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 17 April 2019

GETTING THERE.

Disappointing as the result is this has been a marathon effort for me. I did try this once before but that was years ago in an older version of Blender. It was a total failure as I recall, much like this but I am wiser now. Betterer.
This is, despite appearances, not too far away. As you can see I spent only a little time on the sky and landscape but did spend ages trying to get all the settings something like for the murmuration bit. I failed but did promise this for yesterday or tomorrow. It has always struck me as a little odd that in industry a penalty clause is what it says. If one is a bit dilatory or just plain stupid it costs you financially. It never seems to apply to politicians or public sector workers.
I have always been a hopeless birder, in real life I blame the dogs but in this virtual world I can only blame myself. My brother-in-law is poorly but I can't blame him for being a bit under the weather.
Once I have got the birds to perform I'll try and recreate the starlings coming home to roost at Leighton Moss, I have dozens of reference images for the place and also some interesting shots of raptors grabbing supper from the starling flock. That causes absolute chaos as you can imagine. A boid can be introduced to hunt a flock, perhaps a little too ambitious. Where are the images of Leighton Moss and what did I file them under? Could be quicker to nip down and shoot some more. I have two Transcend Drives but then one should keep a little book to say what is where.
 This is created from three identical flocks but in reality they fly into the roost from all directions so I will model a bit better bird, vary the flock size and start location. I think this bird despite looking more like a Corvus works okay. At least it flies forwards, crap into a computer crap out, took me a while to get them going forwards. Same applies to Westminster but crap in stays in and is immovable for five years . Pity Notre Dame caught fire and not Westminster during PMQ's.
The great beauty of Blender 2.80 is that you can get away with very quick renders for video. I purposefully didn't bake or cache this and it is still only taking about 4 to 5s a frame and not, as I type this crashing or running the fans constantly. I whip the processor out and give it a quick clean a spray of arctic whatsit once a year, works a dream. Nothing wrong with the software but I do have to experiment a lot. Sometimes a minor adjustment in settings has the birds or boids dispersing to all four corners of the globe. I'll have another go for next Thursday. I find it very complicated but fun. I'll try to model a proper reed bed for them to land in.

When I get near to realistic 3D I find that I could do with splitting the work a bit. Not to worry, it takes weeks to educate anybody these days to sweep a road. 

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