3D Modeling

One important skill in the film industry and in the gaming industry is 3D modeling. Almost everyday the general public will encounter so form of computer-generated imagery (CGI) or computer graphics. In movies CGI is use to create anything and everything that cannot be produced physical. Form exotic fairy-tail scenery to scifi space battles or form transforming robots to life like monsters. CGI has been use for many years and has improved over the ages.

Lately I have been trying to develop my 3D modeling skills. In this YouTube video I used pictures of my own face as reference to model a relatively basic face.

My Blog (19)

So far as I have kept this blog, I have found it to be very enjoyable. I do wish I was more consistent with updating the posts but I will be sure that this school assignment will become a regular thing that I will keep throughout my life.

General Conference (18)

This last weekend was the General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is when all the leader of the church gathers together to speak to the members of the church. We as members of the church have the privilege of hearing for our beloved prophet and learn the will of the Lord for us his children in our day and time. This conference we were given wonderful conceil regarding marriage and family life. I enjoyed the talk given by Thomas S. Monson during the priesthood session on Saturday night.

Another English Paper (17)

Earlier this semester in my writing class, we were given the assignment to analysis two different talks that were given by the same speakers. The talks were by Elder David A. Bednar, they were themed on social media and the pros and cons of using social media. After analyzing these talks we were to write a paper on our findings. My paper is included as follows.

Comparing Two Talks

                In this paper I will be Comparing and contrasting two wonderful talks that were given by Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The first was given in May of 2009 and is titled “Things as They Really Are”. The second was given in August on 2014 and is titled “To Sweep the Earth as with a Flood”. The first was addressed at a Church Educational System fireside at Brigham Young University-Idaho. This means that the audience would have been relatively young, in their mid-twenties. The second was given during Education week at Brigham Young University in Provo, meaning that the audience in attendance would have most likely been older in age than the audience of the first.

                Now that we have identified the settings and designated audience of these two talks By Elder Bednar I will describe the topics, similarities, and differences of them. Both talks were given on the topic of modern technologies, entertainments, social media and how we, as Latter Day Saints, should utilize our time while using them. As well as what we should be aware of and ultimately avoid all together. As I was reading these talks the main point that stood out to me over all the rest was how the talk “Things as They Really Are” seemed to resemble Elder Bednar’s apostolic calling as a watchman on a tower giving warning words to those of us below. An example of this in his talk I would be when he said the following speech on virtual reality: “If the adversary cannot entice us to misuse our physical bodies, then one of his most potent tactics is to beguile you and me as embodied spirits to disconnect gradually and physically from things as they really are.” In His Second talk “To Sweep the Earth as with a Flood” Elder Bednar speaks more on things that we should do when we use social media versus things we shouldn't as he did in the first. Similarly an example of this in his later talk would be when he quoted Elder L. Tom Perry saying: “…We invite the young and the old, the adults, the young adults, the youth, and the children everywhere to join with us in this exciting new work by becoming Facebook friends with the missionaries in your area on your own computers and sharing their gospel messages online and by becoming involved in missionary work yourselves.”

                Finally I would like to state that although both of these talks were given at different times, to different audiences, and with different focus points; I felt that they were not so different. Both of these talks were based on similar, if not the same, topics: social media. Both addresses were given to inform the members of the church of the positive and negative uses of social media as both talks mention positive and negative individually. I feel that the reasons for the opposing focuses between the first and the second were due to the timing and the intended audiences.

Reflection On My Narrative (16)

During the course of writing my personal narrative I was able to reflect on my past and and my relationship with my wife. I always love to remember back when I first kiss my wife Charly. As I was thinking back to the experience I had with Charly it was a good reminder of how much I love her. I was also able to talk to my wife about it and get everything straight of how the events occurred. Another thing that I learn from writing my personal narrative and from the class lectures we had on personal narratives was the difference in writing styles between research papers, analysis papers, reviews, and personal narrative.

My Personal Narrative (15)

For my writing class this semester we had to write a personal narrative and the post it on our blog. Here is mine.

The Kiss worth More than Money

By Nathan Jensen

            “Happy birthday, Nathan!” exclaimed Mark as I trekked up the stairs, ready to go to church. Mark is my older brother and close friend. We often spent time together working out at the gym, working up a sweat, or defending humanity from the invasion of alien forces in our favorite video games. Mark is seven years older than me and a heroic figure in my eyes. He had always been stronger than me growing up and “worked me over” in every sport we played together. His dirty blond curly hair was a poofy afro as it always got when he hadn’t cut it in months.

