Maria Polo

Alien Guy 3

2008-05-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

The latest steps I went through to create my Alien guy
were to create the skeleton, by using the join tool.
Ones I had all the bones I linked them together.

Also I created Eye balls and posisioned them on their place..
I only whish I had done them bigger, because I have the idea
that aliens have big eyes, but at least it has eyes.

And on the last step, I gave him a green color skin, and black eyes
and moved him a little.
Unfortunatelly I was never able to add the Ik handles and it was hard for me to move mr alien a lot becuase every time I tried it deformed. but I will keep trying, for now my Alien looks like the picture on the left.

My Alien Guy on Maya

2008-05-11T14:04:00.001-07:00

Hi!, This is how my alien guy looks like, it is very skiny and it took me a lot of time, because I did it more than ones until I was more satisfy about it shape, I am still working on it, but at least it shape looks better than the previous Alien guy I had posted.

ALIEN GUY

2008-05-04T10:56:00.000-07:00

hI, THIS WEEK i WORKED ON MAYA CREATING AN "ALIEN GUY", BUT STILL IS NOT FINISHED, THE NEXT PICTURE SHOWS WHAT i got and the diferent images I saw starting from the end to the beginning. the harder part for me was to find the different tools because I have a different version from the tutorial, and also, I got stuck some times because I still dont know how to use the software very well but It was fun

Modeller 32

2008-04-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

With Modeller 32, you can create a version of yourself in a cartoon or digital version,

You can set up the software so you change the characteristics
of the initial character or you can upload pictures of yourself and
transfor a version of youself

You can see the color skin or you can change that.

You can also change the sex of your charachter and select a different race characteristics

On the next 3 pictures you can see how I changed the same woman playing around with all the different options the
problem gives you.

Sunday April 13th

2008-04-13T20:37:00.001-07:00

TODAYS CLASS IMAGES where taken at splenda's world.

In this world we found a pool that had a diving boar from where your avatar could jump and dive. What I found very fund was the fact that you could select the way you where going to dive, and there where very profesional diving jumps. On the left you see my avatar jumping from the blue board.

On this image, my friend is just about to jump, all you had to do is to right click on the tip of the board and then click dive and select a mode.

MAYA

2008-04-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

The homewor for todays class, was to download and check some of the maya tutorials. Maya is an

"Award-winning Autodesk® Maya® software is a powerful, integrated 3D modeling, animation, effects, and rendering solution. Because Maya is based on an open architecture, all your work can be scripted or programmed using a well-documented and comprehensive API (application programming interface), or one of two embedded scripting languages. This, combined with an industry-leading suite of 3D tools, means Maya enables you to realize your creative ideas."

source: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=7635018&siteID=123112

Even though I had already experimented other similar software (3dmax), I found MAYA also very complex because you are not working with just one dimension, but to make your objects real you have to pay attention to every side, position, depth width and in many cases movement.

On the left, I was watching one of the first tutorials

3d buzz is a website that contains tutorials and forums to learn different softwares including MAYA

After I had read the basic readings I decided to start building something, so I selected a tutorial where you are supposse to build the image on the left.

I first started by building the base of the building

Then I created one little box and then a column and duplicated the
little box and place the copy on top of the column

I did not finish the tutorial, but I had already learned and experience how to start building, and this is what I got... I will
continue the next sunday

GOGGLE EARTH 2

2008-04-13T19:33:00.000-07:00

Later on during our class, we had the opportunity to explore more Google Earth
and below you can see the other images I shot during my class

When you are navigating around the globe in google earth you see different Icons, that you can click and different information or files pop up. Some of the icons are linked to information posted from nonprofits that help those areas. For instance I went to Africa, and there are a lot of organizations such as WWF to help animals and others to help people that have their links to information to alert and inform the people about animals or people that live in those areas. I even found journal of a scientific that have been studying the monkey on the picture below -->

According to the pop up window, this person have been following and studying that monkey since it was born, and it gives you information about it and pictures.

I dont think geography classes can be boring anymore, as they use to be, I love to see the 3d image of the globe it is fun, very impresive and real.

The potential Google earth has is huge, not only for finding places, but for teaching, or for communicating.

