Ah... the good old DAZ forum attitude has finally reach R'dosity also. If you don't agree with someone start posting images that have nothing to do with anything at all. 

If you don't like something that's going on in a thread, just start posting stupid images and hope it will kill what you didn't like and those you can't agree with will leave? How rude...... especially for people who claim to be socializing, hugging and want good cheer going on.

*What concerns me are the insults and the personal digs which some just can't seem to help themselves from spitting out .*Xeno did you ever stop and think that you're one of these people.... I recall how you started to insult and bring up personal digs that had nothing to do with the topic at all, just a few pages ago.

Sorry to say so, but it seems like some of you are accusing others of the same thing you are so heavily involved into.

Blame others for what you're doing yourself and then start bringing in the cats, how childish. If you don't like a thread, just stay out of it..... but don't try to push others out of it by you're childish behaviour.

Currently, I am working in 'building systems'.  That's laying out designs for lighting, power, fire alarm, telephone, and data communications for commercial buildings of all types.  Government buildings (like schools), restaurants, department stores, doctor's offices, banks, apartment buildings, etc..

I've also worked in oil refineries and industrial plants of various sorts in the past.  My forté used to be instrumentation for chemical process controls.  But I've had a bit of a career change in recent years.

That's my day job.  By night I test 3D products while people sleep.  Or at least while most people in this part of the world sleep.  My wife complains about my schedule at times -- but we've adjusted nicely.  And the cats pretty much match their lifestyle rhythm to whatever yours happens to be.  Of course, the cats also have a way of demanding your attention when you are trying to work.  But I don't mind.  Hey -- I don't even snap at my wife when she comes in .  I'm just such an old softy.........my wife occasionally gets upset with me for not being stern enough with the cats.  She objects to the cats doing things like jumping into the pantry and getting inside of the kitchen cabinets.  Or rubbing your legs while you are eating.  For some reason, those types of things just don't bother me.

But I do tell the cats to stop chewing on my PC's cables.

You know, aeilkema -- if it wasn't for your anti-DAZ obsessiveness I'd suspect that maybe there's a nice guy buried underneath there somewhere.  Or at least I have suspected it.  I've seen your gallery in the past, and your tastes.  I don't read you as being the type of bully, egotist or elitist that some others are.  But I do have problems with your "Johnny-one-note" approach when it comes to DAZ. 

No, aeilkema -- the danger of posting opinions in the forums is that someone else might come into the thread who disagrees with those opinions.  That's the risk that you run while participating in this sort of give-and-take.  When someone says "the people over at DAZ are all a bunch of greed-heads", then I'd like to know where they came by that information.  How many of the DAZ "greed heads" do they know personally?  How many of them have they had lunch/dinner with?  Or how many DAZ company meetings have they attended in order to know these terrible things about those people?

I have no desire to "pick on" anyone.  But I won't hesitate to take on bullies and elitists.  In fact: they tend to attract my attention.

The reason some of us CG with a lightheart is because we realize that this discipline is still young,  still developing. 

you 'test' 3D products?  That reminds me, I'll very soon be putting out some freebies with the intended quality of a decent merchant pack... They will be in need of some testing, and reporting of all things that aren't working well - hint hint ;)

Taht way we can actually 'do' things that some people in thios thrad are just talking about?

Please forgive me, but I have gone through so many posts in last few days that I didn't notice if you had seen/commented on any of the potential freebies I have in the works.

Cats and rules? Those two don't go together LOL  Luckily the only cables my cats like to chew through are the earphone cables to my Ipod... Or, maybe it's not so luckily, I shell out 20 bucks or more a month for replacements.

Fortunately, the one cat that tends to chew on the cables does it lightly -- she doesn't bite down hard.  If she did, then I'd be taking the issue more seriously.  She did manage to chew through one conductor on a thin DC power cord several months ago.  The DC power cord was for my scanner, so I had to effect some repairs to the cord.  But that one occasion was the only time when she's actually damaged anything.  I still shoo her away from the cables, though.

