Well, it's 8:30 PM Central time, the site will change over around 1am, so that's 4 1/2 hours from now to see if the 99 cent sale and other categories come back. I can't think of a big sale where they didn't repeat things on the last day, so here's hoping. And Jack said it wasn't over till the fat lady sings. (someone take away her sheet music, give her a sleeping pill, or better yet, both.)

Misty Whisky said:

TroutFace said:

Very tired now. :down:

Decided that, since it's going to snow tomorrow AND I have no gloves or hat AND the bus schedule would never be more opportune, I was going to go out this morning, in the cold and wind. :bug:

What an adventure! :ahhh: Walmart was a ZOO, especially the grocery section. Now I'm glad I went , all the Winter clothing was on sale so I got a steal on my shirt/hat/gloves.. and they were almost out of hats and gloves so it's a good thing I went. :gulp:

Not to mention I loaded up on Progresso soup for emergencies, a can of pumpkin because dang it I'm gonna eat pumpkin on Thanksgiving, and a can of evaporated milk to put in my coffee. And yum, as I sit here sipping a cup of Twilight Blend with evaporated milk, it was a good choice!

Next up: ordering pizza and wings! I got a box of Ziploc bags to store some of my order "for later" :)

Oklahoma not warms like Texas?

Tulsa: 41F. Austin: 46F. :blank:

The trick is that, while Austin can get pretty darn cold, it's FAR windier here and there's more moisture.. so, central Texas gets a kind of low-wind, dry cold. Here it gets cold, high winds, and wt snow/freezing rain and the like! :ahhh: Last year, they had what the called the Snowpocalypse - it was over a foot of snow and shut the whole city down for a couple of days! You won't see that kind of snow in Austin.

Still, beats Winter in Michigan.. :bug:

Not working for me as of 4:05 Central US

lordvicore said:

I really don't think David Heller would just let the site die without saying something, but I don't think they have the available resources to fix stuff in a timely fashion... I'm just going to wait and see.

I hope they manage to work things out if they are having problems. That's really annoying to hear some idiotic, dirt-eating spammers are making things difficult.

SereneNight said:

The store is glitching showing everything 100% free. Sadly.... The items aren't...

Yeah, Attic Anne posted that happened to her too. BTW, someone let me know the hair is not showing 58% but it is now- so if you are shopping the hair, be careful that you don't get caught in a site glitch while checking out. I'm seeing 58% and my page is not cached because I hadn't visited that section. (Too many other things, can't keep up.)

Remember to scoop up the V4M4 stuff as it might change over in a couple hours. (It's 10:30p here, so you have about two and a half hours before 1am which is when it changes over Central time.)

If you'd like to chat with a vendor about making 3D products, being a vendor here at DAZ, and just getting to know one of the PA's here at DAZ, reminder that the chat with Khory will start in an hour over in the Art Studio.

The questions she will be answering (in addition to any you'd like to ask- with the exception of personal information such as how much she makes as an artist, how much she sells- that is really none of our business) are listed here:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44327/P750/#703343

To go to the chat, you can use that link then just to go the LAST page around 7pm (Central time. That's in about 50 minutes now.)

The space station is spinning in a particular direction so falling bodies must also fall in a particular direction, not straight down. This means that a yoyo will not behave the same on a spinning space station as it does on the Earth. Actually, the earth is spinning too, but it's not noticable as it would be on a space station that was spinning. The spinning space station uses centrifugal forces. Centrifugal force pulls bodies away from the center point of the space station but it is the structure of the space station itself (centripetal) that prevents bodies from continuing to fly off into space. The false gravity effect requires both the centrifugal and centripetal (friction) components to operate. You can only feel the fake gravity if you are in direct physical contact with the structure of the space station itself.

So lets assume that the station spins toward the direction in front of the juggler so that his torso points in the same direction as the ship rotates. When he initially releases the yoyo it will move straight upward and downward in its relative manner, but to us "stationary" observers the path of the yoyo will appear curved, such that it will arrive into the hands of the juggler a little farther behind where he would have expected it. So instead of landing in his hand it lands instead on his wrist or forearm. Basically, while the yoyo was floating in mid air the space station and the juggler were moving beneath it. The same should occur when he allows the yoyo to drop downward. When the yoyo starts returning upward it too will arrive in the juggler's clutch somewhere along his wrist or forearm because the juggler is in constant motion relative to the free falling yoyo.

