Wild Arms = Win.

Wild Arms (1) for Playstation (1). This is in my top 3 favorite games of all time. Few are the games that have given me more immersion, fun, and excitement than this one here. Play it if you ever get the chance, it's amazing.

Resume and Demo Reel Updated

Hello fellow Champions. I updated my website, resume and demo reel this fine evening, please check it out if you like awesome things.

Resume - http://www.jaygrenier.com/resume.htm
Demo Reel - http://www.jaygrenier.com/animation-demo-reel.htm
Website - http://www.jaygrenier.com/

And here's a little win for the hell of it.

Floating Time - MaxScript

This script is great. I use a lot of custom scripts but none of them get as much use as this one, so I thought I'd share. It gives you a little floating window you can use to adjust the time range and go to any frame you like. I much prefer it to the default setup. Saves a few clicks and precisely 45milliseconds per frame change when you're working in 3DS Max. (Yes I'm being sarcastic, but it's still awesome and speeds you up in my opinion.) Fast is where it's at people!.

fn floatingTime =
(
   if (theTimeRollout != undefined)
   then (destroydialog theTimeRollout)

   rollout theTimeRollout "Floating Slider Time" width:258 height:25
   (
       spinner theStartFrame "Start: " pos:[22,4] width:60 range:[-100,50000,1] type:#integer
       edittext theTimeInput "Go To:" pos:[89,4] width:80
       spinner theEndFrame "End: " pos:[193,4] width:60 range:[-100,50000,1] type:#integer

       on theTimeRollout open do
       (
       theTimeInput.text = ((sliderTime as integer) / ticksperframe) as string
       theStartFrame.value = (animationRange.start as integer / ticksperframe)
       theEndFrame.value = (animationRange.end as integer / ticksperframe)
       )
       on theTimeInput entered x do
       (
       slidertime = x as integer
       )
       on theStartFrame changed x do
       (
       if (x < animationrange =" interval" value =" (animationRange.end" animationrange =" interval"> animationrange.start)
       then
       (
       animationRange = interval animationrange.start x
       )
       else
       (
       theEndFrame.value = (animationRange.start as integer / ticksperframe) + 1
       animationRange = interval animationrange.start theEndFrame.value
       )
   )
   )createDialog theTimeRollout style:#(#style_toolwindow, #style_sysmenu)

)

When The Lights Are Down - Kamelot

Rules without exceptions last eternally
Every move you make creates your destiny
I've come to soak my sorrow in halo black
As black as the seal on my soul

Cause when the lights are down
There's no more to say
Love is the real pain
An internal revolution in our minds
And when the lights are down
You're so far away
Tell me your real name
In the silence of the darkness we unite

(Rules without exceptions last eternally
Every move you make creates your destiny)
What can protect me from the past
And all the things that I have done
She told me and then she was gone

But when the lights are down
There's no more to say
Deep in the shadows
Where the last of my delusions made a stand
Cause when the lights are down
She'll take me away
Tell me her real name
And in death we'll live the love we never had

Come all ye faithful beneath the moon
Into the void as one
Marching on

This song is so damn awesome.

Here is a new flower photo.

Took about 200 photos this weekend up at Emily's college. I've got quite a few to go through but this is something I put together quickly last night. Stay tuned for more!

Ken Robkin, Sony's Newest Animator

My good friend Ken Robkin just got a great animation job working at Sony in San Diego. Him and I met at Animation Mentor and competed in the FJORG! challenge at Siggraph together. He's a hell of an animator and we're all super excited for him. San Diego is also a lot nicer than Florida. Congratulations man!

