This just happened.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Tanky-Tank 0.10.6
At long last, a new version of Tanky-Tank has been released! Here are the changes:
- Halftrack has been reverted to the old minelaying version.
- Hopefully fixed crash bug on startup.
- Hopefully fixed crash bug when the terrain shadow texture fills up.
- Upgraded to .Net 4.0.
- Misc performance improvements.
Download it now!
Sunday, June 27, 2010
What Happens in Vegas
Las Vegas is probably my least favorite place on Earth. It's no fun unless you want to spend a lot of money on alcohol. Hi, Future Walt here. It also helps to be a girl. You get in places for free. I am not.
This weekend a few other interns and I made the 6-ish hour drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The big reason we went was to see the Cirque Du Soleil show Ka. (More on Ka later...)
The trip to Vegas was super boring. It pretty much all looked like this.
This weekend a few other interns and I made the 6-ish hour drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The big reason we went was to see the Cirque Du Soleil show Ka. (More on Ka later...)
The trip to Vegas was super boring. It pretty much all looked like this.
On the way we stopped to eat in the town of Baker, CA. We ate at a Greek-themed restaurant.
We also saw "The World's Tallest Thermometer". It should really be called "The World's Lamest Thermometer", because it's actually just a bunch of numeric, digital temperature displays. (Trivia: It is 134 feet tall -- 134 degrees is the highest-ever temperature recorded in nearby Death Valley.)
We stayed in one of the cheapest hotel casinos in Vegas, The Excalibur.
After checking in, we went exploring!
And as it turns out, Vegas is pretty much entirely slot machines.
The outsides of the casinos are usually much more interesting than the insides.
You can, of course, gamble and swim at the same time.
Vegas is littered with all sorts of lame street performers, such as this couple in awful, awful (though at the same time pretty impressive) Toy Story costumes.
After taking this picture I was yelled at and shooed away by the performers, who wanted a tip that I would not give them.
Saturday evening we saw the Cirque du Soleil show Ka. It is easily the most technically impressive piece of theater I have ever seen. The show and it's incredible stage cost over $200 million to create. The massive stage itself can move in and out, up and down, tilt up and down, and spin. It also has a sophisticated camera-based actor-tracking system that allows them to project all kinds of special effects onto the stage. The stage is so massive that it was built by a company that normally builds large-scale industrial mining equipment.
Ka is a great show, and if you are ever unfortunate enough to be in Vegas, is not to be missed.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Hollywoooood
Yesterday evening we went to see Prince of Persia at the El Capitan in downtown Hollywood. The movie was a reasonably entertaining summer action flick.
The El Capitan theater, though not owned by Disney, shows only Disney movies. It's also a pretty cool venue. Before every show there is a performance by a live organist, who then descends into the stage just before the previews.
The El Capitan theater, though not owned by Disney, shows only Disney movies. It's also a pretty cool venue. Before every show there is a performance by a live organist, who then descends into the stage just before the previews.
The whole theater itself is decorated to match whatever movie is being shown, and there are often displays of movie props in the basement. Here are a couple from Prince of Persia:
Before the movie we walked briefly around downtown Hollywood. There's really not much to see, though the hand and foot prints of all sorts of movie stars are pretty neat.
Anthony Daniels (aka C-3PO) is a visiting scholar at the ETC. He's a nice, polite man, and very, very smart.
Someone once told me that I reminded them of Jack Nicholson. Personally I don't see the resemblance, but I took it as a compliment.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Maker Faire
On Friday and Saturday, a few of us Imagineers ventured up to the San Francisco area for the Maker Faire. It's basically a bunch of do-it-yourselfers geeking out with each other.
Anyway, Imagineering went up there to showcase some of the cool technologies we're working on as part of Maker Faire's education day for kids.
One thing we showed is a cool trick whereby a webcam captures video of your face, which is then projected back onto this model of a human head. The effect is kind of like a really bizarre 3D mirror. It was definitely popular with kids.
Another technology we're showed is a 360-degree camera. Once upon a time (a couple weeks ago) it was attached to one the ride boats for the It's A Small World ride at Disneyland. The cool thing about this video is that, though it is all prerecorded, you can still pan around within the video as if you were controlling a normal camera live.
But the most popular technology we demoed was the FLIR infrared camera. It can see heat instead of normal visible light. It costs about $35,000, so we didn't let any of the kids touch it, but they could see themselves glow bright on the screen. One cool thing is that if you touch the wall with your hand for a couple seconds, it actually heats up the wall, leaving an imprint for a little bit.
Friday was the education day, and on Saturday the main fair started. Upon entering the fairgrounds, one couldn't help but notice the giant rocketship in the middle.
A commonly-recurring theme throughout the day was crazy vehicles.
Robots were another common sighting.
Not to mention the obligatory R2 droids.
These aren't the chickens you're looking for...