Logistics. The wider the circumference of the torus at the end of the arms of the space station, the more powerful the centrifugal effect will be and the entire station spins at a slower speed than would be required for a smaller station to produce the same amount of centrifugal force. Realize that any ships that dock or take off from the station will also affect how fast the ship spins because of changes to the mass of the system, adjustments will need to be made every time a ship docks or takes off. The question is how big of an adjustment, and that is determined by the ratio of the mass of the station itself to that of the ship that is docking (as well as the directional vector the ship arrives or departs upon). Larger stations will have much more mass than any occupant of visiting ship being placed upon it and thus will be less affected by small changes in mass from ships arriving and departing. So for me this type of station begs to be large. If too small, the ship will spin much faster requiring more energy to maintain, it will be more sensitive to torque by changes in mass, plus residents of the ship will get sick due to tidal vertiao related issues, because their feet are experiencing much more gravity than their heads due to the feet being farther from the central spinning point than the head. With a large station the disparity between the g- forces at the heads and at the feet of the inhabitants becomes much more consistent and Earthlike.

How to shield radiation? You need lots of heavy water (deuterium). You could probably build a hull for the ship that contained thousands of gallons of frozen heavy water arranged in tiles. The tiles would be several feet thick. Also realize that the spinning station being made of metallic materials already will exhibit some degree of a magnetic field, its just a matter of polarizing it and boosting the magnetic field for long term space occupation.

One thing to keep in mind is that you cannot create a field without the particles needed to exhibit said field. You need magnetically charged particles to create a magnetic field. For a force field type shield effects we see on television , you need some form of physical matter to interact with incoming material. So if you imagine a space ship like the Enterprise, with its "shields" that seem to be able to physically deflect or vaporize incoming objects, realize that the field has mass because the field must be made of particles of some sort, likely electrons and other types of magnetically charged matter in the form of gas and plasmas. Still, it is likely the station would lose mass over time as some of the particles used for the force field would end up being lost to the vacuum of space. A shield would be very costly to maintain.

Biologically, things are odd from my assumptions. Males would be grounded I suspect. Our need to produce sperm on the go means there is too much likelihood for something to go wrong due to radiation exposure playing games during cell division processes. Females who already have their eggs in tact shortly after birth can store them in radiation proof containers if needed. Every night will be ladies night. Sperm would need to be stored separately and used only when the time was right for procreation. Other than sperm men serve no real purpose so it's unlikely they would be needed for long term space trips or on a station that was placed deep in space as a colony of sorts.

This is a fun subject to contemplate. Fun fun!

Thanks Melanie- I also put it in the References section of the thread under Dynamic Clothing. :) That way when I go to do some dynamic clothing I'll know exactly where to look for my reminder.

Everyone remember that Khory will be on the thread tomorrow night at 7pm Central time :)

tjohn said:

Some characters come with Reality texture settings. How does one access them?

@tjohn That's a good question because I just installed Cake One's Persephone. And while the folders show up in the Directory the Reality shaders don't, for some reason :question:

EDIT: Found this solution here

Cake One said:

This may sound silly but how does one go about using the files in the RealityCF component? I've skimmed the Reality User Guide and the only mention of .rsf format file is the fact that they used to be used before a central database was implemented.

Hi Simon
It's not silly, don't worry :)

I know Reality uses mostly ACSEL Share, but i'm not really fan of that system.
Having the rsf files, and loading them WHEN you want to use them only, seems to me one of the best way to control the shaders used.

