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No, don't mind.. what's your Blender thread?
Blender Guru is pretty cool. I DL'd one of those through YouTube a while back, but thought I'd give it a try direct through Real Player. At night it's tough to DL. YT is the same way. Mornings are better and Thursdays are the best DL days or Sunday morning early.
As of the moment I'm working on a building. The status readings in the main menu bar (Top Right) tell me Mem: 22.40M (12.44). Is this file size or RAM usage? I've watched the performance during a render and it peaks a bit over 50% then drops right back down to a few %. All I have on that machine is 2Gb RAM. 4375 faces. Any idea what to expect if I go much larger?
Thanks so much.
My WOW Blender thread is here:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/21166/
Oh yes, I've been following it, good thread :)
I thought I had seen you post there! lol Yea, it's really turned out to very informational thanks to you more advanced Blender users. I'm so thankful for all the help! :-)
Sometimes Misinformation can be depressing if not dangerous. I stated somewhere in here that I had difficulties watching YouTube videos because my wifi service isn't fast enough, thus requested written step-by-step or pdf downloads. I was not only told to DL the YT videos, but pointed to a program called YTD, to do exactly that. Well, I complimented a video's author on her well made work and mentioned that I'd DL'd them to watch later. I was informed it is against YT's TOS and a ban worthy opprobrium! Now I'm thinking I'd be better off just to hit B&N and abandon the video tuts.
And here I was making quite a bit of headway... :(
B&N won't have the information you are looking for. If you want to download videos, send a message to the person ahead of time and explain your situation and ask their permission. Many will probably not have a problem with it. Finding out after someone does something is often the problem for many people.
Actually, I just posted again to the gal's tube page. Not for permission, but to complain about YT's negligence, in so many words, assuring the nice lady the complaint was not about her. (I actually thanked her for educating me about the issue.) I compare it to trespassing. I have dogs. They aren't really mean, but they will, and have, gone after an intruder. (Bit the dude's crotch and he left a trail of blood as he ran away... That was in the house, though. LEO's wrote a few notes and did nothing... imagine that...) If it was in the privacy fenced in back yard, though, he could have sued me because I have no plain-as-day, overt, large type warning signs. (The fence is 7' high...)
YT needs to have such "fair warning" above each video. Real Player needs to restrict certain known sites from DL. YTD should cease and desist. Otherwise, RP is like the accomplice that helped the trespasser hop my fence.
If YT has such a covertly imbedded policy, ethics would denote they should refrain from forcing ads onto the viewer. I'm sure there are ways to learn Blender without all the frustration of internet video management...
I may be recalling poorly, but it seems I'd seen a list of Blender books at B&N. I'll Bing that...
Edit:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-blender-book-carsten-wartmann/1111888798
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/blender-foundations-the-essential-guide-to-learning-blender-?store=allproducts&keyword=blender+foundations+the+essential+guide+to+learning+blender+...
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/blender-3d?store=allproducts&keyword=blender+3d
Nope! B&N doesn't have any Blender titles for sale... :D LOL
Just download the videos and don't go telling anyone about it. Nobody really cares unless you start redistributing the content as your own. If your conscience bothers you, delete the downloads after watching them. What, really, is the difference between you watching it once on your browser (trying to watch with a crappy connection), and watching it once in a video player at high enough resolution to actually see what is going on?
Just one more thing...
I'm no lawyer, but there is legal precedent for the right to record television broadcasting for later viewing and personal use. YouTube can pretend that you don't have that right, but I would wager that the law is on your side in this respect. Or have you never used a VCR in your life?
Here in America, the difference is the Fair Use Act and freedom of information. Blender needs an OpenGL tut site where the work is protected against plagiarism, but DL's are encouraged.
I can't stress enough that one day we all may wake up to find the net simply isn't, whether by sociopolitical disruption or climatic cataclysm. So, no, I have more conscience to actually promote your suggestion... silently. Not for piracy, but for time encapsulation.
DAZ is in Utah. We are in a solar cycle right now of early warning signs that could trigger great amounts of activity in the Yellowstone Caldera in about 11 years, when the sun resumes its output. Old Faithful is only about 300 years old, according to the US Department of the Interior. It appears to have popped up shortly after the Little Ice Age, or Maunder Minimum. ALL water tributaries West of the Illinois-Indiana border are connected to it through the ground waters contained in the one time lava tubes created by the YC about 100k years ago. For that to happen, a lot of water preceded the fire.
What I'm saying is, aside from the pirates who will do as they please regardless, authors should be flattered that someone wants to preserve their work, especially in an age of 7 billion other contestants. In the not-so-distant future their work will otherwise go unseen. Same for DAZ. Free is good. Free endows the arts in all respects.
