Disappointed..Not even one of my favorite 3 teams won!

Disappointed. Not because Mumbai Indians lost or CSK won, but the fact that all the 3 teams which were the favorites didnt win the IPL3!! Expected at least MI to win it, but its not to be..
Actually things got reverse!.. Wanted the following standing:

1. DC
2. RCB
3. MI
4. CSK
But it turned the other way round ;)..

Any way, a kind of emptiness is created in the entertainment world after 6 weeks of non stop bombardment with all the glitz, cricket and hype.. The controversy of IPL continues though!
And all the best for all teams for the next edition..
 --Anil

Expressions in Maya!--The most amazing tool in animation!

As the "anilmation" promo takes shape, its worth mentioning that the animation is being made completely of formulae that controls each and every element in the video! Whether it is the sine and cos waves that shows the way letters move around, the smoothstep() function, exp() function, etc.. they all have been heavily usefull in giving a very smooth output. Another important aspect of expressions is that they can be linked to the colours that you see on the screen as well! So we can see the dance of colours which creates an illusion of manual animation where as all that is done by just few lines of code like:


"if ((frame >=300)&&(frame<=360))\r\n{\r\nsetAttr \"ramp2.colorEntryList[0].color\" -type double3 -sin(frame) -sin(frame-90) 0 ;"



With love..
Anil

2 new Telugu channels on Sun Direct! Finally got rid of an irritant "Sakshi"

2 new Telugu channels on Sun Direct! Finally got rid of an irritant "Sakshi"

It was a surprise on tuesday, the 20th of April 2010 as TV 5 news and ABN Andhra Jyothi[via DD Direct feed] came on board Sun Direct much earlier than expected.


Also to be noted is the fact that it brings to end the terrible waste called Sakshi tv, which is more of YSJ's "personal secretary" than any meaningfull news channel as it calls itself[and thus cheating people].


News channels need to realize that just calling themselves "HD Ready channel" doesnt give them the respect from the public.


Its like creating an irritating music with empty bottles instead of bringing out the truth with journalism.


Ever since it was launched an year back, it has earned lots of rotten tomatoes from the public and has always been a more of a HD-ready channel hyper-obsessed with following YSR and YSJ now[like "we follow you where ever you go!"]


Take the following instance during a live coverage of YSJ's so called "consoling trip" across AP:


"BREAKING NEWS: YSJ consoling a woman at consoling trip in..."


They have nothing to show than accusing their rivals[especially Ramoji Rao and co.] and glorifying YSJ as the demi-god and born-again-YSR. The above example is just one of the many other instances of its mis-use of power of media.


Even the shameless attack on Reliance by YSJ's supporters in AP has been heavily inspired and aided by its non-stop coverage by creating stories about YSR's death [of course other congress supporting channels also had a small hand in it].


Just by having a mic, a satellite link, a god-father to get unlimited funding, graphic technology imported from abroad and some sympathisers doesnt make a good channel.


Especially in today's world, we have hundreds of channels groping for a space in the TRPs and you need to make an identity for yourself [even if the TRPs may not be impressive] rather than become a laughing stock of many. Getting the trust of the public with impartial, honest coverage of news is the key here, in which Sakshi seems to have failed big time.


Now that this channel is taken off, its good riddance.

Hope sun direct also ends the most useless "vissa tv" soon and replaces it with something fresh like "Sitara tv" or the energetic "Maa Music"

And it was nice to see WB and Nat Geo Wild continuing in the basic pack despite their plans to make them to add on packs[alongwith the less popular FX, Fox Crime and Baby tv]. They are the channels which give sun direct that extra edge in movies and infotainment when compared to other DTH services in India.

ఏం "Maya" చేసావె!!

And when I am saying "Maya" here, it doesnt refer to magic..But the software thats a popular tool in creating 3d/2d animated movies.
And yesterday night, looking at the stars above on the terrace of our home, they looked more like the vertices of an polygon object in Maya!
It becomes so easy to imagine everything in 3D, once you understand the basics, the logic and how Maya works.
And when the constellations kept shining in the pitch dark sky above, it seemed like they can be made into 3D objects and animated as well! Like:
The orion constellation, also called Mriga (The Deer)in India, can be made to rotate to create an illusion of a circular camera shot of the hunter!


















