It has been a while since I added to the Sci-Fi wall world so I I thought took my extra indoor time and put it to good use. The Sci-Fi hub has a central... hub, that units can be added to creating your own unique skyline. The hubs can be stacked for high rise towers while the glassed in water cooling plain will except grass or lava or whatever texture you feel your world runs on. See you in the future. 

I believe Daz Central's approval of new products - especially complex ones like this - have slowed due to the pandemic.

But I CANNOT WAIT for this, or the mixamo addition.

Hey folks, big heads up. If you're in the United States, and are frustrated with trying to use Walmart's pickup service, just keep checking by refreshing the page that shows what slots are available- you know, the one that usually says the two days are not available. If you check right about now (3:45am Central time) you might see a couple slots open up or at least one. I just did it again and sure enough, two slots (9-10am and 10-11am) were available for Monday (three days from now, not bad at all!!!!)  Walmart is limited it to only two days at a time, so they can offer you more things. The more people they let shop and schedule, the fewer items are available.

So don't get discouraged, just try 3:45am and slots do seem to open up. It worked for my sister over in Jacksonville too. (Was slightly after 4am for her.)  DON'T wait until they open (7am) Logically, it would see slots wouldn't open up until folks picked up their groceries at 8:30am, but apparently Walmart's scheduling program is set for waaaaaay earlier. Hope this helps! 

Okay, here's a model I put together for a project I'm working on. It's a Mr. Gutsy made out of parts from this kit. The eyes were a bit of a puzzler, as were the waist arms, which not only pivot, but rotate about the axis on a rail. Had to learn about nuls to pull that off. Actually, there are quite a few nulls in this thing. Each arm is on one, as is each eyeball, and a central one for the eyestalks.

This method definitely works, it's just that the light intensity can have some issues.

One solution is to reduce the light intensity in your original scene, which you're turning into a HDRI. (The sweetspot is around 0.0002 if I remember correctly) The advantage of this is, that you won't need to adjust the light intensity everytime you use that HDRI later. However, it also has a drawback: if the HDRI you used for the original scene doesn't provide enough light, then the HDRI you create will not only be very dark, but it will also be extremely grainy. In those cases, revert to the second solution:
Not reducing the light intensity in your original scene. The resulting HDRI will be more crisp, but will also have the drawback of being extremely overlighted, so you will need to dial down the light intensity every time you use it.

Some general pointers:
Don't raise the camera in your original scene too high, or you'll end up with the horizon of your "source" HDRI above the horizon of your scene (like, higher than the buildings and whatnots surrounding your camera). The result just won't be a pretty HDRI anymore, though it will still look very decent when used for top-down images, where the horizon is out of the picture anyway. So, in general, try to have your source-scene obscure the horizon of the source-HDRI. This can be somewhat mitigated by adding more "blocks" around your central area, and slightly raising them, the further they are away from you. Don't overdo it, because things will start to look odd.
High-res beauty canvasses give massive files. An 8000x8000 pixel beauty canvas easily results in a 1 gigabyte .exr file.

Some shots with a HDRI I made a few months back. The second image was actually one of those HDRI's with the camera raised "too high", but as you see, it's still neat for top-down renders.

That's a good point.  You'll want to have your camera approximately the height your camera will be in the final render.  In the office scene, I rendered with my camera 1500 thingies above vertical because that was the view I was after, but then I had to raise my office set to the same height so that the perspective wouldn't be off.   These aren't really general use HDRIs, like Orestes skies, rather their purpose is to provide a background that doesn't already exist for specific scenes.

This method definitely works, it's just that the light intensity can have some issues.

One solution is to reduce the light intensity in your original scene, which you're turning into a HDRI. (The sweetspot is around 0.0002 if I remember correctly) The advantage of this is, that you won't need to adjust the light intensity everytime you use that HDRI later. However, it also has a drawback: if the HDRI you used for the original scene doesn't provide enough light, then the HDRI you create will not only be very dark, but it will also be extremely grainy. In those cases, revert to the second solution:
Not reducing the light intensity in your original scene. The resulting HDRI will be more crisp, but will also have the drawback of being extremely overlighted, so you will need to dial down the light intensity every time you use it.

