Installed Big Sur on my mac laptop yesterday with its ludicrous 35Gb free space requirement for its monstrous bloat-ware.
After all I had nothing better to do, than to start a quest to free up the required room. I used GrandPerspective, a file space visualisation tool to see where there was unexpected opportunities. I painfully deleted caches and applications but eventually after much deliberating the space was won.
I also moved the install file to a secondary disk and installed from there.
Big Sur looks pretty attractive but I certainly think Apple needs to rethink how it does support installations in the future. They are hardly generous with disk space sizes.
Two ideologies intertwined
Who perceive themselves as poles apart
Meet in righteousness indignation
Staring down in the safety of distance
Dismissing the other
As too radical for a country
Torn asunder.
Two ideologies intertwined Who perceive themselves as poles apart Meet in righteousness indignation Staring each other down With the safety of distance Dismissing the other As too radical for a country That's been torn asunder. A country where Thousands needlessly die each night In agonising pain alone With machines switched off A silence too familiar To be quickly reused again. But in truth These two pillars of democracy Of boundless virtue Were never so far apart Unrecognising that special interests Hold them in thrall Their opinions bought and paid for Many years ago. The Grand Old Party To its shame has abandoned its proud legacy The party of Lincoln Moved to unrecognisable extremes Paranoia now its staple Paying its dues to special interests Of what was once considered the extremist right. And the Democrats Sidestepping the pleas of its base Unsurprisingly fails again A party who has become Due to its genuflections A pale and mediocre simulacrum Representing the same rich constituents The allure of money Intoxicating power of the Establishment Oblivious to the needs of the many. What of those who were proudly proclaimed around the world The protection of the huddled masses The tired The poor The wretched refuse washed up upon its gallant shores? Those who for decades have been ignored More precarious year after year There is no place for them Those perceived as a rounding error That ignores all math On silent lips Once more.
Our Xmas are very different in this sunburnt land and the colours of our country, our landscapes, our flora and fauna are quite remarkable and should be celebrated more.
An Australian Xmas animation. Our Xmas are very different in this sunburnt land and the colours of our country, our landscapes, our flora and fauna are quite remarkable and should be celebrated more.
Best played with sound on.
I drew inspiration of an outline map of Australia and the use of paper like effect on layers from a recent CISRO State of the Climate 2020 video, to create this animation.
My weary body seeks rest and subsidence
As I slouch on a chair in hard found solitude
My weary body seeks rest and sustenance As I slouch on a chair in hard found solitude Wiping tears from my glasses Thinking at all those beautiful people we lost So unfairly This pandemic filled year.
A frenzied 12 months like no other now behind us My team of vital workers Beavering away until the last moment Their remote location The only saving grace.
Now it’s time for me to finish my cookies And brush them off my beard To swig the last of my full-cream milk And fulfil my yearly obligations Delighting children of this world.
Though some presents won’t be delivered And for that I am full of pain For the joy of Christmas morning Will also be tinged with sadness for many With an aching emptiness of lost ones Anguish and deep longing in their soul.
I thought I’d try something different, and post updates on progressing an idea of grasping scale through animation and storytelling and at the same time do something that might be useful to alerting people of the issues of Covid-19.
I thought I’d try something different, and post updates on progressing an idea of grasping scale through animation and storytelling and at the same time do something that might be useful to alerting people of the issues of Covid-19.
This data visualisation from Dr Eric Ding really struck me at odds with the indifference shown by so many Americans advocating personal freedoms over taking simple measures such as wearing masks and social isolation.
How do we visualize almost 300k #COVID19 death? Here are 278528 coffins ⚰️ stacked 64x64x68 next to the White House (51 meters wide). Maybe Trump will understand the magnitude better this way.
We must mask up, ventilate, filter, and distance now. Postpone Xmas gatherings pls. pic.twitter.com/IiTSMg51IO
A story and and an animation perhaps could be helpful to highlight the issue and get people think twice about their behaviours and its impact on their country. I don’t want this to be macabre of sensationalist but to get an important story across.
My current thought is to show a cinematic visualisation of American football fields full of people.
At the time of writing there’s been 296,000 deaths due to Covid-19.
As a field length is 120 yards (109.75m), width 53.3 yards (48.8) that comes to 5355.8 people per square metre and 55.27 fields.
Using Unity
Do I use Unity or Adobe After Effects?
I’ve opted for Unity to advanced cinematics, 3D capabilities and AI possibilities for the engine.
I’ll have to dust off old skills and learn a number of new ones which maybe a challenge.
Showing 5k+ animations on a screen may be too much for my old mac and I may have to ask a favour of one of my children to get some time on their GPU card enabled gaming desktops!
The Steps in the Journey
Ragdolls
Multiple characters
Animation controllers
Grass
American football field
Football stadium
Multiple stadiums
Lighting effects
Cinematics
UI interactivity
Recording
Multiple Characters
Ragdolls
First step is how to show a character falling down realistically…
The ragdoll feature in Unity animates characters falling down and also reacting to objects that they collide with.
Multiple Characters
Now where to get multiple characters?
Unity Asset Store has a few free character assets.
Another great source is Adobe Mixamo where you can download fbx based characters with animations using their web based tool. For some crazy reason Adobe have decide to end-of-life Muse which means you can’t create your own and upload them.
I also create my own character using the much improved MakingHuman open source tool. It offers great diversity and I suspect I’ll generate many characters using this tool.
With these four characters at hand, the next was to create a simple animation loop using a single animation controller with an idle animation.
Animation Controllers
Here I’ve added an animation controller – a state machine with events from keyboard input to drive idle, fall down, stand up and walk animations. I used a common avatar body for all the models and animations clips from Mixamo.
I had to experiment a bit to get the Y Root Transform correct as characters were not staying correctly on the ground. I also had some issues with models and copying from common avatar rather than from each model… luckily Penny De Byl’s Unity animation course came to the rescue for me!
I’ll have to look at different randomised animations so that movements are not exactly the same.
Next step maybe will be modelling an American Football stadium pitch.
Animated videos for Michael E. Mann’s upcoming book – The New Climate War.
Here’s some animated videos I created for Michael E. Mann’s upcoming book – The New Climate War. Creating animations like this, is a way I can give back and highlight the climate crisis and support our advocates .
The first is a 15 second clip and the second one minute but includes quotes from reviewers.
Short clip
Clip with quotes.
More info on The New Climate book can be found here:
The animation concept was to keep it aligned to the book cover and not make it too overly dramatic.
The animations were created using Adobe After Effects. The globe maps and clouds were flat maps from NASA which I flattened, simplified and coloured in Adobe Illustrator. I used CC Sphere effect and set the rotation of the earth and clouds to difference speeds. I also added additional turbulence to the clouds as well as several illumination effects.
Sitting alone
Basking in silence
Before the break of dawn
The taste of coffee lingering
Self-prescribed daily rituals
Satisfied and saluted
Once more.
Sitting alone
Basking in silence
Before the break of dawn
The taste of coffee lingering
Self-prescribed daily rituals
Satisfied and saluted
Once more.
While in my mind
Thoughts unbidden swirl
Of today’s potential
Tempests of yesteryear
And future dreams return
Chaotically mixing with
The curse of social media
Engineered feeds SHOUTING
Injustices of this world
Enticing Distractions
Catching myself
And taking a breath
For its time to brush all aside
Calm the eddies of my mind
For its time to take advantage
Of this perfect opportunity
To Galvanise myself
And focus.
While slumber is deep in the house
Life affords me
A great gift
The opportunity...
The joy to determine my future
To chart today’s great adventure
And write.
The Spoken Word 