Added a section to the References on Pencils, Pens and Brushes. Just basic info on variety and sizes.

Picked up my new books today for Summer quarter and I am a bit perplexed why we have several books on 3DS Max Version 3 and 4 and none for version 7 at all. It seems as if the character animation will revolve solely on mesh and nothing on polygons. I thought that was the older style (see longer more work intensive style) of animation.

Started adding files to the References and Resources sections of the site. If you have sprites, sounds, tools, etc... that you have made and are willing to share them with the other students, send them on in for inclusion at the site.

Since I have not yet figured out how to run a database through the site, or a search engine for that matter, I am presently dumping files into their appropriately named folders, and then linking directly to the folders. Unfortunately this only allows us to view them alphabetically by name with no way (that I know of) of viewing them short of downloading them. Eventually I think I will have collections linked instead of raw images. There are a couple there already in .pdf format.

These images are for anyone to use, so please use them. If you want to add to our collection, just e-mail those items you find useful to me.

I hope everyone is enjoying their week off.

Lastly, added some pencil and ink work to my sketching page for June. These are some of the initial exercises in the Career Art Certificate program for the Famous Artist's Schools. Also added an Inspiration section to the references, which is a collection of comic pages, 3D renderings, character designs, sketches, cool looking structures, etc... where I liked at least something in the image. Hope you find them useful as well.

Relinked the MSB class information to the main navigation area of the site, as well as the overview chart of the specialization classes for Programming and Game Development. All the general syllabi are also posted (though some may now be out of date) and some of the class notes are also linked in.

I am going to take a different route with the class-like information and no longer add specifically to any one class. The skills and concepts from the various classes will get listed separately from any classes which make use of them, and I will endeavor to create as comprehensive a display for each category I come up with. If anyone wants to contribute to this send me an e-mail with either the information or your ideas.

I am also starting on the resources section of the site. If anyone wants to contribute sprites, sounds, models, textures, classes, code snippets, etc... feel free to send those in as well.

Additionally, I'll provide online space and FTP access for those interested in putting up a gallery of their work. Start thinking early of your portfolio.

Added a few new items to the current sketches page, one set being the character sketches I did for my final in Human Form and Action. I feel they came out tolerably well, though I believe I can do better with more time... seemed like a lot of drawings for one week. Wish the assignment had been given out at the beginning of the course and we could have built up all quarter towards the final project.

I received my books and materials for the Famous Artists Schools' Career Art Course today as well. I know I will be spending a lot of time next quarter working on those items and I am excited about starting. Many of the materials are on track with the design courses at MSB, so it should come to support where I am already.

Finals week arrives... and none too soon. I can easily say I am burnt out on this quarter and looking forward to its conclusion and some time off. I only have one test to take this week, and quite a few drawings due on Thursday for Human Form and Action. Next quarter is C++, more Algebra and the second part of animation with 3D Studio Max. I should have a good amount of time to work on items for my portfolio. Have a good week folks.

Added a section of artwork I have access to. This collection is from an old campaign called Fred's World.

Most of my time in the past week has been in working on completing a couple games (a java version of Pong and a Visual Basic version of Go Fish, both of which I'll post here once I consider them done), the creation of some cartoon characters (heads only) for Human Form and Action, and designing some new art pieces for a java game I am working on. I updated the links to my personal space for anyone wanting to see what I have posted recently. I will actually design my space over the class break and give it some cohesive theme and navigation.

Put a notice up on the EZBoards inviting the students to come here instead of there. We'll see how many switch over and make use of the new site.

Added the Winslow Homer bio and images to the Masters section. Decided to also add John Pike, but not tonight. After that I am probably done with image collections for a while. Maybe time to grab up sounds and other resources for game development.

Central thread for EZBoard updates. Still no clue if the data we collected there will ever get restored or not. In either case, we can continue to build here instead.

Finished the El Greco bio and gallery. Onto some homework now.

Nothing new from EZBoards so far today. Still not functioning. Nathan suggested the possibility of our own Forums here, and that would be great, but it is not something I know how to do at present. If anyone out there is capable and interested in helping set this up, let me know.

