...busy week last week.

Must have been tired as I didn't get up until late today.

Was gaming with some friends last night Did some RPG stuff followed by a rousing round of "Cards Against Humanity" that went until after 01:00. Got home checked the forums some conspiracy theory fun stuff on YouTube then went to bed.

38° and cloudy today with icy cold (not freezing, just cold) rain and more wind on the way. Good day to just stay home.

Was a lovely day yesterday, got up to 64°. Felt like spring....well...unless you had to go to "east county" like I did where there was still a frigid wind out of the Columbia Gorge. Nice though once I got back into town.

...related Caturday complaint:

Why the central city WorkSoruce office (which was conveniently located right downtown by the university campus) was closed and consolidated with the Mt Hood one way out in the eastern burbs one will never know. Guess the city felt the presence of jobless people in the downtown area would detract from the latte swilling "hipster" environment they want to create there.

..or maybe it was a plot to get more money for the transit agency by forcing everyone who lives in the city to pay 5$ a day (or 100$ a month for a pass) to get there. You are unemployed and looking for work and/or any way to better your chances (a lot of the workshops WorkSoruce offers are actually very helpful and free), you don't have a lot of money, yet you have to cough up for round trip bus/tram fare plus waste an hour or more out of each day just to get there.

Makes no sense. You'd think they'd make want to it to be more convenient and attractive to use their services to help get you back to work as soon as possible.

DIM is offline due to the site being down- Jaderail was nice enough to answer my question in the commons. You'll get the sit and spin, then message about checking your password/account. Just wait it out. (it's 3:40am central time and still not working. Site went down two hours ago for about an hour and DIM has gone poof ever since. They are working on it.)

Thanks again, you all.
I'm glad you like the EnvironKits concept.
It originated from what I have been doing as I create and optimize scenes for my own use, and then store them to my Browser, except that these kits are much more beyond the stuff I was doing - and now I use my kits as well!

That said I do have a quite a bit of them on the work bench, so they will keep coming - as I can complete them. It's really quite amazing how much can be done with this concept. Like the original idea, it is often my own needs that drives the ideas forth. Then I put my stuff on hold so I can build a kit that will fulfill my needs - along with a bunch of extra possibilities that I imagine along the way.

So I shot this render, since I was talking earlier about landing a star ship in the canyon. This star ship is vastly too large to actually land in the gorge, so I pulled it up into the clouds, did some rearranging, and hid all of the central terrain features and, instead, duplicated the outer surrounding terrain a few times. It's a huge ship ;)

You can model a bit more than a 'basic' shape...like for the leaves on the third one...model the outline, curve and central ribs, but no need to model the finer lines. The first one would make a very 'heavy' mesh if you tried to do much more than very basic details. The second one you could get fairly detailed without going to too high a poly count...but

BTW, be sure and test the cart because if you have purchased Stephanie 6 already, you currently are getting the additional discount in the cart without having S6 IN the cart (which it says is required.) And that's the way it should be- or else I personally would cancel my order from yesterday and just rebuy it. Hopefully marketing was on the ball with that and this isn't a mistake- but they shouldn't state that as being required (to have it in the cart) if it ISNT right.

In case they change it, you might want to get those items now that say it's required (when currently it isn't, as of 2:10AM Central time.)

evilproducer said:

magaremoto said:

another try without and with a spot light in 2 flavours (grey and yellow); see how it affects the shadows color

Nice lighting! I'm not sure which one I prefer. I'd love to get a look at your light rig and render settings though!

Haven't updated in a long while due to personal concerns that left me in a very bad place (finance, health, and an engagement that was aborted). Getting back on my feet has been harder thanks to my hard drive crashing and even the backups went missing. I'm just thankful not all my art is lost and issues 1 and 2 were saved in my email. Issue 3's pages, however, were still WIPs so all of them went kablooey.

Anyway, after some time finding the strength to go on, made some progress with rebuilding from almost scratch. One of them is making overall improvements with the character designs. Here are a few, with the updated looks of the central cast:

Misty Whisky said:

i thought the Pacific coast would be a bit milder.

Do you have any volcanoes on the west coast?

Portland is on the other tetonic plate? west side of the san adreas fault?

Geographically, Portland is at the end of a "funnel" through which winds from the eastern part of the state blow through. When this occurs in winter it ushers in very cold air that fills the northern and central Willamette Valley which is between two mountain ranges, the Cascades and the Coast range. Unlike Seattle (with Puget Sound), Portland, which is about 72 miles inland from the ocean. does not have a large body of water to "moderate" the temperature so there are times it can be snowing here while it's raining in Seattle 160 miles north.

When the jet is following it's usual course (going more east to west over central/northern British Columbia) any moisture that comes off of the Pacific Ocean is accompanied by warmer winds, hence precipitation is usually in the form of rain. It takes a specific set of conditions, like what we have right now, to produce snow. Usually these events last only a couple days before the jet resumes its normal course and allows warmer air from the Pacific to filter in. However, back in I think it was 2010, the jet stream continued to plunge south for almost a week and we received three storms back to back that buried us under 16 - 18" of snow which was around for over a week.

