BACK ON TRACK.

 Look at this.

From squiggles to individual points or in this case cubes. The cube can be swapped for a seed, petal or leaf.

It has a bit of a curve on the 'Z' axis all controllable. These are a bit far apart but that can be solved.

I just have to alter the scale factor but it also scales on 'Z' no worries. I can just adjust the fall off.

Now I've got this far it is easily adjustable. I like the new system, once I got into it separating the vector stream from the attributes it makes life much better. Thanks Blender.

Here is the node tree for any that fancy a go.

Not too bad as these things go. The colour ramp needs setting to either ease or B-Spline and it also requires the math multiply node in front as colour ramps are clamped. That had me baffled for a good while. There is probably a more elegant way of doing this but it works and is easily animated with key frames on the Count in the first node.

Now this has taken about six hours but were I to do it again it's a thirty minute job. It's all my cuckoos that waste time.

Now it's back to bed for me as I have to go out later, assuming I can get out.

Have the BBC reported Putin bombing hospitals or baby milk factories yet? It's usually their first lie in squabbles like this.

LOST GROUND.

 I am back to where I was with the Sunflower malarkey. I can now do it in the latest version of Blender.

In home news it has snowed again and in world news that little scallywag Putin has defied incontinent Joe and invaded Ukraine. I hope it doesn't adversely effect the Democrats income stream.

Here are a couple of views from the van. I have split toned them as the snow needed brightening up a bit.

I have found a wonderful new word. PHYLLOTACTIC..........It's all to with Sunflowers.

Back to where I started a few days ago. If anyone wants to know how to do it then I can do a separate post on the matter.

I am hoping to have a full day sorting the job tomorrow and hopefully will get an animated Sunflower video done for Sunday or Monday.

A SMALL STEP.

 Fibonacci, the famous one legged, Sub-Saharan, lesbian, man who was very good at adding up and could also manage taking away.* He, she, it has given me a few hours entertainment over the last couple of days. Is it still Black History Month? I expect so, it's always Black History Month unless it is MGBGT Month.

* Just in case I've caused confusion Fibonacci was Italian so White, possibly slightly tinged.

I got it doing it. These are Geometry Nodes in Blender, it's like programming for dummies. This follows exactly the same maths as that in the previous post. As you can see it now animates. Which would have been beyond me using Python.

Now what I have to do is model a sunflower seed and pop it in to replace the squiggles. A simple job using a node called Point Instancer or something like that. There are still several hours work and fun left in this project. This was done in an older version of Blender as the Attribute Nodes seem to have been decimated and I couldn't find anything I wanted. Bloody Blender.

I'll have a look into the matter later. 

Tomorrow is a busy day for me, I'm going to see the horses in the morning and after that I have a motorbike to investigate. Hopefully it will be something and nothing but it did sound a bit poorly on the phone. 

I am still on track to get a quick video out over the weekend with all the bells and whistles that Resolve can manage. That should read "I can manage."

It looks as if the Truckers are hanging on in there. I guess it won't stop till Trudy starts shooting their children. I'm somewhat surprised he hasn't already. Nasty bastards are Liberals if you upset them.

A GOOD START.

 A good start to the week. After a few special words, I got the Kindle apart, removed the old battery, popped the new one in, charged it while I took the dog a walk and when we got back all was just perfect.

Should be good for another year or five. Probably has a longer future than I have.

I am still learning to use Davinci Resolve and hope to make a short video of a flower head and edit it in Resolve. I got in a mess with the codeing, which considering I was copying it from a Blender forum was something of an achievement. It works fine now. I'd typed 99 instead of ((. Blender is pretty good as it knows where the mistake is, pity it doesn't just correct it.

This is the script. If I click the little Run arrow top right in the left hand window it produces a Golden Spiral like a Sunflower head.

See, perfect. Now to add a bit of a dome to it on the Z axis and a few petals, then I will attempt to animate it growing for a short video clip. I may be gone some time but it could be ready for the weekend.

AT LONG LAST.

 After ten days my new Kindle battery has arrived. It turned up at the stables a couple of days ago but I wasn't due to go horseing till today. 