Some general pointers:
Don't raise the camera in your original scene too high, or you'll end up with the horizon of your "source" HDRI above the horizon of your scene (like, higher than the buildings and whatnots surrounding your camera). The result just won't be a pretty HDRI anymore, though it will still look very decent when used for top-down images, where the horizon is out of the picture anyway. So, in general, try to have your source-scene obscure the horizon of the source-HDRI. This can be somewhat mitigated by adding more "blocks" around your central area, and slightly raising them, the further they are away from you. Don't overdo it, because things will start to look odd.
High-res beauty canvasses give massive files. An 8000x8000 pixel beauty canvas easily results in a 1 gigabyte .exr file.

Some shots with a HDRI I made a few months back. The second image was actually one of those HDRI's with the camera raised "too high", but as you see, it's still neat for top-down renders.

This is a complete list (I think) of the products used to construct my Big City (other views). Those products with links are to items currently in the Daz Store. Products without links were either previously in the Daz store (e.g., many of the Dreamland Model products) or were obtained from another site.

1. 1950's Era Motel
2. 20 Lo-Rez Vehicles
3. BBQ At the Park
4. Building Site Buildings
5. Central Pump Station
6. Children Outdoor Playground
7. Collective3d Baseball Field
8. Cottage House - Iray Neighbourhood Edition
9. County Crime Lab
10. Department Store
11. Divided Highway (sometimes)
12. Dubious Townhall
13. Faded Industry
14. Grain Elevator
15. i13 Theatre with Poses
16. i13 Warehouse and Offices
17. 1stBastion's Buildings Hospital Emergency
18. 1stBastions Neighbours: Front Drive
19. 1stBastion Buildings: Police Station
20. Kids Play Area
21. Le Village Church
22. Monto Varchi Convention Center for DS
23. Mountain Valley
24. Movie Sets: City Block 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
25. Movie Sets: Fishers Warehousing
26. Movie Sets: Low Poly Blocks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
27. Movie Sets: Riverfront
28. New York Brownstones
29. New York Stores
30. Night and Day City for Daz Studio
31. Packratt Storage Units
32. Parthenon Bank
33. Picnic Area Exterior
34. Polygon City, Industrial Zone
35. Powerage The Factory
36. Prison Yard
37. Public Outdoor Pool
38. PX Rooftop
39. Rubble in the Bronx: Alleyway
40. Sawmill
41. Single Homes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
42. Small Sports Hall
43. Steamworks
44. Steel Town Blast Furnace
45. Steel Town Refinery Bundle
46. The Backstreets
47. The Church
48. The Construction Site
49. The Neighbour's Yard
50. The Tower
51. Urban Living
52. Urban Playground
53. Urban Sprawl 2 The Big City
54. Urban Sprawl 3
55. Warehouse Building with Items
56. Workshop

Sad. At 4am United States had143,055 and at 4:30pm just 12 1/2 hours later, 160,020.  So 16,965 new cases in about 12 hours. Only half a day. The CDC reports in at 4pm but I don't know if that's Eastern, Central, etc. The rest of this evening will be the states reporting. (Again, Florida is 5pm/6pm and 11pm.) 

While the rate is alarming it is actually a good thing.

It is clear that there are a lot more people infected than we know. Numbers increasing means a lot more testing is being done. I believe testing properly is the first step in combating this.

Sad. At 4am United States had143,055 and at 4:30pm just 12 1/2 hours later, 160,020.  So 16,965 new cases in about 12 hours. Only half a day. The CDC reports in at 4pm but I don't know if that's Eastern, Central, etc. The rest of this evening will be the states reporting. (Again, Florida is 5pm/6pm and 11pm.) 

I've done screenshots of the John Hopkins ones for the past ten days. I like it because it has the timestamp and you get the feel of when the numbers are going to change. For example, Florida reports at 11am and 5pm usually (or 6pm, can't remember.)  Someone reports around 3pm but I don't know who. There's more that come in at 7pm and 11pm. Also, clickorlando.com is where to go for really good central florida stories and for Pensacola it's pnj.com   Right now you can see photos of the state police checkpoints for Interstate 10 (West/East, from New Orleans in particular)  to stop traffic and conduct interviews. Never in my lifetime did I think we'd be interviewing people for their travel history due to a virus. 

They've also got Interstate 75 done too. (North/ South. For New Yorkers, New Jersey, Connecticut.)  I love that the Keys have got that nipped in the bud too with a checkpoint. They were ahead of the game, did that over a week ago. 

Ah, the War Doctor's TARDIS as seen near the end of "Day of the Doctor" and Capaldi's control room filled with roundeled panels!  I've seen another artist do that, but he placed them to replace the outer walls.  Your congiguration is closer to a "classic era" motif, having them surrounding the central dais/platform.