Nathan and I set up a Forums for us. He talked me thorugh the initial set-up and once in place put the rooms together so we could have the capacity back which is missing with the EZBoards being down. The link above no longer points to the EZboard Forum and instead points to the new one. It is our hope that there will eventually be a restore at EZBoards and we can get back much of the good data which was stored there.

Lastly, completed the remaining two collections for which I have images: Da Vinci and Rembrandt. Now I need to start collecting up the pieces for Winslow Homer.

Back in town now. Nathan, if you stop by this site today drop me an e-mail so I have some method of getting ahold of you. Greg cannot make today's meet and I wanted to connect with you and see what you were interested in doing.

EZBoard Update

Nathan had some new images to share from his testing. I am sure they would be available on the boards IF the boards themselves had been restored yet. Not looking too good there... alas. Anyhow, here are the images.
Sample 3
Sample 4
Sample 5
Sample 6

Well, I am out of town for a few days, thus no more classes for the week. I guess that will mean a LOT of homework once I get back some time on Friday. Those in class with me, please forward any relevant notes to ghk@mn.rr.com if you have the time. I e-mailed the instructors, but if they don't look at their e-mail frequently, let them know. *grin* Thanks.

Don't know yet if I will make it back for the 2PM Friday meeting on the game. If a Plan B is developed, drop a copy my way so I can catch up with you.

At present the Forums are missing a great deal of data. Below is the updated note from EZBoards.

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Dear ezboard Family,

On Tuesday May 31 ezboard's systems were the victim of a very precise and malicious internet attack. This attack resulted in the loss of a significant amount of current and historical board postings and interrupted services across all systems. I deeply apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused and am here to give you the first of several in-depth updates.

At this time most board management services have been restored and our goal is to have post/reply repaired on Wednesday . We are working to restore board data from our back-up systems. This will take some time, and complete data restoration may not be possible, but it is what we are working towards. What we know now is that the attacker deleted current board and back-up data. We are taking the fastest route to restore data, but it may take up to 48 hours to get data back to approximately 9,000 boards. A more manual method requiring upwards of seven to ten days is required to restore data to the other boards that lost data. Regrettably we may not be able to restore data to all boards that lost data.

Second to restoring board data we are gathering information on how the attacker went about his or her business and what evidence was left behind. We are using this information to reduce the opportunity for future attackers as we build our new release. Should you hear or read anything about this attack we would love to know about it at legal@ezboard.com.

You should be aware that there is no evidence that personal information was touched. There was also no opportunity to see or download credit card information as ezboard does not keep credit card numbers on file.

Again, I apologize to you for any inconvenience caused as we value your participation on ezboard today and as we move towards an exciting - and more robust - version of the experience. We are working to restore your systems as fast as possible. Gold Board managers will be receiving information on GB subscription credits in the next few days.

We will keep you updated as the restoration progresses.

Sincerely,
Rob Robert Labatt
CEO ezboard, Inc.

**************************************************************************

Finished up the Monet biography and Gallery today. I still have El Greco, Rembrandt and Da Vinci to go on the main collections, and decided to collect up and display some Homer as well. Turner and Howard Pyle have been done for a while now. Looking for some more pieces by Howard Pyle. If anyone finds any, feel free to link them to an e-mail and send them my way at ghk@mn.rr.com but please put some reference to it in the title of the e-mail or it will most likely find its way into the trash bin instead.

Finally getting to the point where enough of a beginning has been made on this site to start posting updates. This will eventually be an introductory page with a welcome message and the current news auto loaded when you arrive. From there you can go as deep into the site as you would wish. I have drawn out how I want some of the other sections to appear, and will get them there as soon as I am able.

Week 8 of Spring quarter is over. Met this afternoon with Greg and Nathan to begin a group project game together. The base concept at the moment is a 3D version of Lunar Lander. We will use Ogre3D for the graphics engine. We are presently meeting on Fridays to coordinate our efforts. More news as it occurs.