I've been looking over my background designs lately. I got help from two people yesterday and today. Darren Kiner is a professor here and is helping my set up rendering for my scenes. I'm not even close to the rendering part of my thesis but he is showing me how to set up the scenes for the optimal look. I'm going to be rebuilding the backgrounds soon and I will organize them the way he told me.

A friend good with design, Ashley Armstrong, looked over my design and gave me some good sketches of how I should set up the shots. I will probably be setting up the background differently for each shot so that everything looks good. It won't make sense continuity-wise but will be better looking.

Busy month! I've been putting in ten hour days almost every day since my last post. Got lots of done though.

I've been working on background design. Haven't found a background designer but I've got some interactive media major friends who have agreed to help me out a little.

Motion capture is finished. I cast my actors which was a bit of a pain. I was able to cast two really good ones. Last week I shot my thesis in six hours. Since then I've been cleaning up data. I'm about halfway done.

Dragon Screenshots

Got some screen shots of the dragon character last week from my modeler Erik Walker. I worked with him over the summer at The Third Floor. We've been going back and forth over designs and I think we are really close at the final version.

Today was the first day of classes at USC. I didn't have any classes today. My only class is on Thursday afternoons. I got some screenshots from my modeler for my thesis project. Things are going along really well. I hope to have it all finished by October.

I spent the day making a stupid cartoon reviewing a movie trailer.. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw_QivRs4mc&feature=youtu.be

Today I had a booth set up for SCFX at the school of Cinematic Arts orientation. There were a lot of people interested in the organization. I hope we can get some new enthusiastic members this year.

Saw the movie Cowboys and Aliens. Lots of explosions. Story was kind of weak. Entertaining but not one I'll go out of my way to see again.

Finished buying everything for my apartment. I've got a respectable kitchen set up and a good living room area. I've laid out all the furniture so I've got plenty of space. Overall I'm satisfied with my living arrangement. I'm missing a few things from my cubicle at school but the building was closed this weekend for repairs. I have some extra sheets and my granny cart.

I went to Goodwill today in hopes of getting an old globe I saw there last time. It was gone though. I'm upset about that. It not only had the Soviet Union on it, it had Rhodesia on it. I only learned about that country last year. Horrible, horrible country but a good collectors item.

Moved into my new dorm room today. Its the same room as last year but lots of work has been done to it over the summer. Their is new floors and furniture and everything is painted and new. They took out the buildings pool but no one ever used it last year.