KARROT AND STIK.

 I am well on my way with the Christmas video. I have had to ditch the umbrella as it was too processor intensive and I've still got some fancy lights and particles to add. 

I have made another stick with a nicer curve on it's 'andle and a carrot. 

I realise the handle is a bit choppy, this could be sortedby the simple expedient of clicking Ctrll2 but it won't be seen anything like as close as this. Pauline will be happy as it's been a good few days in New Zealand, a walking stick handle and Jacinda says she can go for a piss in someone else's house or in Jacinda's case stable.

What planet are politicians on? Can you remember when there weren't any bottles for the vaccine? When it had to be stored at minus 900°C or some such nonsense. I wonder where all the doses are coming from, I hear there are folk on the fourth shot, I would have expected to see a shortage of shot bottlers but it seems they have sufficient.

It's a funny world.

HOW DEEP?

 We have the first snow of the winter, not quite half an inch of it but it has brightened the place up.

Nothing to worry about but there will be ice underneath it. 

It's beautifully calm after the wind and I decided it was safe to venture up to the forest. 

At least two big trees are blocking the road. They'll have to be shifted as we use it if we are heading Perth way. Well we do if the forestry key is handy, you need a key for the gates.

I'll keep a low profile today and with a bit of luck someone else will clear them, I can guarantee that it won't be the Forestry as I suspect most of the foresters are still working from home.

Enjoy the coming week.

SNOWSCAPE.

 

I think this will do, it's a snowy scene and I'm not going to mess with it unless somebody doesn't recognise it is snowy. This is a PBR, (Physically Based Render) image that allows the scene to reflect, excuse the pun, changes in light. I can play with these for hours but as long as I don't see a repetitive pattern this will do for me just as long as it will do for you. The only light in this scene is from an HDRi image. (High Dynamic Range, the 'i' stands for intelligence.)

These are both Node based and fortunately I started messing with node editing years ago and am now reasonably confident with it.

This is what it looks like in Blender.

This is easy but I can remember thinking it very complicated. The image is 360° on the 'Z' axis but not as much on the 'X' and the 'Y' axis just tilts things. In this case I only wanted the sky so I can tilt the image on the 'X' so that only the sky appears in the camera view then animate the 'Z' to get moving clouds.

The snow is a real bundle of fun.

This does get a tad more complex, but is both logical and effective. If anyone is interested in creating images then there are dozens of tutorials on YouTube and when you get stuck or fed bullshit then ask and I'll help. I can put depth of field in but haven't yet as I have loads of stuff to add to this scene. This is sharp front to back which isn't very realistic it's the sort of result you got from a Box Brownie or now get from a cheap point and shoot camera, a phone or a not so cheap camera set on full auto.

Last night was a bit wild, Orkney, Lewis wild. A bit of an Elder tree fell on the van dislodging my air extractor cover. I had a hole in my roof about the back of ten, I ran out in my tracky bottoms to recover the cover. It was bloody freezio no snow so I came back in, checked the forecast for precipitation, there was non on the radar map so I said to myself and the dogs. Sod it, that's a job for tomorrow. All mended now, a fallen tree shifted from the glen road, ten minutes with a chainsaw and tele-loader and all is back to normal. It was a council tree but the devil drives etc. Couldn't face reporting it, waiting a week for half a dozen folk to wander out to measure it then waiting god knows how long for ten tree surgeons to shift it. Could see us having to buy second cars and make laybys either side of the tree.

 There are some big gaps in the surrounding forest. I'll go up tomorrow and get a snap or two of the desolation. Best have another meeting, COP27, how to stop wind or get trees to grow longer roots. Not that pine trees have a tap root anyway so I guess we'll have to ban them.

I hear we have a new variant. I miss heard and thought the French president had gone all Irish. O'Micron. It's  really named Omicron, deadly it is but a vaccine won't be available for a month. That should please politicians and the Stazi...Lock down for Christmas here it comes in 3...2...1. Big Pharma will be laughing. New boosters required, bet they have one sitting in the wings. Do they hell as like, they just have to print new labels.

