Attached Link: Emberglow-2g: 1st Tryst: Undressing

I'd also like to give personal thanks to my Co-Arthor in this venture Nanette Tredoux, and also to RobynsVeil for her kind and generous support, both physical and spiritual. Without either of you, my dear ladies, this work would not have gotten this far!
Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

Looks great dph!  Can't wait to see the next installment :)

I want you guys to know that this is David's work. He sparks ideas off me and I contribute some ideas off the wall (I haven't even seen the movie this is inspired by so I am not bound by it), but David follows his own mind and as far as the magnificent renders are concerned I can only gawp in speechless awe. I see myself more as a supportive fan and fellow Posette-user!

Wow this is great, dp! I really love the layout you chose for this, it makes for a very smooth read. I like the textured background a lot, it really goes well with the story, for even more reading ease, you could stick a translucent white box at like 10% opacity behind each text area. The cattails in each box are a really nice touch as well. Very well done, thanks for sharing it - I hope you have more coming our way soon, you're a natural at this!

Translucent box behind text!  Got it! Will DO!  Thank you very much for the good suggestion.  Right this minute, I plan to go back and redo some of my earlier installments, and convert them to  the present format.  The cattail sillohuet was Nanette Tredoux idea!  With out her help, I'd be lost.  She may not think so, but she is definitely co-arthor of this series!
dph

I'm presently in the Renderosity Chat Room, if any of you would like to discuss this series with me up close and personal! ;=D
dph

I'll admit that my contribution to this endeavour has been fairly minimal... and the strong work and compelling story line makes this pretty much David's effort (with Nannette's help).
He's done much more than I have following up on an obsession: well-done, David.

Back to my shaders... my real obsession...

@RobynsVeil;

Thank you again for your kind comments and support!  They are very much appreciated!
Now, I'd like to pick your brain a bit.  I've got some medical questions that I'd like to discuss with you at length some time, regarding the care of invalids in the 19th century, and their life expectancy.  I'm not talking about hospital or instituional care, but the care that a wealthy family could provide for an invalid loved one.
dph

This sounds more like a history lesson than a medical question. As in: when did Lister determine that surgical infections was caused by surgeons... and did something about it. This from wikipedia:

*At the time the usual explanation for wound infection was that the exposed tissues were damaged by chemicals in the air or via a stinking "miasma" in the air. The sick wards actually smelled bad, not due to a "miasma" but due to the rotting of wounds.

Hospital wards were occasionally aired out at midday but Florence Nightingale's doctrine of fresh air was still science fiction then.* (Typical - women's - i.e., nurse's - sense of what was really wrong with the picture is still considered science fiction. Figures. :lol:)

Facilities for washing hands or the patient's wounds did not exist and it was even considered unnecessary for the surgeon to wash his hands before he saw a patient. This was strange because the work of Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis and Oliver Wendell Holmes were not heeded even though the parellel should have been obvious.*

Life expectancy at the turn of the century - which is by their attire when I place your protagonists - at the hands of surgeons was pretty bleak. The surgical model hadn't advanced that far from its barber (shave and a haircut: 2 bits) origins - wonder if we nurses sometimes refer to a particularly gung-ho surgeon as barbaric for that reason? Nah, couldn't be... :biggrin:

Lovely - let's have more - err -but how about correcting that split infinitive in the first pic. It made for an awkward star. 'Walked slowly' rather than  'slowly walked' ?

The split infinitive I can correct, although to be honest, by most grammarians, the old taboo against it was a bit spurious.  It arose originally about 250 years ago when English Grammarians  wanted to force the rules of Latin Grammar onto English.  In Latin, it's impossible to split an infinitive, so, even though in English it's very possible, it was consider very bad form to do so.
Most reputable grammarians have never taken an adamant stance against it, merely stating that it would be better to avoid if possible.
However, it's a minor quibble, and one that's easily corrected.
The split in her pantalettes though is another matter, and not only was that the fashion then in women's underclothes, but is also an essential part of the seduction scene.
Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

Well, certainly there is no place for dogma in the language, DHP, but splitting infinitives can be awkward. That apart, it's the pictures and story that really count, and I look forward to the next episode :)

Doesn't apply here anyway, since the verb is not infinitive but past imperfect.
The phrase "to boldly go" is a split infinitive, but not "they boldly go...", which is an acceptable form.

There are a number of typos, but I don't know if it's important to you to correct them. If so, I'm a nitpicking-good proof-reader!

I love the new format, but agree that the text could be made a little easier to read. 