GOGGLE EARTH

2008-04-13T14:21:00.001-07:00

Google earth is a virtual globe on the internet that thanks to satellite images can show images of different places around the world.

With a simple move of the mouse you can zoom in or out your interested place. You can also introduce an exact address and it will take you there.

When you get to the place you want, camera icons, indicate that there are picture files that you can open,

and if you want to get more information about the place, you can even open the wikipedia link.

Right Now the last addition to the software is the google sky, which allows you to navigate throuout the sky.

The potential, or not, for "addiction" in both SL and WoW

2008-04-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

It is amazing, but I do think both games can be addictive, and unfortunatelly kids are more
vulnerable to this addictions than adults and it should be classified as a psychiatric disorder, just because then people would be more carefull about how much videogames they loved one played.

If I have to select one, I would say Second Life has highest posibilities of being more addictive than the others because i believe it is a game that would be more apealing to everyone, at least I found it more appealing, it is fun, and I dont have to kill weird creatures. Also I noticed that there is people who have stores, and live from Second Life.

1) Second Live vs. World of Warcraft

2008-04-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

after have played Second Life and WOW, the major differences I found where 3.

The First difference is flexibility. In my opinion Second life is more flexible, in the sense that you can create your own character, your own environment, or land. In contrast, in WOW you select from list of races, and you can in a more limited way, personalized your character, but you are not completly free of creating a totally new character. Also you have to play in a world it is already developed, and you dont have the ability of creating your own or modifying the one that already exists.

The Second difference is the final goal of each software. In Second life, the goal is socialization. It is like a chat, where you can meet people around the world, in contrast with WOW you are not competing, to get the gold, or you are not trying to get to the end of the game. In contrast WOW is a game, you are competing and you want to kill the most and complete every level to get the gold or complete the game.

The third difference is the similitud with reality. Second Life is really a second life, the activities are activities common to everybody, it is easy to understand and it is more likable, because we all know how to live and almost the same rules of life are the rules of second life. In contrast in WOW you are doing something you would probably never do in real life, kill for example...

At the end, I liked SL better, and I believe more people will feel more confortable with it.

WOW

2008-04-03T23:27:00.000-07:00

Last week I was playing a Computer name call World of Warcraft, also known as WOW, To start you need to sign in and create your character, and select your race, your sex, and a lot of other physical characteristics...
I selected to be a Dwarf as the rest of my classmates and my name is MariaP. I found this game's graphics more impresive, than Lord of the Rings, they really paid attention to details, and every land I visited was very well design, and developed.

While I was playing the game I had to encounter different creatures, and on the right image you can see one of those moments.

I met some friends who where playing together, and they were actually very funny because they were different races, but were going everywhere together

This is an Image on another time when I killed another creature.

I find very interesting who this new computer games are not only games anymore, they are a new way of network.. you can find people and then form groups and play within their team. I did not have the oportunity to play with my classmates but I found some great people who made me part of their group and tought me some tricks.

What is ftp? and How it Works?

2008-04-03T15:31:00.000-07:00

1) What is ftp?
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. According to wikipedia FTP is "a network protocol used to transfer data from one computer to another through a network, such as over the Internet". The way I see it is that FTPs are folders located at specific locations on the internet where you can upload and save files depending on the capacity of the folder. Since this folder is located inside the network of the internet, everybody with a computer, with internet conection and sometimes with a username and password can have access to this folders.

2) Why use ftp? One of the most popular methods to transfer data are emails, but most of the time, you are limited because they can only transfer few and small files. The size limitation is one of the reasons why many people prefer to use FTPs. With an FTP folder, you just copy and paste your files, and the size limit does not exist. In addition, any other person, anywhere in the world with access to a computer and internet conection can find the folder and copy and paste the files into his or her computer.