THE POINTED STICK.

 This is the last post featuring video props as I've done as many as I can without spoiling the Christmas video surprise. I still have a good weeks entertainment in front of me and possibly a fortnight's as this year I will endeavour to break the habit of a lifetime and instead of just sticking it together I'll animate everything and come back for an edit or two. If I am getting on fine I'll pop a bit of VFX stuff in using the  Compositor. That should bugger things up and make it look normal for Adrian.

I am aware that nobody reading this is remotely interested in 3D modelling but that won't stop me. It's my winter pastime. Now modelling a stick with a pointed end and a curled handle is easy using a mesh cylinder. I decided to push my limits and use a Bezier curve. I have always liked the idea of them but find them a challenge to put it mildly. At the risk of sounding a smart arse I'm slowly getting to grips with some of their foibles. They have been around for all but ten years of my life, they were invented by Monsieur Bezier in the early 60s for creating the curved panels on Renault cars. Don't let that put you off. They can produce pointed sticks as well.

It is okay and recognisable as a pointed stick with a hand hold bit. I used to meet a chap who made walking sticks. He would find a hazel sapling and bend the top over, tie it with string and pop a lump of wood in to flatten the handgrip bit as it grew. A few years later he came back and harvested his stick. He had dozens of them growing here and there but never near footpaths as Townies and kids used to cut the string. He could tie one then wait a bit and tie it again to make a shepherds crook. Now only Bishops use them, presumably for catching little children, shepherds use aluminium ones.

I see we are getting blamed for the drownings in the channel. I can't see why. The French let them go, they got run over in French waters, how can it be our fault. 

What I find interesting is that because of Brexit all the riffraff seem desperate to get out of the EU. I wonder if the EU has become a total shithole (France must be terrible for a Somali to want to risk death and pay for the privilege). I did end up in Djibouti once, never again, it was far too near Somalia for me and French. I have always thought Europeans a bit odd. Whoops! I ought to have said different, a nice Israeli girl taught me that. I forgot, naughty boy. No humptey tumptey for me. Funny girl she was, used to correct me nonstop and there I was living with an Israeli Arab Jewess. She was good fun when she wasn't in a prickly mood.

 Having worked in France, Spain and (Italy a bit) I never had out of normal bother. Mind you I worked in Aden and Port Said and I thought them acceptable making allowances for they being run by Arabs. Aden is a real dump but the locals have a certain charm. I went back three times and only got shot at once and that was by an Italian loon.

Have fun, if I don't post tomorrow then enjoy the weekend.(French. Weekend). I may go Jogging. (French. Jogging).

BROLLY BOTHER.

I am brolly making today. Bad brolly making would be more accurate. I have got the brolly bit but it is misbehaving. The stick bit is easy for a man of my limited skills, I bet anyone could model a stick. Even Sub-Saharan Africans could manage to pop a point on a stick, I suspect the curved handle at the other end would cause a bit of head scratching but in the interests of diversity I'll not go there.

Here it is.

As you can see it looks more than a little umbrella like sans stick. One of the many problems is that the Union Flag I used for the texture is far too low resolution. I can try to bang that up in Photoshop or look for a 300dpi one for free. I suspect the former is the way to go as it would take another hour to scale and get a different image symmetrical. 

Here is a short video of the Umbrella being a pain in the arse. (American, fanny). I'm a little worried that this bit of patronisation is a retrograde step.

This post should have been published yesterday lunch time but I've been suffering Interweb problems. It has been slow for a couple of weeks but eventually came to grinding halt.

The dogs had a haircut yesterday and are very clean and smart.

Here they are doing what they do best. Resting after their ordeal and the effort put into trashing the bed.

MAD AS A HATTER.

I've been millinering this morning. That's making a hat to normal folk. It's only a tiny prop in a video so doesn't have to be anything special but I get carried away with this stuff.

As usual I encountered a bit of a problem. I tried to use the sculpt tools in Blender and think I've got an overlapping vertex or two.

