There's something wrong with my maya. The mental ray rendering option is missing. When I open the render view, there are only 2 options:Maya hardware and maya software. Does anyone know what's wrong with it?

edit:
OK, nvm, i found the solution. Dunno how it dissapeared, but anyways if u hv a similar problem, go to plug-in manager and check on both boxes for mayatomr

Sheesh...and i thought i had to reinstal maya or something

This one goes out to Yilyn

Here is ur Departures(Okuribito) movie. It's on YouTube tho.Part one. Link out for the rest of the movie. So to those with fast internet connection,have fun.

Ah, the joys of Youtube. Except when we animation students go out to work, that will probably be a problem. But if you can't beat them, join them.(*pst*,it's called research)

BTW for those who haven't heard of the movie, it won the best foreign language film this year at the Academy Awards. In short, the story is about a man who looses his job as a cellist and then mistakenly signs up for a job as an undertaker, and how he comes to accept the honour of doing such a dirty job.

Trailer:

Washi

Behold my latest artistic fascination-Japanese art.

This time i'll be sharing some pictures of Washi; Japanese handmade paper. The way it's made is by straining mashed tree bark pulp the same way you prolly did in P.Seni back in primary school.Err...but most probably with a more professional technique than the 10 year old you... And the design is printed on in the traditional way,1 run for each colour.It's interesting to note that washi making is done in winter, when cold water can help produce crisper paper and avoid decomposition of the paper pulp by bacteria during processing.

Anyways, enjoy.

The paper is also used for a variety of crafting purposes. Traditionally it's used for door screens, umbrellas, doll making, ukiyo-e, calligraphy, ikebana, origami etc. Nowadays it's yet another media in the hands of a designer.

Jewellery

Packaging for tea
Washi dolls(btw they are by Dan Fletcher.Check out his website for more dolls)
Decorative eggs
Lampshades

I'm feeling a bit restless now, so i think I will do a bit of blogging. The reason I feel restless is because Asstro is now completely out of service, it may be because of my condominium's lackadaisical maintainance team, and secondly because I'm stuck in my character rigging and have to ask the tutor how to correct something that doesn't really look correct...

Anyways, 2 more weeks of college to go. Number of assignments: 3( After effects, Lipsync animation and some touchup for Visual storytelling) but anyways I'm more or less going to dedicate next week to Lipsyncing(yeah man,in singing it's unprofessional, but in animation, it's serious business).I can't wait to go to Australia.

Talking about going overseas, I went to 2 other uni talks last week, Hertfordshire and Bristol. So far I think I'll most probably end up in Bristol. Their teaching style is totally opposite to TOA's, TOA focusses more on technique, but Bristol focusses more on creativity. Which I think it's a good thing, looking back on what we used to do in year 1, design lecture class and so forth, I feel as if our creativity has been dropping drastically each year. I guess we are all too concerned about how control Maya correctly.

Sohs, the person who would be reviewing our portfolios when we apply to enter Bristol was there for the talk, so most people brought their work to show her. The thing was that all the students, especially IL students were straight away turned down for 3rd year entry. The most was 2nd year entry, because she felt that we weren't showing enough creativity and self study, and everyone has the same art style. Pretty sad, but she was truthful. For mine, it was 2nd year, 2nd semester entry as promised by the college, but I think the only thing that saved me was concept art (or more specifically Drawing for Animation class). Soh, yeah, take note if you plan to go to Bristol too...(it's a 1 1/2 year course btw)

...actually I hope someone will decide to go to Bristol with me. Somehow the idea of going to some cold country literally halfway round the world with nobody I know and only 20kgs of luggage and not knowing what to expect in classes sounds a bit intimidating. The beds in the accomodation places are probably hard as well. And no personal bathrooms.And if I do go to Bristol, intake is in February, which means I'll have very little time after the end of my course here. Maybe I wouldn't even have completely finished my course, seeing that the seniors are still doing their final project in the computer labs. It's been ,what, 4 months since their last official class? Of course I think it's probably because they are more ambitious than other people, I mean, they have Jarold and Carson in their group. And what they have done so far looks very good.

sigh...I just hope I'll enjoy overseas studies. Sounds promising, but you never know.

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Tomorrow is Cheng Beng at my mom's side. Last week I couldn't make it for my dad's side, so I feel like I'm being a bit unfair...but I couldn't help it. VST assignments was like a ton of bricks last week. Well, at least Raymond told us that Calvin was impressed with our work, so that makes things feel more worth it. This week, however, especially seeing that I can't currently continue my Lipsync, I am free to go.But still I feel a bit guilty for not touching Maya tomorrow leh...yeah, I know I sound a bit kiasu also. But no matter what happens I have to finish the whole animation by this Thursday.Even if Jason gives the rest of the class an extra week to do the animation, I cannot accept it since I will be in Aussieland right??