3) What type of application do you need to connect to an ftp server? There are many ways to connect to an ftp server, if you have a pc and windows, you can just type on your browser the address of your ftp server, for example on the image below I typed ftp://ftp.taxicreative.com/ internet explorer:

It will pop up a window and you have to introduce your user name and pasword...when you get in you will see all the subfolders and files saved there. The Second way to access an ftp server is by using a ftp program, such as winscp, fetch, etc, there are many... and you just download them and introduce the ftp address, your user name and address and a two windows will show the ftp folder on the right and the files of your computer from where you can drag and drop or copy and paste on your left. 4) what connection information or credentials do you need to connect to an ftp server? You just need your host address, or your ftp address - ftp://ftp.yourhost.com/ and most of the times a user name and password

TotsTV.org

2008-03-23T15:14:00.001-07:00

Tots is " is a child-safe and family-friendly Internet media channel for children and young adults".
I open the window and I firts started by looking at a movie....

The characters of the movie where very well done, in 3d, the graphics where very nice, I am impress.

After that I played the game you see on the left image, I did not understand what it was about but it was interesting to see how everytime you selected a little guy, it will change it face and then all the others would be looking at the selected guy.

I found the next 3 games very interesting and fun, but this one was my favorite, althoug there is no explanation and I had to loose twice before I understand the game, when I got it , it was easy, and entertaining. To play you just have to move your character right or left with the mouse to catch the jumping animals and help them go to the end without falling to the floor. Also if you cath cherrys you get points.

I have always loved drawing, and I know I would have loved this game when I was a kid... it is a color book, but you pick the colors from the right pallete and when you click the section you want to color it is colored with the color you selected

PingPong, another funny game...it would be excelent to help kids with cordination. You have to move your raquet to hit the ball.

Playing Lord of the Rings Online II

2008-03-20T20:29:00.001-07:00

After a week, I have spent more time playing LOTRO and
I am happy to say that I finally learned to kill and I am on
lovel 3 now.. I am proud of my self!
The image on the left is an example of one of the times when
I killed some of those weird creatures.

After I passed the first level, I met my friends and followed them.
We discovered that there is a follow option that you can activate
if you right click on the character you want to follow and then select follow. This option makes your avatar follow the avatar you want and it would stop as soon as you click or make a movement yourself.

My friend Rinathiel and I killed together many creatures, and you can take some gifts after you kill them.. the system randomly selected Rinathiel or I to get the prize!. and it tells you what you get on the IMS window (buttom left corner). You can communicate with everybody through this window. All of the things you get are save on your bags (bottom right corner) and can be sold later.

On the Social window, you can see who else is playing, and
it shows you who is already your fellow.

The top right corner, shows a map of your surroundings. The red arrow is me, and the green point is my friend Rinathiel.

When you kill a creature, the items window pop ups and it ask you if you want to loot it items, if you select loot all, the items are then saved in your bags.

On the right image, we had found another friend, Euthyphro
who played with us for a while.
The bars on the left top corner shows my levels of power on the top and the levels of power of my two friends.

We found some civilians, sometimes they have some indications
for you, others are sellers and buyers.

One of this civilians was selling food, and I bought him
a pork shank, just in case I get hungry later! =).

Playing Lord of the Rings Online

2008-03-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

The assigment for the class of this week, was to download the internet game call Lord of the Rings online or LOTRO. I am not
a big fun of the movies or the novels, and I only watched the first episode of the movies "The Lord of the Ring", but it is very similar to what I remember, when you select you character you can select to be a man, an elf a hobbit or a Dwarf, and you could be fighing
against creatures that I remember seing on the movie such us Orc-reavers, but thanks God I have not gotten to that part yet.

For me the first part was fun, I love the part when you select your name, your character, her skin, eyes and clothing.

I selected a female Elve, and my name is Cristil. On the left image
there is a close up of my character.

This is my character again

One of my abilities, is that I play an instrument, that I still dont
know the reason for it, but it is suppose to be good.. I will
find out and let you know later. On the image on the left, I had just arrived to the first world, the windlorf world.

Here I am confronting an evil creature, unfortunatelly, even though I was just playing on the basic level it killed me over and over again. I promise, I will learn and killed him!.

OPEN-SOURCE INNOVATION-MOZILLA

2008-03-09T21:45:00.001-07:00

Collaborative Computer:

I just read the interview made to the mozilas company chairman Mitchell Baker. And I think it is very fascinating and creative the way this company is structured.
Part of the amount of the company’s employers is paid employees and the rest are just volunteers. How can a company survive like that? Would anybody work for free? Well, Mozila have proved someone will.

