arvid.online

END OF CHAPTER 1

2006-06-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

It's now time for arvid.online v2. This is the last post I intend to write in this blog system/template, but this will remain here because of my old archive and the technorati tags and so on. My new blog, which has 95% of the entries from this blog, is located here: BLOG. If you want to syndicate (subscribe) to this new system the feed is here: FEED. Thanks for visiting and please bookmark the location of my new blog site. //Arvid

DJ MAX Portable

2006-06-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

I just got a new awesome PSP game. It's called DJ MAX Portable and it's a korean/japanese music game, very similar to Beatmania.

If you are a Beatmania- or a Lumines-fan - get this one!

LINK: DJ MAX Portable official website

Technorati tag(s): dj max portable

Maxwell RC5 Testing

2006-02-15T13:56:00.000-08:00

Here's something that you've haven't seen. I'm testing Maxwell Render Release Candidate 5 at the moment and here's a scene I did a couple of weeks ago. This uses glass-, silver- and goldshaders and the scene has about 1 million triangles total. THINGY RC5.

Here you can see that original scene rendered with mental ray. CONNECTED.

~Arvid

Alive & Kicking

2006-02-15T13:41:00.000-08:00

I'm back. I've been neglecting my blog since I've been working a lot the last 4-5 months. I've been working TOO much, but it's all fun (and it's all my fault too) so I can't really blame anyone but myself. Since my last post I've been up in Stockholm two times and also in London! That was a fun trip. I might post some pics from that trip up here later on. I took about 400 digital photos while I was there and it was my first time in the UK. I loved it. I'm gonna try to start blogging again more frequently. So much has happened so I don't really know where to begin...

At the moment I'm rendering a little CG-film (only 10 minutes long) which I've created for fun in Maya. It's a abstract Sci-Fi-short and it's currently rendering, in mental ray, on 12x Athlon64-workstations at CGI Academy. Tomorrow it has rendered for about 5 days and most of it should be complete. By the end of next week I should have edited it and it should be 100% complete. I'm gonna encode it in either H.264, Xvid or DIVX and host it someplace. It's rendered in 1024x768 so it will be a rather big file. Anyways, when it's done I'll put up a thread about it with a link to the file.

Cheers!

"PSP launch in UK breaks record"

2005-09-06T13:32:00.000-07:00

Quote from PSPWorld.com (also at Sony PSP Review & PSPRumors).

"The PSP is now the UK's fastest selling video game system of all time. During its launch last week, an estimated 185,000 PSPs were sold, eclipsing the Nintendo DS's 87,000, which was the previous record holder."

That's certainly good news. :)

Technorati tag(s): Sony PSP, SonyPSP, PSP

The Next-Gen Walkman

2005-09-05T12:05:00.000-07:00

...Well, that's just the latest rumors. Since you can play music, movies, view photos AND of course play games on the PSP, this unit might lower the sales for Apple's very successful iPod. The PSP is everywhere at the moment since the launch. It's all over the net and everyone's talking about it. The launch went very well and there's already a shortage of PSP hardware in Europe.

The black Sony PSP looks very good indeed, but after using it for a while there are visible fingerprints everywhere on the unit. That looks a bit bad. As a designer, it wasn't hard to fall in luv with the japanese ceramic white PSP (see the picture below).

Overall it's a very solid build machine and it feels GOOO~OOOD when you hold it. Most games on the PSP today run at 222 Mhz and not the at full speed of 333 Mhz. Only a few games so far use the full speed, Gran Turismo 4 Mobile is one example, since it drains battery a bit too fast. Sony will be releasing a new battery soon which will give better battery life for the PSP so all the games can run at 333 Mhz which overall makes the PSP more powerful than the Sony Playstation 2. But battery life isn't really a problem for me. Who runs a portable machine on a battery for more than five hours straight? I wouldn't. If so, you either connect it to a car-adapter or just connect it to a power socket in the wall.

I was actually supposed to post this thread about a month ago, but I've been too busy. I had this good news (well, for me): I pre-ordered the japanese ceramic white version of the PSP this summer and I will get it in about three weeks. I will post a review and high resolution photos of my PSP then - so stay tuned.

I've put my website-name on this pic because it's enhanced in Photoshop and now looks twice as good as the original. There are a lot bigger versions of the ceramic white PSP and you can find them easily through Google Image Search.