OK, nevermind, time to stop talking about animation.

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In other news, since Asstro decided to PMS, I turned to the channel that everyone turns to in times of need, Youtube.

Sohs, if you remember from liek a few months ago, I said I wanted to watch Madama Butterfly. With the help of Wikipedia, I finally found out that the movie I was referring to is actually called M Butterfly. It's sort of based on the Puccini opera, but twisted with a modern concept. And also centres on an accidental homosexual relationship, so that adds a bit of spice to it. And with the westerner ending up as the methaphorical Madam Butterfly by the end of the story, that's the making of an interesting storyline, isn't it? But when I read the storyline of the play on which it was based, I think I like the movie's ending better, but I think you should research on Wikipedia yourself if you want to know, i don't want to provide any spoilers.I think the only problem I have with the movie is that John Lone started to sound a bit like Michael Jackson after awhile. Damn...MJ's scandals have spoiled so many things that should have been nice for me...

Which brings me to remember that my sisters watched this back a few years ago. I'm kind of wondering how they got their hands on a copy of it, no way Malaysian government would allow it in, not if it features homosexuality and , hey, communism as well.

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BTW, big che, if you're reading this, do you still have that CD of the soundtracks from Moulin Rouge? I want to borrow....can?

It's been a very tiring week. I thought that last week would be bad, but this week was even worse.Seems like everything is jammed into the same week. First there was a 90 page movie study to do(printing that costed RM117 btw.whee...). Then there was the 42 pages of storyboard to complete within like 2 days, which included planning all the camera angles,drawing them out  and description writing.(which i still have to draw a few pages to draw and edit). Then there was the mounting and submission for the TOSCARs competition.Also besides that there was the character rerendering and editing for an upcoming exhibition, but that's just the small stuff i did without lecturer's consent, in class this morning. The exhibition is supposed to be set up on the 1st next month, so i dunno, but seems like the people in charge might be pushing it a bit asking us to refine our material until so late. So i ended up skipping sleep 2 day of the week and cancelling music class altogether, because a)I didn't have time to practise at all that week.b) I didn't sleep the night before ,and c)that day was the day that I had too many things on my to do list. On top of that, I am now very behind in advanced 3D animation class. I still have to make half of my target models, rig them and create an expression test by next week, have only 1 more week to do the actual animation, and 1 more week(week #14, finally) to do the rendering for both the actual animation and the expression test.

And no, YenYen, rendering is not a cheating process.Rendering to Maya is like printing to Words documents.Except it's more time consuming and has more settings.

Besides that, I went to a talk about Teesside university in England. They didn't have any twinning for the course I wanted, which was Games Art, but I was told that I might have a chance of starting in the 2nd year instead, if my portfolio and the list of the animation subjects are sufficient.But if that course is what I think it is(character design and modeling), then I really hope that I can get into it, since I prefer the designing more than animation part of production.

Sigh...I dunno...my course is called animation but i discovered that I'm not that into moving stuff about...I'm still that person stuck inbetween animation and illustration after all.I guess it's partly because in Malaysia we have so few choices when it comes to art courses.But when I have to do animation, i feel a bit stressed whereas when I'm doing designing, I don't mind putting in extra hours voluntarily and doing more research than necessary, and really 'feeling' what I do, know what I mean?Not just doing it to meet the dateline.It's just all the talk about if you are in the art industry, you'll be doing what you want and it all being like a hobby to you, and me believing in that, and then finding out that might not be true after all. I don't really fancy ending up as some mass production animating slave for the rest of my life...

Random thought...

I was looking for dialogues from Moulin Rouge. Mostly because I couldn't understand some stuff some characters were saying. But then I stumbled upon Wikiquotes and ended up reading and looking for sentences I missed while watching.

I think the funniest sentence that I missed was one by the Narcoleptic Argentinian:

"The hills are incarnate with symphonic melodies!!!"

Oh man, I can just imagine the scriptwriter pulling out a thesaurus to rearrange those words.

The hills are alive with the sound of music.

Talk about overthinking you ideas. lol...

"World Builder", a short film by Bruce Branit.
I just watched it in class yesterday. Very nice. The storyline is simple but touching. Also, it's a good idea for a new videogame, or as Chris calls it, Maya of the future.