Check out his work here: http://www.ukyo3d.com

Champion of Ithaca

So this is home...
In the guise of a beggar - Minerva guides my way
I find my kingdom in jeopardy

Vengeance - it swells within me
As I spy so many who eye my Queen
I'll make them pay for this blasphemy... All will see

Triumphant - Champion of Ithaca
I will right all the wrongs
Let the Gods sing my song
Triumphant - Champion of Ithaca
Let a new life begin
my journey has come to and end

A contest of valor
'to pierce the twelve rings
in a single arrow's flight'
Yet, not a one can string the bow

My veil of silence lifted
All is revealed
revenge burns in my heart
thrashing and slashing down all my foes...to claim the throne

Triumphant - Champion of Ithaca
I will right all the wrongs
Let the Gods sing my song
Triumphant - Champion of Ithaca
Let a new life begin
this is the end of my Odyssey

Seems like forever that my eyes have been denied
Home - I'm finally home
I've been twenty years away from all I ever knew
I have returned to make my dream come true

...Just a verse from one of my favorite songs, and the lyrics behind the title of my blog. (Symphony X - "The Odyssey")

Another Great Pic, "We're Back!"

He has already frozen the salaries of White House employees and lobbyists making over $100k and is closing Guantanamo today, and he's been president for just two days. Cool stuff, looking forward to more.

GTFO!

This made me laugh a lot. =)

New President - Barack Obama!

Well, we officially have a new president here in the United States of America. Good times.

Capeta - Japanese Animation and Manga

I finished a new anime on Sunday. It's titled, "Capeta". It's the story of a boy on his journey to become an F1 driver in Japan. He starts off racing karts as a young ten year old and the story follows him all the way to his professional career. I really enjoyed, give it a google and see what you think.

The Ocean Got Me.

I think for the first time I've gotten sick from surfing in the ocean here. The waves have been really large the last couple of days, yesterday (Monday) there were a couple head high sets. It was awesome, a fun time was had, but I have a perfect memory of one of the waves forcing about 12 ounces of water down my throat against my will. I knew it was gross but I thought nothing of it, and now I am officially sick. I have no proof it's from the water, I can only guess. But, the timing is just too good. About an hour after I got out of the water my throat started hurting and today I am a mess.

It's no secret that the water here makes you sick, you're suppose to keep your mouth closed at all times while in the water. However head high waves have a way of not letting you do exactly what you want sometimes.

*sigh.....*

I miss Emily.

Kamelot = Win.

If you're a fan of metal and you haven't had a chance to check out Kamelot yet, do yourself a favor.

I don't really dig a band unless they have a talented and awesome sounding singer, and this band is no exception. They seriously destroy universes. Roy Khan can hit sing through 5 octaves (rumored) which is pretty incredible.

http://www.myspace.com/kamelot

Start with Ghost Opera in my opinion, but whatevs.

Darkfall Online

Darkfall is releasing in Europe in about a week. It's a new UO-esque MMO that's been in development for over ten years. Most people didn't think it would ever see the light of day so it's rather exciting to see what will happen.

The graphics and look of the game are monstrously outdated, however it's been built from the ground up to support full PVP and epic city sieging warfare so they had to keep the polys down and the keyframes minimal. Though, there has yet to be a game released anywhere, ever, that has done this without lag and game/fun breaking bugs, so we'll see if this one does it. I'm willing to take a graphics hit if it works out like it is suppose to.

http://www.darkfallonline.com/

My guild is going to have a presense there if you're interested in playing with a well-organized, tight-knit group of guys who kick a lot of ass. We're an all Dwarf guild and have been kicking non-Dwarf ass since 1996 in about 2 dozen different games in the past 13 years.

http://www.mithrilwarhammers.com/

Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons

If you haven't had a minute to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons yet I'd highly recommend it. It's a retelling of the class F. Scott Fitzgerald short story of a man who is born old and ages into his youth. It's really neat, came out wonderfully.

I worked on it a little. I animated. (That's about all I'm allowed to say.) =)

Entwine

Found a new band today through MetalFromFinland.com

Entwine is the name, check this stuff out.

Best track I heard so far is "Surrender".

Soul Eater Anime and Manga

If you're into comics and anime/animation, check out his show, Soul Eater.