I'd be happy to help you test out your freebies.  Of course, I can't do this for everyone -- but I'll certainly do it for you.   You can contact me via Renderosity site mail when you are ready to go -- I'll send you my contact e-mail the same way.

Quote -
The reason some of us CG with a lightheart is because we realize that this discipline is still young,  still developing. 

 

I think that doing this with a light heart is an excellent approach.  And you are right -- CG is in its infancy.

In a few years (5? 10?), 3D figures WILL look real (even in Poser).  In fact, the models will probably be indistinguishable from a photograph of a real person.

Hey XENOPHONZ

I was thinking,  then I got a tremendous headache from thinking,  now I think I'll stop thinking.  What do you think?

Cheers
Patorak

Just kidding,  you're right though.  For example,  years ago n-gons were a big no no in 3d modeling.  Now the modeling guru's are encouraging it.

Patorak! How dare you make a silly girl think! Arrrgh, now I too have a headache! :P ;)

oh, wait... hug cheers meow

Oh I could while away the hours confering with the flowers if I only had a brain.

What if someone was able to solve for pi,  then all our calculations with pi would have pin point accuracy.  We would no longer be introducing an unknown by rounding pi.  What's more in 3d modeling,  we wouldn't have to use a polygon to simulate a circle or semi-circle.  Oh my God,  if pi is an infinite number then only an infinite mind could solve for it.

I remember my very first computer 3D model, Autocad had just come out with version 9 ( think it was 9, could have been 10), and it would do real 3D geometry, X, Y and Z. So I drew a profile of a christmas tree made out of about 20 line segments, and revolved into a rudimentary little christmas tree!  The 286 computer autocad was installed at the time huffed and puffed for about 10 minutes creating the revolved surface.   Then you could hide edges, and do some rudimentary shading with it. To shade it, you'd have to run it, go out to lunch and come back. 
That was about the time the first version of Sim City came out, and I was going nutty over it LOL.  I think it was around 1988 or 1989, could have been late '87

Quote - What if someone was able to solve for pi,  then all our calculations with pi would have pin point accuracy.  We would no longer be introducing an unknown by rounding pi.  What's more in 3d modeling,  we wouldn't have to use a polygon to simulate a circle or semi-circle.  Oh my God,  if pi is an infinite number then only an infinite mind could solve for it.

A pie? Oh, great, now I'm hungry!
My cats say: why ponder it, just eat it.

I remember my first year of geometry, a teacher gave me an F for knowing pi to 5 decimals when all other kids knew it to two decimals. He thought I cheated on a test and used a calculator when we were supposed to know how to do things long hand. What the silly guy didn't know is that 14159 was my house number at the time!

LOL, one can keep going around in circles trying to solve for PI (I think there's a pun in there somewhere)

Hey Conniekat8

LOL. Now,  with the new xbox 360 and next gen games.  We'll have video games with figures containing 20,000 poly's.  Not to mention customizable content.  All on one consol.  We've come along way that's for sure.

Cheers
Patorak

ROFLOL!  Shhh! Don't let the techies here us talking like this.

Quote - Hey Conniekat8

LOL. Now,  with the new xbox 360 and next gen games.  We'll have video games with figures containing 20,000 poly's.  Not to mention customizable content.  All on one consol.  We've come along way that's for sure.

It's awesome, isn't it?
One of the R&Dprojects I have on my hands here in the office is to take the static models of a future home site which we're making now, plug the model into a game engine, and give to various consultants and potential buyers (home builders), to do self guided tours - video game style. Combine with various overlays of information that is important to them... environmental, utilities, views from houses etc etc... 

One of the non-3d guys here in the office said, oh, wouldn't it be cool if we could make a guy in the imageof the "president of such and such company" walking around the site (third person view)... and I was snickering, thinking, well, we just might be able to do that... tee hee  I should have asked them, would you like a deer standing next to a deer crossing too running away when you get close?

