You're going to notice a brief decline in new entries here at Press The Buttons for the next few days. My day job away from the Mushroom Kingdom involves rendering proposed construction for the local university, and at the office we're shifting away from using Accurender software for our concepts and moving into the world of Lightwave. Have you seen the commercials where M&M candies walk and talk? Or the massive spacecraft of Babylon 5?
Lightwave was used to produce those. I'm taking a three-day intensive study course this week to become familiar with some of Lightwave's modeling and animation tools, and time spent in class is obviously time away from my desk.
I've been tinkering with Lightwave prior to starting this study
course. One camera move that I'm anxious to use is a little homage to
Super Mario 64, a game that inspired me to grab on to this 3D animation
opportunity when it came my way. There's a moment during the opening
of Super Mario 64 where the camera zooms around Princess Peach's castle
and zips underneath the castle bridge. There's a section on campus
where a building has a similar architectural feature: an overhead
enclosed bridge above an open sidewalk. When the time is right I want
to use the same camera maneuver in my campus animations and, maybe just
for the hell of it, loop in the Mario soundtrack from that
opening scene. It's just one of those little creative things I have to
do, and in a way it feels like making a connection to something that
has given me so much over the years.
Power Button Podcast
Tip Jar