Greetings,
Caveat: I don't even know the right words for this... I haven't read the D|S manual, and while I'm sure it explains this, I don't recall seeing it, or downloading it, so I'm not sure where to look.

Sometimes, when I'm manipulating an object, the 'Universal' tool (that thing that has 3 axes with translation arrows at their tips, 3 circles, 3 scaling boxes, and a 'global scale' central sphere) ends up substantially under (or over, but usually under) an object. The object continues to move in reference to that location, though, which means that while translation and scaling works as desired, rotation tries to rotate around that location instead of around the center (for example) of the bounding box of the object. (Not quite the same as the centroid, but it will work for now.)

I have no idea what the D|S term for that control is other than 'Universal Tool', or for what I want to do, but what I'd really like is a command that centers that control on the centroid of the object being manipulated, so the object pivots around its middle again.

Am I making any kind of sense to anyone and, if so, is there a command or a method for doing that...?

-- Morgan

p.s. I often find myself wishing for a 'translate selected object to here/this object'; is there a way to do that?

My Entry for the Scavenger Hunt Contest. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/4092/
1 Alluring Gardens
2 Native Cheyenne Village
3 Fantasy Camp II
4 Zepplin Star
61 my birth year Castle Ruins
Wow… what a Hodge podge. Off to hunt a good idea. Where is my thinking cap?
Ten hours later. I’m back with my first and probably only Render. This is a 100% DS3A render.
Title: Far Camp #27
The Story…
Crackle,“Sky barge 7 to New Gov, Repeating, Sky barge 7 to New Gov come in. Over.”
Pop,“This is New Gov Central we read you load and clear Sky barge 7, go ahead. Over.”
“I have Far Camp 27 at Lowes Ruins Park in view Central, all looks well sense our last visit, the refugees look well and the garden project appears to be well under way. Over.”
“Roger that #7, I’m sure the supplies your carrying will lift their spirits, the short-band radio will at least give them an ear out. We have weather plotted coming your way #7, we suggest you and the crew moor down and wait for it to pass. Over.”
“Understood Central, will follow advice, I’ll meet with the camp leader and get what help we can. Anything else I should do Central? Over.”
Popity pop! “Inform the leader that Devonrun and Bills Down bridges are under repair and we should have land access to them within the next few months. Over”
Snap pop,“Rodger Central, Sky barge #7 out, preparing for landing. Will report again when moored in. Over”

Skiriki said:

I guess you could post the list of freebies to freebie section (which is where they usually go), with a note "this will be useful when Gemologica hits the stores". :) Unless Fisty/Marieah sez you could post it here?

I thought about that, but it may be less useful that way since this thread is the central place for people interested in Gemologica, not the freebie forum. Another possibility is posting the Renderosity links here, and then posting a single link to my first freebie link post in Chohole's "COMPILATION OF LINKS TO FREEBIES" sticky. What do you think?

If Fisty or Marieah have a preference, I'm all for it. :)

Looks Fun lets see what we get. Hm... 20 items per page and go...
1 Alluring Gardens
2 Native Cheyenne Village
3 Fantasy Camp II
4 Zepplin Star
61 my birth year Castle Ruins
Wow... what a Hodge podge. Off to hunt a good idea. Where is my thinking cap?
Ten hours later. I'm back with my first and probably only Render. This is a 100% DS3A render.
Title: Far Camp #27
The Story...
Crackle,"Sky barge 7 to New Gov, Repeating, Sky barge 7 to New Gov come in. Over."
Pop,"This is New Gov Central we read you load and clear Sky barge 7, go ahead. Over."
"I have Far Camp 27 at Lowes Ruins Park in view Central, all looks well sense our last visit, the refugees look well and the garden project appears to be well under way. Over."
"Roger that #7, I'm sure the supplies your carrying will lift their spirits, the short-band radio will at least give them an ear out. We have weather plotted coming your way #7, we suggest you and the crew moor down and wait for it to pass. Over."
"Understood Central, will follow advice, I'll meet with the camp leader and get what help we can. Anything else I should do Central? Over."
Popity pop! "Inform the leader that Devonrun and Bills Down bridges are under repair and we should have land access to them within the next few months. Over"
Snap pop,"Rodger Central, Sky barge #7 out, preparing for landing. Will report again when moored in. Over"

The final version of my first entry has been posted to the contest forum. Thought I'd post here as well and add some commentary.