Now Kindle Readers are pretty good but I had the screen go bonkers on my first one after fourteen months. Amazon were reasonable and after some argument I got a new one for forty pounds. I kept the old one and dug it out delved inside and removed it's battery about eighteen months ago as the battery in the new eight year old one was knackered. Now a couple of months ago I noticed the reclaimed battery was showing signs of age. I went on t'internet and was horrified to find that not only do different models of Readers have different batteries but it's also age dependant. After much scratching about I found the serial number of mine and ordered a new battery from Battery.com. They aren't cheap but you do get a new battery.

Here it is.

All's fine so far, but they are buggers to handle, being as thin as an After Eight mint and about as structurally stable. You don't want to snap one as they fizz and smoke. Now Amazon glue them in top and bottom. Don't try and lever them out or they will break and fizz and it's not nice. One has to warm them up with a hair dryer to soften the glue but not too much as they will go ape shit if you overdo it. Don't worry, the battery says on it that it's bomb proof to 60°C so I guess safe to twice that. I go to hot to my finger, not very scientific but enough to sort the double sided tape they stick them with.

I like how things from foreign countries now come with a proper customs form. Cost me nothing extra this time so nice to see. I'm surprised the lefties aren't in favour of this job creation. 

Not cheap but cheaper by far than a new Kindle. Amazon don't make a battery swap easy and Apple are much the same. Getting the back cover off takes hands as steady as a midwifes and the nerves of a bomb disposal bloke.

Why, when we are continually berated for polluting the planet, do government and big business make it so hard for me to do my bit? 

In other news it looks as if Canada has become Fascist. Who would have thought that a rather thick soy boy homosexualist like Justine Castro could get elected or once elected have the nerve to throw a paddy and come down with such draconian powers on a few truckers. It's coming to us in the UK. The New World Order despots are just practising on Canada, New Zealand and Australia.  

THIS WORKS.

 The Fibonacci Sequence or Golden Ratio. I didn't sleep well last night so got up and tried to recall how I got the computer to create a Fabonacci sequence. I've done it before but I must admit I struggled over something so simple that I got tired and fell asleep. It did the job.

This works now, it is quite satisfying when a computer instantly produces a series of adding ups. 

(a)  is the number you want it to iterate to.

the x, y bit and visa versa is Pythonese for making it use the last value when it starts a new iteration. I think. Ignore the left hand window, that just shows that x + y gives x for each iteration.

The above is it doing my birthday.

It's a beautiful day here. I went into Cupar first thing and despite slip sliding survived intact. The back roads are pretty grim with frozen melt water and hard rutted snow. Not to worry it livens up a dull drive.

No wind damage here and I hope you faired the same.

WEATHER.

 At last winter has arrived. It's a nice change, I enjoy weather. Nothing to worry about here but I suspect it is about an inch too deep for the car so I'll make do with staying in. The schools are on holiday so the council won't bother with the glen road and the machines can manage fine so it can stop as it is.

That's all for today. Have a great weekend.  I'm a bit slow, I've only just realised this storm is called EU nice. I see it's blown the roof off the O2 Arena. 

"It was only supposed to blow the bloody doors off."

VIDEO.

 I have found out that you don't have to use YouTube to get the training videos from Blackmagic.

If you go here to TRAINING .They are all here along with project files, E-Books and examinations. It's all free. This is what the page looks like.

It's all rather wonderful and I may be gone some time.

I have sorted a camera ready for video so that is all set up and ready to roll. I am considering taking some Macro video this summer and will have a look at LED lighting to illuminate tiny insects.

I'm only running on 2/3rds throttle as my head is really thick and my nose is runny. It's what I used to call Man Flu but I suspect it's called Chinky Pox now. Not to worry, I've done well as it's the first cold I've had this winter.

TASKER'S PONIES.

 Last night I managed to download Resolve 17. I'm sticking with colour correction at the moment as it gets me used to clicking round an unfamiliar interface. An hour ago I decided to have another go at the ponies with the blue vignette.

This is the original image. I tried masking it with some success but it was far from brilliant. Now resolve has a wonderful masking system you could start with a circular mask but better than that you can convert the mask to a Bezier curve and really get it just so. I tried that and it was pretty good. I then decided to just work with colour channels. This got rid of the blue cast without masking.

This worked fine as it has an even warm cast. I couldn't get rid of it in Resolve cos I don't know what I'm doing. 

There is a way of sampling across the image but I couldn't find it again. I am enjoying this software. I'm skipping about all over, having a whale of a time. I am still not sure what the colour and luminance Spectograph thingies should look like, the one bottom right is read across the image from left to right I think but quite how to read the spiders web one I'll have to look at the tutorial again. Blackmagic have popped lots of tutorials on YouTube for version 17.

