Phantascene » SNAFU

Censorship

Sandra — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:24:02 +0000

We visit our favorite sites every day without thinking about it.

We go to our favorite video sharing site to watch a funny video or maybe a video that will help us learn how to do something new we want to learn.

We load all of our vacation pictures up onto picture sharing websites, probably have some special moment caught on video at the video sharing site.

We rely on the information that we can find online at community shared information sites, online encyclopedias of collective knowledge that help us write terms papers, articles, or learn more about people and companies we do business with.

We laugh at the things our friends say on social sites and smile at glimpses we get into the lives of people we see in movies and on television.

What if it all started to go away?

What if you woke up tomorrow and found that the site you store your children’s pictures on was no longer reachable?

What if you tried to watch your sister’s vacation videos only to be told it was banned from viewing in your part of the world?

What if you lost half of the Internet in the blink of an eye?

How much freedom would you be willing to lose?

How much freedom have you already lost?

Online piracy is a serious issue, but so is online freedom.

SOPA seeks to stop online piracy, but what is Congress asking us to give up if SOPA passes?

Click for Full Size

Almost 50 years ago the United States Army Combat Developments Command Combined Arms Group gave my father, Billy L. Fikes, a citation for meritorious service as Senior Programming Specialist in the United States Army Combat Developments Command Communications-Electronics Agency at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

Between August 28, 1963 and Auguest 5, 1965, my father was recognized to have distinguished himself by exceptional performance of duty and leadership, and use of his broad technical knowledge and extraordinary grasp of the technical details of computer operations to guide the conversion of the Combat Communications Simulation Model from magnetic tapes to one that utilized the disk file for mass storage.

Techniques that the Army stated would have significant and far-reaching effects on the economic feasibility of utilizing and Simulation Model for evaluating future communications-electronics concepts and doctrine developed by the Communications-Electronics Agency.

At the time my father worked on the programs he had no idea that one day his efforts would be part of the start of a communications network that would span the world with all the knowledge of human history and all our dreams for the future. He did, however, live to see what that tangled mess of code would become. And I know that he was awed and amazed by the world wide web and all that it gave to the world. He would be heartbroken to think that the same government that had fifty years ago given him a commendation for his part in bringing the world together might have laws in Congress that would want to black out entire sections of the web from Americans.

My father did not serve his country for over 21 years, and through three major wars, to have the freedoms of his children and grandchildren to utilize the web to its fullest stripped away.

Keep the web free, keep information free.

Stop piracy, but not at the cost of our freedom.

Patchwork and white objects in Daz Studio – Problem Solved!

Sandra — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:26:02 +0000

In my last post I wrote about how I was having a hard time with some of the items in my scenes showing up as either in weird patchwork pattern or showing up white.

This problem was driving me crazy for a few days and I was starting to get really depressed, since I had purchased the items from the Daz store with the intention of using them in Daz Studio for making a short animated film to test making films for my Mars Station One project.

I primarily made my first post last night because I needed images to go with a request on the Daz forum regarding what the issue might be. One of the kind persons at that forum, a Mr. Haseltine, was very quick to respond and let me know what the issue is.

Both the patch-work look and the white are some kind of issue caused by using Daz Studio to render items that were made using Poser. Poser handles things such as specularity differently than Daz handles them, so the reflection needs to be lowered or removed when using the items in Daz Studio.

This is the second image with the reflection on all items turned down to zero.

So, how do you change the reflection in Daz Studio?

1. In the “Actors, Wardrobe & Props” tab select the “Surfaces (Color)” tab.

2. Select the item in the scene that you want to modify, then click on it’s title in the list in the gray area. This will bring up the adjusters.

3. Scroll down about halfway to find the two adjustments titled: “Reflection Color” and “Reflection Strength”.

4. Move the “Reflection Strength” from 100% down to 0% and try to render your image again. Your weird patchwork or white effect should be corrected and your image will render properly now.

(Click image for larger view)

You can play with the settings, see what they do and pick what is best for your needs. For example, if you need to have the surface reflecting other things in the scene, then rather than turning the reflection down you might remove the map and adjust the strength.

In step four above you would click on the small square in the left of “Reflection Color” and in the drop-down menu select “None”. Then toy with the reflection strength setting until you get the desired result.

These show the same room with the reflection color image removed and the reflection strength set to different levels (100%, 25%, and 8.5%)

Reflection Strength = 100%

Reflection Strength = 25%

Reflection Strength = 8.5%

Weird effects when I render my 3D images

Sandra — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:12:48 +0000

I picked up a few things to make holiday images and because they were needed in a short film I wanted to make, but when I try to render them I end up with really weird stuff happening.

