How Many Different Words Are There For "Fraud", Anyway?

2006.08.25 - Friday

About Those Israeli "Chemical Weapons"...

This stuff is just going to keep getting worse. Most of these reporters should be fired, blacklisted, and publicly humiliated. I don't even know what to say anymore. At least this German news team has the guts to fact check, and then call it like it really is.

Green Helmet Admits Staging Photos, AP Spins Furiously

Why am I only seeing German news agencies pointing this stuff out? Where is the press from the "freest nation on Earth"? Where is the press from Canada?

More Journalistic Fraud

2006.08.24 - Thursday

The Red Cross Ambulance Incident

I'm not sure if this is a case of unbelievable ignorance leading to gross incompetence, or a deliberate, willful act of fraud. In either case, it's ridiculous that our media and press seem to be so complicit in allowing their "colleagues" to get away with this stuff. We're supposed to believe that a "missile" hit that ambulance? These people can't even tell the difference between rockets and flares. Sickening, disgusting, embarrassing, and shameful. That's what this is.

"Stargate: SG1" Cancelled

2006.08.22 - Tuesday

Stargate SG-1 cancelled, Atlantis renewed

I'm really not sure how I feel about this yet, after hearing and reading about it earlier today. From a professional point of view, no one ever likes to see the loss of such a huge employer. Thankfully, perhaps, we haven't been doing too much SG-1 lately. With Atlantis being renewed, I hope to keep working on it for a while. Still, there are lots of folks in town who do work on the show, and it sucks to see what was about as stable an employer as you can find in the film business close up shop. Still, MGM has insisted for years on keeping Stargate going, because they make huge amount of money from it. Between DVD sales, official conventions, and ever increasing merchandise, the franchise is right up there with James Bond, apparently, as far as MGM is concerned. I'd be surprised if something didn't quickly fill SG-1's shoes.

From a sci-fi and Stargate fan's perspective, it's hard to be surprised by the announcement. Ten seasons is a long time, and a huge accomplishment. I honestly can't judge the last two seasons of material because I haven't seen them. Even working on the show, I only ever watch them properly once they're released on DVD, so I can't say if season 9 was good, or how season 10 was looking. The fans still seems to love it, though it's hard to argue with the low ratings.

I guess it's just a surprise that SG-1 will be stopping, considering the amount of time that its been an important part of the local VFX scene. I'm very interested to see how the landscape turns out, though it's hard to say if it will be for the best or not. It's worth writing more, but I think I'll save it, at least until a little bit more of the future is revealed.

Abbotsford Airshow 2006

2006.08.17 - Thursday

This past weekend the annual airshow was held in Abbotsford. It's a good thing I paid close attention to the forecast, because apparently the first two days didn't get the best weather. The first half of August is always a little wet, so there's always a chance those few days of clouds or rain will fall on airshow weekend. Thankfully, by the time Sunday rolled around, the sky was clear. The morning held a little bit of haze, but it burned off as the hours passed.

It was a nice show this year. Lots of variety. I think the only thing missing was a helicopter demo, but since it was the last day and a lot of the aircraft started leaving right after the show was finished, we did get to see one of those ancient Sea Kings have a bit of fun before flying into the distance. As far as the performances went, everything was solid. The Snowbirds were good as always, though it certainly wasn't the best show I've seen them do. We were treated to lots of fighters; F-18, F-16, F-15, and a decent collection of warbirds compared to previous years, although nothing as impressive as having that B-17 two years ago.

What I really liked seeing were the bigger planes, most of which did demos this year as opposed to just sitting on the ground. The C-17 Globemaster did a nice demo with some tight turns, at least they were tight for an aircraft of that size. Its slow flight and short landing abilities are particularly impressive for a jet powered transport. It was even nice to see the Canadian Forces Aurora, which did some "high speed" fly-bys while the announcer read a list of the aircraft's responsibilities, which I found particularly interesting. Apparently the Aurora crews conduct a good portion of the "search" aspect of "search and rescue", as well as enforce Canada's offshore fishing claims and environmental laws. Aurora's by themselves are responsible for the detection of 85% of the known environmental protections violations happening every year in Canada's oceans. All great non-violent reasons for why we need a capable military, and an argument I'll remember to ram down the throat of the next "we don't need a military" hippy I get into an argument with. Strange that I never read this stuff in the Canadian press.

There were also two B-1B Lancer bombers this year, and one of them did fly during the show. It was great to see it flying again, although being significantly further away than I was at Oshkosh the last time I saw the B-1, it wasn't quite as loud. Still, a plane that large doing a 0.9 Mach pass over the field in full afterburner is always going to be impressive.

