Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Decide


Decide

I found this picture on the APOD site. It kinda spooked me. I visit the APOD site almost every day because I find lots of nifty pictures of galaxies and nebulas for my desktop. It usually has great commentaries about the pictures as well. But I digress.

It spooked me because it is almost exactly like a picture I was trying to create with the POVRay raytracer. I was smitten by raytracing when my kids were younger. I would walk around examining objects as potential candidates for my next project. I made a train and a Ferris wheel... Oops, digressing again.

I got frustrated with how hard it was to get something looking beautiful and polished. I often got bogged down in math problems like, how do you make a rope hang between two points without it looking like it is frozen stiff. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to pick a project and create an entire picture from start to finish

I picked an observatory. I made good start on it and came up with a pretty decent structure. Then I wanted a night sky. I played around with various lighting techniques, textures, etc. But I was never satisfied with the sky. I just couldn't get it to look right. Well, the PBGs work in mysterious ways. They seem to take their time about it, but...

The above picture is exactly the sky I wanted. The observatories (only one in my imagined picture) are even on a hill.

<Shiver>

And, I just recently got back into doing 3D graphics using the Unreal Tournament engine. I have decided (again) that I want to accomplish something and am currently bogged down on how the textures work, lighting and, you guessed it, math. There is SO much to learn and no more time now than I had before. If anything, my life is MORE full now. I really have to decide what is important.

I love doing the graphics, but is soaks up SO MUCH time.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Now UCCan

Did you know that the United Church of Canada is celebrating it's 80th year? 'S'truth. Check it out here: United Church of Canada Anniversary

And to celebrate, I have decided to join Richard Bott's UCCan Blogroll.

Well, actually, he discovered The PBGs Path and invited me to join him. I was touched and pleased to be asked, and, having now checked out the other links in the UCCan, I CCan say that we all seem to be like-minded individuals.

If you don't believe me, check out Richard Bott's statement of faith.

There is one thing that concerns me however...

All the others are either ministers or in theology school. Do you think somebody out there is hinting? Could it be the trickster PBG?

If you are involved in some way with the United Church of Canada and have a web log, please add yourself to our ranks.

(I'm all ready sounding possessive, aren't I Richard?)