Denim never dies, and neither do we!

A couple people wrote and asked why I've been so reluctant to post anything about my animation work-in-progress. It's not a question of being shy about my "art," although showcasing incomplete work can admittedly lead to too-many-cooks syndrome sometimes. No, I'm simply trying to spare you the unimaginable tedium such an indulgence would lead to.

By way of illustration, here's an amazing simulation of what it would be like to read such an entry:

The rig so far, with TSM-added FK/IK targets.

Finally finished the shoulder rig last night. It took nine fan-bones with meticulously arranged origin points, but I don't know that Smartskin would've been any faster, especially with the inexplicable stray-CP artifacts I had to iron out manually on the hip/knee joints. I wish it could've gone more swiftly than the 16 painstaking hours I had to spend making minute trial-and-error alterations to the Orient-Like constraint enforcement percentages, but then, shoulders are tough for everybody. A:M's inability to mirror bones has resulted in a less-than-symmetrical skeletal system, a shortcoming I find baffling in a modern spline-based modeling environment. Hopefully with the toon rendering no one should notice.

See what I mean? You'd be begging me for more photos of temples after a few days of that.

Believe it or not, all the stuff written above is true. I am, in fact, feeling groggy and worn out from one too many late nights spent staring at... well, see the above screenshot. Exactly as I predicted I would be, I note.

Still, I wouldn't trade my new life for anything. Even with the near-debilitating amount of time I'm spending on my geeky hobby, a glance at my calendar reveals that I'm actually socializing more than I did while at Nova. In the last two weeks, I've been out dining with Daisuke, had tea with Minako, and got shown around the Edo Museum by Sumie. This time tomorrow I'll be seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 with Daniel, and I've even got a special surprise visitor coming next month. It's good. I wouldn't want to live this kind of life indefinitely—too many instant-ramen dinners, for my taste— but it's mighty fine for now.

My apologies to those of you who've been awaiting an in-depth account of my recent career shift, but the lull in entries is going to have to go on a bit longer, as I've been spending virtually every minute of my newly abundant free time on 3D-modeling and animation. I've been teaching myself Hash Animation Master and building characters for a short project that some of you may remember me mentioning.

I figure I'll hit a wall before too long—by the end of the week, I'll probably need a major break from all this hunching over my laptop and clicking on tiny dots, and maybe that'll be a good time for Account updates. But there's a reason for the toil. I've already cast and rehearsed a voice actress for a test animation, and I'll probably be laying down some voice tracks before the end of the month. If I don't have at least a semi-animatable character by then, I'll be kicking myself.

The early renders have been pretty exciting for me, considering my complete lack of animation experience. I'm still spending way too much time at my computer, but I've got a lot to show for it. Maybe I should start another blog.

I don't know what I'd do if it weren't for Kimi Information Center. Not only did they find me my apartment, they made it possible for me to quit my Nova job and work for them. And, of course, they organize seasonal field trips like the previously documented hanami party. And now this, my first Japanese hanabi experience.

Honestly, if it weren't for them, I'd probably have left the country already.

("Hana" means flower. "Mi" is the stem of the verb miru, to see, so "hanami" means flower-viewing, specifically cherry blossoms. "Hi," pronounced "bi" when it apears at the end of words, means day, sun or fire, thus "hanabi" means "flower fire," known in English as fireworks. Never let anyone tell you Japanese isn't a versatile language.)

Despite similarities to the American/Canadian equivalents in July, fireworks in Japan are on a whole other level. For one thing, it's not a special day, it's a whole season. From the end of July all the way through August, townships all over Japan organize festive events showcasing the best fireworks this side of China. People dress up for this—expect to see men, women and children dressed up in yukata, summer kimonos, and clomping around in those nifty wooden sandals.

This is where Japan's overwhelming crowdedness really becomes apparent. (For the uninitiated: a population half the size of the United States' living on an island smaller than California.) The viewing area looked to be something like ten football fields long, with what must have been tens of thousands of people. But that's not the crazy part. The crazy part is, I've talked to at least three people who went to see fireworks on the same night as me, and none of them were at this festival.

The vibe of a Japanese-style fireworks festival is remarkably different from what I'm used to back home. For most of us, fireworks are something you drive to, sit and watch for an hour, and go home. Hanabi are more of an all-night affair in Japan. Here you'll need that hour just to get to your seat (you did reserve a seat, right?). The fireworks run for two and a half hours, so sit back with your family and friends, have some beer, and enjoy the show. When it's over, the ten thousand people here all need to stagger to the same train station, so no point in rushing.

The Japanese spirit of community never fails to amaze me. Even spread out over an entire month, and not even tied to a specific independence celebration, the hanabi bring out the entire population—dressed up, well behaved and delighted to be outside.

I admit it, I'm jealous.

Enough talking, let's see some fireworks!

Well, what can I say. It's only a new job, but it feels like a whole new way of life. Thus, as Henry playfully suggested last week, it may be time for a new Account as well.

I'd been growing dissatisfied with the old version ever since I got my camera and started posting pictures. The stark black-and-white design was one I was particularly proud of, but it was intended for a text-based blog, and just wasn't designed to accommodate all those colorful thumbnail images. My recent career upheaval, along with the increase in free time that came with it, seemed like a good opportunity to make some much-needed changes.

(Unfortunately, I no longer have access to the professional web-design resources that I once enjoyed, and I wasn't able do do my usual rigorous testing. If the new site displays improperly in your browser, please let me know and I'll do my best to fix it.)

What do you think, folks?

I'm overwhelmed.

I've thrown parties before, but I've never experienced anything quite like this. What started out as a simple housewarming party (seven months after I moved in, but hey—it took me a while to furnish the place) somehow ballooned into a... well, a real party.

I admit it. I'd been so convinced of the party's sure-to-be-lackluster turnout that I started getting bitter about it weeks before the actual event. Most of the get-togethers I've organized in the past have tended to be a little anemic, not so much because people shun me, just that they don't really associate my name and the word "fun." That's mostly my fault; I can't really blame them.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when partigoers started arriving en masse. My former Nova coworkers came first, followed by other Nova people I've met over the past year, their friends, and eventually one of my private students and her friends.

I had not considered this possibility. My living room is 8.5 feet by 12 feet (260x360cm), and comfortably seats six. By the end of the evening, 22 people had somehow squeezed into it. While I'd provided a popular assortment of hard-to-find western snack foods, the party's beverages were generously supplied by the arriving guests themselves, creating a sort of self-sustaining, critical-mass party explosion.

Eventually, in an ironic play on the word "housewarming," my air conditioner proved increasingly unable to dispel the heat generated by two dozen gaijin, and the living room eventually turned into a kiln. But my valiant guests, perhaps captivated by my refined taste in home furnishings, soldiered on.

Deep down, I realize I may never be this popular again, but to those of you who were there, I salute you. May the memories live on as tiny snapshots in your cell phones.

Clockwise from center:
Steve, Mark, unidentified Japanese man, the back of Nicola's head, Helen, Kath, Kane, Paul, Scott, Daniel, Keyah, Josh, Gavin's knee, Doug's knee.