alongside a wealth of experience. Both studios delve in a range of sectors of the film and animation industry, and are both market leaders.

Pixar

Pixar Animation Studios is one of the most popular in the world; some of the best movies ever to hit the big screen have been produced here. They are a GCI animation company and the company was originally developed in their base in Emeryville, California, United States. Pixar is not actually as old as a lot of people think. It was originally created back in 1979, and was a sub sector of Lucasfilm. Back in 1986 it was purchased by Steve Jobs and was purchased by The Walt Disney Company in 2006, which meant a huge investment and development would follow.

Don’t be fooled by their comic image, Pixar are deadly serious. They have produced 10 films which could literally be described as smash hits and will be remembered by many for years to come. The first feature film was released back in 1995, which was Toy Story, and since then they have released three more Toy Story films due to its success! Others films that they have produced include A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Finding Nemo, WALL-E and anymore.

Their success still continues and they are winners of multiple awards in a range of categories including:

Twenty-two Academy Awards

Four Golden Globes

Three Grammys

Of course, these are just the major awards, which offer great significance. Along their journey as an animation company Pixar have picked up a range of other awards, as well as rave reviews from industry critics. Like most companies, they need to offer an area of specialty, or what is known in business terms as a unique selling point. For Pixar, this is their CGI-animated feature films. They use PhotoRealistic RenderMan as part of their process which enables them to create such high quality images.

DreamWorks

Like Pixar, DreamWorks is one of the well known and reputable 3D animation studios that are currently producing films. The company, DreamWorks, LLC is also known as DreamWorks Pictures, DreamWorks SKG or DreamWorks Studios. It seems their portfolio of work spans slightly further than that of Pixar. They boast a range of films, video games, and television programming, where as Pixar now just focus on producing features films.

DreamWorks began as an idea in the early 90’s but became a reality for the creators in 1994. The three creators Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen were not to know they had just stumbled upon a multi billion pound 3D animation company, and over 15 years later, they are still going strong. Whilst this was a company developed by a small range of individuals, they all chose to go their separate ways. In 2005 the company got an offer they could not refuse from Viacom, and the deal was eventually completed by 2006. Just two years later and DreamWorks were on a mission, they made a huge announcement that their partnership, that had been cherished for so long, would be coming to an end. They signed a $1.5 billion deal which would mean they’d be working in conjunction with India’s Reliance ADA Group producing films.

The DreamWorks animation sector of the business became so big that in 2004 it was eventually developed into a public company, working from two studios! As far as their success goes, it shows similar dominance to that of Pixar. DreamWorks has managed to develop 10 outstanding films. Each of these has been box office hits, with revenue figures well in excess of $100 million. Of course, there is always a film that stands out from the crowd, or that makes a company what it is today and for DreamWorks, that was Shrek 2. This was their most popular film to date.

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