I couldn't leave it like that so popped it into Photoshop and got it as good as I could. It looks a bit Agfaish. I prefer that to bloody Kodachrome which I find horrid.

This is different and probably about as good as it will get without the tutor lassie from Blackmagic doing it.

I'm going to play with the video masks next as they are virtually automatic, it reminded me of stitching panoramas years ago, little markers here there and everywhere. Same with tracking in Blender. With version 17 one just presses Ctrl T and the mask tracks near perfectly from frame to frame and if it does lose the plot one stops the track and finds an area of contrast for it in the frame where it threw a wobbly, the mask still only affects the bit you masked but seems to know where it's going again.

 I'm like dog with two tails.

POST PRODUCTION II.

 I have had a few hours YouTubing and am now using Blackmagic's tutorials. They are both extensive and for the most part easy to understand. I have started with the 'Introduction To Colour Grading.'  I'll now upgrade to the new Version 17 as it has many features my version is lacking. One thing that I like straight away is that by using the scroll wheel you can increase/decrease settings by tiny amounts. The mask tool is a dream to use though I'll watch the tutorial again as I fouled up.

I'll get Version 17 tonight as it's a big upload and will take several hours.

Then I plan to shoot some video and have a play with that. I can see this software seeing me out. Not really, a couple of hours a day for a month should see me get comfortable if not proficient. I have always been impressed with this programme but I was never enthused enough to bother learning it. 

I heard on the radio yesterday that I should go and get AIDS tested. Whatever else I am I'm certain that Aids is the least of my worries. I wonder what money laundering scam they will come up with next?

POST PRODUCTION.

 Post production.

Unfortunately what follows has nothing to do with these sort of posts, it is much more complicated than firing a chainsaw up and sharpening a stick.

At the pinnacle of free post production software is Davinci Resolve, I have tried using it in the past but through idleness have stuck with Adobe and Blender. Regardless of any interest here I thought it a good opportunity for me to learn it or at least try to. It will take many hours so unless you are interested in image production then I suggest you don't bother.

Here is a starter video. It will show the words and music to get you going.

Now have a look and see what you think. If you are going to learn anything complicated from YouTube you will not want adverts popping up or the internet throwing a wobbly so I suggest you go HERE and download WinX You Tube Downloader and keep it updated as YouTube don't seem to be friends with it. It's a bit naughty but naughty adds spice to life. You will need two screens so you can edit and watch at the same time. If you already have a camera and lenses a monitor is peanuts, get the biggest and best you can justify. It is also sensible to get a Spyder to colour correct your monitors. Have a look here at DATACOLOUR. Mine is a really old one but still seems to work. I understand that digital studios do theirs every shift and probably leave them powered up, I do mine every month or so or if I have to send something for print.

I'm going to start learning the Davinci workflow, promise. Resolve can edit video, edit audio, colour correct, colour grade, the latter can be done semi automatically using Look Ups or LUTs or manually.  It is now owned by Black Magic the Melbourne builders of very posh and very expensive cameras but you don't need their hardware to use their software.

I'll see how I get on and hope to share the experience with someone or someones.

 Should you win the lottery or are already blessed with mega bucks and purchase a Red or Black Magic video camera and can't get on with it then I would be more than interested in offering it a good home. I also lust after an Arca Swiss or Ebony camera with a digital back. I suspect this isn't going to happen but dreams are free.

I'm off today but working tomorrow. I was given a digital gift card for Aldi this Christmas but until this morning it has been of little use as the casheruppers didn't know what to do with it. Third time lucky, there was a very pretty young girl on the checkout, red hair, freckles and blessed with an arse to die for. I said don't panic over it. She said it'll be a piece of pish, now don't you worry yourself. I'll type the bar code in then the pin and you'll see, away it will go. Away it did. She then said very slowly, as if talking to a geriatric, now don't you go losing it, keep it safe as there's still three quid and a bit left on it. I said you are a star bar, they should make you manager. She said I'm far too bright to manage an Aldi. A great lass, I can see how Prince Andrew got in bother. She's going to break a heart or three. She has already broken mine. I hate being old. I do accept that she'd consider twenty five ancient.

I MUST BE THICK.

