Hi all, I've noticed that there has been no new images in the Carrara/RDS gallery since the 25th september ... What'happening, dudes ? I hope you're all too busy to make some great images for our contest ! litst moderator of the Carrara/RDS forum

I'm working on about five things at the moment. One of them is starting to really come together. It's hard for me to determine if it should be for the contest or just the gallery. I've discovered an interesting problem. All of my options for the smart pack in C Studio disappeared. I had to un-install the program and re-install them to get them back. If I opened up something which had employed the smart pack, those options basically were gone. Has anybody else had this problem? I'm a PC user. -Kix

I've just started a new job in San Francisco and am finishing up on some free-lance stuff during my off-hours at home, so I haven't had a moment to just play.... I miss it! But I should be finishing the free-lance project tonight, so I'll hopefully be getting back to the fun, if non-paying, stuff soon! - Dex

Litst, I'm really busy at work as lots of people want custom calendars this time of year. I am looking forward to the contest though. Kix- I had that problem with scenes that I made under C V1 and then opened them in C V2. Most of the former (free) smart-pak plugs were goofed-up (MAC OS). Dex- Best of luck at that new job & re-locating. SF is a neat place. You thinking of changing to CaChip?

I am working on 2 3d projects right now! I need a job where I dont do video/3d during the day so I am more motivated to do personal stuff at night :) btw: I cant wait for better animations...my projects aways seem to be very limited b/c they basically involve just swinging a camera around a scene :(

Been busy working on Anything Grooves 2, but here's a teaser for a tutorial that will be released with AGr2 on how to build stone stuctures using Anything Grooves. Eric Winemiller Digital Carvers Guild Freeware and commercial 3D extensions

Looks really cool, Eric. You know, your extensions are really making me think about making the jump to Carrara from RDS.... I take it that's just a cellular shader applied with your Anything Grooves extension. Just wondering how huge something like this makes a file.... And thanks, Willf. I really like it here in SF. I'm actually considering changing my handle to SFDex -- first dropping the "Chip" part because it's a nickname I don't use anymore, and using just SF because it took all of Arizona to be almost as cool as San Francisco....

Eric, that looks great! That plug-in is probably the most fun thing I've seen for Carrara.

AzChip, First let me say, make the jump! You know you want to, all your friends are doing it and when you buy the eovia Carrara, you get Toon! and Anything Glows included in Smart Pack. That Carrara file is only 28k since all the meshes are generated from the shaders. It starts out with the Cellular function, but there are few intermediate steps to get to the end result since using AGr and Cellular actually change the results of the Cellular shader. These are the basic steps. 1. Apply cellular to a plane, export it as OBJ and have it generate the texture. 2. Make the texture tilable using your favorite paint program. 3. Use the texture as your AGr shader and the mixer in the object's shader to mix between mortar and stone. Instant stone wall that looks head and shoulders above what you can do with a bump. One of the things AGr 2.0 adds is the ability to dupe that wall without AGr the modifier having to recalculate for each instance. So you can build a large wall with very little memory and a tilable texture. Eric Winemiller Digital Carvers Guild Freeware and commercial 3D extensions http://digitalcarversguild.com

That sounds absolutely great, Eric . I want my new computer with a lot of RAM now so i can finally play with Anything Grooves !!! :)

Sounds great, Eric.... And as for all my friends jumping to Carrara, well, let's just say that I'm the only person I know in "The Real World" who even could define a Boolean operation, let alone who would be making the jump to CS.... That said, my Renderosity forum friends for the most part have left me in the dust jumping over to Carrara. It's kind of lonely over here in the old Ray Dream world. (Maybe just Jim Z and me, now....) If you hadn't mentioned it, I never would have noticed the tiling of the geometry.... Very nice trick! So, do your shader packs -- squares (which I use a LOT), tile, etc, translate to Carrara well? If so, I can see LOTS of applications with AGr....

Did someone mention my name? I haven't posted anything lately, but I do check the forum most days to see what's going on. I was so impressed by WillF's plant models in last month's contest that I decided to try it myself (with the help of WillF's tutorial, of course). **Pitiful *hyoooomans* - I feed on your brains!** Above is a work in progress which may end up as part of my entry for this month's contest. Regarding the jump to Carrara, I'll probably take the plunge early next year after I replace my system (The old P150 just isn't fast enough for Carrara). I think what I'm looking forward to the most is the ability to create curved motion paths easily. Now back to the landscaping... Jim Z. a.k.a. Julian Boolean

AzChip, All my shaders, lights, and Glare are also included in eovia's Smart Pack too. They are mostly the same, but Tile and Bricks in particular work much nicer in the bump channel and Squares has a "bricks" mode that works nicely for adding a little variety to the Bricks shader. And Jim, nice plants. Eric Winemiller Digital Carvers Guild Freeware and commercial 3D extensions http://digitalcarversguild.com

My Gosh Jim, great calladiums & the grass looks good enough to cut! I'm glad I sand-bagged on that last image of mine for the last contest, you learn too fast! I'll look forward to the finished scene.

Lately I've been too busy, I've had a lot of things going on in my life. I havn't had enough 3D time to be creative. I have about 3 Carrara projects in the works right now, my roadster is one of them, and I really want to complete that puppy, but it's been a real challenge. I need to take the time a get them done, but it might take a while. And my creative spirit has been kind of zapped lately, since 9-11-01.

kaom: I am with you on this zapped spirit thing, I am too affected indirectly by all that is going on. Every thing seems so trivial.

How'd you do the depth of field in that one? Is it RayDream's intenal post filter or did you export it with a, what's it called? z-buffer? and then do the soft-focus in Photoshop or something? My pitiful human brain want's to know! - Dex

Hi Dex, That depth-of-field effect is best explained by Brian Taylor. I feed on his brains! visit www.rustboy.com and check out the "making of" section. ...and to Kaom and Cristianr, I understand how you feel. Controlled creativity comes most easily when ones mind is at peace. Here's Jim's prescription: Turn off the news, dim the lights and listen to Kitaro, Shadowfax, or anything under the Windham Hill label for at least one hour before you turn on the computer. Repeat as necessary. Take care all, Jim Z. a.k.a. Julian Boolean

Thanks, Jim. I've read the rustboy site -- just amazing work. I thought that might be the technique you were using; it's so pretty. And I think we're all in that frazzed frame of mind. It's been a tough month for everyone, whether or not you're from New York, you lost somebody, whatever your ethnic origins, whatever your politics. It's been rough. And in that we're all together. And as for Jim's prescription -- I usually use either Cocteau Twins or Patsy Cline. Works like a charm. - Dex

One word: COLLEGE

Holy cow, Jim!! That's pretty darn good! You do learn too fast:-)