St John's Wood

Okay, I'll take another WC bonus if no-one else wants it:

Hyde Park Corner > Cockfosters > Waterloo > Canada Water > Crossness > Poplar > Wembley Central  > Looisham >  West Kensington > East Ham > Turnham Green >

White City

Hyde Park Corner > Cockfosters > Waterloo > Canada Water > Crossness > Poplar > Wembley Central  > Looisham >  West Kensington > East Ham

Given some of the places visited  I think it's going to

Turnham Green

Ooh, interesting move. In that case, I'll play for a WC modifier, and go for:

Wembley Central

Looisham

Ooh, interesting move. In that case, I'll play for a WC modifier, and go for:

Wembley Central

The problem is that what is defined as "Fine Art"

Actually, I never said Fine Art or suggested Fine Art - as we are talking about 3D as the central catalyst. So no need to worry about the fine art world. That was never my point or reference. It was you who started naming famous, traditional fine artists to make one of your points.

The problem is that what is defined as "Fine Art" in most of the Western World doesn't really match up with what is defined as "art" in other parts of the world,

Which is why I said critics because of context. THOSE in that part of the world would be best to judge the art from THEIR part of the world.

  If you want to argue with that, I suggest you go find a friend's kid and tear up their artwork in front of them while telling them that they're not qualified to create art. 

Not really relevant. No one is suggesting that a person/kid/anyone - can't do arts and crafts. Also, no one would suggest that the kid with the paper and crayon is doing fine art. lol

But anyone who observes a fair amount fo children's art can see and recognize a standout. Happens.

Someone has developed or acquired skill and creativity beyond their experience or years.

OTHERS (there's that word) may judge/recognize a talent or ability in that person.

Kids win art prizes and some illustrations are chosen for display up front.

Usually it's the best of anything that is asked to represent us.

The kid that stands out- they use their drawing of the flower for the school brochure......

The early craftsman is asked to make the sets for the school play.

Teachers select from their students artwork and pick pieces to keep and display.

There is no world where the feelings of the creative trump all else- unless someone has constructed a whole world inside their own head.

That's all my point is and was.

Generally speaking the better NAS drives are the most reliable. Ironwolf Pro or WD Gold or Red. They are more expensive than the mainstream counterparts but the warranties make up for it. Ironwolf Pro in particular has a very good replacement and date recovery warranty.

On RAID arrays, Raid 1, 0 or 10 can generally set up directly in the UEFI of most systems. RAID 5, and the better IMO 50, require add in controllers which can be very expensive. Now I am an IT pro so I am comfortable with troubleshooting them if there is a problem, not that I can recall having one on my home system or home NAS ever.

On these prepacked NAS systems I'm more than skeptical. MyCloud, and Synology, are sellingyou very expesnive enclosures with otherwise pretty awful HW for very high prices. You can build a NAS out of a old computer, assuming it has SATA ports and drive bays to accomodate the amount of stoprage you want, very simply. If you live near a FreeGeek go down and get a 4 or 5 year old system, they install Linux which is fine. Then get FreeNAS, a linux distro meant for use in NAS. The setup will be very simple, follow instructions you can find plenty of places. Beyond having a central data store that simplifies backups etc. It can replace your DVR and allow you to stream to your devices anywhere both your DVR and your music.

I used to be a die hard Poser user, but once Daz3D reeled me in with Genesis, I found it incredibly hard to go back to Poser. Mainly for two reasons: Lack of flagship figures that content creators supported, and the fact that while Daz3D is free, Poser stayed on the expensive side. Honestly, the one major feature I miss from Poser, was its easy-to-use material room. I could cook up crazy custom shaders much easier with it.

I didn't care at all for Daz Studio until version 4 came along. I remember looking at DS2 and asking people, "What's so great about it that I should invest the time to learn it?" And I just kept getting the same answer: "It's free!" I remember that I finally snapped and said, "Look, I'm an adult with a JOB. I can afford to buy Poser. What the heck is in DS that would make it worth my while?" Finally, one guy said, "Nothing. If you have Poser just stick with it. DS2 isn't a mature program."

