Misty Whisky said:

i'm tired of seeing snow out my window.

it must be nice living close to the beer where it's freshest. adding portland to my retirement list. dropping santa barbara.

Be prepared for lots of gloomy, rainy days and the occasional "non summer". Daytime in winter is very short with the sun setting well before 5PM and not rising until after 7:30AM. If you have bone gnome issues this is not a good place.

Housing prices here are ridiculous (for purchase or rent) if you want to live in the city and not the 'burbs. I checked prices the other day and for to buy a small house here is about 210,000$. A similar size (and IMO nicer) house I saw in Milwaukee WI was 89,000$. Rents even for a modest size flat can be 800$ to 1,000$ ore more without utilities.

Transit used to be good here, but over the last decade we lost a lot of bus service because of all the focus on LRT (Light Rail) and a useless streetcar line (pretty much just for tourists). For example, LRT doesn't serve the area of town where I live, yet they made deep cuts in local bus frequency and reduced evening/weekend service as well through my neighbourhood (and I'm in the city, not the 'burbs). The LRT is not much more than a "glorified" streetcar rather than commuter rail or rapid transit as much of the system runs at street level and has to mix with other traffic as well as deal with traffic signals (especially though downtown).

It's also expensive especially for a smaller city like Portland: 2.50$ a ride (whether you are going a few blocks or across the city), 100$ for a monthly pass.

OK, if you can put up with all that, there are some good sides to living here:

The Beer. Portland is affectionately referred to as "Brewvana" by some and has easily taken the"Beer Capital" crown from my own hometown of Milwaukee. It's almost hops and malt overload here with all the small breweries and brewpubs. I have two within walking distance of my flat. (both which make and sell only their own). There are festivals all year wound with the biggest one, the Oregon Brewer's Festival, held on the last weekend of July along the riverfront in downtown. As an offshoot distilling has also caught on here and there are a number of small distilleries (one street nearby I call "distillery row") that have been doing good business. Going on a beer run at the local market (or even mini mart) can be an overwhelming experience with all the choices there are. The Market I go to has almost an entire 60' wall chilled display just devoted to beer and ale, a major percentage of which is craft brews.

...and I've seen bigger.

Cannot end the discussion without mentioning the McMenamin Brothers. These fellows were among the founders of the Craft brew revolution that swept the area. From a handful of pubs and small breweries in Portland they have grown a regional empire that stretches from Seattle to Southern Oregon. One of their hallmarks has been to rescue old buildings and bring new life to them as pubs restaurants, cinema houses, and even hotels. Their centrepiece is the Edgefield on the far east side. Once the county's poor farm in the early 20th century it has been transformed to a beer lover's resort. with a brewery, winery, distillery several small pubs on the property a "pitch and putt" golf course, and outdoor amphitheatre whihc books some big acts in a more relaxed setting (Ringo and his All Star Band have been there twice). Rooms have no telephones, no TVs, and are furnished with an eclectic mix of lovely old Victorian and Edwardian styled furniture. I like to think of it as the "Happiest Place on Earth for Beer Lovers" and used to often spend a weekend there just to relax form the pressures of weekday workaday life. The interesting part is while reachable by transit, it feels like you are miles and miles away from the city.

Other locations include:

--The Crystal Ballroom (formerly Rinlger's Ballroom) where you can "Dance on Air" (the floor has as unique spring mechanism underneath). Numerous live acts play there including some nationally known ones.
--The Kennedy School, am old neighbourhood school that had been closed for years in which the guest rooms are old classrooms and the auditorium is now a cinema.
--The Hotel Oregon. Located in Mc Minville Just southwest of Portland this is an old historic hotel that has been completely restored and features a beautiful rooftop bar which looks out over the city. It is a focal point for those who tour teh Tualitin Vally whihc is Oregon's "wine country" . Every spring they it is the site for the annual UFO Festival which commemorates the famous 1950 UFO sighting.
--The Crystal Hotel . Formerly an old residential hotel the "Majestic" it was fully restored several years ago and reopened as a guest hotel. On the west end of the same block is another one of the their "small" pubs: Ringlers' Annex which the quaint little "Flatiron" building (which used to house an old radio station) that has a unique cellar pub. This is where I spent a lot of time plotting the story surrounding my Leela character as it has a decidedly Film Noir feel. In the story I even relocated it to Vienna where several scenes occur. Theris a table underneath the stariway leading in I affectionately refer to as "the Spy Table".
--The Rams' Head. Opened in 1990 on the ground floor of a lovely old apartment building known as "The Campbell" and was one of the Brothers' first "historic" locations. The pub is located in what originally was the "Campbell Dining Room" which fittingly, was one of the city's biggest speakeasies during prohibition. When I lived in the neighbourhood this was one of my favourite hangouts as it just had such a nice warm "homey" feel.
---The Bagdad. A 1920's vaudeville/cinema palace on Hawthorne that was rescued from oblivion, lovingly restored, and recently received an upgrade to the projection and sound system. Alas the old organ is gone (now in a Cinema in New Jersey) but the entire auditorium and lobby was completely restored including the huge chandelier in the auditorium. The one small difference, every few rows of seats were removed for tables and you can drink beer and wine there as well. The building includes two other annex pubs: the Backstage (which used to be the old vaudeville stage and scene shop) which has a 50' high ceiling and the original hand painted stage curtain hanging above the bar, and Greater Trumps, one or their smallest pubs (which would almost fit in the floorspace of my flat). The latter has become one of my usual hangouts when I'm on Hawthorne, reminding me of those little "hole in the wall" pubs in London or Dublin. It is small enough that they were able to get a permit to allow cigar and pipe smoking in spite of he city's smoking ban in public establishments.

After almost three decades in business and growing to over 60 establishments covering Western Oregon and Washington, McMenamin's still does not distribute their ales, wine and spirits to retail outlets. They do bottle a few of their signature brews like Hammerhead, Terminator Stout and Ruby Ale but they can only be purchased at their pubs, restaurants. and hotel gift shops.

-----

Dogs. Portland is a very dog friendly town and a number of larger city parks have off leash areas. There is even a dog friendly pub on lower SE Hawthorne called the Lucky Lab. which has a huge covered outside area where you and your four footed friend can enjoy an afternoon (and yes, they have doggie treats as well).

-----

Cool old neighbourhoods. Belmont, Sunnyside Kerns, Kensington, Ladd's Hollywood, and Laurelhurst (with magnificent old homes) just to name a few Se Hawthorne is the city's "bohemian" district with little cafes, restaurants (you won't find a Burger Sling or MickyD's here as the neighbourhood association has successfully kept them out), shops, pubs, and even an old 1920's cinema palace that has been fully restored which is also a pub. On the avenue towards downtown there is also a "true" farmers market.

For fancy shopping and dining there is the Pearl (which used to be an old warehouse district) and NW 23rd just north of downtown. Check your bank balance.

-----

Parks. Portland has a lot of parks from the sprawling Forest Park in the west hills (with miles and miles of hiking trails and spectacular views of the city) to the world's smallest, Mill Ends Park, taking up a small circle just over two feet across (founded by an employee of the old Portland Journal, see link below), which is now part of the city parks system.

Mill Ends Park

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Music. Just about anything to suit one's tastes from the symphony, to blues and jazz, to indie bands. In summer, Portland hosts a waterfront blues festival that lasts several days and coincides with the local Independence day celebration.

-----

Books. Powell's "City of Books" is a local icon and landmark. The largest independent bookseller in the nation if not the world, the main store takes up a full city block and is for floors tall. They have a larger collection of volumes than many public libraries (including our own Central Library) and if you can't find what you are looking for, they can certainly get it even if it is out of print. Readings and book signings are common events. There are also several branch and specialty stores as well including a couple on Hawthorne (which include Powell's 'Books for Cooks and Gardeners"), Powell's at PDX (the airport), and Powell's Technical Books across from the main store.

-----

Cinema. I kind of mention this with some reserve however Portland is kind of unique in some respects. Yes there are the big multiplexes in the suburban malls, even two in downtown (Fox Tower and Pioneer Place) and those new "luxury" cinemas which can cost you a day's wages to go to. However, there are also a couple old gems that survived like the aforementioned Bagdad on Hawthorrne, the Hollywood on NE Sandy, and Roseway also on NE Sandy. A number of "second run" cinemas are also pubs such as the Laurelhurst (a few blocks from my place) and The Mission.

