Lighting Areas Other Than the Subject in the 3D World

Filmmakers and photographers often rely on bounced light to provide certain lighting effects when shooting a scene, especially when trying to simulate natural light. your 3D application is incapable of automatically reproducing bounced light without the addition of specialized radiosity rendering plug-ins. You can, however, simulate bounced light effects. The most common way to bounce light around is not to actually bounce it, but to exclude objects from receiving light from a light source.

For instance, to illuminate a back wall with a spotlight without directly affecting the objects in the scene, you exclude them from receiving the light. Then, to make it appear as if bounced light illuminated the object's backside, you use an Omni light that excludes the wall. So, you want to use several lights to simulate bounced light in an indirect lighting setup. Flashes are typically used to provide instant illumination for scenes in which the lighting is insufficient for the photograph. Because this is primarily a limitation of the film, it is not an effect that poses a problem for computer animators.

Sometimes, however, you might need to simulate a flash from a camera, strobe light, or lightning bolt. With your 3D application, you easily can simulate two common types of photography flashes-direct and umbrella- to produce various effects. A direct flash provides direct illumination from the camera itself. It is an aimed flash that casts light in front of the camera enough to illuminate what is in frame. Direct flashes produce a bright white or bluish light. Simulating a flash is fairly straightforward. The most common approach is to use a shadow-casting Omni light-a new feature for your 3D application. Set the light's color to pure white with a slight tint of blue and the multiplier to 5 or more.

You may also reduce the sample range slightly to produce more hard-edged shadows, but raytraced shadows are still probably too harsh for a flash. If you have a raytraced, reflective surface, you will need to use a spotlight instead of an Omni light, because the raytracer reflects the environment around the object. Using an Omni light, your entire scene will be lit by the flash-even behind the camera. The reflective surface will reflect the intensely illuminated objects behind the camera, resulting in overblown specular highlights.

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Movie Reviews - Veronica Decides to Die

Movie Reviews this week looks at the romantic drama Veronica Decides to Die. This is a very well made drama, starring the lovely Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as a young woman Veronica Deklava, in an excellent job, with a great family behind her, who simply decides she wants to commit suicide. She is tired of the route her life is going towards, and is expecting to continue in her job until she meets a man, they get married, later on he has an affair, they have an argument, she forgives him, it happens again, but this time she is too tired to bother to confront him about it - this is how she sees how her life will pan out.

She types a suicide letter for her parents, and takes an overdose of several pills, fortunately for her she doesn't die, but as expected is taken to a psychiatric treatment centre, paid for by her parents, which is headed by Dr. Blake played by David Thewlis (The Big Lebowski), who looks surprisingly similar to David Wenham, Dillios in 300.

When she comes round, Veronika is disappointed her attempt to commit suicide did not succeed, and is dreading having to see her parents and having to explain to them the possible reasons behind this suicide attempt; or indeed to deal with the world at large (she works at a bank that is well known in her local community, and an investigative journalist finds out she made the attempt and tracks her down to the treatment centre in order to make a scoop), when she still has the same feelings towards her existence.

Matters are further complicated when she is told the dosage of pills she has taken has caused her to have a heart attack, that resulted in an aneurysm that is getting bigger, and even though her suicide attempt failed, she doesn't have long to live, and there is no way of treating it.

Veronika begins to contemplate on what she would like to do seeing she has a very short time left. At first she is nonchalant on the idea of doing anything while she waits to die, until she meets a fellow psychiatric patient Edward played by Jonathan Tucker (The Black Donnellys), who Blake has been trying for some time to get him to communicate with the people around him (he simply does not talk, and seems to live in a dream world existence, watching nature, insects, and just spending time alone). Blake would consider this his crowning achievement if he can break through Edward's problem.

It turns out that Blake finds out Veronica used to play the piano when she was a child, and strategically places the piano in a place where she cannot miss it. One day she walks past it, possibly feeling bored, she at first tries out the keys of the piano with some random taps, then plays a lovely classical tune, which enchants Edward (who was listening nearby), she notices him watching her playing the piano, and the attraction builds (still with Edward not speaking a word).

As Veronica begins to fall for Edward, it then begins to dawn on her the enormity of what she is going to miss.