 I have been following the saga of the Truckers in Canada. It looks as if they may win despite the odds against them. What I struggle to understand is why the liberals and socialists have taken against the workers and the right leaning politicians seem, for the most part, to support them. Surely it can't be that all lefties are hypocrites. One thing is obvious, very few could drive a truck and few understand trucks or truckers. There was one daft old bat suggesting slashing truck tyres, good luck with that.

I know our Prime Minister is a clown and almost useless but unfortunately the alternatives seem worse. Trudeau and Arden are not only strange and inept but also tyrannical. I shouldn't be surprised, Liberals are only ever liberal for as long one agrees with them.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

  

A THOUGHT.

 I offered some help on image editing. I can hear some of my peers pissing themselves, they'll be saying what next, the blind instructing the hard of hearing. I have made a point of never listening to their mockery. I accept I know sweet fuck all compared with the professionals but I console myself with not being as tedious as them. I'm also much better looking.

I took this HDR image this morning, it was snowy and icy on my side of the glen but the north side looked fine.

The road follows the south side so it was a bit slippy slidey and I noticed someone had hit the bank big time. Not me I've got posh tyres on specially made for freezio and can go zooming along fine until ground clearance becomes a problem, didn't need the traction control once. I can turn that on and off, wish I could do the same with ABS. I hate the brakes doing their own thing, sometimes it's nice to be able to aim hit the peddle and slide into something soft.

I have been giving the colour correction business some thought. I have got some basic videos tagged from good teachers on the Blender work flow. What they don't tell you is how to either get Blender or set it up so that you can use it. I'll do that for you on Sunday. I'll warn you now you will have to pay attention. It uses Nodes where as Photoshop uses layers. If you can't use Photoshop this won't be a problem. If you use the industry standard which is called NUKE you won't be interested, it uses nodes as well but theirs go vertically and not horizontally and don't say in the box what they do, like Fusion you have to have a gander across to another window.

 Blender is free and for the most part doesn't need compiling skills, certainly not for what I anticipate showing you. You can use it without short cut keys but it's easier to use them than hunt through menus. It will be confusing but not as mind boggling as listening to Chris Whitty, Valance, Ferguson. Hope I've spelt his name correctly but no matter it will be more accurate than any of his forecasts.

I'll do it as a video, I find videos a few hours work but no worries, I enjoy doing them. If all you want to do is edit snaps then white balance in Gimp is fine along with crop and other basic editing. If you use your phone then don't bother if all you want is a 3"x2" image for Facebook or Blogger there are apps available that will sort things with a click or not and editing JPEG is a waste of time.

Have fun, I'm going to. I have a Kindle 4 whose battery is on it's last legs. I have a new one winging it's way to me from Batteryupgrade. They have done a couple of deliveries here, they aren't cheapo but the two I have, one for seed drill and the other for a laptop are top quality. I got my first Kindle eleven years ago and the screen died thirteen months later. After much argy bargy I got a new one. The lassie said is all this worth your time, I told her it has taken two hours and it's a rare day I can earn fifty pounds an hour. The new one is fine but a couple of years ago I had to swap the battery from the duff screen one into my new, by now, old one. I have to do it again next week. It's not difficult but it is fiddly. Amazon don't make it easy they glue the cover on with a double sided Sellotape stuff for no obvious reason other than to stop you getting in. Five minutes with some totties hair dryer sorts the glue and with the plastic chisel I got from the mobile mending man I'm in. A few tiny screws, off with the battery cover, prize the old battery out lift up the flap on the power lead tape, rinse and repeat with the new battery and pray. It's harder than swapping a GPU but only because computers aren't stuck together with Sellotape.

Have fun.

See you Sunday if there is any interest. 

 

GOOD AND BAD.

 A new family moved into the glen around two years ago. Nice folk now they've settled. Mrs Newfolk rides horses as does her daughter. The glen road is single track so folk pull over and wait for them to ride past. Now folk round here can't just let a chance meeting go to waste and usually send their window down for a chat. Some even do so in the middle of town. I stopped for Mrs Newfolk last week and sent the window down to say hello and the horse stuffed it's nose in the car. She said I wish people wouldn't do this, he thinks they've stopped to speak to him. I said, he's most likely right as I scratched his nose. Took her a couple of days to come round. 

Yesterday I was casting my eyes over a few Blogs. Hiawatha was still in a muddle, struggling to work his glasses mask and hearing aid. The worrying thing is he is still driving a car. Could be worse. His car could be a truck.

