ABOUT ME

I live in a camper van with a West Highland Terrier for company.
My passion is creating images but it is a work in progress.
I am always willing to share what knowledge I have and can be contacted through the comments on this post or e-mail ADRIAN
ALL IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WITH A LEFT CLICK

Wednesday 29 April 2020

FOUR SHOPS.

I've had a busy morning. I had a run into Cupar as I needed petrol and I had my shopping and messages for Scottish folk to purchase, English are expendable in these parts. Called at Tesco for the petrol, and whilst there decided to get a big jar of coffee and a roll of Blitz. Two 200gm Nescafe was the cheapest they had, they had bigger jars which worked out dearer the little jars were £2.00p/100gm not cheap but okay under the circumstances. Onto stop two and the Co-Op for some funny white bread and eight hard fired rolls, perfect. Stop three was Aldi for their malted loaves, one for me and three for the round. Aldi had Nescafe, a 300gm jar for £4.76p; I was robbed at Tesco. Aldi don't usually stock Nescafe round here, it wasn't with the other coffee but lurking under toilet cleaners and honey. It's always a serendipitous experience is a trip to Aldi. The last stop was Lidl for some Manuka honey and half a dozen pain au chocolate or as the lady calls them those puff pastry things with bits of chocolate in. Good job I do her messages, god only knows what Ocado would make of that request. I managed to get everything perfect this time. It's taken me about five goes but then I have always seemed a bit slow as the old biddy that likes burnt bread told her neighbour. Cheeky old sod.
 Got an email from Alex saying there were a couple of lambs wanted tailing and she'd leave the pliers and bands on the gate stoop. I promise I did stop but seeing a field full of sheep and lambs thought sod it. They are or mostly are numbered but sorting two out was not a job for an old man with two terriers. She had only left two bands and had they been tups I would have needed four. Silly girl should have done them as they were born. She'll tell her dad it was my fault. Too late gorgeous. I have told your dad. That is going to be a job and a half. A job that will be popped on the back burner. A RowndToIt.

The waterwheel project has hit half anticipated problems. As I am a Common Purpose aconite, sorry acolyte, I prefer to think of problems as opportunities. It's another way of saying I haven't a clue what I'm doing but given a favourable wind I'll get there in the end. Like ninety percent of the folk getting mega bucks in this country for cuckooing non stop with this Bat Flu malarkey. 
I think the new word is 'Upskilling', it's applied to thick twats who think they know more than they do. Outwith of the state sector they are known as 'Common Purpose' and are dismissed pronto. I need some upskilling as you will see.




 What a mess. The mesh is water and it is not doing what it oughta. I'll keep plugging away. It will never drive the wheel but I can fake that bit with no bother. I am thinking of making the fluid mesh much higher resolution and if that doesn't work then I will apply for some upskilling, if that fails I'll award myself the DCM*.

Whilst modelling the waterwheel I remembered reading on one of the Blender forums about an add-on called Welder. Thought it would be worth a look. FreeCAD and all posh CAD applications have it. It's best not to use it unless selling a product as they use the array modifier and add unnecessary geometry. The paddle wheels on my waterwheel use the array modifier but that saves me using bloody animation nodes. Bastard animation nodes are another thing I require upskilling on.

Here is Welder and it's good, getting better. It doesn't always work and if you apply transforms it becomes nowt more than an indecipherable squiggly line. Here are a few examples of it working with just a click or two. 




Not shabby at all and would improve a Blender render no end. It does work well on single skin stuff. I'll keep playing.  
You have fun. I had unprotected shopping today and feel fine. The Bat Flu is a badun but I doubt it is as bad as the MSM would credit it for. Stop listening to spurious advice from folk that need upskilling. Get out and enjoy the time you are allocated. I have ordered a Plague Doctor kit with the anteater nose. Be perfect for this plague and most certainly get a laugh round here.

* Don't come Monday. 

This is for Rachel it is what 3D folk live with before making the ridiculous acceptable.
Beats dreaming of being fit enough to ride a fast bike or a fast lady.

Monday 27 April 2020

DECISION.

I have decided to while away my time making a 3D waterwheel. I popped one in yesterdays post but it was naff. I went onto the internet for inspiration and found an overshot wheel that I like the idea of.
I modelled one quicklyish. 

This would do at a pinch but the elliptical section spokes look a bit poofy on something so utilitarian. They don't fit either but that is but a ten minute job.



