In case you haven’t heard, FooPets has inspired a grassroots, online radio station called FooRadio that is amplifying quickly into a popular listening channel with our community.

FooRadio was started by two of our FooPets members – Trevor Brandt and Megan Nielsen (fondly known on FooPets and as ‘Tibbers’ and ‘ForestGrump’).  The idea was to provide a safe, public vehicle for them to share their love for FooPets and passion for music with fellow members. Listeners can expect to hear some good tunes from up-beat, positive deejays while hearing about the different things you can do on FooPets.

Since the station went live on April 1^st of this year, these two young impresarios, along with the co-founder of FooPets, Scott Sorochak and several other talented FooPets members, are rocking the radio waves with two great passions that are proving to go quite well together: FooPets and music.

To tune in, go to fooradio.com and under Listen In, click on the ‘here’ link. Pick your external audio player and enjoy.

If you are interested in becoming a deejay, there are slots available. Here are the basic requirements:

• You must be at least 13 years old and a FooPets member (in good standing)
• You have a library of at least 300 legally purchased songs that are appropriate for listeners of all ages.
• You must have a microphone and preferably a Windows based operating system.
• Dedicate at least three hours a week to FooRadio

“FooRadio gives an ideal and platform for fellow members of all ages to talk, share and relate to everything FooPets.  We are seeing more listeners tuning into FooRadio and the feedback has been very encouraging.” – says Scott Sorochak, co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer of FooMojo.

Each deejay has his/her own style and genres they favor.  Like all good radio stations, they take requests and engage their listeners and make them part of the experience.  Safety and all-age appropriate music and discussions are on top of mind. One exciting feature we can expect soon is an interactive request line where listeners can vote on what songs they want played based on other people’s requests.  As deejay slots fill, more features are continuously added to FooRadio.com, making this an exciting venture for the creators of this site and station.

All of the technical and logistical elements of FooRadio.com are voluntarily managed by Trevor and Megan and supported by FooPets.  Together, they recruit and train deejays, schedule the shifts, garner more listeners, and manage all of the content on the website. FooRadio.com includes a deejay schedule, an online request form, listener competitions, headlines, a method to donate, and information on jobs available and how to become a deejay.

For more information and the FooRadio deejay application, go to the ‘Jobs’ section of FooRadio.com. Don’t forget to tune in to FooRadio.

Trevor Brandt

Megan Nielsen

Trevor's Set Up

FooPets, in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Film, has just launched a special edition, “Marmaduke ” themed, Great Dane dog available for adoption on the iPhone and iPod touch.

This special promotion allows immediate adoption of the FooPets Marmaduke Great Dane, normally a 6 week wait after initial release, for the incredibly low price of $0.99 (discounted from $30 US on FooPets.com).

After you install the FooPets Marmaduke app, you can link it to your account on FooPets.com. The care you provide Marmaduke through the app is automatically synchronized with your FooPets.com account. Adopt your very own Hollywood hound today and carry your new pet in your pocket wherever you go! Click here to buy at the iTunes Store.

To coincide with our Mobile Marmaduke app release, we are giving away free Desktop Wallpapers featuring two poses of the famous Great Dane. Download the size that matches your monitor’s screen resolution in your ‘properties/settings’ tab for PCs, or your ‘System Preferences/Displays’ for Macs. Then, from our FooPets wallpaper page, click on the size that matches your monitor’s resolution. A large wallpaper image will display in your browser. Right click on the image and select ‘Set As Desktop Background’ or ‘Set As Wallpaper.’”

Reference

First, the FooMojo art team thoroughly researches the pet breed, studying reference websites, books, artwork, photographs, and even real live pets. The goal is to become familiar with the intricate details of how the animal behaves and the breed’s physical characteristics: body and appendage proportions, coloring and fur texture, special markings, eye shapes and colors, the paws, the nose, even the inside of the mouth, etc. They will use reference material throughout the various creation stages.

Modeling

Next, a FooMojo modeler will start with a 3D box constructed of a wireframe mesh of connected points, and shape it into a pet. Think of it as digital clay. Using reference material, an image of the animal is projected in the background to help form the proper bodily proportions.

When shaping the 3D box, a process called box modeling, 22,000 faces (or sides) are manipulated to create contour of the pet. Each tiled area is called a polygon. The artist will pay close attention to the structure of the body and proportions of the limbs.