*One of the R&Dprojects I have on my hands here in the office is to take the static models of a future home site which we're making now, plug the model into a game engine, and give to various consultants and potential buyers (home builders), to do self guided tours - video game style. Combine with various overlays of information that is important to them... environmental, utilities, views from houses etc etc...

• heard of this being done on various game engines like the Unreal Engine... tho the simplest way is to convert your model into VRML and just use a web browser....

Tell him it will take some overtime pay to do it right.  I like the look on their faces when the see their 2d blueprints in 3d,  it's like a kid on Christmas morning.

Hey Khai

Thanks!  Great idea!  I've been using the fbx and quicktime.  VRML and web browser I could e-mail it and not be there in person.

Cheers,
Patorak 

"Walk-throughs" can be done in AutoCAD, of course.  You just need lotsa RAM and a high-powered machine  for a big one.

It's interesting to me that AutoCAD rarely gets discussed around here as a 3D app.  Especially considering the program's dominance of the engineering world.  But perhaps it's because of that: AutoCAD tends to be regarded as an engineer's/architect's tool: and not as something for artists.

AutoCAD has always been -- first and foremost -- an engineering tool for me.  I'd never really thought of the program as an artist's tool.  But.....I'm beginning to think that way (it can be hard to break years of habit).

AutoCAD is a bit on the pricey side.  But so are other apps like Maya.

Quote - One of the non-3d guys here in the office said, oh, wouldn't it be cool if we could make a guy in the imageof the "president of such and such company" walking around the site (third person view)... and I was snickering, thinking, well, we just might be able to do that... tee hee  I should have asked them, would you like a deer standing next to a deer crossing too running away when you get close?

One company that I worked for some time ago did a 3D demo virtual tour of a proposed bio-waste treatment facility to be built in south Florida.  The 3D operator put an alligator in one of the ponds.  They made him take it out.

No sense of humor in the business world, I suppose.

Hey XENOPHONZ

I wish I had AutoCAD at home.  I'll have to wait until the kids are done with collegeLOL,  before I get it.  Right now I'm using LightwaveCAD.  You know what,  is there a student version of AutoCAD?

Cheers
Patorak

alligatorROFLOL!

What a great thread. Genuinely interesting Poser tech(ish); vendor politics; site politics; entertaining bickering; entertaining insults; entertaining stupidity; more Poser tech; slender, shapely girly derriers (real or imagined) - and cat pics.

This is like the old days. Well done to the mods for letting this run its course or for being asleep.

Hi PJF

Welcome to the party.

Cheers,
Patorak

Quote - Hey XENOPHONZ

I wish I had AutoCAD at home.  I'll have to wait until the kids are done with collegeLOL,  before I get it.  Right now I'm using LightwaveCAD.  You know what,  is there a student version of AutoCAD?

Cheers
Patorak

Here's one -- but it looks like it's time-limited software (14 months).  So basically, you are in effect "renting" the program for 14 months.

http://www.journeyed.com/itemDetail.asp?ItmNo=22041123NF

Quote - heard of this being done on various game engines like the Unreal Engine... tho the simplest way is to convert your model into VRML and just use a web browser....

 
Yea, testing blender at the moment on a pilot project, but will probably using one of the commercial engines, mostly because of training and technical support. We're having major issues with blenders stability at the moment. I've been investigating Torque game engine some, to see if their terrain generation is as snazzy as they claim it to be.

Also we may go on the side of GIS type information merged with 3D, and served online... we'll see what happens on the pilot project, and what our customers react to better, whether they like web browser style, or if they like game controller type experience better. They're usually the type of people whom will pay good money to just plug and play and not deal with any technical parts...

VRML and a browser is a rather quick way of putting a model export into a viewer, but unlesone can code game physics into VRML, it only gives you very simple basics. At least the half a dozen things and vrml readers and plug-ins I tried.
What we are looking to do is have several levels of detail (probably 3-5), some predetermined paths/guided tours and ability to freely walk around, collision and proximity detection and various other reactors and data overlays available on demand. Really the whole thing should end up having the functionality of a game, but with a little more business like look.

