I don't know, but...

I had to watch it like five times before I even heard what the Kirk is saying. Now I can't imagine living without it.

Kirk watching the new trailer (videosift)

Installing Makehuman 0.9.1-rc1a in Ubuntu Hardy Heron

I installed Makehuman today on my Ubuntu box, which is a little exhausting, since there are no pre-built packages readily available. Anyways, I though I'd document the process in case anyone needs to do the same. I'm going to try and describe how to a) Build Ubuntu packages (debs) from the source and b) how to install these debs.
It involves using the console, the package manager, profanity and luck. Make sure you master at least three out of four skill sets.

Step one - download the source code
Go to The Makehuman site and download the MakeHuman 0.9.1 RC1 C++ Source. You need three packages:

animorph-0.3.tar.gz
makehuman-0.9.1-rc1a.tar.gz
mhgui-0.2.tar.gz

I put these three files in a folder in my home folder, called "src".

Step two - unpack the source code
I use the console. Since I've put the three files in my "src" folder, these commands in the console will unpack the files:

cd src
tar -xvzf animorph-0.3.tar.gz
tar -xvzf makehuman-0.9.1-rc1a.tar.gz
tar -xvzf mhgui-0.2.tar.gz

The next steps deal with building the packages, and installing them. I ran into several problems during the build, and you might run into these or other problems, but

Step three - building animorph
The animorph package needs to be built first. Use the console to build a brand new deb that we will install later. When building a new deb file, you will have to fill in a package description. Just type whatever you like, and continue with "enter" twice. Note that the commands below are wrapped, all lines start with "sudo".

cd animorph-0.3
sudo ./configure --sysconfdir=/etc --libdir=/usr/lib --prefix=/usr
sudo make
sudo checkinstall --requires="libxmu, libxmuu1, freeglut3" --install=no

And it doesn't work. I get an error message complaining about changing permissions of some file, that is supposed to be installed in the /usr/local/lib folder. The reason for this is that the "--install=no" flag doesn't install the file. So we need to do a little "dirty fix" to make the installation program work. These three lines a)copy the built file to the lib folder, b) runs the package builder and c) removes the copied file. (I noticed that the first line gets a line break below, there are three commands, each one starting with "sudo")

sudo /usr/bin/install -c src/.libs/libanimorph.a /usr/lib/libanimorph.a
sudo checkinstall --requires="libxmu6, libxmuu1, freeglut3" --install=no
sudo rm /usr/lib/libanimorph.a

Step four - installing animorph
Open a file browser, browse to the animorph folder, and double-click the animorph_0.3-1_i386.deb file, and install it.

Step five - building mhgui
This one was trouble. First of all, mhgui needs a lot of development packages installed in your system. I'm not 100% what exactly, but I think you need to install these:

freeglut3
freeglut3-dev
libgtk2.0-dev
libxmu-dev

Update: I found a cleaner way of solving the dependencies, taking care of what packages are needed using auto-apt, check out this page at ubuntuforums.org.

Use your package manager (synaptic or other) to install them and their dependencies. Then close your package manager, and go to the console and try these commands to build mhgui. Note that all commands start with "sudo" in case the lines below are wrapped.

cd ..
cd mhgui-0.2/
sudo ./configure --sysconfdir=/etc --libdir=/usr/lib --prefix=/usr
sudo make
sudo /usr/bin/install -c src/.libs/libmhgui.a /usr/lib/libmhgui.a
sudo checkinstall --requires="animorph" --install=no
sudo rm /usr/lib/libmhgui.a

Step six - installing mhgui
Just like before, browse to the mhgui folder, double-click the mhgui_0.2-1_i386.deb file and install it.

Step seven - building makehuman
This was easier. Use the console to build.

cd ..
cd makehuman-0.9.1-rc1a/
sudo ./configure --sysconfdir=/etc --libdir=/usr/lib --prefix=/usr
sudo make
sudo checkinstall --requires="animorph, mhgui" --install=no

Step eight - installing makehuman
Just as before, double-click the .deb file and install it.

