Autocad and the Growth of Fluffy-Muffin

How's Everyone doing? Just wanted to give everybody an update on how stuff has been going. I am just now getting over a pretty bad cold. Right now at school we are working on putting together the early pages of a CD (Construction Document) set. Apparently one of those first pages is a Demolition plan. Basically what we're doing here is taking the survey, editing out a ton of information we don't need, and then highlighting things like ares to be demolished, staging areas, trees to be removed, and ares to be protected. It makes you think a lot about all the measures that must be taken to ensure safe work to people and the environment during construction.

In other news the Fluffy-Muffin website is going great! Still growing. Here is one of our popular comics. I can't express how much fun I have working on this website!

come check us out at the Fluffy Muffin and please like our Facebook Page to show your support! Until Next Time~

More Playing with Flash

So here is a super low quality video that is a combination of flash with some terrible audio installed in windows movie maker. Yea during the recording of the audio the dish washer was running. This is a super rough test and exploration for what we could be using in the beginning of all future fluffy muffin videos.

Playing With Flash

I had my first encounter with Flash last night and so far it has been very fulfilling. Adobe's tutorials are top notch in helping you to get to know the basics. Today I plan to learn a lot more and eventually put all this fun to work. Here is a quick animation I made after only about 20 minutes of reading.


Now if you can imagine putting any artwork as those circles and any movement over time as their paths and the possibilities really seem endless. I am also super excited to include audio. End goal of this is to make a really cool video intro for the fluffy muffin videos over at the website I've been telling you guys about. Fluffy Muffin Try it out if you have the chance! You can download the free trial of Flash Pro at adobe's website!
Until Next Time!

Playing with Thea

Today I have been playing around with Thea Render a bit. Here is one of the Example Models I applied some material to and rendered. This could turn out to be really fun!

This image is composed of three textures. One for the floor, one for the Thea logo, and one for the white tiling. Other elements is that the entire model is surrounded by a box with a light emitting surface made to look like a window so you see that reflection on the surface. Time to go play more! Until next time~

Final Project

Here is the final layout for the Ballard Neighborhood Design Studio. I think it turned out fairly well. Some of the most valuable feedback was the disconnect in ideas between the greenways and the intersection.

On Wednesday we are doing an open house to the community in Ballard. Wish us luck!

Ballard GreenWays Update

This is what im working on tonight!

Thea Render

I just now made my very first rendered image using thea render. I'm pretty excited to finally get my hands on this program. The price for students is insanely cheap. About 100 bucks for me.

I got the program itself which allows you to import models and two plugins which allows you to render from the programs itself. I will definitely keep posting my progress on here. As of now I've only had a bout 20 minutes to play with the program itself so we'll see where this goes! Also update on how the fluffy muffin is doing. We have just been approved for google adsense so thats a step in the right direction!. We are adding a new section as well. Something about surviving life/college. I'll be posting on that a minimum of once a week and the other team mates will be posting as well. AND we are currently in the process of reorganizing and redesigning the entire site and the GUI. Stay tuned!

Taiwan-Summer 2011

Hey guys I thought today (Randomly) would be a good day to post some of my pictures from Taiwan. Keep in mind these are unedited and I haven't put too much thought into what into what's going up. Here it goes!

There are alot of pictures so click below to see all of them! Oh and don't forget you can always scroll through the higher resolution images by clicking one of the pictures. Enjoy! 

Ballard Community and Designers Meeting

Friday we had a quick meeting/review with the Ballard Community Council to give them an update on our progress and developing ideas. Here is part of what we showed them. We got some good feedback and direction/voiced concerns over the course of the day so that now we can address them over the next two weeks. Please Click the Picture for Higher Quality Images

I think from here we are moving to a more over-arching theme of Health in the project. Taking the health themes expressed on page 1 and pushing them and calling them out throughout the whole project. Thanks for checking it out!
Until next time!

Healthy Places

Hey guys quick update on how this week is progressing. My professor has encouraged us to think in the direction of healthy places and healthy neighbor hoods. So what kind of health are we talking about? There is obviously the health of body then the less talked about health of mind and finally we need to promote healthy relationships. I want to take this new angled look at the project over the next few days. Here is a couple images to go with that.

Also, in other news, tonight Alice and I went to a seminar/ demonstration of Photoshop at the Adobe building in Fremont. It was pretty cool, artist David Julian was there showing some of the techniques he uses in his art. It all seemed pretty basic techniques, such as using masks, but he uses them in a way that stuff turns out really well.

