The life and times of an animator, a photographer, and a geek.
The smileys are running out of control!
This was just one of the many streams of smileys that littered an IM “conversation” I had with Mei tonight. As you can see from the image, I couldn’t actually send that particular set, but I did manage to cut it down to a few smaller blocks. It was madness.
This evening, while Mei and I were chatting on MSN, I was trying to think of other methods of communication that we could use. It occurred me that it might be cool to send live video to Mei every so often instead of just pre-recorded video and images. I already have an iSight, so the hardware end of things is cool. All that is needed is the software.
My first thought was to use iChat’s video conferencing capabilities. However, I rejected this immediately, because Mei doesn’t have a Mac. Then I remembered that iChat and AIM can talk to each other via video. However, I’ve never been happy with AIM’s video capabilities, and Mei doesn’t have an AIM account.
I realized then that it wasn’t necessary for us to use video conferencing at all. Since I would be the only one transmitting video, all I would need is webcam software. It just so happened that I already had a webcam program on my Powerbook, and it is Evological’s EvoCam.
I won’t get into all of the nitty gritty details of EvoCam. You can read all about it on Evological’s site if you feel like learning more. I will say that EvoCam is a very simple and straightforward application that allows me to use my Powerbook to stream live video from my iSight. Like all of the other Mac applications that I’ve mentioned in this blog, EvoCam is high-quality software that what it is designed to do very well.
Setup was incredibly easy. All I had to do was configure my router to forward the correct port to my Powerbook (probably the hardest part of the process), plug in my iSight, fire up EvoCam, and enable the built-in web server. Within minutes Mei was viewing a live video feed of me and Sheena in her web browser. The framerate wasn’t stellar (probably because my Powerbook was also running Mail, NetNewsWire, Adium, Snak, and Skype at the same time), but it was usable for our purposes.
Communicating with Mei just got a lot more fun. Not only can we talk with each other using Skype, I can now also show her live video of me and Sheena. We actually tried an experiment tonight to see if Sheena would respond to Mei’s voice. I switched Skype’s audio output from my headset to my speakers, and Mei started calling to Sheena (who was sitting on my desk at the time). As soon as Sheena heard Mei’s voice, her ears perked up, and she started pacing around my desk searching for Mei. Sheena even started meowing in response to Mei’s calls. I was streaming Sheena’s actions via EvoCam the entire time, so Mei could see how Sheena reacted. Mei was very happy to see Sheena respond to her voice.
First we had MSN and email. Then we added a blog. Then Skype chimed in. And now, I’m using a webcam. It’s quite a juggling act keeping track of everything, but it is amazingly great to have all these different ways of staying connected with Mei.
Wow, a whole week since my last post. It’s been pretty hectic for me lately as I’ve been putting in some extra hours at work and keeping busy with other stuff. I haven’t touched the horse animations since last week, but I will get back to them in a couple of days. Hopefully, I’ll be able to wrap up the last of animations in next week or so, and Robert can officially ship the Horse Content Pack.
This weekend, I’ve been busy working on some short character animations. A local game development studio contacted me last Monday, told me they were looking to hire an animator, and said they liked what they saw on my site. They’ve asked me to do some test animations for them, so they can “get a better sense of what I am capable of”. If what I submit matches their requirements, they’ll call me in for an in-person interview.
I’m using a character that they’ve provided, and everything is done in Maya. I won’t go into the specifics of what the character and animations are, but I will say that it is a human character, and the animations are pretty typical of most character-based adventure games. The animations aren’t terribly difficult, but they do take time to finish.
The animations need to be submitted on Monday, so I don’t have a whole lot of time left. I wasn’t able to do much work on them during the week due to sheer exhaustion from full-time work. All I was really able to do was look at the rig, get a feel for how the controls are set up, and plan out how I want to do the animations. I was able to spend most of Saturday actually animating, and I’ll have all day Sunday to finish them off.
I was really caught off guard by these animation tests. This type of thing is actually an unusual thing for me, because a) this is only the second animation test I’ve ever had to do (the first being the Godzilla animations for Pipeworks way back when), and b) I haven’t used Maya to animate anything in months. I’ve been using Max for production work almost exclusively since April of last year. The only Maya-related work I’ve done in the last year is infrequent updates to the Maya2DTS Online Reference and tiny things here and there for the Garage Games community. Needless to say, it took some time to reset my brain for Maya mode.