-----

Bicycling. If you like to ride a bike, this is the place. Portland has put a lot of effort to make the city safer and more "friendly" for cyclists. There are streets designated as 'bike boulevards" that parallel busier thoroughfares by a block or two (I live on the very first one ever established). Bike lanes are prominent on many streets in the city and there are even what are known as 'Bike Boxes" at major intersections to prevent motorists from making the dangerous "right hook" turn in front of a cyclist at a stoplight. In some places there are even separate bike traffic signals that allow cyclists to cross hazardous intersections without having to deal with other traffic. Many neighbourhood shopping areas in the city have "Bike Corrals" which offer a safe, solid, place to lock up while doing errands.

Overall, most of the city from downtown eastward Southward and Northward isn't bad with respect to hills, but to the west there are the notorious West Hills, with grades that would challenge even a Tour de France racer. Beyond the hills is pretty much "Car Country" (Washington County), many areas of which resemble LA. I'd personally would never ride a bike there.

So again if you can take the weather, afford a roof over your head, and have access to different means of transportation than just transit, it is still a nice place to live. I can think of worse places I've been.

...oh and another good thing, Oregon has no sales tax.

Great idea for a contest! I got a little carried away with it so this image is a bit bigger than I usually post. Since the concept was a movie poster, the original ended up being a whopping 40” X 60” (3840 X 5760) composite built from five separate renders with the largest being 3000 X 3882 (31.25” X 40.438”) and most of the others running 2000 X 2000. Ironically, I started this with the idea of spotlighting some of my new Teen Jayden acquisitions, but when it quickly became clear that the Young Teens were better suited for the subject, it ended being all Gen 5 figures. That said, some of Jayden’s clothes did make the cut thanks to Sickleyield’s clone figure. Photoshop CS6 used to stitch it all together, add text and graphic elements and some very minimal touch-up to fix some poke thru and mesh stretching on the red-headed girl in the central image, but otherwise this is pretty much how each image looked straight out of DS 4.6.

j.zyla said:

There's so much interesting architecture even if you focus purely on residential stuff, let alone the Art Deco, Neoclassical, and even Gothic stuff you'll find in, say, downtown Detroit alone (not even to mention other big cities like New York, Chicago, LA, etc). Log cabins are definitely cool, and I agree that natural building materials go a long way towards increasing the appeal of a home. In fact, that's one of the things I like about the true Craftsman style homes: as a rule they were built with local materials, especially the rustic bungalows in northern California with the tapered stone porch pillars and exposed timbers.

Kyoto Kid -- my wife once set the oven on fire by accidentally pre-heating a Tupperware bowl. Does that count? :)

There's a gallery of photos on the Weather Channel site of abandoned buildings in Detroit. Many of them were once classy structures which were just left to decay. Sad. There's also someone on DA who takes photos of what were once beautiful old buildings in Europe that had been abandoned and now in disrepair. Sad to see such beauty neglected.

Milwaukee was big on Gothic styled architecture due to the the city's prominent central European influences. The City hall is a remarkable structure and many older churches are designed in the style. Both of the old train stations (long since raised) looked like they could have been at home in Leipzig or Munich (trying to get Jack Tomalin to base a model on one of them). Many of the taller buildings also had Gothic motifs and treatments. A couple of new ones even echo the basic style with peaked roofs, spires, and such.

Incidentally, the city's old nickname "The Cream City" had nothing to do with the dairy industry. Many buildings constructed in the 19th and early 20th century were faced in bricks made from a type of clay that was native to the area which when fired turned a cream colour. The old church where my family attended (and where I went to school) was one such structure. For years it was this black foreboding looking building, but after most of the foundries went under in the 70s & 80s they started cleaning decades of soot from many old structures to discover the original cream brick facades underneath.

Had to rip this from Google Maps Apologies for the lighting.

Novica said:

Trish, if you go by Trish, just Trish-it if you want to. We can tell by your Avatar who you are :) Welcome to the thread btw.

Thank you for the welcome! I enjoy this thread and have learned a lot. My buying decisions are now governed by the reviews, particularly if the PA item is a bit more on the expensive side, which in my world is more than $10.00. I think it's a wonderful service that you, the guest reviewers and Serene Night provide.