“Thanks,” I shrugged.

“Do you feel any older?” came Mark, poking fun at me as usual.

“No, not really,” I lied. It was my sixteenth birthday. For every kid their sixteenth birthday is a big landmark in their short lives thus far. It is the age you are able to drive legally and there was something special about being sixteen that made a teenager feel so much older than fifteen. For myself, I felt more like a man because I was newly allowed by my parents to date. Before this time, my parents disapproved of me even hanging out with my group of friends if there were any girls in the group. Although I was permitted to casually date, my parents had made deals with my siblings and I that if we could make it to the age of eighteen without kissing anyone, they would give us a thousand dollar reward. Only one of my sisters had been able make it to the age of eighteen without kissing any boys.

            In the days leading up to my birthday and throughout the morning I received many comments from my family members asking if I would try to make the thousand or not.

            “If I had the chance I would take back all the kisses I had before my spouse, and a thousand dollars is a lot of money for a kid,” said my sister Laura who was recently married.

            You’re probably right, I thought, but I could not be bothered with waiting until I was eighteen. I knew that I was destined to not make that thousand dollars from my parents. For I had a secret that my family had no idea about. That secret had a name, and her name was Charly. Charly was my latest crush and the girl of my dreams. Charly and I had an honors art class together the year before, and we had become great friends. We often walked home together after school. She had long flowing brown hair with bangs that brushed over her forehead. Her eyes were a deep, storm grey that matched her mysteriously complex personality. I was greeted with beaming smiles whenever she saw me and her ability to get lost in the feeling of every hug she gave me.

            The rest of my birthday passed by without much more excitement than a family get together as most my brothers and sisters gathered around the dining table for a wonderful Sunday birthday dinner, and special German Chocolate cake with my mom’s homemade frosting and ice cream for dessert. The dinner was my father’s signature Sunday dinner, grilled flank steak with baked baby potatoes and greens. That night I went to bed this a smile on my face, satisfied with another birthday passed, and with all the possibilities of my next year to come.

            BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! My alarm sounded early in the morning the next day. I awoke but remained in bed. My house felt like a sub-zero freezer located in the tundra. Once I was good and ready to get on with my day I got up and threw on my warmest clothes. My day at school dragged, teacher after teacher, class after class, and bell after bell. Finally the last bell rang and I left my class, relieved that another school day over. As I was walking through the halls, bustling kids were going every which way, all trying to get home, like an army of ants escaping their hill when the rain begins to fall. Through the crowd I saw Charly waiting in the usual spot I had met her every day during lunch and after school. Her hair was down to her shoulders, brown with tiny highlights. Her face seemed to be glowing when she caught sight of me.

“Hello Charly,” I said, giving her a hug as if I had not seen her in years.

“How was your day?” she asked playfully, walking with me toward the door.

“My day was good,” I replied. We continued with our small talk as we left the school and proceeded to walk home hand in hand. On our way, we crossed through a nearby park, and as we passed by an exceptionally tall evergreen tree with a blanket of snow covering it, I pulled on Charly’s hand bringing her to a stop in the foot high snow. I wrapped my arms around her, giving her another big hug. I leaned into the large fresh snow bank until we fell. We laughed until the cold began to soak into our clothes. I nervously took a deep breath as if I was about to plunge into a death trap of water. I began to pull away from the hug and then slowly leaned back in to kiss her… waited a moment, which felt as if it would never end. Then I closed my eyes and kissed Charly for the first time as we both lay there in the snow. That kiss became burned into my brain as the kiss I have not forgotten nor will I ever forget.

            We gave each other a few more kiss, each kiss becoming more and more comfortable and natural. Once we had enough, we continued to walk toward home. As I walked beside Charly, thoughts of what my family would think and say crept into my mind. Would they be upset, or angry? Would they ground me like they had done before? I said nothing of these thoughts to Charly but kept them to myself. After we reached my neighborhood turn we said goodbye and departed with one last grand hug and kiss.