With love..
Anil

Bhagavad-gita As It Is 2.23

One of the most important words from Bhagavadgita..
courtesy: ISKCON Bangalore

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Best Regards,
Anil [http://anilreddy12001.blogspot.com]

"Pink Panther-2!"--The mega comedy!!

It was amazing to see Pink Panther-2 on Star Movies last Sunday 11pm.
Steve Martin has that infectious comic appeal that you hardly take focus off his performance every minute of the movie.
He is the soul of the film and Aishwarya doesnt have much to do than go around in her western dress and tell some boring dialogues. Dont know why the media hypes something as trivial as this unattractive role in a hollywood movie.
Talking about Steve Martin's role, he seems to be born for this role! I dont think anyone else has that kind of comic presence or the grace that he brings to the role of a detective.
The first Pink Panther was probably better than this one, but the comedy is superb nonetheless- the story and the plot is slightly inferior to that.
Comercially it may not have been so successfull, but it was enjoyable nevertheless.

With love..
Anil

The sweet tale of "Wall-E" and "EVE-ah"!

The sweet tale of "Wall-E" and "EVE-ah"!

The other day, "WALL-E" premiered on Star Movies.. An amazing piece of animated cinema! Its one of the best animated movies with an engaging storyline and a simple moral embedded in it.
The climax was truly amazing and the whole movie keeps you glued to your seats every minute of the movie. For movies with very few human/animal dialogues like this, it is a challenge to make the body language of the characters perfect! And the hard work of the animators shows in the way WALL-E looks in every scene, and the lovely EVA!
Applauds to them for bringing out the love between two robots in a touching way! Without comparing anyone, Indian films fail to bring out a great narrative with more innovation in the storyline. Exceptions to this are movies like Lagaan, Black, Taare Zameen Par, etc, but we certainly need more of these [and we do have the ability and millions of audiences to appreciate them].
Despite being home to some of the most breath taking locales in the world, the film makers failed to capture India in its whole glory.
In hollywood, every year, we have movies in a wide variety genres like comedy, romance, thriller, sci-fi, action and animation.
If we can watch in awe the beauty of the imaginary pandoras in Avatar, I believe our film makers have the ability to blow us away with the real natural and cultural treasure that we have in India!


With love..
Anil

The anatomy of a DTH system in simple words!!

DTH is one of the most promising areas of entertainment in India with a large market that has welcomed many players. There are 6 players-Dish tv, DD Direct Plus Tata sky, Sun direct, Airtel, Big tv and Videocon at the time of writing this post.

But most of us dont understand how this technology actually works and how it effects our tv viewing experience. The whole process from uplinking of the signal to viewing on our tv goes through so many steps that there may well be several seconds of delay between the time a live event happens and the time it comes on our screen!

Lets compare the whole thing with the mango business that starts at the farmer and ends at the consumer's plate!

To enter this business, you need the Government's permission that has several guidelines to be followed.

1. Getting content/feed from the broadcaster: This is like a seller buying mangoes from a farmer. No one is going to give it for free. Usually, content providers[channel owners] charge the DTH company for every subscriber that they have. So if a DTH company has 5 million subscribers, they need to shell out the package price multiplied by 5million.

2. Compressing the signal for transmission: Imagine this to be somewhat like minimizing the transportation costs by arranging the mangoes in a proper way so that there is minimum requirement for the number of trucks or number of trips to the consumer market.

In DTH world, the signal is compressed to MPEG2 or MPEG4 format[which consumes lesser bandwidth than MPEG2] which helps them to use lesser bandwidth while sending the signal to the satellite high above in the sky.

3. Protecting the signal from theft: This is like protecting mangoes from smugglers/mango thieves. They need to be transported in a tightly sealed container.

Here encryption of signal works as the seal, using an 8 byte secret key called a control key!

