Side note, there was also an awesome match where someone got their battery sawed through and the fluid spilled out all over the arena floor. =)

ok, i'll do my best:

"It's where the program does the animation for you using physics (or other) algorithms. As the artist, you place a "flag" in the scene, and attach it to a "pole" then tell the program there's a "45 mph wind from the East".
Then you hit "Play" and you get a movie of a flag waving in the wind."

this is called a sim, and yes it's a type of procedural animation but it doesn't replace some kind of "classical" method of animating. sims are used for all kinds of things: particles, cloth, fur/hair/feathers, crowds, fluid, rigid body destruction, etc, etc. the artists who do this are not animators, they're FX artists and it isn't as simple as plugging in "45 mph wind from the east". not even close. for something seemingly that simple you're dialing in things like direction, turbulence, gravity, plus the cloth properties. once you have your settings, you sim it, which can take days on a render farm for complex sims. if that sim is approved then it goes to lighting, gets put into the scene, has textures/materials/shaders applied, and then gets rendered, which can take another several days on a render farm depending on the complexity. these sims are the only way to get realistic animations for these types of materials. and there are generally many versions made at this stage to get the sim right, fix broken frames, fix intersecting, get the lighting and textures/materials/shaders working right, etc. THEN it goes to the compositing dept for a couple dozen more versions.




"As opposed to regular animation, which can be thought of as glorified stop-motion animation. Each single piece moved by you, individually, for each frame of video."

regular animation is like stop motion except it's not every frame (it's interpolated between keyframes) and is for character animation.

anim and FX are 2 different departments and often use 2 different software packages.

mocap is also not handled by the anim dept. it would be done by match move and/or tech anim.




"You create a flag and a pole. Then the next frame you bend it here, here, here, and here, then click forward to the next frame, and bend it a bit more here, little less here, invert this bend, add another, make this corner whip a bit."

no one in there right mind would do this, it's completely impractical, and would look like complete shit.




"It basically allows less technically savvy artists play in a world where only "nerds" used to play."

the FX people are way more nerds and technical than anim people. you need to be technically savvy for every dept. but the real nerds and really technically savvy people work on pipeline who were probably heavily involved in this project building custom toolsets for it.




"Really kind of lazy way of animating."

no, it's fucking hard, requires a lot of knowledge, a lot of people, a lot of cpu horsepower, is used all the time to get high quality animations, is a collection of several departments other than animation, and is used in conjunction with animation.

I used to do this at parties as a kid all the time with glass beer bottles. I tried a plastic vessel once, and while it does work, I only recommend doing it once and allowing the plastic to cool completely. Using zippo fluid and a plastic bottle repeatedly will eventually cause the plastic to heat to an unstable temperature producing a catastrophic failure with disastrous effects to your mother's carpet.....for science.

Absolutely incredible. It's amazing how fluid and natural his gate is when he transitions from slow to fast walking. Very impressive.

As Charles De Mar aptly stated in the 1985 film, Better Off Dead -

"Get the lead out. That is all."

Now I'll go back to my lighter fluid eggnog.

Your video, How Strong is a Non-Newtonian Fluid?, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Thanks for that, makes me feel better about getting them confused since the terminology is semi-fluid.

Seeing the disassembled Wankel engine in the video should have clued me in that that was NOT what was used in the P-47, which had lots of big cylinders for pistons radiating around a central point, hence the "radial" designation.

It (the video) was very helpful for figuring out how the chambers and path of the parts work in comparison to a piston engine, which is quite interesting even for someone like me who really only understands the rudiments of either design. Live and learn!

It's also worth noting that dreads have been a part of pot culture for at least 3 decades now. That's long enough that you can't actually deny it's a valid expression of that culture.

The mistake she's making is to assume that dreads are exclusive to black culture. As is pointed out in the video, the hair style has existed since recorded time. In fact, it's more accurate to say it represents carribean culture, so unless she was raised in that particular region, she would also be guilty of cultural appropriation of she wore dreads.

The bottom line is, no one can define someone else's culture or decide whose culture is valid. Cultures are fluid and evolving and cannot be constricted by anyone not immersed in that culture.

Oh wait! I meant to say, she's wearing a hooded windbreaker. She's clearly appropriating my eastern Anglo American culture.

So in a Polychronic society... if I work from 7 AM to 3 PM... is that schedule fluid, or is that fairly fixed and it is more social things that are fluid?

I was a big fan back in '92 and must have watched the toothache episode dozens of times. The bit about the cartoon confronting bodily fluids at the "height" of AIDS fears was bullshit filler, as I remember that was definitely mid to late 80s when people were at their most ignorant about the potential spread of HIV.

Otherwise good post.

