Monday, May 27, 2024

The Start Of The Week...



I put this one together quickly while in the middle of this post. Took about thirty minutes to render.


Hi again. 

Still recovering from being hate bombed by bullies this past week and weekend but feeling much better.

Does anyone out there remember Mynocks? (there I go revealing my real age again)

They're a species from the Star Wars universe, similar to Lamprey, but with wings. Anyhow, they're a parasitic species, having evolved the ability to metabolize energy directly from the power lines and coils of starships and are seen on film in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, during the scene in which Leia, Han, Chewy and C3PO land the Millennium Falcon inside of an asteroid to escape a pursuing Imperial Star Destroyer. They venture outside of the Falcon and find Mynocks chewing on the power cables, after which they proceed to clean them off (completely spoiler free).

My point is that I've got a few modern day Mynocks of my own that I've got to get off of my computer(s). I'm sure that those of you who work closely with computers and in solitude in home offices will completely understand.

Regardless, I'm doing this post just to let you know that I'll be working most of this week on other projects related to Shhhh! Digital Media, however I won't be publishing anything new until later in the week (if you don't count the artwork gracing the entry point to this post).

Most of what I'll be doing this week is related to coding (Delphi and Unreal Engine) and artwork (Photoshop and Corel Painter). I'll also be stepping into some AI related production as well.

I should be back to writing soon thereafter and I'll focus on finishing The Two Butterflies Episode 11 first, and then some of the other stories, after which I'll return to the episodic writing for the other series (We Who Stand On Guard and Night Boat) and of course give some deserved attention to a rather important event in Mila and Barris' life...

Thank you very much for sticking with me through the thick and thin, and I'll be seeing you in writing soon...

Oh, and Happy Memorial Day to my readers from the United States!

(I'm not Jake N by the way)

Credits and attribution:

Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...

Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, Borderline Obsession...

InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.

Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.

Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.

Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)

Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.

Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.



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