redbeardcreator

It's been ages since I updated my journal. So it's about time I do it again. This time with random stuff.

For a few weeks now I've been giving myself a (bi-)weekly challenge for raytracing. Each week (or two) I start a new project, preferably on Sunday, to be completed the following Saturday (or the one after that). It's been working well for me, producing one of my best renders ever. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to really work on them the way I'd like (hence the bi-weekly bit).

We just recently purchased a new 2011 Toyota Sienna to haul the family around in. Our previous vehicle just took several months and several hundred dollars to fix, so we opted to replace it. The Sienna has much more room than we had before and is a pleasure to drive. It's got nifty features like automatic sliding doors and a back-up camera. And it seats eight. Not that we normally have eight in it, but with two booster seats, a car seat and an infant carrier, we need the space to be able to squeeze by older daughter in when she visits.

Finally, if you haven't seen it (but you are reading this entry), please take a look at my Movie Quote Meme journal and see if you can figure out some movies from single quotes.

Well...I first saw this way back in March 2009. I made a list then. Just saw it a second time in someone else's journal. Sooooo...time to post mine. Especially since I haven't posted a journal entry since May 2009...sheesh.

Rules:

1. Go to IMDB.com.
2. Type in 20 of your favorite movies.
3. Find a quote from each movie.
4. Post the quotes here for others to guess.

When guessing:

• Don't use Google (or IMDB ) to cheat.
• Post guesses for as many as you think you know.

For anyone who guesses, I'll let you know if you're right.

1. My name is a killing word.
2. Surely, I have made my meaning plain. I mean to avenge myself upon you, Admiral. I deprived your ship of power, and when I swing around, I mean to deprive you of your life.
3. I don't want to die. And your men don't want to die, and these people certainly don't want to to die. It's a shame you're in such a hurry to.
4. He chose poorly.
5. You've enjoyed all the power you've been given, haven't you? I wonder how you'd take to working in a pocket calculator.
6. Fiery the angels fell. Deep thunder rolled around their shores... burning with the fires of Orc.
7. Send a maniac to catch a maniac.
8. I miss the peace of fishing like when I was a boy. Forty years I've been at sea. A war at sea. A war with no battles, no monuments... only casualties. I widowed her the day I married her. My wife died while I was at sea, you know.
9. Cyborgs don't feel pain. I do. Don't do that again.
10. You should be ashamed of yourself! You're no Elf! You're an Elvish impersonator! You sicken me, deceitful one.
11. Aright, nobody move. I've got a dragon and I'm not afraid to use it.
12. I have a big head and little arms. I'm just not sure how well this plan was thought through.
13. Let me show you my plan for sending you home. Please excuse the crudity of this model, I didn't have time to build it to scale or to paint it.
14. I don't make things difficult. That's the way they get, all by themselves.
15. Your work... is very dangerous and alive. And I love your poems; they move me. But that's not who you really are... You're running from your past and your pain. And yet you keep it so... close to you, so you don't have to be afraid of who you are... because you're beautiful.
16. My brains, his steel, and your strength against sixty men, and you think a little head jiggle is supposed to make me happy?
17. We can no longer live as rats. We know too much.
18. Considering I'm an old fat guy who just fell onto the floor, I'm fantastic!
19. That's it man, game over man, game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?
20. Hey, lady! It's against the rules to throwing other people's heads!

And for bonus points...
</ol>

• Whoa, lady, I only speak two languages, English and bad English.

• Don't worry. A naked girl is not going to get out of this complex.

• What can you tell me about a seven foot lunatic hacking away with a broadsword at one o'clock in the morning, New York City, 1985?

</ol>

I'm going to start uploading most of my "Works" images. They're not all done, so some will go into my scraps, hopefully to move out as I get them worked on. They're all pretty much abstracts, with some having an environment added to make it interesting.

Before I get into the pictures themselves, I'd like to offer a bit of background on them. Most of these are the result of a series of thumbnail sketches I did while traveling for my employer at the time. Over time I've put them into POVRay and rendered them, calling them my "Works" collection. At the moment I consider Works I-V, VIII, IX, XI-XIV, XVI and XVII complete. I have initial scene files at least for Works I-XVII, with X within a few hours each of completion. Also, Work XV is actually a collection of about 15 pieces, most of which are done, but not uploaded yet.

I'll add links below as I upload them. Also, they are all in the Works gallery.

Work I -- Abstract geometric with rounded tubes of metal and glass and a vivid red background. The scene file was built fairly quickly. But then again, it's pretty simple.

Work II -- A curved marble thingy with marble, aluminum, and glass spheres on a simple, reflective ground/sky background.

Work III -- A set of beads in front of a glowing spheroid thingy. [Edit] The alien egg is going to go elsewhere. This is the original concept and fits in with the Works series much better

Work IV -- Rainbow face. An abstract face built with rainbow colored arcs and prisms with lots of glass. Funky rainbow marble background.