4. Receiving the signal by the consumer: The signal is received by the outdoor dish antenna and LNB[Low Noise Block] and sent to the STB [Set Top Box] thats kept indoor. This is similar to displaying the mangoes in an attractive pyramid like heaps where you and your father go to buy. Even though you see the mangoes, you cant have them yet!

5. Decryption of the signal by the STB: This is the tricky part of the whole thing. You cant understand anything if you steal any of the signal now. You need to have a card that can use the signal and decrypt/decode it. Its like opening the hard seal that usually accompanies the carry bag of Big Bazaar--Not easy!

The signal has 2 important part that helps the card inside STB to decode: ECM[Entitlement Control Message] and EMM[Entitlement Management Message]. ECM is like the key using which you open a box. EMM tells the card if it should ever decode the signal or not Its like a permission, similar to your father telling you to "open" or "not to open" the mango box!

Once you have paid the subscription amount and as long as you have balance in your account, you can have the permission[EMM] from your father and open the box using the key[ECM] and have the mangoes!

EMM also decides which channels you are given access to and which not[Based on the add on packs that you may/may not have purchased].

The problem with EMM right now in several systems like Sun Direct is that they are sent at very long intervals because of which even if you subscribe to say Star Movies, HBO and Sony PIX, your STB decodes the signal only after 8 hours after purchase[As has happened to me].

6. Showing the decrypted signal on the TV: This is something which is very usefull even for an old tv with hardly 30 channels.

Since STB controls the channel navigation and sends the output in only one specific bandwidth, you dont need your tv to have a huge capacity of channels.

All it needs is either:

An antenna point and capacity to show just one channel,

or

just 2 AV points[1 for the audio and 1 for the video input].

So it shouldnt surprise us if there is a delay of few seconds in all this DTH business!

With love..
Anil

3 IPL-3 Favorites!!

As it has been with the IPL, I have 3 teams to root for!..

Deccan Chargers for the native state's capital Hyderabad,

Royal Challengers for the city I live in,

and Mumbai Indians for the city I have worked, enjoyed and made most of my friends in!

So I have a match to catch up to almost every day for atleast the first round!

Funny thing is that none of the teams I supported reached the semis in the first edition!

Second edition changed it though with the Challengers and Deccan Chargers reaching the finals!

With love..
Anil

My animation#2 [IPL on SET MAX--Bowls you over!] !!

After making the animation involving a table lamp and a ball and watching it come alive with the background audio, I felt it has to be uploaded to YouTube here just before the IPL starts on march 12, 2010. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, proving yet again that there is so much more that we can do with Maya.

Since the video was a kind of short 21 second promo for the IPL on SET MAX, there was lots of excitement about it, what with the frenzy building up all the time.

As IPL means a carnival of sorts from SET MAX, the background score should also reflect the carnival mood. And while I was searching for the right audio, I settled for the A R Rahman track from the Couple's retreat, which was long-listed under the Best Original score for Oscars this year, but unfortunately didnt make it to the final nominees list.

Personally it is a very energetic song with very peppy-foot-tapping tunes and goes like "say na na...". Rahman's dexterity and mastery of tunes alongwith constant rhythm needs no special mention as he is a legend in himself!

I am not sure how many in India have heard the song or even known about it, but its worth listening it here for the magnificient energy that it sends out!

Like most Rahman's songs, it may not strike you at the first time, but will slowly grow on you with every consequent listening.

Coming back to the making of the IPL on SET MAX promo, it could have been even better if I had created the audio first, felt it and then created the video later! Suggestions from the audience on the video also showed that there could have been more anticipation and exaggaration[both being important principles of animation] of the table lamp's behaviour.

I will surely make the improvements in my major project by making the background score first and then video later.

So looking forward to the project work on Avatar-2 now and expecting a greater and bigger product! And for now, bye..tc

With love..
Anil

First experience of creating animated movie!

When the first shot of the ultra short-4 second video unfurled, it can be called a dream come true! Always wondered how a simple lifeless object in maya can be brought to life to entertain viewers across the world! Yesterday was the day when the complete process presented itself to me when I made this short video just for a demo purpose and the world of possibilities that lay ahead in the road laid out by the amazing software called maya!The video just shows a kind of large reptilian bird[or a kind of flying dino as you may call it] approaching the camera, hitting a billboard in front of 3 sky scrapers, and going away.Next was finding the right audio for background, and luckily a tiny part of Avatar's trailer soudtrack suited it pretty well!Of course Maya is just a tool whereas the real creator is within ourselves-- The amazing thing called "creativity"!No doubt the final demoreel/[or project as you may all call] product is not going to be easy, what with lots of things to be learnt in the ocean called with a simple word "Maya"!Its mind boggling to imagine how the creators of Avatar imagined all the characters and brought them to life on the super big screen, even though the motion was handled by all those cameras and huge performance capture systems. Video is available on YouTube here



With love..
Anil

Story of a Tea Cup

Story of a Tea Cup

"There was a time when I was just a dumb lump of red clay. Then one day my master came. He took me, brought me home, rolled and pounded me on a wooden table. Again and again, he poked his fingers into me until finally I yelled out: 'Don't do that! Leave me alone!' But he only smiled and gently said: "Not yet!"

Then, whoommmm! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly spun around and around and around until I lost all my sense of direction: 'Stop it; don't you see that I'm getting sick? Quickly, take me from the spinning wheel!' But the master only nodded in understanding and quietly said: "Not yet!"

Then he placed me carefully into an oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door: 'It is hotter than hell - I'm burning to ashes. Please get me out of here before it is too late.' I could only read his lips as he shook his head from side to side and silently pronounced, "Not yet!"

After I had cooled down he carefully picked me up, looked at me and brushed some dust away. Then he brought the colors! The fumes were horrible! 'Please... you have no mercy! Please, Stop it!' But he only shook his head and said: "Not yet!"

An hour or later he came back and placed a mirror before me and said: "Look at yourself!" And I did.What I saw amazed me. 'That's not me!' I said. 'It is too beautiful...' With a very compassionate voice he spoke: "This is what you are meant to be," and then he explained: "I know it hurt you when I rolled and kneaded you on the table. But if I had not gotten the air out of you, you would have broken. I knew you must have lost all your sense of orientation when I was spinning you. But without this you would never have come into this form. I know the fumes of the colors were intolerable when I painted you all over. But if I had not done that, you would not have had any color in your life."

God is the potter and we are the clay. He will mold us and will expose us to just enough pressures of just the right kinds that we will become a perfect piece of His liking.

--Anil

Beautiful Message..

Regards,
Friends of Lord Krishna (FOLK)
ISKCON, Bangalore

Visit us at
www.folknet.in
www.iskconbangalore.org

Best Regards,
Anil [http://anilreddy12001.blogspot.com]

Don't Interrupt Others or Finish Their Sentences

Another nice message from ISKCON Bangalore:

Don't Interrupt Others or Finish Their Sentences

When you interrupt someone, or finish his or her sentence, you have to keep
track not only of your own thoughts but of those of the person you are
interrupting as well.

This tendency (which, by the way, is extremely common in busy people),
encourages both parties to speed up their speech and their thinking. This,
in turn, makes both people nervous, irritable, and annoyed. It is also the
cause of many arguments, because if there's one thing almost everyone
resents, it's someone who doesn't listen to what they are saying.

Once you begin noticing yourself interrupting other, you'll see that this
tendency is nothing more than an innocent habit that has become invisible to
you. This is good news because it means that all you really have to do is to
begin catching yourself when you forget. Remind yourself (before a
conversation begins, if possible) to be patient and wait. Tell yourself to
allow the other person to finish speaking before you take your turn.

You'll notice, right away, how much the interactions with the people in your
life will improve as a direct result of this simple act. The people you
communicate with will feel much more relaxed around you when they feel heard
and listened to. You'll also notice how much more relaxed you'll feel when
you stop interrupting others. Your heart and pulse rates will slow down, and
you'll begin to enjoy your conversations rather than rush through them.