And that was true, until Daz Studio 4. That was when it finally had the tools and power to make it worthwhile. And that's when I jumped ship and went over to Daz Studio. Things I really liked:

• The Download Manager. One click and everything comes down and goes where it's supposed to.
• Smart wardrobes: Again, click on the figure and the library filters the view to show you stuff that works with that figure.
• Easier figure manipulation.
• Iray (Poser's Superfly is a poor, VERY distant runner up to Iray).

But... As much as I liked DS and the pretty Iray pictures I could make, it wasn't fulfilling my desires to create line art out of 3D. Workarounds like Toon shaders and geoshells were (not to be rude): rubbish. Yes, with a LOT of work you could make something that worked. But the look wasn't all that good. The same is true for using Filter Forge and other image manipulation tricks. Yeah, you could get something that looked okay... but it really wasn't anything that knocked my socks off. Even in the hands of an expert it usually looks like someone did some Filter magic on a standard render.

And then in January 2016 I attended a Webinar hosted by professional comic artist Brian Haberlin and he showed a feature I had never seen before: "The Live Comic Book Preview" (he added the word "Live" to its name). Brian showed the tricks to setting up lights and adjusting the geometric edge settings, and suddenly I was off and running because I had actually won a free copy of Poser 11 and had it installed on my computer. For about a year I tried to duplicate his workflow (even bought Blacksmith 7 so I could work on my texture maps the way he did in Z-Brush), but soon tired of copying him and developed my own style. And I finally have a style and workflow that I like. 

BUT... even though I'm happy with the art I create, I'm a bit frustrated by exactly the issue you cited: a flagship figure that content creators supported.

Yeah, that's still a problem. I see lots of great content out there, but mostly I pass on it because I can't use it in Poser. I know Renderosity has high hopes for La Femme, but I just don't see the market support for her, yet. The new products are tickling out, and frankly they're not that interesting. Yeah, I know "slut wear" sells, but not to me. I need clothes, characters and POSES. So far, there just isn't enough support for her to make me consider using her for any project. Which is too bad: I think she has potential.

 

If Daz incorprated a Real-Time-Comic-Renderer like Poser has, I'd never touch Poser again.

 

I can't say that would happen to me, but it might. I like so many things in the Daz Studio library and interface that it would be very tempting to dump Poser and go over to Daz Studio if it had a Comic Book Preview on par with the one in Poser 11. There are a few things in Poser I like more:

• Poser's lighting interface: That ball which controls lights is MUCH easier to use than the lighting in DS. This is a tricky tool, but once you master its nuances it's hard to go back to DS.
• Poser's Morph Tool: Got strands of hair sticking through a hat? Poke 'em in. Need to loosen a belt, no problem.
• The Fitting Room: Fast and easy to reconfigure clothes from one figure to another, or to fix problems. HOWEVER, I think DS does a better job with conforming clothes, so it really doesn't need this type of adjustment as often. 
• The "Favorite's Tab" in the Library. 
• The ease of adding new figures and props to your Library. 

 

BTW: I have heard a rumor that Daz Studio might be working on some sort of comic book preview thingie. Time will tell.

I agree with you about the global lighting.  I do like that a lot.  However I perfer Daz's emissive lighting when it comes to lighting windows or starship engines.  I don't know Poser as well as you do, so maybe I don't know how to do it properly.  I recently baught a Blad

I used to be a die hard Poser user, but once Daz3D reeled me in with Genesis, I found it incredibly hard to go back to Poser. Mainly for two reasons: Lack of flagship figures that content creators supported, and the fact that while Daz3D is free, Poser stayed on the expensive side. Honestly, the one major feature I miss from Poser, was its easy-to-use material room. I could cook up crazy custom shaders much easier with it.

I didn't care at all for Daz Studio until version 4 came along. I remember looking at DS2 and asking people, "What's so great about it that I should invest the time to learn it?" And I just kept getting the same answer: "It's free!" I remember that I finally snapped and said, "Look, I'm an adult with a JOB. I can afford to buy Poser. What the heck is in DS that would make it worth my while?" Finally, one guy said, "Nothing. If you have Poser just stick with it. DS2 isn't a mature program."

