Jelly Telly Has Arrived!

It's here! Phil Vischer's long-awaited Jelly Telly online children's show is finally here!
So head over to JellyTelly.com and sign up! It's free for the first month and after that it's $2.99 a month. We now have a Christian alternative for children's entertainment. And I have to admit I probably enjoyed the first few days as much as my little siblings. :-)

What's on my Desk?

I made a list of stuff on my desk:

My new Acer 22” monitor
an old HP keyboard
an old Microsoft (ughh) optical mouse
an old set of Cyber Acoustics computer speakers
a black organizer full of trumpet music, notebooks, and empty folders
random school notes, returned tests, and other finished assignments
my other wallet that's empty
a Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 joystick
a white alarm clock
a glasses cleaning cloth
a bottle of glasses cleaning spray
a cup with a bunch of re-chargeable batteries
a several battery chargers
an old Wacom Art Pad II tablet
an invitation to someone's birthday party.
A cleenex
a set of drawing pencils and an eraser and a pencil sharpener
a really old logitech webcam that doesn't work with Ubuntu.
A comb
some empty airsoft bb bottles
an airsoft bb trap
a remote-control for a helicopter
4 really old hard drives
2 calculators
2 lamps
an iRiver e100 USB cable
a bottle of silly string
3 pencil cans
a pencil case
several candy wrappers
vocabulary cards for my writing class
many Linux distribution cds
an exacto knife
a shiny silver ball in a cardboard box
a standard power strip
a million cables it seems
several music cds
an airsoft bb container full of tools such as pliers, screwdrivers, wrenches, electrical tape,
and who knows what else.
A '68 Cougar Hot Wheels car
a spool of empty DVD's
a lot of trumpet books including the Arban book
a tuba book
a hymnal
more tools not in the airsoft bb container
a jar of random stuff
at least 3 or 4 notepads
a New Testament
a Thesaurus
a Bible
a Bugle
a pair of drumsticks
a bendable tripod
a throwing knife
a big stack a magazines: mainly World, hunting magazines, aviation magazines, and
Popular Mechanics
a rag
a red bouncy ball
an instrument tuner
a VeggieTales Silly song DVD
a keychain of old keys
a deck of cards
Digital Lighting and Rendering by Jeremy Birn


That's most of it. Wanna know what's under my desk? (just kidding, I couldn't put you through that.) What's on your desk?

Herman and Glockenspiel: Not nominated...

Yep, the title says it all. I got an email today with the list of nominations for the Blender Film Festival. Herman and Glockenspiel wasn't on that list. Oh well. It was my first film and there was a big misspelling so I guess I can't expect too much. I'm not too disappointed.
Here's a list of the nominated films: http://www.blender.org/community/blender-conference/festival/ You can't watch them yet and even if you could, I can't guarantee that they're all clean.
If you would like to watch Herman and Glockenspiel, go here: http://vimeo.com/1829488
Have a great day!

Blender 2.48 is here!

The Blender developers have been busy working on our favorite 3d program! This release has lots of new features! Check it out: http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-248/

Or download it here: http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

What Next?

I finished the movie. What now? Well, I haven't been doing much except school and volleyball and playing trumpet in the home-school band. (btw, we got our cd's that were recorded last spring. I never realized how out of tune we are until I heard the cd! Maybe I'll post a track up here someday.) I've been really busy; I just haven't done much with blender or animation. I have worked a little bit on the eyelid on Herman and I plan on re-doing all of the animation controls when I get time. I'm having a lot of fun in volleyball though. It's looks like I'll be on the intermediate team this year. I was kind of hoping to be on the advanced team since next year is my last year to play but we've already got plenty of talented players on the advanced team. It's still a lot of fun! I've been concentrating a lot on my serves since last year I had really inconsistent serves.

I bought a new 22" wide-screen monitor. It's an Acer X223Wbd. It's a major step up from the 19" crt that I was using! I was originally planning on waiting to see if I won the Blender contest that I entered Herman and Glockenspiel in (I don't find out until the 25th) but I got impatient and decided to go ahead and buy it. I'm glad I did. :-)

You may have noticed the Ubuntu countdown on the sidebar. Ubuntu is a free Linux operating system. (Most of my readers probably know this.) It's what I run on my computer and what I made Herman and Glockenspiel with.) For some reason, I'm not excited about the coming release as I have been in the past... I still really like Linux but perhaps I'm becoming just Linux user and not so much a Linux advocate/fan/activist/crazy Linux geek. I've noticed that in the Linux community, Linux is almost a religion for some people. That kind of bothers me...

I also put up a daily Garfield comic for y'all to enjoy. :-)
Sorry for the really long post. I don't blame you if you only got halfway through and got bored and left. Obviously if that had happened, you wouldn't be reading this though...

Have A Blessed Day!

Herman And Glockenspiel: finished!

Yep, It's done! My first animated short, Herman and Glockenspiel is finally finished!


Herman and Glockenspiel from Matt Smith on Vimeo.


Watch it in hi-def here: http://www.vimeo.com/1829488

Herman and Glockenspiel: Progress Update

It's coming along! I've got all the animation finished and a lot of the audio done. I just have to finish up the audio and revise the credits a bit. Here are a few frames from the movie:


Have a great day!