AT&T Archives : The UNIX System

Just for the geeks!
Some history about the UNIX operating system.
Just discovered pwd means print my working directory.
These guys were genious
People dont realise how much we own to them.

Transforming Still Life Painting, de Rob y Nick Carter con MPC | Dimensión 2.5

Transforming Still Life Painting, de Rob y Nick Carter con MPC | Dimensión 2.5

Snow White and The Huntsman second trailer

 After a hard work her it is the second trailer, hope you like it.
I think the movie is looking really good and entertaining.

Kim Goossens: Procedural Game Development - Houdini - 3D Animation and VFX

Interesting how the game industry is looking more and more into procedural tools for game design and development.

Kim Goossens: Procedural Game Development - Houdini - 3D Animation and VFX

La Vieja Escuela

Como primer post de lo que quiere ser una serie de artículos sobre la creación de efectos especiales y el día a día en este trabajo me gustaría hablar un poco de algo que siempre he admirado de esta profesión:  
La vieja escuela.

How to make Fuzzy Finder and Mac Vim 7.3

Hi all.

I am pretty sure that if you area fan of Fuzzy Finder for Vim and an user of Mac Vim you have to be very annoyed because of the errors from Fuzzy Finder when using the latest Mac Vim updated to the recent Vim 7.3.

This is the typical error you get when activating any Fuzzy finder mode:

E806: using Float as a String

Among others errors.

Well this problems comes because when starting Mac Vim from the Dock or Spotlight for some reason it doesn't pick up the correct locales.

More explanations in these links:

http://www.peterkrantz.com/2010/fuzzyfinder-in-macvim/

http://vim.1045645.n5.nabble.com/FuzzyFinder-and-error-E806-using-Float-as-a-String-td2855068.html

http://groups.google.com/group/vim_mac/browse_thread/thread/cc8c578386b3f448?pli=1

The most common solution is to launch MacVim from the Terminal.app using the mvim command, this way MacVim will inherit the locales from the Terminal which are correct.

But this is really annoying and I wanted to be able to launch MacVim from the Dock.

So I try setting the environment variables for my session according to the locales from the Terminal.app.

To do this first run the locales command:

pablo@cube ~ $ locale

LANG="es_ES.UTF-8"

LC_COLLATE="C"

LC_CTYPE="C"

LC_MESSAGES="C"

LC_MONETARY="C"

LC_NUMERIC="C"

LC_TIME="C"

LC_ALL=

Then I have use the Pref Pane app called RCEnvironment to add these variables to my session.

And voila! it works!

The idea is to setup the same variables from the locale command for your session.

Happy viming!

HDK in the Mac. Using hcustom with Leopard

Well, I have recently tried to compile some custom SOPs in my Mac.
No luck at the beggining so I begin to as in the Houdini Mailing list, Odforce, but no luck.
In my first try I got these errors:

Making SOP_Flatten.o and
/Users/pablo/Library/Preferences/houdini/11.0/dso/SOP_Flatten.dylib
from SOP_Flatten.C
cc1plus: warning: command line option "-fobjc-gc-only" is valid for
ObjC/ObjC++ but not for C++
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:
In function ‘int32 SYS_AtomicImpl::test_and_add(int32*, int)’:
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:345:
error: ‘__sync_fetch_and_add’ was not declared in this scope
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:
In function ‘int32 SYS_AtomicImpl::compare_and_swap(int32*, int32,
int32)’:
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:351:
error: ‘__sync_val_compare_and_swap’ was not declared in this scope
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:
In function ‘int64 SYS_AtomicImpl::test_and_set64(int64*, int64)’:
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:358:
error: ‘__sync_lock_test_and_set’ was not declared in this scope
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:
In function ‘int64 SYS_AtomicImpl::test_and_add64(int64*, int64)’:
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:365:
error: ‘__sync_fetch_and_add’ was not declared in this scope
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:
In function ‘int64 SYS_AtomicImpl::compare_and_swap64(int64*, int64,
int64)’:
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:372:
error: ‘__sync_val_compare_and_swap’ was not declared in this scope
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:
In function ‘void SYS_AtomicImpl::store(int32*, int32,
SYS_MemoryOrder)’:
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:389:
error: ‘__sync_synchronize’ was not declared in this scope
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:399:
error: ‘__sync_lock_release’ was not declared in this scope
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:405:
error: ‘__sync_lock_test_and_set’ was not declared in this scope
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:
In function ‘int32 SYS_AtomicImpl::load(const int32*,
SYS_MemoryOrder)’:
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:428:
error: ‘__sync_synchronize’ was not declared in this scope
/Library/Frameworks/Houdini.framework/Resources/toolkit/include/SYS/SYS_AtomicImpl.h:435:
error: ‘__sync_val_compare_and_swap’ was not declared in this scope
Compile failed