And that was true, until Daz Studio 4. That was when it finally had the tools and power to make it worthwhile. And that's when I jumped ship and went over to Daz Studio. Things I really liked:

• The Download Manager. One click and everything comes down and goes where it's supposed to.
• Smart wardrobes: Again, click on the figure and the library filters the view to show you stuff that works with that figure.
• Easier figure manipulation.
• Iray (Poser's Superfly is a poor, VERY distant runner up to Iray).

But... As much as I liked DS and the pretty Iray pictures I could make, it wasn't fulfilling my desires to create line art out of 3D. Workarounds like Toon shaders and geoshells were (not to be rude): rubbish. Yes, with a LOT of work you could make something that worked. But the look wasn't all that good. The same is true for using Filter Forge and other image manipulation tricks. Yeah, you could get something that looked okay... but it really wasn't anything that knocked my socks off. Even in the hands of an expert it usually looks like someone did some Filter magic on a standard render.

And then in January 2016 I attended a Webinar hosted by professional comic artist Brian Haberlin and he showed a feature I had never seen before: "The Live Comic Book Preview" (he added the word "Live" to its name). Brian showed the tricks to setting up lights and adjusting the geometric edge settings, and suddenly I was off and running because I had actually won a free copy of Poser 11 and had it installed on my computer. For about a year I tried to duplicate his workflow (even bought Blacksmith 7 so I could work on my texture maps the way he did in Z-Brush), but soon tired of copying him and developed my own style. And I finally have a style and workflow that I like. 

BUT... even though I'm happy with the art I create, I'm a bit frustrated by exactly the issue you cited: a flagship figure that content creators supported.

Yeah, that's still a problem. I see lots of great content out there, but mostly I pass on it because I can't use it in Poser. I know Renderosity has high hopes for La Femme, but I just don't see the market support for her, yet. The new products are tickling out, and frankly they're not that interesting. Yeah, I know "slut wear" sells, but not to me. I need clothes, characters and POSES. So far, there just isn't enough support for her to make me consider using her for any project. Which is too bad: I think she has potential.

 

If Daz incorprated a Real-Time-Comic-Renderer like Poser has, I'd never touch Poser again.

 

I can't say that would happen to me, but it might. I like so many things in the Daz Studio library and interface that it would be very tempting to dump Poser and go over to Daz Studio if it had a Comic Book Preview on par with the one in Poser 11. There are a few things in Poser I like more:

• Poser's lighting interface: That ball which controls lights is MUCH easier to use than the lighting in DS. This is a tricky tool, but once you master its nuances it's hard to go back to DS.
• Poser's Morph Tool: Got strands of hair sticking through a hat? Poke 'em in. Need to loosen a belt, no problem.
• The Fitting Room: Fast and easy to reconfigure clothes from one figure to another, or to fix problems. HOWEVER, I think DS does a better job with conforming clothes, so it really doesn't need this type of adjustment as often. 
• The "Favorite's Tab" in the Library. 
• The ease of adding new figures and props to your Library. 

 

BTW: I have heard a rumor that Daz Studio might be working on some sort of comic book preview thingie. Time will tell.

I agree with you about the global lighting.  I do like that a lot.  However I perfer Daz's emissive lighting (IRAY) when it comes to lighting windows or starship engines.  I don't know Poser as well as you do, so maybe I don't know how to do it properly.  I baught a Blade Runner car (with my $10 reward coupon) made for Poser, thinking it would work for Daz.  It doesn't.  It doesn't have seperate surfaces for the lights, so I can't make them emissive.  I might use it at some point in Poser, but it's rubbish for Daz IRAY.  I might be able to use it in a toon render (3Delight).   It was very disappointing using that coupon on a dude like that.  Now, I won't get Poser products unless it specifically says it will work for Daz3D.  The car did not, so lesson learned.

One other thing I like about Poser is that you can zoom in and out on an object with ease, no matter where it is in the scene.  I find it's hard to zoom in on things in Daz when it's far off from the central loading point.

I have not heard that rumor.  I hope it's true and I hope it's good.

Shepherds Bush Market

which I believe is valid under the Windsor abridged rules, even though it involves a double-bogie shunt - whoops, it's actually a double-bogie reverse shunt. I'm not sure if the Windsor abridged rules allow that...

It is indeed valid, and a good play for the Hammersmith & City line, given that the Windsor rules give bonus score for using less frequently used stations.