The PSP is priced between $189-$299 depending on where you buy it and which version. The ceramic white version costs around $279 and is only sold with the value pack. Go get one! If you live in Sweden - like me - you can save almost up to one thousand crowns (SEK) by importing a PSP instead of buying one here in Sweden. They cost around 2695 SEK here. If you DO want to buy one here I warmly recommend Webhallen.com.

Technorati tag(s): Sony PSP, SonyPSP, PSP, iPod

A calm walk in Gothenburg.

2005-09-05T07:47:00.000-07:00

My friend Anders put up a great Random Show today. It's showing some of the things that he shot with his DV-camera while he was visiting me here in July.

Apparently, someone thought that his Stockholm video was a bit too slow so he did this one somewhat...faster.

Oh, and if you see a really fly blond guy (in an orange Maya T-shirt) in this Gothenburg-video it's me. ;) Press the below image to view this vlog.

Technorati tag(s): Gothenburg

EVE Exodus for the PSP!

2005-09-05T07:18:00.000-07:00

Well, not quite. But I did it as close as I possibly could. :) Since Firmware 2.0 for the Sony PSP was released some weeks ago, more and more wallpapers have been uploaded to the web. That was one of the - many - new features of 2.0 - that you now can put wallpapers behind the menu. That's cool, yes, but the new web browser is even cooler.

Anyway, back to wallpapers: there's just one thing wrong, they're all screendumps from emulators, game dumps or anime characters. And that's somewhat dull. Am I the first to have created Eve Online (a.k.a Eve Exodus) wallpapers for the Sony PSP? I don't know, but I hope not. :) This is my first pack of wallpapers, featuring 10 bitmaps in PSP native resolution of 480 x 272, all in one ZIP-file. The first three wallpapers are official EVE-images and the other seven are either screendumps of my ships in EVE or ships that I have seen there. Press the below wallpaper example to commence download and enjoy!

Note: There's no text on the actual wallpapers.

P.S - The best collection of PSP wallpapers that I've seen so far are the ones created by PlasmaDesign and you can find that collection here.

Technorati tag(s): EVE, EVE Online, Sony PSP, SonyPSP, PSP

Wonderful World

2005-08-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

My friend Anders has put up yet another great random show. You gotta see this one. Click on the picture below to see his latest vlog "Wonderful World".

EVE: The Breakthrough!

2005-08-04T04:13:00.000-07:00

I started playing EVE: Online on May 15th 2003 and I have loved it ever since. I have taken a few months break from it during this time of course, but still; I can easily say that it's best game that I have ever had the pleasure to play - ever. And I have played games non-stop on pretty much all systems since like 1983.

I was in the same corporation in EVE for about two years, Frog Morton Industries [FROG], then Frog Morton Security [FMI-S], but then I started up my own corporation, NextGen [NXG] (to get some more variation in the game), and now I have all three of my characters in that corp. NextGen is a R&D corporation and we research tech 1- and tech 2-blueprints, manufacture many big products (mostly big spaceships) and sell them for a good profit. We do kill-missions and such also of course, but we're "scientists" these days.

Anyway, let me get to the point... I've had a npc research (R&D) agent working for me in EVE for about 14 months now with ZERO results whatsoever. I have done many, many missions for him and all he ever does is blow up the lab heh... He was researching tech 2 minmatar ships for me and he works even when I'm not online/playing. There's a lottery in EVE every 20 hours where one person wins a blueprint from a R&D agent and you have to be VERY lucky to win that one...since there are +60k players in EVE and pretty much always 10-12k online on the Tranquility server. And three days ago it happened... I got an eve-mail from my R&D agent (that usually means trouble and that I need to do him a favour) but this time he said that he had a breakthrough (!!!). So I undocked my Apocalypse (battleship) and flew to him as fast as I could. He wasn't kidding. He had developed a Hound BPO (blueprint original) for me - the Hound is a tech 2 covert ops stealth bomber. Tech 2! That means nextgen and the best of the best in this game. Not many people in EVE has a Hound BPO, which makes me not just a very wealthy man but also very special. It's not just the economy and the market in EVE that is controlled by us real players, we invent stuff too. So I will be one of the very few inventors of the Hound Stealth Bomber and that will be in the EVE history as long as the game exists.

