Traffic Awareness Campaign, more flash dev..

few months ago, i was hired by Saudi Elan for flash game dev project.
project was about Traffic Awareness Campaign, which SaudiAramCo was conducting in whole middle east region.
Few USP's which i remembered after few months were..

• total 5 games, packaged in a CD, decently designed.
• lot of educational / reading content (traffic rules for kids etc)
• whole project was MultiLingual. As you insert CD, you can choose your language, all content and games will be shown in relevant language
• extremely cultural values shown in project, graphics / animation etc
• 60,000 copies of CD distributes to whole middle east kids... wow.

roughly as per my memory, content was about

Paragliding Trip (Training 101)

last month, few friends of mine made sudden decision for three days paragliding training. here are few pics, before i erase them and small video, which i put togeather from all different useless clips. cheers...

PhotoWalk Lahore Veg Market (near ravi)

portraits...

PhotoWalk Wateen Office Roof Top

these are few images i liked...

PhotoWalk Walton Airport (Aero Modeling)

these are few images, i like

more linux updates, thoughts (includes fedora)

since last month, i had been using Fedora. i find this 95 % identical to ubuntu. first i'll explain similarities, then differences.

why i installed Fedora at first place, few commercial applications (maya / mocha / pftrack), there installers come by default in rpm format ( Fedora / red hat installer formats) not as deb files ( ubuntu intallers ). i know, i can convert rpms to debs via some utils (alien), which i had been doing previously for maya. but now i thought as more companies are using Fedora in big studios as far as i konw, so i thought no harm in checking this.
still ( personal opinion) all software developers (linux) should learn from nuke / houdini, these installers worked everywhere... love this..

Lighting / Rendering / Composting for DevilAngelsAndDating

i have  recently finished lighting / rendering / compositing on a  shot for  upcoming short film named DevilAngelAndDating.

official Thread (WIP)





This specific shot was quite different comparing to majority of other shots, so it took far more time than i expected initially,

Hick Film Character Rigs

somewhere in 2010, i had a chance to work with Jess Herman. She is currently directing / animating a short film named "HICK". It is currently in production phase. I worked as character rigging artist and setup 4 main characters for film named "Bob", Joleen","Rosella" and "Mr.Fleen".
I am posting rig snapshots here, all characters are conceived / drawn by concept artist working in that film. and all characters are modelled by Jess Herman. Rest of my Notes are at end of images..

common camera commands (MEL functions)

while working in maya, i always miss 3dsmax wild / precise / speedy environement. there is huge list of things to document in this context about customization. but attached are three simple mel functions which let me assign 3 common camera commands to short cut keys or quad menus, exactly as i have those in 3dsmax.



below are functions descriptions and then how to install those quickly (at end)
click function name to download relevant MEL file.

• Create camera from view (DOWNLOAD)
• equivilant to 3dsmax menu > view > create camera from view
• no idea, if it already exists in default maya.
• Select Camera From View (DOWNLOAD)
• equivilant to 3dsmax > view menu > select camera
• in maya view menu, select camera. now u can assign key, move mouse in view, hit, it will select camera, 
• useful for quickly showing camera settings and tweaking
• View From Selected Camera (DOWNLOAD)
• useful when multiple cameras in view. 
• easiest is, simply select camera in view, hit shortcut key, it will move your current view to look at from this camera
• if no camera is selected, it will pop up a dialog similar to max ( with list of cameras)
• picking a camera will update viewport
• double clicking will close this dialog as well.

i think, installation is so simple, i can't forget that. incase you need help about that, feel free to discuss

flash development Notes in General

its been few months i am developing with action script 3. this post will document my current information about flash development process and future plans.

