No idea if you're affiliated to them or just promoting the site... but while I wish you good luck there, I've seen these kind of things pop up almost weekly in one or more major 3D forums out there, ranging from entire movies to simple 3D shorts.. and so far I know of only 3 that succeeded. One of them I forgot the name, but I did read that the project leader ended up doing almost everything himself, another one was boids of a feather done with animation:master, which had corporate backing from the company that made the software, and the third one was a spaniard movie that had a couple of 3D characters in a small part, and IIRC they ended up meeting in person to do it or something like that (I'll try to look for the name and more info). In my experience, at least, the biggest problem is lack of progress, people just get bored waiting to do their part and end up moving to something else. Hope that that isn't your (or their) case in the end, though.
To be fair, they did give it 3 seasons of time to find itself... maybe it did on season 4 (not much of a ent. fan and season 4 won't be showing here in Venezuela for a while), but I guess it was too little too late.
AFAIK this isn't about wether bloggers are journalists, and "real" journalist wouldn't be protected either if they did the same thing. In whistle blower cases, they're reporting about someone breaking the law, and when the one that had been reported admits it, admits it broke the law. In this case they were reporting a trade secret, that isn't anything illegal, but by reporting it they were breaking a law (breach of contract).
I'm sure lots of people will start to make 3D models of this once the movies are out...:)
I kinda doubt someone will release a few gigs sized model (as most feature film movie get to be if you include texture maps) in a propietary format that most likely nobody outside of ILM will be able to open in the first place..:)
Discreet (now autodesk media or something like that) and most other 3D app makers usually don't offer support for previous versions of their software, so you end up on your own or having to upgrade to latest versions (IIRC the current version for Max was 6 when SP2 came out).
Does Max5 have problems with SP2?. I do remember it had problems with corrupting files on SP1 (I think), but Discreet (RIP) issued a free patch to fix it (I seem to remember it was a c-dilla patch). Seems that it's common to most 3D companies, though, when they release a new version they just stop patching old ones (for free at least), and AFAIK caligari is the only one that offers old versions of their program for sale (truespace) for less money.
Here in Venezuela we have had commercials in theaters for as long as I can remember too (at least 20 years). Usually they're either cigarette or beer/alcohol commercials, since they have been banned from public TV since forever.. but that doesn't stop beer companies to make rootbeers with bottles that look exactly like the beer ones and use them to advertise on TV (they just avoid mentioning "beer" at all but it's very obvious what they're talking about)..:)
One question here... I did read the ordinance (not troughouly, though, I had some time while I was waiting for a render to finish) and at least as far as I understand it it doesn't limit anything, it just says that if while doing a political campaign you pay over $1000 to an electronic media (including blogs) to campaign or put out the good word for your side, you have to report it. It doesn't (again, as far as I can see) put any limits, it just says that if you pay for campaign in a blog you have to report that you paid.
Not too expensive considering it's a pro level software that you could make money with...:)
Also doesn't look too expensive once you start to compare it with 3D apps where a single seat of a pro level software can go from around $400 (the most basic level of XSI that got a huge price cut not too long ago) to over $11,000 (Houdini Master)...:)
I think the building wasn't built by them.. or at least not entirely (maybe it was redesigned or expanded later, though). Not too long ago there was a 3D related event here in Venezuela and two of the people invited were from Pixar, one of them was talking about how is life there, and one of the things he mentioned was the "love lounge".
Basically he said that when Pixar was starting and they moved in, there was a "missing space" in the building next to John Lassetter's office. As it Turns out, that missing space was a 2 by 2 meters (or so) room where they had the huge (and very old) air conditioning unit that wasn't being used anymore, so they removed it and had a small door (about a meter tall) cut in the wall, and then they pimped out the place with a nice sound system, a disco ball and lots of other stuff, and most celebrities that visit Pixar are invited to have a drink and sign the wall there. They also show it on the second DVD of Finding Nemo.