Last semester, I took a class on management, and we spent a lot of time on theories about managing people since is one of the harder parts of this science. Not a long time ago, when not many studies have been made on the theories of management, people believed the only motivation that stimulated people was money. Today, management studies have dropped information that shows that money is one but not the only motivation needed, other basic human needs, such us success, realization, and socialization are now considered more important and fundamental for the cooperation of people.
Even tough it sounds very easy; dealing with human being necessities is enormously more complex than just having to pay for a work done, and it is really a case that I would have liked discuss when I was on that class because the company is successful thanks to its volunteers, other companies and managers and CEOS should study the successful system Mozilla have created so it can be adapted to other companies too.

If I would had known about how important feelings and desires are for managing people, I would think the companies strategy is crazy but because I know about it, I can understand why it works. The fact that people can make a good to the community, and that they can work on an important project where they can be the leaders is such as rewarding situation that many people don’t care about money.

Creating Videos on Second Life-Machinema

2008-03-09T20:03:00.000-07:00

I looked everywhere, I spent a lot of time, changing words, on search engines until I got to this tutorials that really helped me to create videos on Second Life.

There are different ways to create a videos.. to do so within second life you can click on file on the top bar menu, and then select "start/stop movie to disk" or use the keys control+shift+a... after that you would get a pop up window where you set up how you want your video to be saved....

For more information check this video tutorial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlX7-OfTMz0

Even though Videos can be recorder on second life, many people prefer to use second party softwares, and some of the reasons are best quality, no crashes, etc... after doing a little research, it seems to me that the most popular video capture software is Fraps... a software that can be downloaded for free from http://www.fraps.com/

And if you have any question on how to install it, set it up and use it on second life please open the link below, it contains a tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3AF9A81mb0

I made a very small video to show but, I have been waiting for an hour and it does not upload, so I just decided to take it off .

Regards!!!

Different Kinds of 3d

2008-03-09T18:23:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I met with my 3DV Class at second Life, you can see on the image on the right, all my clasmates and the professor

This is my avatar, I changed the camera, so you could see my face

I can move the mouse in and out while pressing alt and the camera moves around, If I zoom out, you can see my avatars complete body

This is the way my hair looked before I edit it.

I wanted to go very different, so I decided to go for a green.. my favorite color!... not in my hair though.

At class we talked about the different kinds of animation that exist, and the professar made us go to explore two web sites that gave us an example of the two types... of course one of them is Second Life, in which an avatar is involved in the 3d, and the other one where the feeling of 3d is created by pictures inserted into spheres.

The picture on the left is an example of how a 3d video made by pictures in a sphare looks

The second picture on the left show a website that has some examples of the second kind of 3d animation which is more realistic... another example of this is, as I said before is Second Life.

Bye!

Learning How to Build on Second Life 2

2008-03-09T18:03:00.002-07:00

After I had learned the basic tools of building thanks to my

friends from The Blue Unicorn I decided to go to a sandbox to practice my new knoledge.

I searched for a sandbox and decided to go to la Isla Bonita

I checked every function of the pallette, I played with tectures, with sizes, and I made different modifications

In another Island (not remember the name) I played more with the tools. I builded a cone, and then took of some parts of it.. etc

As you can see I spent a lot of time playing with all the tools... and looking for information.. my best resource so far have been youtube from where I found very good and interesting tutorials that I highly recommend.

SL Tutorials Links on how to build:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6XqQM9hgB0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chqyS08db-U&feature=user

Learning How to Build on Second Life 2

2008-03-09T18:03:00.001-07:00

Learning How To Build on Second Life

2008-03-09T17:31:00.000-07:00

I have been learning how to build on SL for the last 2 weeks, and I had to go around different places, asking for people until I met a guy from Spain who was very nice to take me to unicorn island, where I met people from the Unicorn Group and I am happy to say that they were so nice that I am now even part of their group.

I went to many different places, I was asking everyone, some people is nice, other just dont have any time for you. Exactly the same as it works in the real Life.

