DanaTA said:

tjohn said:

LOS ANGELES – Grace Lee Whitney, who played Captain Kirk's assistant on the original "Star Trek" series, has died. She was 85.

Whitney died of natural causes Friday in her home in the Central California town of Coarsegold, about 50 miles north of Fresno, her son Jonathan Dweck said on Sunday.

Whitney played Yeoman Janice Rand in the first eight episodes before being written out of the series. :down:

Warp Speed, Grace. :down:

Dana

Just read about this.. so sad.. :down:

tjohn said:

LOS ANGELES – Grace Lee Whitney, who played Captain Kirk's assistant on the original "Star Trek" series, has died. She was 85.

Whitney died of natural causes Friday in her home in the Central California town of Coarsegold, about 50 miles north of Fresno, her son Jonathan Dweck said on Sunday.

Whitney played Yeoman Janice Rand in the first eight episodes before being written out of the series. :down:

Star Trek the motion picture as a Chief Petty Officer (Transporter room scene in the beginning)

ST III (The Search for Spock) where she was seen in the orbital star base watching the battle scarred Enterprise return after the encounter with Khan

ST IV (The Journey Home) as the communications officer at Star Fleet HQ in San Francisco.

ST VI (The Undiscovered Country) as the Communications Officer of the USS Excelsior under Captain Sulu

She also appeared in an episode of Star Trek Voyager (Flashback) as Captain Sulu's "Number One" on the Excelsior.

tjohn said:

LOS ANGELES – Grace Lee Whitney, who played Captain Kirk's assistant on the original "Star Trek" series, has died. She was 85.

Whitney died of natural causes Friday in her home in the Central California town of Coarsegold, about 50 miles north of Fresno, her son Jonathan Dweck said on Sunday.

Whitney played Yeoman Janice Rand in the first eight episodes before being written out of the series. :down:

Warp Speed, Grace. :down:

Dana

LOS ANGELES – Grace Lee Whitney, who played Captain Kirk's assistant on the original "Star Trek" series, has died. She was 85.

Whitney died of natural causes Friday in her home in the Central California town of Coarsegold, about 50 miles north of Fresno, her son Jonathan Dweck said on Sunday.

Whitney played Yeoman Janice Rand in the first eight episodes before being written out of the series. :down:

Just released and now available

http://www.daz3d.com/sky-sphere-environments-desolate-desert-arches

In the large central staging area, its possible to move and reposition all the individual landscape prop (stones, rocks, outcrops) elements to suit your needs. And they can be hidden or removed as well, or used with other scenes too. The fully surrounding skysphere offers dozens of potential angles with visual appeal.

namffuak said:

You might try PMing Kendall Sears - or change the subject line to explicitly state the problem - IIRC, he is running a central PostgreS database on Linux for several instances of Studio.

That's what I thought...I'll keep playing with it for a few days, but for myself, I don't really use it. But it is really needed for content creation...

You might try PMing Kendall Sears - or change the subject line to explicitly state the problem - IIRC, he is running a central PostgreS database on Linux for several instances of Studio.

There are some (few) writers who still put story into their comics. Perez still does, although he has had health issues that have curtailed his work lately. He has a miniseries coming out from Boom! called "Sirens" you might want to check out if you miss pre-Crisis/Secret Wars style comics. Jonathan Luna's Alex + Ada has a lot more writing than most comics today. And although there isn't a ton of writing per panel, Greg Rucka's Lazarus has not, I think, had more than 1 or 2 splash pages in the entire 15 or 16 issue run of the series so far.

But yeah... most of the time comics blow by very quickly. 3-4 panels max per page, 4-5 splash pages per issue, all action, little story, hardly any character development. Action is so central to most comics now that most heroes don't even have (or at least spend time in) their secret identities any more -- which I sorely miss. I used to love "secret ID time" when I was a kid.

My larger point though was, I don't think it's necessarily fair to blame today's (younger) webcomic authors for putting out webcomics in that style when it may very well be all they know.

New environment set coming soon. Large central staging area and pre-rendered all encompassing sky-sphere surrounding the entire scene.