There were a bunch of fun wood "sculptures" that anyone could bend into their desired shape. (Puppy!)
One group had a shadow-detecting projection. I only mention it because we've done much more interesting stuff at the ETC.
Another group had a cool tank combat video game, but not quite as cool as Tanky-Tank.
There were a bunch of wild-and-crazy art pieces.
And some human-powered carnival rides.
Lastly, there were a couple of awesome musical devices...
One was a mechanical percussion instrument:
And the other was a musical instrument using giant Tesla coils! The notes you hear are simple electrical current flowing from the coils. (Yes, there's a person in the cage between the two coils.)
Anyway, Imagineering went up there to showcase some of the cool technologies we're working on as part of Maker Faire's education day for kids.
One thing we showed is a cool trick whereby a webcam captures video of your face, which is then projected back onto this model of a human head. The effect is kind of like a really bizarre 3D mirror. It was definitely popular with kids.
Another technology we're showed is a 360-degree camera. Once upon a time (a couple weeks ago) it was attached to one the ride boats for the It's A Small World ride at Disneyland. The cool thing about this video is that, though it is all prerecorded, you can still pan around within the video as if you were controlling a normal camera live.
But the most popular technology we demoed was the FLIR infrared camera. It can see heat instead of normal visible light. It costs about $35,000, so we didn't let any of the kids touch it, but they could see themselves glow bright on the screen. One cool thing is that if you touch the wall with your hand for a couple seconds, it actually heats up the wall, leaving an imprint for a little bit.
Friday was the education day, and on Saturday the main fair started. Upon entering the fairgrounds, one couldn't help but notice the giant rocketship in the middle.
A commonly-recurring theme throughout the day was crazy vehicles.
Robots were another common sighting.
Not to mention the obligatory R2 droids.
These aren't the chickens you're looking for...
There were a bunch of fun wood "sculptures" that anyone could bend into their desired shape. (Puppy!)
One group had a shadow-detecting projection. I only mention it because we've done much more interesting stuff at the ETC.
Another group had a cool tank combat video game, but not quite as cool as Tanky-Tank.
There were a bunch of wild-and-crazy art pieces.
And some human-powered carnival rides.
Lastly, there were a couple of awesome musical devices...
One was a mechanical percussion instrument:
And the other was a musical instrument using giant Tesla coils! The notes you hear are simple electrical current flowing from the coils. (Yes, there's a person in the cage between the two coils.)
Disney
On Monday morning I had an appointment to hand in my paperwork for my internship at Walt Disney Imagineering.
Apparently, L.A. is not always warm and sunny.
The WDI buildings are very nondescript. Here's where I had my appointment:
Indeed, this is the only hint of Disney I could find anywhere outside the gated areas:
The inside of the WDI Creative building is full of artwork, concept paintings, models, and lots more. It's really cool. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to take pictures inside.
On Tuesday was Disney orientation for new interns. It was pretty run-of-the-mill orientation (the history of Disney; the employee guidebook; etc...). We did get to spend a few minutes in the Disney archives...
The Wardrobe, of the Lion and the Witch variety:
Walt Disney... not the world's greatest artist:
While everyone else was gawking at prints from Snow White, I was nerding out with the Nautilus.
I held an Oscar! (Yes, it's heavy.)
This is a machine that animators back in the day used to do parallax of different layers in a shot. They would literally paint a layer onto each of several transparent panes of glass. A camera is positioned at the very top and photographs down through all the panes.
To close out the day, we went on a tour of Disney's studios in Burbank. Unlike nearby Imagineering, the main studios are definitely Disney-themed. Here's a shot of their main administration building, complete with the Seven Dwarfs:
Apparently, L.A. is not always warm and sunny.
Note from Future Walt: I have now spent over a year of my life in total living in LA, and I can't remember it ever since being this dreary.
The WDI buildings are very nondescript. Here's where I had my appointment:
Indeed, this is the only hint of Disney I could find anywhere outside the gated areas:
The inside of the WDI Creative building is full of artwork, concept paintings, models, and lots more. It's really cool. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to take pictures inside.
On Tuesday was Disney orientation for new interns. It was pretty run-of-the-mill orientation (the history of Disney; the employee guidebook; etc...). We did get to spend a few minutes in the Disney archives...
The Wardrobe, of the Lion and the Witch variety:
Walt Disney... not the world's greatest artist:
While everyone else was gawking at prints from Snow White, I was nerding out with the Nautilus.
I held an Oscar! (Yes, it's heavy.)
This is a machine that animators back in the day used to do parallax of different layers in a shot. They would literally paint a layer onto each of several transparent panes of glass. A camera is positioned at the very top and photographs down through all the panes.
To close out the day, we went on a tour of Disney's studios in Burbank. Unlike nearby Imagineering, the main studios are definitely Disney-themed. Here's a shot of their main administration building, complete with the Seven Dwarfs:
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