I might have gone for Goldhawk Road one stop down the line, as it's slightly better scoring, but I see where you're going with that - from there, you can duplicate either "Shephard's Bush" to get to the Central line, or get onto the Metropolitan branches; a lot of people forget that Shepard's Bush Market leads out onto Uxbridge Road, and you can duplicate on foot connections under the Windsor rules, which means you can reverse back out to Uxbridge without suffering the normal penalty.

That definitely leaves your moves open a lot wider than Goldhawk Road, because while you can duplicate "Road", it's obviously lesser scoring for being a common element.

I believe that now means that this round can't be won in less than 5 moves, due to cabbies not going South of the river after midnight.

Actually, I know it's controversial, but the Windsor rules do allow the chess link, so it is possible to make above-ground exchanges between King's Cross, Queen's Park, Knightsbridge, Elephant and Castle, and Bishop's Road (although better known as Paddington these days), so it would have just been possible if your move had opened up that link, but I think those are all now blocked off in the next two turns by you making a move on the DLR, so well played..

Elephant And Castle > Holborn > Goodge Street > Chalfont & Latimer > Aldwych > Kew Gardens > Golders Green > Baker Street > Maida Vale > Dollis Hill > Upminster > St Pauls > London Bridge > Morden > Bank > Holborn

You forgot that diagonals are forbidden on the Central Line only on West Ham play days

Highbury & Islington

Introduction:

If you already know how to play this should be easy. Simply read the 'For players' section below to see how the game has been adapted for play on a forum.
If you don't know how to play, then it may be best simply to lurk for a while until you think you understand, at which point you're welcome to join in.

Scoreboard:

In charge of the scoreboard is the lovely Samantha. I couldn't find her piano intro, so this will have to do for now

Round 1 (Original modern rules): Elephant And Castle > Holborn > Goodge Street > Chalfont & Latimer > Aldwych > Kew Gardens > Golders Green > Baker Street > Maida Vale > Dollis Hill > Upminster > St Pauls > London Bridge > Morden > Bank > Holborn > Highbury & Islington > British Museum > Mornington Crescent ... winning move played by Matt_Castle

Round 2 (Windsor abridged rules, with Lord Incent's amendment): Ruislip Gardens > Shepherds Bush Market > Cutty Sark for Maritime Greenwich > Seven Sisters > Baker Street 221b > Elephant and Castle > Kentish Town > High Street Kensington > Earl's Court > Angel > Bank > Waterloo > Mornington Crescent... winning move played by Ascania

Round 3 (Lord Knaresborough's Yorkshire variation): Blackstone Lane > Lebreton Flats (False start called due to forum auto(in)correction, restart required) Blackhorse Lane > Kentish Town > Oxford Circus> Shepards Bush > Northfields > Ealing Broadway > Cyprus > Watford Junction >Dollis Hill > Wembley Park > Kensington Olympia > Mornington Crescent ... winning move played by droidy001

Round 4 (Bog Standard rules): Hyde Park Corner > Cockfosters > Waterloo > Canada Water > Crossness > Poplar > Wembley Central > Looisham > West Kensington > East Ham > Turnham Green > White City > St John's Wood > Walthamstow Central > White Chapel > Waterloo > Sloane Square > Kings Cross > South Kensington > Pimlico> Victoria > Twyford>Paddington > Harrow and Wealdstone > Ealing Broadway > West India Quay > Uxbridge > Great Portaloo Street > Barking > Swiss Cottage > Seven Sisters > Mornington Crescent ...winning move played by Chohole

Round 5 (Marquess of Tunsberry rules, abridged, with the Highland Corollaries): Vauxhall > Acton Town > Cowcaddens > Ibrox > St Enoch > Harrow & Wealdstone > Gorbals > Barbican > Sloane Square > Victoria > Mornington Crescent  ...winning move played by Richard Haseltine

Round 6 (Crwssynt Morgantonio LLwdiu variation): 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 >Timbuktu > Darjeeling > Earl's Court > King's Cross > Mornington Crescent  ... winning move played by 3DCheapskate