Step nine - running makehuman
Just run it from the console:

makehuman

Step ten - uninstalling Makehuman
Use your package manager to uninstall the makehuman. The packages are called animorph, mhgui and makehuman.

Installing Win XP Ubuntu dual boot

A couple of interesting details about last nights dual boot installation of Windows XP and Ubuntu 8.04.1 (AMD64).

When buying this computer, everyone I asked told me not to get Windows Vista, so I paid an extra SEK200 to get WinXP. Here's just a few thoughts on the installation.

I have two physical hard drives, and started by installing Windows XP Pro (English) on the first hard drive (80 GB). The last Windows version I installed was Windows 2000, so I kinda expected some improvements here, but I was really disappointed by the installation process. Here's the highlights:

• First of all, what's up with the text-only installation? Press F6 to load SCSI drivers? Press 'D' and then 'L' to delete a partition? Come on! Why doesn't my mouse work? How do I change the size of an existing partition?
• Secondly, why does it take 30 minutes to format an 80 GB drive?

After a while, Windows switches into a more user-friendly interface and starts installing. And it takes FOREVER. I set up my locale settings, try to set up my network, but the only network interface detected is my Firewire (!?), so I'm kinda confused for a while, but I finally let it slip, thinking these things will be resolved when Windows boots.

After what seems like forever, I'm finally allowed to boot into Windows. but I'm far from done. A lot of tweaking is needed, for example:

• Screen resolution is set insanely low, like 1024x768 or something
• Audio isn't working. There is no volume control
• My Gigibit Ethernet card isn't working, so I have no Internet access
• I get a popup asking me to connect to Microsoft to "Activate" Windows. I don't know, but I'm running the system, it seems pretty active to me. (Of course, when trying to "Activate" Windows, it's pretty obvious that my Ethernet card isn't working...)
• There are five unknown devices in the Device Manager

I realise that I need to download drivers for the on-board audio and Ethernet controller, so I head to the ASUS web site on my other computer (Debian), download everything for my motherboard, and write it to a CD, which I then physically transfer to the new computer. I also download the latest Nvidia drivers.

Back to Windows, where I install drivers for Audio, Ethernet, ACPI, USB hub (where the mouse and keyboard stop working) and graphics card and I'm told to reboot several times, getting error messages (which I ignore) but I'm finally done with the installation.

Granted, Windows XP isn't the newest operating system in the world, but hey; why do I manually have to download drivers? Why doesn't Microsoft have some kind of automatic download process for this kind of stuff? Ok, maybe I need to install Ethernet drivers manually. But ACPI? USB? It should just work!

But ok, I'm installed. Took me about two hours. Since I'm installing Ubuntu on a 400GB hard drive, I realise that the hard drive formatting will take about five times longer, so I decide to start the installation, and finish it in the morning. So I insert the Ubuntu disc, reboot, and whoops, I'm in Linux land.

Installation highlights:

• The first screen look kinda peculiar/confusing, but I can choose installation language, start the system from CD, or install it. I choose English (with swedish keyboard) and the option to install Ubuntu.
• The rest of the screens look nicer, I have a graphical interface where I can choose what hard drive I want to install the system on, I let Ubuntu decide how it wants to partition things, and choose to install it on the 400GB drive.

To my surprise, formatting doesn't take 2+ hours, after 20 minutes of waiting, I'm in Ubuntu land.

I log on, and some flashing icon tells me that I might want to switch to the Nvidia driver, since Ubuntu doesn't install proprietary drivers unless I really, really want it to. So I install the Nvidia driver (or rather; Ubuntu downloads and installs it for me), reboot, and I'm done.

Sound card works, Ethernet works, I don't know about ACPI or USB, but hey, I don't want to know.