 Seem to be doing all right do those Canuke truckers, good lads and lasses. Nothing much on the news but plenty of updates on YouTube. Don't know whether Fidel Trudeau has come out of hiding but he ought to. I'm slightly surprised he isn't poncing about dressed as a trucker, he has much in common with our Royals he seems to love dressing up.

 I then had a look at Tasker Dunhams blog. He has a bit of a problem but he does post through a posh domain so I thought I'd give his issue some attention. I use CS6 as it was paid for by a lovely if hefty lass who worked for Lovejoy Productions. Prior to her or her company's generosity I used Photoshop Elements or Gimp. I don't work on photoshoots or movies anymore as if I kneel down I find it embarrassing to be helped back up. Anyway lets get back on track here. Taskers slides.

Not good and it's funny that the tint is uniform. I decided to have a play it took three plays as I've never been good with colours.

This is better but a bit blurry.

This looks okay to me but if a proper editor got to play he/she/it could make me look a right numpty.

This one is a challenge so I spent twenty minutes on it. Just for fun as I'd forgotten to look at the clock and had a cuckoo to sort first thing. It was before first thing so I gave it a go.

This is odd as analogue film is very forgiving. It's so uniform that I wondered if someone had got some filters for Christmas. The information is all there but a bit of a bugger to mask and retrieve.

Not bad but I used to mix with folk that could colour correct video on the fly. The hefty unit being one. I'd have got a boot up the bum for this. It does show that nothing is lost and computers can sort most problems. This is a multi masking, cloning job and could be improved over an hour or so but I doubt by me. You can do it with video frames by tracking the mask and praying hard. If you are not into prayer one has to be bloody good. In theory anything can be sorted. Look at colourised war footage. Magic it is.

I feel a bit sad for Australians. This is their new Wellcamp in Toowamba Queensland.

No chimneys yet. At least not in this model. It has a runway and not a railway but suspect that is what our rulers call progress.

Have fun.

SMILE.

 I look back to comedy sketches made half a lifetime ago and realise that the snowflakes have taken them as literal instructions. Monty Python et al what did you do?

This would be funny were it not for the fact that many individuals in government think it worth sabre rattling over some shithole on the north shore of the Black Sea. They have oil and gas, they pay the Biden family's expenses. We could do that, the British Isles are made of every sort of hydrocarbon stuff. It pops up and out all over.

However they prefer to argue over parties, cake and whether or not Sir Queer let Savile off, our NHS gave Savile free reign so did Queeny. He had little choice if he wanted to be dubbed. The decision he should be tackled on is the Muzzie paedos. I wonder why Boris didn't bring that up. It's a mystery beyond my ken. I shouldn't hazard a guess but I will. I suspect too many state employees were possibly involved. Let me know in the comments. Did you work in the police force, education, the NHS or social services and were a paedophile?

For those hard of thinking in those sectors paedophile means shagging children or getting a blow job.

It's much the same with climate change, governments think they are omnipotent and can control our planets climate and it's populations sniffles. Rubbish the state sector can't go for a crap without instruction and supervision. That supervision is very expensive. We are better off than we were but what use is a smart phone, a posh car or computer without affordable and reliable power?

I am starting to wonder if the Greenies in suburbia will still be pontificating about things they know nowt about when they have to cope with not just an increase in energy costs but a rationing of energy itself.

You will really laugh at this. Our glorious leader up here; Wee Nippy has decided to increase oxygen in school classrooms and hence in the students blood by chopping a foot off the bottom of all school doors. I just hope they never have a fire. I would just tell the kids to take their masks off and try breathing deeper. I doubt Monty Python could have dreamt that one up.

Have a great weekend. (French, Weekend)

CLARIFICATION REQUIRED.

 It's been a bit breezy here and cold as well but we are fine. I lost the damaged hatch cover on Saturday night but have got it properly sorted now and last night it was perfect.

I popped into Cupar first thing for some very posh high temperature silicon seals. They have been on back order for ages, nothing to do with Brexit as I was talking to a friend in Florida and he is waiting ages for stuff as well. Whilst in the big town I called at Lidl, didn't buy much but got enough stuff to keep me going. 

I got a couple of tins of these as they go well in a stew or as I prefer to call it a casserole. One of my five a day! Christ on a bike if I managed five tins of beans in a day I'd be farting like a vegan or a horse.

