Paul did not join the cast of anything, since the movie itself is Paul. Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are the main characters, uber-geeks who stop off at area 51 after a visit to Comic-con. When they get to Area 51, they meet Paul, the alien voiced by Seth Rogen, who asks for their help escaping from the government. There are several other great actors on this project, including the just announced Sigourney Weaver. Chicago has seven cons still to go this year, 3 this month alone. This weekend is Torchsong, the Who/Torchwood convention headlined by John Barrowman. Next week is Duckon 18, and finishing the month is ZombieCon. You can see the full list at the Chicago Tribune gallery site, one con per picture. Finally, Borders has started its own SciFi blog, called Bable Clash; it will be interesting to see how it evolves.
Thanks to this Underwire article we finally have the dates for this years Torchwood: Children of Earth run, as well as the airing of the first Doctor Who special: July 20th. That is the day BBC America goes HD, and they are going to max out the Sci-Fi to celebrate. Torchwood runs Monday through Friday of that week, airing each episode just a few hours after it shows for the first time in the UK. Then on Saturday the 25th they will show the season 3 finale of Primeval, followed by the series premier of Being Human. They finish up their first week as a Hi-Def channel on Sunday with the Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead special. I just may have to rewire my TV to use the HD input for this one. IO9 are running a SciFi Sims Contest which looks like fun but seems just a bit recursive to me. Create your best science fiction still image, scene, or movie using the Sims software environment and submit them by June 9th. The winner gets a copy of The Sims 3 package and $250 online cash equivalent.
The latest issue of Sky and Telescope hit the stands a few days ago, with all the usual goodies and one not so usual. The cover article is called Uncovering Mars’s Secret Past, and to go with it they include a nifty little DVD with over 500 images and videos from the Mars Rovers cameras. You can also buy the Mars DVD separately, but for fifty cents more you get the July volume of the magazine along with the free DVD. The disk was put together by Dr Jim Bell, Lead Scientist for the Mars Rover’s panoramic cameras. NASA is building its own cloud environment, called Nebulous (I can’t prove it, but I suspect pun intended). This is for outreach and education, amongst other things, and is compatible with the Amazon web services platform.
The trailer for Twilight: New Moon hit the web shortly ago, and it looks like the franchise might be good for another movie or two. Although I am not sure you can use the word franchise when speaking of a body of work one film deep so far. Now that Barry Sonnenfeld is no longer making Pushing Daisy’s episodes, his new project looks to be the iconic Tom Swift. If done right, that could be a fun movie, particularly for anyone addicted to the books as a kid (even more so for us budding mad scientist youngsters).
If you want to create your own 3D SciFi images and animations, you will need software suitable for the job, and there are some free resources to help you. DAZ Studio is one of the best, although I recommend scrolling down the page to the stable version rather than grabbing the Beta. If you are really adventurous, DAZ 3D 3.0 Beta version is now available. There are tons of free 3D models to use within that enviro online as well. Another world-class software package is Blender, which just released its new stable version yesterday; and again, lots of free models are available. Then there is POV Raytracer, like Blender a Linux freeware program that has now made its port into the Windoze and MAC environments. There are a lot of online tutorials for Point Of View you might want to check out. For building 3D landscapes to allow your animations to have a place to happen, they have released Bryce 5.5 as freeware, as well as programs like Anim8or and Dogwaffle to create animations from your source files with.
If you like working with 3D animation or scenes, you should stop by the NASA 3D Resources site. They have a number of 3D models there free for public downloading and use, including the Shuttle, the ISS, and the Hubble Space Telescope. Another good resource is SciFi Meshes, where a community of model builders upload and share their work. 3D Total has a number of free models and textures, as well as a series of tutorials for creating your own.