I had about 144 million isk (the currency in EVE) in my wallet - and that makes me a rich man - at that time and this BPO was priced somewhere between 5-7 billion isk (if I would sell it, that is). :) Which obviously is crazy, since this is a pretty small ship in Breacher class. But, it's TECH 2 - that's why. It's so unusual that big tech 2 corporations would probably buy this BPO for 10 billion isk if they really needed it. Since you can make a lot more money off it by manufacturing it, selling it and selling copies of the blueprints to people. And that is what I have decided to do - at least for the time being. I will start production in about a week's time and according to my calculations I could make at least +100 million per week and that is very good profit. If I ever get sick of that I could still sell this BPO for billions (like after Christmas 2005 or something) since tech 3 won't be in the game until - probably - in a year or so. I've done a lot in EVE these last two years but this is the biggest thing that has happened to me.. This little BPO means money and power and it will make NextGen a well-known corporation in Empire space.

I took some screenshots of the BPO and the info-box of a Hound, so check out this link to see those.

Technorati tag(s): EVE, EVE Online, Minmatar, Hound

SPACE!

2005-07-31T06:05:00.000-07:00

Not the final frontier this time, but almost! I have been clutter clearing and cleaning in my apartment on and off for weeks now - and TODAY, it will finally be complete. It feels so good to get rid of old stuff and get free SPACE, or ZEN as I like to call it. My main problem is that I rarely keep cleaning until it's completely done; I clean some for a few hours, moves some stuff down to my basement storage and then...then...I'm back in front of my computer OR sitting in my couch reading a book. I've been reading a lot lately - but that's for another thread. So a grand scale cleaning and clutter clearing operation - or "PIMP MY APARTMENT" as I call it - therefore takes a few weeks for me to finish (unless I get help from someone). I don't know if it's a guy-thing or if it's just me. Well, I know it's not just me because all my (male) friends do this - so exactly the same that it's scary. :)

These days you don't own your stuff, your stuff owns you. At least that's true in my case. I have no trouble admitting that; partly because I don't really mind. I have a lot of fun with my stuff, eventhough it really consumes my time. We all kill time in different ways, some do it for mere entertainment and others do it just to escape their harsch realities. I have a nice reality so I do it as mere entertainment. I pretty much always have fun and I'm very rarely bored. Hmm, I guess that there are those that would deny that they're owned by their stuff until they day that they die, but hey - if you wanna lie to yourself go right ahead. Please note that I'm not saying that everyone is owned by their belongings.

A book that really changed my view on things (and changed my life too) - was Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. A friend of mine recommended this book (thanks!). Another book that might help is The Eternal Wisdom by Dalai Lama. I couldn't find a link for this one, I have the swedish version so that title is a direct translation. He has written a lot of books about wisdom and he really changes your point of view on things (unless you're already a buddhist monk). I read these books years ago and if you need help clearing your clutter (in your apartment AND in your head) you should read them too.

Anyhoo, I'm gonna take some after-photos for my parents/friends later on and I might put up a few here too. Thank God I didn't take any before-shots. :)

Until next time, have a good one. //Arvid

Technorati tag(s): Clean, Cleaning, Clutter, Feng Shui, Karen Kingston, Dalai Lama

#0005 "A Hotmail betatester? :)"

2005-07-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

I bet that he'll smash the keyboard and switch to Gmail.com. Banners are no monkey business. :)

Zazzle Stamps

2005-07-29T04:40:00.000-07:00

Zazzle.com - where I've sold posters of my work the last 3-4 years - now also has custom stamps. Neat idea, I had to test it. ;)

You can find it here: http://www.zazzle.com/stamps/default.asp

Technorati tag(s): Stamps, Zazzle

#0004 "This baby's first word was WTF. :)"

2005-07-24T04:47:00.000-07:00

#0003 "Man, I hope that this is a fake one. :)"

2005-07-17T15:39:00.000-07:00

#0002 "I want this dog! :) It looks like Ein."

2005-07-17T15:37:00.000-07:00

#0001 "LOL, what a cool little dude/dudette."

2005-07-17T15:22:00.000-07:00

The Loudmouth

2005-07-05T06:58:00.000-07:00

I just purchased an EAGLE UK-200 Jerker Loudmouth. It's a superb lil' ukulele and look how cute it looks on top of my Furch Durango. :)

Scav is coming down here to visit me later this week and we'll play guitar and ukulele (and have fun in the sun in Gothenburg) for a couple of weeks. Vacation!

