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What's up, everyone? So, it's been ages since I've been on here. There was a reason for this, my browser started giving me malicious code warnings on the old forum. But, it's nice to see everything has been rebuilt and is all shiny and new.
So, this is a new WIP thread for my Star Trek stuff. For those who don't remember, Star Trek is mostly what I do. I started out using Truespace back about the year 2000 and moved to Lightwave about 7 years ago. Well, my motherboard in my one and only Windows PC crapped out on me, and my Windows license was tied to that board. I'm not keen on paying over $100 for another one, so I've jettisoned Windows again. Repeated attempts to get Lightwave to work in Linux haven't gone well, as the license won't correctly install. This is due to Lightwave 2018 requiring Windows firewall to work. There's no way around this, so I'm trying Blender again. I was working on an Enterprise model in Lightwave, but I can't get that to import into Blender, so I started on a new ship.
I had the urge to do something from the 24th century. I decided to do a cruiser, the same overall design and layout of the Constitution class, in fact it’s even about the same size as a Connie refit. Design elements are a blend of Connie-R, Excelsior and Ambassador. By 24th century standards, this would be a smaller cruiser, when stacked up against the Excelsior and Ambassador.
Most of the main elements are at least started. There’s more work to be done, of course, but the overall layout is there. There’s been a lot of pushing vertices and subdividing to get to this part. Everything is box modeled, as messing with splines is a pill.
So, hopefully there will be more work on this upcoming. I have a bad habit lately of starting but not finishing ships. But, I feel good about my chances of actually finishing this one.
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Thanks, and thanks for looking at the blog.
Current Projects:
Ambassador Class
The ship's looking good so far. How are you finding Blender 2.8?
Just to give a brief update on my progress, or lack thereof. I live in Dayton, Ohio. As some people may have seen on the news, this region was slammed by 15 tornadoes on Monday night. I'm fine, in fact I was at work across town when it happened. However, a rare and very powerful EF4 passed about a mile north of where I live. Fortunately, we didn't take much damage, but a tree took out a utility pole nearby, so we lost electricity. It was finally restored this morning, so we went approximately 4.5 days without power. So, obviously I didn't do any CGI during that time. I'll be getting back into the swing of things in the upcoming days. I currently don't have internet at the house. Spectrum was supposed to be out about 12 hours ago to fix it, but they weren't. I probably won't do many updates until it's fixed. I can do them via my phone, but I have to side load the images. I'm still not sure if I want to bother with that. On the other hand, it may be back up before I have much done anyway.
In the meantime, it's my night off work and I'm probably going to chill out, do some much needed laundry and watch some Japanese Kaiju films. (Godzilla, Rodan, etc.) I got a bunch of DVDs and Blu-rays in the mail during the blackout, which didn't do a lot of good.
I'm using 2.79. It's what's available in the repository of the Linux distribution I'm using. (yes, I could download 2.8 but I have yet to do so and won't be doing so until I have internet at the house again)
The problem with no Internet and trying to work in Blender is, if I have a question about how to do something.
Regarding Blender 2.8, yes it's not in any repo yet as it's in beta, however I would suggest you give the latest build a spin whenever you can, as it does change the UI quite drastically from 2.79 to be easier and more similar to other 3D software. If you're essentially having to relearn Blender, it might be worth your time getting into 2.8 sooner rather than later (so long as your ISP allows you to, of course. ).
Yeah, I'll probably give Blender 2.8 a spin. Though, to be honest, I never had much issue with the Blender interface. The biggest issue I have is accidentally hitting Lightwave keyboard shortcuts in Blender. Well, that and not remembering what a tool is called in Blender.
Thanks bro.
Well, my ISP lost a customer. They were supposed to call back Saturday with an estimate of when they'd be out. Even if the estimate was a week or two, they should have called and told us something. But, they haven't and it's Monday night. So, my new internet will be installed on Friday. In the meantime...
So, this may not look like much, but I got new nacelle bodies built. Much of what I’m doing on this ship is proof of concept, as I’ve never built components like these before and I’m also getting used to the quirks of different software. Still, it’s going well. This is only version 4 of the nacelles (the less said about versions 2 & 3, the better.)
Much of what I did was shape refinement. The first version had some mesh errors around the back, I eliminated those with the new shape. I also wanted them to be a much more complex shape than juat a simple half circle, so that took some refinement. The top cutout starts a little farther back and is deeper than it was on version 1. So that’s all I have for now. More to follow.
The warp coils are in, or at least the blue part is. I decided to just box model and subdivide those, as I did the nacelles and secondary hull. The bussards are also started. One thing that’s superior with Blender’s Cycles render engine is that I find it quite effortlessly filters light through a transparent material. The materials are all temporary, but I like how that’s working. I couldn’t find the setting to make that work correctly in Lightwave 2018. Anywho, this is where I am for now:
I’m going to move back to the saucer next, as I still have major components to add to it.
So, that's good news, especially going into the weekend. I don't work Friday or Saturday nights, so I'll be doing some model work.
Just out of curiosity why do AT&T need to come out to your house? If your changing provider you just swap out the router (that is if your using the one they provide.) If your using your own nothing needs to be done. Any work that need to be done on the phone line to swap you over would be done at the local exchange. (Here in the UK it a green box that sits at the end of the road or at an entrance to an estate and in some cases the main exchange for the area.)
The only time an engineer would have to come into your home here is to fit a new line, or if you go with SKY / Virgin to have Satellite dish/Cable Box installed for the TV.
Old houses will have old standard of Cat5 running to them and are slowly being changed over to Fibre.
While all new building will have Fibre going straight to them. (future proofing them. Though I am not sure how the fibre works as the phone socket are not set up for fibre, so there must be a converter somewhere.)
Below is a picture of the plug we use in the UK for our landings
It is the provider who denotes what system there is. In the US we had multiple competing formats Cable ADSL microwave (yes a microwave transceiver, sooo 90s), sat, etc so there are multiple types of line that can enter a home.
Keep in mind cat5 cat6 is category 5/e/6/7 or whatever they come up with next, is the wire, the 4twisted pairs of solid copper. The connector is a rj45. Most cables off a modem are a crossover cable.
providers love to charge ridiculous fees for this cable if not returned with the other hwd. Seen some try to charge up to 50usd for these.
Least in the USA providers need to test the lines in the home to the provider modem to verify services are good. It is mostly to prevent consumer error service calls.
Sorry, super way off topic.
Heh, I started it, so it's all good. Besides, your knowledge is always welcome.