I walked down my street until Charly was out of sight and then broke into a spirit home, getting more and more worried about what would happen when I got home.  As I approached my front door I slowed down and calmed my heart rate. If I act normal and say nothing, they won’t find out and it will be all good, I stepped through the door. As I came into the living room I found my brother Mark playing video games and my mother sitting at the kitchen table with all her quilting projects spread out upon it. Right on, I’ll just go sit down next to him and play some games. That’s normal, right? I asked myself.

“How was your day?” Mark asked as I sat down next to him.

“Oh, it was pretty good.” I said, trying to keep the conversation to a minimal, in hopes I wouldn’t divulge my secret and cause a scene. At that time it seemed I would get away with my secret a little bit longer as I tried to mask the real way I was feeling with the digital bits of the screen. Then all of the sudden out of the nowhere my father walked through the door, home early from work. He set his bags down near the table. I tried to not notice him. He took one look around and then his eyes fixed on me.

“SO, Nathan, you kiss anyone yet?”

My heart jumped, just like the virtual hero in the game I was playing as he leaped into a pit of lava by my reaction that jerked the joystick on the controller. I was caught off guard and had no clue what I would say. “Ummmmmmm…” was all that came out.

Then came the reaction.

“WHAT, ha ha,” Mark laughed, with wide eyes and a large grin on his face.

“Really?” My dad said, amused. I could tell he was half laughing and half flabbergasted. He probably thought it was humorous that he asked that question and I had actually kissed a girl. After everyone in the room got the teasing remarks out towards me the mood in the room changed. My parents wanted to more information about how their youngest son had gotten such an out-of-the-blue kiss and who the girl was that I had been spending time with. I felt as if I was in an FBI interrogation and being the innocently honest young sixteen year old I was, I told them.

“You know, Nathan, you are only sixteen and you really shouldn’t be dating anyone exclusively,” my mom said. “We want you to tell this young girl you need to date other girls. You should have fun and get to know lots of girls to just be friends.” I was not happy to hear this from my parents. I cared for Charly and didn’t want to tell her that I couldn’t kiss her anymore.

Over the next few days I continued to see Charly and we kissed a few more times, but every kiss made me feel worse and worse as if I was disobeying my parents. Finally I decided I would listen to my mom. I sent Charly a message over the Internet and told her I couldn’t kiss her anymore. This made me feel even worse and I could see Charly was sad as well when I would pass her in the halls at school. It was as if we both had storm clouds hanging over us, raining down on the feelings we had for each other. After time we remained friends and the storm clouds melted away. We would say “hi” to each other in the hall and give each other the occasional hug. I could tell Charly held onto some of her feelings for me.

Years passed and our communication was nonexistent. Charly and I had dated many other people. I had now grown from a teenager to a young man of the age of twenty-one. A mission had helped to create a new person from the child I was back then. I had dreams of swimming for BYU and often liked to go for short runs to stay in shape. The app I used for mile tracking would post the progress of my runs on Facebook. After posting one of such runs I saw that Charly had left a comment about how slow of a runner I was. I could tell by the way she used her words that there was a slight flirtatious tone and thought I would spark up a conversation. “Well if you think you are so much faster than me why don’t we go for a run together sometime?” I commented back.

“Anytime, anyplace,” she replied.

After meeting back up for the first time in years of being apart, I could tell that all those feelings I had for Charly back in the day had not left me, and that they were real. Charly was a little skeptical of me at first because, after all, I had broken her heart once before. A few days later we kissed once more for the first time and a few long months later we were engaged. Now at almost a year after our wedding I sit next to her writing this paper for my writing class at BYU. She is doing her own homework. Both of us working towards our goals and helping each other along the way. Our love burning bright. I look over and she looks more beautiful than ever. Her hair is still long, her eyes are still a smoky grey, and I say to the girl who stole my thousand dollar kiss:

“Every moment is worth more to me than all the money in the world.”

Apple Painting (14)

Many years ago my uncle taught me how to draw and color an apple. Back then I use pencil and pastels. Just recently I thought I would try my hand at making another apple. This time I use Photoshop. How do you think my skills have improved? Apple are a great still life to draw and color at there are many underlying color that are in apple besides the color red. I enjoyed my time painting this apple.