In many respects I tried to get as close as possible to the scene in the reference image, but in a few ways I intentionally deviated from it. The most obvious of these are probably the photorealistic look with depth of field (rather than the painterly look); and the number, position, and appearance of the antagonists. I wanted them to look more human and more individualized; less monstrous (but still frightening). I also wanted to make sure that they weren't blocking the central figure, so that the full pose can be viewed.

I rendered the foreground and background separately, adding a sky backdrop (from Light Dome Pro) to the background render and rendering the foreground as a PNG. I used identical lighting (one of the presets in Lantios Lights 2) in both. In GIMP, I added a Gaussian blur to the background and composited the two together as layers.

Some of the key products I used: Michael 5 (used to an extent on all four figures), Medieval Male Peasant Clothing for the tunic (retextured using the MachPack), DragonLord for Genesis for the other figures' outfits, Build Your Own Sword Kit, Supersuit (shader applied to the central character's sword), Genesis Ranger (boots) and Parkside Point Ground (used for all the rocks and mountains--I loaded three instances and scaled and positioned them in various ways).

Skin textures used, from left to right: Ashley for M5, Elite Philip, Aiden for M5, Stefan for M4 and Genesis.

Almost done...anyone have any final comments or suggestions? I did use (and modified) a preset pose for one of the four figures--the one immediately to the left of the central character; I think this is okay but wanted to check to be sure before I submit it. I can certainly redo it if the rule prohibits any preset poses in the scene.

Kyoto Kid said:

...when I moved from North Central Wisconsin to Seattle, people kept mistaking me for being Canadian.

In a centralized service, one would have to rely on the creator primarily to register the products separately. The creator knows if the items are different or not. In the case where the creator is no longer available (for whatever reason) then it would probably have to be a "first register" gets the UUID and subsequent register requests get the same return.

In the case where the creator is "Poser Only" then the item would probably need to remain out of the CMS, or it is possible to assign "impossible" UUIDs for local use (i.e. 000000-xxx-...) and these UUIDs wouldn't propagate to other systems. If in a situation where the CMS is asked to register a 000000 UUID (as opposed to creating one itself) it would replace the external UUID and generate a local 000000 UUID as a substitute.

As long as there is no charge to get a UUID, I can't see that creators wouldn't want to take advantage of the opportunity. The biggest hurdlea are educating the Content Creator and making a process where creating the metadata isn't a PITA in the first place.

Kendall

Aelfric said:

rbtwhiz said:

The product page URL is one of those details I mentioned that can change. Not just within the same domain, but change domains as well. It happens often. The page I linked to states that the value is random - QUuid::createUuid(). This is intentional. The idea being that the owner of a product (or someone acting on their behalf) would define the value once at creation and then register/publish that value - ideally through a centralized service, but at least through a centralized location on a given store.

