...I used to do RC flying nearly 50 years ago before everything went digital.  Had a lovely scale RC 185 Cessna Skylane (balsa, pine, and fabric) that I built from a kit, even included cockpit details.  Back then CB radios bled into the same frequency channels modellers used. I watched as hours and hours of work want out of my control (even though it was still in the range of my tranciever) and nosedived into the ground as a pickup with a couple of those big whip areals went by, most lilekly the driver tallking to some "good buddy".  After that hung it up as I coudln't afford to build another.

That's definitely the advantage of the 2.4GHz radios these days.  Solid performance.  I understand the appeal of wood builds, but the new foam planes really are quite good, and very easy and cheap to repair.  The micros (my favourites) and really good flying planes, and Horizon Hobby just released a Cessna 182.  I'll definitely be picking that up!
http://www.horizonhobby.com/product/storefronts/bind-n-fly/all-new-releases/umx-cessna-182-bnf-basic-eflu5650

 

...yikes 129$! The kit I built cost 8.95$ and had a 48" wingspan. Even adjusted for inflation it would be slightly less than half the price of the E-Flight model (though true, the scarcity of balsa wood today would most likely move the price a lot closer to the micro foam model).  Yeah, there was a lot of assembly required, but the detail was stunning and seeing it sitting there in classic 1960s Cessna livery when finished and ready to fly was very rewarding. My second RC project was a DC-3 I bought (was going to paint it in North Central livery as I lived in the Midwest), but after the Skylane crash, the potential to lose it to the rising popularity of CB radios at the time caused me to sell the partially completed kit, along with the controller, salvaged reciever, and servos from the Cessna. Also sold a 72" wingspan RC sailplane I had.

Went to "circle" flying and rockets after that.

Rawb, the store is not working right. I stopped shopping because several of the stores were empty. I KNOW I don't have all of the products. Then when I refreshed, some came back but then others were gone. Saiyaness is now up, but I couldn't shop that one before I HAD to check out as is getting close to store turnover time. IH Kang was down, it came back up. At the moment, all stores are back that I have checked. But thought I should let you know. That was a few minutes ago, 12:45ish-12:47 central time.

" Still, over-reliance on external power tools + under-education of beginner prosumers may lead to decline of competitiveness of DS as a CG tool."

Gaming revenues were $104 BILLION at the end of 2015
Eclipsing movies& music sales combined.

What does one see in games??

Articulated 3D Characters Moving,Speaking
and following a Game narrative or story.

The parent company that owns Daz inc. is franticly trying to enter into the Unity based game content market because, as of now ,they have little presence there.
The hobbiest  still render market here is not truly going to be the central focus of the corporation that owns Daz going forward.
Spend some time over at the Morph3D Site and look for some of their presentation videos on youtube to see what I mean.
Making their content& licensing fees competitive in the game content market is their biggest challenge going forward.

For us non gamers looking to use Daz content in other non game platforms
DAZ, IMHO peaked with Genesis 2 and FBX,MDD .obj export
Genesis 3 offers nothing new to us and is even a step backward for us animators.

(Note that the "MCS female" Unity content package over at Morph3D is Genesis 2

....very telling)

At this point in time Daz Studio is only actually "Competitive " compared
to poser.
Smith Micro made their attempt to enter the game content market
with the poorly received "poser pro game dev" version.

The plopped a $300+ USD white elephant in the Unity store where the upper end of the price scale for content packages was $40 USD tops 

They did not seem to understand that game developers are NOT looking for a  Bloated "figure posing application" with a 1990's kai Kraus interface and Flash based library system.

Result= EPIC FAIL

 
"Even iClone suffers from post-sugar-high sluggishness typical of prosumer tools..."

After some initial missteps with the bridge to the horribly engineered "indigo" render engine,Reallusion has made some wise decisions not only with the advent  of their ever improving Character creator application but with their reasonable Game content export fees.
To say Nothing of their world class  realtime Charcter motion creation tools
that are second only to the Mighty Autodesk MotionBuilder at this point.

