为什么我们说wii好

一个好的游戏机，能给人的想象力插上翅膀。

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

卓有成效

正在看德鲁克(Peter F. Drucker)的“卓有成效的管理者”(The Effective Executive)，书不厚，总的概括就在下面这短短的五项，摘抄下来作为2008年的开篇。

下列五项是要成为一个卓有成效的管理者，必须在思想上养成的习惯：

1、有效的管理者知道他们的时间用在什么地方。他们所能控制的时间非常有限，他们会有系统地工作，来善用这有限的时间。
2、有效的管理者重视对外界的贡献。他们并非为工作而工作，而是为成果而工作。他们不会一接到工作就一头钻进去，更不会一开头就探究工作的技术和手段，他们会首先自问：“别人期望我做出什么成果？”
3、有效的管理者善于利用长处，包括自己的长处、上司的长处、同事的长处和下属的长处。他们还善于抓住有利形势，做他们想做的事。他们不会把工作建立在自己的短处上，也决不会去做自己做不了的事。
4、有效的管理者集中精力于少数重要的领域，在这少数重要的领域中，如果能有优秀的绩效就可以产生卓越的成果。他们会按照工作的轻重缓急设定优先次序，而且坚守优先次序。他们知道：要事第一。重要的事先做，不重要的事放一放，除此之外也没有其他办法，否则反倒会一事无成。
5、最后，有效的管理者必须善于做有效的决策。他们知道有效的决策事关处事的条理和秩序问题，也就是如何按正确的次序采取正确的步骤。他们知道一项有效的决策，总是在“不同意见讨论”的基础上做出的判断，它决不会是“一致意见”的产物。他们知道快速的决策多为错误的决策，真正不可或缺的决策数量并不多，但一定是根本性的决策，他们需要的是正确的战略，而不是令人眼花缭乱的战术。

Reflection

请不要从图形学的角度去看这个词，而是从计算机科学的角度看，你知道Reflection吗？

之前我不知道，现在知道了。不知道的请参考http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_(computer_science)

Pixar的电影制作工序

以下步骤完全摘自于Pixar的官方网站

There is a scene in Toy Story 2 when the old man repairing Woody tells the impatient toy collector Al, "You can't rush art." This is especially true at Pixar, where films go through four stages: development, creating the storyline; pre-production, addressing technical challenges; production, making the film; and post-production, "polishing" the final product.

1. A STORY IDEA IS PITCHED
A Pixar employee pitches his or her idea to other members of the development team in a way that's reminiscent of a sales pitch. The real challenge is to get the audience to believe in the idea and see the possibilities in it.

2. THE TEXT TREATMENT IS WRITTEN
A treatment is a short document that summarizes the main idea of the story. Sometimes, many treatments of the same idea will be developed in order to find the right balance between solid ideas and open possibilities, which will be filled in later by development and storyboard artists.

3. STORYBOARDS ARE DRAWN
Storyboards are like a hand-drawn comic book version of the movie and serve as the blueprint for the action and dislogue. Each storyboard artist receives script pages and/or a "beat outline," a map of the characters' emotional changes that need to be seen through actions. Using these as guidelines, the artists envision their assigned sequences, draw them out and then "pitch" their work to the director.

4. VOICE TALENT BEGINS RECORDING
First, temporary "scratch" voices are recorded by Pixar artists for the storyboard reels(see Step 5). Later, when the story and dialogue are further along, professional actors begin recording the character voices, reading from a script and improvising. Actors must record lines several different ways, and the best reading is eventually animated. Sometimes, scratch voices are so good, they're not replaced, such as Story Supervisor Joe Ranft's voice for Wheezy.

5. EDITORIAL BEGINS MAKING REELS
A reel is a videotape that allows the cleaned-up storyboard sequence to stand alone, without a pitch person to tell the story. A pitch can be successful because the storyteller is strong, so reels are an essential step to validate the sequence and are the first instance that the "timing" of the sequences is understood. Editorial uses the information to fix the length and other elements of each shot in a sequence.

6. THE ART DEPARTMENT CREATES THE LOOK AND FEEL
Based on the initial text treatment, storyboards and their own creative brain-storming and development work, the art department creates inspirational art illustrating the world and the characters. It also designs sets, props, visual looks for surfaces and colors and "color scripts" for lighting, which are impressionistic pastel illustrations that emphasize the light in scenes.

7. MODELS ARE SCULPTED AND ARTICULATED
Using the art department's model packet - a set of informational drawings - the characters, sets and props are either sculpted by hand and then scanned in three-dimensionally or modeled in 3-D directly in the computer. They are then given "avars," or hinges, which the animator will use to make the object or character move. Woody has 100 avars in his face alone.