If you have any more concern, please, feel free to ask, i stay around

Here is a copy of what i wrote in the readme file, hoping it can help you, as proceeding the way i explain it works perfectly :)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REALITY

The reality shaders are located in :
My DAZ 3D Library/RealityShaders/Persephone

To use them :

Load your genesis 2 female character with persephone textures on it. (it can be used with OTHER TEXTURES TOO)
In DAZ STUDIO, click Render > Reality Render
In the material tab, select ALL the genesis 2 female materials
(click on the first one, press SHIFT and click on the last one. All of them should be selected)

When all the material are selected, click on "shader operation" on the right part of the window
select "load shader"
Now navigate to "My Studio library", double click on it, select Realityshader, and inside you'll find a "Persephone" folder.
Now you don't need to select any file, you just click on "Choose" and it will load all the shaders.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tried it and it works a treat: the settings go where they're supposed to be for Reality; and while I do like fiddling around with material settings, can't deny the convenience ;-)

chohole said:

It costs more to get annoyed by the interface?

But as pointed out by others, the "Enterprise" version of Windows8.1 (equivalent to Windows7 "Ultimate") has features primarily useful for large office environments where they connect to large servers and assign privileges and applications to various people groups with differing needs, and the systems are maintained by a small staff of technicians who manage system upgrades and software changes from a central location. The extra features of "Ultimate" are not things that are needed by a typical home or even small office environment.

The less sophisticated "Pro" version has a few extra networking or security features that might be useful for a knowledgeable user in his home especially if the user has more than one computer in the home that he uses to exchange data with. Also, the "Pro" version is needed if you expect to connect across the Internet to your business office environment and exchange data from your business computers.

There is a still less sophisticated version than the "Pro" but I haven't paid attention to what it is called, let's call it for the sake of argument the "standard" version. It is probably OK for the typical home user with only one computer who uses the Internet but doesn't exchange much data with his other home computers. It should be able to run sophisticated graphics programs just as well as the "Pro" version as long as your computer has enough memory.

As I finish this little essay, I remember that there might be a difference in the amount of memory supported by the "Ultimate", "Pro", and "standard" versions. I do know that the "Pro" version supports at least 8GB (and probably 16GB) of memory but the "Ultimate" version supports much more, let's say 64GB. But I don't know the exact numbers for sure.

There might be more information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8_editions

Does a yo-yo work on a spinning space station?

Let's be clear, we're talking about a doughnut shaped classic space station like in the movie "2001" where people walk around on the inside of the outer rim. The real International Space Station is only a hollow tube. Floating in the middle of a hollow tube spinning around you would not have any gravitational effect whatsoever!

But assuming the classical doughnut space station, I would say yes a yo-yo would work just fine. However, it might exhibit some strange behavior if the radius of the spin is short. I haven't worked out the mathematics but if you are standing on the "floor" and flip a yo-yo downward toward your feet the yo-yo might drift to one side slightly if the radius of the space station is not much longer than your height or the rate of spin is large. I suspect that if such a "drift" occurs it would be less noticeable if your space station were much larger or the spin rate slower. Let's say a radius of 100 feet instead of 10 feet. And certainly with a space station radius of 1000 feet the yo-yo behavior would be almost normal because at that radius the spin rate would need not be very large to create a force equal to normal Earth gravity.

Point being that our common world experience of "gravity" is essentially an "acceleration". Similarly the force on a yo-yo moving along inside the edge of a spinning space station is also an "acceleration" although the causes of the acceleration are different.
The acceleration on Earth that we call "gravity" is caused by the concentration of mass (the Earth) causing a curvature of space, and objects free to move will "slide down" this curvature of space to as low as they can get.

The acceleration of an object on a spinning space station is caused by a continual change of angular momentum.

However, I don't think gravity is even necessary for a yo-yo to work. The mass of a yo-yo flung in some direction in the absence of gravity will spin normally and when it reaches the end of the string will likely have enough friction with the string loop on its central peg to start winding up the string. The trick would be to keep the yo-yo from bouncing in odd directions without gravity to keep the string taught. It's probably already been tried on the International Space Station. Ask some 3rd grader. It might be possible but would be a learned skill.

Edited to add:
But now that I think about this a little, the force on an object in your hand while you are standing on the inside of the outer rim of a doughnut shaped spinning space station is certainly an acceleration. However, once you let go of the object it will fly off at a particular direction at a constant velocity (acceleration =0) because the spin of the space station is no longer acting on it causing a change in its angular momentum. At the point it is let go, it has a direction and velocity, and in the absence of any other force or object in its way it will continue in that direction at that velocity forever. Unlike an object in Earth's gravity which once free to fall still has the force of gravity working on it and will continue to accelerate and get faster and faster.

