Myouterspace is pleased, honored and all-geeked-out to announce the winners of our flash-fiction contest with Open Road Media. The entries (which can be read here) were all fantastic, fun reads.
But don’t take my word for it – here’s the low down from our guest judge, author Andrew Kessler, whose spectacular real-life interplanetary adventure “Martian Summer”, about the NASA Phoenix mission to Mars, was our contest’s muse:
"Thanks to all those who entered in the Mars-inspired flash fiction contest! It's nice to see what a hub of creativity the Myouterspace sci-fi community has become. It’s a bit sad we had to pick two winners. But happy to have the opportunity to read through all your entries—that sounds so official—but no time for being glib at the moment of truth. There were some really awesome candidates and some were downright spacey. And seeing as I like to avoid conflict, it was hard to pick my overall favorites. But alas, I did, and here they are:
The first winner is The-Reluctant-Author, for the story, Martian Dreams. Only a true space geek could make the barren Martian wilderness seem so vibrant and inspiring. This story almost read like a poem. Space poetry is a much-underrepresented genre. Lo, ye sentences were like stanzas, you Bard of Mars. In fact, if you didn't know it was a story about Mars, you could almost be forgiven for thinking it was describing the harshness of the Colorado Plateau, or the plains of the Great Basin. And that’s one amazing truth about Mars and how it captures our imagination -- its strange familiarity.
The second winner is VendettaJones, for the story, Dust To Dust. This piece has a simple hook, cleverly personifying things that are otherwise lifeless and inanimate. It is a difficult literary task, particularly given the word length, but VendettaJones manages to write seamlessly, and with great structure. As the story reaches its conclusion, you feel genuine empathy for the characters and their loneliness. In some ways, it reminded me of the film, Wall-E, or that Ikea commercial with the sad lamp that gets left out in the rain. It would make for an interesting visual piece of its own. So let’s get a director attached and shoot it.
Cheers,
Andrew"
Congratulations again to members The-Reluctant-Author and VendettaJones. For more flash-fiction fun, check out Myouterspace’s new online venture, Anachron. Special thanks go out to Open Road Media – check out all their eBook offerings on their website here, especially Andrew Kessler’s “Martian Summer”.
And make sure to check out Open Road Media's video of Andrew Kessler describing his "winning the geek lottery" and working with NASA
“The Zenoids” Starship Project Gets a Booster Rocket From Animation Magazine
Myouterspace’s online animation adventure “The Zenoids” is heating up, we’ve announced Amanda Tapping as Orion’s new captain and Animation Magazine’s already put out an article and interview with William Shatner and our creative director Sammy Oriti.
If you haven’t seen the Zenoids concept art and script call, warp over to the Starship Orion page. For more inside scoop on “The Zenoids” project, friend our founder, Sammy: his handle here on MOS is Rocket Man.
Loving his work, John Eaves recruited his friend deg to create (build, design detail, and paint) all of his starship designs chosen for myouterspace.com. Deg has a life-long history as an accomplished and award-winning practical model builder, loving and building all manner of models for as long as he can remember. In 2004, deg took his love of model building and painting into the digital realm and has since accomplished the same level of excellence and advanced craftsmanship that he previously rose to as a practical model builder and painter.
Deg is widely known for creating challenging and/or difficult-to-build models, both science-fiction and real-life based, of exceptional detail, construction, and realism. He is admired for both his attention to detail and speed, as well as his advanced and innovative modeling and UV'ing techniques. This followed quickly by his tuned and honed finishing ability to digitally paint his meshes at the equivalent level of refined expertise. In addition, being a practiced, accomplished, and award-winning artist working in many traditional artistic mediums his whole life, deg's digital lighting, knack for recreating photo-realism, and overall composition skills are fully engaged within the digital realm as well. deg is a freelance model builder/painter with a career goal of serving the film and television industry. More of his masterful work can be seen on his website at: www.deg3D.biz
Designer John Eaves
Legendary concept designer and illustrator John Eaves designed all the starships and and created all the planets for our website. John is responsible for designing many of the ships and props for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: ENTERPRISE, as well as working on the Star Trek: The Next Generation feature films, including designing the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-E, and Zefram Cochrane's Phoenix along the way.
Eaves cut his teeth in Hollywood as a practical model builder on such films as "Top Gun" (1986), "Spaceballs" (1987), "The Hunt for Red October" (1990), and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991). After working as a storyboard artist on the TV series "SeaQuest DSV" (1993), Eaves was hired by production designer Herman Zimmerman to work on "Star Trek: Generations," where he was responsible for designing the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-B on which James T. Kirk would meet his (first) demise.
