Aligorith's Lair: January 2015

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Classical Sparks - Fireworks Display

Drat! For the 4th year in a row, I've been thwarted trying to get some up-close, in venue, drive-in-and-park-on-the-public-park-grass shots of the fireworks display at the annual Classical Sparks in North Hagley Park. This year, the weather was just really awkward - warm and very unseasonably humid, but heavily overcast (except for the rare moments when I start stepping outside, when the sky seems to briefly clear until I'm fully outside, and it takes that as a signal to start with a light spray mist, ramping up to something more major).

Sigh... looks like I'll have to live with the New Years pics and the shots above till next year again :(

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Kite Day 2015

The annual kite day was held at New Brighton beach this afternoon here in Christchurch. I had a great time trekking along the beach capturing shots of these colourful creations. While in previous years, I've mainly watched from the (relatively sand-free) vantage points around the beach, getting in and amongst these flying giants proved to be a much more enjoyable experience, allowing for a lot more interesting shots :)

RIP Bubu - One Year Anniversary

Lo and behold, a year has passed since the day when Bubu tragically left us.

It's still hard to believe that just a year ago, I had the pleasure of having this delightful little orange ball to keep me company, wriggling around and tirelessly playing out his idiosyncratically endearing antics throughout the day and long into the night. Oh, and getting to watch the sheer joy and enthusiasm with which the daily feeding ritual was received - it had to be at the right time too, or else, a mini fishy temper could sometimes break out!

Sleeping on the Job - Bumblebee Close Ups

Yesterday, I caught sight of this bumblebee passed out on a flower in our garden, presenting a perfect opportunity to take some close up shots of it :)

Soo fuzzy!

Humid Surreal Sunset

Today marked the start of what is shaping to be another hot summery weekend, with temperatures rising to 27 degrees and hovering around that mark for most of the day. However, bang on 8pm though, a brief rain shower came through, giving the plants a well-needed drink, and bringing the temperatures down a bit to a more comfortable temperature (though that was counterbalanced by the increase in humidity... yuck!). This lead to some very interesting cloud formations, a double rainbow, and an even fancier sunset...

Blender 2.73 Released

In case you haven't already noticed, Blender 2.73 was released a few days ago with the Stage I improvements for Grease Pencil.

Grab a build from Blender.org, or check out the release notes for an overview of what's been added so far.

In other news, work on Stage II is in progress now. Most notably, there is now a copy and paste buffer in place, and color swatches are now displayed for both strokes and fills. More work is taking place when and where possible (in between trying to wrap up the core of the depsgraph, and soon resuming my uni research commitments). If you've got any feedback, suggestions, or would like to discuss ways we could develop these tools, feel free to send an email to the bf-animsys mailing list.

The Big Year (2011) - Film Review

So, this evening I ended up watching the film - The Big Year - that was playing on TV tonight. This was a comedy film released in 2011 about the three competitive bird watchers competing to see who can sight the most different species in a year.

Source: IMDB

Chateau on the Park - New Years Eve Dinner

Here are some photos from around the Chateau on the Park hotel, where we went for dinner on New Year's Eve. This was the first time I'd really done much photo snapping using my new phone (Note 4), and definitely the first time with varying light levels in twilight conditions.

Hot Day - Interesting Cloud Formations

Phew! It's been really hot again here today, shooting up to 30 degrees by 10am (from the mid teens overnight, to about 21 degrees at 8am) and staying there until around 2pm, when it gradually started cooling down to a more comfortable 22 degrees around 7pm. With the cooling temperatures (brought about by some nice sea breezes) we also got some very interesting cloudscapes...