Then

Now

-The IT Dude

Look Sister Steadman No Hand: Research Project (13)

In my writing class at BYU we have been given an assignment to write a research paper on a family story that has a related topic to a current issue and is relevant to my personal life. The story that I chose to write on is of my father's uncle, who caught a man steeling for their wrecking yard. At the beginning of this assignment I was skeptical about this assignment because the I personally felt the requirement were a little extreme. Now that I have started the paper I am feeling a little better about it and the progress I am making.The topic of my paper is on justice and mercy.

If I were to have a dialogue with one of my readers about my paper which and was given the following questions it could proceed like

(Reader) What are the right form of punishments according to the crimes committed?

(Me) Well every degree of crime has a degree of punishment that correlates to it. If there are minor crimes a minor punishment must be assigned. if there is a major crime a major crime must be assigned. It is wrong to assign a punishment that does not match the crime. If there is to be mercy given in place of the punishment the crime committed must be justified in the situation and circumstance of the individual. For example there is a circumstance in which one human killing another human is a crime (murder) and there is another circumstance in which it is not a crime (self-defense). with murder a punishment must be given, with self-defense a mercy is given.

This Posting has been a direct assignment form my professor.

-The IT Dude

Teaching Sunbeams (12)

On Sundays my wife and I attended our local church service of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In our congregation(ward) we have been assigned to help another couple teach the Sunbeam class which consists of seven, three year old. I with the kids enjoy hearing about various Bible, Book of Mormon, and church history stories. We also have fun letting the kids color pictures of Jesus Christ and other church pictures. There is also plenty of time for them to play games and do many fun educational activities. It has been a great blessing in my life to teach these young kids the gospel of Jesus Christ and help them understand good behavior and true principles.

- The IT Dude

My Paper on New Media (11)

This semester I am taking a writing class to progress to my degree in information technology. In this class we had to write a paper to compare two talks that we given by Elder David A. Bednar, who is a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or otherwise known as the Mormons. These talks were given on the topic of new media. I have included my paper below.

- The IT Dude

Comparing Two Talks

                In this paper I will be Comparing and contrasting two wonderful talks that were given by Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The first was given in May of 2009 and is titled “Things as They Really Are”. The second was given in August on 2014 and is titled “To Sweep the Earth as with a Flood”. The first was addressed at a Church Educational System fireside at Brigham Young University-Idaho. This means that the audience would have been relatively young, in their mid-twenties. The second was given during Education week at Brigham Young University in Provo, meaning that the audience in attendance would have most likely been older in age than the audience of the first.

                Now that we have identified the settings and designated audience of these two talks By Elder Bednar I will describe the topics, similarities, and differences of them. Both talks were given on the topic of modern technologies, entertainments, social media and how we, as Latter Day Saints, should utilize our time while using them. As well as what we should be aware of and ultimately avoid all together. As I was reading these talks the main point that stood out to me over all the rest was how the talk “Things as They Really Are” seemed to resemble Elder Bednar’s apostolic calling as a watchman on a tower giving warning words to those of us below. An example of this in his talk I would be when he said the following speech on virtual reality: “If the adversary cannot entice us to misuse our physical bodies, then one of his most potent tactics is to beguile you and me as embodied spirits to disconnect gradually and physically from things as they really are.” In His Second talk “To Sweep the Earth as with a Flood” Elder Bednar speaks more on things that we should do when we use social media versus things we shouldn't as he did in the first. Similarly an example of this in his later talk would be when he quoted Elder L. Tom Perry saying: “…We invite the young and the old, the adults, the young adults, the youth, and the children everywhere to join with us in this exciting new work by becoming Facebook friends with the missionaries in your area on your own computers and sharing their gospel messages online and by becoming involved in missionary work yourselves.”

                Finally I would like to state that although both of these talks were given at different times, to different audiences, and with different focus points; I felt that they were not so different. Both of these talks were based on similar, if not the same, topics: social media. Both addresses were given to inform the members of the church of the positive and negative uses of social media as both talks mention positive and negative individually. I feel that the reasons for the opposing focuses between the first and the second were due to the timing and the intended audiences.

Project Dust (10)

Last semester I was in my IT 101 class and had a lecture from a guest professor who gave the lecture on human-computer interactions. During his lecture he talk about a university project called Dust which was to be a virtual reality game. After the class I went up and introduced myself to him and uninformed him of the background I've had with my own game projects and my experience with Unity 3D. After this I was brought on to the development team. I was able to help construct various three-dimensional environments in which players investigate the crisis at hand.