To be fair, the secondary definition of "entity" is :'being or existence, especially when considered as distinct, independent, or self-contained: '...a fetus is absolutely not distinct, independent, or self contained, and so is not an entity, living or otherwise.
Also in his next paragraph he said "no independent living being", to me strongly implying it was the independent part of the definition he was disputing, not the 'living' part.

I have often wondered how the party of 'personal responsibility' can even consider forcing one person to physically support another 'person'* against their will. EDIT: It's also like granting instant squatters rights inside another person!

*I say "person" because they claim it is one, not because I'm conceding it's a person. I think it's not a "person" until it's lungs are full of air, people don't breathe fluid, and not an "entity" until the umbilical cord is cut. I could even support non-human status for a full year after birth like the ancient Greeks allegedly did, but I know that's WAY over most people's line. ;-)

@Imagoamin

whoa whoa whoa...
did you think i was calling YOU a bed-wetter?
like as in actually using the pronoun "you" to direct my fictional interaction as representing an actual person,in this case YOU?

well,that certainly explains the tone of your reply.

if this is the case then i humbly and sincerely apologize.i was not referring to you at all,but rather a hypothetical and totally fictional interaction between a cry-baby and myself.

which you actually just made my point about humor,and in this case sarcastic humor.an over the top referencing of a certain hyper-sensitive group,in order to make my point about bad ideas,bad philosophy and poor judgment.

the sarcasm should have been obvious.
but alas...it appears it was not,and has been misconstrued as a personal attack.

moving on to your suey park rebuttal.
while the response to her initial call for justice can easily be seen as vile and grotesque (because it is) how does that take away from her inanity? her blatant disregard for nuance and context? or that she simply lacks the basic intelligence to discern satire from actual racist remarks?

it does not.

i think that most people would agree that the vile,disgusting and dehumanizing responses that suey park was subjected to,are to be condemned and yes...ridiculed..for the stupid and trollish behavior they represent.

you do not reply to stupid with even more stupid.

i dont really understand your defense of language,or better put,the imposing of certain words being stricken from the language altogether because some people find them offensive.

language is a fluid animal,and it is ever-changing.words and terms are dropped from the vocabulary or they morph into something altogether new.i have no skin in on the game in that regard.that is how language progresses,and yes,certain words can be offensive in certain contexts.so we should avoid using them,if only to be a decent human being.

my issue is with the FORCED attempts to re-integrate new words.to control what people say and attempt to bring real world consequences upon them,and then turn around and call it "justice".that is not justice! that is censorship!

maybe this will help a bit.
i view words and language as such:words are the means to express thoughts,feelings and imaginings.when we consider the complexity of our thoughts,feelings and imaginings then it becomes quite apparent that words will NEVER suffice to truly,and accurately,express those very human creations.

words will always be inadequate.

so when some people get it in their head that certain words are just too offensive to even utter.this narrows the field of expression that is already inadequate.(i am not talking about BLATANT,and archaic terms that are not only offensive,but are no longer relevant,and in existence still to simply disparage,insult or dehumanize).

now maybe some words no longer serve a valid purpose or are truly offensive and need to be re-examined,but the only way to reach that conclusion as a people..we must actually TALK to one another,and it is in this free market of ideas where bad ideas go to die.

but we have to able to conversate for that to happen.don't you agree?

now i am not going to bother addressing the rest of your comment,because your tone was just a reaction to where you presumed i was coming from.

and you did presume.

you seem like a decent sort,so i will just chalk your final response up to finding my comment offensive and replied in kind.

just know i wasnt heated,nor enraged.
and i certainly wasnt calling you a bed-wetter.
though the extreme end of social justice warriors are STILL humorless cunts.

Lol, thanks for the history lesson. Don't know why you'd think I'd lie, but whatever.

You're pretty much confirming exactly my point, in the past his games require massive hardware. When you see a nice fluid video, take it with a grain of salt.

I'm glad that you know how he operates as well, but my original comment was for people who don't know that and for whom it probably won't be 'expected' as most developers these days like to target good performance on average hardware.

Wait...so she thinks if a word is used as a racial slur once it can never have another definition? I'm thinking specifically of "gypsy" here. How can one be upset that it wrongly labels Romani as Egyptian, and also claim it can't mean 'nomadic'? Language is fluid, and because a phrase or word might have a 'racist' origin does not mean it can't ever have another meaning. Duh.

I think many Romani are no longer nomadic because you can't just move across international borders without papers, and they historically refuse to do government paperwork, get IDs, pay taxes, etc. That's also why many were deported, they refused to live by the rules of the countries they were living in. Especially in todays climate, refusing to have a verifiable identity is considered unacceptable in many countries. This should surprise no one.