Anime... in 3D

When I had posted a couple of weeks ago, I had mentioned how ‘kick-ass’ our animation would be… [buzzer!]… WRONG!

Animation sucks… it’s an awesome software to work with (3D Max) but it’s too much to remember and recall when working. You have a certain object in your mind and by the time you figure out how you should create it, you lose track of what you had initially decided. To top it all, we have some fixed number of sessions with fixed hours per session and it all has to be taught and done with in those many hours. Practical impossibility. So, we have to design this logo of our own and then animate it in three dimensions and then give it motion and make it move around. Yeah, Right! Oh, and if that is not enough, the college does not give us the software to take home and practice. It is huge, and I mean HUGE when I say that. So we have to scout around for it ourselves. When we do get our hands on it, it is a version lower then the one at college. Sheesh!

But its fun too. If I do manage to have a shape of my liking, I jump with joy. I managed making a wine glass the other day; gave it some body and texture and gloss, set up lights to reflect off its surface and then gave it some refractive index. Nice job, even if I say so myself.

Our sir made a hilarious statement the other day. In the middle of the fourth session which essentially meant eight hours of the class were up, he asks us if we have done photoshop. The class blinks at him like it was a scene out of a Japanese animation flick. Few shrug and say “Erm… err… NOPE!” To this the dear teacher reacts… “Then why the hell are you learning 3D max?” Now this is where we all feel disoriented and redeemed at the same time. Redeemed because we as a class had not been digesting anything he was teaching except for the fragmented knowledge each had on an individual level, which when put to collective use made up about ten percent of what he had taught. Sure enough, the man makes the statement about the management going nuts because you cant teach 3D to people who have not worked on 2D and then gets right back to the teaching bit in a split-second. We were too sleepy to hear what he taught after that.

All in all it has been one heck of a challenge to tackle this course and if we are given enough time to practice under guidance, we shall do well I presume. I always wanted to learn some flash animation though, wonder if they will have that as a part of their syllabi.

Ahem... Going Places...?!

So this week was my claim to fame. Lets run through it shall we?

Sunday, 18th Sept 2005

Venue: TV18 studios
Channel: CNN
Show: CNN connect (Dialogue for peace)
Panelists: Imran Khan, Praful Patel, Humayun Akhtar Khan, Shabana Azmi, Mia Mansha and Nasil Wadia

The discussion was nothing out of the ordinary but was very crisp and still jumped a lot of topics from all over. I did not get a chance to speak (like 75 others in the audience) but was good fun listening to them having a chat about improving relations with Pakistan. Good show overall I would say.

Shabana Azmi and me after the show...

Tuesday 20th Sept 2005

Venue: MTV studios, Lower Parel
Channel: MTV
Show: * not really sure*
Topic: Relevance of Mahatma Gandhi in today’s world.
Panelists: Anupam Kher, Boman Irani, Urmila Matondkar, Ashok Pandit.
Hosted by: Cyrus Sahukar.

This was a more exciting show and it was nice to have people from Delhi and Banglore, connected via satellite and all spoke their mind on the topic. It was an excited debate to say the least and the panelists were thrilled by the fact that the youth just spoke their mind and were so forthcoming. It was a lovely experience to converse with this fabulous bunch of Indians. Good fun overall. Not to mention the lovely lunch and a great class with Rajiv Chavla at the end of the day.

that would be Boman Irani and the rest of us...

Waiting for more such encounters with the biggies.

What? Whats that you said?

Random chatting on the net with certain people bring in so much of perspective in ones thinking. I was just having this conversation with a friend from college who is probably the youngest in the class and is constantly reminded of the same by one of the oldest. Now what happens is that the young lady feels a little upset, notwithstanding the fact that if we stop considering relative age difference between them and start seeing the absolute values of her age and his… it reveals that she might be younger than most but not the most immature of the lot; which I agree with, totally.

I don’t know if it is really that difficult to practice this so called “fine art” of selective listening. My take on the subject is that one should ignore the words that don’t matter to him/her and that have no purpose of existence other than annoying the very life out of his/her brain. I can do it quite well to say the least and I never knew that having such ability was really worth a mention or even a consideration as strength. To my surprise, in these recent days, I have encountered people who are suffering from a deficiency of this ability to throw out what they can’t take. I have caught myself telling them (those who have confided in me with their dissonances with the world around) not to listen to things that put you down. “No Rakshit” they say, “it’s not that simple man. People are out to get you. All that they want is to bring you down. I don’t like him saying such things to me. I don’t want him to judge me. Why is he constantly drilling unfavorable thoughts in my head?” and so on. Now, tell me, what is the simplest solution to this? What can be easier than shutting down all receptors and staring back at the person yakking away, making him feel as if he is talking in Chinese, and blinking like a Barbie? Once the person is done jabbering, nod and say thank you and not have any more recollection of the talk than a bad hangover on a Sunday morning. Really, try it the next time without having any detestation for the orator. It works like a charm.

Having said that, you might as well have skipped this piece all together, don’t you think? Try it. Go back to the top and read the first few lines and say ‘bah, screw it…” and skip onto the next blog. Should work.

:)

I could not have related to this piece written by Ruth unless I went through it myself.

Ok, frankly, it is not all that bad but it is close to what I go through these days. Have been a little sickish these past few days. Changing weather I suspect.

Didn’t have anything in particular to talk about except for the fact that I died laughing while reading Ruth’s blog and had to mention it.

elvis has left the building

In the past few days, I have been scooped hollow. I have been with some friends for eternity now but there is a mass exodus happening.

