進入太極影音工作後，認識兩位非常愛看電影的同事，而且還是待在 RD 的前輩。有次和其中之一的 Kein 聊天時，Kein 說他很愛看電影，而且會把看過的電影記在小簿子上，那種像行事曆的小本子。結果有人問他：「那你去年（2004）一整年看了多少部電影呀？」你猜他回答多少，有 100 多部… ...

Wonderful to hear from you. I spent a most enjoyable 12 days in Taipei last summer. I taught a 5 day class of RenderMan at DCI. Thank you for telling me about the kind words of one of my (best) students. Very encouraging. The “RenderMan Companion” by Upstall has 3 chapters (maybe 4) devoted to shader writing. Although it is an old book, it is still very good. “Advanced RenderMan” by Apodaca and Gritz is very good although sadly it was written before the raytracing extensions were added to prman. You may like to follow some of the links on one of my class pages,http://sfdm.ca.scad.edu/vsfx/faculty/mkesson/Ca301/index.html ...

Dear Prof. Kesson, I noticed your website and your work on renderman in reading the following article by one of you students. http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2855078&postcount=99 and then I found, wow, what a great website about renderman programming and that Cutter Text Editor. and soon, I downloaded Cutter and started to think about using it for mel programming (I am not yet familiar with renderman programming) instead of gVim although I have also retrieved a full complete function list from maya doc server and made it as syntax file for vim because Cutter seems more attractive and I was very interested in that CommandPort feature. I will dissect it and give you feedback ;) ...

SHADERS Clearly, shaders play a crucial creative role in defining the appearance of a CG production. RenderMan has been adopted by many leading studios because it allows special purpose shaders to be added to those that already exist. Individual shaders are small sub-routines (functions) written in a specialised programming language called the Pixar Shading Language. The language enables new shaders to extend the creative possibilities of the renderer; it allows computer artists to find endless ways of controlling the appearance of a 3D scene through the use of custom shaders. The only limit is their imagination, their ability to write new, or adapt existing shaders and their creative flare at adjusting the parameters that control the visual effect of a shader. ...

最近慢慢體會到，原來 Maya 的 bug 是很多的，多到一種難以相像的地步，再加上最近 Linux 要換 file center，電腦有一台沒一台可以用的，偷了點空閒，卻得為幾天之後的進步報告傷腦筋了 ><~ ...

從 vgod 那看到的高橋流簡報法 ，好像重點就是每一頁的 slide 都只有幾個字，而且要非常的大，大到快把整個螢幕都佔據掉的樣子，而且不使用圖片，感覺挺新鮮的。接著連到簡報之道：高橋流二三事 ，又看到相當活躍在 open source 和 perl 圈的 gugod 學弟了，他實在太可愛也太有趣了，老是有新鮮的東西。 ...

晚上搭 Scott 的車，從圓山回南港的途中，我們聊起了對 model 的看法，然後我直接說出：「我喜歡胖一點的女生，感覺比較好」，Scott 說他也喜歡，然後就接著說： ...

不管這一篇海灘上的思想 的背後實情是怎樣的，它讀起來都讓人覺得愉快得很~ 剛剛在 wctang 那看四十工時神話 ，看了好久，一來有點看不大懂他要表達的意思，二來想嘗試找出他的四十工時與太極 RD 人員要寫的 Daily Report 的關聯。 ...