Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

I've been busy jumping around in various manuscripts, working on reformatting and rebuilding my system again, and rendering a bunch of Starcraft projects including my noncanon Terran Destroyer.

I did this just before changing over to windows 7 64 bit so I was limited on what I could do. I took the Hybrid BC I built a while back and tweaked it. :)

Anyway, have a safe and happy holiday season everyone!

New Liger Renders

   I'm still having teething issues, most specifically with Cinema which is hampering my efforts and making things difficult, but I did get these two images done.
   I started the Hot Foot image back before the crash. I thought it was done but there was an annoying glow. Rendering the scene all in one with my new 8 core solved the problem.

   Liger by the sea was the culprit that destroyed the Phenom, when I tried to render the land it died for the last time. I was a bit leery about rendering it but gave it a shot. The waves are post blur effects combined with splash effects Mechmaster taught me, not perfect, but better than my initial efforts.

   The water was a major annoyance. You can't see it but there is water under the layers of the bottom third of the picture.. and that took hours to render. Also the first time I rendered the Liger and the land it took my PC over 8 hours to render... which made for a very painfully bright room to try to sleep in. (leds) I'm not going through that again. grrr.

    Once I get Cinema and some other issues sorted out I want to decal the liger, make a few different versions and then knock off a couple more of these scene ideas before returning to writing.

It's alive! Mwuhahaha

  Last week I blew up my poor Phenom 1 when I tried to render another Blade Liger scene. (my third) I broke it down into pieces, used a box fan but it killed it.
   But I have for the past couple of months been building a new dream machine, which I just booted for the first time not quite 24 hours ago.
   Specs:
Cool Master case w/ plenty of vents and a big ass 120mm case fan
Gigabyte 970A-DS3 Motherboard
AMD FX-8150 8core (YES 8!) cpu
8 gigs of Kinston Ram
Kuhler 620 liquid cooling CPU cooler
Saphire 5450 NVidia (I think) graphics card
New sata dvd burner
My old (year old) 680w psu
My old 1 terrabyte drive (bought a year ago)
My 32g ssd (bought in january)
Windows 7 32 bit still on the SSD (installed in January)

   I rigged it with an old speaker I had since the case didn't come with one. The interior is tight, and there are several rants about everything coming together but it's here and running now. That's all that matters. ;) Eventually my blood pressure will return to normal. I hope. lol

I still have a few teething issues, I need to fix Windows 7. (the crash mucked up the boot a little)
I need to reinstall Cinema 4D (again the crash. It renders but wont let me load or save anything... and right now it wont let me reinstall for some strange reason)
I also need to reinstall Inspire 3D. (messed up when I put windows 7 on in January.)
Get all the warranties sorted out.

I can't wait to see how well it really works. Pretty pumped, but a little cautious about how much I can pushe it. I broke the bank putting this together.

   So far it idles at 6-13 degrees C! That Kuhler is insane! I haven't pushed it above 40C yet. Once the load drops the Kuhler gets the upperhand in seconds and drops the temp like a rock. I hope there are no thermal shock issues. It's a bit faster but I really want Windows 7 64 or Windows 8 to get the max out of the system.

Hot off the pc...

Yup, overheated my pc but hopefully it was worth it.
I rendered this in layers, I even had to shut down for a short time and use a box fan to cool off my pc to do the Liger render.

Stock assets I have on hand. I wanted to do a quick scene test with a little more oomph.

All the shadow artefacts that can be fixed have been fixed, I fixed the hoses, and moved the radiator. I even slightly downscaled the head. (for some reason it went up a third when I loaded it) The only thing left to do is the decaled dirt worn version. That's tomorrow's project unless I get distracted... by like another render. lol

Closer...

   I'm creeping ever closer to getting this done.
I've finished with the pistons, mirrored the left side... played with the textures to better match the stock liger from the first show... I still need to clean up the shadow artefacts and fix the hoses... and do all the bump maps and decals.

But... I can't resist doing a couple shots as a pat on the back and to see how it's coming together. :)

 

Getting there...

   Still working on the Blade Liger, though I have done a little writing on book 5 of the Wandering Engineer, "Plague Planet" this morning. I'm hoping I'll have the Liger done by the 1st of November but I dunno.
  To Do:
1 Fix the shadow artefact problem. That's a biggy and I'm not happy about it. With the Blue color I really only see 2 major problems, the booster covers. All those booleans.
2 Mirror parts for the left side
3 Finish fitting, rigging and such of the boosters. Texture same
4 Rig pistons on the wings and boosters.
5 Sort out the neck and hose rigging.
6 Finish texturing
7 Markings/decals
8 Dirty it up!