I have a vegan casserole on the go.

It has the beans, onions, half a bulb of garlic, a big handful of those yellowy orange seeds, potatoes and cos it didn't look right one and a half pounds of best mince. I think the woke folk call it a flexitarian stew. Here we call it Tatties and Mince. This will see me through till Wednesday or possibly Thursday. Sorry about the focus on this but when I use shallow depth of field I must remember to focus on either the foreground or background. Just remembered the little yellow seeds are called lentils, very good for thickening a casserole they are if those about one don't mind you blowing off.

I tried vaping a few years ago and didn't get on with it. I am having another go.

I hope this time it works and I can limit rollups to high days and holidays and cigars to Christmas and Easter.

I've been studying the new Highway Code. It seems sensible by and large but cyclists ought to pay road tax and insurance if I'm expected to let them ride where they like. Pedestrians jay walking glued to a mobile phone or listening to stuff through ear buds, should be warned and if caught again have their legs chopped off. I am still working through it all but opening the door with my left big toe is going to take some practise. May have to get a Chauffer to do that job or get a left hand drive car. I can see problems here. Anyone recall The Green Cross Code, daft buggers had kids leaping in front of cars. They thought the Jolly Giant would save them. The same children now old believe in a jab or five. Terminally stupid they are. If I'd had three polio jags in a year and then got polio, maybe, just maybe I would think....wait a moment.

I was beginning to think that the populations of Canada, Australia and New Zealand had all turned into pooftas. The Canadian truckers and all their supporters have proved me wrong. Soy boy Justin Castro has gone into hiding and Ottawa is in party mode. It makes me wonder if he was christened Justin or happen it's a nickname his wife gave him.

Truckers Sir, a fringe minority Sir, most likely racists Sir.

That's Just In on the far left. Far right if one is not used to looking at images.

It's not all bad news. In fact things are looking up.

OXFAM missed a trick here, can't imagine any right minded bloke not paying three pounds a month to save her. Whether or not she can be arsed walking three miles a day for water would matter not a jot in Scotland. Perhaps Oxfam are still committed to shagging children. I understand they have promised to stop since they were told it's a bit naughty.

That's almost all from the loony bin. I'll leave with this.

Sad it's more of the same.

KEEP ON TRUCKING.

 

Just in case you missed this on MSM outlets. I'm sure they just haven't noticed it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAULINE.

 Happy Birthday Pauline. Here is a video card to celebrate.

This is the fall back video as I bit off more than my GPU could cope with. It was a combination of the bubbles, lack of grunt and my not having any new Arctic Paste for the cooler tubes and CPU patch. A bad workman always blames his tool. Have fun, it would be good to see the grown young ladies waving magpie scarer flags to help celebrate. I will never forget that, be good to watch them re-enact the idiocy.

Have a great day and let us hope for a few more.

EXR.

 I have been trying to learn compositing, I'm getting there but slowly. I needed a few letters with a glow on a transparent background. When I tried to render and save the animation as .PNG files it wouldn't have it. Blender supports .EXR files and they will support anything you fancy popping in them. I've never used them before as I believed the files to be a silly size.

Works a treat, if you look carefully the background is crosshatched which means there isn't one. That is the Alpha Channel.

Here is a screen grab of the Compositor.

I have yellow highlighted the important bits. In the composite node make sure use alpha is checked and that the node is plugged in. File format has dozens of options but Open EXR is the one, make sure RGBA is checked and for this image Colour depth (or 'Z') can be popped on Half Float as that gives 16bits, more than enough for this, it helps keep file sizes reasonable. The files are surprisingly small at 3MB about 30% more than a PNG file but a fraction of a camera RAW file.

Now it's siesta time.

DIRTY, DIRTY BOOTS.

 This morning after I'd finished with the horses I came back and read Cro's post. All about boot scrapers it is. He thinks you can get one for fifty quid, dream on. Cost one a hundred to get it grouted in. The NHS doesn't pay for itself you know, nor do our representatives and associated bureaucracy. (Burokasy must be the hardest word to spell). Working men are slaves in this country for 80% of their working lives. Possibly more if they like a smoke.

 I was feeling peckish and while I was waiting for Jacob to get my kebab and retrieve the betting slip I set to on the laptop and made one.

It's not bad for a welly cleaner and remover. It's not an original idea but I added a twist.