I moved from Houston in 2004 (Coast Guard hubby, was XO of Air Station Houston when Allison hit, the CO was in Italy so my husband handled that entire mess when Houston got 25+ inches of rain and the city went under water) and we only had snow one time in the three years we were there.

Wow! Small world! My former husband was stationed in Freeport (Coast Guard). I vividly remember Allison. We had just placed my daughter on a plane to Spain when the Tropical Storm Warning alert went out. The precipitation from that storm was unbelievable.

I am assuming you are Houston? I was Humble/Kingwood area. I am originally Indianapolis, where is your family in the Midwest?

I lived south of Houston about 35 miles near the coast before I decided to move inland. For now, my home is in South Central Texas about 90 minutes from Austin or Houston either way.

Most of my family still lives in Southwest Michigan near Kalamazoo.

Funny story- My dad was always pulling my leg and when I was in first grade (you know, when you learn the state bird, state flower, etc) I asked him how we got to be called Hoosiers. He said because in the pioneer days, so many people traveled through our state and not all could be trusted, so when people knocked on the door the Indiana folks would always say, "Who's there?" and the name stuck. I believed him FOR YEARS.

My sister and I would always giggle whenever we heard the term "Hoosiers"; we couldn't' understand why anyone would want to be called that. Looking back, I can't figure out why anyone would want to be called a Michigander. It sounds like a type of goose.;-P

What I am rather tickled at is the complete LACK of heads up regarding snow further east of the Mississippi Valley along the coast. No one hinted as of yesterday about this stuff moving this far over to the Panhandle. Another case of "oh, it happened, put it in the forecast." Look at the temperature change in our forecast too- totally agree this is whacko!

Agreed. One moment the forecast has us with an average of 40 degree weather for the week and then BAM, winter weather advisories, LOL!

Stay safe and warm!

Trish

What I picture in my mind's eye also includes external fencing and maybe some banners and those hoop things as well. Maybe a rack of lances at the far end, and possibly some stadium seating, including a nice regal seat for the local nobility.

But yeah, technically, a jousting arena doesn't have to be more than the central barriers.

Well, I was being brief in my description... actually I'm just trying to get the damned 2nd bone in the heirarchy to bend. Being overzealous, I initially attempted to rig my entire figure with over a hundred parts (though not all moving), never having done this before and actually went thru and set everything into a proper heirarchy with distinct individual names... not so easy because it's not a humanoid figure... and quickly realized I was in well over my head. I've included a picture. It's called a tachikoma. It's from the anime scifi series Ghost in the Shell, basically it's a small robo-tank based on a jumping spider. There is no hip however there is a central hub on the bottom but I digress because I'm just trying to grasp the basics here so I separated a leg and attempted rigging it however the rigged leg is only following the first bone (called upper leg).

Jaderail said:

The Sever Updates hit me at 1am here in Central time.

The Sever Updates hit me at 1am here in Central time.

linvanchene said:

Some questions:

1) Is there "one" alembic format that will work with all major software like Maya, Cinema4D etc?

Or is the situation the same as with Collada were some companies agreed on common standards and then some other companies were not happy with the supported features and then created their own version of collada that ended up not being supported by the other companies?

- - -

Personally I am most interested in the Alembic file format because of Otoy Octane Render.

As far as the sparingly available information supports Otoy is working to implement Alembic features in the upcoming OctaneRender 1.5 update.
The Alembic file format is also very central to the planned Octane Cloud Render Edition that lets you rent as many GPU as you want to render your anmiation projects quickly.

In theory it should be possible with the alembic format to exchange Alembic information with many different software packages.

For example:
Start with a scene in DAZ studio, export it to Maya or Cinema 4D do some additional transformations and then send it off to your render engine of choice.

In practice there seem to be quite a lot of tasks ahead to make this work.

- - -

2) Can someone share if DAZ did work together with Otoy to make sure at least between those two companies the same Alembic format and standards are used?