Thanks, I really appreciate this.

Quote - Tell him it will take some overtime pay to do it right.  I like the look on their faces when the see their 2d blueprints in 3d,  it's like a kid on Christmas morning.

They love it, and it pays pretty well too. It's especially cool when there's a golf course on the project ,and I get to model the golf course :)   Also, the trick it that it has to ve bery precise too, since we end up doing a lot of engineering calculations off the same model. Builders often pay us between 10-50K per land development for the services we give them. It's sort of a 3D meets civil engineering and land planing.

On ythe golf courses I often end up in meetings with the golf course designers... they are usually very appreciative of 3D. I gather more and more of them are developing that ability in-house.
Anyway, I'm babbling LOL

Hey Conniekat8

What renderer are you using at work?

Yeah,  but even in house will have spill over work.

Quote - "Walk-throughs" can be done in AutoCAD, of course.  You just need lotsa RAM and a high-powered machine  for a big one.

It's interesting to me that AutoCAD rarely gets discussed around here as a 3D app.  Especially considering the program's dominance of the engineering world.  But perhaps it's because of that: AutoCAD tends to be regarded as an engineer's/architect's tool: and not as something for artists.

AutoCAD has always been -- first and foremost -- an engineering tool for me.  I'd never really thought of the program as an artist's tool.  But.....I'm beginning to think that way (it can be hard to break years of habit).

AutoCAD is a bit on the pricey side.  But so are other apps like Maya.

Autocad is the primary tool I use, and you're right, it's more of an engineering too. It's walkthrough abilities and some of the 3d modeling, especially for organics suck. It's just not meant for that.

What I end up doing at work is after the initial engineering data input and layout (mostly in form of splines), I switch to 3D studio for terrain and detail modelling. Often I have to switch back to autocad to run calculations (actualy, it's not plain autocad, but Civil 3D and Land development desktop), then back to 3D studio. Therte are some engineering add-ons that are made only for autocad (well, only, meaning when compared to max, maya and the usual 3D lineup of high end 3D apps people talk about most often.)

Some of the things I model do start in autocad. After having used it for almost 20 years, modeling things like a house or other non organics is a second nature for me in autocad. Then when I reach it's limits, I switch out to max

What cracks me up is when I forget which app I'm in and start typing autocad commands into 3D max or the other way around.... Heh, big powerful machine... now you know my secret about why I had time to post... while I'm running the triangulation on a landform that is made of milions of vertices.... takes a while LOL   Actually so much so that I have two pretty powerful machines at my desk... Both loaded with nvidias quadro workstation graphics cards and 4 gigs of memory each... and a laptop so I can do paperwork when both are crunching.

Quote - Hey XENOPHONZ

I wish I had AutoCAD at home.  I'll have to wait until the kids are done with collegeLOL,  before I get it.  Right now I'm using LightwaveCAD.  You know what,  is there a student version of AutoCAD?

Cheers
Patorak

There's a student version, I think it's somewhere around $700 to a $1000, and also there's Autocad Lite. If I remember right autocad lite doesn't do 3D, but my info on that may be out of date, I haven't paid attention to autocad lite for, um, several years. May I ask what you would like to create with it? Perhaps I could recommend something? You can also get a 30 day free trial for autocad to start tinkering with it.

Have you tried a renderfarm.  Also 3d presentations for law firms is another good market.

I take 2d blueprints from architects and engineers and create 3d presentations.  I'm using LightwaveCAD at the moment,  but I would like to try my hand at AutoCad.

Quote - Hey Conniekat8

What renderer are you using at work?

Mostly 3D studio max, believe it or not, most of my 'work rendering' ends up being the boring massing models... dealing with the non-artistic engineering folk, they don't appreciate the nice high quality rendering. At the moment we didn't even invest into a nicer rendering plug-in for max.
Sometimes, for static renderings I was able to plug things into bryce (LOL, for it's simplicity) and get a satisfactory rendering.

