Here’s an not so interesting story: I wanted to show off a cool wallpaper that I found yesterday, but then the Rainmeter widget on the desktop looks a bit pale. No way! I got to add a bit of glow to it before I print screen my desktop. Hmm… But then, there are like 100 of images to process inside the widget folder. I could use Photoshop actions to batch process, maybe, but that is not what I want. What I want is, I want to use scripts in After Effects to achieve the results. It’s not that hard actually, because I did something similar with Photoshop before. I did a bit of research and come up with the following script (Btw, this is just a very simple script, beginner level? haha.. is nothing fancy):

var selectedSources = app.project.selection;
	
// For each selected footage item in the project...
for( var i=0; i<app.project.selection.length; i++ )
{
	var footageItem = app.project.selection[i];
	
	// Create a new comp
	var newCompName = footageItem.name;
	var newComp = app.project.items.addComp( newCompName,
				footageItem.width, footageItem.height,
				footageItem.pixelAspect, 1, 1  );
	
	// Add the footage item into the new comp
	var newLayer = newComp.layers.add( footageItem );
	
	// Apply glow effect
	var glowProperty = newLayer.Effects.addProperty( \"S_GlowDist\" );
	glowProperty( \"Brightness\" ).setValue( 0.3 );
	glowProperty( \"Glow Width\" ).setValue( 20.0 );
	glowProperty( \"Width Red\" ).setValue( 1.3 );
	
	// Add to render queue
	var newRender = app.project.renderQueue.items.add( newComp );
	newRender.outputModules[1].applyTemplate( \"basicPng\" );
	var projectFile = app.project.file.toString();
	var projectDir = projectFile.substring( 0, projectFile.lastIndexOf( '/' ) )
	var outputPath = projectDir + \"/output/[]_\" + footageItem.name;
	newRender.outputModules[1].file = new File( outputPath )
}

The technique might come in handy.

Anyway, the script is not generally useful for a few reasons:

1. \\ Sapphire plugin is required
2. \\ You need to save the project first, and where the project file exist, there must also be an ‘Output’ folder
3. \\ You need to have created a template called "basicPng"

Basically, is only useful for me because I know how to edit the script to fit my needs. Most of the scripts I wrote are of that nature, but I am trying to write more useful scripts that other people can also use.

I hope to expand this skill to achieve more things.

Btw, the wallpaper I talkin bout, you can check it out here: My Desktop :D

My impression of 1st day in 2012: The heat outside is so strong. It wakes me up (literally, i was sleeping). I got an idea of writing down how many things i have always wanted to achieve but never got achieved. Note that these are all technical stuffs.

So, it seems the suns fade already. Oh wait, the sun is back!

Anime
I seem to have watch too much anime for the past few months. More than i feel comfortable. My regret is there are some anime that i like but couldn’t remember the details, or explain in words how awesome that anime is.
- I can’t remember most of the character names
- I can’t reconstruct the timeline of the story
- I can’t write a review

Zbrush
- I still don’t understand layers in zbrush
- Never touched zphere and zsketching
- Probably din sculpt more than 5 creatures in the past year (Character Artist Fail!)
- Still don quite understand many of the old features like spotlight and shadowbox
- Basically spent too little time with this software

Maya Rigging
Been in my mind since 2010, always want to rig a full character but still couldn’t do that, not even know how to use an autorig.
- Also donno how to properly skin a character
- Also want to learn some good facial rigging techniques
- The biggest problem is i donno what is a good rig because i fail at animation

Maya mental ray
Hmm… now that we have vray in Maya and Softimage, and vray seems like a good choice, i m not sure how far i m going to use this thing.
- Never use the pass system, never will.

3delight
Knowledge of it left at 2010.

Vray
Learn a bit last year, but not enough to do anything with it. This is the renderer i m going to focus learning this year.

Character Modeling
I tried to model a character last week, but the first head that I modeled, I am very shock it is worst than the head I modeled in 2010! I am also keep watching all those anatomy videos, the same vilppu head construction video i have watched more than 10 times, but i still find the need to watch it again and again.
- I still don’t understand the muscles for the arm
- same with all those muscles at other parts of the body: neck, chest, stomach, shoulder… everthing! gah!! *pants*
- I still find modeling a hand a mentally challenging thing that i need to spend a whole day (half of the day procrastinating at thinking how hard it is to model a hand)

Hard surface modeling
I recently felt like I need to learn 3ds max because I watch all those video tutorials (especially those eat3d one), modeling in 3ds max is like a piece of cake. The graphite modeling tool and those modifiers!
- My regret is after 1 year, my knowledge of it still left at what i knew in 2010, basically, not advancing

Others
These are some old techniques that i discovered long time ago but din touch them last year. I hope to settle the matter this year.
- ncloth
- hair system
- animation layer

Bodypaint
I learn this software but I din use it much. For texturing, I believe Mudbox is the way to go, but I have only just recently start looking at mudbox and I haven’t explore bodypaint to its full potential yet to ditch it so fast.