Round 7 (Calvin's Presbyterian version, 23 June 1907 edition): Archway > Holborn > Arsenal > Tufnell Park>Hyde Park Corner> Hounlsow Central>Archway>Monument>Archway>Stepney Green>Morden...
(somewhere around the Stepney Green>Morden move we seem to have slipped onto an alternate timelime due to the quantum meddling)
Round 7 (Calvin's Presbyterian version, 23 June 1907 edition) alternate timeline:Pimlico > Ickenham > Elm Park > Arnos Grove > Ladbroke Grove > Dagenham East > Oval > Ruislip Manor > Stepney Green > Morden > Plaistow > Wembley Central > Lyon Park Avenue > Alperton > Tooting Bec > Regents Park > King's Cross > Oxford Circus > Elephant And Castle > Monument > Barbican > Farringdon > Archway > Mornington Crescent ... winning move played by Chohole

Round 8 (Tudor Court rules): Tower Gateway >Tooting Broadway > West Croydon> > Lambeth North > Maidenhead > Earl's Court >Park Royal > High Street Kensington  > Parsons Green > Regents Park > ...

Guidelines (not rules) for players:

0) We're probably playing by the original modern rules now Different rulesets may be used for each round. Details of the ruleset(s) in use will (probably) be found in (or near) the post containing the first move for that round

1) The major change to the standard original modern any rules is that there is no particular sequence in which players make their moves.
So basically whoever posts next is considered to have made the next move (Rule Guideline (3) (4) is intended to resolve conflicts in this regard, but probably won't)
However, no player is allowed to make two consecutive moves.

2) Discussion and comment is encouraged, but not mandatory. For this purpose both players and non-players are welcome to post without making any move.

3) When making a move, please include the full sequence of preceding moves in your post (to counter the problem of two or more people posting responses to the same moves), and ensure that your actual move stands out in your post. I suggest a separate line using the 'Heading 1' format (from the drop-down above the edit box that has 'Normal' as the default), but maybe bold, a bright colour, or anything that clearly differentiates it from normal, humdrum, everyday text will suffice. This is so that moves can be easily picked out from general chit-chat. Here is an example move:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Elephant And Castle > Aldgate > South Harrow > Marylebone

Liverpool Street

I bet you weren't expecting that !
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

4) If two or more people post responses to the same move, then the one that appears first in the thread (after any thread turbulence has settled) is counted and the others are ignored. If you have posted a move that is ignored according to this rule guideline, please do not delete it - simply use the strikethrough format (the 'S' button next to the bold 'B' and italic 'I' buttons above the post editing box at the left) on your move.

4a) (The 'fait accompli' amendment to guideline (4)) If two or more people post responses to the same move, thus invoking guideline (4), but somebody posts a follow-on to one of the aforementioned multiple responses to the same move that would not have been considered the legitimate next move, then that illegitimate next move forthwith gains legitimacy.

5) Invalid moves must be challenged before anybody makes a follow-on move. If a follow-on move has already been made then the challenged move stands, regardless of its validity. If a move is successfully challenged then play is paused until a nominated 'responsible adult' rules makes a decision on the validity of the move. Discussion of the validity of a challenged move is highly encouraged, and sufficient time should be allowed for the cases both for and against the challenge. Invalid moves will be redacted in the same way as ignored moves in rule guideline (5), i.e. by using strikethrough on the move, not deleting it.

6) All guidelines are purely guidelines and can be ignored at will.

So let's get started. I'll kick us off with a classic opening move...

Elephant And Castle

I've got another example for the thread. This is the Vintage Leather Jacket, and the changes took me about an hour to do, but this was my first real test of the tool, and there were a lot of little tweaks… and some do-overs. These images were created for this thread, with before and after comparisons in both viewport Smooth Shaded draw mode and Iray renders. All image link to the full-size image and open in a new window/tab.

Here are the Before images:

And here are the After images:

The original image is here, and the followup image is here.

In the original scene, I added a dark gray to the shirt materials, but left it off for these comparisons, so it's easier to see the changes. The three biggest problem areas were

• the right bottom of the jacket where it intersected the leg instead of bending with it. I used MG to move it to the side. (Where it looks awful, to be honest, but isn't in the camera view.)
• the left side where the jacket intersected the weapon, rather than conforming to the shape.
• and on both sides, where the arms of the jacket intersected with the sides of the jacket.

