http://oceanbluesky.cgsociety.org/gallery/ oceanbluesky's gallery of images en-us 120 http://oceanbluesky.cgsociety.org/gallery/365140

Came across this prayer today on an item which a girlfriend gave me a long time ago and thought it was worth sharing here, especially as we come in toward the finish of this challenge...I read it more as a poem than a prayer...it was written by Sir Francis Drake on the eve of his circumnavigation of the world in 1577 (there's a lot of stuff from various religions in this thread...thought adding this one wouldn't hurt either...I am definitely not a religious nut of any persuasion...we have way more than enough):
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Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
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Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
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Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
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We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
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!!!]]> Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:31:14 +0000 http://oceanbluesky.cgsociety.org/gallery/365143

"The Journey Begins" Challenge Entry
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Things to know before reading the “poetic” backstory (backstory to the backstory):
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"Space X" is a real privately operated commercial space exploration company; Point Magoo is a satellite launch facility in Southern California. Boxx is a computer manufacturer sponsoring this CG Society Challenge (of course); Boxx makes an ultra-highend line of computers called Apexxes. Additional sponsors are the makers of the design tools: Maya, Z Brush, and Painter.
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Meant to be read in Seussian-like anapestic tetrameter verse (or as close as possible given I wrote this without adaquate sleep...will update later):
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From the cherry gardens of Kyoto,
to the launching pads of Point Magoo,
one hundred and twenty wise butterflies set off
to see what they could do!
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They watched many Space X launches,
from here to Timbuktu;
on napkins, dried leaves, and blackboards,
outlandish concepts grew!
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Optimistic with their hunches,
a little nutty too,
they joined CG Society,
to see their concepts through!
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Studying design at breakfast,
dreaming of Apexxes at lunch,
they searched the world for sponsors:
Z Brush, Maya, Painter
with Boxx, the best of the bunch.
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They were joined by little bees who could
Barb and Bob Woowhoo,
and set off on their journey
to Valbo, Hjo, and Manacapuru.
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"Where do they come from?" people would say.
"I don't know -- but they've come a long way!"
Places you might know:
Brazil France and Sweden,
Örsundsbro Värnamo, Fitou Örebro.
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Some say Saint-Cloud, others Chateauroux.
They spread their message joyfully
from Honolulu to Woolloomooloo,
from Nogent Le Retrou to Kalamazoo.
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What do they sound like flying?
Can you say?
Like Talmudic pages turning,
in an old fashioned way.
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What do they say when you hear them?
They say, "I wish,
I wish, I wish, I wish -- I wish I were a kish!
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Tell people you love, you love them
before it is too late.
Set a date to tell them
to set the matter straight!"
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Oh!
This is something new!
I wish I were a kish too!!
I would spread lots of kishes
in Kathmandu and Xanadu
from Aracaçu to Pacaembu.
I would spread many kisses
for me
and also
for
you.
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_
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Congratulate yourselves if you have done
something strange and extravagant and
broken the monotony of a decorous age.
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-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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! :: C R E D I T S :: !
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Very briefly...will write more after catching up on sleep...roughly in the order of your posts to this thread:
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Efcharisto! Antonis Papantoniou
Danke schön Torsten Thuenen!
Khawp khun! Kanokporn Mahaek!
Thanks Andrew Kinabrew!
Thanks Selina Moore!
Gracias Mario Antonini!
Tack så mycket Gunie Elam!
Thank you Adrienne Donatelli! (MT Cup whoowhoo!)
Merci Michel Cavro!
Danke schön Matt Benya!
Lee Niven, thanks!
Dank je Nico Strobbe!
Mark David! Thanks mate!
Thanks Jacques Pena!
Hey Michael Burburan thanks mate!
Tesekkür ederim, Ozan Çivit!
Muchas Gracias Jorge Lescale!
Thanks Matt Jones!
Takk Mathias!
Thanks Alvin!
Terima kasih banyak-banyak, Vincent Wan!
Thanks Grant Warwick!
Merci, Mamnoon! Mohammad Coochaki!
Tack så mycket Mona Eriksson!
Thanks John Shakespeare!
Merci Thierry Schiel!
Takk Per Trystad!
Dank je Job v Linden vd Heuvell!
Hey Alex Voznesenski, thanks mate!
Muchas gracias Richard Suarez!
Thanks Nathan S (or NDS)!
Thanks Glenn Dean!
Merci Derferic!
Gracias Omar Carias!
Efcharisto! Dimitris Liatsos!
Hey Paul Riess, thanks mate!
Thanks Debbie Overstreet!
Grazie Marco Fantechi!
Gracias Giovanni Castro!
Doh je! Kreuz Chang!
Merci Olivier Ponsonnet!
Obrigado Carlos Bernardo Junior!
Dakujem ti Juraj Molcak!
Doh je! Qian Jin!
Mnogo blagodarya Sergio Ghazarian!
Gracias Omar Carias!
Hey thanks James H. Genius!
Thanks Mike Moir!
Gracias Fernando Aracena!
Thanks Jack zhang!
Merci, Mamnoon! Ali Jalali!
Thanks Eric Maslowski!
Sayol Timur Kiryashov!
Thanks Ed Parkinson!
Thanks to you and your hot fairy Mauro Bonelli!
Merci Laurent Antoine Lemog!
Multumesc Ioan Dumitrescu!
Tesekkür ederim Berkay Dincman!
Mark Endre Seljan Hungary
Gracias Stéphane Chasseloup!
Hey thanks David Russell!
Tesekkür ederim Soner Yurtseven!
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Thanks to all who participated in this Challenge and enabled the CG Society to thrive as a community of support, learning, and wonder (in addition to being a generous purveyour of BoxxTech goodies!) Nice meeting you all! Such a wonderful supportive creative bunch of artists...it is humbling and breathtaking to have conversed with and learned from you! Have a good summer!]]> Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:54:01 +0000 http://oceanbluesky.cgsociety.org/gallery/365146