Can't get on the site (slashdotted already)... but if you want some more pics of what's it like to work there (note that I don't, except in my dreams, that is), some pics (taken by Victor Navone, he made the alien song short some of you migth have seen)..:)
Good luck on that one... windows has been rather stable (not secure, but stable) since win2000 5 years ago but the "BSOD" thing is still alive and kicking... I guess the same goes for Linux and the "it's too hard to use" thing...:)
Well, if this becomes mainstream it could have some interesting uses, like for example having windows in the background actually look like they're below the active one. It won't really have much practical uses, but it'll have some nice eyecandy (hopefully without much performance hit if it's done in the 3D card level)
Personally, as an amateur 3D animator I'd really like to have something like this, it would really help a LOT when doing 3D stuff if I could quickly tell which parts of the wireframe are closer than others... staring at wirefame of a high poly object can get very confusing and most of the times a bit of turning around is needed to make sense of it.
Most bloggers (that I've seen at least) usually add a little comment to the links and quotes, so it would qualify as editorial work which counts as fair use. AFAIK the main problem is that google just copies the text and photos and doesn't add anything, which I think would legally qualify as reproducing and distributing without permission.
Not that I agree with it, but at least that's how I understand it.
Although many potential customers might wonder how good a company is if it can't rank near the top with its own term, Boser says he wouldn't want to show up high in search engine optimization as a keyword. It gives your company too much visibility (Read: makes it a bigger target.)
Yeah, but it would look weird to carry your computer with you to read in the bathroom (I swear, that's the best reading seat in the whole house!!!)..:)
Maybe there should be some way where it can be handled by the ISP like it's done with phone companies these days. There are lots of services in the phone (and even more in cell phones) that I don't really have to subscribe to, but there's a rate for using it, which is reflected on my bill.
Maybe we need some kind of micropayment standard, where people could pay a small amount if they only want to read a single article on a subscrption only website, and then the payment comes with your ISP fees and the ISP pays whoever you're paying to.
There would need to be some huge protections around this, though... so it's not abused by shady "click OK if you want to pay us 10,000 dollars" kind of websites.
Yeah, the last 100 slashdot boycotts really worked...;)
Anyway, if you really plan on doing this (and getting enough people to do it), then be sure to really let them know why you aren't buying their stuff... otherwise you'll just give them ammo (hey, sales are lowering, that's because of piracy, we need more lawsuits!!!)
Slashdot Mirror
So, what happens if like in 99% of the time on TV the popular channels ARE the crap?... :)
No idea if you're affiliated to them or just promoting the site... but while I wish you good luck there, I've seen these kind of things pop up almost weekly in one or more major 3D forums out there, ranging from entire movies to simple 3D shorts.. and so far I know of only 3 that succeeded. One of them I forgot the name, but I did read that the project leader ended up doing almost everything himself, another one was boids of a feather done with animation:master, which had corporate backing from the company that made the software, and the third one was a spaniard movie that had a couple of 3D characters in a small part, and IIRC they ended up meeting in person to do it or something like that (I'll try to look for the name and more info). In my experience, at least, the biggest problem is lack of progress, people just get bored waiting to do their part and end up moving to something else. Hope that that isn't your (or their) case in the end, though.
To be fair, they did give it 3 seasons of time to find itself... maybe it did on season 4 (not much of a ent. fan and season 4 won't be showing here in Venezuela for a while), but I guess it was too little too late.
AFAIK this isn't about wether bloggers are journalists, and "real" journalist wouldn't be protected either if they did the same thing. In whistle blower cases, they're reporting about someone breaking the law, and when the one that had been reported admits it, admits it broke the law. In this case they were reporting a trade secret, that isn't anything illegal, but by reporting it they were breaking a law (breach of contract).
