well i will soon delete this blog because i moved to a new server. its still going to be the same blog but it will just look and feel much better. i will leave this blog up for a little bit until im sure that everyone got this message.
if you have any links or anything to my blog please change them to ” http://www.diaddigo.com/Joshua/ “
(you can also click on that link to get to my new blog.)
I recently watched that movie eagle eye (awesome movie BTW) and it gave me some ideas for a new facebook profile picture, LOL. they used a type of color correction that makes the entire scene very blue and neutral but the faces are orangish. here are some pictures of the stages used to create it.
Original photo:
Face Cut Out:
Background And Color Correction:
Cut Added:
Well, our movie has come through allot of stages but we finally have decided on the story and begun to animate. Here are some renders, see if you can figure it out:
ok, the paint drop was really fun but… let’s just say it was a little pointless. so, to make up for this pointless droplet issue, i made another droplet!!! and sadly… it is just as pointless. But anyway, here it is,
well, ive been doing a lot of experimenting lately. here is a quick run through,
1. i have been working on the new diaddigo.com blog and have learned a lot
2. i created a slideshow for my swim team which has turned out to be one of the first video projects ive made a profit from
3. i’ve experimented with meta-balls and made a pretty cool droplet simulation
i’ll start with diaddigo.com. i normally stick with wordpress for blogs because of it’s usability and the fact that it is free. however, my dad asked me to create a diaddigo.com blog where all of the projects done by the diaddigo family and a collection of interesting links and videos could be accumulated in one place. sadly, what my dad needed could not be supported in wordpress. so, i took a leap of faith and tried typepad. honestly, i was pretty surprised with the turnout. although wordpress definitely trumps typepad in organization and user interface, it is a very flexible server and can be totally customized with a little css editing (only available in the prop version i believe.) actually i was trying to get a shodow behind the main column so i tried searching help for it. as i said before, typepad is hopeless when it comes to organization. the same can be said for their help. so i decided to try to figure it out myself… first i had caleb create a simple box in AE for me that had a shadow behind it. i then cropped it to about 900×200 px (the blog is about 800 px wide.) so then i had a nice loopable shadow for the background. now for the hard part, applying it to the blog. the typepad help told me to add a simple code looking like this:
body { background: url(http://www.diaddigo.com/loop.png) repeat-y;}
the only issue with this is that it sits at the side of the blog and doesn’t center with the blog when you resize the window. my solution… go back to square one. only this time i asked caleb to create a picture that was exactly the same, only there was about 9000 px of extra grey on each side. this way i could import it into css and, if i could get it centered, a person could resize the window all the way to 9000 px and it would still work right. now all i had to do was center it. of course tyepad had no tutorial for this, so i was, once again, left to my own devices. and once again, i about drove myself crazy trying to figure out what to do. finally i came up with this very simple solution
body { background: url(http://www.diaddigo.com/loop.png) repeat-y center;}
pretty straight forward huh? well here was the result: http://www.diaddigo.com/
also, typepad has this tacky “.typepad” in the URL. of course no one wants this in their link, so once again i sat at my computer to try figure this one out. and once again, i surprised myself. here’s how it worked. first i consulted the ever so disappointing typepad help. of course the best they could do was send me to a domain name server named “network solutions.” these guys were a little more satisfactory as far as help goes. usability however… not so much. first, i needed to buy the domain name “www.diaddigo.com.” fun right? well it turned out to be $115 for 5 yrs. plus a diaddigo.com e-mail. now that i had money at stake, i really needed to figure this out. thus, once again, i re-consulted the typepad help… and once again, i was re-directed to networking solutions help. the solution turned out pretty simple really. heres what you do
1. disconnect the domain name www. a-records from your ip address (please alow 36-48 hrs. to apply)
2. reconnect the www. a-records (aka dns records) to the www.diaddigo.typepad.com server (another 36-48 hrs. to apply)
3. setup typepad to receive the domain name (Be careful not to activate your changes until the DNS settings are applied to your server. otherwise you will lose all the blog setup settings)
and walla! five days and $115 later, you have the word typepad out of the URL. giving it a totally solitary and unique look.
as i said before, i also have created a slideshow. The video below was pretty much created in 24-hrs plus encoded and burned. i actually sold about 6, maybe more, for $8 each. not bad… well here it is:
i’ve also been playing around with meta-balls. i recently downloaded a screen saver that had all these balls floating arount the screan, but when they got close, they would stick together. obviously, blender can do anything, so i decided to figure out how to do this. the solution is meta-balls. basicly they are created with triangle shaped verticies that stick together when brought in contact with another meta-ball. kinda like cell membranes in water. the membranes are even stickier in paint, so i decided to try a water droplet simulation with a paint looking material. the result is below:
i also made an interesting render for no reason whatsoever 
and that pretty much wraps up this month,
-Joshua D.
im currently working on a new site called “diaddigo.com.” basicly it will be a collection of all the work done by the diaddigos. it’s still in progress, but tell me what you think!
www.diaddigo.com
well, im totally loving my new computer. here is a song i edited and recorded using garageband called “A Quiet spirit.”
A quiet spirit
This is the logo for the sprint groups.
This is a logo i created for a group my dad gets together with monthly. 
Well i finally got my new computer, so i can now continue blogging. I’ll try to catch up today .
