Thursday, March 19, 2009

3D Modeling Class

I love learning new things and 3D animations. So, I combined these passions this winter by taking a 3D modeling class at Columbus State. It was very different than what I do on a daily bases with computers and quite a challenge. I had tried learning 3D modeling on my own with the open source Blender tool but never got the hang of it. So I thought I would see if a structured class would provide be a better learning environment for me and I think it did. I have come a long way in a short period of time. I think I understand the concepts and terms now and I can create a pretty convincing model. However, there is still much more to learn. I hope to continue 3D modeling as a hobby and I hope I have time to take the advanced modeling and the animation classes next winter.

Our project was to model, texture and light a room and render 4 still images of it, 2 up close and 2 from a distance. I chose my son's room so I could make 3D toys. I also add a little bit of a Star Wars theme which he loved. Below is my final project.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Groovy and Grails Overview Slides updated

Over the past year, I have been presenting a free 1 1/2 hour Groovy and Grails Overviews to any group or company who will listen. Each presentation includes a copy of my book Beginning Groovy and Grails for the organizer. This presentation has been so popular, I have forgotten how many times I have presented it.

In preparation for presenting it two more times this week, I updated my slides to reflect the new releases of Groovy 1.6 and Grails 1.1. I also had to update the resources since so many great new books are also available. You can find copies of the slides here.

Groovy and Grails at Cleveland User Group

I will be speaking about Groovy and Grails at tomorrow night's Cleveland Ohio Java Users Group. If you are in the area please come on out.

AWS EC2 Hibernate Java SDK v2 Example

I recently wanted to automate the creation of developer VMs in AWS using EC2 instances. To improve the developer experience (DX), I didn'...