It's got a great story, GREAT artwork, very stylized and decent animation. This is one of the few cases where I will say the anime is better than the manga just because of how nice the artwork is drawn in full color and the relative quality of the animation within.

It's very much worth checking out at least an episode or two. Funimation already bought the rights to it and has been trying to get fan subbers to quit releasing japanese episodes (how lame can they be really?) but people are still subbing it thankfully. You couldn't pay me to watch Funimation's bastardized shit-hole version.

http://www.souleaterfan.com or http://www.souleaterepisodes.com

Finnish Accents

Sean and I just had an epiphany that Finnish singers singing in English produces what I dub the most metal thing ever.

No other country can even come close to the amount of awesome in the sound of a Finnish vocalist singing in English. The accent is just pure metal.

One of the best sites for Finnish metal that I've found: http://www.metalfromfinland.com

Snowboarding at Mountain High

Today I went snowboarding at Mountain High with Brian, Than, Tom, and some of Than's family and friends. Woke up at 4am to get ready, drove up there and got in just in time to beat the rush. It was great. It's been about 6 years since I've been snowboarding so I had to remind my body how to do it, but it only took about 10 seconds before I had it all figured out again which was really nice. Tom has never done it before so we spent the first half of the day showing him how and giving him pointers as we went down.

Eventually I decided I was going to run some black diamonds and one of Than's friends and I took off to find some harder trails. I sort of have this infectious habit of trying to find the most ridiculous dangerous forest trail and go balls out down it on my snowboard, just to see where it leads me at the other end. Sometimes it comes back out onto a trail, sometimes I end up lost and have to hike back up...but it's almost always fun. So I decided to look for some glade/forest trails, and Than's friend warned me that they would probably not have any snow since this mountain was almost all man-made snow. At the time when he said "no snow" I assumed he meant it would be dry, so when I saw a path with snow on it I thought, "woot, snow". I signaled to him, turned down the path, and immediately knew I was wrong and what he actually meant by "no snow" was that it would be "all ice". I immediately started sliding and lost control for about 20-30 yards sliding down steep solid ice through a dense forest until I finally grabbed on to a tree branch enough to turn a little and lodge myself against a small pine tree. My crappy rental snowboard wouldn't grip the ice one bit so I had to unstrap and chisel foot holds for myself to hike back up and out the side on to the main trail. It was pretty freaking scary! At one point I lost my footing and started to slide down but was able to punch through the ice and grab some ground and stopped myself. It was about an 80 degree slope with like 100 gnarly trees below. I probably would have been very, very, VERY injured. But alas, I don't suck, and made it out just fine. So the adventure in between trails was a bit of a failure, but I came out with a cool story for the day and made it back just fine. Pure awesome.

By the end of the day the trails were icing up and all of our bodies were sore as could be, so we called it quits and headed home.

The mountain is decent for only being 90 minutes away from Los Angeles. It's VERY crowded and has rather poor quality snow, but again, it's 90 minutes away and I hadn't been in over half a decade (doesn't that make it sound longer than 6?) so who am I to complain. I had a great time!

New Photos

Check out more at my FLICKR page. My new camera is so awesome...

2009

Here's to our first day back to normal schedules. Happy 2009 everyone!

Photography and Voice Lessons

Since Emily got me this new camera I've been taking photos non-stop and managed to sneak in a few good ones here and there! I'm having so much fun with it, I knew I would but never imagined I'd like it this much. To check out all the stuff I've done so far and for further updates be sure to check out the official Jayonidas FLICKR page. (Link)

This past weekend was my first vocal lesson. It went extremely well and I'm very excited to learn more and get better with my singing. Eventually I'll start recording and maybe post up a piece or two but for now you'll just have to visualize. It's a lot of fun, can't wait to keep it going.

Oh yeah, new blog header, and the waves today destroyed me. Off to nurse my headache!