8. THE SETS ARE DRESSED
After the sets are built in 3-D they must be dressed with prop models, such as chairs, curtains and toys, to create a believable world. Set dressers work closely with the director to ensure that the director's vision for the environment is being realized.

9. THE SHOTS ARE LAID OUT
Translating the story into three-dimensional scenes, the layout crew choreographs the characters in the set and uses a virtual camera to create the shots that capture the emotion and story point of each scene. Layout often produces multiple versions of shots to provide the editorial department with choices for cutting the scene for maximum storytelling effect. Once the scene has been cut, the final version is released to animation.

10. THE SHOT IS ANIMATED
Pixar's animators neither draw nor paint the shots, as is required in traditional animation. Because the character, models, layout, dialog and sound are already set up, animators are like actors or puppeteers. Using Pixar's animation software, they choreograph the movements and facial expressions in each scene. They do this by using computer controls and the character's avars to define key poses. The computer then creates the "inbetween" frames, which the animator adjusts as necessary.

11. SETS AND CHARACTERS ARE SHADED
The shader is separate from the surface to which it is attached. In other words, the shape is determined by the model, while the surface color and texture is determined by the shader. The shading process is done with "shaders," software programs that allow for complex variations in the color or color shaping. For example, this process allows the color to shift in different lighting like the relections on Woody's polished eyes.

12. LIGHTING COMPLETES THE LOOK
Using "digital light," every scene is lit in much the same mannar as stage lighting. Key, fill and bounce lights and room ambience are all defined and used to enhance the mood and emotion of each scene. Lighting takes its inspiration from the moody color scripts created by the art department.

13. THE COMPUTER DATA IS "RENDERED"
Rendering is the act of translating all of the information in the files that make up the shot - sets, colors, character movement, etc. - into a single frame of film. Pixar's Renderfarm is a huge computer system that interprets the data and incorporates motion blur. Each frame represents 1/24 of a second of screen time and takes about six houres to render, though some frames have taken as many as nitety hours.

14. FINAL TOUCHES ARE ADDED
Editorial oversees the completion and additon of the musical score and the other sound effects. Effect animation adds special effects. And the photoscience department records the digital frames to film or to a form appropriate for digital projection.

Shader/Material 系统

2006年做Splinter Cell Double Agent的时候，就觉得Unreal的material editor是个不错的工具，它使得美工可以制作特效，而很少需要程序的参与。今年的GDC上，Radical的Neall Verheyde题为"The Shader Design Tool: Radical's Collaborative Approach to Shader Development"的讲座，说的也是这样一个工具。其基本目的是

1、解耦程序和美工的工作，
2、美工可以独立完成材质特效的制作
3、缩短开发周期
4、一些材质feature可以重用

工具的基本解决方案来自于一篇题为"Shade Trees"的论文，作者是Lucasfilm的Robert L. Cook。其思想是将shader分割成模块，对模块进行组装，即可实现对一种材质特效的渲染。Cook当时并不是为了这个提出Shade trees的，用shade trees来做material editor，最早来自于Gregory D. Abram 和 Turner Whitted 的论文 "Building block shaders"。

2006年的一篇论文题为"Abstract Shade Trees"，对上述论文进行了扩展。个人认为要实现系统，可以第三篇论文为基础。

值得注意的是，Radical的讲座中提到工具的开发大概需要一个人一年的时间。

网络资源集锦

1. http://www.vterrain.org/，Virtual Terrain Project，涉及到terrain的方方面面

2. http://kesen.huang.googlepages.com/，各种图形学学术活动相关文章的索引，棒

3. http://www.particlesystems.org/，免费粒子系统源码

又看了一本书

除了技术书籍，正儿八经看的书越来越少了，技术书籍，在我看来，不应该算在看的书之列。

基辛格的《大时代》从很早就开始看了，至今也才看了一半，写的不错，看起来却累得慌。

《世界是平的》是作为洗手间书籍看完的，列举的事实感同身受，所以已无震撼力；讲出的道理有对有错，世界是平的只是从我们征服世界的手段来看的。人类总归是动物属，世界越平，强对弱的剥削就越厉害，亘古不变！

又看的这本书，是《流血的仕途 - 李斯和秦帝国》。流血的仕途，司空见惯，并不稀奇。如果书名是“不流血的仕途”，我会更感兴趣。好久没有这种对书籍爱不释手的感觉了，因此一气看完。故事讲的挺好，对事件的见解也有独到之处。作者曹三公子，让人不禁有时空错乱之感。

现在看书，对书中人物的好恶不再那么鲜明，好人坏人的界线开始模糊起来。不过有一点儿还没有改变：小人永远不可交！