UV Creation (2D layout of the model)

The shaped model is then changed into a 2D image by slicing it from the nose to the tail, opening up the ‘skin’ and flattening it out – essentially resembling a bearskin rug. Once the image is flattened, the artist makes sure that the proportions are maintained to preserve the resolution of the texture. This is then used later in the paint process, using reference material to accurately add color and fur patterns as well as eye shadow, nail color, etc. Even though the 2D image is flat, it corresponds directly with the 3D model.  Once the artist is done, the paint will serve as a base for the pet’s color. The next step is to add hair.  With a click of a button, 22,000 guide hairs will literally pop out of the 3D model, corresponding polygon points.

Styling

To style the Guide Fur, which at this stage looks very much like a porcupine, the artist will comb and style the guide hairs to length and direction of the breed’s natural fur. Once the guide hairs are properly combed, each guide hair is interpolated across the polygonal model to fill in the appropriate number of real hairs to cover the pet.  Hair is added in layers. Each added layer creates more opacity for all the layers, giving a softer, more natural appearance of really fine hair resembling the fuzzy fur of puppies and kittens.

Typically, a FooPet will end up with around 200,000 – 700,000 individual hairs, depending on the breed. Our most recent Abyssinian has four layers of hair and nearly one million hairs total.

Now the pet looks proportionally correct and covered in fur, but appears in gradients of gray.  It’s time to paint the fur.

Painting

Painting is the most critical step. Using the UV creation, three layers of paint are applied to the skin, root fur, and tip fur. To do this, the artist will project images onto the model. Using 2D and 3D paint tools, texture is added. A high-resolution UV map carries more detail in places like the face and ears where the skin paint is more visible than the hairier areas. Then, tools are used to hand paint fixes and apply touch ups.

The root fur is painted darker to simulate the idea of shadowing. The Tip Fur is usually lighter and more true to what you see on a real pet. Our artists will blend the root and the tip coloring on a single strand of fur to simulate real pet hair. If you take a piece of fur from a pet, you will notice the color change from the root to the tip. Each hair on a FooPet is multicolored just like real animals.

Lighting

The paint and the lighting are interdependent of each other, just worked on in stages. The paint and fur are created with saturation of color for the intended lighting. The lighting is then tweaked to optimize the paint and fur to achieve the desired look. At this time, a lot of energy is put in the eyes (shininess, shape, color, expression of the eyes), and overall lifelikeness of the face.

Now we have a finished statue, but next we bring it to life.

Rigging

Rigging is typically done at the same time as the UV creation. Our rigging artist will add 300 bones minimum to the model, paying close attention to ensure that the joints are placed anatomically correct in order to re-create the motion of the animal accurately.

The model sculpt is bound or weighted to the skeleton joints. The skeleton is then layered with control curves, which the animator can pick in 3D space to translate, rotate, scale, and manipulate custom controllers to achieve different poses. The rigs are layered with extra helper controls like constraints and inverse kinematics so the animators can lock paws to the ground, align the eyes to a focal point, or keep a shoulder or hip aligned to another part of the body without having to hand key every single frame. As much of this process is encapsulated in scripting so the animation and rig data can be shared from pet to pet.

Animation

The animation data brings the personality and realism to life. FooMojo’s animation artists will use reference material to recreate the motion of the animal, stylizing as needed to simulate natural realistic movement. The animators generate libraries of poses and animation to ensure that the transitions between different actions of the pet are as seamless as possible, and to reuse poses as staring points for new animation.

Render

Rendering a FooPet can be quite time consuming, especially since rendering and lighting go hand in hand. Both need to work together simultaneously to ensure the proper coloring and effect of the pet.  After the lighting has been submitted to the 3D scene, the data is submitted to the render farm.

The model sculpt geometry is smoothed out at render time using mathematical algorithms that are in the render software called subdivision surface routines. These routines effectively quadruple the number of faces in the polygonal mesh that are seen by the camera during rendering. Consider the polygon count for the render is between 3.5 million triangles. What does that mean? The artist will smooth out the edges of the FooPet for a natural look, which takes a lot of time!

e.g. The fur is between 3 – 10 polygons per hair with 200,000 – 500,000 hairs + 1 million for the underlying skin of the pet  = 6 million polygons. A render with this many polygons on a single machine takes about 5 – 220 minutes to render with 6,000 frames (100 – 200 animation clips). Time =62,000 hours / 24 hours = 250 days divided by 2 as we run two processes per machine = 125 days.

At FooPets, we have dozens of machines to help expedite this process into 2 ½ days! This environment of servers is called a render farm. Talk about processing power!