That's probably the reason I hang around in here, with the boring low quality engineering visualizations, I don't get my artistic side satisfied.
Most of them, havoing just come from blueprinnts can't tell the difference between default scanline from max or a final render LOL.  They're still more excited about a spinning wireframe then a nicely textured model. GO figure!!!

Check out this link    http://www.hdri3d.com/xtra/11estrada/index.htm 

Quote - Yeah,  but even in house will have spill over work.

Oh yea... before I got hired on as a director of visualizations at the company where I am at now, I made a business out of taking on overflow work. I was making really good money doing overflow work... like up to 15K a month, just working myself. I took a paycut to become a director, but they are investing about half a mil in growing my section into an independent company... A resource I didn't have on my own.

That is cool!

Quote - Have you tried a renderfarm.  Also 3d presentations for law firms is another good market.

Yea, doing renderings for litigation, tied to engineering we also do... and  Iwas doing them when I had my own little company. Had about 6 computers tied together into a render farm at home.  
Also, I did a few for traffic accident reconstructioins. They seem to like animations a lot.
Seems that with my perpensity towards taaalking a lot, I don't have a very hard time getting projects. Must be that kitty thing, I've been told I come across very convincing when offering our services shrugs   More like I get excited and just ramble.

There's one where we did landslide analisys and animation, I think I posted some info about that in here somewhere, maybe about 8-10 months ago. I think I was hanging around Bryce forum when I posted that.

You sound like you've done some of that yourself?
(uh oh, gotta run, honey says I have to come over and watch Idol with him..)

Talk to you later

I've worked in Land Developement Desktop.  But I'm not a civil type -- my current AutoCAD version is AutoCAD 2007.1 Building Systems.

The AutoCAD 2008 MEP disk arrived in the mail last week.  I haven't installed it yet -- I think that I'll probably upgrade to Vista Ultimate first -- on a dual-boot setup at home.  The compatibility problems with Vista and AutoCAD 2007 kept me away from going with Vista 64-bit.  But I'm now thinking that it's time.

Connie -- I must say that I'm impressed.  All that you've described makes my plain, old boring work sound plain, old -- and boring.  Admittedly, being a part of putting up new multi-million dollar school buildings and museums can hold its own brand of interest.  But the things that you are doing just sound so much more.......fun.  :biggrin:

Perhaps it's time for another career change.  Hmmmmmm...........

Quote -
What a great thread. Genuinely interesting Poser tech(ish); vendor politics; site politics; entertaining bickering; entertaining insults; entertaining stupidity; more Poser tech; slender, shapely girly derriers (real or imagined) - and cat pics.

This is like the old days. Well done to the mods for letting this run its course or for being asleep.

Heh - welcome back to the septic tank... just passin' through, or ...? /P

Hehe, now that is funny... Everybody coming from CAD/CAM.

I also used Autocad 9 for a short time. Went then to CATIA for mil. related stuff and that's where I'm still most satisfied with if it comes to really big simulations.
For electrical engineering and circuit design I use mostly NI Multisim. Formerly "Electronic Workbench".

All the apps that started as true CAD have something technical in how the render results are looking. V3/V4 rendered within CATIA looks just not like if it's done within Maya. But both use mental ray. The same it is with almost any Max picture. There's something about it that just don't look right.

Connie, yould you elaborate "I've been investigating Torque game engine some, to see if their terrain generation is as snazzy as they claim it to be." please?

What impression you got so far and what tools you use for the modification/customization?

I used the UW engine back in ... 2004 or so. Was nice and all, but there were to many limits with the possible detail and there was no way to assign the required amount of information to the objects. It was easy to use tho. :/

*if it wasn't for your anti-DAZ obsessiveness I'd suspect that maybe there's a nice guy buried underneath there somewhere.  
I have no desire to "pick on" anyone.  But I won't hesitate to take on bullies and elitists.  In fact: they tend to attract my attention.