Camera Posts in Rhino 4

Hi guys. Today I am going to be doing a quick tutorial on making rhino camera shots. Its quick and dirty. I am Helping out a friend tomorrow on this subject and just wanted to make sure I can still do it so here we go.

First I've set up a basic land form that you may want to camera shot different angles of.

This first thing you want to do is make some "camera posts". Now usually if you want a specific view you are trying to get a view of a human at your site. So I've made my camera posts 5.5 feet tall and put them at several corners of the landscape. You can put these posts anywhere you wish. Its easiest to put them at corners, edges, intersections, etc because then you can snap the end of your line to one of those objects, just make sure your snaps aren't disabled at the bottom of your screen.

This is the landscape in perspective view after the posts have been added. Also when you are drawing your post lines make sure you are holding shift on the vertical scale so that your posts are strait. make sure you draw them in them first in the top view then finishing them in the front or right view to ensure that you aren't flying off into space.

So now you want to first double click the perspective title in the perspective viewport. Then right click that and hover over "set camera" then on the next menu click "set camera and target". Then with click the top of the post you wish to be the source of your first view. Then with the second click on where you want the view to be looking. You will probably get something like this. pretty narrow viewport.

So here I wanted to get a slightly more panoramic view so double click the perspective title again to go back to your four viewport screen. Then in top view click release then click and drag slowly the edge point of the camera box to widen the view. If you cannot see your camera outline thus are not able to manipulate it right hit F6 or right click the perspective title >>> set camera >>> show camera. now you should have a more desirable view.

Now to save your view you want to click and hold the little car icon at the top of your screen. and click the grey car with the floppy disc icon next to it. The command bar is going to request a name but be sure that when you name your view you DO NOT include any spaces in the title. You pressing space bar will end the titling and start new commands. Once your view is saved you can always access/manage it by pressing and holdign the red car again but this time clicking on the grey car with the pointing finger above it. Click the title of the view you want and your set! These views will exist regardless of what new modeling is added or old modeling is manipulated, You can even delete or hide your camera posts for rendering. Hope this helps!

Until next time!

I Love Hexagons!

I heard some quote or something the other day about how you should never say that you don't have enough time in life to do this or do that, because you have the exact same amount of hours in a day that the great doers of the world had/have. Then the quote went on to name some great accomplishing people, Einstein, Mozart...etc etc. And it kind of struck me. Its true? The more i thought about it and discussed it with a couple people. Yea that the quote is a little bit generalized, but nonetheless it has kind of given me some fresh encouragement that I'm not sure is correct.

My biggest issue in life I think is that I want to do so many different things. Sometimes I get frustrated with the whole path of things that you have to finish one thing before you can start another. I have to finish this degree before I can start another. I have to make money in this profession before I start another. But are those people who were great, did they always stick with one thing. What if you have several passions? How do you choose which to pursue. I guess my question is can I pursue all of them????

I dont think it's indecision as much as...indecision.. whatever.

Back to Ballard. This last week are putting together some design refinements for another presentation to the Ballard Community council on the 24th of February. JJust been putting together some basic graphics to show them which will go through another round of work before our final on march 9th.

In other news, I finally met with my professional mentor! She was great and encouraged me to apply to more internships. It was great to meet with somebody that is fairly recently out of a Landscape Architecture program and so is very familiar with the current Landscape Educational experience and had some great advice! and im not just saying this in case you read this! :D Anyways.

This is what we are working on the Ballard Project. Some rough graphics. Click the images for Larger, more clear views.

and next I am trying to come up with some ideas for an overlying portfolio theme thing... here is something i threw together today.

I love hexagons.
Until Next Time!

LID Enhanced Greenways and Stops as Destinations

Hey guys, today we met with community members of Ballard and bounced some ideas off them on the future of Ballard around a series of Rapid Ride Stops. It was a good experience and it always helps to work with real people to get a sense of real world concerns. I have found myself concerned more and more with the financial side of projects. I was telling my partner today, I dont see a beautiful canopy spread across the intersection, all I see is a giant $ falling crushing the entire project from reality. What I am interested in is rooting out community support and community groups that are already established and working with them to make some of the project cheap, and thus more likely to happen. Because in the end what does it always come down to? Will power and money? Mostly money. Here is a couple photos I took while working in the studio on Sunday for the Monday meeting.
I should mention those green corridors being sketched out are planned to be Low Impact Developement (LID) enhanced greenways, meaning that they share the road with the little vehicular traffic that exists there.