During my search I even found I guy who was very proud because he had just bouth a horse.. I tought he had build it, so I ask him how did he do to have it.. He explained to me that he had worked for a while as a bouncer in a club for a while, saved the money and bought the horse with his savings...

I must admit the horse was pretty impresive... While I was there somebody came tome to ask me how to wear some stuff, but unfortunatelly I did not have the answer . I wish I could have helped her, I know how it feels now.

The 2 previous screenshots, while I was being tought by my friends from the blue unicorn, how to start building.. The girls had pretty cool outfits, at that point I only had the cloth I had when I started, but all this people had a store, build stuff like clothing, earings, shoes, etc and they game me my new outfit for free!!!... I was very Happy! My Avatar is hot now!!!

Hardware Component Blog Post

2008-02-22T18:04:00.000-08:00

What is an External Hard Drive?

A Hard Drive is a component every computer needs to store at least it operating system in order to function, and then save every file. There are many problems resulted from situations such as the storage of large files, and the existence of viruses, that affect hard drives and therefore the functionality of any computer. An external hard drive, it is a good way to prevent this problems.

An external hard driver is a device outside the computer; they are portable and usually larger than the internal hard drive. These devices are connected to the computer through a high-speed interface cable, a USB or a Firewire (Most Common Types).

I use the computer and save a lot of important information every day and unfortunately it took me 2 painful losses of information, and many looses of time to realize that I needed an external hard drive to store safely my information and stop saturating my internal hard drive with large files. Besides security advantages, I find external hard drives very convenient also because I just plug in and out the driver in one computer or the another, Mac or PC and work on the files I was working the day before. Sometimes instead of carrying the computer around I just carry my small hard drive and connect it to any computer when I need to open any file.

On this link there is a list from best buy of external hard drives:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&id=pcat17071&type=page&ks=960&st=external+harddrive&sc=Global&cp=1&sp=&qp=crootcategoryid%23%23-1%23%23-1%7E%7Eq65787465726e616c20686172646472697665&list=y&usc=All+Categories&nrp=15&iht=n

I highly recommend all Western Digital products because I have two of those and I have never had any problem with them.

How a Hard Drives get Broken?

A Hard Drive is usually broken when the read-write head or the platters are contaminated and the head scrapes the platter surface, this is usually called “Head Crash” and causes data loss. Head crashes are caused by electronic failure, sudden power failure, physical shock, wear and tear, corrosions, or poorly manufactured platters and head.

Also, a hard drive relies on air pressure to spin; it requires a certain range of air pressures in order to operate properly. If the air pressure is too low the there is not enough lift for the flying head, so the head gets too close to the disk, and there is a risk of head crashes and data loss. It is important not to cover the breathing holes of it and not to expose it to high humidity for extended periods because head and platters could corrode.

3DVR CLASS ASSIGMEN- Immersive Education Friends

2008-02-17T16:51:00.000-08:00

The assigment today was to find other immersive education members and talk to them. I search for them and ask them to add me as friend, but unfortunately none of them was online, and I was unable to complete the assigment.
But still I spend some time on second life and explored around. On this first image, I had found a bed and decided to relax for a while.
(Very lazy avatar)

On this part, I found a very nice place where I could lay down and read a book, so I stopped to read. I just hopped my avatar could read my real books I have to read for next week.

While I was exploring an island, I felt down in to the ocean and I dont know why the option of flying was unable, so I got stocked on the deep ocean, I walked around for a while and later on, I noticed the fly button turned blue again so I hit it and flew out of there..thanks God!, I was getting bored of wolking down there.

Again, I saw a very nice pool so I decided to relax, the place look warm, I really wish I was really there

Relaxing again, it was very funny to see my avatar position, it looked very real

And after a lot of relaxing, I decided to meditate for a while

3DVR CLASS ASSIGMEN- 5 NEW FRIENDS

2008-02-17T16:17:00.001-08:00

Today, on secon life I tried a placed which I dont remember the name, but it had something to do with spain, which was more fun for me because every body there spoke spanish.

I met this guy who was from Venezuela, he had just signed in and I told him I was taking a class and told him about immersive education. But I dont know why if I took the snapshot while we were talking, the text mesages where not saved in none of my images.

