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?

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:

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.

We had a beautiful hoar frost this morning and it looked kind of Christmas-ey, so I figured I snap a couple pictures from around the ol' homestead in north central Wisconsin. It was 0º F. so I didn't snap too many. ;-)

Kyoto Kid said:

cecilia.robinson said:

Ryuu@AMcCF said:

FirstBastion said:

You want to talk expensive have a gander at turbosquid. http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/3D-Models/People

Daz prices have always been very reasonable for the work involved to create them.

Heh! That was my first thought, too.

The first few years, I was buying stuff here at full price....I spent about $500
Then I started jumping on sales whenever they popped up....I spent about $1000
then joined PC....I spent about $20k!

NOT kidding!

But I do have about 20-30Gig of good quality stuff from here for almost nothing.

Rendosity & the other Rendo, not nearly as much--maybe about $100 each from them--but good quality stuff there, too.

But looking through Turbo--HOLY CRAP! :bug:
And most stuff there looks like crap & they STILL want $100s for it.
On top of that, you can find many works by the same artists elsewhere for next to nothing, but @ turbo, again, they STILL want $100s-$1000s for them--that, I don't understand.
I've only bought 3 items from there: 2 @ $1000 each & 1 @ $60, and ONLY because there was no other place to get them and I absolutely needed to get them.

I'd say it depends. There are a few vendors who mainly make free buildings and yes, only ShareCG can compete with them when it comes to freebie houses and such. I guess the prices are due to what someone mentioned - Maclean I guess - the artists buying them work for companies which can pay for that - and the software is different. I would be far from comparing DAZ/Rendo/RDNA with T-Squid.

For me, rendering is a pastime, so I mainly use what I can find without paying. There are things I gladly paid for (like Courageous, but DAZ not supporting Genesis with the set is another matter). Still, I usually frequent freebie sites. It depends on what I need.

ShareCG is the most versatile for me (and has Wilmap, Eblank, Gendragon, Mylochka, Dyald, Rose, ShiftingImages, Sickleyield, Chacornac, Arah and many others). Clothes are just as good as purchasables (for my taste, mind it's subjective). Currently most plants I use come from either ShareCG or RuntimeDNA. I also highly value Most-Digital-Creations (and you can see the sets support V4, Genesis with V5, Gen2F with V6 and when it comes to poses, sometimes even Dawn). The prices are much lower and cover various models, so - as the textures are very realistic, real-life women with typical flairs like goosebumps even - it's a good choice. What I mainly need from shops is a variety of hairstyles (I wish I knew 3D earlier when Lisbeth, DigitalBabes2.com, The3DZone, Michy and Yanelis were still operating). Poses are never a problem, because I can make them myself, it's just a matter of imagination and minding the physics. Still, morphs need to be purchased: I'd never do without Creature Creator, Gorilla, Anubis and Evolution.

As you can see, every shop has its pros and cons. One needs to remember about the nationality: what is cheap for people who use dollars is a pricey thing in Europe (if euro is not your currency yet). I wish the membership at DAZ could be divided as previously - paying $70 one-time is a bit too much. If it was extended in time, I guess many people from Central Europe, let's say, could afford it.

...I've downloaded several freebies from TS, in.obj or.3DS format (the latter converted in Hexagon by simply by importing than saving as a .obj) and was able to use them. in my scenes.

The only item in their store of interest to me (where I'd actually pay their price) is the Kawai EX grand piano (124$) as nobody in the Daz/Poser world has yet to offer an authentic, properly detailed and proportioned 9' concert hall grand piano (and trust me, I have done a lot of searching around in 3D stores and on free sites). As the illustrations for the story I have been working on centre around music and involve performance scenes, accuracy for me is important . In a way it's no different from someone who does WWII scenes which require accurate models of vehicles, amour, aircraft, uniforms, equipment, and weapons.

Yes, sometimes you need perfect accuracy and then you have problems. By the way, did you try on CGAxis? They have pretty many realistic models, instruments too, I think. OBJ format is among many others (usually included in the pack, but I may be wrong, because I only used their freebies, which had OBJ included). And there are some free packs until the end of the year, which contain some highly realistic scenes with appropriate objects.

Very nice, Horo...the purple and orange flowers are gorgeous, as too the daisy-types, whose central parts (I forget the official name) might benefit from darkening them to, say, a different colour to the yellow petals...etc..I do, though, recognise the seven-spotted ladybug - as opposed to the five-spotted one ;), which really adds to the work.

Jay

Thanks, Luci! I'm having fun with this...

Dumpster Diving
Scene 3: War Zone

Pulled Items in Scene 3
666 Sampan
841 Victoria 4 Equestrian

Also Used
Light Dome Pro Revolution
First Bastion Rocky Outcrop and The Steppes
SickleYield's Waters for DS4 (Renderosity)

Horse units:
Daz Horse 2
Samurai Yoroi for M3
Polearm Armory
Dragon Rage (pants and boots)
Defiant (tunic)

The gods of random decided to add a part to the story, and who am I to question the gods of random? (The shaders on Sid's clothing stopped working and gave some sort of error message. Why not, I'll run with it!)

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.

Kyoto Kid said:

...well come Sunday another 584,019,311 mile trip about the central stellar primary will be added to the bushido cowgirl's mileage programme (no upgrades to first class however, shoot, not even a free drink voucher, I tell ya, what a crummy way to run an airline).

About the best I can hope for to make the day special is a Green Bay win over Pittsburgh which will bring them to an NFC "Norris" division showdown next week with the team that nearly put their season on ice, Da Chicago Bears.

Martin Scorsese couldn't have scripted it any better.