We seem to have weathered the hurricane well.  It is mostly tracking north of us now.  We are still getting some rain and wind from the bottom of the hurricane as it moves further north, but nothing like earlier today.  We still have power in my area and I don't think our town sustained any heavy damage.  So, we are good at my house.

Good to hear! 340,000 without power by 4am central. Will be about 2 million once it goes by Jax. The cone has shifted more out to sea. It's what it does when it loops around that is interesting. It does a loop, comes back to the coast around Canaveral, then goes east out to sea. Edit: as of 5am, Daytona Beach just lost power so you can add a LOT to that total.

I do not understand the reliance on start phones, cars, fridges, thermostats and TV’s. How hard is it to look in the cabinets, fridge and pantry to make a list BEFORE you go shopping? Why do I need to connect a coffee maker to the internet? All this does is make people more and more dependent on a technology that is becoming easier to interrupt. How many people know how to change the oil on their cars anymore? Or change a shock or alternator? How many people can go out and hunt and fish to put food on their families table in the event of an economic or social collapse due to a failure of the internet everyone has becomes so dependent on? Thanks to smart phones there is a decline in human interaction in my opinion. Yes the internet has given us instant news, which is not always correct at times. To me an increased reliance on a service is unhealthy and will lead to serious repercussions if/when it fails on a global scale. My personal opinion is that people have become so wrapped up with the internet, they no longer see the danger it can pose. 

+10!!  And I can do all of the above and then some.  How many people know how to read a map anymore?  I know people who absolutely panic if they have no internet for a couple of hours.  To me, that's way too much reliance on something you don't really have any control over. Wouldn't take much to wipe technology on a country wide scale.

So much this.  

Basic skills aren't even being taught anymore.  Cursive writing?  Too difficult and most stuff is typed now.  Map reading?  Why bother since we have GPS.  Slaughtering and dressing wild game?  Why, when we have grocery stores and butcher shops to do it for us?  Building a cistern?  We have running water and plumbing.  Building a fire?  How quaint, since we have central heat and air conditioning.

If society collapsed tomorrow, 90% of the population (in the USA, not sure about other countries) would simply have NO idea what to do or how to survive.  Basic (and simple) construction, mechanics, tool-making, and food gathering/preparation are things they have NEVER been taught.  Most can't cook (aside from just heating something up, or microwaving it.)

It's really sad.  Just because you don't HAVE to do something doesn't mean you shouldn't know HOW to, just in case.

People are RELYING on technology, rather than simply USING it.  If any of it, for any reason, stops working, they have no idea what to do as an alternative.  And unfortunately, a lot of the alternatives that DID exist are being removed.  Remember Pay-Phones here in the US?  Virutally gone.  The reason?  "Well, everyone has cell-phones now.  And if theirs isn't working, they can borrow someone elses..."

Truly sad.....

 

Agreed. I couldnt believe it when my nieces school decided to end cursive writing.

My wife and I have been trying to get on the path of self sustainability. We have plans for chickens and ducks, possibly some other livestock. Solar upgrades to the house would be great but wind would be more practical out here. My niece and nephew are going to spend some time out here over their summer vacations as soon as they are old enough. I cant wait to teach them how to make fire.

I do not understand the reliance on start phones, cars, fridges, thermostats and TV’s. How hard is it to look in the cabinets, fridge and pantry to make a list BEFORE you go shopping? Why do I need to connect a coffee maker to the internet? All this does is make people more and more dependent on a technology that is becoming easier to interrupt. How many people know how to change the oil on their cars anymore? Or change a shock or alternator? How many people can go out and hunt and fish to put food on their families table in the event of an economic or social collapse due to a failure of the internet everyone has becomes so dependent on? Thanks to smart phones there is a decline in human interaction in my opinion. Yes the internet has given us instant news, which is not always correct at times. To me an increased reliance on a service is unhealthy and will lead to serious repercussions if/when it fails on a global scale. My personal opinion is that people have become so wrapped up with the internet, they no longer see the danger it can pose. 