3d-coat
Always want to learn this thing.

Japanese and Cantonese
I need to dedicate a day in a week for learning these.

My blog
- Appearance din change since 2010
- Comment system haven’t fix
- How about trying to post every two weeks?

Demo Reel
Seriously a disgrace. no demo reel this year? Die X 1000 times!

 

Looks like lot’s of things… Next year, 2013, I don’t want to see myself complain at the same thing again! I be a fucking retard if I do!

discovered some beautiful desktop pictures yesterday, din knew desktop could be so cool looking.

found SharpEnviro, and Rainmeter.

i spent "some" time customizing my Windows 7 running on my lenovo:

wallpaper is from artist ざいん, i believe the character inside is Hatsune Miku :)

i will play with it more later.

 

[ 05 January 2012 ]

Holy shit! I found this really really realliiiiiii prettiiiiiii wallpapahhhh I just have to put it on my blog! I got the wallpaper from Robotics;Notes website.

My battle with Snow Leopard is finally over, it is under my control now! it’s missing an antenna, and the trackpad refused to work fully, but their not greatly important. After 100 times of downloads, 500 times of installs, 1000 hours of waiting, i learn something, which is: Nothing is impossible! Nothing! mwahahahaha! i m so happy :D let’s watch some anime to celebrate :D

Alright, the thing is i m trying to get mac os to install to my lenovo laptop. first thing, mac os is designed to be installed on a mac, so just burn and pop in the mac os installer to your desktop pc or laptop wouldn’t work. however, it’s possible to install mac os to a pc, because mac os starting from Tiger, released in 2005, runs on Intel platform. i know not much about mac hardware, but i see gpu like nvidia geforce and ati radeon are inside some mac models. you see, the hardware components on a mac can be found on common pc too. anyway, hackers have did this in the past, and the pc that is not a mac that runs mac os is called… hackintosh!

The success rate depends on how compatible your hardware is with the installation method, and how much of your understanding with this osx86 thing, and probably how lucky you are. there are many installation methods, i found these:

1, tony mac
2, myHack
3, Kakewalk
4, iATKOS
5, hazard
6, Boot Think

They can be split into two install types, the dvd type and and the usb type. dvd type requires a mac os install dvd, it’s the way to go if you have a working snow leopard or lion install disc. then you can use tony mac’s iBoot + MultiBeast. i believe you would encounter the least problems using this method, it seems so easy, though i never tried.

The usb type is more challenging, you don’t need a install dvd, but you need a mac os dmg. dmg (disk image) is a file format for mac os, we will use it on mac os. you can create it from a dvd, it’s like an iso. you also need a working mac os, you can use vmware on your windows to run mac os. i have a snow leopard running on my vmware on windows xp. i use it to setup the usb stick that has mac os installer inside and is bootable. and you need a usb stick of course, that is at least 8 gigs big.

I will show you my way to install it on a lenovo z460, and these are what i use

0, a vmware workstation
1, a snow leopard 10.6.5 running on vmware on my windows xp machine.
2, a snow leopard 10.6.x dmg file. btw, Xcode 4 installs on 10.6.6 or later, so i got myself a 10.6.7
3, a usb stick
4, Chimera
5, santon75’s packs
6, Flat Package Editor
7, HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (optional i guess)

Some notes one each:

0 and 1, Vmware Worksation
The snow leopard 10.6.5 vmware image is the first mac os i ever use. but since i need xcode to install too, i thought this is useless (xcode requires 10.6.6). i got myself the snow leopard 10.6.6 vmware image, but then, it got fucked up when i was messing around with myHack. myHack is a mac application that helps you install mac os onto your usb. i can’t log in to my 10.6.6 anymore, and i don’t have a backup vmware image.

There is advantage to use vmware to prepare your usb, compared to using a real mac, because if you accidentally fucked up your mac os, you can use vmware workstation’s snapshot feature to revert back your mistakes. i was stupid not to create any snapshot for my snow leopard 10.6.6, now i need to use some live cd to get back my files that i stored on it. snapshot feature is not available on vmware player.

2, Snow Leopard
This step is very very important, because if you get a wrong version, or a patched version that refused to work, you are going to spend hours to find and download another one. dmg is big sized, you don’t wan to wait for hours for it to finish download, wait another few more hours for it to copied to the usb, and then found that you got the wrong dmg! not funny! make your first pick the last pick you ever need to made!

