Model fight update 003

I didn't like the lack of granularity of modeling the buildings on top of the low-res satellite image as in my previous posts, so I imported the building map into Photoshop (erasing all the good bits) and made an image to texture a plane in SketchUp.


Here is the image on the surface. I used the square tool and the line tool to make the outline.



I Push/Pulled the outline into roughly one, maybe two stories. Here is the model with some transparency options so you can see the blueprint beneath it.


Here is the opaque model with SketchUp's built-in Shadow settings activated. You can set seasonal and time settings extremely easily - a slider.

I really liked using the blueprint image, and since it was oriented correctly I didn't have to adjust the axes in SketchUp, which admittedly would be trivial, but I just didn't feel like it.

It took me about five minutes, maybe, to make the building like this, and it is much closer to the actual dimensions/scale than the other way. Sometimes you don't have the luxury of having the blueprints, so I'll probably switch back and forth between methods.

New job == posts approach zero

My previous line of business has transitioned out of this region, which left all of us looking for new positions. Thankfully, all of us found something, and it looks like at least most of us found something we wanted to do.

I'm in my third week of my new position, which is under the umbrella of The Office of the CTO, and deals with basically looking at new technology, comparing to current technology and making sure new is better/faster/cheaper. The "stuff" that I look at is unreleased, so I can't get into any details, sufficed to say that I'm much busier now than I was, ergo no recent Model Fight posts.

So far I've jumped into the frying pan with the workload, and hopefully I can stay out of the fire.

File under Celebrity Sightings!

We were in Harbor Freight today picking up a dolly, tie-down strap and a screw extraction set. I love going to Harbor Freight. Unfortunately, there is one pretty close to work. Anyway, I'm standing in the checkout line when guess who comes in and picks something up? Joe McDermott!

Or at least I thought it was him - I've only seen his CD and pics on the website, so I wasn't sure. Plus he was in civilian clothes, and what's he doing in Harbor Freight? That's where regular people go?!!

We're in different lines, and I can't screw my courage up enough to say something; I mean, what if it's not him? Oh, the humanity! I'm rushing to get checked out (by a checker that had to ask a nearby manager what $20 minus $3.27 was) and it's about four minutes before the store closes. I run out to get the family, who have seen Joe in concert and can verify his identity. They run in but I'm stuck trying to get the dolly in the van and have the door closed enough over it and an antique table we picked up from a local Craigslister earlier that day.

Dudes, I'm like, "I'm going to miss my window of opportunity!"

Finally I get back in the store and get the high-sign ("Tippy-toe!") that it is him, so after a few excruciating minutes waiting for him to finish, I talk to him for a few seconds and thank him for signing my guitar at the concert. He seems like a very nice guy, and if they weren't kicking people out of the store (I still wasn't finished picking up my stuff) I would have talked with him more.

Of course, I fail at my blogging duties and don't have a camera.

Model fight update 002

Here is the map within SketchUp and what I will be using as a template. What I don't like, so far, is that there isn't a way (that I have found) to map an image to a viewport and model from that the way 3D Studio MAX does. With SketchUp, I had to map the image to a stretched cube. Then, I deleted the rest of the sides and back to make a plane.

I converted the textured plane to a component so I could model on top of it and not affect it.


Here is the plane with a few buildings in process. The buildings aren't to scale yet, as I didn't do my research there. It was trivial to trace the buildings and Push/Pull them up. Once I do my first round, I'll probably go back and refine the drawings, and then texture them.

Model fight update 001

My project is 01 Robotics, or [01r]. Below is the map of their campus that I will model. The main buildings (lower section) is Sales, Marketing, and development for most of their line - Entertainment, Medical, Assistance, etc. The Y-Wing-shaped building to the upper left is the building for Military contracts - security dictates separate buildings, etc.

www.colourlovers.com

It's not what you think.

Colourlovers is a website where people submit, rate, review and comment upon...colors. And palettes of said colors!

It sounds a little bizarre, but it's a pretty popular site, and skimming the palettes shows me color combinations that I normally wouldn't have thought of living together nicely (the aforementioned "lover" part of the site name), but once I see them I'm like, "Yeah, I can dig that!"

I could see it being a quick check for a website's color palettes, interfaces, anything else that needs multiple colors loving each other in close proximity.

Check it out!

Downloadable Firefly commentaries

I just happened to be cruising Slashdot and came across something that I previously missed - an article about downloadable commentaries for DVDs.

Apparently NBC has offered online MP3 commentaries for Scrubs, and Kevin Smith has done this for Clerks 2, as well as some other miscellaneous shows. This may be another way to squeeze a few dollars out of the consumers - "Even more commentaries than can fit on the DVD! Just $5 to download!!" (my idea, not out in the industry...yet). Unfortunately, I'm a big fan of special features on a DVD, so I'm mildly interested....

Trolling through the article's forum listings leads me to Big Damn Commentaries, a repository for fan-submitted commentaries for the series Firefly, the best thing on TV that nobody watched. I'm still trying to make it through the Firefly series (no fault of the series), and I haven't even seen Serenity yet, but once I make it through all the episodes I'm definitely interested in trying these commentaries out.