Eaves then joined the art department staff on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine then in its fourth season. Since most of the ships on that show were in place before he arrived, Eaves was primarily involved in designing "gadgets" for the series, such as ceremonial knives and swords used by Bajorans and Klingons, as well as auxiliary space vessels such as a Cardassian freighter, and the Breen warships. He served as Illustrator and then senior Illustrator on DS9 until the end of the series. In addition, during that stint he worked double-duty on two subsequent TNG films. Since the Enterprise-D bit the dust (literally) in "Star Trek: Generations," it was time to move up the alphabet, so Eaves and Zimmerman together designed the Sovereign-class Enterprise-E for "Star Trek: First Contact." Eaves was also responsible for designing Earth's first warp-drive vessel, the Phoenix, based on the real-life Titan missile, with the challenge of bridging the 21st century with the Star Trek future. He also designed the Vulcan ship that landed on Earth at the end of the film, and helped conceptualize the look of the Borg Queen.
The process of designing the ships, sets, and other visuals for "Generations" and "First Contact" are described in Eaves' book, "Star Trek, the Next Generation Sketchbook: The Movies, Generations & First Contact," which he co-authored with Jeanne M. Dillard. Eaves went on to play a major part in "Star Trek: Insurrection." For that film he designed the captain's yacht Cousteau, Data's scout ship, a Federation shuttle and holoship, the boomerang-shaped Son'a battleship, and Ru'afo's flagship, among others. In February 2001, Eaves was brought back into the Star Trek art department fold as production illustrator on the fifth Star Trek TV series, ENTERPRISE, again working for Zimmerman.
After Star Trek: ENTERPRISE, Eaves has since gone on to work as concept illustrator and designer on such feature films as "Sky High" (2005), "X-Men: The Last Stand" (2006), "Evan Almighty" (2007), "Tropic Thunder" (2008), "Valkyrie" (2008), "Star Trek" (2009), and "Ironman 2" (2010).
Newtek LightWave CORE
There's been a lot of interest and discussion following our recent LightWave CORE announcement. Many of you are very excited about LightWave CORE, but you'd like more information; more details. So, let's dive a bit deeper into LightWave CORE. Our goal since beginning this direction over two years ago was to create a path of evolution that does not make you, our loyal customers, feel abandoned by facing a completely foreign workflow and UI (as has been the case for some other 3D apps in the past), yet through our LightWave CORE roadmap providing you with the best next-generation technology any current 3D app can provide. For now, our primary focus for LightWave CORE will be in the modeling environment. We have had so many ideas for modeling in the past, but we really needed the CORE architecture to take it to a whole new level. Of course, CORE is capable of anything, but we did need to start somewhere -- modeling was a good choice, and modeling will be the primary focus for the LightWave CORE release later this year.
From this point on, new purchases, upgrades and HardCORE memberships will be receiving LightWave CORE, which incorporates the new framework, engine and features. LightWave will be forever improving and you are a part of a significant moment in time, a time that can be looked back to one day and be recognized as the milestone when LightWave began its new path of evolution.
We will discuss specifics as we move along with the project. LightWave CORE is the new technology engine that will eventually completely supplant the current engine. Your mesh assets, image maps and some surfacing attributes will be accessible to LightWave CORE, but plug ins will not be. We will work with third parties to help guide them as they port their products over to LightWave CORE. So what happens to the LightWave 9 series?
As you know, we recently shipped LightWave 9.6, and you've told us that it's, hands-down, the very best version of LightWave we've ever-shipped. Of course, no software product is ever perfect, so we will continue to support LightWave 9.x by providing technical support, and free bug-fix releases as deemed necessary by NewTek. However, we do not plan any new feature releases in the 9.x series. All the improvements that we have planned for LightWave will be offered as part of the HardCORE membership program. We have a strong vision for what will make LightWave CORE the best 3D app on the planet, but we cannot do this without you: we plan to use the feedback we get from our HardCORE members and from our key account users to deliver that.
Many of you have already made the leap and joined our HardCORE program. Thank you very much for doing that. We truly appreciated the important contribution that many of you made in the 9.x Open Beta program, and we are looking forward to getting your input for LightWave CORE.
Some of you are still considering whether you should join the HardCORE program or not. I truly hope you will. Not only will you get early access to LightWave CORE technology, but you'll get to play a role in shaping our next generation 3D application.
Now, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the HardCORE program is probably not for everyone. If you need to know in advance every detail of every feature we're going to deliver before you make your decision, then you should most definitely wait until we ship the first LightWave CORE version and we publish a final feature list.
Anteros Governor John Eaves has had a major impact on the look of the Star Trek universe, creating many of the props and ships, including the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-E and Zefram Cochrane's Phoenix. Visit the Governor's profile here.
“The Zenoids” Starship Project Gets a Booster Rocket
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![Mena](http://www.myouterspace.com/images/avatar/thumb_98cc9fd9f31d54385551c02b.png "Mena::Hi, I am an animator, and a sci-fi fan. I am working on my second animated short "Dare to Dream".<br/><hr noshade=\"noshade\" height=\"1\"/><img style=\"vertical-align:middle;padding: 0px 4px;\" src=\"http://www.myouterspace.com/components/com_community/assets/status_offline.png\" />Offline | <img style=\"vertical-align:middle;padding: 0px 4px;\" src=\"http://www.myouterspace.com/components/com_community/assets/default-favicon.png\" />3 friends")
