Journal
April 2, 2008 | Links
Film maker and writer Terry Jones discovers a colony of penguins, which are unlike any other penguins in the world
Ok - so it’s an April fool, but it took me a little while to realise. The animation and presentation look just like a normal BBC ident/ advert/ nature program. Very high quality. Apparently there is a video showing how they made it doing the rounds as well but I have yet to see that so far. If anyone has a link I’d be interested in that too.
Certainly my favorite April fool this year… but there wasn’t an awful lot of competition… was there?
March 23, 2008 | Links
A wonderful pop-up book for learning the alphabet. No doubt a book most people won’t need, but with something as clever as this it could be a book you’d want. I love the way each letter has it’s own treatment, and particularly enjoy the clever letters such as O,P,Q, and R.
The version in this video was hand made by the books designer, Marion Bataille. It’s going to go on sale later this year, and is currently available for preorder on Amazon.com.
March 20, 2008 | Links
Obviously I’m biased since I now sell a premium Wordpress theme, but I have posted my thoughts on premium themes over on Pro Theme Design.
The post was sparked by a comment from Matt Mullenweg where he said he disliked Premium themes because they don’t further the Wordpress community… and I disagreed.
In my opinion selling a Wordpress theme is no different to designing a website for a client, or even developing a website for yourself.
To read the full article head over to Pro Theme Design on Premium Themes, giving back to the community.
March 9, 2008 | Links
A little disturbing, rather uncanny valley, but surprisingly realistic. We’ve all seen the websites that have cartoon people watching you (your mouse) and now it’s been taken to the next level with a virtual girl watching your mouse!
There’s no information on the page so I can’t say who made it, why they made it, or how but I can make some educated guesses. The head uses a flash 3d system with some sort of bone or morph based animation code. The eyes are separate meshes and so can move independently. The bones/ morphing gives the face the ability to blink, and the head to turn.
Found via JazJaz
February 27, 2008 | Links
3 blokes + a video camera, a pc or two, and a few days of hard work, loads of imagination, and what do you get? See the video below for your answer.
Part of my degree was special effects, and whilst I did the basics (green screening etc) there is no way I could do anything like this - it turned out incredibly well… especially considering there’s only 3 people “storming” that there beach.
I have now updated my game Roll so that it makes use of the new highscores system from Mochiads.
The system is very easy to use and I’d recommend it for anyone who wants a quick and easy highscore system for their flash games (does anybody who reads my blog make flash games?)
I’m not convinced it’s perfect just yet, although any faults will be my end, and not with the Mochiads leaderboard service.
If anyone can score more than 12000 I will be mighty impressed 
Binary Moon
Gun Wing
Bubble Bomb
ExGen
Seths Puzzle Boxes