Monthly Archives: Feb 2007

Prince Of Wales

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9°C, rain, clearing.

The Prince of Wales inspired little respect in me a few decades ago. Over the last ten years, he has risen greatly in my esteem. Today he said
"Have you got anywhere with McDonald’s, have you tried getting it banned? That’s the key "
It seems that few people have the courage to say something like that. He was in a centre that treats diabetes, see the article: His own "business" affairs have been admirable- actively supporting real farming, eschewing modern factory farming. Decades ago he seemed pompous and out of touch, now he has his niche.
 
Today has seen the laws banning use of mobile phones while driving stepped up, now it includes a 3-point penalty on the driver’s licence. This  practice is possibly the biggest threat to my life in Britain these days.

ragdoll

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9°C, clear 

This video is getting lots of hits on my own website.
It’s quite old now, made about 18 months ago. It uses ragdoll dynamic simulation that is part of the Havok engine in 3ds max 6. I can’t see a way that would allow a pre-loader that can be hosted on live.space. For now, I recommend that you press pause (II) if the video seems jumpy, let it all load, then resume play (>).

Inherit the world?

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10°C, showers

So you’re going to inherit the world. We’re trying to be more "green" for the sake of generations to come. Our youngsters are going to inherit the world from us so we’d best hand it over in a worthwhile condition.
In that case why are the youth so often disinterested in green issues.
To illustrate: today we tidied up the house which was left looking like a land-fill site after one of ours left. I found the bin filled just two days after they were last emptied by the council. In one full bin liner was 9 bottles, mostly 2 litre plastic ones. Next to the bin was the plastic/glass recycling bin which was overlooked in favour of the black land-fill bin. this is from the same child who would drive to work only 0.6 miles away, even when the roads were so icy that the chances of an accident were high.
 
There is no hope of reducing greenouse emissions, nor any other ecological concern. We are wasting our time

Path-deform

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9°C, cloudy & dry.

3DS Max: Animating caterpillar tracks if far easier than you’d think. This opens the possibility of animating a Kettenrad, a German 1940s motorbike with a pair of caterpillar tracks instead of a rear wheel.
Finally, an excuse to experiment with Live-space’s video embed feature. It turns out to be a mis-nomer- the video is not embedded- it’s linked!

Music And Lyrics

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9°C, clear.

Film: we left the cinema trying to remember a film as bad as "Music & lyrics". The Idea was sound, the cast of good heritage- so the ingrediants aren’t against the story. But it was handled as if by a committe, any plot twists or character development were treted with the standard Holywood formula. There was overal, no eye openers, nothing new to the medium of film. Or as a teenager would say – "Boring".
As a critic would say- "forgettable" or as I would – "go and see it if you haven’t got anything better to do".
The cinema was packed.
 
Linseed: thinking ahead- the painting is drying nicely and I am plotting what next. Below is a photoshopped image from the last post. It’s a way of thinking about the chiarascuro of the image.

Holiday mode=On.

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9°C, showers, some heavy.

This & that: posting to Flickr, shopping and trying to get a builder to repair our roof. Why is it so difficult to return a phone call, or give us the quote promised? What else? Mending things, like the vacuum cleaner.
 
Il-2 Sturmovic: 1946. Added a patch which as had some strange side-effects to the main game. Apart from the trouble installing it, (due to a bad memory module) it has removed certain custom mission folders in the game, and left others intact. The pattern seems quite strange. The Single missions are gone, but net games are all as before. Que?
 
Linseed: made a change that could be awkward to complete. I added a hand, see picture, which needs about 4 more layers like the face has had. I have made this mistake before with the painting "Ruff".
It never did look entirely right.

DIMM slots unreliable

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2ºC, snow thawing.

Started the day Painting: continued with fine tuning, moved the vein on the horse’s muzzle, adde a layer to the man’s face and so on. I have an idea for the background, so that could change tomorrow. this picture will easilty be done in the next few days.
Computer fixes: I just put the RAM card back in this computer to see if it runs ok. After a few false starts, it seems that the problem lies with the slots on the motherboard. The cards don’t seem to be making good electrical contacts, so after some fiddling- they are back in. Now running at 1572 MB I am on the lookout for any signs of a crash. Usually programs start reporting errors. Barring IE6 crashing and loosing my first entry this morning- it’s ok for now.

Flickr: has a more lively community than here. Comments are more forthcoming and the response to my phtogrphs has been very good. There seem to be fewer juvenile spangly-glitter posters than here. In fact, it’s encouraging me to take more interest in my camera. Now I am taking all shots using manual exposure settings and it’s like old times. When I used ot use the Olympus OM2sp I always set exposure and focus manually, it makes you think more about what you are trying to get ina picture. the same works on the digital camera. I bet the quality of my photos will improve as a result.

It’s snowing again.

Turned a corner.

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2°C, snowing.

On this glorious (day off) I made a considerable move forward with the second Horse-Stalker painting. A lesson should be learnt here, persist and those slow doubtful days will pass. they had to be done, now I have a really strong picture that suddenly, after 1½ hour’s work I can feel pleased with. the horse has come to life, Ok I aknowledge some faults which can’t be fixed until this layer is dry.
 
Now the picture is uploaded here, it’s a time to consider what to do next. I’m thinking of doing something unusual- use black! That vein on the horse’s nose will have to be moderated. Nothing can be done untill tomorrow or Saturday- when it’s drier.