During the summer the opposite occurs. With the jet stream far to the north we get what are known as 'heat lows" which do not produce precipitation and circulate hot air from the central high desert through the gorge and into the valley. It is not unusual to see 100°+ temperatures here in Portland in July/August (our all time record is 107° which was almost reached twice in the summer of 2010 during a week long heatwave).

As to tectonics, The San Andreas heads offshore just south of Eureka CA and turns due westward. Portland is on the west end of North America plate. About 70 or so miles off the cost is what is known as the Cascadia Subduction Zone where the Jan de Fuca plate is sliding underneath the western edge of the North America Plate. This is seen as a possible major threat to the Pacific Northwest as it could produce a quake more powerful than the one that hit Japan a few years ago. The last quake along the zone occurred in January of 1700 and was strong enough that it produced a Tsunami which was recorded Japan.

Invited Guest Contributor

No new renders to show at this time, but I did use Morris's Aiden for M5 for the central character in this render, which is one of my favorites that I have done. It's an excellent texture. I used it for my avatar as well.

redhorse said:

I used both coupons successfully (the site is still showing them as valid at 3:58PM Central Time). But I haven't seen any special message or exclusive offer.

You should see a blue bar across the top of the store page

I used both coupons successfully (the site is still showing them as valid at 3:58PM Central Time). But I haven't seen any special message or exclusive offer.

SimonJM 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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

Here is the morph list:

01 Lower LWisdom
01 Upper LWisdom
02 Lower LSecondMolar
02 Upper LSecondMolar
03 Lower LFirstMolar
03 Upper LFirstMolar
04 Lower LSecondPreMolar
04 Upper LSecondPreMolar
05 Lower LFirstPreMolar
05 Upper LFirstPreMolar
06 Lower LCanine Angle
06 Lower LCanine FrontBack
06 Lower LCanine LeftRight
06 Lower LCanine
06 Upper LCanine Angle
06 Upper LCanine FrontBack
06 Upper LCanine LeftRight
06 Upper LCanine
07 Lower LLateral Incisor Angle
07 Lower LLateral Incisor FrontBack
07 Lower LLateral Incisor LeftRight
07 Lower LLateral Incisor
07 Upper LLateral Incisor Angle
07 Upper LLateral Incisor FrontBack
07 Upper LLateral Incisor LeftRight
07 Upper LLateral Incisor
08 Lower LCentral Incisor Angle
08 Lower LCentral Incisor Frontback
08 Lower LCentral Incisor LeftRight
08 Lower LCentral Incisor
08 Upper LCentral Incisor Angle
08 Upper LCentral Incisor Frontback
08 Upper LCentral Incisor LeftRight
08 Upper LCentral Incisor
09 Lower RCentral Incisor Angle
09 Lower RCentral Incisor Frontback
09 Lower RCentral Incisor LeftRight
09 Lower RCentral Incisor
09 Upper RCentral Incisor Angle
09 Upper RCentral Incisor Frontback
09 Upper RCentral Incisor LeftRight
09 Upper RCentral Incisor
10 Lower RLateral Incisor Angle
10 Lower RLateral Incisor FrontBack
10 Lower RLateral Incisor LeftRight
10 Lower RLateral Incisor
10 Upper RLateral Incisor Angle
10 Upper RLateral Incisor FrontBack
10 Upper RLateral Incisor LeftRight
10 Upper RLateral Incisor
11 Lower RCanine Angle
11 Lower RCanine FrontBack
11 Lower RCanine LeftRight
11 Lower RCanine
11 Upper RCanine Angle
11 Upper RCanine FrontBack
11 Upper RCanine LeftRight
11 Upper RCanine
12 Lower RFirstPreMolar
12 Upper RFirstPreMolar
13 Lower RSecondPreMolar
13 Upper RSecondPreMolar
14 Lower RFirstMolar
14 Upper RFirstMolar
15 Lower RSecondMolar
15 Upper RSecondMolar
16 Lower RWisdom
16 Upper RWisdom
Gum Thickness Lower
Gum Thickness Upper
Gums Soft Lower
Gums Soft Upper
HD Gums
HD Teeth
HD Tongue
Hide Teeth Lower
Hide Teeth Upper
InGums Lower Teeth
InGums Upper Teeth
Jaw Front Lower Size
Jaw Front Lower
Jaw Front Upper Size
Jaw Front Upper
Pinch Inwards
Pinch Outwards
Sharp Canines Lower
Sharp Canines Upper
Sharp Central Incisors Lower
Sharp Central Incisors Upper
Sharp Lateral Incisors Lower
Sharp Lateral Incisors Upper
Sharpness Lower
Sharpness Upper
Teeth Angle
Teeth Front Back Lower
Teeth Front Back Upper
Teeth Length Lower
Teeth Length Upper
Teeth Size Lower
Teeth Size Upper
Teeth UpDown Lower
Teeth UpDown Upper
Teeth Width Lower
Teeth Width Upper
Thin Teeth Lower
Thin Teeth Upper
Tongue FrontBack
Tongue Lengthen.
Tongue UpDown
Tongue Width
Upper Gap

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

-----

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).