- - -

3) Currently there is no "purchase" option available on the product page:

http://www.daz3d.com/new-releases/alembic-exporter-for-daz-studio

Was anyone able to purchase the Alembic Exporter allready?

ps1borg said:

DanaTA said:

ps1borg said:

scorching day here, 114 in the shade by our old garden thermometer crikey :O

But is it a dry heat? Here in southeastern Massachusetts, if we had 114 in the early Spring, with our humidity, we'd all be wilting. Even 85 is tough to deal with. When I went to California, in late October/early November, a few years ago, it was 85 every day. But it didn't bother me much, because it was in the high desert and was quite dry. And I wasn't vacationing, I was working, preparing my father's place for sale after he passed. He had a little 1950's homesteader cabin in Twentynine Palms. A little cinderblock box. I'd be dropping dead if I were working that hard in that kind of building at that temperature, but here in our humidity.

Dana

Humidity was 20% when I looked this morning, 18% now. Monsoon weather without the rains.

Up here in New England, the humidity gets upward of 30% and even 50% and over, without rain. When it's hot, that's just unbearable. But, of course, we bear it...because that's just the way it is in New England. That's why I was really happy to get a house with central air conditioning when we bought this house. In our apartment we didn't even have a window mount air conditioner...the circuitry wouldn't handle it...another reason we were happy to get out of there.

Dana

So he's actually remapping UVs to animate eye movement. I'm not sure if you can animate UV Map changes in Carrara.

You can anime eyes in Carrara. Although since the new store switch over, the promo images for them are not there anymore, GKDantas' TOON for Generation 4 comes with, I believe, 3 sets of anime eyes shaders for Victoria 4, so they work on Aiko 4 as well.

There are a few other anime eye products out there, too - if you'd want to do the quick buy and add thing.

If you want to make your own, there are many ways to go about it, so I'll just start a ball rolling to see if we can get on a track that we like.

One way would be to actually morph and texture existing eyes of a figure, if you're using a figure that has eyes already. Victoria 4 is really easy to morph. You may add your morph targets directly to the main figure - something that she enjoys the privilege of all by herself in the DAZ world. The other figures need to have morph targets added to individual body parts, which can be a real pain if you want to cross parts with the same morph - but there are ways around that for non-V4 figures, too. For just the eyes, however, any figure I can think of from DAZ, even monsters and animals, you could go in and reshape the eyes to something just like, or similar to what the artist in the video did.

Like the video, you'll want to check your UVs. If editing a DAZ figure with soft select, and being careful to keep the polygons as uniform as possible, your UV positioning on the map should be pretty decent already. And if you have a texture on them that worked before your changes, you'll now have a good idea of the similarities of the original map, and what would fit nicely onto your new shape.

The nice idea, in my head, about using existing eyes from a figure, like V4, is that you'll have the morphforms sliders for control in poses and animations.

So if you go that route, you can paint your new eyes into a copy of the original maps to get the look you want, or you could really have some fun and 3d paint right on the model in Carrara.

Another idea altogether

What if you just wanted to replace the eyes, or add new eyes to a model that doesn't have any yet?
Making the shape made in the video is very easy in Carrara.

Insert a vertex object, which will launch you into the model room.

Close the model room and go back to the assembly room. It's good on your resources to close the window in your model room, if you're not going to work in it.

Back in the assembly room, select your newly made vertex object. at the upper left of the window, click on the wrench icon - which will bring the model room interface to you in the assemble room. Now you may interact your object with the whole scene, and see what you're doing. This is so helpful for scale, shape, direction, etc., and it also keeps the actual mesh location, outside of edit mode, in its zered location, as it has not yet been moved outside of being edited - which is good.

Now go to construct > 3d sphere
Filling in the information in the dialog that just popped up, you'll get a very similar resolution mesh as the one in the video leaving the default settings. The size will be way too large, so you can get it closer in this box, or just wait until you grab in in the next step. For this, you'll either want to leave the axis along the default of y or it might be x, but not z. In any case, if the central axis is facing the wrong direction when clicking okay, you just rotate it holding the shift key to keep it on 45 degree rotations, until the point is directly forward - even if you'll be changing it in the end. It will be easiest to get your shape nice and uniform if it's facing on of the main three axis.

At this point you can squish the globe, soft select the inner cone at the center of the front and push it in to flatten the front.
If you want to rid yourself of the back-facing polygons, like in the video, just select the back half and delete them. The video artist has clicked the "-" button on the selection before deleting, so that the sphere makes the round over the center cross section.