As long as the yo-yo is connected to you by a taught string it is still essentially attached to the space station and still getting a change of angular momentum causing an "acceleration" so "yes" a yo-yo should work in that situation.

One of my favorite architects, Louis Kahn, has made some great....if not interesting modern architecture, and is unarguably one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. The Washington University hosted a competition in the 50's to build a library, but they went with another design. If it had been built, it would today be a huge asset worth a fortune to the university. Keep in mind, a simple, one room house built by Louis Kahn sold for millions alone.

At first glance there isn't really anything special about the design, it actually looks rather primitive. It's alluded as a pyramid design, but it's blocky and very simplistic.

But what I found most interesting about it, was when I modeled it, I could then fully realize the architects intentions of the design. There was quite a bit more to the design elements than I expected. I did add some of my own minor detail changes, but the over all shape and placement of elements are identical. It's possible that the actual materials used would have been primarily stone slabs and brick of gray and tan coloring. The model is not fully complete.....and it's virtually impossible to infer what the inside would have looked like.

When the building is viewed as if a person from ground level, that's when you start to notice the architects vision.

There's a few things going on with this building.

When viewed from ground level, the building does take on a more triangular pyramid shape with some interesting lines/shapes going on in the center. This design element is very indicative of a Louis Kahn style if you've seen his other work, even if not his best work. So even though it may look like a blocky pyramid from above or the side, it wouldn't look like that from a ground level.

The building also plays with reflection, when viewed where the entrance would be (the central inner corners), the reflection off the glass created a kind of ghost silhouette reflection down the center. Much of the buildings qualities seem to be focused in this area, which is probably why he chose that area to be the entrance.

Another interesting element is how the building plays with light. If the inner corners of the building are aligned with the suns rotation, which is probably what Louis Kahn most likely intended, as the sun passes over the pyramid and sets, it reflects off of each floor and lights up the panels in the windows, creating a light pattern effect to those seeing the building. Floor by floor gets lit up.

Then there's a final element. Once the sun reaches full sunset, the reflection angles are such that the entire buildings window panels get lit up all at once, which would make the building shimmer almost like rows of jewels as the sky goes dark. With your back to the sunset facing the building, this would make the building look almost as if it was artificially lighted all over.

If you would like to read a little more about this: http://socks-studio.com/2013/11/19/an-unbuilt-project-by-l-kahn-the-library-of-the-washington-university/

The schedule for Vendor Chats / Render The Vendor

The Vendor Chat is held on Fridays at 7pm Central time and the Published Artist will check for other questions/ comments on Saturday morning so the different time zones can participate.

If you have products from this vendor (and ONLY this vendor) the thread is now open to post. KHORY.
Please do not "reserve" a post with the intention of participating- only finished renders should be posted. We all know Life happens.

THE LINK TO THE ART STUDIO AND THE FIRST POST OF THE CHAT WILL BE HERE WHEN THE CHAT GOES LIVE.

November 7th: Khory
November 14th: Open

On Friday, September 26th, I hosted an Author Chat with R.Scot Johns on my Art Studio thread so people who were interested in ebooks could pose questions to an established author. This link takes to you the intro post, then just scroll through and you'll see where the session started.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44327/P300/#682919

We learned a lot and so next up, I'm doing Vendor Chat. This is your opportunity to get to know those wonderful folks behind the products you buy- what makes them tick? What advice would they give you when dabbling with modeling or texturing? Who ARE these folks?

The first Vendor Chat conversation will be live on my Art Studio thread next Friday, featuring Khory. It will start at 7pm Central time, and also Saturday morning when Khory will pop back in to see what questions the overseas folks (and people who were gone on a Friday night) have posted, and she will respond to comments. I have already posted some questions and Khory has been given them some thought so you'll get some valuable insight. I will be the "chat" moderator. (And as such- please note: Personal questions regarding finances are NOT going to allowed- it's none of our business how much a person makes, specifically how much they sell, etc. General questions such as "What's your best selling product?" are fine.)

