Base14

Gee golly Whitaker Street, it has been a while! The winds have been changing and it’s been hard to keep up with the good ol’ Base14 Blog. And we actually have done a thing or two that’s way worth mentioning, can you believe it? Well believe it.

So the rock-hard-fast news is that the Ara Collector’s Edition DVD was finished two weeks ago to much critical acclaim! (Isn’t that an oxymoron?) It was at the very least, for Base14, a great DVD authoring accomplishment. Ara was a monstrosity of a CGT department project, and with all the hard work put into it by such a large array of artists, I wanted a permanent and professional collection of everything that was put into the Ara project. As a student collaboration, it was more about the process than the project, and I feel the Ara Collector’s Edition DVD showcases that process wonderfully. In addition to the complete short film, the DVD also includes:

• Fully animated DVD menus and menu transitions
• Producers’ Commentary
• Original Animatic
• Never-Before-Seen Alternate Ending
• Extensive Image Galleries
• Exclusive “Making of Ara” Featurette
• Complete “Ara, LLC” 411 Presentation
• Ara Soundtrack
• “This Thing Won’t Render” – The Mercy Mix Music Video
• And Much, Much More!

The other important thing to mention is these DVDs are not going on sale! Only 30 copies were made exclusively for crew members and other supporting parties. There are a few left over, so if you’re a fan of the movie and want an feature-rich inside look into the production and inspiration behind Ara, let us know and maybe we can slip you an ripped copy (or, who knows, a real one.)  Or, if you live in the greater Lafayette area, there should be a copy in the CGT department for public viewing. It was a goal of mine to start a tradition of student groups leaving DVD records of their projects in a CGT library of sorts, for future classes to find and draw inspiration from.

Well, more is to come real soon, I promise you! With a new school year upon us, things are just getting warmed up at Base14.

Success! Yesterday the entire team here at Base14 celebrated the completion of a new animatic. The contents of said animatic are still hush-hush, but rest assured it is going pretty well. Once feedback has been collected from select focus groups, there’s a very good possibility of some animation occurring.

In other less covert news, the entire Rightfield web comic archive has now been moved to its new, permanent home here at Base14. You can jump over to the archive anytime by using the Rightfield button in the sidebar. The address rightfield-online.com has been deactivated, so this is now the only way to reach the archive. But I think it’s easy enough.

One more thing! It’s always been a dream of mine to add some more fun, quirky elements to the Base14 Blog. So today we’re rolling out classic Base14 quotes. All your favorite quotes from all your favorite Base14 projects, now randomly delivered via our quote widget. For now, it’s the bottom item along our sidebar, but if I can find a good way to fit it in, I’d like to put it up along the top banner with a bit more of a visual style.

Just so long as we keep our boss happy.

Oh my goodness! What a mess that all was to sort out. If you’ve been attempting to explore the site in the past week, you very well may of noticed that none of it worked! Well, we noticed it too. And withholding some unforeseen extra glitches, I think we’ve got it all sorted out now.

The problem, it seemed, occurred while moving the entire site from the old host to the new one. The process I originally used to transfer the blog called for a complete transfer of blog directories with all original files intact, and a exact backup and restoration of the blog database using phpmyadmin. This process, while it did successfully connect the file structure with the database, somehow got the permalink functionality messed up, resulting in every subpage of the site becoming inaccessible. As I looked for the cause of the problem, I realized how deeply saturated the entire WordPress setup was with outdated plugins and leftover Yahoo host paraphernalia. And to top it off, the entire WordPress back end was due for an update. Continue Reading »

Here comes Update 1 from the Base14 Studio! Yesterday things got off to a good start. Co-producer Eli Glasch and I reviewed the current state of an animatic and made some ambitious decisions as to the flow and feel of the animation. Our decision mainly derives from an effort to make the creation flow better with faster, more continuous motion. Once the changes have been made, we’ll bringing in some consulting parties and see if the changes are an improvement.

Eli also has been taking time out to work on Threadless shirt designs, while I continue to get all my old websites and features back into fully functional states. And we have an entire fresh package of Oreos. Sweet!

Well it’s a happy day here at Base14! After a week of database management, registry keys, and countless support emails, we’re finally back online with a whole new web host. To make a long story short, our old web host, Yahoo, decided to significantly raise domain registry prices, and we weren’t too keen.  So some research and price comparisons led us to Inmotion Hosting, where we’re now settled and sitting happily. So hopefully this new setup will keep the website sailing for a long while to come, and we can get back to what we do best: making exciting new multimedia creations!

In other news, Base14 is conducting a test-run of a experimental production studio setup here in West Lafayette. With then return of animator Eli Glasch, Tyler Kupferer and Mr. Glasch will conduct a week-long simulation of a production studio focused on animation and motion graphics. Insight gained from this experiment may prove useful to future real-world entrepreneurial endeavors!

To kick off the new host and highlight our experiment, we’ll be posting an update at the end of each day right here on the blog! So check back soon!

Here I’ve been checking the Mozilla website and Firefox Wikipedia page for months trying to find out when the final version of Firefox 3 would be released. And lo and behold somehow I’ve missed that the Mozilla folks have launched a huge campaign to set a world record for for the most software downloads in 24 hours! It seems no one has ever attempted to set such a record before; what a swell idea to promote the worldwide support of this excellent piece of software! I’d encourage everyone who is a fan of the ‘Fox to partake, and if you’re one of the 74% of the population still using Internet Explorer, perhaps take the opportunity to try something new! Visit the site and pledge your support for Firefox!

When I woke up and was browsing my Google News headlines this morning, something caught my eye almost immediately, and refused to go away. Finally I gave it the attention it demanded, and realized to my surprise, Google has a new favicon! Well, we’ve had the uppercase G for as long as I can remember, and here’s how the new one compares.

Continue Reading »