+10!!  And I can do all of the above and then some.  How many people know how to read a map anymore?  I know people who absolutely panic if they have no internet for a couple of hours.  To me, that's way too much reliance on something you don't really have any control over. Wouldn't take much to wipe technology on a country wide scale.

So much this.  

Basic skills aren't even being taught anymore.  Cursive writing?  Too difficult and most stuff is typed now.  Map reading?  Why bother since we have GPS.  Slaughtering and dressing wild game?  Why, when we have grocery stores and butcher shops to do it for us?  Building a cistern?  We have running water and plumbing.  Building a fire?  How quaint, since we have central heat and air conditioning.

If society collapsed tomorrow, 90% of the population (in the USA, not sure about other countries) would simply have NO idea what to do or how to survive.  Basic (and simple) construction, mechanics, tool-making, and food gathering/preparation are things they have NEVER been taught.  Most can't cook (aside from just heating something up, or microwaving it.)

It's really sad.  Just because you don't HAVE to do something doesn't mean you shouldn't know HOW to, just in case.

People are RELYING on technology, rather than simply USING it.  If any of it, for any reason, stops working, they have no idea what to do as an alternative.  And unfortunately, a lot of the alternatives that DID exist are being removed.  Remember Pay-Phones here in the US?  Virutally gone.  The reason?  "Well, everyone has cell-phones now.  And if theirs isn't working, they can borrow someone elses..."

Truly sad.....

 

A kid in a Home Ec class asked "How do you boil water?"  He was serious.

I weep for the future....

I do not understand the reliance on start phones, cars, fridges, thermostats and TV’s. How hard is it to look in the cabinets, fridge and pantry to make a list BEFORE you go shopping? Why do I need to connect a coffee maker to the internet? All this does is make people more and more dependent on a technology that is becoming easier to interrupt. How many people know how to change the oil on their cars anymore? Or change a shock or alternator? How many people can go out and hunt and fish to put food on their families table in the event of an economic or social collapse due to a failure of the internet everyone has becomes so dependent on? Thanks to smart phones there is a decline in human interaction in my opinion. Yes the internet has given us instant news, which is not always correct at times. To me an increased reliance on a service is unhealthy and will lead to serious repercussions if/when it fails on a global scale. My personal opinion is that people have become so wrapped up with the internet, they no longer see the danger it can pose. 

+10!!  And I can do all of the above and then some.  How many people know how to read a map anymore?  I know people who absolutely panic if they have no internet for a couple of hours.  To me, that's way too much reliance on something you don't really have any control over. Wouldn't take much to wipe technology on a country wide scale.

So much this.  

Basic skills aren't even being taught anymore.  Cursive writing?  Too difficult and most stuff is typed now.  Map reading?  Why bother since we have GPS.  Slaughtering and dressing wild game?  Why, when we have grocery stores and butcher shops to do it for us?  Building a cistern?  We have running water and plumbing.  Building a fire?  How quaint, since we have central heat and air conditioning.

If society collapsed tomorrow, 90% of the population (in the USA, not sure about other countries) would simply have NO idea what to do or how to survive.  Basic (and simple) construction, mechanics, tool-making, and food gathering/preparation are things they have NEVER been taught.  Most can't cook (aside from just heating something up, or microwaving it.)

It's really sad.  Just because you don't HAVE to do something doesn't mean you shouldn't know HOW to, just in case.

People are RELYING on technology, rather than simply USING it.  If any of it, for any reason, stops working, they have no idea what to do as an alternative.  And unfortunately, a lot of the alternatives that DID exist are being removed.  Remember Pay-Phones here in the US?  Virutally gone.  The reason?  "Well, everyone has cell-phones now.  And if theirs isn't working, they can borrow someone elses..."

Truly sad.....

DIM is still down at 1:20 am Central time. Won't connect, does a "unable to connect." 

 Oh, COME ON. Magento errors AGAIN. I can't go to the products in the cart, they're throwing the error.  11:35pm Central time.