Sincerely,

Bill

Ah, the Quatermass gambit! Well played.. the only logical move, using the little grey cells would then be:

Tower Gateway > Euston > Banc > Charing Cross > Harlesden > Eliffant a Castell > Capel Gwyn (Whitechapel) > Baching > Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch > Shepherd's Bush > B(r)econ[tree] (Beacons) > Pontarfynach (Devil's Bridge) > Angel > Heathrow Terminal 5 >Llandudno Junction > Amersham > Clogwyn> Beddgelert > Pontrhydyfen > Llanwrtyd Wells > Caerdydd Canolog [Cardiff Central] > Hobbs End

Hickory Road

...as convenient as online shopping and delivery is I still would rather pick out my own items, particularly produce, seafood, and meats. 

The Safeway nearby has an introductory offer for one free delivery, but the catch is that the order needs to be a minimum of 50$.

Normally I would be there with you not wanting to trust someone else to pick out my food for me, but in this stage and being in the NY metro area (I live in central CT), I'd rather not risk going to the store if I don't have to. Last weekend, I was pleasently surprised at the quality of meats and produce that I got. We normally buy whatever chicken boobs are on sale and we ended up with organic instead, sirloin that looked fine, baby arugula clamshells that looked great, organic bananas that were green and ripened up perfectly, a bag of clementines that were wonderful, and a bag of navel oranges that were also amazing. Normally I strike out hardcore buying oranges myself (I detest punky, dry oranges), so for some other rando person to score me amazing oranges where I'm not throwing half of them away, I was totally happy. We don't eat seafod other than frozen shrimp once in a while, so that's a non-issue for us (my hubby could eat fish every day but try as I might, I just can't do it...nope). 

I forgot that using a TARDIS manoevre doesn't break the 'no person can make two consecutive* moves' rule, so I can do this:

Tower Gateway > Euston > Banc > Charing Cross > Harlesden > Eliffant a Castell > Capel Gwyn (Whitechapel) > Baching > Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch > Shepherd's Bush > B(r)econ[tree] (Beacons) > Pontarfynach (Devil's Bridge) > Angel > Heathrow Terminal 5 >Llandudno Junction > Amersham > Clogwyn> Beddgelert > Pontrhydyfen > Llanwrtyd Wells > Caerdydd Canolog [Cardiff Central]

Hobbs End

*with a TARDIS manoeuvre of course, the entire concept of 'consecutive' becomes meaningless

I had gone to the supermarket the other day. I walked there and all the streets were barren like in the Omega Man movie. When I arrived at the grocery store, there were hardly any cars in the parking lot. The store was still open but it was going to close soon at 8:00 p.m. Usually it closes at 10:00 p.m. every night.

When I got in there, hardly anybody was there. A few shoppers in this huge space and some staff stocking the shelves, or tending the cash registers. A lot of the shelves were empty. We are talking about a Super market. I was thinking maybe this was not a matter of items being purchased to the extreme but rather nobody to produce enough to ship to the stores to replenish the stock.

When I filled my cart enough to require a taxi ride home, I stood in line at the check out. Each person stood two shopping carts away from each other. I would say more than 2 meters or even nine feet apart. Nobody butt in line between the empty space.

Sure enough, I have attracted the one person who comes over to me to ask if this is a line and coughs in my space. Now I am not saying that tomorrow morning I will be waking up as a zombie thinking "shoot, I should have purchased more brains in the meat department..." and that this is my last posting here in the Daz forum.

In fact, I think the government has been lieing to us the citizens and that the so called virus was really a manufactured nanite that self replicates once it enters our body and rewrites our DNA till we 1 0 11 000 101 1100 00111 0101 1010....

Honestly, if someone were to walk up to me and cough in my face, I'd have a hard time not wanting to punch them in the mouth. 

I asked my husband if he wanted to actually go to the store this time around or do another online order and sure enough, he didn't even hesitate in saying to do another delivery. We're lucky to have a store that is less than five minutes away that does delivery and last week we got everything on our list, or at least variations of everything on our list. Stores here are gradually getting stuff. A few days ago my mom braved Wal-Mart (eeech) and they had toilet paper, paper towels, bleach, and *gasp* hand soap. They were limiting to one per customer on all those items, as they should, but it was nice to know that our stores are getting stock in. I'm in central Connecticut and thankfully Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey have been coordinating together on a state level when it comes to social distancing crackdowns, etc. 

