waaaahhhhh!!!!

meh. i changed the tags on my older posts and blogspot automatically changed/updated the dates on them so now they all look like they're new posts.  on one hand i really can't be bothered changing the dates again, on the other sometimes i get freakish with organizing things that i'll probably change them. oh well. who cares, right?

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BIM BAM!

© Joselito Briones

haha! considering i've never opened revit before early this year, i've learned enough to do a functional BIM of this project, and another one progressing nicely. everything's custom parametric family, too! (families are the basic components of the model)  the great thing about it is that i was able to see possible construction errors while I was designing the project, i was able to get as many views as i wanted from a single model, and when the model was done, it was a cinch doing all the required standard drawings (altho still laborious, 80+ pages of drawings, two colleagues had to help me when it was time to issue them). revit's definitely the thing to use in a small design-oriented offices. now if only autodesk can do revit for mac!

© Joselito Briones

well then, that's it for 3d models.  i think i'll pick up on my video editing now.

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bist du verrückt?

© Joselito Briones Mati spent sometime in the afternoon teaching this bird, Buddy (photo, above), a family pet, to say "Bist du verrückt?" ("Are you crazy?", in German), and succeeded in doing it twice, the rest of the time, it just laughed on his face. Click on the image above, or here, to see a short clip. XXX

better be worth it now

floren emailed me these photos he took with his phone earlier today. first one's with the always fab and beautiful faye. am not even sure that's how she spells her name. maybe without e. i don't know. it feels like it should be with an e if only because she has cheekbones sharper than dunaway's.

second one's of me having breakfast. at 5pm, same table. 2 photos a few minutes apart. i know that glass of wine looks very wrong in a breakfast setting. i swear i only had one. not that there's anything wrong with having more. for breakfast i mean. if that's what you're into. woke up very late. i was supposed to be there at 2pm, but then i know that when floren says 2pm it means 3pm earliest. and anyway i wasn't expecting to eat there. i had a couple of snack bars before going. last time we had a mini party there we had to wait so long. i was already very hungry and cranky by the time we started eating. this time i was prepared. i was only going there to chat and catch up with them. that there was food was a plus. it was a bit disappointing that not all of the usual crowd wasn't there. but the ones who were there were fun. especially faye. she was there with her boyfriend simon of course, and their new spoodle (sounds yummy, no? like home-spun noodles) which is a two-tone bastard mixed breed of a poodle and something else. really cute. and looks really expensive. name's charlie. chuckie sounds right. kept fighting for attention against monty. the resident spoiled puppy. purebred poodle. yep. looks just as expensive. no wonder i can't hang out more often with these people (poodle and spoodle owners). they're just so damn rich i can't afford their lifestyle. i'd like to say i hate them but i can't really. they're nice people. okay i hate them. there. hahahaahah. ok not really.  sometimes they feed me really good food. excellent food. oh. speaking of expensive and good. chris told me that on one of their few celebrations this week (his and floren's birthdays are a few days apart), they popped a bottle of 1982 chateau latour pauillac. (that was the part where your jaw was supposed to drop and think to yourself, WTF?).  yes sir. that's HK$10,000-15,000 a bottle bordeaux. naturally i asked if it was worth it (when what i really wanted to ask was why i wasn't invited to THAT party). he said it was really really good but not that much better than other good wines he's had at, say, 5% of the price.  so i said, "well, the only way you can make it really worth its price tag is to tell as many people as possible that you've had it". so here we go.

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(eta: currency)

my first revit rendering (fine, if you have a better title go ahead and change this)

© Joselito Briones

can you believe this stupid thing took more than 2 hours to render?!?!?. i really need to ask my boss for a new pc at work.

anyhoo.  3d rendering has definitely gone so far since i last played with it.  used to be that one had to create every single instance of every single object even if differs only slightly.   and then export it to a third party rendering software and readjust everything again. now with revit,everything's parametric. you do it once, if you're not happy with sizes, you change, say, a numeric parameter, and everything defined by that adjusts accordingly.  i created all the elements in this rendering (okay, except for that guy in suit, it was provided by revit) and they're all adjustable by mere changing of numeric values. yay! hahahahahaha. me's old. that i can still learn a new system is something i'm happy about.  best thing about this tho is that it can render natively. all i had to do was define the sun location/time of the day, and level of cloudiness.  2 hours of wait, and presto. come to think of it, 2 hours isn't all that bad, it used to take my old pc overnight to render a scene similar to this.

