Archive for November, 2008

As part of a push to help make things easier and faster for clients, we have decided we are going to develop an additional web page for clients to access.

This page, once complete, will allow visitors to very quickly put together a user-created disc package, covering most common options to fulfill their needs, and get an instant price for it. When we say instant, we do mean you actually get a price right there, and are not taken to a new page to send only your details to us and not much more, like some other pages that exist.

We believe that this system will allow us to give everybody a fast quote with minimum fuss or stress, extremely easily, and allow us to respond even faster to you all. Anything not covered on the page such as more demanding packaging will then be dealt with carefully by our team.

Thankfully, this system should be online in the next week or two, and we can’t wait to get it up and running and out in the public domain!

More soon. Keep well, all.

With the reception of the previously completed “Cquestrate” animation piece being so good, we thought we’d do some more shouting about it – albeit in slightly different circles than before.

We had the idea of letting HRH The Prince Of Wales know about the company ‘Cquestrate’ [there we go, it's not all about us!], and the piece of animation telling its story – due to the fact that HRH is so openly passionate about climate change and the welfare of the environment in general.

If we’re honest……. and we always are; we didn’t really expect a reply of any kind.
So to receive what we did less than one week later was, well – nice. Very nice indeed.
We were humbled by the kind words of the Royal house.

We would like to make it clear that this does not make EESB ‘By Royal Appointment’ or anything of the sort – we understand that!

We just thought it was nice that the biggest institution in the United Kingdom is still open to showing that it appreciates the input of those working for various means, all around them.

Here is the reply from Clarence House, for your enjoyment.

I’ve been trying to tell The Dommo for a few years now – he’s an ‘Esquire’, now he has the proof!

Keep well all, more soon.

“Tools”.

Both images are lit using 1 raytraced area light for diffuse coverage, one non-raytraced point light affecting specular attributes only, one HDR image for raytraced reflections and image-based lighting, radiosity of the Monte Carlo flavour and a set of luminous polygons for that extra reflection hit.

That was the subject matter of this weeks Speed Modelling Challenge [#15], not us calling anyone names!

Well, where to start – there are sooooo many different kinds of tools available, and each with their own plus and minus points when it comes to the ease and speed, of modelling one in 3D.

Something we always say here [apart from "strong, with one sugar please" and "got any buscuits to go with that?"] is that “research is everything.” In that, we mean that the more reference material you have access to (and use…), the more likely you are to understand your subject matter and its usually overlooked details.

This past weekend saw me with some free time. With access to my much-loved toolbox, I decided that a soldering iron, and an allen-key would make decent additions to the small portfolio of speed modelling entries being put together by the Sea Bass team.

As I pointed out, engineering without allen-keys would be like rock and roll without guitars. To which, someone replied “And you can’t maintain a guitar without allen-keys”. Kudos!

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Once again, more time would have been nice to get the tempered look of the soldering iron tip a little more ‘there’, but we’re pleased with both images to a basic – mid pre-vis standard.

Keep well all,
more soon.

Yes, I do think that this post is good enough for a completely capitalised title. I have every faith that you’ll understand and agree with me by the end of this slew of text. Big words, I know…..

Eight Eyed Sea Bass [that's us, that is] have finished the piece of animation for Cquestrate previously mentioned here at the Eight Eyed Sea Blog. It looks & sounds a~priddypriddycool, we think. All in like, HD and everything.

Our thanks to David Luke Allen of the Animation Forum West Midlands, Chris Unitt of Created In Birmingham fame, and also Tim Kruger of Cquestrate, for bringing the job to us.

What we’d really like for you all to do is; watch the piece, and then tell your friends about it.
If you can ask your friends to do the same too – that would be ace.

The hope is, that the message and method will spread. A little bit like Jamie Oliver’s ‘pass it on’ dealio….. (only without the food), where people with the right skills will get to hear about it – and be able to pass a bit of their specialist knowledge on to the project.

Go along to the Cquestrate web site, and have a good read up on the process in a bit more detail if you can – and maybe think about giving some time to the cause, especially if you have any of the skills that they maybe shouting for at the moment.

We’re not going to get all tree-huggy on you, but we think it’s a worthwile enough cause to give some time and attention to.

Right, we’ll get out of your way now, and let you get on with spreading the word.
Here’s hoping that the capitalised title was worth it!

More soon,
keep well all.