Desolate Desert Arches can work for alien planet type renders too.

aaron575 said:

not sure about the poses and thinking of adding a few more birds.

One trick that I learned while doing the dance pose is that a point light between the two figures that hits them both with even falloff will put the focus on the central characters, and make it feel like they are sharing an intimate moment. I like this image very much! I am not sure if you are familiar with some of the communities beyond the Daz garden gate, but the folks over at PDFlives enjoy similar themes to this, and are content creators for a lot of textures and freebies for many things, including the various doll/toon characters. There are 2 sites, one where you have to be registered where the community interacts, http://pfdlives.com/pfd/ and one for freebies that anyone can access: http://www.pfddelights.com/index.php?action=forum. The only other suggestion I can come up with for your image is that it looks so happy- but the sky looks sad. I would like a more cheerful sky!

...happy - however many trips around the central stellar primary - you have made

Kyoto Kid said:

LeatherGryphon said:

Speaking of trips to Orlando.... many many pages ago.

Here's something new for the area.
https://www.officialorlandoeye.com/

Now I have another reason to go besides the new HarryPotter Diagon Alley attraction at Universal.

...hmm, 400' tall in central Florida. First thing that comes to mid are thunderstorms.

Not the largest though as there is a much bigger one in Las Vegas (of course) at 550 ft tall making it the largest observation wheel in the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Roller_(Ferris_wheel)

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. (i.e your lunch after riding that wheel)

Kyoto Kid said:

LeatherGryphon said:

Speaking of trips to Orlando.... many many pages ago.

Here's something new for the area.
https://www.officialorlandoeye.com/

Now I have another reason to go besides the new HarryPotter Diagon Alley attraction at Universal.

...hmm, 400' tall in central Florida. First thing that comes to mid are thunderstorms.

Not the largest though as there is a much bigger one in Las Vegas (of course) at 550 ft tall making it the largest observation wheel in the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Roller_(Ferris_wheel)

The Orlando Eye will be about the tallest thing in Florida (other than antennas). Orlando's on the Florida ridge. That's the "spine" down the middle of Florida that is slightly higher than the rest of the state (elev 82'). Miami and Tampa have tall buildings but they are down at sea level. The Vehicle Assembly Building at the Space Center is about 400 foot high but it too is at sea level. I've been on the roof of the VAB 40 years ago when I worked there. Cool view of swamps and ocean. :coolsmile:

Don't worry about lightning. Just wear an aluminum foil hat and you'll be safe. :roll:

Oops, just Googled and there is a 70 story building in Miami that goes up to over 700 foot.
Also, a 580 foot building in Tampa, and a 450 foot building in Orlando.

But still, 400' is pretty tall for Florida. You can see every cow for 24.5 miles around.

LeatherGryphon said:

Speaking of trips to Orlando.... many many pages ago.

Here's something new for the area.
https://www.officialorlandoeye.com/

Now I have another reason to go besides the new HarryPotter Diagon Alley attraction at Universal.

Not the largest though as there is a much bigger one in Las Vegas (of course) at 550 ft tall making it the largest observation wheel in the world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Roller_(Ferris_wheel)

Okay,

Star Trek has a long history of trying (often succeeding) in getting technological theory correct. Surfinh on a wave of expanded space over compressed space and you have warp drive, for instance. Bussards lay out a parabolic field to collect fuel miles across. Particle beams and photon torpedoes. Quantum Communication allowing instant communication across galaxies. Graviton control for artificial gravity and inertial dampers and structural integrity... also allows the ship to “float” in an atmosphere like a dirigible (zeppline or blimp)

I am curious about some things: When you're thinking Trek, are you a purist? Or, in your fantasy do you incorporate elements of other Space Opera stories?

For instance: CJ Cherryh took a Heinlein Concept (Citizen of the Galaxy) and made it central to her universe in which Merchants were almost as well armed as warships, but privately owned by families that live on an run them.

Mercanter's Luck (Cherryh) and Citizen of the Galaxy (Heinlein) I think display this best.

I also loath the notion of Transporters for which there is no science save for a very vague, untestable hypothesis...