There's a really nice aspect to 'learning to format' our screenplays and - hence - using the formatting software that we find that we enjoy using:

The formatting process requires that we use Courier 12pt or Courier New 12pt font - because each character takes the same space - unlike most other fonts, which scale their footprint to the size needed by the character, to conserve space on the page.

With Courier or Courier New 12pt, 10 characters = 1" (imperial "Inch")

Following the formatting rules - only deviating from the rules in 'accepted' ways, each pages ends up being roughly one minute of screen time. At least this goes for Spec Scripts.

Spec Scripts are written under "Speculation" that they will be sold. Shooting Scripts are then created by the Production Secretary from the Spec Script, which includes all of the director's notes, camera actions and scene numbering (and perhaps other necessary nomenclature) to set the script ready for production.

Anyways, this means that we never submit a project of more than 120 pages - more often 100 - 110 pages.

====================================================

In all of this I do realize that I'm a one-man-show and that I may not need all of this extra detail.

It may be worth the extra effort in going through the process, however, because it helps us to make sure that the pacing and structure are correct - at least according to our own vision.

Book 2 of The Screenwriter's Bible is a wonderful Workbook, aiding us in every step of the process: Getting our creative juices flowing, writing from the appropriate side of our brain to capture our deep dreams of the story, taking our down-time to analyze and structure what we've written - making it easier to determine what is overwritten, what is missing, etc., it introduces many questions to ask oursleves along the way about our central characters, about the content of the story, about how the story is written, and many other very helpful methods to help us get our story to take the shape of something that someone 'else' might enjoy besides our own selves. 

It even has steps which take place after using the instructions from Books 3 and 4, which (at this point) we haven't read yet. So why put Book 2 where it is? 

You'll understand if you ever read the book. It's the perfect spot. Most of it is necessary during the processes of Book 1 - and we are often directed (from Book 1) to head to the first several steps within this part. So, yes... it's in its proper spot.

Warning!!!! Magento page errors again, the site is shutting down pages again as of 11:05pm Central time.

NOOOOOOOOO!  Magento errors on pages again!!!! Watch it if you are checking out!!!!!! (started exactly 11:05pm Central)   Can't get on some of the product pages!!!!

 (Edit- lol, they didn't want me to take things out of the cart....) 

http://www.daz3d.com/michael-4-business-suit has a similar looking collar to the three guys either side of the centre figure, although the bottom of the jacket is different. You will also need to create your own texture to make it look more similar to the ones in the photo.

The central figure with the double buttoned jacket, is likely to need something different.

Thanks but  overall it is different enough that it wouldn't work very well unless the figure was in the far background.

http://www.daz3d.com/michael-4-business-suit has a similar looking collar to the three guys either side of the centre figure, although the bottom of the jacket is different. You will also need to create your own texture to make it look more similar to the ones in the photo.

The central figure with the double buttoned jacket, is likely to need something different.

It was working (12:32am central time) but then suddenly my cart page went to that script and errors. IF YOU ARE BUYING right now be sure and make screenshots of your cart in case the price goes wonky. It will help both Support AND you so you will know the price of each item and what it should be!

The toeing in is how the image may be adjusted for depth. This is something like what our eyes naturally do. You'd only have completely parallel vision when the eyes are focused to infinity.

What's (usually) a good rule of thumb is is to avoid parenting cameras in such a way that a lateral translation of the camera produces an absolute recentering of an object not at center. This causes the object to appear out of spatial context -- it has "zero depth" but objects around it may be confusingly forward or backward in z-space. This produces an "out of order" appearance, which is sort of what you have with your drawn example (based on other visual cues, other characters to your female look to be at the same plane, but in stereo view they are pushed forward or backward). You can set the toe-in stereo to be negative, positive, or zero parallax to your central character, so you need some method to set the depth.

That said, generally today toe-in stereo alignment is considered out-of-fashion (though, frankly, for a red/cyan anaglyph, who would really care much). The preferred approach is asymmetric (or non-symmetric) camera frustum, which at first glance looks like parallel cameras, but is not.