I forgot the base for my hat stand but that isn't a problem in the virtual world. I noticed some diagonal creases on the righthand side of the going up bit.

You can have a hat in any colour you like but I still didn't manage to shift the creases. I did pop a base on the stand. The stand I won't need in the video.

No wonder I couldn't find a mesh problem it's a reflection from the HDRI I used as my main light. I also have a spot light as a backlight. I am a daft bugger at times, too many times for me to be happy with.

That's all for today, I've got an umbrella, a scarf and a briar pipe to do now. Tomorrow the dogs are having a haircut so that's the morning gone.

I'll leave you with this.

Have fun.

WELL I NEVER.

 

I have always thought vegans a touch weird but in the interests of tolerance, whatever rocks your boat.

A cool crisp morning here.

A FEW MORE BORING THINGS.

 I have been playing about for half the night but have got a cunning plan about sorted. I post about such things as I find it helps get things straight or straighter in my mind.

This is mostly about lighting, I've used a virtual studio light set up consisting of a back or rim light which in this case just puts a strong light to the rear. A key light and a fill light to soften the shadows.

This has the back light providing most of the illumination and not enough fill light.

Increasing the fill light softens shadows as you can see, it's a complicated subject and applies equally to both normal photography and Blender virtual images. It's called the Inverse Square Law and means that if you double the distance of a light from a subject the light is four times dimmer unless of course you make the light four times brighter. 

This is a similar displacement image to the first two but has black letters on a white background. There ought to be an invert button to click in Blender but I've not found it so use Photoshop to swap black for white.

For those still here I have done a video of me babbling on and playing. 

It's all good fun and passes the long winter nights.

Enjoy the coming week.

PS. Camera pre-set list.

I mentioned in the video I couldn't find this list. I can now.

STILL SILLY.

 The other week I made a snowman out of squiggly lines. I have been thinking what to pop him on. 

I started with a Plane mesh in Blender and divided it lots and lots of times.

I then toddled across to Photoshop and made myself a displacement image.

This is just what it looks like, a white background with black text on. It's then back into Blender.

This is what it does when used as a displacement map. This font although Cristmassy is too complex, I'll try a few different ones. The beauty of this is that the contrast can be keyframed by varying the contrast the letters are deeper or shallower.

Plenty to play with and polish up here, I'll try using a cloud texture to get bumpy snow and also mess about with the grid subdivisions and the pixels/inch of the text bit. 

I've not seen this done before but it must have been.

PS. This will be the last image as the effect is getting there now and I want there to be a bit of a surprise left.

I will try making the displacement map with white lettering on a black background, The text will then rise up and if I pop a 50% grey border on the letters it will soften the edge. That's it, I hope to get a video done for the week before Christmas.
 

ANOTHER PROBLEM SOLVED.

 I woke up this morning just as the new day started, fired up the machine for coffee and started the computer. It's been annoying me that I couldn't pop holes in a cylinder or a semi-cylinder quickly and easily. In theory the way to do it is to create the cylinder create a solid the size and shape you fancy for one hole, place it so it cuts the cylinder wall then do a polar array followed by an orthogonal array to pop the polar array up the cylinder. Using the old Part workbench in FreeCAD it was like taking candy from a baby. The Part Workbench is a Primitive based modelling system, it's major drawback being that it isn't parametric. This means you can't alter anything without starting again. The Part Design Workbench is sketch based so one can change anything you have drawn and it will update the finished model.

Anyway here is a very smart looking cylinder with some fancy holes in.

Perfect, the reflections on the inner surface are just that, I light these images in Blender using HDRIs and should have paid some heed to it's relative location.

Here it is plonked on the exhaust pipe.

It's not the correct size but I can do it which is what matters. I have one more part that I'm having bother with but I'm not far off modelling the complete engine. 

I'm beginning to feel a bit like Stephan. He's a Polish welder and a great bloke. Last year he was welding a large funnel and I said don't forget to put plenty of tacks in or it'll be all over the place. He says.