It's not automatic. You pop the heel of your boot in the semi-circular cut out and pull like buggery. I noticed some folk were thinking you needed a forked piece of wood. Not at all. This does it all.

There seemed to be some interest, were I to go ahead with production all would be made in the Kingdom of Fife out of the best Chinese or Indian metal available, no problems with smoke and other nasties on your doorstep. Quality control would be strictly enforced by means of nicey words, followed by a good smack from the boot scraper they'd fouled up. Quality is assured I can assure you.

It's fifty years since that treacherous Ted Heath signed us up to the EEC. Turned out well. Like hell it did we ought to have chased Germany for reparation. Instead the powers that be were wimps. What happened to the age old adage. To the victor goes the spoils? Load of slack arsed lefty fannies even back then. 

Have a good week.

LIGHT.

 

As you can tell this is an original bit of art by Adrian. I hope it depicts light at the end of a tunnel and not a bloody great lorry.

It looks as if Bumbling Boris has got things heading back towards normality. I could sense a change about a week ago with advisors and politicians starting to go into squeaky bum mode; hedging and fudging their comments. 

Boris is undoubtedly a disorganised chancer but the leftards really should know better than to poke him with pointed sticks. The boy appears to have done good.

The battle is far from over, the idle and fearful will not give up without a bit of a fight. I see Long Covid being dragged up but as I suspect it only affects state employees nobody but them will either notice or care overmuch. 

Here's a toast to hope.

HALF SORTED - I HOPE.

 I've had a few more hours playing with this text. I suspect this is about as good as the job will get. There's lot's more to animate but the materials or Shaders as Blender calls them are about as good as I can get them. I am having trouble rendering with a transparent background but I'll have a look at the instructions.

Here is a bit of video showing the animation so far.

Ignore the bit at the start with the bubbles jumping around, they are emitted as particles from a plane about in the middle and it takes them a while to get going properly. For the final animation I'll set them going 60 frames earlier at F-60 and then render from F1. The text needs further movement, I'll try keyframing scale and rotation for each letter. 

I have about a dozen test renders and I think this one or something similar will do.

The depth of field is a bit shallow but that is easily sorted. 

Looking at the above I think I may have been a bit optimistic but I'll give it a rest for a day or two and see if I can dream up a solution.

PS. Just realised that I should have popped a background in.

I blame the Chinkysniffles.

Not sure it improves things but I have been very trying.

BUBBLES.

 I wasted half of yesterday moping about, I am missing Alf something rotten even though I had seen the day coming for several weeks. I gave myself a kicking and got on with birthday stuff.

 It is birthday video season so I had a look for something bright, cheerful and animatable. I saw something I think is called Chromatype playing about. I looked for instructions on YouTube but only found a rather piss poor result by an interesting looking lass. I realised that with some practise I could, with a fair wind, do better. 

This morning after a quick visit to Sainsbury's and a more protracted call in at the stables I settled down to give it a really good seeing to. I love Blendering and it's just as well. This is really hard to get right so many adjustments and in typical Blender fashion they are either way too sensitive or do bugger all until you change the one above. Little wonder posh, bright folk write their own bits of script for repetitive jobs. Even a numb nut like me has taken to using a few characters of Python code to animate stuff. Blender being Open Source is excellent for this as you can re-code anything to suit yourself. I must confess it doesn't help me that much but it's nice to know one could were one able.

This is awful, it does have sparkly bits which I popped in using a compositor layer. The depth of field is too shallow but I can sort that bit. The little bubbles I will pop in using particles with no gravity and a Brownian motion. In the video the text expands and contracts along the mesh normals using a Wave Modifier and if I animate the letters then they will intermingle a bit and distort here and there. This is an EEVEE render it looks better rendered in a ray trace render engine and the new Cycles renderer doesn't take that much longer.

This is what it looks like rendered posh and what I would like it to look like I'll try rendering a frame of this and pop it into the compositor for some mist and sparkles. How to get the bubble colour refraction round the edges, I'll give it some thought, I've got a bit of time so maybe adding a touch of Fresnel and colour noise would help.

I've ten days till the next video so no worries.

I do have a tooth giving me serious gyp. It's days are numbered, time for some sailcloth twine and a painful five minutes tugging. Toothache is not nice, how does one tooth give you earache and eyebrow ache? Perhaps it doesn't for normal folk. I have all my bottom teeth but am fast running out of top ones and this s a top one. 

Have fun and enjoy your week.