• IDE. Flash Develop. from last three months. ( currently using this, port for mac is in progress, and i love this.)
• Eclipse can be used with AXDT / FDT / FLEX SDK ( seems logical for linux users )
• Flash Builder or standalone FDT can be used as well ( windows / mac possible approaches)

FRAMEWORKS / LIBRARIES

• MOJOCOLOR
• if you are dealing with colors (technically), it is must, can't just force, how cool and amazing this is. how much time it saved, while working on brightoPaints Project. 
• CAURINA TRANSITIONS
• an extremely useful tweening engine / framework for as3 work. i have used it offcourse, in more than 1 project. too good
• BOX 2D
• obvious choice for 2d physics engine in flash. now a days working on this (python port is also available)
• PAPERVISION
• most probably, will be my obvious choice, if needed to do 3d in flash. 
• SOUND STEP BASE UI
• GUI Layout framework, i m hoping to use in upcoming flash IDE project.
• SOMACORE
• modern / future  version of MVC implementation (advance level). Hopefully i'll use it. currently hard ( out of scope )
• PUREMVC
• classical / current version of MVC implementation for as3. (python port is also available)

Above are the ones, in which i am interested and i have been following their development from quite some time. In similar context, you can find more generic and useful information on follow links.
Reference 1 , Reference 2


Lastly, some extremely cool flash dev relevant websites, which i visit quite often and i m huge huge fan of these genius guys. Thanks for inspiring me.

emanueleferonato
8bitrocket
iainlobb
soulwire
soundstep
somerandomdude
neave

Happy Flashing..

photography lesson 1

few weeks ago(jan 2011), i was called by some of my friends at Evolve ( mahboob and nauman) ,got invitation for photowalk. i was given very special offer which includes
1- warning, that as cg artist, i should learn photography
2- warning, that as cg artist, i should have my own camera (DSLR)
3- offer, get training for free, one lesson a month, first lesson is gonna happen in that walk
4- offer, 7D and 5DM2 camera with few good lenzes at my disposal to experiment while learning.

offcourse, i accepted that. and below are my notes.

previously in this blog, i have put some images which i took while different trips. but i have to accept that, in all those occasions, i have given a good camera with "auto" turned on, i used to zoom / adjust frame and do click thing and feel good because of technology.

now in that walk, they have explained me, two new variables named fStop and shutter. fStop adjust range (area) around focus point and shutter adjust exposure to capture that range with sufficient light. for first few minutes, it was hard to remember and manage both variables. but soon, i get used to for them. Below are few pictures (20 approximately, out of 50 i took ) and i would like to put them here, before i erase them. so i can remember what i was thinking while taking and what i had learnt from each..

NOTES: i was told, that, typically, flower and or such images are not meant to be put somewhere... :)

NOTES: and then color corrected / tweaked images are also not appriciated.. :( so

NOTES: so i learned, i should give more time to frame, no harm in it..

and should always try to improve composition..(must hai)..

NOTES: should push khurram / master for next trip soon ( in feburary)

Brighto Paint App

i have recently finished few simple web applications for BrightoPaints. I was hired / contracted by Evolve (Company which is doing complete web campaign, website etc). My role in project was to work as flash developer. I had luxury of having a flash consultant as well (if needed), Huge thanks to Nadeem Manzoor for providing such a wonderful help  n support from his valueable time.
first and foremost important thing about this application, since its inception was, where user can pick areas (pre-defined) and fill colors and see final image. its almost same, but while discussions with client it has evolved a bit . Project can be seen at live website (BrightoPaints). it consits of few simple small apps / modules.

Paint App
paint application, where user can fill colors (from client data base) into images








Paint Calculator

estimate required paint amount (in-directly cost)

Color Browser
browse colors from client database and see other relevant color schemes based on simple logics.








NOTES:
this is my first implementation of OOP.
this is also my first implementation of Design Patterns. i have used MV design pattern.
evolve team still busy in filling up images and improving earlier testing masks, so quality of output is still WIP but generally application is working. hopefully, it will be finalised soon..

FUTURE:
initially, we wanted to make this a product, which evolve can resell, but due to time contraint, we had to drop that plan and test possibility via simple implementation. Now when this proejct is over, i think, it still has its potential as product in evolve products catalog.
to do this, i have to implement MVC design pattern , so Custom GUI's and skins can be added per client.
plus, i also feel, i'll write two more simple components for this in future
1- search client colors via name or code
2- search client closests colors based on any user picked color via custom attributes, where user can give hue / sat / val ranges and search database.