Spacemanbob.com

Now this is a nice render of a lizard. I really like how he got the texture on it.

I will attempt to work on a couple things here. Hopefully I will have something to post in the next couple of hours. It is now 7:51pm Texas Time.

Updated 8:25pm

Here we go... First render of the night. Move your mouse over the image to read what I have done.

I will continue this thread onto a new post since the other one is getting too long and it was just working with light.

Here we go... Will be adding pictures to this as I get them done.

Sometimes I get confused with the settings on how to make a surface look the way it does. Here is an example. I forget this stuff if I don't use it everyday.

Surfacing Images

Done with this chapter. I added some hot coals to the brick tube.

I know companies need to try to save money by hiring other countries to do tech support for us but what are we getting ourselves into.

Quote"Out of work: Police have arrested 12 men in western India for allegedly cheating four Citibank customers out of nearly US$350,000, a police officer said.
Three former employees at a call center in the city of Pune and nine of their associates have been charged with misusing financial data and illegally withdrawing money from the accounts of New York-based customers.
Citibank outsourced some of its customer support operations to Mphasis BPO in Pune, 85 miles southeast of Bombay.
The crime became known when the customers complained about unauthorized money transfers and the bank traced them to Pune.
Reacting to the news, a cyber law expert said the monitoring system in Indian companies needed to improve.

Should He or Should He not.....

Here we go. I know I will be struggling with some of the things coming up but I will keep at it.

Many updates to come.

I need a pill that will remove the fat from my body so I don't look fat on my webcam. LOL

It's so easy to get overweight but why is it so hard to loose it. Just like getting grades in school. Once you get a bad grade it ruins your GPA almost forever.

Guess it is sorrta like 3rd Law of cosmology. Everything will attempt to form chaos as a natural state. In otherwords things won't stay all neat if you just let things be. So you have to work hard to make things look good when that force is constantly working against you.

Nice little Dust Devil Car on CGTalk.com     

Just found this cute 3d Image done in Maya. I like the reflection mapping.

Adobe Announces Purchase of Macromedia for $3.4B
Published on April 18, 2005

Leading content creator Adobe Systems announced Monday morning that it will purchase rival Macromedia in an all-stock transaction worth $3.4 billion.

Adobe, which is best known for its graphical arts program Photoshop and its PDF readers, will now be able to offer more powerful and diverse content with the Macromedia acquisition.

The San Francisco-based Macromedia is the producer of the widely-used Dreamweaver web page creator and Flash media producer, along with the web graphics program Fireworks, which competes in that space against Photoshop.

"Customers are calling for integrated software solutions that enable them to create, manage and deliver a wide range of compelling content and applications - from documents and images to audio and video," said Bruce Chizen, chief executive officer of Adobe. "By combining our powerful development, authoring and collaboration software - along with the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash - Adobe has the opportunity to bring this vision to life with an industry-defining technology platform."

Under the terms of the agreement Macromedia stockholders will receive 0.69 shares of Adobe common stock for every share of Macromedia common stock in a tax-free exchange. Based on Adobe's and Macromedia's closing prices on Friday, April 15, 2005, this represents a price of $41.86 per share of Macromedia common stock or 18% ownership of the company.

I like the concept here with the aztek like looking block monsters.

In 2029 or 2036 we may have a visitor slam into the earth. I am not taking bets on this. But I can put money that no one will even think about it until astronomers say it is going to hit and that will probably be too late for us to take action since we have no means to move such a large object. Here is a cut and paste.

Near-Earth Asteroid 2004 MN4 Reaches Highest Score To Date On Hazard Scale
Don Yeomans, Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas
NASA's Near Earth Object Program Office
December 23, 2004

A recently rediscovered 400-meter Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) is predicted to pass near the Earth on 13 April 2029. The flyby distance is uncertain and an Earth impact cannot yet be ruled out. The odds of impact, presently around 1 in 300, are unusual enough to merit special monitoring by astronomers, but should not be of public concern. These odds are likely to change on a day-to-day basis as new data are received. In all likelihood, the possibility of impact will eventually be eliminated as the asteroid continues to be tracked by astronomers around the world.

This object is the first to reach a level 2 (out of 10) on the Torino Scale. According to the Torino Scale, a rating of 2 indicates "a discovery, which may become routine with expanded searches, of an object making a somewhat close but not highly unusual pass near the Earth. While meriting attention by astronomers, there is no cause for public attention or public concern as an actual collision is very unlikely. New telescopic observations very likely will lead to re-assignment to Level 0 [no hazard]." This asteroid should be easily observable throughout the coming months.