3, USB Stick

4 gig is not enough, get a 8 gig.

4, Chimera
Chimera is a bootloader, and you can get it from tony mac’s website. it is based on Chameleon bootloader.

5, santon75’s files
I use santon75’s guide as my main guide, the forum thread is here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=268970. i was lucky to found this, and he is using z560 which is not too far different from my z460. but i don get chameleon wizard to works though, so i use another bootloader from tony mac. santon75 provides the 1_Extra.zip, this the key to make it works, and also some other files.

Another guide i use is the Guide.pdf that is inside Kakewalk 3.1 installer.

6, Flat Package Editor
This is used to fix the "Mac OS X can’t be installed on this computer" error. some say you need a retail dvd, but if you can’t get one, you can try to "convert" it. here’s the thread that teach me how to convert, or rather, make it works: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=253150

Some theolees

1, Bootloaders
In order to boot into your mac os installer, be it resides in the dvd or usb, you need a bootloader. a very common word you will come cross during your exploration in this osx86 (mac os x for normal pc project) world is chameleon. chameleon is a bootloader used in many installer packeges like myHack and kakewalk. in fact i m not sure if there are any other bootloaders around, most of them are chameleon or based on chameleon. tonymac use chimera which is based off chameleon.

You can install chameleon to the dvd or usb. then pop it inside your dvd drive and restart your pc, and set the bios setting to boot that dvd or usb. once you get to the bootloader, you can choose to boot into the mac os installer, or boot other operating systems that are on your hard disk.

The iboot way installs the bootloader to a cd. when you get to the bootloader, you pop out the iboot cd, and pop in the mac os retail dvd, and press F5 (or some other key, i forgot!), to boot into the mac os installer.

The usb stick way, you install the bootloader to your usb stick. then you boot with the usb, get to the bootloader screen, then you can choose to boot the mac os installer that resides on the same usb stick as the bootloader.

2, kext
Another thing that is important to know is - what is kext. kext (Kernal Extension) is another word for driver. in windows, we install drivers for hardware to function properly. in mac os, we need drivers too, except they are called kext. the way you install these kext is different from installing windows drivers. windows drivers usually comes in the form of installer. while kexts, they are actually a folder with files inside, and you need to place them at the correct place.

Bootloader can also use kext, i m not sure how’s the mechanics working here, but you put your kext in the Extra\Extensions folder in the usb stick, and your bootloader will look into that place and load the kext (for the installer i guess).

My attempts on each installation methods

1, tony mac
So it needs a mac os dvd installer, i bought a dual layer dvd (expensive!), and burn the snow leopard dmg into using transmac. then i make an iBoot dvd (i only have dvd arounds…), and boot into iBoot’s bootloader. at the bootloader, i pop out iboot dvd and, and pop in my snow leopard dvd i burned, and press F5. nothing happens, so i press F5 again. after pressing a few times, i guess my dvd is not good.

Burning a mac os dvd is not a good strategy, first, if you get it from somewhere, you can’t tell it was the original retail version. second, how we know if the burn software works, in windows i use transmac, i am skeptic about it because my dvd doesn’t appear in the bootloader. if i use mac os to burn, i might be asking the same question if i m burning the thing correctly. third, u need a dual layer dvd, and it is much expensive than a normal dvd! i don’t like the idea of buying a pack of 20 dual layer dvds and keep burning and testing. burning also creates the risk of data loss or data corrupt is your burner is faulty.

i decide to try other non-dvd methods.

2, myHack
Then i found this, http://myhack.sojugarden.com/guide/. it was perfect. the guide convinced me this is what i need. myHack can create snow leopard and lion usb installer. you just need to run this mac application, follow the instrutions, and it will make you a nice good working out of the box usb installer. except it’s not perfect. i try this many times but not any one of my attempt let me to even see the mac os install screen.

I figured out later that i might need the put the correct kext inside, but then i find out how to do things a bit more manually and that leads me away from using it.

3, Kakewalk
Found this much afterwards. it has two installers, one for snow leopard and one for lion. but the lion installer is much more improved than the snow leopard installer, it do everything for you, i think the interface looks much better than myHack too, and felt more polished in its execution. the snow leopard is an older version of installer, some steps are manual. kakewalk also seems to only support a limited range or motherboards, mainly gigabytes, in fact i only see one that is not gigabyte, and it’s msi p55m gd45. what a pain, my lenovo z460 seems to have a proprietary motherboard that is not any brand but it’s own brand.