The Canadian Army did a small demo near the start of the show, performing a mock scene of a patrol vehicle being hit by an RPG, while troops pour out of an accompanying LAV and return fire. The Army static display was also interesting, and offered lots of weapons for the public to handle.

I had a great time this year, and hope to again next year for the 45th Anniversary show. I just hope we get that great sunshine!

Fake Photos

2006.08.12 - Saturday

Photo Fraud in Lebanon

I'd read about these staged and outright edited photos before, but this is a great video that puts it all together. This kind of stuff is absolutely ridiculous, and there should be some kind of consequence for news agencies and reporters who inflate or misrepresent facts to the public. Of course, with the huge left-wing, anti-Israel bias in the media, it doesn't actually bother them. They're probably only upset because they were caught.

Shame.

Gallery Update

2006.08.06 - Sunday

Another small gallery update, now that Stargate SG-1's third episode of season 10 has aired, and I can finally post images of the re-textured city of Atlantis. I spent about a month and a half working on this earlier in the year, with a good amount of assistance from one of our solid junior/intermediate artists, Chandra Juhasz. One of the things that always bugged me about the city was that, other than the shapes of a few of the buildings, none of it looked like it was actually built by the "Ancients". Hardly any of it seemed to match the small amount of established Ancient architecture and materials that are part of the Stargate universe. I wanted to try and bring at least a little big of those themes into the city through this re-texturing job, and I think it works for the most part, although I must admit to never being totally satisfied.

The colours had to change, for one. Unfortunately, because of continuity with previous episodes and production's desire to continue using old stock shots of the city, nothing could change too much. Instead of the old concrete-like base, I wanted to come up with some kind of material that doesn't look like the same stuff you'd see on a downtown office building. Any race as advanced as the Ancients, who's technology and structures continue to function even after millions of years of neglect, isn't going to use steel and concrete in its basic construction. Some kind of engineered substance, who's molecules are aligned in specific patterns, perhaps to emulate diamonds or other carbon composites, might be created. It has to be a material that's capable of surviving over geological time periods. I eventually settled for something that looks like concrete at first glance, but has a subtle crystalline pattern made even more visible in its highlights. I haven't had a chance to do a shot that really shows the new city off yet, but if you were to see one you'd also notice that the whole thing is slightly reflective.

As far as the colours go, a subtle green and white base with gold trim seemed to match previously established Ancient devices, like the Atlantis stargates and "Puddle Jumper" ships. Still, the original stargate technology is a dark stone colour, and the Ancient battleships we've seen are mostly steel with a red tint, so there doesn't seem to be an overall design philosophy. In a way I suppose that's a good thing, since the Ancients were around for a while and, if we are any example, preferences in design and aesthetics seem to change almost daily.

Apart from the changes to the base material, the city is largely the same. The base now has a noticeable water line, the scale of the windows was changed to be smaller, making the whole city appear larger than before. Also, some of the previously seen Ancient design patterns were placed on the large piers, including the spiked line from around the stargates and the overlapping circles from the DHDs. Some of the less appealing buildings were removed and replaced with copies of buildings from around the city at production's request, and visible landing areas were added to the large expanses of flat surface on the large piers. Each pad is numbered in Ancient writing. Also, the city was given a layer of weathering, since it's been exposed to the elements for two seasons of the show after rising from its shielded bubble under the ocean of the Atlantis planet.

Oh yes, the overall scale of the city was increased in Lightwave, which uses real world scale units for measurements. The city is now approximately 5 kilometres across, and the main tower is around 1.5 kilometres high. I'm sure there is more to mention, but it escapes me at the moment. The texturing job on Atlantis is a good example of how I like to approach my work. Making it as real as possible in my mind usually helps lead me to more interesting final products. The same philosophy can apply to flying space ships or deadly robots. If you spend some time thinking about how these fictional creatures, machines, or objects would behave if they were real, the chances are good that your visual effects will end up being more convincing. After all, it's hard to convince people of something if you don't believe in it yourself.

Proportion

2006.08.06 - Sunday

Advocates of 'proportion' are just unbalanced

Steyn always gets himself on a roll when the Middle East heats up.

"Canadian" You Say?

2006.08.02 - Wednesday

50,000 Problematic Canadians

Mark Steyn strikes again in a great piece on what seems to be Canada's increasingly liberal dispensation of citizenship to those who only seem interested in living here while their real home is locked in a war with one country or another. Once the storm passes, they go back to where they came from, never paying taxes or holding residence, only to call on our limited and very expensive evaccuation abilities to pull them from harm's way once again.

Thanks, Canadian media, for letting me know this was all happening.