Should serve as an example to the Department of Energy. The U.S. needs a distributed power generating system ASAP. Lots of small solar and wind generators all over the nation. Every block should have one.
Right now, "officials" are saying this probably isn't terrorism. But I bet it's giving al-Qaeda some ideas. If an accident can make this happen, I'm sure a cleverly-placed explosive can make it happen much more easily.
And once all those cities are out of power and essentially crippled, the real strikes start.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go get some tea on for when the FBI guys come knocking on my door. Does Ashcroft take one lump or two?
How will they keep the papier-mache from disintegrating underwater? To say nothing of the all-important baking soda and vinegar mixture.
And what will happen when all that shredded newspaper washes up on the shore of Alaska? It'll make the Exxon Valdez spill look like a zit squeezed on a mirror.
Sometimes scientists just won't answer the tough questions.
Just curious... I'd like to hear opinions from people who aren't on Roomba's website.
Before I buy one, I want to know if it will keep up with my two-year old. I envision some kind of evolutionary arms race between my daughter and the Roomba, where the Roomba gets smarter and bigger and my daughter finds new and messier ways to screw up the living room carpet.
Eventually the Roomba will evolve into SkyNet and a former California governor will travel back in time to shoot me.
Re:Account for people with misshapen bodies?
on
Chimera Twins Story
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· Score: 2, Funny
Thanks for telling everybody where I used to work, you insensitive clod!
For the uninitated, "On the Gripping Hand" refers to an expression used by the three-armed "Moties" in the Niven/Pournelle series that begins with The Mote in God's Eye.
When evaluating a decision, the Moties say, "on one hand, on the other hand, and on the gripping hand," giving them three options where a 2-handed human has two.
Good book, but buy it from a used bookstore if you can.
8 hours is an estimate, folks!
on
A Tour of Pixar
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
When Pixar started in 1985, Greenberg says, it took 8 hours to render one frame (or 1/24th of a second) of computer animation. Now, it still takes 8 hours, because the artwork in each frame is far more complex.
Keep in mind that they don't render everything all at once! Any given frame is bound to be a composite of many different layers.
They'll break up a single element (say, one fish) into multiple passes for diffuse, specular, shadow, and who knows what else.
Then there's backgrounds, z-depth images, shadow maps, and about a bazillion other things that need to get rendered, too.
Then they have to render the composite image, which also takes an obscene amount of time if the composite is complex.
Not to mention all the test renders and placeholder renders before the final.
So this "eight hour" figure has got to be just a ballpark estimate for the public at large. It would be pretty difficult to figure out exactly how many hours of rendering time actually went into one completed frame.
...won't help a bit if your script sucks. Films like Monsters, Inc. succeeded not because they show off the latest and greatest in rendering power, but because they have an engaging story and interesting characters.
You could have done Monsters, Inc with sock puppets and it still would have been entertaining.
Lucas hasn't recently shown that he can deliver the plots and characters that are necessary to make an animated film work.
That's an interesting idea. But why bother rendering out those frames to disk for a preview? Maya will hardware render with an alpha channel, just composite that over your live action in realtime. Faster, and saves disk space.
One could, of course, send post-menopausal women, who would likely have the benefit of being more experienced astronauts, since they're older.
But your joke raises an interesting point about long interplanetary trips. You have to take everything with you, and you're not likely to want to take a cotton plantation along.My solution? Cattails. I remember reading once about Native American women using cattails to staunch menstrual bleeding. Grow a bunch of cattails in your bioremediation pond.
Plus you can eat the young cattail shoots like asparagus. You don't want real asparagus in an environment where people are going to be confined with their own urine.
The six participants have not yet been chosen, and the selection process will be rigorous, Mr. Malashenkov went on, saying an all-male crew was likely.
Why not an all female crew? You could save a couple of kilos on the launch, and their energy requirements (i.e. food) are likely to be lower over the course of a long-term trip, since they don't have to maintain as much body mass.
Of course there's that whole Men are From Mars thing...
It looked to me like the raccoon was built up out of a bunch of primitives (deformed spheres, etc.) That's not much of a sculpting job, really, and not much more impressive than you could achieve with a pointing device like a mouse or Wacom tablet.
Where a device like this *might* be interesting is when used in conjunction with Maya's Artisan tools or Softimage|XSI's weight maps to deform and stretch a polygon mesh by pushing and pulling vertices.
And as for the idea of "most models" being created through a sculpt/digitize process, maybe that's true at the high end (Pixar, ILM, DD, PDI), but your average mom and pop animation shop is likely using the tools built into their software.
A well designed modelling enviroment like Maya or Softimage pretty much eliminates the need to check positioning in relation to axes... most modellers I know do most of their work in the perspective view anyways.
Slashdot Mirror
Phooey on trolls. It's a joke. Just not a funny one, apparently. Try, try again, I always say.
Somebody told me BSD is dying, though. Is this true?
...all HTTP requests to WindowsUpdate.com will be directed to goatse.cx.
Some speculate that this will considerably improve Microsoft's customer service.
101 ?
That's easy.
Dalmatianium.
...flying cars! Where the hell are my flying cars?
Should serve as an example to the Department of Energy. The U.S. needs a distributed power generating system ASAP. Lots of small solar and wind generators all over the nation. Every block should have one.
Right now, "officials" are saying this probably isn't terrorism. But I bet it's giving al-Qaeda some ideas.
If an accident can make this happen, I'm sure a cleverly-placed explosive can make it happen much more easily.