I think these rectangular section ones look better but need less taper and maybe a heavier section. I'll have another look after my siesta.
Next comes the hard part, getting it to turn with virtual water. It's all good fun.
THIS IS BETTER
I have made new spokes, these are 'T' section and are more in keeping with the job.

Not too shabby. Near enough is good enough etc.

Sunday 26 April 2020

WHAT TO DO NOW.

Had a low loader visit the other day. He's collecting a trailer that is bound for Lewis. It is a good grain trailer but a bit small so it's away to the land of wind and rain.


I never realised how mucky my windows are. What to do, wait for rain or give them a wash?
All the spraying is done now, well until the barley is ripe. 


I have a couple of things I want to do in Blender, I'll see how I get on.
Have a good week. 
If you work for owaenachess then keep dancing and try not to damage any of that expensive kit.
PS. I think I have settled on one of these animated.
Looking at this it maybe advisable to find a reference image.

Friday 24 April 2020

GLOOP II.

Well here I am again. After much head scratching I have just about got Mantaflow sorted.
The only real problem this time was using this grid which I liked the look off but even with modifiers applied I couldn't get it to act as an obstacle or as Blender now calls them Effectors. This is a grid with a Wireframe modifier and a Sub Division Surface applied. 

I was hoping it could make for some interesting gloops. Not to worry.

Here is the video. I got it to render in EEVEE which is realistic time wise though not as realistic as Cycles visually.

YouTube are on a roll at the moment. I now have to get my head around YouTube Studio. I have only just got round to remembering to check the box saying it's not for children. Lord knows why but if I check "Made for Children" comments are disabled. A funny lot they are but free so I'll not make a fuss.
I'll have to find something else to play with now.

Thursday 23 April 2020

MAKING GLOOP.

I thought I had cracked this Mantaflow malarkey but after a dozen false starts and the same number of real cuckoos I set the simulation to bake and the bloody slime hit the Domain. 

This is the set up after all the Bakes. The blue bits are gloop, The yellow cross is just an empty for the camera to focus on and allow me to blur the backgroud using DOF. The main lighting is provided by an HDRI and secondary light is from the spotlight dabbed red.
This multicoloured mess is called FLIP and is an aid to help visualise what you are doing prior to baking the simulation. The Black lines are the Domain or container. It is new and pretty good when you get used to reading it. Blue is static or slow, green medium fast and red quicker still. How I never noticed the gloop had hit the domain I can't explain. Stupid would fit the bill but I don't like to use that word when it refers to me. I did 400 frames and they took about six hours to bake. I wasn't that happy with the end result so thought sod it.

Here is the finished result rendered out as single frames. Noise is not bad for 150 render passes most of the white bits are supposed to be bubbles, my bubbles need more work.



Six to ten minutes a frame so no way am I going to spend forty hours or so for a ten second video. I will look at speeding up the render but am not optimistic. I notice that there are third party render farms for jobs like this but they don't come cheap and I only like cheap.

All the best.

Tuesday 21 April 2020

SPLASH.

I have been meaning to play with this for months. I'm not sure it was a good idea. Blender has a new physics fluid simulator called Mantaflow. It seems quite complicated to a simple soul like me. It is also very slow on my machine, I'll have a look and see if I can allocate a bit more RAM to the job. 
Here are two frames from a twenty frame animation so less than a second in real time. They also take 6+' to render in Cycles. EEVEE will do it but the result is a bit iffy. Iffy verging on crap to be honest.
It needs a lot of getting to grips with does Mantaflow.

I popped some motion blur on this in the compositor which improves matters a bit. The very obvious grid pattern on this one is caused by a Blender program glitch which they are well aware of but are taking their time sorting. I used one particle and the work round is to use half a dozen, scale them, rotate them and pop them in a collection and use the collection to render with. These were both rendered with an alpha channel and popped on the background in Photoshop. All said and done they are not too shabby for a Manta beginner. I'll play a bit more as I like the simulator and it is a vast improvement on the previous fluid generator.

Last Saturday Blender 2.9a was released in Alpha. It has a new box on the splash screen that allows one to load settings from the stable version one is using. It only does it the first time you open 2.9a. Lucky I noticed as it saved me about an hours work.... The devil truly does look after his own.

Have fun.

Sunday 19 April 2020

IN A TANGLE.

I have had a challenging few days. The latest build of Animation nodes has a new node called Close Packing and I found someone who can work it on YouTube- Bradley Animation-. Unfortunately I can't. It has been a real pain.
Whilst investigating something else I found this interactive site demonstrating Mercator Projection. It's a bit clunky but passes five minutes.
Or in this case not true size.
I have done a video and suggest you zip through it at 2X speed as even I found it a little laboured.
I will try and get this sorted but may have to give this one best.
Have a good week.

Wednesday 15 April 2020

WHAT A BIG ONE.

I caught the big machine before it left the yard this morning. The sun was a bit low and bright but not to worry.





A very impressive bit of kit. For those interested the forward drill is sowing fertiliser and the rear one malting barley. The green bit in the middle is a Fendt tractor, with a six cylinder Deutz diesel. The bloke driving it didn't get a clap.....He would have had he let me have a drive.

I have got the Perpetual thingy sorted, it all works now but I cheated a bit with the ball. I just increased it's size and I slowed down the fanlike bit to match the balls speed. I still have the red hub to do but will just try replicating the Ball nodes and see what happens. I can remember when I thought Photoshop Elements was hard. This stuff really challenges my limited intellect. Still it saves me spending all afternoon in the pub........Wait a minute!
The local Co-Op has excelled itself. All the normal stuff like food is directly opposite the door with bread and chilled goods to the right and other stuff like sugar, coffee tins to the left with milk, yoghurt and other similar things facing one on the far wall. I wandered in with my list of messages, I was really organised, had popped all the bread together and similarly grouped other stuff to avoid catching the Bat Flu and generally look as if I knew what I was doing. I did the heavy stuff first and turned into the bread and bacon aisle. There stood the lady that usually does the Postie counter. 
"STAY." 
She said.
"I'll get your bread and stuff from this area."
I asked why and she explained that the gap was too narrow to be safe for folk to help themselves. I said the other gap is identical in width and length. She agreed but explained slowly, as if to an idiot, that they hadn't enough staff to do both bread and tins. That's okay then I'll get Bat Flu whilst getting beans but be safe when buying bread. I suspect the small gene pool in Muchty is something to do with it. I got to the check out and perked up a treat. A new lassie and what a sight. Legs right up to her neck and long red hair down to her ti...chest. Drop dead gorgeous she was, no big black slugs painted above her eyes, just a few freckles or possibly cow spatter from the milking parlour. Perfect and cheerful with it which makes a change in the Co-Op. I fell in lust, Bev the hair cutter will struggle to take advantage of me when this is all over or possibly not. I can't afford to be picky at my age. 
Have fun.

Tuesday 14 April 2020

PERPETUAL MOTION.

It's been a funny day, the power went off about nine as the electric were putting in a new transformer. It will go off again tomorrow as they haven't finished yet.
I have been playing in Blender again and got about halfway with the most difficult animation that I have tried. I got stuck at 2am this morning and contacted Bradley Animation for help. He is obviously another insomniac or resides well to the west of me as he replied straight away and solved my problem. A good chap or chapess.

Here is the result of my messing.


 The sphere was on the same origin as the little gold things and I didn't dare move it. I have now and it looks much better. It still isn't rolling fast enough and for the life of me I can't work out how to synchronise their respective surface speeds. I would like to parent the centre boss to the gold vanes but haven't worked that out yet. This would take forever and a day to animate without Animation Nodes. There is a link in the video description to Bradley Animation but this isn't a tutorial, he calls them Nodings or something similar. I find them fun to watch if I mute the music.
Here is the node tree.
The green nodes concern the sphere and the second from the left lets me adjust it's position. I knew it did but was terrified of the job going belly up yet again and for the umpteenth time. If anyone is interested in the nodes then left click and the image will enlarge. If as is likely the controls on nodes are too sensitive then bang a maths node in, leave it at default multiply and pop in 0.25 or set it to divide and enter 4. It's the same. You can also click and type but that is a slow way of fine tuning. Likewise I think in degrees and Blender works in radians. I only use radians when dealing with constants like Phi or pi as Blender calls it. There is much more entertainment to be had from this as I like the effect.

They are Barley drilling here and if he hasn't finished tonight I'll try for some pictures in the morning. It's a very smart rig. They are a bit later this year but the ground has been so cold that it won't make any difference long term. Today was grass seeding so we'll have some sheep to annoy and be annoying later on. The joys of trimming sheep's feet and cleaning their bums. The former is much easier than it used to be when one had to use that funny curled knife. These days we use garden secateurs and have an aerosol full of smelly stuff to dress the hoof with. It's still hard work but does get them used to being handled so they or most of them let you pick a lamb up without giving one a good battering. Another job to look forward to is ringing lambs tails and bollocks. It's an easier job as lambs are light.
It's all go.
Stay safe.