Double click a poly, or any way you want to select all, and in the top three icon on the far right at the top of the modeling window, click the right-most one to enter UV Edit mode. In the general tab, mine says Spherical by default, which should give me a decent UV. Check it out and make sure your polygons all have some real estate on the map. If they don't, that's another whole babble session - let me know.

With a decent UV and the shape and size that you need, you could now export the template and make a texture map outside of Carrara and load it into the shader, or you could 3d paint your own texture within Carrara, or you could entirely paint your anime eye by selecting and naming shader domains directly onto your mesh. The first two I've mentioned are topic in their own, so I'll mention a bit on this last method I've mentioned.

You now have your eye shape, and the single point of one end of the original sphere mesh now faces forward, away from the face. Select the polygons that form the circle around that single point. Back in the normal model view (no longer in UV mode - and not animation mode) half way down the right panel, select global tab.

Click the Add button which will bring up a window asking if you want to add the new domain to what you have selected. Yes. We do.

Name this "Pupil"

Now in the upper right under Selection, press the '+' button, which should grow your selection another ring of polygons. This, minus the pupil, will become the iris, so determine now of you wish to grow it some more. When you get the size of the iris right, go to the menu on top: Selection > Deselect By > Shading Domain and now select Pupil. Sometimes you won't see the deselection without rolling your zoom wheel in and out once, or some other camera movement.

Click the Add button again, click Yes, and name this one "Iris" and then change the name of Texture0 to Eye White.

Now if you want to change the shape of the iris or pupil, you can do so directly by changing the edges and vertices of the mesh, according to how you've just shader domain enhanced it. If you get some strange result shaping it, try it with smoothing on if you want.

If you want, you could even make animation morphs that drag the pupil and iris from side to side and up and down on the white to animate the apparent direction of the eye. These can be used in combinations to form any other angles you might need. Do note, however, that Carrara morphs don't work backwards, so you'll need an up, down, right, and left morph, individually. Alternately, you could instead make morphs that expand and contract the outermost portion of the eye white - so that you can just drag the eyes right and left, and these morphs can fix a hole in the head, and/or poke through.

Now you just apply whatever shader you want to the white, iris, and pupil and duplicate the eye for the other side.

A start on some thoughts, anyways.

llolalane said:

O.k.. Here's my Striped render... searched my render library and found more striped stuff than you could imagine... sooo... added them ALL to my render... lol... I call it...

"Play Time"

HOW many striped things can YOU find?

Maybe an extra one for the car, my eyes are not good enough! :)

For those who bought this:

http://www.daz3d.com/new-releases/glider-hair

Some of those promotional pictures make it seem like the lengthy sides can be shortened, but I can't quite tell by how much... What I'd like to have is the same style of hair Kate Beckinsale's character had in the 'Underworld' films for Genesis 1 or 2, but can it be done with this? Or are the sides still too lengthy to be applicable for that?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ec/Selene_(Underworld).jpg
http://media.screened.com/uploads/0/323/384272-underworld_evolution1.jpg
http://gabtor.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/selene-2.jpg
http://images1.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Underworld-underworld-1148094_1280_1024.jpg

I'm aware there are one or two available styles of hair which are a little like that, but I'm looking for something with the same kind of central parting, etcetera. Some of the promotional images, from the side, make Glider seem like it could be shortened sufficiently for a decent match, but I'm unsure if it would look that way from the front...

starionwolf said:

ps1borg said:

Morning. Traffic chaos here today, two tunnels under and a bridge over the river are closed - south and west are full of cars, north and east are real empty :lol: In west right now heading east, looks like for another hour or so :lol:

I heard that the Burnley Tunnel is closed for road work / maintenance until January 7 or 8.

Until tomorrow night I think, not much traffic here in central city but boy South and West Melbourne are gridlocked, hardly moving this morning. The radio is saying end of the week for all the diversions except Lonsdale Street where they are building above the road \m/

Yup, been watching this for days. Here in Central New York, winter storm warning expecting 6-12 inches. Actual high on Friday of 5 degrees F. Wind Chill of minus 25. Take care, stay inside if you can.

Riggswolfe said:

I've been wanting to do some small town renders. To be clear think of a small town like the old tv show Twin Peaks or the current TV show Haven. I've got several city sets, specifically from Stonemason but nothing for smaller towns.