A chance for me to put on my Trained-As-A-Linguist Hat...

IsaoShi's right: "slowly walked" is not an infinitive phrase. Any prohbition relating to infinitives would not apply to this phrase since it's a finite phrase in the perfect (simple past) tense.

And DPH is right: the "don't split infinitives" (i.e., don't place anything between a "to" and the bare infinitive form of a verb) is a made-up rule intending to copy Latin and has no place being applied to English.

However, if the text did actually contain a split infinitive, it might be advisable to remove it to help the text to also capture ( <== that's a split infinite right there) the mood of the period being depicted. Read original literature from around about the time of the 18th-century-turning-into-the-19th and you will notice that there are very few (if any) split infinitives. The first time I read Frankenstein, the lack of split infinitives and where it appears Mary Shelley deliberately phrased things to avoid the split infinitives stood out.

Robynsveil, I looked up Florence Nightingale's "notes on nursing" on Google books, and it was remarkable for what it revealed that people didn't know. And her writings came after this story was set. So I was thinking that someone who was severely disabled after an accident would be very vulnerable to infections and bedsores, and that the quality of care would have a huge influence on the patient's chances for survival. I doubt that they even knew enough about nutrition to prevent a person who couldn't eat normal food, and who couldn't express their needs verbally, from becoming malnourished. There was no intravenous feeding, no knowledge about sterilisation. A simple cold could become pneumonia so easily. I would think the outlook was very bleak.

That's exactly what I think too, Nanette. I'm embarrassed to say I can't really remember exactly what time period Ms Nightingale lived in - I sort-of thought it was during the Crimean War, so: turn of the century? - but then, a lot of her observations wouldn't have been published for a long time until after she wrote them, and even then, what was considered of any value of her works would take even longer to grow fruit.

A lot of objections to the original movie, Firelight, was the fact that the man's wife was in a 10 year coma, sometime between the years 1836-1846.  At the IMDb Firelight board, this fact alone has been hotly debated. as one commenter put it:

Quote - moreover, a 10 year coma, no feeding tube, and Amy still looks well-fed and beautiful.

Lotta suspension of disbelief required.

To which my dear friend there, Dorisa, has replied:

Quote - reply to previous poster:
never in the movie the word "coma" is mentioned.

With the perfection of the script, do you think that such
incredibly clever and creative person as William Nicholson
would have overlooked such important factor ?

Amy was in a vegetative state which means she could breathe and swallow
and could survive for a very very long time.
See excerpt from a current Medical Journal.

---

If the person’s brain was severely damaged or deprived of oxygen for a long time, they may be in a vegetative state. This means they can breathe, swallow and startle to stimuli such as very loud noises, but have lost the higher brain functions that allow consciousness and personality.

Linking to the Better Health Channel
It's easy to link to this page | Close
© State of Victoria. All rights reserved

---

More over, "in 1760: Forms of intravenous injection and infusion began being used in the treatment of patients".
Probably much perfected by 1839 ....
That could have also helped Amy look somehow well.
Doris

Any more thoughts on this though will be much appreciated.
dph

Um, bed sores? Stasis pneumonia? Muscle wasting due to inactivity? And myriad other health issues due to being confined to bed, out of sunlight's reach, etc.

It is possible to keep a person looking healthy and happy even if that person can only contribute by swallowing and breathing, but it would require an exhaustive knowledge of preventative medicine, 99% of which was unavailable in those days.

Sorry, but this stretches credibility to snapping point. As most movies do these days. Like The Blind Side. Sheesh, who thought that was a good idea, anyway?

Wonderful, Dave! I hope you sell it and make money!!!!!

Please also notice that I'm using here my remapped P4 figures, PosetteV3 and P4DorkM3, as my protagonists.  I find that with careful attention to the details of posing, not overly straining any particular joint beyond reason, that they are more than adequate to the task.  Also, their low resource demand means that most of my renders are done within an hour.  However, I usually render each scene twice, once with the P4 render engine, and once with Firefly, then I combine both renders by layering in Photoshop, as each has qualities that the other lacks.
dph

David, after this episode the phrase "more than adequate to the task" will never mean the same again for me!

I am reminded of Christopher Reeve (Superman), left a quadriplegic with cognitive functions intact after a riding accident. He had the best care including massage and electronic muscle stimulation, and was an activist for stem cell medicine and disabled rights after his injury. Yet didn't even he succumb to an infection that arose from a pressure sore?

Quote - David, after this episode the phrase "more than adequate to the task" will never mean the same again for me!

Show it to your friends, and tell me what they think!
dph