April 2008 Archives

So April is almost over and I’m still modeling the bathroom. Aggravating, but not a surprise considering last week was a total loss due to unnecessarily long work hours and some personal issues that needed taking care of. Things are about to change for the better but making that change has required a great deal of attention lately, in addition to my being made the owner’s personal designer on a last minute project on top of my already time-consuming duties. By the time the weekend got here I was exhausted and spent most of it sleeping. Now I’m up late again, but at least it’s for the right reasons. I decided to do the subdivision surfaces tutorial tonight to remind ... more

That would be really funny if I had a model of a toilet to show. And to be honest, it was a productive day even without doing a new model. I ran a couple of errands today, had an important meeting (which I may be able to discuss at a later time), found out a new hubcap will cost $84 at the dealership, and spent three hours paying bills and catching up on my financial record keeping. I can’t really look back on this day and say I didn’t accomplish anything. It all had to be done, and it got done.I also did a little research on this year’s SIGGRAPH. I’m tempted to go. Actually, I’m a lot more than ... more

Ok, that’s a pun. I’m not in the same frame of mind I was in my last entry, mainly because I’ve had sleep and I have tomorrow off. I’m sure I’ll be right back to thrilled tomorrow night. However, I have yet to recover from the frustration of losing so much of last week on this project. Sometimes all it takes to feel better is to start working again, which I’ve done, but it’s not enough this time. I was all set to get back to work Thursday night but we had lightning (and worse) all evening and I didn’t feel like I should be working on the computer. So last week was shot, and this weekend is going fast. ... more

Worry is evil. Staying awake all night worrying that you won’t get to an early morning meeting on time is ridiculous. But it’s easy to do on the heels of two nights of questionable sleep for other equally stupid reasons — at that point, your brain is pretty much out of control. It’s also easy to do when you have a 20 mile commute down a crowded highway and you feel like the people you work for are just waiting for you to screw up. So this is Wednesday and I feel like I’ve already worked a week... unfortunately, not on what I would like to. I was hoping to get back on the bathroom project tonight but I hit ... more

The main part of the bathtub is done! I learned (or re-learned) a lot about modeling this week just getting that one object finished. I’m wishing I had taken the week to go through the Maya tutorials instead, maybe I would have worked more efficiently. I’m impatient though. But the more I think about it, the better off I’ll probably be if I do just that. It’s better than starting a bunch of bad habits and getting stuck with them. Maybe I’ll tackle some of those tutorials after dinner.The tub is in the slide show on the work in progress page. I’ll keep adding objects as I get them. ... more

I’m working in Maya again! And I’m not as lost as I expected to be. However, I’ve tried to model the bathtub four different ways now. At least I feel like the fourth one is the charm. I just have a sliver of a tub but I think I finally have the right approach. Hopefully I can finish it tomorrow night and get going on the rest of the room. I had a feeling my first deadline wouldn’t be realistic, but I’m still hopeful that I can have the room modeled by the end of the weekend. I might not be able to rest on Friday night though.Major client presentation tomorrow, must sleep now. How annoying. ... more

Well, I made a schedule. I doubt it’s realistic but it keeps me moving. In fact, I took an example from the day job and signed up for a free account with Basecamp. It’s an online project management system that lets me track to do lists and milestones for my project, and it emails me 48 hours before a milestone is due. Pretty cool huh. I set up all my to do lists and milestones today and now that it’s all written down somewhere and saved, I feel like I have a better handle on it. Even if it’s crazy. For example, I’m trying to get this all done by the end of May, despite the fact that I’m lucky ... more

I won’t go so far as to call this a wasted weekend but I didn’t get done what I had hoped. Saturday was worthless. I had no energy at all, couldn’t sleep enough. I guess three weeks of sleep deprivation finally caught up with me. So I wrote that day off hoping Sunday would be more productive. And it was, for chores like laundry and cleaning the branches out of the yard, but suddenly it was too dark to go back to the car wash and get new pictures, and a run through the Deep Ellum Arts Festival took too much out of me to start on my bathroom sketches when I finally had time to do it. It occurs ... more

Finally! I got Flash to work with Movable Type and I got all my reference photos posted. Next, I will do some drawings of how I want to put all the pieces together. The photos show more detail than I will probably use, but at least it’s there if I need it. We’ll see how the sketches turn out. Check out the work in progress page to see the slides. ... more

Sounds like I’m remodeling, doesn’t it? Not quite. I took a ton of pictures tonight for modeling references but I’m still trying to figure out the best way to post them. It’s hard to solve these little problems in the small amount of time I have in the evenings and get any work done on the project itself, but once I figure out how to do this, I won’t have to figure it out again. It’s frustrating though. It’s almost midnight, I’m sleep deprived as it is, and my job is taking up WAY too much of my free time. I’m not giving up though. I’m going to get a slide show up here if it kills me. (It better ... more