Not sure if mentioning another site is kulturny or not, but....

I have a lot of screengrabs from Google Street view of rural east central Mississippi, and PoserWorld has some models of what we used to call when I was growing up, "in-town" or "just outside town" stores and houses that could have been modeled from buildings almost anywhere in the rural Southern United States. Don't think they have any General Stores/gas stations, Cotton Gins, barns with "See Rock City" or "Red Man Tobacco" or (for that matter) memorial statues for the Confederate Dead downtown in front of the County Court House, but they do have a pretty good selection nevertheless..

PM me and I'll show you some examples of what I have in the way of photos, etc. of Southern small towns (and smaller villages) in the rural South during the 50s and 60s.

I think that I might even have some photos of Kudzu taking over...

Y'all take care now, you hear?
Jim

Novica said:

Interesting- at 9:45p Central Time: Not sure if you can see this too- Actual Hair Genesis is $2.95 in the cart.
http://www.daz3d.com/actual-hair-genesis

Could it be all your awesome discounts? It is ringing 13.98 in my cart.

Interesting- at 9:45p Central Time: Not sure if you can see this too- Actual Hair Genesis is $2.95 in the cart.
http://www.daz3d.com/actual-hair-genesis

Hawkonthewing#1

Dumpster Diving

“Sylia!”
Sylia turned to see her chief engineer bouncing rapidly in her direction. “Yes, Sid?”
“I did it! I did it! The quantum time-flux infracapicator works! It maintained all integrity and broke the space-time barrier! Come see!”
Sylia sighed at his usual over-enthusiasm. “Quantum...what?”
Sid stomped his foot, grabbed her arm and dragged her towards the hangar bay. “Quantum time-flux infracapicator. You know, the time machine you wanted! With this we can dive through the time stream, just like you said! It's done, it works, let's GO already!”
The two of them reached the hangar. Several of the security bots had dispatched, unsure if the new contraption was a threat or not. Sylia took a deep breath and looked at what Sid had built. After several minutes, she shook her head and looked at Sid.
“Is there...a particular reason you built it to resemble an ancient trash receptacle?”
Sid nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yes, the structure is an excellent size for the equipment. It allowed for reinforced construction, and the harmonics resonated cleanly in...”
Sylia waved her hand impatiently. “Yes, yes. I...really can't believe I am going to say this. If you say it works, well, you are the best at what you do. Let's go test it out.”
Sylia thought for a bit. “Ok, set it to...1000 B. C. E.”
Sid saluted and set the controls. He punched a button, and the dumpster erupted in a flurry of noise and flashing lights. The noise was enough to make Sylia think her head would explode. After what felt like a lifetime, things because quiet again. Sid, unfazed by the whole event, cheerfully climbed the ladder and opened the hatch. He threw it open, looked around, spread his arms and sang, “We're heeeeeeeeeeeere!”
After dragging herself to the side of the dumpster and pulling herself up, Sylia took a look around. She had to admit, they were not in the lab. However, she had real doubts the time was anything close to 1000 B.C.E.
“Sid, your timing unit's off. This looks a lot later than I told you to set it.”
Sid looked around. “How can you tell, Sylia? All I see are a bunch of fields!”
“Try turning around.”
“Well all right, but I highly doubt...” Sid saw what Sylia had been referring to. “Oh. Uh...sorry...didn't...uh...mean to interrupt...”
The people made no response, and seemed frozen in fear.
“Leave the poor things, Sid. Just figure out how to get us back with the timing unit out.”
Sid nodded and started muttering to himself as he calculated. He shut the hatch and started up the controls, and the noise began again. Sylia swore and braced herself.
Once the noise stopped, Sid nodded confidently. “All right, we should be back in the lab now!”
“Sid, why do I feel like we're still moving...”
Sid stopped and concentrated. “You're right...this...doesn't feel like we landed on solid ground. Uh-oh.” He scrambled to the top of the ladder and popped the hatch. As he lifted it, he heard a massive shout somewhere above him. “Oh heck, what is that?!?!
Sylia slowly opened her eyes and moved her hands from her ears. She blinked and looked around. “Sid...we may have more than one problem. First, where are we? Second...why are your clothes gone?
Sid looked confused. He then looked down and started grabbing bits off the dumpster to try to cover himself. “OHNOOHNOOHMYGOSH!!!!!!!”
“Calm down, Sid. Focus.”
“Butbutbutbutbutbut...”
Sylia put a hand firmly on his head as another shout rang out some distance away, then an answering shout came from above again. “SID. FOCUS. NOW.”
Sid took several deep breaths. Sylia looked out and assessed the situation. She put her head in her hands. “Sid, this is DEFINITELY not the lab. This looks like some kind of ancient war zone...and we're FLOATING. On water. Get us out of here. Preferably now!”
After he scrambled up the ladder, Sid gestured wildly. “And...oh, Sylia, it's worse...I'm seeing...evidence of time flux, things are all fuzzy and dark around the edges! Oh heck...um...here...”
He jumped down and rapidly typed into the terminal. He shook his head. He typed again. He grabbed a large wrench and gave the central computer a rather solid whack. It sprang to life and the horrendous noise began again. “Ok, Sylia, this time we ought to end up at home!”
She nodded, sighed, and curled up into a ball again.
It was deafening. More so than before, and Sylia felt as though she was being turned inside out by the noise. The dumpster tossed and heaved much more than the other jumps. Finally, there was a screeching whine, and the dumpster hit something hard. Sid fell on top of her, and she almost blacked out.
When she finally felt like her body had righted itself, she reached up and shook Sid. “Hey. Hey, Sid, come on. Sid, come on, wake up.” He let out an agonized groan. “SID...you're crushing me, get off.” Sid blinked, looked around, realized his clothes were still gone and launched off Sylia. He ricocheted off the lid of the dumpster, knocking it open.
“Identity confirmed. Chief Engineer Sid. Captain Sylia. Alert terminated.”
Sid scrambled up the ladder of the dumpster and looked around. Behind him he almost heard Sylia say “Sid, why do you have...wings...”
“Sylia, it's the lab, we're back in the lab!! I did it! I got us home!!”
“Something's not right, Sid...”
He looked around, confused. Sylia climbed out of the dumpster, and he noticed she had changed.
“Oh...oh no...I...Sylia.” He looked around closely, then started to cry. “I forgot...I forgot to calculate for it. That's why...and now...I can't fix it, but...oh, I'm...so sorry!!!!!” Sid started to bawl.
Sylia sighed and patted him on the shoulder. “Tell me, Sid...what didn't you calculate for? I'm lost here.”
Between sobs, he managed to say “The...butterfly effect!”
Sylia looked at her new wings. She thought for a minute, then started to laugh. “It's ok, Sid. I did always want to fly.”