How do you create "asymmetric (or non-symmetric) camera frustum" in Daz Studio?

The toeing in is how the image may be adjusted for depth. This is something like what our eyes naturally do. You'd only have completely parallel vision when the eyes are focused to infinity.

What's (usually) a good rule of thumb is is to avoid parenting cameras in such a way that a lateral translation of the camera produces an absolute recentering of an object not at center. This causes the object to appear out of spatial context -- it has "zero depth" but objects around it may be confusingly forward or backward in z-space. This produces an "out of order" appearance, which is sort of what you have with your drawn example (based on other visual cues, other characters to your female look to be at the same plane, but in stereo view they are pushed forward or backward). You can set the toe-in stereo to be negative, positive, or zero parallax to your central character, so you need some method to set the depth.

That said, generally today toe-in stereo alignment is considered out-of-fashion (though, frankly, for a red/cyan anaglyph, who would really care much). The preferred approach is asymmetric (or non-symmetric) camera frustum, which at first glance looks like parallel cameras, but is not.

Got bit by a muse while I was at work yesterday, sketched this on some old labels then modeled it fast and hard before our D&D session yesterday.
This is a Civilian Explorer starship, Mesa Verde class. Built by the Civilian Division of the Antares Shipyard, this version of the ship has no weapons (built for civilians after all) but has some very powerful defensive shielding (for its size and power output), a cruising warp speed of 5 and a Maximum Emergency Warp of 12 (Cochrane Scale not the TNG scale) that it can maintain for 3 hours before it has to shut down engines before over-heating to the point that the core will breach. It can be run with just one person, but it's better operated by a crew of two if you're not bumming around the middle of nowhere. It has a cargo capacity of 100 metric tons and a variety of scientific and other equipment options available. Commission Dates would start around 2332 I think.
There really is only one deck, but the 'bridge' sits up above a central crew area with an open floor plan and there's a crawlspace under that same area for key systems access. There will be a Starfleet version of this one that acts as a scout ship and will have phasers and less flashy warp engines (ie armored). I'll be building out the interior to it as well so it'll be a complete 'ship' and set. The saucer section itself is 75 feet across at the widest point, so she'll be a bit comfy as a civilian craft, but of course the Starfleet version is going to end up being more cramped.
This is of course the preliminary design and I just threw a lot of this together as a test (the bridge dome is actually the same one I built for the Connie bridge, just shrunk down and the warp engines are the ones I put together for my Galaxy only with the 'guts' showing). Think of it like a film study model. There will be changes. Oh yes.
I'm already re-designing the 'secondary' hull. I want it to ape the Archer class less and make the lines from the saucer flow into the secondary hull. Maybe take some design ideas from the Ambassador class. Not sure yet. Basically that part of the ship is a big airlock and houses the warp drive and impulse engines.
And yes I quite literally threw the 'hangar' it's in together in like 5 minutes. 

Thanks Dartanbeck for sharing your world - beautiful and inspirational!
I'm not sure I can capture my own insirational world well enough on camera but, even here just blocks from downtown central, when I walk to the store or wherever I am surrounded by the majestic Catalina, Rincon and Tucson mountains. Especially the Catalina mountains...they almost always have these jewel-like saphire colored glowing shadows. I moved here without a car 14 years ago so I have to walk/bike or bus it...not for everyone but I feel blessed I can live a very low overhead lifestyle...saved so much money not owning a vehicle these past years. Yes, moving around/getting out can really get creative juices flowing...just thinking and walking ...problem solving starts flowing in...

Nice work. I make these, but I can't view them myself, as I don't have proper binocular vision. I always have to get someone to check them for me!

I'm curious: the central femal character has no stereo offsetting, though she appears to be at a depth that would show it. If she a separate unanaglyphed layer?

Thanks, Tobor. To answer your question, she's not in a separate layer or anything. She is in the center of the depth of the scene (things popping out in front of her, as well as behind her). When I setup the left & right cameras, I did take some time to center her in each view, which is why you see no red/blue shifting on her.

- Greg