Next we move into the digital stage and further look into funding and areas that we can possible do some rezoning....touchy.
Until next time! :D

Internship Applications as Practice Portfolios

Yesterday I submitted an application to another internship and I came to realize that as I apply to internships it becomes a little easier each time to submit "sample work" It's an abbreviated portfolio so to speak. Now the last internship I applied to I was even less satisfied with my application than this one,but this one I have started to think about the style I want to show, and themes and types of works I want to put forward. Here is what I submitted yesterday.

The reason for these particular pieces is that the call for applications specifically mentioned the adobe suite, CAD, and Sketchup, so for this particular submission I didn't include any Rhino or physical model building.
Until next time!

Getting Dirty Digging

Hi guys, today I'm just going to be giving a quick update about what the future of the quarter is looking like. It looks like its going to be fun! I have to admit that thus far the quarter has been pretty slow going, and I think that is mostly my fault for not taking full advantage of my time. This quarter in Restoration Ecology we are going to be getting our hands dirty in restoring part of the Union Bay Natural Area. We have compiled a rough, super simplified, restoration plan and now are doing peer reviews. After the reviews we will be revising and adding to the plan then submit it for final approval to our professor. Once we have approval we can get on with the dirty work! Just wondering....should I buy more waterproof boots? Probably...
The next hands on activity is we have the option, which I am taking, to help design and build a rain garden at a residence in the Ballard neighborhood with Mithun.Also very very exciting. Yes I know, to some of you building a rain garden is not a huge deal but its a first for me!.
More new stuff, I am debating on getting a kindle or kindle fire for reading the large amounts of online reading that this program requires as I find myself falling further and further behind in assigned readings. But most likely that's just an excuse I'm using. Need to find a job first!. Anyways, we are also having our mentor meet and greet this Friday. There is going to be food, drink, and some interesting presentations!. Now what picture should I include on this post....how about one of my desk! Delicious...

Urban Agriculture

Hi Everyone!
This week in studio we presented our findings about our topics of interest. Mine was Urban Agriculture. The first page of the document I put together outlines words we associate with the two separate terms, "Urban" and "Agriculture". It then goes on to explore why we as a society grow in one place but not in others. Then breaking that down the document explores precedents that have broken out of the normal box of food production to try something "new" in the urban environment.

The examples on this page explore three different reasons why people decide to grow in an urban environment rather that the traditional rural. The first reason being that in Gaza they are effectively cut off from a rural food supply thus they must grow their own food on their roofs to survive. The second example is of a company intending to make money by eliminating the need for land, soil, and much water through the science of hydroponics land "vertical farming"> Green Green Earth company is based and Japan and serves companies like Subway, Disneyland, and the US Military according to their website.

The last page brings the issues closer to Ballard and shows that the Ballard neighborhood in Seattle has a real desire to move into the area of Urban Agriculture. We can see this in these examples which are very few in compared to the many out in the neighborhood that are currently active.

There are some URL's in the bottom right hand corner of the final page if you want to learn more!
Until Next Time!

From Beginning to End: Sketchbook

This post is going to be the first installment of projects that I have completed from "beginning to end" meaning the initial concept phase up to the making of a final prototype project. The first project is a sketchbook I made for my girlfriend for Christmas. Alice does all the comics for our website Fluffy-Muffin so I thought I'd give her this to make it a little more official.

The first phase obviously was thinking up what to do in the first place. This is what some of the initial sketches looked like.

I kind of mulled about on this concept for a week or two then ended up going in an entirely different direction and decided to go strait to a RHINO model. First I was going to go landscape orientation but decided on portrait just because she usually likes that better.

I then exported these vectors to autocad and simplified it to make a CNC laser cutter compatible file. All that really means is making the lines you want cut to be red and a 1.00mm line weight and the lines you want etched in blue. everything else should be on a no-plot layer.

The cuts came out fairly nicely.

Then here is the final product after staining, sanding, and glue!

I am definitely going to make some variations of this in the future. My next one I am planning to use cut stainless steel on the front rather than wood stained a different color. I'll let ya know how it turns out!

Until next time!