They're just saving some board chow for a busy day... :)
I kinda doubt someone will release a few gigs sized model (as most feature film movie get to be if you include texture maps) in a propietary format that most likely nobody outside of ILM will be able to open in the first place.. :)
Discreet (now autodesk media or something like that) and most other 3D app makers usually don't offer support for previous versions of their software, so you end up on your own or having to upgrade to latest versions (IIRC the current version for Max was 6 when SP2 came out).
Does Max5 have problems with SP2?. I do remember it had problems with corrupting files on SP1 (I think), but Discreet (RIP) issued a free patch to fix it (I seem to remember it was a c-dilla patch). Seems that it's common to most 3D companies, though, when they release a new version they just stop patching old ones (for free at least), and AFAIK caligari is the only one that offers old versions of their program for sale (truespace) for less money.
Here in Venezuela we have had commercials in theaters for as long as I can remember too (at least 20 years). Usually they're either cigarette or beer/alcohol commercials, since they have been banned from public TV since forever.. but that doesn't stop beer companies to make rootbeers with bottles that look exactly like the beer ones and use them to advertise on TV (they just avoid mentioning "beer" at all but it's very obvious what they're talking about).. :)
Don't worry.. if it's not, they'll just need to make it so that enough of them interlock together to form a bigger mecha... :)
Well, sometime the graphics and animations are the content.. :)
One question here... I did read the ordinance (not troughouly, though, I had some time while I was waiting for a render to finish) and at least as far as I understand it it doesn't limit anything, it just says that if while doing a political campaign you pay over $1000 to an electronic media (including blogs) to campaign or put out the good word for your side, you have to report it. It doesn't (again, as far as I can see) put any limits, it just says that if you pay for campaign in a blog you have to report that you paid.
Not too expensive considering it's a pro level software that you could make money with... :)
Also doesn't look too expensive once you start to compare it with 3D apps where a single seat of a pro level software can go from around $400 (the most basic level of XSI that got a huge price cut not too long ago) to over $11,000 (Houdini Master)... :)
[Record Labels, to Apple] Sorry, you can't guarantee security with your store, so we won't license the music to you anymore.
Basically he said that when Pixar was starting and they moved in, there was a "missing space" in the building next to John Lassetter's office. As it Turns out, that missing space was a 2 by 2 meters (or so) room where they had the huge (and very old) air conditioning unit that wasn't being used anymore, so they removed it and had a small door (about a meter tall) cut in the wall, and then they pimped out the place with a nice sound system, a disco ball and lots of other stuff, and most celebrities that visit Pixar are invited to have a drink and sign the wall there. They also show it on the second DVD of Finding Nemo.
link
There's also some great stuff about that in the second DVD of Finding Nemo.. :)
Good luck on that one... windows has been rather stable (not secure, but stable) since win2000 5 years ago but the "BSOD" thing is still alive and kicking... I guess the same goes for Linux and the "it's too hard to use" thing... :)
Personally, as an amateur 3D animator I'd really like to have something like this, it would really help a LOT when doing 3D stuff if I could quickly tell which parts of the wireframe are closer than others... staring at wirefame of a high poly object can get very confusing and most of the times a bit of turning around is needed to make sense of it.
Also it says "no porn"... I just posted about it on a previous thread with a link, it's up there somewhere.. :)
Suposedly it's on the site rules too, but can't get on them because of the slashdotting.. :)
Not that I agree with it, but at least that's how I understand it.
Yeah, but it would look weird to carry your computer with you to read in the bathroom (I swear, that's the best reading seat in the whole house!!!).. :)
Maybe we need some kind of micropayment standard, where people could pay a small amount if they only want to read a single article on a subscrption only website, and then the payment comes with your ISP fees and the ISP pays whoever you're paying to.
There would need to be some huge protections around this, though... so it's not abused by shady "click OK if you want to pay us 10,000 dollars" kind of websites.
Anyway, if you really plan on doing this (and getting enough people to do it), then be sure to really let them know why you aren't buying their stuff... otherwise you'll just give them ammo (hey, sales are lowering, that's because of piracy, we need more lawsuits!!!)