One of the reasons it took so long to make changes with MG is I had to raise the arms in order to move just the sleeve or just the side of the jacket. So I'd move the arm up, tweak, then move it back down. I did that repeatedly until they didn't intersect. I also had to make very small adjustments to remove any stretching/contracting of the zipper. Had this been the central character of the original scene, I probably would have spent twice as much time, doing a lot more small tweaks.

This jacket is a perfect example of something that will be faster and easier to modify when rotate and scale are part of the tool.

I got a problem.  The script runs but it doesn't convert anything.

Here's what appears in the script log:

07:53:44 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time): Executing Script

07:53:44 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time): Selecting Preset: D:/!PROJECTS & INSPIRATION/!Projects/Project 7 - Random Action Adventure/People/Genesis 3 Female/Clothing/Darkshade/Hand Poses/Darkshade Sai Hand Pose L.duf

07:53:44 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time): Converting prop or pose from D:/!PROJECTS & INSPIRATION/!Projects/Project 7 - Random Action Adventure/People/Genesis 3 Female/Clothing/Darkshade/Hand Poses/Darkshade Sai Hand Pose L.duf to D:/Converted Daz Content/!Converted Props/G3 to G8/Darkshade/Hand Poses/Darkshade Sai Hand Pose L.duf

In the DAZ Studio log, I noticed this at the end:

2020-02-11 07:53:45.828 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\sdksource\general\dzscript.cpp(1178): Unhandled error while executing script.
2020-02-11 07:53:45.828 WARNING: QScriptEngine::popContext() doesn't match with pushContext()

My output folder is empty.  Any thoughts?

Could you post the full log of the conversion?  Something went wrong but it is hard to tell from this.

Something interesting happened yesterday.  The central screen, the one with the grid and where you work on your image, is usually grayish in color.  Now it's bright white and it bothers my eyes.  How can I change it back? I have no idea how it got itself changed.

I got a problem.  The script runs but it doesn't convert anything.

Here's what appears in the script log:

07:53:44 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time): Executing Script

07:53:44 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time): Selecting Preset: D:/!PROJECTS & INSPIRATION/!Projects/Project 7 - Random Action Adventure/People/Genesis 3 Female/Clothing/Darkshade/Hand Poses/Darkshade Sai Hand Pose L.duf

07:53:44 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time): Converting prop or pose from D:/!PROJECTS & INSPIRATION/!Projects/Project 7 - Random Action Adventure/People/Genesis 3 Female/Clothing/Darkshade/Hand Poses/Darkshade Sai Hand Pose L.duf to D:/Converted Daz Content/!Converted Props/G3 to G8/Darkshade/Hand Poses/Darkshade Sai Hand Pose L.duf

In the DAZ Studio log, I noticed this at the end:

2020-02-11 07:53:45.828 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\sdksource\general\dzscript.cpp(1178): Unhandled error while executing script.
2020-02-11 07:53:45.828 WARNING: QScriptEngine::popContext() doesn't match with pushContext()

My output folder is empty.  Any thoughts?

Images, just like stories, tend to work better when they have a central focus. In a story, it is the protagonist, in an image, its the subject. The disparate characters in your current image lack a focus. And as you explained that's exactly the intent,  but what it is missing,  it the main character,  which may actually be the writer overseeing the scene or scribbling or typing intensely within the scene.

Just a quick proof of principle for a simple stack of chips - 96 vertices. The thickness of the intermediate chips is wrong (the central texture was done manually, quickly, and sloppily). The top and bottom map as per a single lo-res chip. There's also a simple bump map for the central texture to make it look more like astack of discsrather than a solid cylinder.

And if I added a morph to raise all the vertices for the top chip, then you could use it as a stack of however many chips you wanted simply by scaling and tiling the central texture vertically to match the morph.

Yes, that works.
And I don't really notice the texture repeating four times up the side of the stack,which it does since my scale factor was 0.25.
And I recall from my books project that in a DS prop I can slave a Surfaces value to a Parameters value, so this can probably be automated, assuming it applies to morph sliders too. In a Poser prop I'd have to resort to Parmatic.

Of course, for a less tidy stack with chips offset from centre it's probably best/easiest to use separate chip meshes and a constrained Blender physics simulation. But I like this idea.And I should be able to get the vertex count down further to juse just 50 vertices, i.e. a simple 24 vertex cylinder, exactly the same as the lo-res chip.