"Don't worry, you don't need to instruct, I know what I'm doing in fact I know fuck all. I tell girlfriend just the other day I know fuck all."

Curry for tea tonight, a vegetable curry with chicken in. It should last three days unless I get greedy. Tomorrow is a horse morning so that's something to look forward to.

Have a great weekend.

ONE PROBLEM SOLVED.

 I have solved one problem, not to worry there are plenty more to go. 

I decided to remodel the flywheel for the little engine. It's not a big job in CAD software but I like to have a pretty picture as well as a drawing. Now if I make the spokes in FreeCAD and do a polar array of them to make several spokes it stops the computer. I have struggled on and got a result but it's a pain, worse than trying to get AutoCAD to accept my password. As far as the latter is concerned I wouldn't mind too much if it was my password but it's not it's theirs. Bastards just don't want a poverty stricken OAP having a play with their software. 

Look at this.

This is what I've been having to put up with. 

This is what I now manage, or the computer achieves. A gorgeous rim and the solution with all things computer is all down to the file system one uses. Pop crap in get crap out. Years ago I found that I could swap (obj. files) between FreeCAD and Blender. Happy it happened I carried on doing so with the occasional foray into (.stp) for folk wanting summat for a 3D printer. I've been doing it all wrong. I knew there was something amiss so this morning I tried different file formats. After several failures I happened on one that works and one that both Blender and FreeCAD can accept. It's STANFORD (.ply). I bet there's a downside but it does this job to perfection. I don't know why it works but am desperately trying to resist the temptation to delve deeper and find out.

I now have adapted and model one spoke in FreeCAD which seems very good at the job and fire it into Blender which is drop dead perfect for arrays. I wanted elliptical section spokes which is hard to do in Blender. It's a piece of piss in FreeCAD.

Here we have three sketches, the upper ellipse is offset by the spoke length required the ellipses are on one plane and the green line is sketch 002 on a plane at 90° to it. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Then we go to 'Loft' press the tit with one ellipse selected and bugger all happens again. You have to tell it that you want the green line and it will shoot an ellipse, or any shape up it. Then you have to select 'Multisection' select the sketch remaining and you get a perfect elliptical sectioned tapering spoke to let Blender have a go with, where, as I said it does the array perfect.

A perfect Additive Pipe. I know I said it lofted but when I get the result I want it changes it's name to additive pipe. Not addictive pipe, that's what the Bidens use whilst molesting children.

Going back to the rim FreeAD I like. One quick sketch like this.

A revolve and we have the outer bit in seconds. I just have to remember to export and import as (.ply) files.

I do wish that I'd been born in the computer age but my son was and the computer teachers were next to useless when he was at school. Much like my maths teachers. I had one physics teacher who encouraged us to search out information for ourselves. I blame him for all this malarkey. To be fare the bloke was a star. He taught me most of my maths calculus, boiled it all down to the hard bit is deciding on the upper and lower parameters for integration, daft bat, at our level we were given those in the problem. He was a multilingual man with a Marxist bent. We climbed together for years and as a bonus he had a super fit daughter. The wife wasn't shabby but he only had ten years or so teaching then went climbing full time, financing his climbing by rebuilding Gardners and I got my kicks from cars and bikes. I was about as good a bike racer as I was a mathematician. 

Have fun.

 

 

WHY.

 Why do I have this compulsion to mess around? I have been several days trying to find an elegant solution to produce a model of a bit of curved brass with holes in. I could find no way of getting FreeCAD to do it. I know from previous experience that Fusion 360 can do it by creating a semi-cylinder, flatten it, pop the holes in and roll it up again. I can't get Fusion 360 to install, my internet here is crap again. I arrived back just after lunch today, soggy, greasy, back killing me and stinking of sheep. Having got polished up I decided to use Blender for the holiness. It only takes about thirty minutes to do this but it is a far from elegant solution.

If anyone wants to know how to do it feel free to ask. It's not difficult.

