Winner of the Chandelier Challenge

I've been using a great and valuable, yet inexpensive 3D modeling and animation program called Cheetah3D. Of course, my review can be seen on my last post. Naturally, I find myself on the forums quite a bit for advice and general information, often. Late last month, I posted a challenge to the Cheetah3D community to create a chandelier...something I noticed while watching Shrek and thought to myself that it must have been a rather difficult task.

Apparently, it was quickly dealt with by the experienced. Hiroto, who is a master at scripting for Cheetah so that the rest of us can perform functions it wasn't readily designed to do can get on with our projects in easier ways managed a wonderful result. I say congratulations Hiroto, for winning this competition!

I'm so envious of his talent that I have posted the result here and will be moving it to a new site that I'm creating about general computer graphics (CG). I have permission not only to post his result, but to also post the actual Cheetah file he created. Have fun with it for those who can use it. Here's the master file: chandelier.jas

Is Your Site Cushy?

I was informed of a new CMS (Content Management System) the other day by a friend. It was called Cushy CMS (http://www.cushycms.com/). Anyone familiar with Wordpress, Drupal, Blackboard, Joomla! and other sites of the like will know what a CMS is. The difference here, is that Cushy allows a web designer to plug in editable areas of their existing and/or future sites with a simple copy and paste of code. As if that wasn't cool enough, there is a free account and a paid accout (which enables custom branding).

I personally feel that this is an excellent way to go. It allows a designer to make certain areas of a site or page editable by anyone, with an easy-to-understand form. Another benefit is that this system works through Cushy CMS, so there's nothing else to implement or install. It gives the designer and the client(s) easy access to areas of the site(s) that need changes, with little to no technical challenges. Another advantage is that moving an existing site to another host can cause some problems in certain cases, especially when moving from one system to another. Cushy CMS avoids this problem by allowing the designer to move the site and have the functionality of the CMS in place. No version control is necessary, as in the case of Joomla!

OK, so that's a short rant about a great idea in practice. It certainly merits a good mention, and I wish them well.