The mathematical description doesn't really apply since the infinite HDRI is not a piece of geometry.  A better model is the real sky when you want to take a picture of a person with a large moon looming over their shoulder. You don't physically manipulate the real moon and move it to the right position. You pose the person and then choose the right focal length that makes the moon seem large.  There is no geometry to adjust; the infinite dome is boundless so there is no curvature that you can see.

I am not sure I will ever understand this like I would like to.

I think what helps my understanding is the sky cover with sun/moon is seemingly infinite compared to a person or few objects in a scene. Just as the universe is seemingly infinite compared to the earth's atmosphere. This is probably why the camera can adjust the size with the focal length. Perhaps the same idea as the horizon always looks flat because the earth is infinitely flat compared to our human perspective, but a camera lens effect can make the earth's horizon look curved... 

I think you will end up going in circles if you treat the infinite dome as a piece of geometry bound by all the rules of geometry such as curvature.  For example, no matter how you look at the stars, you will never see a curvature effect on the known universe since the universe is infinite; ironically, you can see back in time but tht is not germane to our discussion. The central thing is that an HDRI is not a skydome  with horizons, depth etc... it is more an ambient boundless space so there isn't some sort of geometric rules that can be applied to resize infinity etc...  The universe is not seemingly infinite from the earth's atomsphere; it actually is infinite....  

One thought, perhaps the domain of creation itself can make the universe seem finite and small... It is all a matter of relativity. :)

Microbial particles would also see the atmosphere as infinite, the same atmosphere where we regularly resize things and translate them around.

The question is, how do you resize infinity? 

From my grad school days, I have known far too many math grads who love the boundlessness of the infinite.  As for your problem, you can use the HDRI of your choice to light your scene, and then use your manipulated image with the enlarged sun or moon as a backdrop Daz Studio> Render Tab> Render Environment.  

Yes, this was what got me editing the files in Adobe Photoshop. I found I can open two different HDRI files in Photoshop and copy parts out of one and paste them into the other and then save the file in its native format and I don't think it loses any of the dynamic range as long as it is saved as an HDRI. What are your thoughts on that?

The mathematical description doesn't really apply since the infinite HDRI is not a piece of geometry.  A better model is the real sky when you want to take a picture of a person with a large moon looming over their shoulder. You don't physically manipulate the real moon and move it to the right position. You pose the person and then choose the right focal length that makes the moon seem large.  There is no geometry to adjust; the infinite dome is boundless so there is no curvature that you can see.

I am not sure I will ever understand this like I would like to.

I think what helps my understanding is the sky cover with sun/moon is seemingly infinite compared to a person or few objects in a scene. Just as the universe is seemingly infinite compared to the earth's atmosphere. This is probably why the camera can adjust the size with the focal length. Perhaps the same idea as the horizon always looks flat because the earth is infinitely flat compared to our human perspective, but a camera lens effect can make the earth's horizon look curved... 

I think you will end up going in circles if you treat the infinite dome as a piece of geometry bound by all the rules of geometry such as curvature.  For example, no matter how you look at the stars, you will never see a curvature effect on the known universe since the universe is infinite; ironically, you can see back in time but tht is not germane to our discussion. The central thing is that an HDRI is not a skydome  with horizons, depth etc... it is more an ambient boundless space so there isn't some sort of geometric rules that can be applied to resize infinity etc...  The universe is not seemingly infinite from the earth's atomsphere; it actually is infinite....  

One thought, perhaps the domain of creation itself can make the universe seem finite and small... It is all a matter of relativity. :)

Microbial particles would also see the atmosphere as infinite, the same atmosphere where we regularly resize things and translate them around.

The question is, how do you resize infinity? 

From my grad school days, I have known far too many math grads who love the boundlessness of the infinite.  As for your problem, you can use the HDRI of your choice to light your scene, and then use your manipulated image with the enlarged sun or moon as a backdrop Daz Studio> Render Tab> Render Environment.  

The mathematical description doesn't really apply since the infinite HDRI is not a piece of geometry.  A better model is the real sky when you want to take a picture of a person with a large moon looming over their shoulder. You don't physically manipulate the real moon and move it to the right position. You pose the person and then choose the right focal length that makes the moon seem large.  There is no geometry to adjust; the infinite dome is boundless so there is no curvature that you can see.

I am not sure I will ever understand this like I would like to.

I think what helps my understanding is the sky cover with sun/moon is seemingly infinite compared to a person or few objects in a scene. Just as the universe is seemingly infinite compared to the earth's atmosphere. This is probably why the camera can adjust the size with the focal length. Perhaps the same idea as the horizon always looks flat because the earth is infinitely flat compared to our human perspective, but a camera lens effect can make the earth's horizon look curved... 