Parts look sort of patch-work after I render things…

Or they will have parts of the scene that are white instead of looking how they should look…

I have no idea what is causing this glitch, but it is about to drive me insane and I really, REALLY, hope that since I bought the things from Daz 3D someone does not come along and Gibbs-smack me saying it is because the images are not Daz compatible or something.

Anyone know why the images are not loading the way they are supposed to load for me? I have tried restarting my computer (a few times) and I tried re-downloading the items. I tried loading JUST the problem items to see if they would render properly and they still did not.

I’m at a loss, and the things are useless if I can not render the scenes they are in.

_____________________________

UPDATE: Patchwork and white objects in Daz Studio – Problem Solved!

Never buy a Wal-Mart display computer

Sandra — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:38:56 +0000

About a year ago I bought one of my computers as a Wal-Mart display computer. It seemed like a good idea at the time, really low price on it, I needed a second computer for work, etc etc. The trouble is, that once Wal-Mart has you, they have your soul.

As a display computer they set it up and created an administration user for it. Around 3 months after I got it I had an issue with needing to clean a virus off of it and it needed reset to factory defaults, however, I had to have the admin password to do that. Wal-Mart refused to let me know what the password was and said if I brought it in they could reset the machine for me, but I would have to bring it in again if I ever had that issue again because they wouldn’t give me admin access on it. What the _____?! I was not amused. I assume it was just the misguided ramblings of a minimum wage part-time worker, but I was still not amused. I managed to sort the issue out without having to take them the computer.

Occasionally I’ll have another issue, but minor annoyances. Nothing worth getting really annoyed about until today. I just ran into another instance on that computer where it told me that it could not remove some things that SpyBot said should go, because I was not the admin of the computer. Please contact the admin to have them fix the issue. :::insert me screaming here:::

I have decided that I am through playing games. The next time I have some free time I am going to take the computer down to Wal-Mart and sit it on the customer service desk and insist they set the Admin Password to one of my choosing with me present since it has all my personal business information stored on it. I want to be able to actually USE my computer.

You would think that when Wal-Mart sells a display computer they would at least reset it with a general password for the admin and provide that password on a card with the computer, but no, they don’t. When I got this it came exactly as they took it off the shelf complete with stupid pornographic sketches some moron playing on the display computers had saved onto it.

Lesson – when a display computer is bought from Wal-Mart, insist they reset the admin password when you buy it. If they refuse, weight the cost you save vs the future headaches of never having admin access to your own computer.

Blender 2.5

Sandra — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 20:29:51 +0000

I am working on trying to learn how to UV map things in Blender, but it is for some reason eluding me. I think part of the issue is the only tutorials I can find are for older versions of the program, or the interface is configured differently from how I have mine, so of course, I can not find half of the things they are talking about when they say to do this or that in the tutorial.

It is very frustrating for me trying to learn for the first time and not understanding what it is that I need to do, especially when all I need to do is make a basic little map and one of the tutorials I found even says “just do this and it does it for you now…” and I can not find where he is saying to “do this” in my version of the program.

I’m starting to think I should spend a few hours sorting this out, then make a much clearer and more noob friendly tutorial on just how it is actually done in the latest version of Blender.

Snowfall

Sandra — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 01:45:05 +0000

Last night the snow fell, coated everything with a pretty good layer. Not very deep, but definitely the first true snowfall we have had for the year.

At least, I suppose it was last night, or rather early this morning. I did not get to sleep until around 5 a.m. thinks to the last vestiges of my flu still making me miserable when I lay down, and a determination not to take NyQuil again after how it made me feel the other day, so I ended up sleeping until after 5 p.m.. So it could have snowed this afternoon for all I know. But, it’s out there. A thin layer of white covering the yard and the tops of all the buildings out there. I had really hopped that by this time I would know if I was able to keep the house here or not, but the bank is still going back and forth on what they say they need from me before they can let me start buying the place back from them.

Issues with Blender objects in Daz

Sandra — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 10:02:37 +0000

I am attempting to create a corridor for my Mars Station One project, unfortunately, I have run into a major SNAFU with the export of a corridor from Blender over to Daz.

The materials (mat) files do not import into Daz, so I have to take my object that I made in Blender and put new materials onto it in Daz… and I have no idea how to do that.