I am using Mac OS X 10.5.X, Leopard. So asking to SESI seems I have some problems with the gcc version.
I have been using Xcode 3.0 which uses gcc 4.0.1, whereas Houdini is compiled against gcc 4.2.
So I installed Xode 3.1.3, which is the latest version for Leopard and includes gcc-4.2.
You can grab it from here:
http://connect.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/MemberSite.wo/wa/getSoftware?bundleID=20414
Now, how to use it, you can go to the dirty solution, removing cd gcc links in /usr/bin and make new ones pointing to gcc-4.2:

cd /usr/bin
rm cc gcc c++ g++
ln -s gcc-4.2 cc
ln -s gcc-4.2 gcc
ln -s c++-4.2 c++
ln -s g++-4.2 g++

Or the clean solution, don't touch the system just add some environment variables:

# Use GCC 4.2 rather tha GCC 4.0
export CC="/usr/bin/gcc-4.2"
export CPP="/usr/bin/cpp-4.2"
export CXX="/usr/bin/g++-4.2"
# Use GCC 4.2 for HDK
export HOUDINI_CC=$CXX

I put the text above in my ~/.bashrc
The first thre variables are for the usual GNU tools.
The last one is used by hcompile, the script called by hcustom to compile your DSO.
Now you can try hcustom and see your DSOs happily compiled.
Happy hacking!

I´m dad!!!

Hi all.

Last 28th of March my daughter, Ines was born!

Both, Ines and mum are doing well.

A new life begins .......

Iron Man 2 - second trailer is out!

Hi there.
At least after long hours the movie is almost done and the secon trailer was showed in the last Oscars night.
So here it is I hope you like, and specially if you are a fan of the saga

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/ironman/

At Dneg we have been working in the sequence between Whiplash and Ironman.
I was mainly doing tesla and sparks fx.
Before this project I supposed this kind of effects should be easy, actually I think doing electricity fx phenomena to look real and credible is really hard.
Cheers!

Prince Of Persia official trailer is out!

At least here it is the official trailer for Prince Of Persia.
At DNeg we did the daggertime effect and the final battle.
I worked on the daggertime effect which is inspired on the bullet time effect from The Matrix with a little (ok not so little) touch of sand :)
Enjoy

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time at IGN.com

TDVim 0.1 Alpha Released!

At least!
After some hard work with the keymaps and testing them for Linux, MacOSX, windoiws and Cygwin the first release of TDVim for development use is ready.
This is alpha software, is only ready fo rdevelopers or people who feel curious about what TDVim can do and get an idea of the project.
I am using it in my daily work so at least will have some functionality.
the documentation also has got a dramatic improvement.
Go to the download section to get it.
Give it a try and tell me your opinion, much appreciated.

TDVim Wiki Ready!

The new brand TDVim wiki is ready!
Ok is a first version and just a brief skel for the whole wiki but the foundations are there.
This wiki will be an extra source of help for many users of TDVim.
Is specially oriented to new users, they will find the web format much more easier than the usual VIM documentation.
Also the other reason to have a wiki appart from the docs integrated in vim is to have a repository for tricks and tutorials for all the VIM/TDVim users.
Enjoy!

Speeder Tools basic help infraestructure is done!

Now I can begin to actually collect all the tools, pack them into OTL libraries and add the help.
I hope that with this first compilation the project will begin to get shape.
I think there is a lot of potential in this project cos there is a demand for a set of tools that makes Houdini easier out of the box, specially for mid/small studios.
More about Speeder Tools here.

My first TD College Houdini course!

Hi guys!
The past Sunday I begun to taugh my first Houdini course at TD College.
It was a great experience and I have two nice students, one from Demark and another living in Toronto.
I hope they will find the course interestin and useful and to learn from this new e-learning experience.

Me entrevistan en Dimension 2.5

Miguel de Dimension 2.5 ha tenido la gentileza de entrevistarme para su blog.La entrevista se centra principalmente sobre el camino recorrido desde mis comienzos en el 3D.Podéis echarle un vistazo aquí, espero os guste.

TDVim close to the first developer release

TDVim is close to it´s first developer release 0.0.1.
This will be the first release of the project and it will put the foundations for the whole project.
First an usable and portable config file will have the most important keymaps ready for different platforms.
The internal docs infrastructure will be done.
And finally the initiation sequence and user install ready.
I hope to have the first internal release, 0.1 very soon.

Links and Projects sections added

I find some time to add a couple of more sections to the site. A new links page with interesting links to places, companies, books fvourite webs, etc ....
Also a Projects sections, a place to put all the projects aI have done or I am doing in my spare time for learning, fun or to create small tools.
Links
Projects

Creating my personal site

Hi everybody, today I have begun the developing of my personal site which will get it´s name from my most used nick in the net: lisux.
I am a technical director working in the film and commercials industries, at the time of writing this I am living in London with my girlfriend Nuria.
I am going to begin a new excitement stage in my career the next week at Double Negative as a FX TD.