Sound

Sound is then added to give the final touch of realism that brings these pets to life. Recorded clips of food pouring and collected reference audio are cut to create short clips that are carefully synchronized with the rendered animation.

That’s how we do it! We hope you enjoyed this overview of how we make FooPets. You can download free Desktop Wallpaper of the Abyssinian showcased in this article.

Quite a bit of detailed information on holiday pet safety is available from an expert post at Peteducation.com. Be sure to check it out. The post discusses several great suggestions for surviving the holiday hustle and bustle while keeping your pets as healthy and happy as ever. Several potential dangers we might not think about are mentioned such as holiday foods we innocently slip our pet from the table that can make them sick; popular plants that are poisonous like mistletoe and poinsettias; decorations and wrappings that can be lethal; and even Christmas tree needles that are toxic.

It’s hard to believe many of our favorite holiday traditions can be hurtful to our pets but with a little knowledge potential harm can be avoided. Remember to take extra care this season and watch your pets closely.

As we kick off the season on Thanksgiving Thursday, we wish you all health, happiness and safe pets in the coming year.

FooCrew Lynne

Last week, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) issued a post on their website about a recent case in Oregon where the H1N1 virus spread to pet ferrets from their owners. There are other recorded cases where cats and birds have also been infected. Currently there is no H1N1 vaccine specific to domestic animals so it’s important to watch your pets closely for signs of a respiratory illness or lethargy. If you notice these symptoms you should have the animal examined by your veterinarian immediately.

To help prevent the spread of H1N1 to your pets, standard techniques to prevent the spread of influenza are recommended. These include hand-washing and using alcohol-based hand cleaners, covering your mouth and nose with a tissue when you sneeze, and avoiding touching your eyes, nose and mouth. Try to avoid close contact with sick people and stay home from work or school if you are sick. If you are sick, you may want to limit contact with your domestic pet, bird or backyard poultry until you are well.

The good news in the Oregon case is that all of the infected ferrets recovered, so watch your pets closely and take careful note to follow H1N1 prevention recommendations. If you’d like to learn more information, please visit the AVMA’s website where you can find a helpful H1N1 FAQ.

Let’s keep our pets healthy!

FooCrew Lynne

While not everyone can bring their pets to work, spending time with them is very important for their overall emotional health. Building a trusted relationship based on sincere, wholehearted love forms a bond that is truly unique – both in the life of the animal and the owner. It does take time and commitment but there are lots of easy things you can do with your pets that help them form a strong attachment with your “pack”.

Because establishing a pet-owner bond is so critical to creating a successful companionship, we’ve also built it into FooPets.com. While rewarding owners for taking care of their pets has always been part of the game play, we really felt a bigger emphasis on forming longer term bonding would raise awareness even further. Say hello to our new Bonding Bar!

The Bonding Bar measures the connection between a FooPet and its owner. For every consecutive day that an owner interacts with one of their pets, their bond with him/her will increase. An owner must interact with their FooPet for 10 consecutive days to maximize the Bonding Bar and if a day is missed, the measurement meter will drop.

We’ve also introduced a new Bonding Badge. We consider this badge one of the highest distinctions a FooPet owner can have – a true symbol of commitment. This badge will appear on an owner’s profile if all of their pets have full Bonding Bars and will keep track of the number of days the owner maintains their bonding status. With the dedication we see from our owners, we fully expect to the see the number count hit well into the hundreds.

There’s more to caring for a pet than putting food and water in bowl. They need love, attention and genuine affection to be healthy and happy. Even if it’s just a few minutes a day – throwing a ball, playing chase or scratching behind an ear – can do the trick for your pet. They will only love you more for it…

FooCrew Lynne

This year, we wanted to bring a little of our Halloween spirit to FooPets and help everyone get their scare on. For a limited time, we’ve “dressed up” our Heart Park and transformed it into a creepy landscape your brave FooPet will want to explore.

Dress your FooPets up in their favorite costumes and go play in the Halloween Park. Sound scary? You bet – right down to the hidden ghosts, tumbling jack-o-lanterns, tombstones and special sound effects. But what’s Halloween without some treats to go with your trick? In this park, it’s a race against time while your pets search for glowing candy corns and other lost and lonely treats. Think your FooPet can collect them all before time runs out? Only the clock will tell! But don’t forget to give it a try soon because this ghoulish game will be gone in a skeleton’s heartbeat – right after October 31st!

Happy Halloween!

FooCrew Lynne