First Attempt at Matchmoving
I thought I had some free time, so I attempted to learn something I’ve always thought was very cool: matchmoving. Turns out a simple matchmove like the one above was quite easy, with Maya Live and a Youtube tutorial at hand. The tough part was making it look seamless when compositing in After Effects. As you can see, I have yet to master that aspect. The live plate was shot using my beloved Panasonic LX3, starring Zhiwei, my cafe shift partner. Ok time to get back to my real work.
Mmmm.. Coffee..
This was a teaser to promote the opening of the new Student Cafe at our school, which was last year.
Freshmen Orientation Camp 2007
I’m not being nostalgic or anything. I just decided to update my portfolio that is my website with works that I should have put up a long time ago. These are the collaterals from the 2007 NTU School of Art, Design & Media Freshmen Orientation Camp. These include the logo, the shirts, the battery we gave out as a doorgift, and the banners that we put around the school during the camp. The theme was about dinosaurs being brought back to life in the future and then they start fighting with robots. All artwork except the cute dinosaur and robot toys done by me. Those cute figures were designed by Wang Shihui. More after the break.
Spring in NTU
Sure, NTU has been getting some pretty bad press lately, but it looks like our garden campus just showed us what it was really capable of in the last week. Beautiful white and pink flowers have been blooming around the campus, and they look almost like cherry blossoms. I thought I’d go for a walk and take some pictures with my trusty LX3. Enjoy the full gallery after the break.
The Little Low Light Wonder
Took this photo in the bus last night on our way back using the Panasonic LX3 from our motion graphic class’ excursion to Lights and Shadows, the post production company I worked in as an intern last December. I dare say I wouldn’t be able to take such a photo using my current DSLR setup. The LX3′s large aperture and optical image stabilizer really helped a lot to reduce the effects of camera shake. Click on the picture for the full, and browser unfriendly picture.
Behold, the Panasonic Lumix LX3
It was a tough choice between this camera and the Casio Exilim FC100, which could shoot up to 1000fps video for slow motion playback. In the end, the F2.0-2.8, 24mm focal length (35mm equiv.), intuitive user interface and cool retro looks won me over. I tried to get Alan Photo’s limited time offer of $680 with 8gb memory card, card reader, case, mini tripod, battery and lcd protector but both Sim Lim and Funan branches ran out of the black model. In the end I had to proceed to Cathay Photo and bargained their price down from $720 to $685 with just 8gb memory card and a case. It was a good thing, actually, because I really think that Alan Photo should send their staff to Cathay Photo to learn a thing or two about how to not be rude to their customers. Why didn’t I purchase the camera at the IT show? Because they’re selling the LX3s at the recommended retail price of $799, albeit with an additional 8gb memory card on top of Alan Photo’s freebies. Also there was the mob.
WIP: My Ah Ma
This comic was done rather hastily due to the past week just rushing stuff to present to Hans Bacher. Not exactly full of good drawings and character design. Spent about one day on this. Posting this up to be critiqued by my Graphic Storytelling teacher Sonny Liew. If you’re looking for an ending, there isn’t, because I just couldn’t finish it.
Because We Can’t Believe Everything They Tell Us
I’m not one to believe in conspiracy theories, but when the stories in the mainstream media make little sense, it’s always good to look at another side of the story. In the case of David Hartanto Widjaja, his good friend Klemens Andrianto has written a blog post to describe his side of the story and to highlight the discrepancies about what has been reported in the newspapers. In his post he urged readers to spread his blog entry, in hopes that the police will provide a transparent investigation to what really took place. He writes,
The more we try to figure out this case, the more we found various oddities which are not disclose. Due to clarifying from David’s best friend from NTU called Edwin who already pawned his bachelor degree we would like to express our big gratitude toward him for trying to reveal the truth. Finally we would like to spread the truth story about David Hartanto , our best friend.
It’s Been a Dark Week at NTU
According to 938Live, a man has been found dead in an apartment in Nanyang Heights, after allegedly committing suicide. In a letter sent out this morning from Dr Su Guaning,
It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that one of our colleagues, Mr Zhou Zheng, an infocomm project officer was found to have passed away in an apartment at Nanyang Heights at about 10.50pm on Friday, 6 March 2009. The Dean of Students, the university counselling professionals and other senior university officers were on site immediately to offer support and counsel.
This is really bad publicity for our university. Along with this week’s student suicide and attempted murder, this sort of implies that the staff here are as stressed out as the students are. People are speculating that it is a copycat suicide but I really doubt it.
Katsumi Mukai’s Exhibition at ADM
Katsumi Mukai, the Japanese sculptor that I mentioned a few days ago has set up his exhibition of works he made while gracing our school for the past 2 weeks. Yup, he made all these at our school. In 2 weeks. The exhibition will last till 31st March at NTU, School of Art, Design and Media. More pictures of the opening after the break.
A Little Inspiration To Go a Long Way
Hans Bacher, the legendary production designer for Disney’s Mulan and other great movies came down to NTU to give a lecture on colour and composition. This was a fantastic refresher course in how to create effective images. We often get so bogged down with datelines that we forget to incorporate basic rules of colour and composition in our works. We students need reminders like this every so often. Not to mention the harsh but constructive critiques he gave for all those who dared to approach him for advice. Tough love man.
NTU Halls Are Uncomfortable
In a letter sent out to all hall residents in NTU from the Student Affairs Office:
In early May to end July 2009, we will be carrying out upgrading and refurbishment works in the student rooms and common facilities in Halls 8 to 11, 12 (blks 59 & 60 only) and 13 to 15. This upgrading and refurbishment exercise is necessary to ensure that these Halls will be comfortable but not lavish to accommodate the inaugural Youth Olympic Games athletes, coaches and officials from over 200 countries next year.
So I guess they’re implying that the halls in the current state are not comfortable eh. What I really wish they did were to build more halls to accomodate the influx of the Dragon baby boomers, and the increase in student intake due to the new schools formed in the past few years. The student intake has risen substantially, but the amount of accomodation has remained the same. We are fighting tooth and nail to retain our accomodation, and now we’re giving up half of our rooms to the Youth Olympic Games.
Japanese Wood Sculptor at ADM
Katsumi Mukai, a Japanese wood sculptor will be in ADM till the 5th of March to conduct workshops. For the rest of you, his sculptures will be displayed on the first level outside of the ADM building. Highly recommended. The sculptures feel very Andy Goldsworthy.
The Stabbing that Shocked NTU
At about 11.30 am this morning, while I was in class, I checked out twitter and saw @greenteacup‘s tweet asking if anyone had heard about a student who committed suicide in NTU. He worked in NTU, and his colleague had received an SMS regarding it. Naturally I was shocked. What he tweeted later shocked me even more.
@reivad ARe u in NTU right now? Heard anything about student stabbing prof, and jump off EEE ?
I was skeptical and took it with a pinch of salt. He then tweeted that he saw police cars going past his building. It was only later on at about 12.30 pm when my parents called me up that I actually believed what had happened. This was crazy. No one would expect this sort of thing to happen in a local university, and I certainly didn’t expect it to happen in my university. Reminded me of the incident last year at Virginia Tech in the US.
According to the Straits Times, the attacker was a final year student in the school of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and the victim was his final year project supervisor. I’m sure there is more to this than just the professor provoking the student. I wonder what would make a person about to graduate in 2 months do something like that, just after the term break.
Motion Sketch: Space
Done in half an hour in Deborah’s Motion Graphics class. We were supposed to depict space in this sketch.