Character Sheet for Bob, used to create "The Journey Begins" Challenge Entry
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(Note the logos for our Challenge sponsors on Bob's suit: Autodesk, Boxx, Corel, Ballistic Publishing...)
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Info on the BoxxTech Rewards program is worth repeating:
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If you add "Boxx" to your images somewhere, you may possibly obtain BoxxRewards points sometime down the line...check out this amazing cool program by BoxxTech: http://www.boxxtech.com/rewards/overview.asp
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Character Sheet for Barb, used to create "The Journey Begins" Challenge Entry (in this render her eyes are a bit screwed up because I forgot to unhide her irises...hope that doesn't detract too much.)
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Nearly everyone on this board -- if only by virtue of having the wherewithal and initiative to participate in this challenge -- could strive to have a lasting meaningful impact -- spiritually, financially, aesthetically, and so on -- upon the commercial CG community. One important component to such participation would seem to include a firm understanding of the market for our work. There are not many books about the business-side of computer graphics but a lot can be learned by simply listening to earnings report conference calls for Disney and similarly influential companies.
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The cool thing is, we can do this while working...and then really start dreaming: big. Why the heck dream little?? Participants in this challenge are from all over the world -- literally reading through their posts is a journey in itself. At least two participants are from Azerbaijan -- there are only seven million people in Azerbaijan, two of them participate in this Challenge. It would be pretty cool if the next Pixar or Disney feature were to draw upon the idioms, traditions, and perspectives of Azerbaijan rather than Southern California, again and again.
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Also, business persons who may not necessarily even use the tools we rely upon as artists are making decisions about them which dramatically affect our lives. The world can only be better if artists are aware of the decision-making processes behind the production of our tools and the marketing of our work.
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Here are a few links which may be interesting:
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http://investors.autodesk.com/phoen...l-audioArchives
http://corporate.pixar.com/
http://www.marvel.com/company/index...sts_current.php
http://www.adobe.com/macromedia/ir/...nference_calls/
http://corporate.disney.go.com/inve...sentations.html
http://corporate.disney.go.com/investors/earnings.html
http://www.leapfroginvestor.com/pho...p=irol-calendar
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Hope that is helpfull to everyone stopping by...if you can suggest similar links we can keep a running update.
.]]> Fri, 02 Jun 2006 01:05:46 +0000 http://oceanbluesky.cgsociety.org/gallery/365137

While thinking about themes for the eventual backstory two quotes about traveling came to mind. The first is actually by Mohammed and is very straightforward: “Do not tell me how educated you are, tell me where you have traveled.” (I am not a Muslim but think that saying is very instructive.) My absolute favorite call to travel though is by a Brahmin poet who lived in what is now the violently contested territory of Kashmir:
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A poet should learn with his eyes the forms of leaves.
He should know how to make people laugh
when they are together.
He should go to see what they are really like.
He should know about oceans and mountains
in themselves.
And the sun and the moon and the stars.
His mind should enter into the seasons.
He should go among many people in many places
and learn their languages.
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Below is the same poem using the third person singular feminine…I think it makes a difference whether one reads “he” or “she” even though we make think to ourselves the poem can be interpreted to be gender neutral while reading it in its typical translation. It’s interesting what the different feelings we may have when actually reading it with a female subject tell us about our subconscious minds. Hope you enjoy the sensation:
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A poet should learn with her eyes the forms of leaves.
She should know how to make people laugh
when they are together.
She should go to see what they are really like.
She should know about oceans and mountains
in themselves.
And the sun and the moon and the stars.
Her mind should enter into the seasons.
She should go among many people in many places
and learn their languages.
..]]> Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:07:15 +0000