IETF RFC 4122 provides for five different mechanisms for generating uuids:
• MAC address (time based);
• DCE Security;
• MD5 hash (name based);
• random; and
• SHA-1 hash (name based).
If the page you linked to states that all uuids are random, this would be a limitation of the Qt uuid library.
A centralised service sounds wonderful in theory, but…
As the vendor for the only software product that uses this metadata, the central repository would need to be something DAZ provided, and I haven’t noticed anyone in Utah rushing to volunteer.
The second issue would be whether the central service could reasonably vet requests for products sold at other stores. Could someone reasonably be expected to know that Merlin’s Medieval Swords sold at CP was a different product to Merlin’s Medieval Swords at RMP (and is actually the same product known as Merlin’s Medieval Swords II at RMP). Do they simply say as long as the combination of store name and product name is unique, issue a uuid?
Another issue would be products where the creator is Poser only and has no interest in supporting DAZ Studio, is no longer in 3D art, or indeed in some cases sadly no longer alive—who creates the uuid on their behalf? The metadata for these products will be generated by end users who want to bring these products under the CMS, but non of it will be officially sanctioned by the content creator. How will the centralised authority handle requests of that nature?
The store that would gain most from running a centralised service is DAZ, and I don’t see the cost/benefit being favourable.
Conversely, each store running their own service isn’t going to work either. Unless Smith Micro decides to hook into the CMS in Poser, it would be counter productive for them to host a CMS related service. Equally, I don’t see small, Poser-oriented vendors wanting to do the work either — if they don’t even test in Studio, or include Studio materials, they’re not going to provide metadata. Again, it will be the end users who produce this metadata.
If uuids are generated randomly, and two users produce and post metadata for the same product, you’re going to have two sets of metadata for the same product with different uuids. If, on the other hand, the uuids are generated from some easily derived source, then both sets of user generated data should have the same uuid (since it’s exactly the same product, they should have the same uuid). The product URL isn’t by any means a perfect solution, and I’m wide open to suggestions (within the limits of the uuid generator library — I did think of faking a URL with artist name and product name, but neither is guaranteed stable between stores).

rbtwhiz said:

The product page URL is one of those details I mentioned that can change. Not just within the same domain, but change domains as well. It happens often. The page I linked to states that the value is random - QUuid::createUuid(). This is intentional. The idea being that the owner of a product (or someone acting on their behalf) would define the value once at creation and then register/publish that value - ideally through a centralized service, but at least through a centralized location on a given store.

Sparkplugs, glass ball one and the drop very easy to view, however, the dragon one is very hard to adjust to, but when it ‘comes in’, the 3D effect is great (‘coming out’ is a killer on the eyes, though). With this cross-eyed technique, one can also block out the side images, too; simply by putting a hand on either side of the central 3D view (hands not actually on the screen, but midway between eye and screen).

The best thing about the cross-eyed (and parallel-eye technique) is that the natural colours are preserved, as opposed to the red/cyan views where some are lost.

Jay

...when I moved from North Central Wisconsin to Seattle, people kept mistaking me for being Canadian.

RedSquare said:

I’m no whiz or techie at 3D

Codswollops Nate, I remember your work over at Polyloop you have always been admired by us lesser mortals. :-)

aaah! Polyloop... that was long ago...

My working process is probably weird and would be the laughing stock of anyone who actually knows what they are doing... i just muddle through and look at tuts from the experts and if anything comes out right it is most likely an accident - hunt and peck and trial and error
I try not to call anything I do a "Tutorial" but rather a "how I did it"
Some at my blog - look in the right column, scroll down 'til you hit how to's or some mis-named tuts
Blog: http://natesartpad.blogspot.com/

I have been struggling to figure out ZBrush for years.. i do some stuff with it but the bulk is an over-whelming mystery - besides my system is too wimpy to do most of the things it can do --- I hang out and drool at ZBrush central :P
Doggy I started up in hexagon... as far as i went

Basically, what I'm trying to do is make a machine that will walk across the floor using the Bullet Physics engine.
In the example below, the central block's motion method is Physics.
The "legs" are parented to the central block and their motion has been keyframed.
As you can see, the central block sets happily on the floor without falling through, but the legs pass through the floor rather than push on it to propel the machine forward.

Yes, you can run multiple instances of ValentinaDB on the same machine. However, it is not trivial to set up. If you aren't afraid of some config file editing and some Windows Service acrobatics then it can be done. You will have to stop, change, restart, run between each version.

With that being said, there's no reason that you can't have 4 and 4.5 accessing the same database. I have a network central database that serves all of my machines, and I have all kinds of versions running for testing -- all accessing the same database.

Kendall

Not quite that simple, unless I have been missing a trick. But first, be warned - DAZ cameras do not act like real cameras so far as f-stop, etc. go.