For more on the official site https://fallingdust.com/

Lion Child Painting (9)

This video is another painting that was created by my wife, showing her amazing tallent. Here she paints a majestic lion and a brave young girl. This painting could be use to depict the friendly relationship between Lucy and Aslan in C. S. Lewis classic novel The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

- The IT Dude

Pretty Bird Painting (8)

In the video, my wife screen captured her monitor while painting a gorgeous tropical bird. This bird has the longest tail with the prettiest colors. My wife has her degree in animation and is an extremely tallented artist. Enjoy this video and stay toon for more art.

- The IT Dude

Review: Clash of Clans (7)

Image from: http://supercell.com/en/for-media/

I have recently downloaded the mobile game Clash of Clans on my android phone. I have found that this app is quite entertaining and somewhat addictive. For along time this game has been the top grossing game on the mobile app markets. Although it is the top grossing game it is no longer the top free game but it fifth.

In this medieval themed game you play the roll of  an overseer, building up your village, collecting resources, training military forces, and attacking enemies forts. When first beginning many of the basic advancements in the game are fairly cheap in cost of the in game currencies. Shortly into the game the higher level advancements cost more in-game resources and require more wait time for construction. Clash of Clans is a game that feeds off of impatience. It is a game that can be play for ten minutes every so many hours or for those that can't wait they many use a special in game currency of gems to speed up the process. The only problem is that the gems don't regenerate with time. The reason Clash of Clans feeds off the impatient is by the way it utilizes something called in-app purchases because Clash of Clans is a free download and has no ads the producers of it make their money form its in app purchases. For those that can't wait for the resources to replenish or for those that spend their gems they my buy more  by spending real world money, this is how Clash of Clans is the top grossing game on the market.

- The IT Dude

Data Structures Lab 1 RPG (6)

In my class Data Structures, we were given a lab assignment where we were required to program portions of a role playing game (RPG) video game. The final outcome of this RPG had no art in it's design. It ended up being a very basic console application running in a Linux terminal.

- The IT Dude

Shark Painting (5)

I recently created this painting of a shark. While I was paint this shark I screen captured my monitor and then made this video. This painting took me about three hours to make but I have sped up the process so now you can watch it in five minutes. Sharks would have to be my favorite animal.

- The IT Dude

My Class: Computer Systems (4)

This semester at BYU I am taking an IT class called computer system. In this class we will be learning how a computer operates and functions. I am currently in the third week of the course and have many weeks to go. in my schooling so far  I have taken  one other IT class which was an intro to information technology. In my intro IT class we learn basic topics of information technology and touched on them very lightly. Following this posting I will elaborate on my findings with the things I learn in my class computer systems class.

- The IT Dude

Brown Bear Painting (3)

My first painting that I was able to create was a picture of a brown colored bear. When creating these paintings I use Photoshop on my computer and a Wacom tablet and stylist. the Wacom table and stylist help me in the process because it make the experience more to what it would be like as if I was using an actual brush and canvas. One of the biggest upsides to using Photoshop is that there in no clean up needed after finish a piece of art. The video that I have posted has been sped up to save you viewing time.

-The IT Dude

Digital Painting (2)

Lately I have been creating digital paintings with Photoshop. Practice has got to been the most important element when it comes to improving your skills and abilities. I have been wanting to improve my ability to create beautiful pieces of art and so I have started painting. I have screen captured my monitor while I paint so I could put them up on YouTube and share it with all of you. My wonderfully talented wife has also records her paintings and so some of the videos I will share with you will be the handy work of my wife.

- The IT Dude

My Blog (1)

This is my first blog posting. I have set up this blog to share with all of you my process and progress in obtaining my degree in information technology and into my carrier. I will share my secrets, tip and tricks, tutorials, challenges, successes, and creations. I will also post about my own background and current daily experiences.

A little bit about me, I am a current student at Brigham Young University. I have always loved technology and art. For my future occupation and hobbies I would like to find a way that I can intertwine my love for technology and abilities as an artist. As some may guess by my enrollment at BYU I am religious and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka "Mormon". Along with my normal posting, part of my posting will surely be in regards to my beliefs.

- The IT Dude