BTW... got Gimp. It resembles my own SDI programming preference, opposed to DAZ and Blender that are apparently MDI parent/child window dependent. Both are good algorithms. I can see where Gimp will be very useful when I start delving into UV mapping. Right now I'm playing with realism versus vertex population. Blender is progressively making life good.
That is correct, but if they were to ban you for DL'ing, you would have little recourse if any, save to apologize and beg. House rules differ between public and private. When they demand my ID to log in, as has Facebook, the link goes to file 13. People can post videos on my own http://www.jootbox.forumchitchat.com site. Worst case scenario is they could be moved to an appropriate category, but I'm a lazy mod...
Videos can be downloaded without logging in. At least that's my case with Firefox and Download Helper.
Doc and Dave, I think you need to look at the downloading ban from the sites point of view. They are providing a service for all for free but have to pay the bills somehow. Advertising is that somehow so of anything that circumvented watching the ads is against TOS. If it wasn't companies may be less inclined to advertise with them.
Now about the books, I am pretty sure those where written about the time version 2.5 was going to be released. 2.5 was seen as a major change to Blender, it was when the interface was overhauled to hopefully be more user friendly and get more people to use it. But we are at version 2.6x now and some of whats in them, like a lot of the keyboard shortcut will have changed. They may not help with learning how to use Blender but more with modeling techniques and principles.
One is free to skip most advertisements on YouTube after a certain amount of time. I do watch some advertisements that interest me. AFAIK, I am not able to start the download until after the advertisement has ended. FWIW, who hasn't fast forwarded through the commercials in TV programs recorded on videotape? One is not required to accept any terms of service to view most videos available on YouTube or Vimeo. I do not download videos to avoid advertising. I do so because my netbook is underpowered with a crappy screen, and I have no internet service at home. I leave my 'good' laptop at home most of the time because it's a lot bigger than the netbook.
If Google wasn't involved now, I'd be tickled pink to pay $10 or 20 a year to not even see the ads, or at least see them at the side panel as an option, not a mandate. The advertisers wouldn't have anyone to pitch to if YT becomes disenchanting. People who DL a video don't just stop at one, but a banned user will never see any ads ever again. JOOTBOX costs me about $80 a year to maintain. If I choose to sell ads, they're in the header or side panel. If I get 10k users, that will go up, but I can sell more ads.
Google and now even Yahoo are notorious email spammers... oh... excuse me; email advertisers. They have a lot of political muscle when it comes to the net. They have web crawlers and spam bots and allow their own website clients to spam you, your websites or a forum to the degree of server overload. They sponsored just such a spammer on a forum I was building through WebHostingHub and overloaded the seervers once, forcing me to delete the one dormant site. I had a further constructed forum and discovered a throng of bot members selling drugs illegal in America from that site. I fought back by cancelling memberships, which apparently caused a loop, overloading Google servers with bouncebacks. WebHostingHub terminated my account because I did what any other mod would have done. Now it's in the hands of the BBB, our local police and shortly the DEA and FCC. Then, if I want, I can sue WHH for abetting conversion and criminal mischief, as well as damages.
No. I have no love for Google, so I should find a new way to learn Blender... without paying for GNU unless I think it's time to donate.
Well everyone, the weather here is wonderful. I hope it's as nice for everyone out there ;)
I hope no one reading my comments thinks that I advocate copyright violation in any way. I've bought several DVDs on Blender this year and plan on purchasing more. I've spent quite a bit on content at DAZ, too. I agree with Gedd that artists should be compensated for their hard work. I'm an artist too. I paint in oils and occasionally sell a painting. I do not think, though, that I need to go to the extreme of worrying about whether saving a video or web page for offline viewing later violates someone's copyright or not. I think I've already stated my position that I believe a video on YouTube is the equivalent of a television broadcast. I have the legal right to record a television broadcast for personal viewing at a later time. I will not reliquish rights just because the medium of transmission is now digital instead of analog.
Edit: Darn it, Gedd! You edited your post! ;) Anywho, I'm not upset or anything. I just enjoy vigorous discussion. :)
We may be in a golden age of content at places like Youtube. There's a wealth of it finally and there aren't a lot of associated costs yet. Enjoy it while you can :)
The weather's been nicer, but we're about to get rain and we're told it will probably break the record set in the 1800's for the most rain in April in INdiana.