Anyway, worth a try. so, mac os lion seems to boot, but hangs, i can’t see anything thing but a white background and the colourful mouse cursor spining. it spins forever until i finally understood this is not working.

Then i try snow leopard. i love the guide, it teach me how to erase my usb, partition the thing, and copy the content of snow leopard dmg into the usb stick, using no installer. installer can’t be trusted!

I din’t use it’s snow leopard installer though, because i think it was using an older version of chameleon?

4, iATKOS
Din’t tried, but if you are running out of luck, maybe this will works?

5, hazard
Didn’t tried it either, the reason this caught my eyes is because some brand of lenovo laptop seems to have success install using this thing. good to know it exists.

6, boot think
Didn’t tried it. wanted to but i m confused how to use this thing.

 

Finally, the way that works for me:

1, in windows, use HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool to format the usb stick, wipe it clean!
2, swtich to vmware snow leopard, mount (load or make it appear on desktop) this thing.
3, open up disk utility, partition the usb stick using the steps found in kakewalk’s guide.pdf. i use a master boot record partition scheme here, because when i use guid partition table, it seems to be not enought space to copy snow leopard installation files
4, copy the snow leopard install dmg to usb stick, using disk utility’s restore function.
5, extract the content of 1_Extra.zip, inside there is only a folder called Extra. copy this Extra folder to usb stick. it contains some kexts and bootloader configs (the chameleon theme looks good!) and dsdt, among other stuffs.
6, install Chimera to the usb stick
7, this step is to fix the "Mac OS X can’t be installed on this computer" error. follow the steps here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=253150
8, eject the usb stick, safely remove and unplug. in your hand holds the mighty snow leopard usb installer, it’s time to test your luck.

Well, i m very very lucky of course, thanks to santon75 pack too, i could hardly figure out out of so many kexts which one do i really need. also thanks to the osx86 community for all their tools and helps.

You probably going to sail smooth with the mac os installation process once you get there. even if it’s not, you are almost there!

Notes on partition
If your pc that you want to install mac os on has windows installed, unfortunately, it has to be wiped out. the reason is mac os can only be installed onto a guid partition table, your disk probably is using a mbr (Master Boot Record) partition table. a hard disk can only have one partition scheme, guid or mbr. changing the partition scheme will erase all the data in the hard disk. you have no choice but yield to what mac os want. you can create the guid partition during mac os installation.

My disk is 500gb, after i set it to use guid partition scheme, i create two partitions inside the partition table, one will hold my mac os, and it is formated to mac os extended (journaled) partition format. another partition i plan to install windows 7 on it, and it is formated to ms-dos (fat), i not sure if i should rather pick exfat, i don’t know their difference.

Post installation
I follow what santon75 did, install kexts with kext wizard. i also install chimera to my hard disk, it’s hard disk, not usb stick this time. so that, i no need the usb stick to boot into my snow leopard. i think i need to find the kext for wifi because my wifi not working. the trackpad works to some degree, i can move the cursor around, but tapping on the trackpad performs no actually clicking, i need to use a usb mouse instead. so far, everything else looks sweet, this just my first day u know. update: i think there is no audio too!

Different hardwares
If your hardware is different, the way i show is probably going to take you to more than halfway, then you need to find the correct kext to put inside the usb stick. or use some dsdt, or other other tricks. and do a bit of research and reading, and you will get there! don’t give up!

Good reading:
I found this book - OSx86: Creating a Hackintosh by Peter Baldwin. the informations is a bit old, but it’s ‘Appendix B: The Missing Theory’ is really a good read.

Other resources
=> InfiniteMac
=> Voodooprojects ( the peoples that brought you chameleon )
=> osx86.net ( very good download website, thet have tools, bootloaders, bunch of kexts, dsdt, kernals, and so on. i found kakewalk here)
=> tonymacx86 Wiki ( brush up your theolee )
=> Check OS X’s Installer Log for installation issues
=> Show Hidden Files in Mac OS X
=> osx86tutorials ( youtube video tutorials )
=> Hackintosh Thread V2.0 ( hackintosh discussions on lowyat forum )
=> 打造Z460第一帖 ( this is another resource on z460 but my registered user account is not permitted to view, i hate it. but some other threads can read, so i can still access some of the informations )

I hope this information is useful to some of you who intend to do something like this. i will probably enjoy reading this myself, the next time i need to remind myself how to install a hackintosh again :)

Mission accomplished!

el psy cogroo.

Coco: Master! That’s the intruder!
Raven: You! what are you doing in my garden? Explain yourself.
miica: … (Run and lol!!!)

Haven’t draw anything for a long time, but I think I can still draw something, I mean, I am glad my drawing ability isn’t gone :D

Orig sketch: