Archive for August, 2009

Car

Posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 10:02 pm

Today, I got my car inspected.  It passed, no problem.  I replaced the wiper blades (refill pack) a couple of weeks ago, about the only thing that would have failed.  It was fairly painless as inspections go.

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So insurance, tags, and inspection all went smoothly in a rather expensive month.  So fate was kind enough to let me get through finances unscathed.

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And I noticed today that people are looking to a final end of the summer blaze with the coming of September, which starts in two hours.  Now no one is looking for snow tomorrow, but the coming of the month that usually (though not always) ushers out summer and brings in fall has people excited.  For example, it only got up to 95°F here today.  True, that’s not chilly, but it didn’t get above body temperature today, and that makes it stand out.

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And while I’m not an aficionado of layered clothing, I won’t be too saddened to see the temperatures drop a little.  I think most of the people in central Texas will be glad to see the blazing heat depart.

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Worked today on a kennel, making it escape-proof for a Houdini class dog.  Let him try to escape that!

Closure

Posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 1:18 pm

I closed the door as a Poser freebie provider.  It’s an event been approaching  visibly for quite some time now.  Bit by bit, I’ve cut ties with sites, because I found myself unable to focus on the good there because of the problems that face the community.  They just haven’t been enough to inspire me to go through all the trouble of importing goods for use in Poser while my primary focus is modo.

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I go back well into the 90’s with 3D.  I go back just about as far as one can  go using a computer that could fit on a desktop.  I was adept at writing key command code on the fly for POV-Ray.  I have a copy of Poser 1.0.  I have a copy of RayDream.  I watched the 3D community crawl out of the mainframes and inhabit the home processors and come to a focus in the mid to late 90’s.

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I watched Metacreations form and fall.  I watched Daz split from Zygote.  I watched Renderosity emerge from the forum mire.  I saw 3D Commune split off from Renderosity.  I watched Poser Pros form and experience its heyday.  I watched PoserWorld (on which I’d posted freebies back when it was free) turn commercial.

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I’ve watched nubies rise from the ranks of unskilled to merchants, a trickle at first, but accelerating to a horde as the fever of making a living as an artist caught so many with it’s myopic dream.  I watched the political games the stores played, the shifting away from freebies, toward store focus.  I watched the sprouting small stores created by dissatisfied merchants think that they could get away with what the big stores did.  I’ve watched greed and ambition trample what little was left of the old community and its honest sense of sharing.  I’ve watched the fire go out, watching products become technically adept, but losing in the work the soul of the artist turned factory as products became cookie cutter designs.  Innovation became lost in the numbing string of boring formularized packages.

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Add to it the rise of Daz Studio as a disruptive element.  Being essentially parasitic, capable of giving nothing substancial back to Poser, but capable of using a great deal of Poser made content, some D|S users seem to forget the Poser contributors were their source.  The Poser-haters that arose from this schism have done considerable harm to the base of the community.  And those who support the products, which Daz acquired from the trash heap of companies that dropped the failing software for pennies on the dollar, treat them as if there is none better at any price.  I can’t say that I trust the opinion of anyone who thinks that Daz software is the best there is.  (I don’t have any software by Daz installed on my drives.)

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I think one of the worse insults that occurred in “Early September” was the act of belittling those who provide freebies strictly out of a sense of sharing.  As with any insult, it’s usually given by those without insight into or involvement with the process.  I’m tired of those who love pronouncing their rightful involvement of anything mentioned in the forums, even if they have no involvement in it.  Denunciation of the pursuit of others is a common right in the forums these days.  I’m past being tired of it.

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By the way, “Early September” is the name because the turmoil that traditionally occurs at Renderosity in September of each year took place a few weeks early this year.

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For all intents and purposes, I am retired from Poser as a contributor.  I follow in the footsteps of other freebie providers who didn’t last as long as I did.  I’ve watched many of the generous reach the point to where they’d taken enough abuse and threw in the towel.  Now it’s my turn to give a farewell bow and become scarce.

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I don’t claim that I was the greatest anything.  I was just a member who never backed down from a learning curve, who helped people reach their aspirations, offered free items that didn’t exist elsewhere, and watched a community grow from infancy to maturity and then choke on itself.

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Frankly, converting items for use in Poser, and  then struggling with the limitations of the low tier software, is a big pain in the rear.  I render occasionally in Poser, but never for a final presentation.  I use Poser renderings for comics, working previews, testing poses for export to another studio, but not final results.  It just lacks too much that I have in other studios like Lightwave, C4D, and modo.  It’s no longer a natural process for me to Poserize stuff for my own use.

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For me to go to this much trouble, and to be faced with insult and derision for my efforts, just doesn’t do much to inspire me to create more freebies for Poser.  It’s been quite some time that I’ve been interested in Poser as a primary tool, using it mostly as a resource engine because of the available content.  I appreciate it, but it just isn’t the community that I once admired so.  The sentimentality that kept me lingering on has finally grown too thin in the face of what the community has become.

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The Poser community is choking on itself.  Sales are dropping, and while some blame the recession, much of the loss lies in what the stores have become.  The stores have dropped quality control, allowed anyone to become a merchant, and consequently, the stores are becoming boring, and the good items are becoming harder to find.  The flea market mentality that pervades the community is something the stores created in order to make more money, only it’s turned around and alienated their customer base.  And everyone  seems to have someone to blame for it.

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I have found that I can’t hang around and watch this trend deepen.  It’s just too painful.  Enough is enough.  The prolonged farewell has ended.  I’m gone.

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I come away with a lot of fond memories.  I met many wonderful and talented people, people who enriched my life immensely.  I’ll miss them a great deal.  It was a great involvement.  A shame it has to end, but like all things…….. turn the page.

Music School

Posted on Thursday, August 27th, 2009 at 6:47 pm

Today was one of travel, departing from poolside and arriving at an approaching jam session.

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So I’ll be playing and singing tonight, though my left middle finger is suffering some stress, complicated by stiffness and soreness.  I don’t think it’s broken, though it could be a minor stress fracture.  It could also be circulatory, or muscles and ligaments.  So just how much I play tonight is left to be seen as the session progresses.  My voice should have no problems.

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I’ve done some 3D work, albeit commercial and not showable.  But it’s essentially creating a lawn with modo hair.  It needed a little in Photoshop to add shadows and highlights, since it was a little too flat.  But all in all, rather realistic.

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The heat looks like it may finally break with the coming of September.  Not many 100°F days in the forecast, mostly mid-90’s for highs.  Hey, after this summer, I can live with it.

A Taste of AC

Posted on Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 at 2:29 pm

Rolled back west to a nice snug air conditioned hole, commonly called The Pool, which also got an hour of my time this afternoon.  It can be 100°F or better, it’s 76° inside.  Been sorting lots of files, many related to the accidental data loss.  (My sort pile has grown considerably since then, and I have a number of disks to burn when I get done sorting.  But I backed it all up on the external drive until it gets burned.)

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Until I get it all sorted, I will probably adhere to the theory that heat prevents 3D from taking place in the human mind.

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But it doesn’t entirely defeat efforts at 2D.04

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Removed all freebie posts from Renderosity.  It was the last of the big listings to fall, and it’s because they butchered the freebie section.  You have to go to cgi.fringewood.com for those now.  They’re not available anywhere else.  But they’ll stay here.

It’s the Heat….

Posted on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 4:22 pm

With this summer heat dominating everything, I came to realize that 3D is best produced in the cool seasons.

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It’s 98° according to Wundergrund, and I’m sitting in a work shed with a industrial size fan blowing on me, and I don’t mind it.  I have acclimated  greatly in the last couple of months, and I can deal with body heat without a problem.  It’s something I’ve known my whole life as a coastal Texan.  I can do 98° standing on my head.

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Mind you, that’s a deep shade reading.  I’ve seen spots this summer that topped 140°F, literally oven heat.  That is about the temp of the interior of a black car parked on asphalt mall parking lot in SE Houston in August.  And I was able to take it, which sort of scares me.

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Anyway, I have no desire to do 3D.  I’m tempted to play music along with Patty Finney’s music going on Doug’s PA.  But I have no desire to model, map, shade, or render.  It’s the acclimation.  You don’t do it when  the brain can’t effectively shed the heat.  Visualization is best done when the heat sinks are running optimally.

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To deny the heat in Texas is folly.  While it’s under 100° here, it topped it yet again back in the Austin area that I just vacated.

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Chance of rain tomorrow afternoon.

Last day on the prairie….

Posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 10:38 am

Twenty four hours before I roll.  Internet is fussy, as it often is here mid-day.  I’ve done my final yard work.

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I have a little time to work on some 3D before I head east to play some music, make my car legal (tags in mail box), catch up.  Time has not been a big commodity.

An End to Duties

Posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 10:09 pm

My house sitting duties have come to a close.  No more pumping river basin water thirty feet down to make this place the greenest in the general area.  Not that I won’t apply water in the next few days before I pack up and depart for points eastward..

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But the action as a duty is ended.  Now it’s just a lingering favor.

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My biggest angst right now is the accidental tossing of 2.5 gigs of data.  It’s nothing that can’t be replaced, and data recovery has recovered a great deal of it without corruption.  But some of the bigger files were corrupted (bigger files make bigger targets).  But I have URL’s for everything that was lost.  Safari’s history was a life saver.  In the end, I’ll have it all back, albeit at the price of a little extra effort.

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It would have been considerably easier if it had been data that had been backed up, but it was in a catch all, waiting to accumulate enough to burn as backup.  New data is always the most vulnerable, but the easiest to retrace.

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And it’s a good reminder not to get sloppy when tossing folders of stuff from archives that are being inspected.  Never grab too much when done…..

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And keep a good data recovery program on hand.

More dry heat

Posted on Sunday, August 9th, 2009 at 1:55 pm

The need for watering hasn’t let up, though I am on top of the curve now.  So watering isn’t a super heavy duty chore.  Definitely in a siesta mood.  Zero ambition at the moment.  Not an isolated incident either……….

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But hey, the neighbor across the street complemented me on how green everything was.  I must be doing something right.

And the Heat Goes On

Posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 10:27 am

The record for days in a given year that reached or exceeded 100°F in Central Texas stands at 50.

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Today will be the 49th day this year that has seen 100°F or better.  That record is about to fall, and there is still over 6 weeks of summer left.

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This is without doubt the hottest summer Central Texas has seen in well over 100 years.  It’s just plain brutal.  We need a good cooling tropical storm to roll through in the worst way.  This area is a tender box, ready for major wild fire.

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And I am getting mighty tired of working out in it.  I’d much rather be doing graphics work.  But the heat is so sapping that I can’t seem to find the proper state of mind, or even the state of body.  Nine more days before I get reprieved of the responsibility…….

Workday

Posted on Saturday, August 1st, 2009 at 5:43 pm

Well, I actually get to sit at the computer and work today, rather than watering or chasing the legalities of car ownership (inspection, tags, insurance, etc).  I’ve had the car two years, so this is the time of year when it all hits the fan.

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Fortunately, I had three days of cloudy weather with light rains (close by got much heavier).  So my watering duties have been light and carried out when the sun was low in the sky.  It gave my skin a little time to heal from the exposure in the days prior.  So I’m pretty much ready to begin watering heavily again tomorrow.

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But for today, it allows me the time and energy to get some client work out of the way.  (Audio, reviews, business card design, reinstall a destroyed blog, etc)  Hopefully, I’ll have a little time to start Poserizing the beer glass and longneck bottle for free distribution.  (It won’t be as nice as the modo version, but hey, there’s a demand for it.)

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And I did get the reorganization of the hard drives done.  I now have have about 50G of free space on each of the two 500G drives.  WHEW!

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And I learned the Rock Me, Mama jams from Dylan’s soundtrack sessions for Pat Garret and Billy the Kid.  Not bad lyrics for ad libbing.  So now I can have an alternative to Wagon Wheel, which is getting entirely too popular where I play.  (Good thing I enjoy performing it.)

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Back to work!  Onward into the blaze!