I have written about most of them but a recap never killed anyone now, did it?

Muffi: left early last month or so for the states
Mickey: died last month
Soniya: killed herself

And now for the additions

Manas: old college friend since junior college days, left for London this week.
Atit: left for Dubai this week for business.
And yesterday, Saurabh: again, for Dubai but for studying.

A note on Saurabh Kothari: he joined Green Lawns High when we were in the eighth standard. Standing at six feet odd and weighing a good eighty Kgs this man was tenderer than coconut shake. One shy, timid little mouse sitting in the corner seat managed to make no friends in the early days of school. I had a rather sad social life where school was concerned and I finally found a partner in crime there. We managed to exchange a few words and shifted places to sit with each other and then chatted till the cows came home. I never knew anything could shoot out of this little chat up but I was so wrong. Soon in the vacations, the school took a trip to Mauritius and we both signed up. And then with the journey what began was a relationship I can not forsake for life itself. We enjoyed every spoken word with each other. In fact I was amazed at the matured sense of humor this man had at times (meaning to say, most of the times he cracked himself up with these sad one liners and poor quality, downright pissing off jokes…. They worked like a charm I tell you!) We have ever since been the best of buddies and, at the cost of sounding damn blah-dee clichéd, have stood through each others thick and thin. He was one of the few who believed in my ability to make it big some day. He knew inside him that I am going to excel and God knows, he still feels the same. He never says it out but he will lecture me on the smallest of mistakes and make sure I take note of it if not follow his advice like gospel. The night before last, I was dead tired with some work at home and still I went to his place and decided to stay over so that I could go drop him at the air-port. I swear I was cut to half when I saw this man walk away with his oversized luggage. I lost a part of me. Even though there are chances that the fellow will come back in a year but still, a year is too long. After Mickey and Soniya, any moment is too long. The man loves the sea and loves winters and rain; sad part is, none of these are available there. At least not where he stays. Ok the note overshot but so have my feelings at this point. I can’t imagine Worli sea-face without his long talks about ‘getting serious in life’ or ‘ice-cream is bad at snowman’s’ depending on the mood of the day. So varied, so damn flexible. Sure miss the bugger. All the best pal!

Spoken Silence

Another song that I heard recently over the radio had me ticking…. I mean, it told a lot about our nature, our tendency to miss out on the ‘unsaid’. Little whispers in our heads are either killed or they die a natural death from asphyxiation. Voices suppressed and made unheard. It could vary; compunctions, euphoria, fear, philosophy, guidelines, orders, ethics, denial, disbelief, belief, choice… and what have you. The predominance of a psyche is a murderer. We refuse to turn around and sit back and listen. A movement of the eye, a gesture of the fingers, a turn of the head… touch… all just walk by us and we sleep through it. Funny part is, when we get into trouble we ask for miracles to bale us out of the crap; pay attention asshole. There were Divine interventions to help you not get into the damn mess in the first place.

But digressing from digression… this particular song is about hearing beyond the spoken word. It happens with people who are close to you and those who seem to be far away but are really not. It could be mere co-incidence but in the past few days I have felt myself listening to voices with a little more respect. I know it is something a lot of us do but I also know that most of us don’t. It was a thought in my mind and this song comes along and plays itself on the radio… see what I mean, confirmation of divine interventions. Haha.

When You Say Nothing At All

It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word you can light up the dark
Try as I may I could never explain
What I hear when you don’t say a thing

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes sayin’ you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you’ll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all

All day long I can hear people talking out loud
But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd
Old mr. webster could never define
What’s being said between your heart and mine

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes sayin’ you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you’ll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes sayin’ you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you’ll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all

No title for this... creative block!

So many things that have gone wrong over the days. So many, that have gone right. So many, that never register. God knows, life is moving faster than I can recall any of it. May be it is relative but it still is so damn fast.

A friend of mine has gone and done a stupid thing like committing suicide. I will leave it there. I don’t feel like talking about it. Returning to egotistical tendencies, I am as usual buried in work. But this is worth a mention. I had to submit this project on any subject provided it was a power point presentation. That’s where I chose myself as a subject and decided to make a CV (I mentioned it in the last post I guess). So anyway, I hand over these few pics of mine to Najeshda, and ask her to do some art work on it… and man, this sea of creativity, just makes an awesome collage. You can find it here.

Have been spending whole days in college recently. All thanks to animation in 3D. Interesting class but the damn thing starts at nine and ends at eleven and the lectures are at four… projects pile up and group discussions take place for a precise ten minutes. Then what? Eat drink and be merry. Day before yesterday though, we had an awesome four hour jam session with lovely Indian songs dashed and sprinkled with select classics from the west. Incumbents in question: Kavita with a number of years of training backing her voice, Chitra, maybe not trained but a lovely voice none the less, Abhishek, a master at strumming the life into old songs and new Hindi rock. Then there was an Austin who plays the blues and classic rock like no one else. Binita, Khyati, Tanaya, Amruta, Devang, Sana, and Amisha, all fans of music joined in every song and sang aloud in a way I have never heard them. Was such awesome fun. The beauty of it all is when you get back home, there is something new to think and smile about. When one looks back at the day and thinks of all the people one has met and known, it just adds another name to the list of a well lived life. There is guilt in having spent a non-productive day but it is so trifled by the feeling of having achieved a new friend. And dear lord I sound like a desperate housewife or something so I better balk right here.

Considering the kind of write-ups I’m posting these days, I have decided to entertain guest-posts. If the humble readership of this web-page entices any of u, kindly mail me anything you would like to post.

rakshit.doshi@rediffmail.com