As for artists getting paid? Absolutely! As a scientist, I have to either work for a university or corporation to get any pay, but in doing so I'm subjugated, to a degree, by a superior's interests. As an independent, I do what I want, but can't get grants anymore. I used to earn my research capital painting signs, but now every soccer mom with a Cricket cutter is in the business. Computer graphics is the state-of-the-art brush and animation cell. Same as I had to learn AutoCAD in 1990 if I wanted to work, today I must learn even more. It has always been that an artist has to do the work before he or she gets the work.
Some artists have turned to writing illustrated novels. Me too. :)
http://www.amazon.com/Blender-Foundations-Essential-Guide-Learning/dp/0240814304
Found this on 2.66 at Amazon. The Kindle edition is $16. I don't have a Kindle and have never bought a Kindle book. Will they also run on standard PC or Laptop w/Adobe?
I saw that the Blenderwiki also lists some books, but it didn't appear they were 2.66 except for one looking at the interface.
I think that book might be a bit dated by now. On the Amazon page it say it's about 2.6, so it may or may not have information on the Cycles render engine among other newer features. Still, most of the principles should apply for the general workflow. Btw, have you seen the latest free tutorial video at Blender Cookie on using the Rigify add-on? It looks like a good way to generate a basic armature for an imported Genesis figure. Of course, one must still add things like shape keys to get facial expressions.
I think that book might be a bit dated by now. On the Amazon page it say it's about 2.6, so it may or may not have information on the Cycles render engine among other newer features. Still, most of the principles should apply for the general workflow. Btw, have you seen the latest free tutorial video at Blender Cookie on using the Rigify add-on? It looks like a good way to generate a basic armature for an imported Genesis figure. Of course, one must still add things like shape keys to get facial expressions.
And a way for someone to make some serious money, given you can export shape keys to obj as morphs. If you can improve on the default pose controls' functionality with facial expressions, that is.
I started reading a book called Stop Staring. It's all about the art of facial expression in CG. I haven't built any functional characters yet, though I've played around with eye rigs and such, having watched some older video tutes by David Ward. I really like the controls on the Cookie FlexRig. It would be nice if one could adjust facial expressions directly on a Genesis character in a way similar to the Cookie FlexRig instead of searching for the right sliders in the pose controls.
Hi guys,
I realize some of the older books still need updating and am cautious before putting dough in the oven. I would think 2.6 would be close enough to find a lot of good input. I looked at some books on BlenderWiki that are free to read, or likely copy page-per-page, but are pretty cheap to simply buy the pdf.
Getting involved in DAZ, Blender and YouTube, now, has me mulling over the subject of ethics. I even asked someone in a PM, here, about the ethics of posting Blender discussions on the DAZ forum, regarding the possible conflict of interest. There seems to be no problem, thus I started this thread.
I did check out the rigify tut. Need to watch it again more thoroughly.
One reason I've stepped back a bit from doing figures, for the moment, is to learn the aspects of creating inanimate objects. In doing that, learning the basics of the interface and capabilities won't be as overwhelming as diving right into character animation. For example, right now I'm seeing what creating buildings is like, then it'll be on to plants. Doing mountains and hills is pretty easy already and sculpting? Ooh, la la!
Have you guys tried the knife yet? I probably should just watch the video again, but was hoping someone could enlighten me as to how one can lock the axes after pressing "k."
Now the problem has cropped up again. I'm going back over this thread and what I did to get it to import correctly. I've made certain the verts choice is selected.
Edit: Solved.
This is the occasional glitch that can be frustrating in D/S 4.5:
I've been getting on quite well with d-formers and adding my own strategic morphs to Genesis. I've even discovered that one can manipulate 2 (maybe more?) d-formers at a time, with some reservation at times, to create duplicate symmetrical morphs. That's great!
The problem is every so often, it completely crashes my machine. If Blender ever crashes, it only crashes the program and usually doesn't merely crash, but stops responding in a timely manner, so I keep drawings relatively small. DAZ, on the other hand, is the only program I have on the machine that without warning reboots.
I've written some graphics programs in the past that can do this once a routine has been called several times. It always turns out to be a routine that loads a graphic into memory, but fails to release the memory once it's done with it. Eventually, the blocks of memory start putting the overflow in a critical area and POOF!
Maybe someone working closer to DAZ can take this assessment to them.
It has been suspected for sometime that DS has a memory leak. We have all experienced crashes during memory extensive processes, for me it is usually when working in the Surface tab. But a complete reboot not just DS locking up or crashing to desktop sounds more like a hardware problem.
The machine is rather new and the only program it crashes during is DS. Hardware problems usually show up during the machine's P.O.S.T., although a bad mouse or keyboard connection can make it through to the OS stabilizing.