Work V -- This is one of my favorites. Very vibrant, with glass and metal arcs around a smooth glowy ball. The background looks like an out-of-focus photo of storm clouds that's been colorized by NASA.

Work V Reverse -- The backside of Work V. Kind of a happy accident.

Work VI -- Columns in the distance. This was influnced by the dreams of one of the children in "Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke. I've struggled with this one as I can't get it to feel right. No idea how much work is left on this one.

Work VII -- An eye attached to a snake-like body, which is wrapped around one of several spike-like hill sprouting from the ground.

Work VIII -- Don't know how to describe this one. Torii, cylinders and a sphere with metal and marble and a strong central glow. Psychadelic blue-greenish background.

Work IX -- Two sorta flowery organic type things with metal bars between them. Finally got the textures tweaked.

Work X -- Glass arcs and metal spikes, with some sort of symbol in the center.

Work XI -- More glass and metal. This time a rounded glass cube with some holes in it, sprouting metal arcs and mounted on a metallic axle. The axle is connnected to two sort of roundish knobby things. I think the basic structure is there and I just need to complete texturing it.

Work XII - Very abstract shape. An experiment (originally) with MegaPOV's proximity pattern. It was going to be an experiment in approximating the proximity pattern.

Work XIII - A lozenge. And other stuff.

Work XIV - An abstract face kinda thing...with help from my oldest son.

Work XV - A project unto itself...a series of pieces designed to hang in the interior window of my office at work.

Work XVI - Donuts and pointy things...with help from my oldest daughter.

Work XVII - Glass houses and all that. Or something.

Work XVIII - Metal and glowy bits. And a subdued background.

[update... removed old news. Added Work XII and Work XIII]
[update... added gallery link]
[update... added new Works (XIV-XVII, with links to all but XV), updated text]
[update... added Work XVIII]

Up until recently I've been mainly working on old stuff. I still have plenty of old stuff to clean up and make good, and I'm going to continue working on it. However, a week or two ago I had a couple of ideas for new projects.

First, I'm working on two different images based on input from my two oldest boys. I made page of thumbnail sketches over a few days and then shared them with the boys. I asked each to pick a thumbnail that I would turn into a raytraced image with colors and textures that they help to choose. The oldest of the two picked an abstract similar to what's in my Works collection. So it's becoming Work XIV. The four-year-old picked a spaceship. So it's going to become a spaceship that I'm calling a Longboat right now.

I've done basic renderings of both, and presented them to the boys, who colored them using the GIMP. I'll probably post scraps for the initial renderings and the boys' initial markups sometime soon.

The other idea I had was to take some lesser seen item from something famous (relative to me, at least) and render it in detail. I've got a few reasons for this, but the most important is so that I can work on details, including things like greebles. Probably the first thing I'll do in this probably series is power plant from the AAT (Battle Tank) page from Star Wars: Episode I Incredible Cross-Sections, published by DK with art by Hans Jenssen and Richard Chasemore.

I haven't started on this yet, and probably won't until I'm done with the stuff from the boys. But I'm getting excited about it.

Of course, after I do some of the detail images, I'll probably start doing some more complex projects... such as MikeDoscher's Scavenger Arken (which he's given me permission to do... I just have't yet).

Sounds like fun to me!

I've made an extremely abbreviated version of it my signature...

I'm an avid fan of the Rifts RPG, even though I haven't had the opportunity to really play it in years. But since some coworkers/friends have got me started playing in a D&D campaign, I've been going through some of my Rifts books. In the Rifts Game Master Guide, Kevin Siembieda writes on page 111 under the heading "A Few Weapon Notes" under item 3 "Lasers are completely silent!":

  "I must admit that when I (KS) play Rifts, The Mechanoids or any game where energy weapons are used, I make sounds for them (I also do voices for characters, but that's me). But this expectation holds true for the people of Rifts Earth too. Consequently, the manufacturers of laser weapons realize this, and for those who want them, actually build in cool sound generators for enhanced (psychological) effect and bigger sales. Marketing research by Wilk's and Northern Gun have shown that energy weapons that make sounds sell better by 20-33% (a substantial difference)."

So... will future laser weapon manufactures add sound generators to their handheld weapons, just becaues the movies have trained us to expect it? I hope so

Any way, a little background. Wilk's and Northern Gun are two weapons manufacturers in the devastated North America of Rifts Earth. The devastation was caused by the sudden and massive return of magic to the Earth, making Rifts Earth an unusual world due to it's exceedingly high magic levels. It is now host to several permanent gateways to other worlds and new gateways can be magically opened almost on a whim by powerful magic practitioners. All the continents were devistated, except Atlantis which had been sent to a pocket dimension by the magical catastrophy that sucked most magical energy from the Earth thousands of years ago. The human race was almost wiped out completely, but civilization is starting to claw it's way back, ushering in the return of high technology, especially in weapons (to fight the monsters coming to Earth through the Rifts).

That, and the quote above is just an example if the extreme insight and creativity that is Kevin Siembieda, the driving force behind Palladium Books and creator of Rifts and the Megaverse.