Veronica Decides to Die is a very interesting drama, and this movie has solid acting throughout.

Movie reviews is constantly updated with reviews of great movies and recommended releases.

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Rent Online Movies and Save a Fortune

Have you thought about the option to rent online movies? You really should, because you will end up getting more movies for a lot less. And I don't simply mean the cost of the rentals alone. No, think about how much money you have spent in gas going to pick up movies. Movie night should be entertaining, but it shouldn't be expensive.

If I would go and calculate all of the movies rentals and gas together, it would probably be several thousand dollars, but that is estimated on the low side. I would, in all likelihood, shutter if I really knew how much we've spent.

And now that we rent online movies, I know exactly how much we'll spend each month. I don't have to do anything but drop it in the mailbox when we're done with it and within a day or so the next one is there, waiting to be enjoyed.

I wasn't sure at first how the whole experience would be, but I found a 14 day free trial and we decided to give it a try. Wow, I can't tell you how amazed I was, this was light years ahead of going to the video store! And we watched more movies in those two weeks than we would have normally rented in a month. Plus a one month subscription is about the same as renting two movies where we live. When I saw that I was sold.

No more extra trips to rent movies and then take them back, and no more waiting in line Friday evening fighting over the last copy or two of the new releases.

We have our list, and the new movies keep coming every couple of days. Sometimes, we have more movies to watch than we have time for. This is a much nicer feeling than saying, we have to watch a movie right now because it goes back to the store this afternoon.

And do you think I miss going to the store? Not a chance!

I wish I would have taken the chance and started renting movies online as soon as I had the option. But you know what they say about hindsight. We rent online movies now and that is what matters. Sure, we probably could have save hundreds if not thousands of dollars if we had started years ago but, live and learn.

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Movie Review - Edge of Darkness (2010)

Mel Gibson's got a new movie out, called The Edge of Darkness. He plays a Boston police detective and is visited by his daughter who is shot on his front porch after she gets mysteriously sick and needs to go to the doctor.

To be honest, this movie made me yawn a few times. I went back and forth, trying to figure out if it was supposed to be a serious movie or some sort of joke. The fight scenes (the few offered) were quite comic bookish and the filming seemed strange. The problem, though, is the story just drug on and on.

I have always liked Mel Gibson movies. He is a legend with movies like Lethal Weapon 1, 2, 3, 4 and great films like Braveheart and The Passion. There is a reason why he is very popular around the world. But this newest movie just seemed to lack that realistic element most of his movies have, not to mention the usual pounding action that we've all come to love.

The Edge of Darkness, although filmed in 2010 and set during the same time, seems old and antiquated. Most of the time I thought I was watching some 1980's cop movie, instead of one more relevant.

With a terrible plot, terrible filming and even worse ending, I'm glad I didn't pay money to see this film. I feel robbed, just losing the two hours it took to struggle through it. You might consider foregoing this flick and maybe read a book or something.

Steven Veach has several books in print and a new thriller novel coming out in April 2010 called, The Preparation. You can find out more about Steven at http://www.stevenveach.net or order his books by clicking here.

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Dragonball Kai - The Sequel to Dragonball Z

The Dragonball series of anime movies has enthralled people the world over with its brilliant characters, special effects, and amazing animation. Basically Dragonball Kai is a revised version of Dragonball Z and has been released to commemorate the latter's 20th anniversary. Telecasting of the same began from the 5th of April, 2009 on Fuji Television. The old episodes have been remastered using hi definition pictures.

This new episode also includes special effects and the sound tracks have been re-recorded using the same cast that was there in the original. For those who do not know, in the old days, animation movies were made by first drawing separate images of every sequence. These are known as cels. During production of Dragonball Kai, it was found that that the cels of the last episode (Dragonball Z) had been discarded.

They had last been shown in 1996. To make up for this loss of footage, digital tracing technology was used to make new frames and they were then filled up using softer colors. This procedure of digital tracing helped ensure that the original frames were not damaged. During the procedure a number of frames were cropped.

Also, a number of frames were added that feature new portions that have been added to the scenes that were drawn by hand in the same ratio as that of the picture. Quite a lot of material that was there in Dragonball Z have been removed hence reducing the count of the new episode to approximately 100 which is far less than the 291 episodes of the original.

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