And now for some images:

Bottom most image is the latest version of course. :)

"...And I'll form... the head!"

    Yeah, that's been stuck in MY head since I started modeling the Blade Liger head. I finished it a short time ago, that finishes the fabrication side of the project. (Hurray!) Now I get to fix the proportions, clean up the artefacts and mistakes... all that lovely stuff. (BOOO) Then I can go on to set up the pivots and pistons, and cables and textures and... sigh

I know a few things are colored differently... there is a method to my madness. (I think) I color areas that need specific decals or what have you a different color. Or I goofed. Yeah, could be that...

Blade Liger update

     Getting there, almost done fabrication. I just need to reshape or remake the head and ruff and stuff and I'm done the first stage of construction. Then the headaches really begin.
     I spent the past couple of days roughing out the Mirage boosters. They aren't perfect, you can see a few errors I made, but they work for me for now. If I get the inclination I may go back and tweak things again. I dunno. Stranger things have been known to happen I guess. :)

I tossed just about all the blade liger bits in to see how they work with each other including the stripped down temporary head.

I'm using symmetry btw to mirror the wings, blades, and boosters as well as the legs right now. This is just a test after all.

I think the tail tip is too big. I'll look into it later.

Okay, that's it for now, I'm going to go have another cup of caffine and then get to work on the head! (Somehow Voltron keeps popping up in my mind right now... "and I'll form the head!"... nah...)

Blade Liger Mirage

      I'm making good on my self imposed rest break, jotting out some ideas for another book, a couple scenes here and there for future books... and oh yeah, the Blade Liger Mirage.
      I have modeled a few zoids, the Hellcat, Revraptor, Liger Zero, Liger Zero Panzer, Shield Liger, Command Shield liger... and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head. But this one has a lot of detail. Boat loads of detail.

     Mechmaster told me a trick to fix the shadow error you'll see in the renders. It's a lot of work so I'm leaving it for the last once I've got all the pieces fabricated.

       I've got all but the head and Mirage boosters done. The head I've stripped the Shield liger head down and I'm going to try to see if I can adapt it before starting from scratch.

 

      I am hoping I'll get the project done by the end of the month. Hoping. lol

Update...

   I've figured out Amazon, and I uploaded the 5th book today.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=Chris%20Hechtl&search-alias=books
   Last week I took another look at First Steps and cleaned it up. I didn't add much to it, a dozen pages, but most of that was minor corrections and format corrections. I really should do a re-write but I want to move on.
   This morning I uploaded it, and I while I was at it I uploaded the newly cleaned and reformatted books to B&N as well. With the exception of Bootstrap Colony... that's still a mess. I need to fix that.
    But not today, or tomorrow or this week or next. I'm going to deal with some medical issues and then dive into the Blade Liger conversion project finally. I need to take a much needed break from editing and stuff.
  
   On another note, I started recieving parts for my PC rebuild, I picked up a new case, liquid cooling, DVD burner, and a new Graphics card. Using the DVD burner allowed me to repair my SSD and windows 7, so I'm back to firing on all cylinders.
    I should be getting the new AMD 970DS3 Motherboard, 8 core FX 8150 cpu, and memory around the first of November. :D Then I'm going to have a LOT of fun. lol Well, after I get through the headache of putting it all together and getting Windows reinstalled....

   And of course all the rebates to deal with. Anyone else hate them? Love hate relationship. I've got 2 coming in, and I even paid to have one processed in "5-7 business days" only to find out after I agreed and submitted it that it's actually "2-3 weeks to process once we recieve it." I'm soooo p-oed about that. More at myself for falling for it though.

    Mechmaster's Dalek Comic/graphic novel is winding up to the climax, he may be finishing this it this year. Check it out, he's retooled it:
http://www.mechmaster.co.uk/cg-lair/daleks_page1.htm

Amazon means Argth!

   I've been having fun researching Amazon and converting the manuscripts to their acceptable format. It's oooh so much fun, I haven't been this frustrated in ages!
   I figured out how to do the table of contents, but apparently when I fix the indent problem (B&N wants tabs and no auto indent, Amazon wants no tabs and auto indent) it either 1 doesn't work... or more recently it partially works but also randomly changes my quote marks to g and h! GAAAAAAHHH! At this rate I'm going to go bald pulling my hair out! Entire chapters randomly changed! Back to the drawing board!
   Sooo, impass there until I figure something or other out with Word and Open Office. In the meantime I've been drooling over new parts for my PC... I've got a new case coming this week and I'm ordering more stuff next month. (Rebuilding my PC piece meal) I've been having a ball reading over everything. Window shopping (no pun intended) is always a lot more fun than actually putting it together and reinstalling Windows and all my software, then getting through any conflicts and other issues. That part I'm not looking forward to. Nope, not at all.
   Speaking of shopping... anyone else notice Amazon (again here we go again) has consistantly undercut everyone? I do mean everyone... well... almost everyone. not Geeks. But Tigerdirect, Frys, and Newegg are getting creamed. Lower prices at Amazon and anything over $25 has free shipping....
  