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simple doesn't mean easy

lol a friend told me that he didn't understand a single thing that i wrote with the photo design thingy, so here's another after/before comparison (a simple-looking one this time) and i won't even bother explaining it - enough to say that it was just as complicated to do, masking and all.

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experiment in photo design (last part)

(continued from previous entry)
this is the finished product of this experiment, and for comparison, here is the original:



am not sure if i achieved anything in the final version, but i sure learned a lot.

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experiment in photo design (part 3)

(continued from previous entry)
details. after seeing that the general light composition is as i wanted it, i added them back in, still proportional to the lighting designed. i started with the couple farthest to the sitting girl and their immediate surrounding, and made sure i didn't add more than 30% of the details of the originally cleaned up file. the idea was to create a diagonal visual link between the girl and the heart painting without letting the couple distract this link even tho they're positioned along this link.



next was adding details to the middle couple - i decided this was enough detail for the entire background so i added it to the rest of the image except for the first couple. i know there isn't a very pronounced difference, especially at this size of the photo, but it's there. i also added a general brightness to the whole thing as it was getting a bit too gloomy.



next was the couple closest to the camera - making sure to make them not too dark as to grab too much focus on them. i then added details to the girls, a little bit more clean-up (removed throw pillows behind the sitting girl, on the far couch), adjusted levels, then the finished product.

(to be continued)


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experiment in photo design (part 2)

(continued from previous entry)
fun part starts with a blank canvas. i added a simple circular gradient as a lighting guide, roughly following the thirds rule, to better bring attention to the main subject (the girl sitting by herself)



i then added partial luminosity of the cleaned up image in amounts following the lighting guide (20% of the couple closest to the subject, 35% of the middle couple, 50% of foreground couple, etc.)



a slight addition of the colors to check that they don't radically change the desired lighting.

(to be continued)


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experiment in photo design (part 1)

here's a bit of an experiment, brought on by a hastily taken photo - my excuse being that it was taken in a photo event where one is given about 15 minutes to compose, light and execute the photo. i guess you can say it's more a photo rescue job than anything, but i thought, what if i take it a bit further? after all by doing an experiment - you achieve something just by going thru the process - so no effort lost.

what i wanted to do was to see what it would be like if you approach a photo like you would a painting, i.e. do an additive process thereby ensuring control over the elements that go in the photo and the lighting relationships between them.



as per usual, i began by doing my typical clean-up edit. corrected perspective, toned it so that colors are not all over the place, replaced copyrighted content (painting on the wall), removed distracting elements (bit of balcony, upper right corner, and sloping window frame on the other side), etc.



right after "correcting" (there was nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't the perspective i wanted) the perspective tho, and before cleaning up, i had to do the masking. it's just one of those things that one has to do when working extensively on a photo. better have it done with as early on as possible to make full use of it. everything else after masking is child's play.

(to be continued)

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omg! my calves are so pretty!

 © Joselito Briones

haha! i got one of 'em harem shorts from i.t. very comfy indeedy. i'm wondering if the thing balloons up when i fart.

off to have beans for lunch. not that i need help in that department. just hoping for even just a slight lift off.

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denise on a storefront display

© Joselito Briones

We were shopping in San Francisco today when I spotted this photo I took of Denise on a store front of a fragrance shop :).


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vetta

screen capture of istockphoto's vetta page

one of the photos i took of dan got featured in istockphoto's vetta splash page. makes it worth all the trouble :)


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bestest goto ever!

© Joselito Briones
this morning omar and i drove a couple of blocks to ate uding's apartment to pick up this goto (rice porridge with entrails) that she made. she's basically been cooking filipino food the past few days, always very good. the other day she made pochero. saging na saba and all.


© Joselito Briones
and how handy is it that there's a kalamansi tree in the backyard?