Kyoto Kid said:

Misty Whisky said:

i don't know if it's true, Florida residents don't pay a state income tax?

the decision meter tween Santa Barbara and Kissimees is swinging towards the Kisses.
but, not quitting my dayjob until i actually go see the apt. the pictures might be from pre-opening, could be shabby town by nows. :roll:

...True, Florida has no state Income Tax, but there is a state sales tax

Washington State doesn't have an Income Tax (though they do have sales tax as well). Not quite as nasty during the Winter as the Northeast can be. However Seattle is not a cheap city to live in. Not as bad as San Francisco or Santa Barbara though.

Nevada Doesn't either (there is state sales tax) but Vegas is the only large city, it get's nasty hot in the summer, and right they have one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

Texas also doesn't have a State Income Tax but like The other three they also have a state sales tax (and as I understand it is charged on Daz orders). As you have seen from Wooly's posts it can get hot there a good part of the year but they also can get nasty winter storms (usually ice, sleet, snow, or a mixture of the three) in the central and northern parts of the state.

Alaska has neither a state income or sales tax, but if you are trying to get away from the cold winters, not the place to go. It is also fairly expensive to live there as most food and other necessities have to be shipped a long distance to get there.

Alaska is prolly too cold for fire ants. i don't think anyone would ever visit me.

if i lived near Disney World, peeps will prolly visit me more often than they do now.

i wanna be by the pool, with a laptop, making props, sipping pina coladas.

sigh. i'd trade the dream to have more time with my bubby.
i've been rubbing belly over 23 years. can i keep my humanity and my soul with two free hands?