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Word for word.
NSFW language. Unless you live this.
[Via Brad Chmielewski & half of Twitter.]
(Source: youtu.be)
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Let’s pause for a moment to give a quick background on what we’re talking about here. In computer graphics, rendering is the process of turning what is essentially data in a graphics package into images. Typically, these images are frames used for creating portions of film. Rendering is an intensive process, and can take anywhere from a few hours to days per frame to complete a single image depending on the complexity of the scene. This is generally done on massive farms of CPU cores, through which distribution of the processing allows for a speedier result.
Most large studios operate their own render farms, which require vast amounts of capital for upkeep and operation costs. Expensive hardware purchases aside, render farm costs are high because of the monumental electricity use, as well as the costs in keeping the farm cooled. The paradox of the render farm is that the smaller studios that need the power and speed of a render farm to compete at the level of large studios typically cannot afford the equipment and upkeep costs required to deliver those kind of results.
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Pixar and RenderMan: Changing the distributed rendering game « Icrontic
It’s great to see Bobby Miller writing about 3D again, he’s one of the finest gentleman you’ll ever meet and he knows way too much about GPUs.
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The only thing more awesome than the 3D in Paul Clements’s headphones video is the breakdown:
Staggering. I don’t want to even think about setting up those rigs, particles, dynamics and deformers, nevertheless animating them.
(Source: vimeo.com)
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Workspace | Trent Walton
When was the last time you put this much work into a blog post? It’s incredible that he creates a whole new design for each post.
Scroll through the previous posts.
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(via Penny Arcade - The Fire)
In celebration of all the iOS game developers underpricing their apps and undervaluing everyone else’s for ‘holiday sales’ I pulled this gem out my Evernote archives.
Cheers.
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Update: Fixed a double paste
The bodies of most of the models H&M features on its website are computer-generated and “completely virtual,” the company has admitted. H&M designs a body that can better display clothes made for humans than humans can, then “dresses” it by drawing on its clothes, and digitally pastes on the heads of real women in post-production. (via H&M Puts Real Model Heads On Fake Bodies)
Besides being creepy, distasteful and a little disturbing that’s a lot of work.
(via Mark Christiansen)
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Tweetie was an amazing iPhone app. And part of what made it such a great Twitter app was the fact it was designed by a Twitter user. However, as others have been saying, the new Twitter iPhone app seems to be a 1:1 extension of the Twitter business model. If Tweetie was designed by a user, the new Twitter app was designed by Twitter’s senior management.
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A Few Thoughts on the New, New Twitter — Shawn Blanc
This direction has been clear for a while now, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
Their challenge is finding a way to monetize to survive. They must have huge operating costs and yes, people to pay but they have to do it without alienating existing users and to provide a good user experience. Have they done that? I don’t think so yet. But it’s easy to criticize the design while ignoring the realities, who’s proposing a better solution?
Maybe there isn’t a good solution and we as users have to compromise, leave or let Twitter eventually run itself out of business. Which is it? Does a sponsored link or two disrupt you more than frequent fail whales?
Thankfully, we still have options, there are dozens of fantastic Twitter clients for OS X & iOS, there’s even a couple decent clients on Windows. For as long as Twitter keeps their API open — not necessarily something we can count on — we can choose a best of both worlds experience. Twitter may not like it, but unlike the ethical problems of ad blocking it’s built on an ecosystem that they built and they still provide.
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Handmade Portraits: The Sword Maker (by Etsy)
Speaking of hand crafted blades this video from Etsy of a Japanese sword maker is equally incredible.
Watch this.
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Made by Hand
Great short documentary about the incredible craftsmanship of writer turned knife maker Joel Bukiewicz.
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My Kindle has always had annotation backups on, and it’s always on Wi-Fi. I checked with the kindle.amazon.com Web site to make sure that my annotations were backed up and replied with “Yes”. Stupidly, I did not save a Web archive of the page first.
This morning, two days later, the book updated on my Kindle. I immediately saw that the reading location had reset to the beginning, and then I saw that all the highlights and notes were gone.
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Michael Tsai - Blog - Kindle Annotations Lost in Book Update
Hmm, seems like it’s time to look for 3rd party tools more ubiquitous without the chance of losing your info. About that…
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Whether you prefer the newest version, Final Cut Pro X, or the previous “classic” version the predates Apple’s many changes to the product, Final Cut Pro has been a staple in video editing for years. (…)
Both products have more than enough power to get the job done, but the one you want will depend on what you’re editing video for. (…)
Premiere Pro is a favourite among people making original mashups and creations from a collection of other video, but the tool is just as effective when it comes to edit your own creations. (…)
Lightworks has professional-level tools and a steep learning curve, but if you’re looking for an affordable option to help you make professional films, Lightworks has a lot to offer. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a favourite for professional video editors in and out of Hollywood. It’s also worth mentioning the free Windows Live Movie Maker option Microsoft builds for Windows. It isn’t super-powerful, but amongst the free Windows contenders it remains the best option.
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Five Best Video Editors | Lifehacker Australia
There are some real gems in here.
(Via: Mike Jones)
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SugarDev.sugar
The SugarDev.sugar adds CodeSense for Sugar XML elements and the JavaScript API along with snippets for the base XML documents, making it easier to author Espresso Sugars.
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SugarDev.sugar | Espresso Wiki
Espresso now has sugar to help you make sugar, a bit obvious but handy.
Espresso is still my favorite text editor, especially with CSSEdit merged in. I adore it. Just wish I did more coding these days so I could use it.
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“The Insanely Great History of Macintosh.” Look closely, and you can actually see three distinct phases of Apple’s overall product strategy
An insanely great infographic.
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This. Looks. Awesome.
Gunpoint will initially be PC only (glad I maintain a gaming PC) but wouldn’t this be awesome on an iPad? Let me just answer that for you: Yes, it would.
(via CM Harrington)