   Instead of diving right into another writing project or editing project, I've been researching the Blade liger. I've made a few zoids including the latest Shield liger... and I started the Blade liger but never got around to it. Now seems like a good time to take a break for a week or so and have a little fun.
http://www.amazon.com/Zoids-Revoltech-Blade-Liger/dp/B003LVYW1I

1 left if someone wants to get it. Me, I'm saving my money for the Avengers DVD release tomorrow. :D

3 here:
http://www.amazon.com/Revoltech-No-93-Zoids-Action-Figure/dp/B004ASOL26/ref=pd_sim_t_1

This is the version I am making: I've spent a good bit of time surfing for reference images:
http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Kotobukiya-Limited-Edition-Mirage/dp/B003NNVEJM/ref=pd_sim_sbs_t_9

I think my buddy Mechmaster has one of these come to think of it. :)

Done!

        Well, sorta. Princess Rescue Inc. is now out of my hands, I just finished uploading it to Mechmaster a minute ago.
       It was a long tedious edit, but not nearly as long as I had been afraid of. A month, not bad. I cleaned up what I could, added some alternative view points and nearly doubled the manuscript in size from adding different things and tons more scenes and details. It's not as rich or polished as say something from Ringo or Weber, but it should work as a light read.
      Tomorrow I'm either going back to writing Jethro 2 First to Fight, or I'm going to work on something else. Not sure yet. What I am sure about is I'm going to celebrate with a frosted brown sugar pop tart and a round of Mariokart. I need to practice before my nephew comes over this weekend. >:)

Half way...

   YES! There is light at the end of the tunnel. Just a lot of leagues to go before I get back into the light. I hate editing, and combine that with a re-write and you've got a special kind of nightmare for me.
    I'm referring of course to Princess Rescue Inc. I'm adding alternative view points along with cleaning it up. It's slow going, tedious, and yeah hard because I don't want to completely destroy what I've already done or undermine any plot points. The good news is all this work has so far added 60 pages to the book. If that holds true to the end (I doubt it, some of those alternative view points are going to end drastically) it may add another 60. I'll be happy with about 300-350 pages but we'll see.
    This was supposed to be a short book, a throw away one off I spun off originally as a writing exercise that just grew and grew. (Like Afraid of the Dark). An alternative idea to Stargate and Bootstrap Colony all rolled into one messy manuscript.
    Hopefully I can finish it by the middle of the month. I dunno, we'll see. Here's hoping at any rate.
    On another note, my sister's surgery went fine, she's recovering nicely. My nephew's wrist is not broken, and hopefully he'll be a little more careful playing tag at night in the dark. We had him, his brother and two of their friends over for the holiday weekend and they had fun in the pool and playing games. Well,  I had fun playing Mariokart cause I whooped Kam's rear by a whopping single point! Take that you twerp! lol

Afraid of the Dark

   Mechmaster finally came up for air from his comic
 (check it out here: http://www.mechmaster.co.uk/cg-lair/daleks/secemp-index.htm )
and sent me back Afraid of the Dark to correct my numerous past tense errors.
For some reason I've been creeping into present tense while writing... it's become epedemic. I've created a file to search for the wrong tense with find/search and zap any. It's tedious but necessary.
   Anyway, he sent the file back and I spent part of Sunday evening and all of yesterday cleaning the manuscript before sending it back to him. Hopefully that will get the editing of it back on track. (or even speed it up)
    I've paused in working on Princess Rescue Inc, I started glossing over rough patches in order to get the editing done... not a good thing. I realized that I need to stop when I do that and go back to it later. I've gotten 1/4 of the book done, I've cleaned it up and even added alternative view points to flesh it out a bit more. Hopefully when I get back to it and when it's all said and done it will be a better product.
    So, anyway, back to Afraid of the Dark, I sculpted lots of the aliens in Sculptris last year and earlier this year and even explored turning the book into a game using the UDK engine. I've gotten some progress done but then I tabled it to get back to writing. Here are a few of the aliens:

Gryphon: It is a predator/scavenger, it has one or two small cameo's in the book.