And once all those cities are out of power and essentially crippled, the real strikes start.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go get some tea on for when the FBI guys come knocking on my door. Does Ashcroft take one lump or two?
That sounds like the combination an idiot would have on his luggage!
...the world will know the glory of the FIVE-ASSED MONKEY!
Or maybe not. Call your congresspeoples and demand your five-assed monkey.
I tried to read the article, but I didn't understand it.
Because I'm just a cave man!
Ah, Phil, we barely knew ye...
How will they keep the papier-mache from disintegrating underwater? To say nothing of the all-important baking soda and vinegar mixture.
And what will happen when all that shredded newspaper washes up on the shore of Alaska? It'll make the Exxon Valdez spill look like a zit squeezed on a mirror.
Sometimes scientists just won't answer the tough questions.
Just curious... I'd like to hear opinions from people who aren't on Roomba's website.
Before I buy one, I want to know if it will keep up with my two-year old. I envision some kind of evolutionary arms race between my daughter and the Roomba, where the Roomba gets smarter and bigger and my daughter finds new and messier ways to screw up the living room carpet.
Eventually the Roomba will evolve into SkyNet and a former California governor will travel back in time to shoot me.
Thanks for telling everybody where I used to work, you insensitive clod!
Now my stilt-man career is over!
That'd be great, 'cuz my 1541 had to be the most durable piece of hardware I ever had.
I dropped mine down my friend's steps and it still worked. There was also an app that played "happy birthday" by vibrating the drive heads, IIRC.
With such hardened, low power hardware available, NASA will have lots of stuff to crash into planets on future missions.
For the uninitated, "On the Gripping Hand" refers to an expression used by the three-armed "Moties" in the Niven/Pournelle series that begins with The Mote in God's Eye.
When evaluating a decision, the Moties say, "on one hand, on the other hand, and on the gripping hand," giving them three options where a 2-handed human has two.
Obligatory Amazon Link
Good book, but buy it from a used bookstore if you can.
When Pixar started in 1985, Greenberg says, it took 8 hours to render one frame (or 1/24th of a second) of computer animation. Now, it still takes 8 hours, because the artwork in each frame is far more complex.
Keep in mind that they don't render everything all at once! Any given frame is bound to be a composite of many different layers.
They'll break up a single element (say, one fish) into multiple passes for diffuse, specular, shadow, and who knows what else.
Then there's backgrounds, z-depth images, shadow maps, and about a bazillion other things that need to get rendered, too.
Then they have to render the composite image, which also takes an obscene amount of time if the composite is complex.
Not to mention all the test renders and placeholder renders before the final.
So this "eight hour" figure has got to be just a ballpark estimate for the public at large. It would be pretty difficult to figure out exactly how many hours of rendering time actually went into one completed frame.
But not for very large values of 4.
You could have done Monsters, Inc with sock puppets and it still would have been entertaining.
Lucas hasn't recently shown that he can deliver the plots and characters that are necessary to make an animated film work.
Students get a playlist of 20 directions in the target languages. Things like:
Start in the computer lab.
Walk 20 steps north.
Turn left.
At the end of the directions is a signup sheet. If you make it to the signup sheet and sign your name, you pass.
Isn't that car in the first couple of frames the same one that the agent jumps on in the Matrix trailer?
Man, these movie tie-ins are getting strange.
Disclaimer: I work in 3d for a living.
That's an interesting idea. But why bother rendering out those frames to disk for a preview? Maya will hardware render with an alpha channel, just composite that over your live action in realtime. Faster, and saves disk space.
Ten kilos of cotton is still 10 kilos
One could, of course, send post-menopausal women, who would likely have the benefit of being more experienced astronauts, since they're older.
But your joke raises an interesting point about long interplanetary trips. You have to take everything with you, and you're not likely to want to take a cotton plantation along.My solution? Cattails. I remember reading once about Native American women using cattails to staunch menstrual bleeding. Grow a bunch of cattails in your bioremediation pond.
Plus you can eat the young cattail shoots like asparagus. You don't want real asparagus in an environment where people are going to be confined with their own urine.
The six participants have not yet been chosen, and the selection process will be rigorous, Mr. Malashenkov went on, saying an all-male crew was likely.
Why not an all female crew? You could save a couple of kilos on the launch, and their energy requirements (i.e. food) are likely to be lower over the course of a long-term trip, since they don't have to maintain as much body mass.
Of course there's that whole Men are From Mars thing...
I think it would be misleading to call the evworld images "photos." I'm pretty sure those are very nice CG renderings.
IAA3DA (I am a 3d artist.)
Which four games did the judge review? I can think of four games that obviously don't say much... Bolo, Tetris, Solitaire, and Tic-Tac-Toe.
Grim Fandango has some pro-Communism arguments sprinkled throughout. Does that not qualify as political speech?
It looked to me like the raccoon was built up out of a bunch of primitives (deformed spheres, etc.) That's not much of a sculpting job, really, and not much more impressive than you could achieve with a pointing device like a mouse or Wacom tablet.
Where a device like this *might* be interesting is when used in conjunction with Maya's Artisan tools or Softimage|XSI's weight maps to deform and stretch a polygon mesh by pushing and pulling vertices.
And as for the idea of "most models" being created through a sculpt/digitize process, maybe that's true at the high end (Pixar, ILM, DD, PDI), but your average mom and pop animation shop is likely using the tools built into their software.
A well designed modelling enviroment like Maya or Softimage pretty much eliminates the need to check positioning in relation to axes... most modellers I know do most of their work in the perspective view anyways.