What I do is create (at least) two cameras - one to use for the render (I generally call this SceneCam, with DoF, etc.,) and the other(s) to assist in posing and positioning.

In the Camera/Lights tab (selecting Camera) I ensure that I have the SceneCam selected as active object and another camera active in view port. I adjust scene so that I have a clear view from SceneCam to where I want the central focal point be. I then turn on DoF for the SceneCam and turn the DoF planes/indicators under Scene View (sorry, can't recall actual titles) to red so they stand out. Focal length and f-stop are then adjusted to suit what I have planned.

Rduda said:

Almost done with my Olympic Class Bridge, here is a quick view:

Very nice! Nice angle you picked, as well ;).
A little progress made on the interior of the timeship, so I'm attaching a screen capture from LW. I've decided to extend the 'dashboard' out from the central door to the hull (I'm thinking about maybe borrowing my control levers from the TAStrogator to go on either side there, canon be damned ;) ). With no reference diagrams or images, we never actually saw whether there was some sort of panel down on the port side - we only saw Lazarus apparently working with something there, so I added a sub-panel under the dash that one can acccess when the hatch is open and one is standing in the doorway. I even added defroster vents :D ...
BTW, I just rewatched it again, and something I noticed that I never saw even in the HD screenshots: there appear to be small, regularly-spaced fillets or something around the dome, so I've added those, as well. Not a big deal overall, but I think they add another level of believability to the design; it looks a bit lesslike a dome stuck to the top of another dome, now ...

...ugh, woke up this morning with a terrible sore throat and cough. Bad timing as well since this is the busiest time of the month for me at the day job (even more so as my workload has doubled since i had to take over billing for the Digital Print department). To make matters even more fun, the manager for my primary client wasn't there today so I had to stay the whole day (had hopes of leaving a bit early to beat the rush home and try to nurse myself back to some semblance of health - so much for that idea).

Picked up a microwave bowl of good ol' fashioned chicken soup for lunch on the way in. Helped take the edge off a bit so I could make it through the rest of the day. Have biochemists ever figured out why it works so well for colds?

Started drizzling on the way home, at least it was in the 70s instead of the 50s and I made all my connections so I didn't have to stand and wait very long. Almost thought about picking up some of that wonderful Curry Korma Chicken I love on the way home, but at around 10$, a bit spendy for the day before payday. Instead made a bowl of very spicy chili with extra onions in an attempt to burn the bug out,. So far it seems to be working.

Weekend in another day. Wish I could figure out how to mess with the space time continuum to make it last longer.

MissBadWolf, hang in there. If returning to school is what you want, keep plugging away. One time I actually got myself back into school, financial aid and all, in less about a month.

It's not only hot in the Midwest, parts of central and southern Europe are also experiencing a heat wave. In Vienna and in Leela's home of Zagreb it's going to get above 100 this weekend. Unlike here in the US, air conditioning is not very common in Europe save for some of the big chain hotels and some modern office buildings.

In 2003, most of the continent was gripped by one of the deadliest heatwaves in nearly half a millennium with over 14,000 heat related deaths in France alone. It even broke 100° as far north as Kent and London in the UK.

Hello all

The ramblings below were prompted by the response from Rashad in my previous thread.

Constructive Solid Geometry [CSG] was developed for industrial design and engineering representation. It is a quite old form of computer aided creation and representation of 3D objects [ i am not sure, but it has probably been around for 30 years]. The idea is that objects are usually manufactured by casting, extruding or machining and they can be built up from simple geometric objects called primitives. These primitives can be combined using Boolean Set Operators and Linear Transformations. An object is stored as a “tree” structure. The “leaves” contain simple primitives and the nodes store Linear Transformations and Boolean Set Operators. In the more advanced 3D graphics applications, the objects can be nested so that each “leaf” can itself be a “tree”. Bryce is one of the most advanced implementations of CSG available to artists at a very low price and it is capable of nested CSG!!!

Interestingly Bryce has survived as a viable means of modelling in Constructive Solid Geometry to this day.