*We all need some kind of obsession to survive :-) You'll keep on hunting the bullies & elitists & anti-DAZ-ers,  I'll keep on rambling about DAZ and it may save both of us from some serious harmfull obsessions and addictions ;-)

So, next time I say something about DAZ, you can take me on again and both of our obsessions will be fullfilled.....

Quote - Hehe, now that is funny... Everybody coming from CAD/CAM.
Connie, yould you elaborate "I've been investigating Torque game engine some, to see if their terrain generation is as snazzy as they claim it to be." please?

Well, I have to admit that I haven't gone much past reading their advertizing and one phonecall to their techhnical/sales people. They offered a demo and some more technical interaction once I get a demo, so that my experiments with it can give us some answers.  But, I haven't had an opening in my schedule yet to give it a serious shot.  I'd be happy to share my findings once I get to sink my teeth into it.   http://www.garagegames.com/pg/product/view.php?id=1#features

With Blender... I'm having a heck of a time keeping it stable enough to do much. Maybe it doesn't like other apps on the computer.. who knows. Again, this kind of troubleshooting ends up costing too much when I'm expected to have a certain amount of production done as well. I have it at home too, same issues with instability. By the time I get home, troubleshooting software and hardware is the last thing I want to do. I wanna sit and paint.

One of the big concerns in the functionality of the game engines is just what you touched upon, the amount of data that we're going to need to have served on demand. Our clients are daydreaming about having the entire propject, from before construction, during construction and finished product along with a lot of technical statistics be available... Really, much like any game that has a reactor where, as you get close or touch a certain object, it gives you info about it... or switch to various maps of the area, have data overlays to the maps.  It would be like Quake, Flight simulators and Sim City blended together, and made to look 'business like'

Being that it's all stil in strategizing stages, one of the options I'm thinking about is perhaps having it all run off of a dedicated gaming console, and the gaming console would just be included/resold in our deliverable...   

Also ability to get online, log in to the central project data warehouse and get updated information is  something that is very desired.

Anyway, sorry, I'm not far enough into tinkering with torque to be able to share much in a way of technical detail... :(   

Here's an interesting link.... http://www.devmaster.net/engines/index.php 

Quote - *if it wasn't for your anti-DAZ obsessiveness I'd suspect that maybe there's a nice guy buried underneath there somewhere.  
I have no desire to "pick on" anyone.  But I won't hesitate to take on bullies and elitists.  In fact: they tend to attract my attention.
*We all need some kind of obsession to survive :-) You'll keep on hunting the bullies & elitists & anti-DAZ-ers,  I'll keep on rambling about DAZ and it may save both of us from some serious harmfull obsessions and addictions ;-)

So, next time I say something about DAZ, you can take me on again and both of our obsessions will be fullfilled.....

giggle
perhaps we should all sign up for a monthly online gaming session, and get our agressions out shooting at each others virtual targets... Nah, that swounds too violent...   

I know, maybe we can make our own RPG alter ego's and have a monthly session of flogging each other with wet noodles? I'll even submit to a session of whipped cream pie tossing at kitty pictures!

No, no, no......aeilkema's got me all wrong..........

The only things that I'm obsessed with are 3D and eating......and eating is a habit that I've gotten (somewhat) under control in recent years.  So nowadays I order salad or salmon instead of steak.  At least 85% of the time, anyway.

I used to be obsessed with PC gaming.  In fact, I'd be incredibly wealthy today if someone had been paying me to play the original version of Sid Meier's Civilization back a number of years ago.  But now I've found a new drug:

3D......it's just too addictive.  I admit that I'm hooked.

*"Heh - welcome back to the septic tank... just passin' through, or ...?"

*Who are you calling a yank? ;-)

Been here all along, pretty much - in deep lurk mode. It's usually the Bryce forum, but I'm researching Poser7 so it's the Poser forum that can thrill to my old git presence (can you hear the thrilling?).

Poser7 does look interesting, and the upgrade is cheap(ish).