ASUS P5K Geforce 8800 High pitched beeping

Got a new computer the day before yesterday, and after spending a couple of hours moving furniture, cleaning, and doing general cable maintenance in my office, I finally managed to calm down and get into the correct mood for that new computer virgin boot. (The box of chocolates and the red wine helped.)

Sadly, our first date was not very successful.

To her defense, she did put out, but she made a lot of noise, it didn't last for very long, and I got the feeling that neither of us was very satisfied.

Normally, your computer will use beep codes if there's a hardware error, and more often than not, these beep codes will result in the computer not starting at all. This time, I was experiencing a very high pitched continuous beep which just didn't stop. The pre-installed winXP did boot, and everything looked ok, but the beep was just too loud to ignore.

Some googling told me that this can normally happen when the auxiliary power supply to the GeForce card isn't plugged in, but the plug seemed to be in the correct place. It took me a couple of hours of searching, but I finally decided to examine the auxiliary power plug more carefully, and yeah, the cable was simply broken.

HDR imaging: No more gray matter

Been experimenting with HDR imaging, using my ixus and the excellent software suite qtpfsgui. The leftmost picture is a standard photo, the other two are HDR images, where I have combined five pictures into one. The physics involved are a bit too much to go into right now, but the results are excellent, even with my tiny digital camera.

Sydney, here I come!

Going to start preparing tonight!

Spin-off-effect

First of all, I'm switching from swedish to english. I noticed the other day that my old tutorial on the Blender 3D Wikibook has gotten a life of its own. Lots of people have contributed, which is great. My new project is a revival of an old project, codenamed CarGame back in 2001, I'm more or less picking up where I left off. I'm currently working on read methods for 3D objects, and whenever I'm done this is where I'm gonna post the results.

Hur många "o" är det egentligen i det sista "jobba"?

Den erkänt bästa hejaramsan vid hockey är ju såklart "Jobba, jobba, joobba!" Men hur många "o" ska det egentligen vara i det sista "jooba"?

En snabb google-undersökning ger vid handen att
9. "Jobba jobba,jooooooooobba!" - 0 träffar
8. "Jobba jobba,joooooooobba!" - 9 träffar
7. "Jobba jobba,jooooooobba!" - 5 träffar
6. "Jobba jobba,joooooobba!" - 16 träffar
5. "Jobba jobba,jooooobba!" - 30 träffar
4. "Jobba jobba,joooobba!" - 290 träffar
3. "Jobba jobba,jooobba!" - 95 träffar
2. "Jobba jobba,joobba!" - 307 träffar
1. "Jobba jobba,jobba!" - 15900 träffar

Nu är ju det sista alternativet diskvalificerat, eftersom det uttrycket betyder något helt annat. Och lite avrundat kan vi nog säga att det är i stort sett dött lopp mellan två och fyra "o".

SearchPet

It's quite boring, but funny.

Källaren

Jag gör lite bakgrundsbilder med Blender till mitt nya projekt. Här är en förhandstitt.

The Shatner

Det är visst rätt lätt att peka ut googlevideos, så här är en som jag i egenskap av Shatner-fan gillar.

Eye of the penguin

"Risin' up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive

So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive"
- Survivor, Eye of the tiger

Jag jobbar just nu med att få ögonen att se bra ut. Näbben behöver nog också en justering-

Det rör sig!

Jobbade lite på pingvinen, bland annat har jag satt ögon på den, men har lite problem med ögonlocken, som jag vill kunna öppna och stänga. Men nu har han i alla fall wridbart huvud, öppningsbar näbb, vingar som går att flaxa, och en underkropp som kan hoppa. Ska försöka få ihop en liten animation härnäst.

Pingvin version 2

Här är första varianten av den nya pingvinen. Något mindre bloffig, mer pinvinlik, och klart mer dödlig. Dessutom har den vingar. Och fötter. Saknas bara ögon.

March of the penguins

Robotpojken och i viss mån linux inspirerade mig till att försöka göra en 3D-pingvin, men mitt första försök blev väldigt spöklikt. Här är den i alla fall.