I am here going to discuss only CSG in Bryce and not the other 2 modelling methods inherent in the “Bryce Modeller” (Metaballs and Displacement Modelling). Most 3D applications are based on polygonal modelling, giving the designer/artist control over points, edges and faces [polygons]. These applications may have Boolean Set Operations in their toolkit but these are used on the polygonal mesh. When the objects are completed they are generally not editable [there are some very expensive 3D programs such as Houdini - which i have tried out - which can actually do this. But i would not recommend Houdini to Bryce artists].

Bryce does not give the designer/artist any control over points, edges and faces [except globally]. For this reason, uninformed people say that “Bryce does not have a modeller”. The Primitives of Bryce are mathematical representations of 3D Forms and not polygonal mesh objects although Bryce can convert them into polygonal mesh objects for display [coloured wireframes] and export either back into Bryce [ as with the procedural stones ] or to other graphics applications which don’t do CSG. The Primitives of Bryce come in 3 groups : the Cube and Pyramid, the Cylinder and Cone, and the Sphere and Torus. The available Linear Transformations are: changing the origin point of a solid, positioning the solid in X,Y,Z, scaling it in X,Y,Z, rotation around X,Y,Z and skewing the solid along any arbitrary axis [the last needs some help from a user supplied procedure]. Bryce also allows these operations globally, in either world or object space [these can be a bit confusing and require careful study – Bryce is not 100% consistent in their application] The Boolean Set Operators are: Union of two solids, subtraction of one solid using another, and intersection of two solids [the common-shared volume becomes the new solid]. Since Bryce also supports change over time [it is a 4D application] Boolean Morphs and Particle Systems can be created [in conjunction with other tools Bryce offers and user supplied procedures].

I must mention that quite a lot of CSG work can be done without Boolean Set Operations [BSO]. On the other hand if we combine CSG with BSO and the other two distinctly different modes of modelling which Bryce Modeller has [Metaballs and Displacement Modelling ] then we have an extremely powerful modelling system. Recently Artists such as David Robinson [ www.bambam131.com ] have taken advantage of this power, and created realistic and believable space ships, landing capsules and space stations. David Robinsons models are of immense complexity and fine detail and could not have been created in a “high-end“ 3D-Application within a reasonable period of time [one also has to include the time it takes to learn any “high-end” application compared with learning Bryce].

Although Bryce is not exactly easy to use if you want to model very complicated objects with complex compound curves, you can learn to do this in a short period of time. Bryce Modelling therefore suits people who have a particular subject matter in mind, ranging from landscapes to architecture to machinery, spacecraft, etc., etc. , [not to mention the magnificent cloudscapes of David Brinnen] and who don’t wish to learn how to model generically as a “professional 3D artist”. These people may be engineers or scientists, who only want to represent their ideas or projects/object for dissertation and communication purposes, and simply don’t have 2 years spare time to learn Lightwave3D or some other such super program with millions of parameters and dialog boxes.

For example about 10 years ago when i was working as an electrical engineer, i designed an automated testing machine for testing circuit boards. I had to convince the management to spend the huge sum of money it would cost to build it. I only had about a week to do it. So i built the complicated mechanical rig in Bryce and also made an animation of it. When Management saw what i had done they accused me of having already made this device secretly at my home and that i simply photographed and filmed it. I said no i did it in less than a week with software costing less than $100. Some of these people were in charge of our CAD design department and we had 3D Industrial Design hardware and software costing millions [the company was then the largest manufacturer of electrical products in Australia]. They said it was “unbelievable”. But we got the funding and the equipment was constructed, and it worked as intended.

The point of the above example from real life is that credit does not belong to me but to the Bryce software. Today we must also give credit to DAZ for keeping Bryce alive! I simply recognized the right tool for the right job. At the time i was also learning Lightwave3D and became quite proficient at it. I recognized that if i had used Lightwave3D for this project, it would have taken too long to complete the demonstration art. In order to get the funding for the project i had only a very short period of time [i also had other responsibilities such as programming their automated test software].