I think you will end up going in circles if you treat the infinite dome as a piece of geometry bound by all the rules of geometry such as curvature.  For example, no matter how you look at the stars, you will never see a curvature effect on the known universe since the universe is infinite; ironically, you can see back in time but tht is not germane to our discussion. The central thing is that an HDRI is not a skydome  with horizons, depth etc... it is more an ambient boundless space so there isn't some sort of geometric rules that can be applied to resize infinity etc...  The universe is not seemingly infinite from the earth's atomsphere; it actually is infinite....  

One thought, perhaps the domain of creation itself can make the universe seem finite and small... It is all a matter of relativity. :)

Microbial particles would also see the atmosphere as infinite, the same atmosphere where we regularly resize things and translate them around.

The question is, how do you resize infinity? 

The mathematical description doesn't really apply since the infinite HDRI is not a piece of geometry.  A better model is the real sky when you want to take a picture of a person with a large moon looming over their shoulder. You don't physically manipulate the real moon and move it to the right position. You pose the person and then choose the right focal length that makes the moon seem large.  There is no geometry to adjust; the infinite dome is boundless so there is no curvature that you can see.

I am not sure I will ever understand this like I would like to.

I think what helps my understanding is the sky cover with sun/moon is seemingly infinite compared to a person or few objects in a scene. Just as the universe is seemingly infinite compared to the earth's atmosphere. This is probably why the camera can adjust the size with the focal length. Perhaps the same idea as the horizon always looks flat because the earth is infinitely flat compared to our human perspective, but a camera lens effect can make the earth's horizon look curved... 

I think you will end up going in circles if you treat the infinite dome as a piece of geometry bound by all the rules of geometry such as curvature.  For example, no matter how you look at the stars, you will never see a curvature effect on the known universe since the universe is infinite; ironically, you can see back in time but tht is not germane to our discussion. The central thing is that an HDRI is not a skydome  with horizons, depth etc... it is more an ambient boundless space so there isn't some sort of geometric rules that can be applied to resize infinity etc...  The universe is not seemingly infinite from the earth's atomsphere; it actually is infinite....  

There do need to be more older schools, large and small.  I am a little surpised so many of them seem to be labeled purely as high schools, though.  There should be about as many elementary schools and the like in the mix, too, both interior and exterior.

As for the Epstein thing.... yeah, there were a lot of other... strange things going on around that place, too.  o0

 

 

What? Around 71st? Do you live in Manhattan? I left after high school and had no idea about any of this until I saw a photo of it after his death and went "Holy sh*t! That was my high school!" 

I thought I was living a charmed life. You were raised in Manhattan and now you live in L.A.? How nice!

Yes. My mother grew up in LA but moved to NYC and since I was a baby, we'd come out here to LA every year to visit my grandmother and I fell in love with the palm trees and calm compared to NYC! By the time I was 11, I decided  this is where I wanted to live when I grew up. And never looked back. (My parents ended up moving to LA too! ) 

Sorry for going off topic even more but I really wish I could move to CA. LA would be cool but I've always dreamed of San Diego. It's just so expensive to live in those cities so I don't think a fixed income would be enough. Beyond that, I wouldn't even know where to start for transferring Medicaid services for my caregiver and medical needs. It would be awesome not to have snow anymore though. Getting around in the snow with a wheelchair just doesn't work lol.

Actually you needn't rule out moving there because you're on a fixed income as California and New York receive more federal tax dollars to subsidize the retired people and fixed income people than anywhere else in the nation by substanial margins. Native Floridians call them Snowbirds but the fact is the federal government has planned for a lot of people to retire to warmer sunnier climes and appropriated tax dollars appropriately to California, New York (coastal New York is warmer in Zone 6 with the Gulf Stream glancing by, than supposed, usually not colder than where I live in central Appalachia), and as those states got far too expensive, increasingly tax subsidies are going to Texas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and the Carolinas.

Just apply before moving there and don't move there until you get accepted. The waiting list is long enough (actually a long waiting list for anywhere where you might care to apply anywhere in the nation) that your time on the list before they evaluate you might expire but just reapply & repeat. Each place does it a little differently so read up on it directly from the site that are actually maintaining the wait lists. You should never, ever have to pay to apply to a wait list or to rent a tax government subsidised dwelling. There is usual one or more government offices per town or per county that manages the wait lists to government subsidized dwellings so search for them in the county you want to live in.