In addition, in the Art Studio thread, my Invited Guest Contributors and I will be posting Khory renders this week and next, showcasing the products we own and use. So keep an eye on that :) But we want you to strut your stuff too- you're invited to participate by posting your Render The Vendor in this thread! (And it's quite alright to render a product that has already been done by someone else. Do what you like to do!)

Please note- ONLY the featured vendor should be posted- this is not a random render thread, it has a specific purpose. Thanks! Current vendor: KHORY.

Please show your support for the Published Artists- they spend a lot of time on their products and it will be nice for them to see how you've used them. This is designed to increase awareness of the products too so when you post your render, any tips or POSITIVE comments are welcome. You can also ask other artists what they used in the renders.

The format so it's easy to quickly identify the product(s): The artist(s) and name of the product goes in bold/blue with the product url link directly below it. You can see how it's done in the example below. To go bold and blue, highlight the text with your mouse, go up above the text box and click the < b > and it will go bold. Then you'll need to highlight the text again and click the color drop down- select Blue. Be careful not to get the [ from the word [strong

You'll be seeing Khory renders popping up all week/weekend/next week in the Art Studio. I'd like to thank Khory for making herself available next Friday so we can get to know her and ask about her experiences as a Published Artist, and her background.

Any other PA's that would be willing to participate in a Friday night Vendor Chat please PM me. I will reserve the second post and post the schedule if others are interested, and do links for the thread so people can jump to specific vendor sections.

This could be fun and I don't think it's been done before- I'm just seeing if everyone is interested as the other chat went extremely well.

EDIT: Please do not link to an image in your gallery, renders need to be posted here.

**********************************************************
Posting example for this thread:

Artists: Khory / OptiTex
Dynamic Circle Skirt
http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-circle-skirt

This is a skirt product, but I love that Khory included shaders so you can change your shirt products to match the skirt- really nice! The material for the skirt comes in both silk and velvet. The skirt renders at a very good speed.

TIP: The Shadow Dancer top goes GREAT with Khory's Dynamic Circle Skirt. I love the fact the shirt has three material zones in the sleeves, and separate from the body of the shirt. (If you mention another product in the tips, PLEASE LINK TO IT.)
http://www.daz3d.com/shadow-dancer-for-v4

TIP: The red and green makes a great holiday dress- and velvet is certainly a wonderful material for that! Where's Santa?

(As I mentioned, mine will be posted on the other thread. This was a sample.The rest are here:)
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44327/P780/#704264

Yup!

YouTube and Vimeo have good tutorials too.

YouTube quick search: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zbrush+tutorial

Vimeo quick search: http://vimeo.com/search?q=ZBrush+tutorials

Cris Palomino said:

You are at so much more of an advantage to learn Zbrush from free sources these days than some years ago. I really recommend the ZClassroom. Also start looking at ZBrush Central. The forums are packed with not only tutorials, but addons, brushes, mini-how-tos and more.

When you can, a tablet with a pressure sensitive brush is definitely going to take your work to a whole other level.

Announcement: Chat With A Published Artist: Khory

Khory's Store
http://www.daz3d.com/khory

Mark your calendars for next Friday, November 7th at 7pm (Central time) and also for Saturday (for those overseas to ask questions) because we're having a Published Artist chat and showcase. Khory will be joining us live at that time and I've provided her with this list of questions for an idea of what we would like to know. If you have any other questions, be sure to tune in Friday night / wee hours Saturday morning, Khory is a night owl- or even Saturday, and Khory will be popping in to see if anyone has other questions.

We had a marvelous response when author Scot Johns graciously donated his time to answer ebook questions, and thought it would be fun to get to know the Published Artists in the same manner. Several of us are doing Khory renders for the products we own and will be showcasing them, and if you other folks would like to show support for Khory and do some renders of her products, that would be fun too! It will be a Khory-a-thon of renders. She has 43 products. I am doing the Dynamic Circle Skirt and chess items first.

Khory will be addressing some of these/all of these-remember to jot down what you would like to ask and post next Friday!