 I'm away tomorrow morning but after a siesta I'll do one with the right number of holes and make things the correct size. Hopefully next time you see this I'll have everything put together. It'll be a few days as I've installed a CAD positioning Add-On into Blender. It locates to stupid tolerances and once I get up to speed with all the shortcut commands will make CAD assembly equal that of Autodesk, possibly even Rhino.

This is what it looks like when installed. I was having a play with a sphere and cube. Didn't get too far or anywhere at all but there are a couple of HOWTODOITS on YouTube. I'll persevere for a bit, baffling stuff usually makes sense after a good dose of perseverance.

I see another Muzzie has been naughty in Liverpool. Actually he was a Christian but like most of us I suspect a Christian in name only. However most of us don't go round blowing folk up, some of the Irish do but we got acclimatised to those head bangers. Great work by the taxi driver, suss what's going on, drive to a safer place, jump out, flip the central locking, move to a safe distance and watch the fun. He needs a new taxi but I see he is well on the way to having enough cash for a fleet. Good on him.

WOE IS ME.

 

The above images are of a glass cylinder and the exhaust collector ring with its's manifold.

To present these as nicely and as interestingly as is possible. I first model them in FreeCAD, export them into Blender to apply materials, lighting and to render them. Then it's onto Photoshop for a quick polish. The bumpy bits are usually caused by the normals getting muddled up. I have recalculated them and in the second image I've tried to change the mesh to quads. No discernible difference.

The model out of FreeCAD looks fine but it's mesh is a horror show. It should be of constant volume from start to finish but I haven't checked. There is only so much aggravation one can handle at a time. I was going to contact Bloggers resident photographic expert but having him describe a strobe lit, front illuminated image as backlit and a panorama as an elongated image I'm rather glad I'm banned.

I also need to  model a semi-circular heat shield for this and have spent several hours trying to work out how to pop holes in it. There is no quick way in FreeCAD. I know there is in Fusion 360 so this morning I got onto AutoCAD and did all the registering and pleading for free use. It's available free for hobbyists. Several internet drop outs later I managed to get the ZIP. file so that I could set it up. No chance as my internet is far too slow. Probably just as well as it's cloud based so until EE get their finger out it would be a total waste of time.

I've been trying to do a post since Friday but it has taken over an hour to upload these few images. I wonder if they need a Batflu passport at EE. Wouldn't be surprised though according to a young couple who frequent the nightlife of Dunfermline, all one does is wave ones phone about and they let you in. Told her she will be responsible for the collapse of R-NHS. 

The collapse of the NHS is like the Maldives being inundated, it's threatened every year but never happens, whereas things like Paris being converted to a Venice lookalike in 1910 is ignored. Also ignored are the consequences of sea level rise on all the beachfront properties purchased by our betters and pontificators. 

Have fun, laugh with me. I've got a really good day tomorrow it's sheep foot trimming. I'm getting to the age when I'd let them out and chase them up and down the road. I wonder would that work? They are all fine at the moment, non are down on their knees but better to do it now in warm weather than leave it and have to do it when it's freezing. In other news the barley is fetching good money and next years fertiliser prices are up four times. We may direct drill spring barley so that will offset the diesel increase but hopefully not the price increase of grain. 

A CONCEPT FOR CHRISTMAS.

 

I wonder what you think of this as a base for a Christmas video. Lots to do but if you hate it say so and I'll think of something else silly to do.

WRIGGLY TIN.

 I decided several days ago that this engine would look nice with a corrugated heat shield around the exhaust pipe. My muse has long since lost interest in her engine but I have decided it will teach me things I don't know. The young ones call it "Upskilling" possibly up skirting but either way it means they need a good learning or seeing to.