I refer to Bryce-ONLY modelling as “Bryce Origami”. Generally people do not practice the Art of Origami to make a living. I very much doubt that people who practice Bryce-ONLY modelling get rich out of it!!! What some artists have made in Origami, starting with only a square sheet of paper, is truly remarkable. There are certain rules in Origami and generally the objects made are not imitative. In Bryce Origami it is similar. One would not imitate super-realistic humans or animals [for example as was attempted with Maya in the film “Final Fantasy....”]. If one were to build for example animated creatures using linked metaballs, they would be fantasy creatures, which convince us because of their interesting design [perhaps beautiful or terrifying], believable textures and most importantly by their realistic motion. In Bryce 4D we can achieve this. Rigging our creature for animation is harder to do than in Lightwave3D [or Carrara] but we can still do it if we wish to do it.

Like paper Origami, Bryce Origami has rules. Photoshop or any other such image editing application must not be used. 3D modelling software of any kind must not be used. All images must be created and processed in Bryce and all models must be made in Bryce. If Greyscale-to-height maps are required they must be created in Bryce. The only concession is in the assembly of animations for final display. It is permitted to use Quicktime Pro to assemble the frames or a program like Adobe Premiere.

If mesh objects are required for some purpose then the Bryce objects are converted and exported as OBJ files. They are then imported again and textured and then stored in the object library for that project. To create the mesh of a single primitive one simply changes the selected wireframe resolution to the number of segments one wants [the minimum is 8] one then duplicates the primitive and enlarges it a bit. The outer object is set to the intersect operator and the inner object to ”positive”. They are then grouped, then converted [little “c” button] and finally exported as OBJ somewhere one can find it again. Then one can delete the mess Bryce has made and import the object again. This is permissible because only Bryce is used and no other application. We don’t import it into another 3D application in order to change it [if you have Hexagon or Carrara it is always tempting to do that]. If the object is very complicated then one always retains the unconverted master either in an object library or as a file. The reason for converting to mesh may be to reduce the complexity of big models or to reduce the number native Bryce objects which Bryce may not like.

We begin Bryce Origami always at the world centre. By starting there we have a known numeric reference. Most operation require precise numeric alignment. Also for objects with circular or semicircular structure we use the principle of balance across the central rotation point by flipping a copy. When multireplicate is completed we remove all the balance objects. A pentagonal structure would end up with 10 parts and every second one must be removed. The other method is to use a linked chain which does not require a centre point.

The most imported habit to develop is to always work out how one is going to do something before one does it. It is good to doodle in Bryce but when we have an idea we want to realize to completion we spend some time planning how to do it. Usually there are many ways to do something. We visualize how the object will look when completed and all the steps required to get there. There is not much point in spending a day trying to build something only to find out it was impossible doing it that way. One then gets discouraged and ends up with the mindset of people who say “Bryce can’t model - it has no modeller”. Well the artist is an important part of Bryce Modeller!!!

The next important discipline is to name, group and colour everything. When one has a model with say 1000 primitives, it must be organized so that one can select any part of group of parts. I always use the postfix “_cut“ [cutter] to name parts that cut away from other parts. If one has only a list of Cube_1, Cube_2, Cube_3, etc., etc., then one does not know which are cutters, to be selected and moved globally [to change for instance a chamfer all around an object].

There are probably 10,000 or more distinctly different Bryce Origami techniques that one could learn and discovers. There are always new ones to discover if one pushes the limits. Bryce doodling is good way of doing that. Most times i get ideas in my head when i go for a walk and then try them out when i get back to my computer. If the object is very complex i build a simple test version to test the construction principle and give me motivation. In that process i learn new things about the structure of the object and how to make it better. I always look for ways to eliminate frustration. I try to make every step of construction enjoyable. I am doing it for my own pleasure.