Despite the short time-frame to complete the animations and the workflow adjustment, thing are going pretty well. I have the hardest of the animations pretty close to done. It just needs a clean-up/polish pass to get it as close to perfect as I have time for. The other two animations shouldn’t be too difficult to finish off on Sunday. I’m in major crunch mode, but I’m happy that I’m animating.
Mei and I communicate online a lot. We use MSN Messenger. We send emails. We even have our own private blog. With an ocean between us and a 16-hour time difference, it’s tough to coordinate phone calls. Also, international calls are expensive, so free text-based services have been our primary means of communication while we live in different countries. As convenient as text-based communication is, it’s just not the same thing as hearing the other person’s voice.
Now we don’t have to rely only on text-based communication anymore. When we IM each other, we’re both in front of computers at the same time. Instead of communicating via text only, we can actually use our computers to talk to each other using a nifty service called Skype.
Skype is a free internet telephony service that has clients for Windows, OS X, and Linux. You can call other people on their computers. You can IM them. You can even call normal land and mobile numbers (for a nominal per-minute fee). All you need is a microphone, speakers, a Skype account, and a decent internet connection. You can also use a headset if you’ve already got one for online gaming or other voice-related computer tasks.
After signing up for an account during the beta stage of the OS X version and testing with their built-in test account, I finally tried out an actual conversation tonight with Mei. I used the OS X version of Skype and my Logitech Premium USB Headset 300 on my Powerbook here in Renton. Mei used the Windows version and external mic and speakers on her Sony Vaio desktop in Taipei.
Setup was incredibly quick and easy. This was proven by Mei signing up for an account, installing the software, and placing a call to me in less than 10 minutes without her asking me a single question on how to do things (she did ask me what I thought she should use as a sign-in name). It really is that simple.
We’ve talked to each on cell phones between countries, and there are times when the signals cut out or static came in due to weather/bad positioning in the apartment/tree falling in the woods where no one is. The flakey reception is frustrating at best, and, of course, international calls aren’t exactly cheap. Then, there’s the issue of battery life on the phones and remembering to have a full charge before we speak.
With Skype we had none of those problems. The audio was very crisp and clear. There were no connection issues even though we’re on opposite sides of the Pacific. Best of all, it was completely free. There was a very slight delay as audio was encoded and transmitted over the network, but it’s no worse than the lag you can encounter on cell phone calls. We kept our conversation going without issues for about an hour.
We supplemented our voice chat with Skype’s built-in IM system. It’s not as feature-filled as other IM clients, but it works just fine. It offers all of the basics like emoticons, auto-linking URLs, and file transfers. The emoticons are actually kind of nice. They remind of some of the custom ones I’ve seen on AdiumX’s Xtra’s page. There’s even an iPod-esque emoticon labeled as “MP3″. We had fun sending various emoticons to accentuate jokes and comments made during our conversation.
The UI is very clean, easy-to-read, and fluid. It actually reminded me of how simple and straightforward a lot of OS X applications are. In fact, the OS X version has a nifty Mail-style sidebar that automatically hides and shows itself when you select/deselect a name on your contact list. It also shows itself when you start a call and displays the person you’re talking with along with the current length of the call. There’s even a nice little counter at the bottom of the window showing how many Skype users are online. As I type this 1,106,433 users are online. Wow.
I am very impressed with how simple and easy Skype is. Mei and I just installed the software, plugged in the necessary hardware, signed in, and started talking without so much as blinking. As they say on their site, it just works.
Regardless of the features and quality of the service, the best thing about Skype is that I can actually hear Mei’s voice on a more regular basis. We share pictures quite frequently. I occasionally upload short video clips for her to view. We respond to each other with text and emoticons. However, nothing beats actually hearing the other person’s voice. When I show Mei a cute picture of Sheena, I can hear Mei say “Oooooohhhh!!! She is soooo cuuuute!!!!” When I tell her about something funny that my mom said, I can hear her laugh. When she’s not feeling well, I can try to talk to her in a comforting and supportive tone of voice.
I think Skype is going to be more than just a convenient and inexpensive way to talk with Mei while she’s in Taiwan. It’s going to help us stay strong while we’re apart. It’s going to keep us going when we miss each other so much. It’s just one more way we can stay connected until we can see each other in person again.
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