Google found some more Casino de Montreal chips for me and I've used them as a basis for Casino Douteux...

These are the only values I've found images of (except for a $2.50 which I'll be doing a version of as Ilike the colours). The colours were mostly picked from images with GIMPs eyedropper thingy. I've attached a screenshot of thumbnails of the reference photos for comparison.

Question (for Casino-goers): Would the different value chips for a specific casino at a specific point in time all have the same label design (as I've done for the Casino Douteux - except the 50¢ one),or would you see a mix of different ones, like in the reference photos?

I think I also need a bump map since the central label is distinctly depressed (not much, but it's obvious),and the 50 cent chip has six four-leaf clovers embossed around it

Hey!

I've been taking a stab at building a 'retro' robot of sorts for Daz Studio that is sort of a homage to 50's sci-fi, although it's more of a true robot than a man in a robot suit.  I'm actually fairly far along already, with a few motors and assocated gearing placed internally on the arms and hip joints I've designed so far.

Anyways, one of the things I'm focusing on is having working gears that rotate with the joint movement.  4/1 ratio on the gears to keep the math simple, so 'pairing up' the morphs to move in unison, with 4 revolutions to 1, shouldn't be that hard to do, from what I've read.  I've personally never attempted to pair two morphs before, but the instructions I've read seem to indicate it's not all that hard, as people do similar with car steering wheels vs front wheels, etc.

So my question is related to how I'm putting together the robot.  Right now, I'm just parenting the various limbs/parts manually using a tree structure, as opposed to building a single figure.  Using the Joint Editor, it's pretty easy to 'zero in' the pivot points, and it's working quite well.  Of course, this means that we aren't talking a single figure, rather an assortment of parts in a 'tree' structure, but I don't want the parts to deform as they move, I want them to be fully rigid.  It's pretty easy to rename x/y/z controls to appropriately descriptive titles, and to 'lock' parameters that normally shouldn't be adjusted once the limbs have been placed.  It's also pretty easy to 'limit' the range of motion for the parameters, so that you don't have elbows embedding inside of shoulders and such.

Most of the time the gearing won't be fully visible, so it should be fairly easy to hide the parts that aren't visible to keep unnecessary raytracing to a minimum.  I'm thinking that people might want to use semi-transparent materials occasionally as the limb shell material, which would make the gearing visible, plus I'm planning on including a few removable access panels into the design.  This would be useful for say animation purposes.

I also want to encourage disassembly to a degree, say if someone wants to work with an arm separated from the rest of the robot, on a separate workbench in a repair/maintenance type of scene, or maybe if someone wanted to show a robot assembly line or something.

Wiring may prove to be a bit of a challenge, but I'm not that far along yet. Thinking along the lines of Molex connectors for the joints, with separate male/female connectors when disassembled, or maybe a kludge along those lines.  The wiring will be mostly fixed to the shell, and passing through the fairly rigid pivot point to get to the central power source and such.  As I noted, the joint interactions will be the challenging part to work out wiring wise.

I suppose I could create a 'Landmate' style implementation of this idea in the future, for those that are familiar with the Landmate concept from Appleseed, but one thing at a time...

Anyways, kack to my question:

Are there significant downsides to the 'tree' approach with multiple parts as opposed to a siingle model that I may be missing?  Most figures I've seen are based on a single .obj in most cases, with various morphs applied, but I'm not seeing any particular upside to that in this particular instance.  Fitting clothing to said robot, if someone wanted to do that, would be one downside I can think of, but as a metal automaton I don't see people dressing him up a lot.  Scaling translating to sub-tree items on the heirarchy tree could be another, for those that want to tweak things, but as the parts need to stay 'rounded' for rotation purposes, individual x/y/z scaling might be problematic in any case.

On the flipside, modding for example a limb part in say Hexagon, in order to stretch an arm length without deforming the pivot point, might be easier if the parts are separated already.  Also, I want to make it easier to swap out say an elbow for a weapons attachment, or feet for treads, or to allow people to design their own attachments to use with this robot.  Moddability is something that I want to encourage with this robot.

Thoughts?  Suggestions?