Another alien that has a small cameo, this one is a daddy long legs, a forest herbivore.

 

I was tempted to do a forest scene with the daddy long legs. That critter like some of my others are based on ideas and concept art from Deviant Art and from http://www.creaturespot.com/

 

And last (for now, I actually have over 100 images) is the Strider.

First the baby called a medusa puppy:

Awe ain't he cute?

Now the parents:

Striders are all over the book. Think of a 2 legged 2 trunked elephant with a gangly body and spikes.

 

I modeled this guy/gal in low poly as well in order to put it in the game. this is the high res version textured in Sculptris (like all the others) and rendered in Cinema.

Imagine herds of these things and alien plants and other animals taking over suburbs and cities. :)

 

 

Princess Rescue Inc

   I started this book from a series of scene ideas back in 2009. The plot is similiar in some ways to Bootstrap Colony. (adventure by Terrans on an alien world) Unfortunately I threw it together and when I started to get the reviews back in from Bootstrap I tabled the book. I wanted to clean it up and add other perspectives to give it more depth and focus.
   Over time I've gone back, I had the cover art in mind and did that back in 2010 I believe. It took about a month of off and on work to get it sorted out and rendered. I had to make some compromises to get it done.
   Skip ahead to now, I've dusted it off and started to clean it up. I've started by editing the past presence mistakes and some of the easier common mistakes I made, and now I've started fixing the punctuation and caps while adding more scenes and viewpoints. It's hard, I don't want to detract from the story but I don't want to leave it bare either.
   One of my other problems is shifting perspective for me. I mean I'm going from writing about a future dystopia to ... well this. A medieval society built up on an alien world with a homogenous take on the civilizations of Earth prior to that... intergration of alien animals in said society to replace or augment Terran animals that would normally fufill established rolls... and then throw in a war and a group of Terran explorers.
    Let's just say it's interesting. lol

     Anyway, here is the title and an image or two of the alien beasts.

The basilisk:

The Branack, this one is a wild one:

Domesticated Branack:

And finally the Rhino Trike.

That's it for now. I'll post the hexrat and other pics later sometime.

 

 

 

Ghost Station Cover

     Yesterday I played with the Kiev model, digging through my vast library of greebles and doodads to dress it up. It's kind of vexing that after adding all that detail you can't really see most of it.
     This morning I pulled the people and equipment from the First Steps cover into the scene and scaled them to size. I played with the textures a little and then dropped them where I wanted them. After doing a render test I concluded there is no point completing the Scarab, the people are specs on the ship and the Scarab is only slightly bigger than they are.
    So, here it is. I may play with the fonts and lettering later when I get some feedback.

Yay! Ghost Station is off!

   Yay! Ghost Station is off to Mechmaster! It is out of my hands for now. :) On to the cover art and the next great project!

    In keeping with posting aliens and stuff here is a Gashg from the Wandering Engineer Universe:

   Gashg are amphibious bipeds, Mouth in their torso, eyes and nostrils on stalks on top of that big head. Scales on their shoulders and joints. Big long claws, huge feet to keep them stable. They like to scar each other in mating battle rituals. They make great gardeners.

Half way point...

   Well, I'm at the half way point, I've just about crossed the rubicon into the second half of editing Ghost Station. Yup, I finally buckled down, focused and dived in, ignoring my itch to work on Jethro 2 for the time being.
    Don't get your hopes up, remember this is me we're talking about doing the editing. I'm not nearly as thorough as Mechmaster. He's got final say on that. When i'm done I pass it on to him to go over with a proverbial fine toothed comb. Hopefully my meager efforts will make his work a bit easier. Hopefully. I've got my fingers crossed. (and my toes)
   The good news is all my efforts has added 18 pages to the book, which is cool. Hopefully the second half will also see as much added.
    The bad news is that when I'm done this I plan on finishing the cover art for Ghost Station before working on another book. I will hopefully be finished editing by next weekend or the weekend after. That is if pesky interruptions don't get in the way. Grrr...

    On another note, I'll dust off a pic of an alien. This one is untextured and very rough. Also nude:

    This is an elf, a tiny sentient that first appeared in Fool's Gold and made a couple appearences in Destiny's Choice (I think), popped up in Jethro 1 (Again I think, top of my head here), and plays a few roles in Ghost Station.

   Elves draw their roots from the smart bugger who created the watch on Ben 10. I can't remember the alien name off the top of my head. (flying blind here)

Anyway, that's it for now.