This is an easy way to become a more relaxed and loving person.

--
Regards,
Friends of Lord Krishna (FOLK)
ISKCON, Bangalore

Visit us at
www.folknet.in
www.iskconbangalore.org

Develop Your Compassion

Today, I received this beautifull mail from ISKCON Bangalore..

"Compassion is a sympathetic feeling. It involves the willingness to put yourself in someone else's shoes, to take the focus off yourself and to imagine what it's like to be in someone else's predicament, and simultaneously, to feel love for that person. 

Compassion is the recognition that other people's problems, their pain and frustrations, are every bit as real as our own---often far worse. In recognizing this fact and trying to offer some assistance, we open our own hearts and greatly enhance our sense of gratitude.

Compassion is something you can develop with practice. It involves two things: intention and action. Intention simply means you remember to open your heart to others; you expand what and who matters, from yourself to other people. Action is simply the "what you do about it."

Compassion develops your sense of gratitude by taking your attention off all the little things that most of us have learned to take too seriously."

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Best Regards,
Anil [http://anilreddy12001.blogspot.com]

Full text of Pranab Mukherjee's Budget 2010-11 speech

IBNLive : Full text of Pranab Mukherjee's Budget 2010-11 speech : Print Page

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Enjoy..Anil

Wild Family "Cheetah Blood Brothers" on Nat Geo Wild---Amazing!!

Yesterday's documentary about "Cheetahs--Blood Brothers" on Nat Geo Wild was an amazing experience! Its an endearing program about how cheetahs' life and the heart touching story of cheetah brothers/cousins. Its amazing how they manage and cooperate within themselves!
The two cheetah brothers waiting in vain for their elder brother was particularly touching! Also the shot where the two brothers stay close while drinking water[so as to protect themselves from any attack] was superbly taken! Kudos to the makers for this amazing piece of documentary!! I strongly recommend this show, as well as the movie Duma [coming soon on WB and HBO] for those who love wild life films!!

With love..
Anil

Check out Save Our Tigers | Join the Roar

Title: Save Our Tigers | Join the Roar
Link: http://gotaf.socialtwist.com/redirect?l=-358487566719608936821

"Gulliver's Travels" now live in the Kindle Store!!

The legendary book of Gulliver's travels is now available at the kindle store

here

..

Just login at the site : https://dtp.amazon.com

With love..
Anil

An upgraded Sun Direct STB Software!!

Seems like sun direct is improving with time! On the mahashivaraatri day[12 Feb 2010], I was surprised to see a banner while watching a maa tv program. It said something like "download happening" or an 'update beginning..", and automatically restarted the STB.
It took just over 6 minutes to complete setup, showing statuses like 1, 2, 3,...and "f"[for finishing].
Once it started, it was a pleasant surprise as to how it looked!
Its something like the brand new bright blue hotmail compared to the previous windows 98 like boxy design!
Looks apart, there is a new feature which enables us to edit our favorite channel numbers individually while still watching the channel and sort them by name or by number. This is really handy which was missing in the previous software.
We can also see a small suggestion box at the top right when we type channel numbers, which makes it very easy to use.
One modified feature is that despite showing the help channel at startup, it remembers our previous channel which we were viewing before turning off the stb.
All we have to do is press the recall button after startup.
One thing that they can do well to improve connectivity with the consumers is the communication of any new channels or any info/latest offers through mail. This is very important especially when a new channel is added, when a recharge has been successfull, or a new add-on pack is added to your account.

This can keep us in a much better touch with sun direct. Hope IBM, [who handles the customer management services of sun direct] is listening.

Right now, we have to depend on the internet for latest news on sundirect.

Anyway the improvements are good. Sun direct probably has more business news channels in the basic pack than any other service[ndtv profit, utv bloomberg and ET Now], most number of movie channels in basic pack[utv action, utv movies, world movies and wb], the only service that provides a world class international news channel BBC World News in its basic pack, and the only HD DTH service in India as of 14 feb 2010.