SUCCESS.

 I have got the hoarding thingy working perfectly. It took me some time but with a re-think of the workflow I have got there.

I notice sunspot activity is increasing, Not before time as I could do with some global warming, I noticed this GIF on, I think, Space weather yesterday. It's a solar flare and very impressive.

 It looks a bit too warm there.

Here is the new video with a bit of basic geometry thrown in for your edification and education.

Have a good week and I recommend pleasing yourselves what you do. If folk on BLM and revolting extinction gatherings are immune from the flu then I suspect we all are.

I'VE BEEN HAVING TRIBULATIONS.

 I have spent over thirty six hours in the last twenty four messing about with this and it still only works a bit. I must have been a state employee in a previous life. I've never met one that doesn't do a sixty hour week and I've never met one who doesn't regard sick days as holiday entitlement and to cap it all most of what they do is like this.....Crap to mediocre.

This is all part and parcel of my Christmas video development programme, it isn't going well. The following video is all new for me. The last bit, which apart from the usual foul ups, could be rendered with an Alpha channel and popped into any other video, it shows promise. I do enjoy this malarkey but it does test ones patience. I saw a tutorial by SARDIPAX . It works but wasn't what I was looking for. Then I remembered the old hoardings that had vertical strips rotating and showing different stuff like Embassy Cigarettes one minute, some lass in her underwear the next and Castrol GTX as a finale before it started again. I thought an equilateral triangle would do the job. Lots of sticks of them with a different image on each face. They all have to rotate together and register precisely and herein lies the problem.

Here is the demonstration.

It has possibilities. I am beginning to suspect that were I to use images of brickwork and not totty the job would go faster.

This is the bit I didn't like it is made out of lots of cubes with one face scaled to a point to make an isosceles triangle, an image on one set of faces and another on the other. It's an interesting exercise and works as one would predict. 

I then made a stick with an equilateral cross section. arrayed it, separated it by loose parts and used independent origins so as they are rotated through 120° you get a new face to unwrap and pop an image on. I don't know what I got wrong but much like the experts at UCL I guess I popped rubbish into the machine and was rewarded with crap out. Unlike experts I recognise the process needs further consideration.

Have a good weekend and try and remember the rules.

FFFFeathers.

 I have been playing again. I started out messing with a Pine tree and it looked awful. I decided a feather would look better.....Not sure it does but as it didn't look any worse I persevered with it. 

Here is a video of stuttering or echoing feathers.

I was quite pleased with the feather bit but I forgot to curve it. Silly me after all the hard work I neglected to do a ten second job. I know it's a scruffy feather, I made it distressed looking on purpose, after all anyone can make a perfect feather, even birds can do that.

That's about all for today, I'm away to see the horses then I've got a load to take to the tip. I have if the tip is open, I've lost track of the level I'm in and what it means if one is in one level or another. I'll be well poked off if the tip is shut, may get depressed and have to visit the health centre.....Wait a minute, that will definitely be closed.

ODE TO THE FLU.

I'm normally a social girl

I love to meet my mates

But lately with the virus here

We can't go out the gates

You see, we are the 'oldies' now

We need to stay inside

If they haven't seen us for a while

They'll think we've upped and died

They'll never know the things we did

Before we got this old

There wasn't any Facebook

So not everything was told

We may seem sweet old ladies

Who would never be uncouth

But we grew up in the 60s -

If you only knew the truth!

There was sex and drugs and rock 'n roll

The pill and miniskirts

We smoked, we drank, we partied

And were quite outrageous flirts

Then we settled down, got married,

And turned into someone's mum,

Somebody's wife, then nana,

Who on earth did we become?

We didn't mind the change of pace

Because our lives were full

But to bury us before we're dead

Is like a red rag to a bull!

So here you find me stuck inside

For four weeks, maybe more

I finally found myself again

Then I had to close the door!

It didn’t really bother me

I'd while away the hour

I'd bake for all the family

But I've got no flaming flour!

Now Netflix is just wonderful

I like a gutsy thriller

I'm swooning over Idris

Or some random sexy killer

At least I've got a stash of booze

For when I'm being idle

There's wine and whiskey, even gin

If I'm feeling suicidal!

So let's all drink to lockdown

To recovery and health

And hope this awful virus

Doesn't decimate our wealth

We'll all get through the crisis

And be back to join our mates

Just hoping I'm not far too wide

To fit through the flaming gates.

                                     Pam Ayres.

I'VE BEEN BIZZY.

 I have had quite a lot on this week, I have a few interesting ideas for the Christmas video and keep playing with them early doors and the computer keeps saying don't be silly. 

"I am old and dirty." It says.

I do use it hard and must get round to a proper clean up, It's half a year since the last clean. I dread to think what is lurking in tmp. files and as I rarely think to name stuff it will probably be quicker to delete the lot along with all Windows update files. I find most are crap and if any are really important then they pop them back on. I used to play Freecell but now I have to pay to ditch adverts. I bet a pound to a penny that Linux have Freecell for free. Never ever trust Gates or Apple. We have the hardware now. Look after it.

 A few weeks ago a friend asked for advice on something Blenderish....He must have been desperate to ask me but it made me look up and load the version he was running. It's years old but I have Blender programmes going back to 2012. It didn't work out well as I use a projection along a curve to achieve the end result. I can see his point. It's hard to work. Took me hours and hours to construct curves for a four cylinder engine with equal length exhaust pipes but they are on and work. I used FreeCAD.

 I dread to think what SSD space I could free up. I also have experimental stuff from Blender that is a good year and a half away from being useful as anything but entertainment. Such is life and the fluorescent tube that illuminates my laptop has died. I'm touch typing. I can recall switching to fluorescent when I thought they were energy efficient...Bollocks....LEDs made all the silly curly tubes redundant in a few years. Can anyone even recall Halogen?  Does anyone know anyone who thinks a battery car is a good idea?
I went out this morning to get rat poison from Collessie took the camera to get some shots of the Howe of Fife. I shot half a dozen, three a stop under and three on the meter, none are worth shite. The drains I am sure could be photogenic. Not when I'm working the camera they aren't. Straight drains are posh. Posher still as the French dug them, I suspect it was better than being killed at Waterloo.

Anyway here are a few screen grabs.

Here is my fourth effort at a Christmas tree. Well maybe it could be improved. I hope someone is artistic enough to help.

I have just started on the modelling of a barrel to sit it in.

As you can see it is a barrel in progress.

As are the back drop lights.

This animates for video. It does get complicated when one knows bugger all about it. It's a trade off to render time.

I'll leave you with this.

Who but a pervert would vote for him? Dirty nasty paedo, crooked bugger to boot. Never vote for lefties or Libdems. The right wingers are bad enough but it appears we don't have any here to vote for. Good job I don't vote.

Have fun.

ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER BALLS UP.

 Looking on the bright side today has been wet but not quite as wet as forecast. I got a good soaking first thing and again midmorning. The van is sitting in liquid mud despite my shifting it on Friday. Never known anything so wet. Must be Global Wetting.

 Years ago I spliced up a posh tow rope with a thimble and a shackle, it was one inch nylon and a tidy job. I can vaguely remember posting about it. It was made to shift the van when the inevitable happened. I lent it to a Muppet in the summer to get his van out of a ditch and he used some stupid knot in the tail end. It took me an hour to free it working at it a bit at a time. It's now perfect again. Nylon is funny stuff, it stretches a good fifty percent before breaking. This is good for shock absorption but a bugger if you stretch it with silly knots tied in. I find only two work. The bowline tied correctly with the tail outside the loop and the Tugmans hitch which is the only knot I know that can be released under load. Best to use wire rope or chain if ones a numpty. Chain necks and becomes solid before snapping and wire goes a horrific square shape. I know more about pulling stuff and the mediums employed than I do about VFX or Blundering, as I call my pastime. 

Today didn't go well but I did get lights to follow a cloud of stuff in three dimensions. I then got ambitious and added an extra light. This is far harder than the cryptic crossword and very entertaining for an old man.

 I gave a lassie a lift home in the rain the other day and she summed things up perfectly. " Were we twenty years younger we would be heading for the forestry rather than home and you wouldn't be thinking computers and I wouldn't be thinking about the bairns tea." 

Here you can see how far I've got. 

I usually use HOBO as my font but Blender wouldn't  have it. Not to worry.

 I hear the Danes have rejected the Covid nonsense, it's a start. I have never been frightened of a bug that the experts can't cure or diagnose and as far as I can see is designed to bring totalitarian government another step closer. Fair enough some of the old are really frit. I did my best for them by getting their messages. Most ventured out after a couple of months when I reported that I hadn't noticed any corpses or ranks of freezer vans storing the dead in Glenrothes.

Out of empathy I do spend time with a really old lady. She is worried about the TV licence. Told her to save their letters and I'll sort it and not to let strangers in. She must watch the telly nonstop, I never watch it. She did ask in all innocence. "Why are two women dancing together?".  I told her it was just some nonsense the BBC like to promote, it's like being a vegan or a poof.... "Ah they is queers. We had some round here once but they didn't go on the television. Kept themselves to themselves and even the priest never said but we all knew he was one."

Have a great week.

 

A BIT OF THIS AND A BIT OF THAT.

 The weather is slowly improving, the fog has gone and the rain comes less frequently.

I called at the war memorial on Wednesday but it was bucketing down, it didn't look very good at all. Yesterday I got a snap in the sunshine.

It looks good and hasn't been desecrated by the twats from the religion of Greta.

Wednesday was also fish van day.

I got a couple of dead fish, I do enjoy these. It's an Arbroath Smokie, hot smoked Haddock and they can be eaten hot or cold. I had one warm with bread and butter, the other I will flake into rice and peas. Like a Kedgeree without the curry bit.

I have been playing with the Geometry Nodes in Blender 2.92a. I have got it to do something but it is very unstable. I'll have another look in a couple of weeks.

Not much on today, I have to shift the van to a bit of slightly drier ground. It looks like the Somme here, the Somme as it was not as it is today. I'll need a tractor to extricate it, I'd better get my skates on before they all disappear.

Have a great weekend.

I SHOULD GET OUT MORE.

 The weather here is awful, warm, foggy with the occasional downpour for variety. The place is a swamp.

When the mood takes me I have a look to see what is coming along for Blender. 

To find this page go to Blender.org>Downloads>Experimental>Experimental Branches. All these are compiled. Stuff even more recent can be found in Github but I can't use those things as I can't build programmes. I have tried using VisualStudio but always fail.

After clicking the Download you will get a Zip. file open it and click on the bit that executes Blender. This is now obvious has it has a coloured icon. If it doesn't then selecting the largest file seems to work just fine.

You then have to go to Preferences. To get there click Edit>Preferences. Then go to Interface and check Developer Extras. The little box bottom left will appear saying Experimental, click it.

A new window will appear and you can check the branches you want. I wanted to have a play with Geometry nodes. It is early stages for this and there isn't much there. It does scatter particles over a mesh reasonably but the Boolean bit seems completely anyhow.

 This is supposed to be a cut using a cone and cube....It's doing something but that something is a bit silly. Neither use to man nor beast. The transition node works fine so that's a start.

Today is Lidl day. It looks as if I'll have a car full as I have messages from folk everywhere. Half a dozen small conifers, a dozen Heathers, four jars of thick cut marmalade (if it's less than 50p/jar.), four boxes of mince pies (big ones), plus varying quantities of other stuff and then it's up the road to Aldi for their malted bloomers. I need bread so must get enough. 

The man is an idiot. God help the world.

BELL(E) TWO.

 Here's another one for the Christmas folder.

 I am becoming more optimistic regarding Christmas. Now the Establishment have a new world leader who fits their narrative I can see Covid reverting to influenza and normality returning. We will have to tolerate nonces, crooks, muzzies and independence in name only but that is a small price to pay for Christmas.

I haven't animated the bell but that is a two minute job. The girl looks better.

The UV mapping or unwrapping is as good as I know how to get it. There is a vertical seam but if I unwrap using horizontal seams it gets all anyhow. I'll just have to make sure the seam is away from the camera.

If you fancy a Pop Art version here are a couple.

Have fun.

  

POP ART BELL(E)

 I'm playing about with Christmas video ideas. The weather is cold and misty...Horrible. See.

It's most unpleasant.

Whilst developing a node tree I was using a sphere and by happenchance made a sun spot.

John at Midmarsh Jottings took a photo of a real one.

Here is todays effort, as usual it is far from perfect but it moves.

This is the node set up I used. I think it is worth pursuing but I may be wrong.

 The bell is a bit rough and ready and I ought to have marked another seam at it's base as the UV map has gone all anyhow. Not to worry, if I decide to use the idea I can sort that out and make a better bell.

PS. This would be funny were it not so serious. The bloke wants locking up.

That's all for today, enjoy next week.

SIMPLY FIRE.

 Further to yesterday's semi successful video I have been giving the job another coat of looking at. One of the many problems was the fire, I couldn't get it to register with the ring of stones and I used a simple cone as the emitter. This time I used a star shape with a bit of thickness, the Blender manual says one requires a bit of thickness to get emitters to work, no shortage of thickness here I can assure you. I altered the workflow and now the stones fit fine.

The fire could be rendered out with the rest of the scene but even with the physics baked it would probably stop my machine. The solution is to render the fire on it's own with a transparent background (Called the Alpha Channel) then pop the stones et al back in the compositor. This is better and probably good enough for video.

Here are a few stills from a 150 frame animation, the first thirty frames go in the bin as it takes that long to get going.

Low Resolution (32 passes/Frame)..

One hundred passes, this is still low resolution as apparently the posh folk will Bake 500 to stupid numbers. I can't wait that long as it soon gets into days rather than minutes.

The same shot  but colour corrected. I'm still getting the problem of the simulation base showing.

This is much better I moved the emitter a bit lower and reduced it's size on the 'X' & 'Y' axes. The stones are a bit large now but this is acceptable to me. I can reduce the stone size a bit and pop a rock texture on easily enough.

 I have altered the ground as an observant lady noticed it looked like the moon surface. It did and there I was thinking it looked subtle. It can look like any sort of ground with a few clicks on the keyboard. PBR (Physically Based Render) textures are available in everything from polished gold material to Laura Ashley curtain stuff. There are hundreds of free ones there to be borrowed. They are quite hefty files so make sure to download the .zip version.

I see certain cynical Americans are running a competition for the vote cast by the oldest voter. In first place so far is Ethan McDonald who is a hundred and thirty six years old. Unfortunately he passed away in 1984. RIP Ethan. 

Have fun.

BONFIRE NIGHT.

 This has been an interesting exercise. It really needs sorting properly but I can't be arsed. Individually the bits aren't too bad in that they work. I could go through and re-adjust it but there is no chance of getting it rendered in time.

It is what it is.

Please feel free to criticise. I can see and know how to correct most of it's myriad faults. I ought to have started a week earlier than I did.

Have fun. 

RESOLVE.

 Happy November, it's a new week and a new month. I have been a bit busy what with one thing and another.

I am still playing with a video for Bonfire Night and it is causing me serious grief. Perhaps I should look on it as added entertainment. The main problem I have had with the fire is the cache or bake not clearing properly. I thought it was me but after looking on a couple of forums it is a little glitch in Blender. I save the Bake to a folder on my desktop and can clear it but not overwrite it cleanly so any modifications come out all stupid. The answer is to clear the bake then left click in the resolution box and right click. One hasn't altered anything but Blender thinks you have.

Things still need a lot of work but I have a couple of clear days so should manage something.

Here is the progress so far, perhaps it ought to be lack of progress.

I currently do all my video editing and compiling in Blender and it does a fair job but is slow even if you create Proxy strips. The compositor works but again it is a bit limited. I tried DaVinci Resolve a few years ago and was impressed it is a full commercial grade programme, it's free since BlackMagic cameras bought it so I downloaded it again. I haven't time or don't think I've time to learn it for this video but I'll keep having a play and hopefully start using it as my primary editor.

I suspect it's VFX or special effects will require far fewer work rounds than the same jobs in Blender. I hope so.

I see we are still saving our NHS. It's about time they started saving us or in other words doing what they are paid for.

I wonder where Capt. Tom's hard earned money went?  I hope it wasn't pissed up the wall on Diversity officers, choreographers or HR crap. 

I hope to be back on the fourth with a firework video, the way things are going a middling to shite one.

Have fun.