Today I wished I had never started on this as this bit is all curve based modelling, by curves I mean those of the Bezier persuasion. I used to be really fond of them but now understand Mark's reluctance to use them. They will not produce what we 3D folk call a ruled surface which in itself is of little use to man nor beast without further faffing with. It gets worse as I have to make a planer surface and use several datum surfaces to draw on. I know how to use datum planes and switch geometry between them. I thought I did. Bloody hell, bugger, sod this for a game of soldiers, I thought at times I'd more chance of shagging the Pope. Five hours and thrice that number of 'Belly Ups' and I knew I needed some 'Upskilling', that or a kick up the arse. I had a break, took the dogs out to see the sheep, came back through the forest where they sorted the squirrels and tried again.

It works.

I got a bit overexcited and had it wander in two dimensions but wriggly tin it is.

One of if not the only highlight of this pain in the arse is this.

This is called a Point Cloud, you can ask for more or fewer points but I left well alone. I did appreciate the coloured dots and the computer does as well.

All good insulators should be gold or ceramic. I did this in gold.

Not perfect but it is most definitely wriggly.

Can anyone confirm that Jacinda Arden's net worth is $25 million ? I suspect she has personally bred a Gold Cup winner. If not she is a bit bent or a bent bint.

Have fun.

RATS.

 Rats, rats and rats again.

Things I once found easy have become very hard in the last couple of days. The engine is at the stage where I have to decide on dimensions. I'll not bore you too much, working in CAD poses as many problems as it solves. One can get a pretty picture but will it do the job. The answer in my case is no. 

Normal four stroke engines use total swept volume but in a two stroke as the exhaust is just over halfway up the cylinder we get into effective swept volumes and on it goes. I have tried differentiating volumes against pressure using Boyles Law. I can't keep track with all the resolving of the integration. It's a nightmare. Does my head in.

The good news is that my stew pot has been popped in a casserole dish after a couple of days and will do tomorrows tea with a quick microwave. That will be four days for one days shopping and cooking. I'm considering getting some lambs liver, cooking it up with a bit of neck from the same source, adding all the sprouts that came from Lidl for next to nowt. I'll give it all a boil and I'll be set for a few days or more. Could be a challenge for folk of a parsimonious bent to keep a stew pot going right through winter. We used to do it for a few weeks on the boats, worked very well, I'd forgotten how well. It gets tastier as time goes on.

Now back to things that are confusing to me. The bugger below is not right yet as I can't do pocket features on a non planer surface. I know I can but the computer keeps ballsing it up.

This sort of thing is harder than it used to be. I have got an exhaust pipe with equal areas start to finish.

I have twigged this is an exhaust bung but it's but a minutes job to give it a wall thickness and make it proper. Perhaps dementia is further away than I suspected, I am determined to sort this job. 

I usually have a flick through Going Postal. It's not a bad site for libertarians.

Here are a couple of screen grabs.

This is hard to believe unless one has wanted sorting.

Disregarding what the job entails but offering HCA is an admission that the NHS is as most know a money sink no longer fit for purpose run by money grubbing bastards and serviced by and large by the same. The NHS are employing folk for a non-job in Denmark Hill (that's Londonistan) and paying for private health on top of mega bucks for a non job. To add to the piss take they get this private health care but when I wanted my National Insurance back for having made my own arrangements. Well you can guess. We are an NHS with a country attached.

I'll keep trying with the wee engine. I suspect I'll get there.

Have fun.

 

LIKE WINNING THE LOTTERY.

 I had a couple of hours on the engine last night and am getting close to the really boring bit of creating a spread sheet. This will allow me to alter things like bore and stroke, any dimensions and all in the blink of an eye. If I do it properly it will then automatically update the Sketches and Parts. Realistically the chances of my doing it properly are close to zero.

