HAVAAD

Ok, I'm the short one. Actually the tall guy is really tall, I'm normal height for my demographic...

Anyways. Here's a picture of Me and Gael McGill from outside his condo in Boston Mass, taken just this last weekend. Dr. McGill invited me to be a guest speaker at a nano course he gave at Harvard Medical School. The course was designed to teach Maya animation to biology students. I had a blast, the students were very sharp and the lecture involved my two favorite subjects:Me and Maya. I went a little overboard talking about myself and had to cut out a little of the detail I had planned for my Maya lesson. The tutorial I designed for the course was focused on dynmaic parenting which is used a lot in these molecular animations. The lecture will be online soon and I'll link to it.

I had lots of fun hanging out with the Harvard nerds (as opposed to the Hollywood nerds). I'm very excited about some of the plans we have for a website of resources for science animators. I have several tutorials in the works already. I also got to hang out with some college friends - Mike and Lisa and their son Matthew (who is a cool kid, I predict the girls will dig him when he gets older). We ate sushi and avoided the topic of guitars altogether.

Busy week. I'm back at Prologue after the fourth. We're moving to a fabulous new apartment a few blocks over. I finished and submitted my first Houdini 9 tutorial to HDRI3d magazine, I'm currently working on my second (Houdini Fluids!). Mayabe next time my talk at Harvard will include some Houdini stuff. Also, most exciting! I have been diagnosed with gall stones and have to have surgery to remove my gall bladder yaaaa! weeee! who likes lasers? (ok that last bit was sarcastic). Anyways, my diet will continue to be fairly bland and I have to lose weight. if only I could gain height instead, maybe then I'd be as tall as Gael!

Also, I added some images to my pencils, pixels, clay area. enjoy!

My book reviewed in Animation Magazine

My Maya book (Maya Visual Effects: The Innovator's Guide) recieved a very nice review in the June issue of Animation Magazine. "Keller is not only knowledgeable and innovative, but he is also fun and entertaining - an absolute must for anyone who is exploring such dry topics as spring dynamics andanimated gradient ramps." Nice review overall, although I don't think springs and ramps are all that dry a topic. For animation nerds they are almost as engaging as porn (just kidding homey!)

Betamax

This weekend I rewrote my Houdini tutorial for the upcoming issue of HDRI3D magazine. The good folks over at Side Effects put me in the beta testing program for Houdini 9 so I got a sneak peak. The tutorial will cover some of the new tools and interface. Houdini 9 is nice and smooth, great new interface, very pleasant to work with.