The brightness of 2004 MN4 suggests that its diameter is roughly 400 meters (1300 feet) and our current, but very uncertain, best estimate of the flyby distance in 2029 is about twice the distance of the moon, or about 780,000 km (480,000 miles). On average, an asteroid of this size would be expected to pass within 2 lunar distances of Earth every 5 years or so.

Most of this object's orbit lies within the Earth's orbit, and it approaches the sun almost as close as the orbit of Venus. 2004 MN4's orbital period about the sun is 323 days, placing it within the Aten class of NEAs, which have an orbital period less than one year. It has a low inclination with respect to the Earth's orbit and the asteroid crosses near the Earth's orbit twice on each of its passages about the sun.

As astronomers track this asteroid over the coming weeks and months, the orbit will become better determined and the cloud will shorten, converging on a true position which, in all likelihood, will be well removed from the Earth.

2004 MN4 was discovered on 19 June 2004 by Roy Tucker, David Tholen and Fabrizio Bernardi of the NASA-funded University of Hawaii Asteroid Survey (UHAS), from Kitt Peak, Arizona, and observed over two nights. On 18 December, the object was rediscovered from Australia by Gordon Garradd of the Siding Spring Survey, another NASA-funded NEA survey. Further observations from around the globe over the next several days allowed the Minor Planet Center to confirm the connection to the June discovery, at which point the possibility of impact in 2029 was realized by the automatic SENTRY system of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office. NEODyS, a similar automatic system at the University of Pisa and the University of Valladolid, Spain also detected the impact possibility and provided similar predictions.

December 24 Update: 2004 MN4 is now being tracked very carefully by many astronmers around the world, and we continue to update our risk analysis for this object. Today's impact monitoring results indicate that the impact probability for April 13, 2029 has risen to about 1.6%, which for an object of this size corresponds to a rating of 4 on the ten-point Torino Scale. Nevertheless, the odds against impact are still high, about 60 to 1, meaning that there is a better than 98% chance that new data in the coming days, weeks, and months will rule out any possibility of impact in 2029.

Just found this article in NewScientist Magazine.

Was hydrogen the bringer of life on Earth?

* 16 April 2005
* Jeff Hecht

THE atmosphere on primitive Earth was much richer in hydrogen than previously thought and could have been the source of the molecules that led to early life, a new analysis shows. The study lends credence to the long-standing suggestion that lightning in early Earth's atmosphere helped form these prebiotic molecules.

In a classic experiment in 1953, American chemist Stanley Miller produced amino acids by zapping electricity through a mixture of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water, which he thought mimicked the composition of Earth's early atmosphere. Even a mixture low in methane and ammonia, but rich in hydrogen gave rise to such molecules. But later research indicated that hydrogen would have been less abundant in the early atmosphere than in such concoctions. Researchers argued that the expected blend of nitrogen and carbon dioxide would not have yielded prebiotic material.

Now Feng Tian of the University of Colorado in Boulder and his colleagues claim primitive Earth was indeed rich in hydrogen because the gas would have been trapped in the atmosphere, preventing it from escaping into space. Today, the upper atmosphere can reach temperatures above 700 °C because atomic oxygen there absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the sun. The absorbed energy is transferred to hydrogen atoms, which then escape. But because the primitive Earth's atmosphere was rich in carbon dioxide, which would have radiated the solar UV energy back into space, the temperatures would have remained below 350 °C, Tian argues. This would have prevented hydrogen from escaping as readily as it does today. And as volcanoes kept spewing out hydrogen, the gas would have made up nearly 30 per cent of the atmosphere.
“So much hydrogen in the early atmosphere makes it far easier to produce organic molecules relevant to the origin of life”

This would have significantly increased the rate at which organic compounds formed. Tian calculates that concentrations of organic compounds in the oceans would have been two to three orders of magnitude greater than previous estimates.

Astrobiologist Chris Chyba, of Stanford University in California, says the idea is credible. "This is a very different atmosphere chemically from what has been the consensus model for the past few decades," he says. "Putting that much hydrogen into the early atmosphere makes it far easier to produce organic molecules relevant to the origin of life."

I have added an animated map of the US with Rain fronts moving across the US. I added this for several reasons. One I am always curious when it is raining in my home state and where my friends are and to see if a storm is making its way to me from the west coast.

I may add multiple pages in the future for my friends that visit my page from across the world.