This morning I went to Lidl and really scored. I got a big tray of stewing steak reduced to £3.60p, hang on I'll see how much it weighed. Just back from the rubbish bag.......750gm and it was £3.35p. I then got their sundry veg bag for a stew. It's now bubbling away and will last me three days. I stocked up on their thick cut Marmalade, good stuff and about £0.45p a jar, also their malted bloomers, nice bread and £0.90p a loaf. The real score was a veg box for £1.50. It would be good to be able to see these boxes before getting ones messages but they aren't that daft. I haven't bothered with a veg box for three weeks as they were full of crap. Today mine was brilliant. It contained. A bag of apples, they are Jaz which will do at a pinch but if not I'll bribe the horses with them. A bag of carrots, a packet of radishes, a packet of fresh basil, 4 off sweet corn, 2 large aubergine, 4 baking potatoes, a bag of baby potatoes, a big bag of sprouts, a packet of tiny cucumbers, a packet of miniature bell peppers and something weird that I can't identify. The latter looks in good nick so I'll try it in a cheese butty. I suspect it's a Jerusalem artichoke or the similar thing that tastes of aniseed, it doesn't smell of aniseed so I'll risk it.

It's a good job that the £1.50p boxes are usually a bit below par or I could see myself turning into a vegan. That would do my street credibility no end of harm.

Have good weekend.

A FEW OBSERVATIONS.

No silly renders today. Ali is no more. he is away to the stable in the sky. He got cancer at twenty six. Got thin and wasn't eating properly but he seemed reasonably happy. Yesterday after a scan. Horrible images from the Vet of cancer in the thorax and the esphogis (can't spell it but it means throat) the knacker man came and euthanised him. What is it with the world we live in that has to use words like euthanatized instead of killed. I suspect we should have more wars.  

Years ago I lusted after a Mac computer, I got a used one and it was okay, super fast as an OS. Then decided they were form over function, that's why they were quick. That and the fact that nobody does anything constructive on a Mac made me to pop a Windows OS on here.  Linux is the way to go but I want a tool and not another puzzle. (I'm frit) 

I use development software and it comes on several levels. Blender is now Adobe standard or near enough it doesn't have Illustrator polishedness. FreeCad is like Blender ten years ago. I can use SolidWorks but only if someone's paying.

 

The newest software I have used in 2D is magic. I Forget what it's called but Aerospatiale developed the new one they have down the road. It's far from cheap. Like many such things it was paid for with your money but the profits go to the company. I suspect what we used to call money laundering. It is user friendly but I can't see any benefit other than it's render engine. If you are presenting stuff to engineers a drawing would suffice. Be quicker and cheaper to do as I do and pop your stuff into Blender and render it there. Not to worry another few billions the developers won't see but politicians will. 

We got given Comprehensive Education. Not for the benefit of pupils but for the staff. A Secondary Modern teacher could become a proper Learner and get the same wages as someone teaching posh kids. What's more nobody could sack the useless. Same with the Polytechnics deciding it become a university every twat no matter how dim could become a professor.

I hear on the news that Crap 26 is not just a bean feast. It's really a serious attempt to stop us dying. Pull the other one. 

Climate cooling/warming has been superseded by CO2 by the semiliterate. I'm happy as it was always a pain having to write CO². The total CO² (got it off pat now) in the atmosphere is 0.4%. 

Naturally occurring CO² is 97%.

Therefore 3% is man made.

3% of 0.4% is 0.0012%. I can't be arsed working out how much the Prince of Wales contributed flitting around.

Remember less than 0.14% CO² and plants will die. 

Its all a money laundering load of shit.

For anyone hard of thinking that can't work out a percentage of a percentage then just ask. 

3

NOT QUITE WHAT I ENVISAGED.

I've experienced a few entertaining hours today. The cylinder head, which in this case is the cylinder bottom, is not far off good enough. The end cap I notice has had a recess malfunction but that can be easily fixed.

Here is the result of todays struggles. 

I was somewhat discombobulated during assembly to realise it bears more than a passing resemblance to a birdfeeder. The base is nothing to do with the engine, I popped it in to give the cylinder something to sit on. There are still a dozen little bits to model before the cylinder assembly is complete, with a following wind it should be done for Friday.

I'm not sure how much I'll get done tomorrow as it's a horse visiting day. I'm getting there slowly and getting much quicker at modelling, practise makes a world of difference.

Have fun.

PS. I forgot to say that this measures 48mm x 31.7mm across the support pillars.