Satisfaction...

Ahh... it's nice to have accomplished something, even though few people around me have any appreciation for it. I finished this last night for an illustration for my science fair project (though the illustration is actually an interactive display of the model and doesn't look nearly as nice because of the lower quality of a real-time render). Sorry about the funky perspective, but I had to widen the camera's focal length because I wanted to show off my little rigging job there. x) I know NOTHING about rigging a ship or anything so it was completely guesswork. But, in my opinion, it looks reasonable enough to pass for plausible. =P I suppose I'm banking on the hope that nobody scrutinizing my project knows much about ships or else they'd know that the purpose of the bowsprit (the spire protruding off the bow) is to secure the jib sails, and in this picture (and my model) it isn't connected to anything, thus: it is pointless and only adds useless weight to the ship for small aesthetic gain.

Third...

I think the third quarter is my worst quarter every year. I'm not entirely sure why. It just always seems that this is the quarter that life is the worst. The craziest. However, I am almost through it, so I am glad. I simply need to complete two things: my science project and my yearbook assignment. Oh, and the soundtrack for the yearbook. And my bible project. And a little bit of late work. And I need to pack for the mission trip. Okay, so six things... ... ... see why I'm stressed? Every time I think about my list, it gets longer. =P
Anyhow! Let me talk about a few things that excite me so I can end happy here. First exciting thing: Blender updates. Now, I'm going to go into a short little thing here about the awesome new things going on with my favorite open-source software, so if you'd rather not read it, just skip over this next section...

So! The Blender team is back to working on their newest project, code-named "Project Mango." What excites me about this particular project is the main purpose: to develop the video-effects and editing tools in Blender. Video effects and video editing are two things that Blender was not exactly meant for previously, but it could be done with a lot of workarounds and fiddling. But not anymore! =D Wonderful (though very basic in the commercial industries) tools such as motion tracking and new compositing tools as well as new faster Boolean tools and UV mapping tools... If anyone has actually read through this and is interested in seeing any of these Blender Foundation projects (they are short films, if I haven't been clear), then take a look at the following sites:
Project Orange ("Elephant's Dream")
Project Peach ("Big Buck Bunny")
Project Durian ("Sintel")
Project Mango (still in production, thus no name yet)

Okay, so I'm done with my little spasm of excitement. =) And I still have a lot of work to do, so I suppose I'll go back to it now. I have a picture to show you all, but I'm at home and my internet is too slow to upload it because it is fairly large. (Don't get excited, it's just a rough model I made in Blender...) =P Goodnight!

PS - I realize that it was completely useless to tell you to skip over that section of nerd-raving because it made up the main body of my post, so you might as well go back and read it... unless you have something better to do. =)