What is your art background?
How long have you been a vendor at DAZ?
What was your motivation for becoming a PA?
What was your first product ever released? How did you decide to start with that one?
What is your favorite product that you have made?
What are your top five favorite products from others vendors here at DAZ?
Who are some of your favorite PAs here at DAZ?
What is one of the biggest challenges of being a PA?
What advice would you offer someone wanting to enter the PA business?
What surprised you / impressed you the most about being a PA?
When do you work on your products- how often/ how long at a time?
Do you have any hobbies other than art?
What are your goals regarding your catalog?
Do you sell on any other sites? Do you have your own website?
How do you get the ideas for your promo art?
What is your favorite promo art from your products?
What is your favorite promo art from other DAZ vendors?
Is there a favorite time of the year for being a PA- do you like spring, summer, fall, winter?

And just for fun:
Do you own any pets? If yes, what are they and their names?
With total immunity to harm, and only for a few days- If you could go back and observe any period of time in history, when would it be?
If you could vacation for a week at any location, where would you go?

Also, as I own several of her dynamic products:
For Khory: Can you describe what dynamic products are? What goes into making those as opposed to products that aren't dynamic?

You are at so much more of an advantage to learn Zbrush from free sources these days than some years ago. I really recommend the ZClassroom. Also start looking at ZBrush Central. The forums are packed with not only tutorials, but addons, brushes, mini-how-tos and more.

When you can, a tablet with a pressure sensitive brush is definitely going to take your work to a whole other level.

Kyoto Kid said:

ps1borg said:

There were more than 1000 lightning strikes last night, some of them took out heavy equipment and caused fires down the road from us. Haz rained today hooray :lol:

...sounds a lot like Central Florida which is known as "Lightning Alley".

Are storms like that common there?

Unusual because it was in the middle of the night and a mass of cold air was moving in at the same time, we got half of October's rainfall in thirty minutes was enough to overwhelm the stormwater drains and flood the inner city :)

ps1borg said:

There were more than 1000 lightning strikes last night, some of them took out heavy equipment and caused fires down the road from us. Haz rained today hooray :lol:

Are storms like that common there?

timothyeberry said:

evilproducer said:

What type of terrain is it supposed to be? What are you doing for the sky? Are adverse to compositing? Does the camera point at the plane and follow the movement from the ground as it would if it were mounted on a tripod, or does it move along as if it is carried or mounted on a vehicle or dolly?

At the moment I have no terrain. I hope to add some mountains later. I'm sorta learning as I go along. For now I am using the basic Caribbean sky with clouds with a touch of fog. The plane flies through the fog once in a while. Neat effect. I tried the realistic sky and it was beautiful but incredibly slow to render. Maybe I will use that in the final render. Not sure about what you mean by adverse to compositing. In the first few minutes I have the camera on a tripod and constantly pointing at the plane. Later in the same animation I plan to replicate the path of the plane but have the camera mounted from the pilot's seat and looking out. I've never had any luck with motion paths. It seems it would be perfect if I knew how to make it work. I can never get the object to always point forward in line with the path. Like with this plane, after a turn or so the plane is pointing way out of line. So for now I do it all in key frames. I'm just a 56 year old amateur trying to play with professional 3D software made for those that have brains.

Sounds like you have a brain to me. :) Plus patience if you keyframed the flight.

The reason why I asked if you were adverse to compositing is that Carrara can render with an alpha channel, so you could "layer" your renders in a video editor that supports it, rather than render the whole thing in one go. It is certainly possible to do it in one render if you wanted to, but depending on the complexity of the terrain and village, it could take awhile.

How far away are the mountains? Are they like the Rocky Mountains or the Alps, in that they are tall and dramatic, or are they more like the Ozarks or Smoky Mountains where the are lower and more rounded? My thoughts are that you could do a flat central area with the village and (I assume) air strip) surround by the more hilly or mountainous terrain. and for the extreme distance a simple Infinite Plane.

The terrains could be replicated using the replicator, or you could use one very large terrain with a flattened area in the middle. If you need any help or specifics on how to do it, we're more than willing to give a hand.

The other thing that may help is high resolution, spherical render applied as a shader to scene encompassing sphere, with the plane's flight animation within that sphere.

As an example, the little youtube test video utilizes this spherical render I made. The video only has two objects in it, the ship and the building it is flying towards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN6E8ji3oHA

Here is a full res render of my avatar, which also happens to be the central character of my next movie.