Then there is also the notion of Time Lines. What if Hitler died in 1915, and the British Empire never collapsed... nationalism was still a thing and Enterprise, or one of her sisters, could sidestep between these realities?

Some of you have seen the ISC Cruiser I'm working on. Frogs (or salamanders) who believe so much in a peaceful galaxy they'll kill to get it. Non-Canon, of course. But a product of Stat Trek licensed game. And I really like the meglomaniacle attitude of the frogs as the only race mature enough to enforce peace.

But, in general, what kind of non-trek elements do you incorporate into YOUR Star Trek?

Roygee said:

Joe, this is really interesting and informative. What I'd be particularly interested in is how to relate to Carrara and the various passes; what they do, how to use them to improve a render, how they interact and what blending modes are used.

I know this is a very big ask, but I'm sure you and the other experts can give good advice on this :)

Roy, I re-read your post and I'm not really sure what you're asking. I *think* you're specifically interested in info on the various Carrara render passes, and what you can do with them.

Like I said, that's a huge topic. And I think I lightly covered a bit of that when I discussed the object index, depth, shadow, reflection, etc. passes. And the important concept is this: look at your image, decide what you want to modify, and then figure out how to do it. Are your shadows in need of a little blur cuz they're too sharp? Are your reflections in need of a little blur cuz they're too sharp, and you don't want to spend all of that render time on the internal blurry reflections ? Do you need to focus the viewers' attention on a central character and want to apply some depth of field or fog to the background? Do you need to apply a color correction for any of the reasons I mentioned?

I think the natural tendency here is to focus on the tool and how to manipulate it. But I'd suggest focusing on your image first, how you can modify or improve it, and only then do you start to look at your tool and its capabilities. Guaranteed you can find a way to do it, but first you need to know what "IT" is...

I think I gave a bunch of examples of stuff you might want to change, so I'd suggest starting off with one of those things and explore it a bit. Or if you can think of something else, then post it as a question and we can help you figure how to do it.

I'd suggest starting off simple. Forget the GI and all the fancy stuff. It's too easy to get off on a confusing and complex side issue. Just take each pass, figure out what it looks like and why, and use your imagination to see how you might change things with it.

Hey FirstBastion - I love this product; its one of my most favourite sets. I really needed some sci-fi sleeping quarters and this fit the bill perfectly.

I'm having a little bit of trouble with the central "FloorMain" floor panel though in Iray - the textures of the metal are coming out nicely but for some reason the panel gets divided up into sections with clear black dividing lines. Have you come across this, and do you know how to get around it please?

Edit: Ureka! Sorted it - I had to put the texture map into the Displacement Strength map and whack the value up to 2. Looks perfect now. Sorry to bother you; I'm learning something new every day at the moment.

I originally wanted to have a lightset that works for both indoor and outdoor scenes. However, fully enclosed indoor scenes was out of the question (no sunlight coming in). So I transferred the strength of the distant light I was using as sunlight to the various linear point lights acting as fake bounce lights.

The scene is FW's The Central District Subway Station. I've converted most of the surfaces (if not all) with my various US2 MATs.

SileneUK said:

Oh, you forgot about BST, I did, too! Well I hope this is out like a lion and in like a lamb... need to organise outside DIY and soon! :) SileneUK

All my other clocks change automagically. So I only forgot to reset the central heating clock before going to bed.

SileneUK said:

chohole said:

SileneUK said:

OK so can you buy "another one" to put on a different computer, eg my laptop??? Could I then copy my DAZ file folders with content to said laptop?

Sorry to be confused.com

:) SileneUK

No you don't need to buy another one for a different computer. You need to buy 2 items from the MM sale to get the 50% discount, any 2 items, not 2 of the same item.

Ahhhh....OK, thanks CH for putting me right on this.

Got a couple of shaders of Ringo's that I didn't have. With the horrid weather here, I am happy to work inside today.

:-) SileneUK

Ah you got some lovely weather as well. I had to get up an hour earlier than I wanted to only to find howling winds and torrential rain, plus the Central heating boiler was an hour slow, so the house was cold.