Hope you like it. I may still move it down one slot so the images aren't lopsided.

Spacemanbob strikes again.

Well here I go again. At least I am keeping up with working on my goal of Lightwave. :)

Learning how to make curves and rounding edges.

Here is a Lava Lamp albiet a simple one, but it is one all the same. Used a tutorial file to make this, and since I am getting used to the tools it only took me 15 minutes to create it.

Here is the Lava Lamp in a lighted studio look.

I am now in the process of learning how to map an image to parts of an object. Basically spliting the object up into surfaces and then take that information and saving it as a template. You then take that template and import it into Photoshop and use it as a layer while you paint or apply your paint texturing to it. Once done you discard that template layer and save the image as you painted it, then apply that image to the UV Map information you initially set up.

Here is a large screen shot of the modeler program in lightwave showing you on the top left how the UV Map looks and on the left how the image looks once you apply it to a the model.

Here is an example of how to make a floor plan turn into 3d. Just draw out the lines and extrude them up in simple terms.

I have to say that creating moulding on windows is really hard, or at least the way I was doing it. I am going to be going thru the tutorial again later and see if I can make two size windows and just cut and past the moulding I make from them and paste it onto the others instead of trying to make moulding on each individual window. Good Goodness....

Well here is the finished House plan all started from a basic line drawing like a blueprint.

Holy Cow Batman or should I say Pinky and the Brain.....

Seattle Scientist Induces State of Suspended Animation in Mice

Researchers in Seattle think that they may have discovered a means by which to induce a reversible condition in mice that is similar to hibernation. This state of 'suspended animation' might work on humans and could be a critical factor leading to improvements in trauma care and organ transplantation. The results are being published today in Science magazine.

Mark Roth, a cell biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center lead the study, in which a warm blooded animal was placed in a physical state where it exhibited no heartbeat or respiration.

Roth's interest in this field of study grew out of a fascination to, as he put it that 'space between being alive and dead.' The study originally was set up to study the behavior of chromosomes in parasitic worms. During the process, Roth's team began looking at the genes in worms that are involved the metabolism of oxygenation. Once they were able to induce hibernation in the worms, they moved on to fruit flies and zebra fish before attempting the reversal on mice.

Roth explains that, obviously, when the brain is deprived of oxygen, damage will occur. The trick is to reduce the oxygen levels so much that the animal stops breathing and all other metabolic activity ceases. In this study, Roth used hydrogen sulfide on the mice, and kept them in a suspended state for six hours. Once they were revived, they were examined and found to have no ill effects from the experience.

This seems to be working because hydrogen sulfide is already present in the body and is apparently responsible for the regulation of body temperature and metabolic activity. Roth’s theory is that by increasing the levels of a substance already present in the body, he can induce hibernation. He believes that this process can be used on humans and says, 'It should work the same for us as it did in mice. We have the same basic chemistry.'

D.R. Boyer

I decided tonight to work on some UV mapping onto some boxes. Turned out pretty good but some of the edges need work. Too sharp for old boxes. Plus the image looks a little stretched on the edges. But here ya go. Almost looks like Dynamite boxes. LOL

Well I am at work today... Added another gig of ram to the exchange server. Hope it makes things a little smoother since now it is over the 3gig mark. Should be ok though.

I am also on call today for a Softball Game and Tennis Match. Both of which have gone off with no phone calls into me so I guess that is a good thing at this point. That is because I am now planted in a coffee house and will be working on my Lightwave stuff any second.

Here we go... I will read through the Lightwave book while I wait for some things to happen on our servers at work. When I am done I should be able to make a 'One-Minute Spaceship.'

Let see how it goes.

5 minutes later.... LOL

Here it is with a metallic finish to it. When looking at this spaceship I would probably laugh when the people that came up with the shiny chrome craft that they used in Star Wars I, II, III. This took so little to create. All you need to do is make sure that the reflective surfaces look good which isn't too hard in most 3D programs now. Oh Well here it is.

Once again I am at work and waiting for the network to come back up from the campus. Have gotten a lot of calls this morning telling me our network is down just to find out that it isn't our network but the campus network.

There was a scheduled network outage for today but it wasn't supposed to be for this long and it wasn't supposed to effect the areas that it is now keeping offline. What can you say. Nothing I guess.

Today while I am sitting here at work WAITING for the network to come back online. I decided to work a little on Lightwave. Well here you have it. Something that is now starting to look like a upper torso. More updates soon.

Update #1

Update #2

Mean looking sucker. :)

Interesting results here.