Saturday 11 April 2020

SOCIALISM, SHIT AND A BIT OF BLENDER.

Now when I look at history socialists are only social if folk agree with them. The ones that don't are first in the firing line. After that it is the ones that look or sound funny. For reference see speeches by John McDonnell or Jess Phillips; the former wants to hang Tories and the latter wants to stab them and both are at opposing ends of the British Labour party. Next comes genocide. 
It never works comrades and it never will because you are evil self serving twats who mistakenly think you are cunning enough to get in the Zil lane. 

Now onto the shit. This machine was rebuilt years ago and was just left collecting dust, old fence posts, rolls of felt, discarded seed and fertiliser bags. They got offered a load of horse muck and within the hour it was dragged out, greased and lubed up and put to work.


A  fine machine. Beautifully painted with a yard brush.
New belts and belt tensioner. Perfect.
The fields eye view.
The shits eye view.
Did a few acres and did them well.

Now I'm posting a talky video just because I made it. I am back to Animation Nodes and much harder things. It's the way all this stuff is going. The young ones can drop a scripted node into Blender in an hour if they can't find one they like. It's brilliant, it's anarchism running riot. I love it but it doesn't make my life easy. It's a pain when before I start trying to make summat do, what he made summat do he lost me on the modelling bit. I need a recap.
Just realised that all the folk sharing their knowledge on YouTube are male, European, Russian, American, Australian the odd South Korean, plenty of Indians. Funny enough no Somalis, Pakis, Gypos or West Indians. Guess they are too busy driving taxis and busses, dealing drugs and stealing Nikes. Maybe a few are too busy working in our Enhachess init bro. They share their problems non stop on the Media.  folk are racialist. No we aren't you are thick twats. Intelligent folk are discerning. 
Talking of problems has anyone heard what Corbyn's Home Secretary in waiting's son got after his court case. Being a bit bitey/hitey he was and waving his nob about, then the cardinal sin being racist. Doubt we will ever hear as the fragrant Diane has dribbled up higher than we mortals. Not to worry he was only an aspiring civil serpent, not a footballer or Rapper.

This is a long post. Not to worry I have not been anywhere near anyone. I could do with being near the lassy in the Co-Op so will spend tomorrow getting folks messages all polishing up neat and tidy. Any excuse to get near the lass in the Co-Op. This lock down has psychological repercussions. Bet that daft twat Neil Ferguson didn't have that built into his erroneous computer model.

Don't weaken and have fun. 

Thursday 9 April 2020

CLAPPING.

It's clapping day again. Now I have nothing against showing appreciation but our NHS do not require any special clapping. They are well paid and should be used to dealing contagious diseases. Shop workers, Posties, Filling station attendants and numerous others are keeping the country ticking over.
At the risk of sounding like a (I am, I'm intelligent) Neil, I now do an every other day run into town for really frail folk in the glen. Funny how picky some of them are. They want soda bread with seeds on etc. I ignore them and carry on carrying on. Grabbing what I can that is something nearish. They get what I can find, One wanted soap that hadn't been tested on animals. How am I supposed to know? She got a bar of Pears from my cupboard. Bloody free it was as I got a two for one deal months ago and don't go mad with soap. Felt like charging her a fiver. She told me someone in the town had the currant venus and to put the messages down and she would get them after I had departed. Silly old bat must be ninety if she's a day. She can work demands though I'll give her that, not to mention avoid paying.

As clapping seems to be the new virtue signalling thing.......What happened to tea candles and a quick Kumbaya my Lord. Happen nobody knows the words. I quite liked them making little heart shaped things out of their hands but sadly all these things are in the past. I used to enjoy mocking vegans, trans-sexuals and other assorted weirdos. Gave me the lift I needed when faced with an hour of swapping rollers on an excavator or shifting horses and their shit.

Mousey is happy to clap. Not that happy as it took me an hour to make him do it middling.


Have fun and don't weaken.

Wednesday 8 April 2020

MOUSEY.

The Mixamo rigged models seem to do a grand job. I'm happy to have found the site.

This is the last Birthday video for ages and was done in record time.


It's an easy site to use with only a few steps. You choose a character and then choose what you would like it to do and download it.

Have fun.

Tuesday 7 April 2020

FREE STUFF.