© Joselito Briones
and as if that isn't enough, the goto came with sweetened saging na saba (very similar to plantain) wrapped in spring roll pastry then deep-fried. it's usually called turon in the philippines, but where i came from we call it sagimes.


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Video of the Week! WOOOOOOT!!!!

screenshot of iStockphoto site

i don't know where i've been, it took 2 full days before i found out that one of my video clips has just been featured as video of the week. woo hoo!!


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Hampstead Heath

© Joselito Briones

LIfe's been easy... most weekends Jerome and Ronnie would invite us for a drive somewhere nice for a weekend (they bought a brand new volvo). This time the destination was Hampstead Heath, within London. The area we set up picnic in is called "Kite Hill" or "Parliament Hill". Needless to say, there was plenty of food and wine, and picnic necessities (plates, cutleries, wine glasses) willingly lent to us by Waitrose. Pictured above are (L-R) Mati, Ronnie, Jerome, Gaudi, Mickael.


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an outsider in the inside

© Joselito Briones

as i'm sure you know by now, i'm back. and what time to be here, this place is just full of happenings. on international scale there's the u.s. open (isn't del potro just so cute?), on a more local level there's broadway-on-broadway, and of course there's fashion week in bryant park.

i was difficult to miss the massive tents in the park when i came out of the 7 subway station so i checked it out. at the entrance was a crowd of fashion fans and wannabe's and photographers. i climbed and stood on a podium on the side, but i didn't even bother taking out my own camera as there didn't seem to be anything interesting happening. what did catch my eye was an old man in a blue jacket who was just taking pictures in the perimeter of the crowd, generally ignored. i watched him for a while and saw how smoothly he navigated the crowd, his quick scan of everything around him, taking pictures of what seemed to be nothing in particular (he was in general looking below eye level, so it was obvious he was not interested in taking photos of faces). when i saw him load and reload his camera with an old-fashioned film roll, i took out my camera, took photos of him (circled, above) climbed down the podium, and followed him :)



© Joselito Briones

it was just amazing how fast he looked at things, decisively taking pictures of the few things that interested him, but quickly dismissing everything else. it was clear that the man has been doing this forever. i pictured myself doing the same when i get older :) there's this man who clearly could be someplace comfortable taking it easy and yet his passion brought him here.



© Joselito Briones

the more i followed him tho, it became clear that "becoming like him" is something one can only dream of. the man went up the stairs, was greeted and waved through by the event guards, and entered the tents. without showing an i.d., or badge, or an invitation that was required of everybody else. when he came out it was with people who seemed to be v.i.p.'s of the event (points to you if you can identify whom he's being chummy with in the photo above).

having taken numerous photos of him, i asked one of the guards who he is, and was told that he's a new york times photographer who regularly does a fashion feature. when i got back to jane's here in jackson heights the first thing i did was google him.

BILL CUNNINGHAM.


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markus pimping his watch

screenshot of madetobeunique's design

a photo i did of markus was used in this online bling store.


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Coordinated

>

take 2 - i don't know what happened this time, the photo got posted but not the text that i wrote with it.

we met up with the jonescheits tonight and it was the cutest thing that they showed up clothes coordinated - jeans and white shirt and khaki jacket and summer coat. zoë also had a hairpin on her barely-there hair :) the photo, again was taken by the iphone. i'd have taken a proper photo too, only it was already getting dark when we met up that i didn't even bother bringing a proper camera.


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Luisenpark

>
Luisenpark is in mannheim. We're here until friday, then off to
stuttgart to attend frieder's wedding.
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me and my mini wini

© Joselito Briones

this week is junk food week. why? because. :)

i decided to eat whatever's on the shelves and in the fridge - i find that often i buy things and they end up expired and uneaten. this is food storage purge week. two days ago i had nacho chips for breakfast. and two boiled corn cobs for lunch. also, as the idea is to not go to the grocery to buy stuff while there's plenty of edible stuff at home, i've also been munching on kellogs honey nut cereal without milk (soya milk usually), for dinner. cantuccini and marinated herring for lunch.

the champ tho has been the miniwini's. they're just so lovely and uncomplicated. they're right up there with cheez whiz and spam. they're tiny wieners basically (hence the name), extra crunchy skin, and can be eaten straight from the jar.


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