I don’t use very much mathematics except when necessary. One only needs to know simple trigonometry, basic geometry and basic algebra and arithmetic. Of course the Windows calculator is indispensible. I always do all the number crunching in advance and put all the data either in a text file or in my notebook. I don’t want to be frustrated when i am building a model. There are enough things to worry about without having to maximize the calculator all the time to calculate a value.

If you are a computer wizz you can get free programs [“autoIt” is one of them] and write scripts for Bryce to make objects automatically driven from a text file in which you enter all the numeric parameters. The scripts will run and open an instance of Bryce and then automatically create objects and pump numbers in the required parameter fields, etc., etc.. Bryce has been designed to allow you to do this [you have probably noticed the annoying parameter box that always pops up in the centre of the screen]. You can then have a farm of robots working away while you do something else. I used to make animations with Bryce 2 in this way after i was driven insane putting in all the parameters by hand. Now that i am retired i don’t use scripts any more. It is too much messing around for me now to set them up. But i would put money on it that some talented Bryce artist is doing just that right now.

When the object is completed i save, save, save. I also save at every critical stage. If one has organized the construction very well and done a similar procedure before, then the work usually goes very quickly. Normally one would not spend more than 4 hours on a very complex object. Most objects can be built in less than an hour. When the object is saved, it can be used for many purposes and many of the objects are also editable. For example a spline made of many cubes can be used to make any kind of complex curve shape. It might take many hours to make something like that but then you have a universal building block to create any shape needed. For example you can make a coil sping using only the Cube and the Torus. Once you have the object saved you can load it and operate the spring like real spring operates!!!. You can’t do that with an imported mesh spring inside of Bryce.

I don’t agree entirely that Bryce Origami is TOO time consuming, because most of the objects are re-useable and some of them even editable. The initial investment of time pays off in the long run. If one is going to build furniture for example, only one table leg needs to be created and one can thereafter edit it to change it for other pieces of furniture in the same style.

Another great advantage pertains to reflective objects with smooth complex curvature [S-curve profiles, Onion Domes, etc.]. Mesh objects are not smooth when we zoom in on the curved edges [the normals are perpendicular to the camera rays – very evident in the Bryce stones] and often the terminator also reveals the polygon structure which soft shadows may not eliminate entirely. If one wants to make a perfect bottle or vase then it can only be done [in Bryce] using CSG and BSO. It is perhaps time consuming to make such objects, and also it CAN NOT be done by lining up the parts by eye – one has to get some help from simple mathematics. However once a few of these object are made they can be squashed and stretched and used for many purposes.

Bryce Origami can be very addictive. It is not unlike being addicted to computer games. One always thinks up more and more “impossible” objects. And the more one accomplishes, the more daring one becomes.

I should stress that Bryce offers some automated help. The multireplicate procedure and global object space displacement being the most obvious. There are many other neat things in Bryce to help you with the work.

If members of this forum are interested i can describe some simple Bryce Origami techniques and objects – with lots of pictures of course [5 pictures 800x800 is sufficient for the illustration because 2 to 4 will fit on one picture]. Or you could direct me to how and where i should post tutorials.

I also will need to brush up on HTML.

I think that is enough for tonight i don't want to bore you with too much text. You probably won't believe me but i hate writing.

Kind regards.

Peter

Its not the heat that gets you. It's the humidity, a dry heat is no worse than a sping day. A wet heat will cook you like a lobster in the shell. In my parts (central Al'bam) we say stupid stuff like this, "It's not th' heat it's th' humility of it all." and , "Hotter 'n hades 'n wetter than a frogs butt." among other stupid heat and humidity related things. Truth be told the heat can be bad on it's own. I have watched an egg FRY on a sidewalk before.

Woolyloach said:

ps1borg said:

Morning. Cold and inky dark in the predawn outside my window, no sign of any Sun and the central heating is working overtime at our house so far today :)

Good morning! :coolsmile: Hope ot warms up there, but not that it gets Texas hot!!! It's still only 102F here.

The landlady emailed me and told me she bought 2 window A/C units in case the central A/C is hard to fix. Whew! No baked loach for dinner!

Our turn in the sun will come soon enough :)