I am all for free stuff. These seem very good and are available from Mixamo. Mixamo are owned by ADOBE so I'm amazed all these models are free. Thank you Adobe, a much appreciated gesture.
Years ago there was a blogistess with very big eyes from Australia who used to teach rigging and stuff but when I asked her for help with a bird flapping it's wings she was clueless. Her education authority bought models in pre-rigged so she didn't have to go through what I have to. All the rigging, parenting, weight painting and all the stuff I find a bit tedious; also very difficult. She couldn't help. I have succumbed to the easy option.

The link is in the video description if you fancy a play. It's worth a look.



This little mouse could well be the inspiration I need for my next birthday video which is required soon, very soon come to think. Forgot to say the meshes on these are perfect. ADOBE are generally expensive so one would expect nothing less. Good to see that their free stuff is not compromised. Most things I get for free then take an hour or two to re-scale and re-mesh these are perfect.

I see that Labour have a new leader. He is a definite improvement but why did he give his acceptance speech from the interior of an IKEA wardrobe? He is supporting our government which is good........Make bugger all difference if he didn't. Suspect he thinks he's relevant. I think he's an insomniacs dream. I see the Momentumites or a faction of them like the followers of go stabby the tories, semtex Johnny McIdiot are wishing death to Boris. Good luck comrades all intelligent folk recognise that socialism is only one good genocide from success.

Stay safe have fun and get well Boris.

Sunday 5 April 2020

DANCING.

Yesterday was grand, I got out to get animal feed and visited the supermarket. The animal feed place was shut. Sainsbury's was open but I had to queue to get in. As the bloke at the line on the tarmac in front of me said.

"It's a good job it's not pishing snow down, we'd all be dead from hypothermia before we got in."

I thought how astute, he must be an academic until he added.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Have you seen the tits on that?"

He was referring to the lassy supervising the line. Not an academic then but a vicar. I'm not unwilling to admit mistakes.

My first stop was the tobacco counter. Had to wake the chap up as he had nodded off. I know now why he wasn't outside working the barrier. I decided to bulk buy and went for a couple of hundred grams of rolly tobacco. All but one packet had graphic pictures of diseased lungs on....Horrible and traumatic at a time like this. The other packet had a dead baby on with a warning not to smoke when pregnant. I asked him to find three similar. He found two and one with a chap with one leg. I decided I could live or maybe die with this selection.

The rest of the shop went well. I fancied a fish pasta. I usually use a Smokey and prawns with sour cream. No Smokies but they did have smoked haddock and not the vile orange stuff. It's basically the same thing but a bit bland, a Smokey is a Haddock smoked whole and much better tasting than the filleted version. I thought to get a steak for Sunday but they were from Poland. I try not to buy stuff from the EU as they have been both useless, greedy and obstreperous. I'll wait for my beef and get some from the butchers next week.



I have got one birthday video done. Here it is, far from perfect but for a look at on a smart phone it will be fine.



Have a good week and feel free to give a nurse the clap. I find I can limit virtue signalling to thanking folk working in shops but do whatever rocks your boat in these straightened times.

Friday 3 April 2020

A SLOWER THING.

I decide to have another go at yesterdays thing. Listening to Ken Bruce but that will be it for the radio today as Jeremy Whine is on at noon and he's a twat.
Now I've slowed it down you can see that it's legs aren't legs at all but a bit of a grid controlled by the proximity of the head bit. It is just an illusion like so much of life at the moment.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I have to visit the animal feed suppliers....Whoopee!

Here is the video.

Have a good weekend.

Thursday 2 April 2020

A BIT MORE SILLINESS.

Not heard any news today but I will assume folk are still alive and kicking.

This is something I started ages ago and couldn't make work. It's going like the clappers now. I find it best to leave stuff when I get stuck and come back to it. Nine times out of ten it seems to do it on it's own then.


I have a couple of birthday cards to do so will get them out of the way before I post again. Stay happy.

Wednesday 1 April 2020

FALLING AND FAILING.

It's been a funny start to the week. I got my new driving licence and whilst scrapping frost from the windscreen noticed the cheeky devils had left the star spangled sphincter on it. I thought we had left the EU.

 Soon sorted that out. Job done.
The dogs were supposed to be having a hair cut tomorrow but it's been cancelled. 

They aren't too bad but they stink when wet.

I have been playing again and got in a right tangle. The video is about a minute long and could be shorter for all the success I had. I like the effect and I enjoy the challenge this stuff presents. Here is the video.


Keep safe and have fun. I see the media are starting to back pedal a bit on the Bat Flu and the gubermint have altered the criteria for death data collection. Anything to keep folk panicking, control and cause them grief. Bastards!