I did manage to solve the issue of size. For a corridor that is to be roughly eight to ten feet wide, I made it to the full width of the grid in Blender, then exported it at 25x the size, import the object into Daz at 100% size and viola! A corridor that looks around eight to ten feet wide in Daz.

My dilemma, however, is that I can not get my jpg image to show up on the object in Daz. I load the object files for the corridor into Daz and I get this..

In Blender I can make my image look like this…

I am fumbling my way along sorting out how to get the colorized image in Daz so I can do my animations using Daz Studio 4, but I am starting to think I might be better off to learn how to import Daz items to Blender and learn animations in Blender.

Lost In Alaska

Sandra — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:11:18 +0000

Alaska is, undeniably, a large state, and I can see where it can be quite easy to get lost here, but last night while I was standing at one of those Red Box DVD rental kiosk things in the middle of downtown Wasilla, a car with three kids that I guess must have been in their early to mid 20′s pulled up behind me and the young lady in the driver’s seat asked if I could tell them how to get to Anchorage.

Middle of Wasilla, less than 30 feet from the Parks Highway, and they want directions to Anchorage. Easy! Most of the time. Last night was not most of the time. I was having a bad day that had my brain a bit scattered, so was in a mood where I was easily second guessing mysel f on things. You’ve had those says, right? One of those situations where you are wondering what you are missing about what sounds like a too simple question, so you start questioning yourself about the answer? Yeah, I had one at that point.

I pointed to the Parks Highway, which was about 30 feet directly ahead of them, and told them to get on that road and keep going straight ahead. Good so far. I told them they would pass Target out at the edge of town and to just keep on going. Good so far. Then I hesitated. My brain wanted to know why it was so simple, too simple, what was I missing? I had to replay the route really quick in my head to make sure that yes, if they just pull forward and take a left on the Parks highway and keep going it will take them directly to Anchorage. You need to jog off of the highway after about 10 miles I think to get to Palmer, that is a confusing mess, but if you just stay on the Parks you will drive into downtown Anchorage.

That is the first time in my life that anyone has ever had to ask me how to get to Anchorage, so in the faintly scattered mental state I was last night I was a bit thrown by how simple the answer to the question was.

Why shouldn’t I vote for President Obama?

Sandra — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:24:28 +0000

I got a call a little while ago from one of those mass call center places. The guy identified the call as being from the something something republican something or other. I really can not recall who he said it was for, because the guy went through it far too fast for me to really keep up with what exactly he was saying.

He asked for me by name, then rattled off he was with whatever group, again saying it too quickly for me to really catch much more than that it was something about republicans. He went on to talk quickly about how poor of a job President Obama has been doing, and how he wanted to thank me for, as a liberal, having taken back the States from Obama not very long ago. Woah… stop. No, that’s not right. I’m NOT a liberal, I’m not even sure what one is to be honest, and I did not ‘take back the States’ from anyone, I sure as hell did not oppose the properly elected President on things that were not his doing. I did not bother to correct the caller there, heck, I could not even get a word in edgewise because he was still spieling on about how badly President Obama was doing.

He finally took a second to pause for breath and I got a word into the conversation. I informed him that I was not against President Obama. He asked if that meant I was going to vote for Obama? I said that I had not yet made up my mind on who I would be voting for, but all of the black marks I have heard as being against President Obama were so far unproven, and that I had not yet been told of anything that the President is accused of doing that had not already been in position to happen before the gentleman took office. I was honestly ready for him to explain to me why I should be against President Obama’s reelection, but instead of telling me what the man had done that was so awful, he said “Okay, thank you” and hung up the phone.

I take that to mean that he has no idea what President Obama has done that is so bad? I mean, come on people! If the people trying to coax votes – and more importantly MONEY – out of President Obama’s corner can not even tell us what the man has done that was actually President Obama’s fault, then… why shouldn’t I vote for a second term for President Obama?

Seriously. I want to know. What has the President done that is actually traceable to him and not things that are still collapsing from before he took office?

Show your support for caregiver

Sandra — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 03:06:16 +0000

Show your support for caregiver Anthony Makk being allowed to remain in the United States with his husband.

There are two different pages on Facebook that both have the same title:

Justice for Bradford Wells and husband Anthony John Makk

and also at Facebook,

Justice for Bradford Wells and husband Anthony John Makk

Same name, different pages. You can like them both if you wish.

The Info page on the second one links to a petition that is to be sent to President Obama at Care2 ThePetitionSite.com – Stop Legally Married Man From Being Deported – The signature goal is 10,000 signatures. It would be really great, in my humble opinion, if it hit 100,000 or more this weekend.