Technorati tag(s): Guitar, Ukulele, Music

Maxwell & Fprime madness

2005-07-02T01:17:00.000-07:00

I have had lots of fun in Maya and LightWave 3D the last week - I've been playing around with Maxwell and Fprime (as I wrote in the previous thread "Fprime and Maxwell"). I have put a few of the renderes which I have done using these rendering engines. The top one was created last night and after 10 minutes of hopeless brainstorming what to name this weird thing I came up with that name haha... Hey, it was 3:00 a.m in the morning. :) The first two are Fprime and the last two are Maxwell. I will definitely buy one of these renderers; if not both of them. These are 100% Fprime and Maxwell, I did very little to them in Photoshop in post.

Technorati tag(s): Maxwellrender, Fprime, 3D, Maya Lightwave3D, Lightwave, Rendering, Graphics, CG, CGI, Software, Design, Animation,
Technology

Eight Point O

2005-06-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

I just got the LightWave 3D 8.0 box, UPS delivered it to the door. The box is bigger than the old ones - I like it. The manual and the CD-covers are a lot better on this version too. Good work NewTek. Time to update my old 7.5...

Fprime and Maxwell

2005-06-28T00:50:00.000-07:00

I'm currently evaluating The Maxwell Renderer (v1.2 beta) and Worley's FPrime (v1.5) and both of these rendering technologies are truly amazing. I'm really not sure which one to buy. Maxwell has the most realistic lighting algorithms that I have ever seen and Fprime renders 20-50 times faster than any other rendering engine on the planet. So I'll either buy the v1.2 beta of Maxwell for half the price OR I'll wait for the next version of Fprime v2.0 to be released. Apparently that should be very soon.

I tested a lot of my old LightWave 3D scenes in Fprime yesterday and I cranked up the settings and quality on all of them, since they pretty much rendered in realtime with radiosity (jaw-dropping stuff, believe-you-me). In the below link you can see a scene that I did about 2.5 years ago in LightWave 3D but I never finished it; since it took too long to test-render it during the lighting setup of the scene. This JPEG is rendered in HD-DVD resolution at 1920 x 1080 with 63 passes from Fprime and my guess is that this rendering would take about 7-10 days for my (very fast) workstation to render with LightWave 3D's standard renderer. Fprime did it in around 8-9 hours. :) (Note: I'll post some Maxwell images here later too.)

Technorati tag(s): Maxwellrender, Fprime, 3D, Maya Lightwave3D, Lightwave, Rendering, Graphics

the random show

2005-06-27T03:45:00.000-07:00

My friend Anders has finally put up his vlog. I luv it - go check out it:

the random show

LW 8.0 upgrade

2005-06-18T14:57:00.000-07:00

I have decided to upgrade my LightWave-suite up to version 8.0. I already have four LW-boxes in my shelf next to me, but NewTek has a really nice deal (which ends on June 30th) that I can't skip. The price is half-off and the new upgrade comes with a bunch of CDs, a new big 8.0 box and a real thick manual (no PDF-stuff here). There's a lot of 3D softwares out there today and most of the creators are really lowering their prices now (are they desperate?) - which is good for us, the users.

Eventhough I've mostly used Maya since early spring 1998 LightWave will always have a special place in my heart. It's a superb software and a lot of pro tools for the money!

There's really no need for me to upgrade my Maya-suite to the latest one; version 4.5 with mental ray covers my needs at ILS and I use the latest version at work all day long anyway. Besides, upgrading it to version 6.5 would cost me something like 14000 swedish crowns and that's too much money.

On another note, it was great to see that I'm still featured in the official LightWave 3D gallery at Newtek.com. My image has had 3484 views at the moment and you can find this old thing here. The gallery is a lot bigger now, it has 1203 images but when NewTek added mine it was number 39. :)

To read more about LW version 8.0 (8.3) click this link.

NextGen

2005-06-15T01:49:00.000-07:00

I did a logo and temporary website for my EVE corporation NextGen last night. I think that it turned out pretty good. Go check it out.

The Rex

2005-06-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about buying a T-Rex 450 XL (by Align)... Check out these two videos. These are some of the best pro pilots out there.

REX demo by Flytech | Accurate 3D with the Rex