Yesterday started off well. Computers up and running, started working through the ‘quick start guide’ IT provided for us upon our return. I thought everything went rather smoothly. We had some hiccups with file locations and permissions for individuals the biggest one being permissions. They, IT brought all of our old information from the old company into the new company as read only and a large percentage of these are working files that need to keep the same file name, ‘save as’ is not an option.
Other that those little hiccups things are going great and I have start a new book on C# and Visual Studio, new Udemy courses and finally decided on writing a short ebook to be realeased for the Amazon Kindle. More on that later.
The integration of our manufacturing facility to the new company is just about complete. Three days this week, Christmas, three days next week, new years and on the fourth of January 2016 we will be live in the new systems. Most all of my time right now is data validation for the transition so an update on my Unity and Blender activities will have to come during my little breaks.
P.S. One week of Karma and I am at a usage of 35+ gigabytes
I took a break from any and all tech this week. The computers were down and the TV switched from the boring network crap and so called ‘news’ to Netflix.
It was a great relaxing time which is now over. Time for the real world again and back to Blender and Unity!
I have been playing with my Google Glass the last couple of weeks and as I had suspected, it is a rather expensive toy. Don’t get me wrong I do like playing with this toy and I am learning to use more and more of the features all the time. One item I really like is the ability to look at my eBooks using the Amazon reader in a web browser. I can pull up one of my reference books (Unity, Blender, Access etc.), look up an issue/problem I am having at the moment and without taking my eyes off the screen (almost) get a solution and continue with my project. This came in handy with some scripting errors I had in Unity.
The next new toy/program is the result of a new pricing structure for Unreal Engine 4. Just starting with Unity (the Free version) and wanting to see what the other game engines could do at 19.00 a month without any penalty for canceling the subscription I thought what the hell, I love learning new things especially in the 3d world so why not go for it. To me the 19.00 is well worth it when I usually can not get as much use out of any free 30 day trials I have ever downloaded. This way, it is up to me as to the amount of time I need to experiment and I can cancel at any time if I decide it is not for me or I feel Unity has everything I need. 30 days to try Unity Pro like I said is not enough for a hobbyist to experiment with all the bells and whistles and what makes Unreal so attractive is when or if I cancel the subscription I can still use the program uninhibited. I just can’t get updates to the software although I would still owe them a 5% royalty off the gross profits which of course would be a cost of doing business so the 5% is not exactly 5% when you look a the tax deductions involved. A tax deduction is not a dollar for dollar savings but it does lower that 5% figure.
Having more choices at my finger tips at the beginning of my adventure into new hobbies is great as far as I am concerned and at 19.00 for this first 30 days is a no brainer.
I found this great program for the iPad called ‘TreeSketch 3.0’ in the app store the other day. It is a free download and the program is able to create great looking trees with just a few hand jestures. It is very intuitive as I could use it directly after download without watching any of the tutorials which are quite good so if you are inclined to, download this app and give it a try. I found a few comments regarding individuals having problems with the app with regard to uploading to dropbox but I found no problems. Once uploaded you can import the tree into blender as a .obj. When imported you have materials setup for the leaves and branches, diffuse color is white so you need to change that and you are good to go for a tree in your scene. As imported they are perfect for distance placement however for close up you will need to add textures to the branches and leaves and this program makes this easy. The .zip file uploaded into dropbox also contains the .png textures for the leaves and bark plus a hires transparent .png for use.
I recommend giving this program a shot as it is fantastic especially for a free program.
(I’ll upload a tree this afternoon when I am home)
Started working on and separating the clothing for the Pilot character. When I went back and looked at my base mesh for this character it looks perfectly acceptable for sculpting on without starting over using the skin modifier. Before I continue with the head and face I will finish separating off the clothing from the character. I had already finished separating everything except the shirt/sweater beneath the jacket. I had completely missed that little 🙂 detail. Once this process is complete I will save and place my USB into my pocket so I do not forget it at work again. This is a necessary step since our testing along with the bill of material changes I keep getting from the guy upstairs is making the day very busy and I forget the USB is still plugged in. I wish work would not have turned off our access to Dropbox!
At one point this afternoon I had eight items in work at the same time. For those of you technical people out there like me, I know that ‘multitasking’ is 100% impossible and people as well as computers can only ‘time slice’ their projects making it look like things are being done at the same time, computers being much faster than humans. Anyway, when I was finished I had to take a break, head outside and mentally checking everything off to satisfy myself everything was complete.
P.S. looks like everything may go OK with my little issue at work Monday.
My personal opinion of the two different methods of mesh modeling is that the method presented by CGMasters.net seems to produce the best looking results with the disadvantage of the time it takes. This is of course based on the time it takes me 🙂
I had a great productive day at work today getting much more accomplished than I had anticipated which all boils down to prioritization. It is a pain in the behind as I had to put off items I really wanted to work on but I had to balance what should be done, needs to be done and what can wait and roll into that equation the time it will take for each.
Y’all have a great evening because I am off to watch ‘The Big Brain Theory’ then ‘Mythbusters’ (while blendering) and off to bed because I have to get up at 2:00am and watch ‘Top Shot’!
I changed themes yesterday and now need to be on the hunt for a pic to reside at the top, this will be the question of the day.
The training class I am required to attend this week (making up the two days I missed) is the same training class we received last year. Same book/information, same everything. I did not take me long to catch up with the rest of my coworkers.
That was the good thing about yesterday. Other than class the rest of the day was spent catching up on work sent to me via email from my former group, working on their issues. I say former group but in actuality it is my current group with me assigned other duties while I still take care of everything I left. Ya, two jobs, two desks and no increase in compensation. Lucky I enjoy work
No blender till the weekend 13hr days till class is over.
New site covering miscellaneous activities including my favorite activity: Blender