I also spoke with this girl, I asked her how had she changed her clothes, and she said something about "cielo" or sky, and she said that it happens after a while, she had been using SL for a year already. I saw a lot of girls with pretty cool dresses, I wonder when and how am I going to be able to change my shirt and jeans for something else.

While my new girlfriend was explaining me how to change my clothing, this guy came over us, he told us that using second life was too complicated for him.. he had signed in 5 days ago, and he, as me was still learning. his hair was punky.

After chating with this people, I went around, and found a place where everybody was dancing, and dancing, and I tried to talk to the people but nobody paid attention to me, so I went out of that room and found another girl, this girl was from spain, and was very nice, we spoke for a little bit, and I told here about our Class, and how do we use second life to learn, I also told here to go to the website, I wonder if any of them would really to and check it out.

At the end I found a very interesting place, it was kind of a castle, and I met this guys, who where going around the castle together, the place was kind of empty, said hi, and told them I was taking a class and we use this new method of teaching call immersive education, and then told them to the site. they asked me if the place was a school, or a class room, which I tought was funny, I told them it was just a place we could check but but it was not our class room.

Secon Life-5 NEW places

2008-02-11T12:33:00.000-08:00

Today I visited 5 new places on Second Life, I went to Toko Pig sight, to Buzios, Dance Island, Korea Gyeonghoeru, and to Neo Realms Fishing Camp.

SEcond Life

2008-02-11T11:39:00.000-08:00

I was playing around with second life, I went to splenda Island, which in my opinion it is a great and new way of advertising for the brand, I then decided to go to explore to money land, and also to platinum world, it is amazing, how much they have built and how many details everything has.

Splenda Island >

Second Life-Collaborative Computer Assigment 2-Due 02-11-08

2008-02-11T11:32:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody, I have already installed second life because I had to do so for another class I am taking.
It is a very interesting software because is like a msn where you can comunicate with your friends or meet new people, but I actually find this one more fun, because you have your own avatar and you can travel around with it.

I took some screen shots before, scrow down and look at them.

TV Technology-RGB LED backlit LCD

2008-02-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

5 months ago my boyfriend, ask me to go with him to the sony outlet store in wrentham where he had been told all the QUALIA products where going to be send. He got this TV for only $1700, when it had been originally gone out at $10,000.

Sony had created this line using the latest technology available regardless of price. But obviously, not many where sold and the line did not last more than 2 years.

Product:
Qualia 005
46" LCD television
Unveiled in August 2004
Retail Price: US$10,000

"Qualia was a boutique brand of high-end electronics, created by Sony to showcase their best technology. The line was launched in Japan in June 2003 and the U.S. in April 2004. In 2005, Sony discontinued the Qualia series except in the United States. In early 2006, Sony discontinued the series in the US as well" source: wikipedia

This TV has the Sony’s proprietary TRILUMINOS™ technology, that makes it the world’s first RGB LED backlit LCD television.

Until now, High Definition LCD televisions have been lit by CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent) systems. The technology starts with a white light and uses filters to create onscreen color. The limited color range inherent in the process has always existed as an assumed theoretical ceiling, due to the cost and complexity of other considered solutions. Ignoring these artificial boundaries, the TRILUMINOS LED backlight system takes a completely new approach. Instead of using filters, the LCD panel is lit by individual red, green and blue LEDs. The color control takes a quantum leap beyond today’s most advanced flat panel televisions. Applied to the 46" LCD screen, the resulting realism is breathtaking.

Source: http://www.qualia.sony.us/

Also check

http://www.physorg.com/news5318.html

http://www.lumileds.com/pdfs/TP43.pdf

"However, prices for this technology have come far down, allowing Samsung to ship this first TV using the LEDs for $3000. Those in the know say most LCD monitors will be backlit with LEDs by 2010" – Charlie White
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/samsung-ledbacklit-lcd-tv-coming-next-month-192637.php

3DVR CLASS ASSIGMENT- 2 SCREENSHOTS

2008-02-03T13:09:00.001-08:00

3DVR CLASS ASSIGMENT- 5 SCREENSHOTS

2008-02-03T12:52:00.000-08:00

Hello

2008-01-28T17:48:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my blog