The Renderfarm

Dan the Man

4:38 AM

34.5 questions per day. Great job guys

iKlsR

for now..

Dan the Man

And 96% answered.

yeah

iKlsR

@DantheMan I was speaking to @RolandiXor about answering questions with valid answers, since we are small, the site will occasionally push these questions up into the main view obscuring newer more important questions.

Amongst other things, it boost our site stats on area51

Dan the Man

Say what?

iKlsR

9 hours ago, by iKlsR

Oh, I'm just trying to keep the area51 page looking good, I encourage everyone to do so

Dan the Man

4:42 AM

To do what?

Answering questions with valid answers because the site will occasionally push them to the top obscuring more important questions

??

Sorry, I don't understand that.

iKlsR

Read the link, I have said it to everyone who has come in here

RolandiXor

9 hours ago, by iKlsR

@RolandiXor before you go, please accept an answer if it answers your question. I keep going through the Unanswereds and seeing answered questions with valid answers!

iKlsR

its something I learn't over on Anime.SE

Dan the Man

Do you mean the action of ticking a question's answer

?

or answering questions?

iKlsR

Accepting an answer but only if it suits what you asked

Dan the Man

4:45 AM

Ah ok

iKlsR

It keeps remindine me of SO where new users ask questions and just leave.. never to return.. ;)

Dan the Man

I wanted to say something about that the other day

Yeah... how OBNOXIOUS.

RolandiXor

Does this answer seem noobish?

0

A: How can I make sharp geometric 3d models look more realistic?

The Bevel method iKlsR mentioned is the fastest way, but possibly the most realistic method is to use two subdivision modifiers. You need to have two subdivision modifiers, one as "Simple" (the first one in the stack) and the other as "Catmull-Clark". NB: Subdivision modifiers are pretty heav...

iKlsR

The latter unfortunately has been proven to not work so well, some users still don't understand SO after a year. had a good chuckle at this

RolandiXor

@iKlsR happens on the larger sites A LOT

On Ask Ubuntu we have to run clean ups regularly

iKlsR

4:47 AM

@RolandiXor but we are small, so we should start encouraging people from early, I even forget sometimes too.. heheh

RolandiXor

@iKlsR indeed

Dan the Man

@RolandiXor It doesn't to me.

iKlsR

@RolandiXor subsurf would be overkill in a scene like the one he described in his question

@RolandiXor while acceptable, I try to tailor questions mostly to what the user asks..

RolandiXor

@iKlsR well one of the goals of our answers is to be of use to future users, so it can be useful to others.

It gives him an option in case he needs that level of realism, which he can use later, and which others can use if they want to as well.

iKlsR

true, I answer first then add general or additional stuff after

I need to cut down on the sizes of my images.. hrrm

3

A: How do I take a flat model and wrap around an axis like a wheel?

I originally wrote this as a worded response but thought to make it a bit more visual.. One way is to just add an Array modifier to your tread or flat object, bump up the counts a bit and add a new Bezier Circle to the scene. Then add a Curve modifier, select the correct axis (it sometimes wa...

kinda looks like a tutorial but it isn't, the images give it that impression

RolandiXor

4:52 AM

We will have a lot of those, it will be a fine line we walk

iKlsR

Very but it was ontopic as he did not ask about how to actually model it, he asked how to curve a mesh around a circle.. I just had a little time on my hands. ;)

RolandiXor

There is the wrap thingy (forgot the name of it off hand)

but that only works for flat things I think

alt+w or something

iKlsR

very few alt shortcuts if any

RolandiXor

I haven't used it in a bit

What are the main differences between Blender Internal and Cycles? — iKlsR 1 min ago

?

Dan the Man

5:11 AM

How does it look?

4

A: Can Blender "un-smooth" a mesh?

Unsmoothing with a negative modifier is sufficient for a roughening effect, but not to fully undo a smoothing operation. To test this, I rendered Suzanne and smoothed the mesh(factor 1.0), applied the modifier, and then unsmoothed with factor -1.0.

^ Click

Night all.

iKlsR

o/

Dan the Man

o/ ?

iKlsR

imagine a hand waving

Dan the Man

Haha nice one

ok

iKlsR

o7 <- salute

Dan the Man

5:19 AM

Nice!

lol <- guy worshiping

iKlsR

lulz

RolandiXor

o)

stretching to wave

iKlsR

/o\ <-- hail falling, sheltering head

RolandiXor

o resting on a chair

Dan the Man

/ \
(o) <- guy about to bang on drum

RolandiXor

5:24 AM

ox crossed arms

Leathe

6:25 AM

Huh, people are still talking about the tutorial issue

jesterKing

That will probably drag on forever

iKlsR

@Leathe what?

Leathe

@ik

aedaksod. I know how to type today.

jesterKing

Tutorials answer How To questions. For some reason tutorials here are presented as lengthy things, but personally I see also lots of minituts.

Leathe

@iKlsR on the meta site, people are still going over the issue if tutorial questions are okay

jesterKing

6:30 AM

That very strongly blur the line

iKlsR

@Leathe links(s)

Leathe

admittedly this is over 12h old, but the question was originally an comment to an answer in another question. meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/29/…

an comment? really? pffs. words, so difficult today.

iKlsR

hmm

Leathe

I agree with your answer in that question, about certain tutorial questions being okay. As long as they don't include complete how-to walkthrough. Such as a "how to create a house" e.g

hmm. maybe there could be a "short-tutorial" tag. which has a description of what kind of tutorials are really acceptable

iKlsR

nah, that wouldn't make much sense.. SE sites aren't for tutorials, answers should be concise and ontopic, If we start taking any for of tutorial questions the place will soon be overrun with said questions

If I can remember, I will write a full length meta post tomorrow on how to distinguish and ask questions without them being interpreted as tutorials

It's a very thin line, but it must be drawn.

jesterKing

6:41 AM

blender.stackexchange.com/questions/182/… is IMO tutorial q. But if someone answered with a node setup and an explanation as to why certain nodess are used, how they contribute to the final effect, I'd argue it to be good for this site.

iKlsR

Yes I noticed.. It was extremely subjective and I asked him to change it

jesterKing

Perhaps the q could be rephrased to: what makes a good matte shader for cars

iKlsR

Here is another example of one that stopped right at the line

6

Q: How do I take a flat model and wrap around an axis like a wheel?

I am making tread for a car and I made a simple pattern for one section and then duplicated it a bunch of times using an array. What I want to do now is take the model that is flat and wrap it around an axis to turn it into a wheel. How do I do this?

The title is vague but the question is actually ok. In the question, the user specifically asks how to do the task using modifiers.

That narrowed the scope alot

My answer also looks a bit tutorialish but it's the size of the images I can assure you :), the text only version was depressing.

Leathe

yeah I was just about to mention how it looks like a tutorial :P

but I think answers with pictures in them can help a lot, even if it makes something look tutorialish

jesterKing

It makes sense to add images where possible, but I would say that going for short only will be hard to maintain. Especially when there are questions like lamps in cycles vs bi

Leathe

6:47 AM

just because you can actually show visually how something looks, and the person asking the question will instantly see if they're doing it right

jesterKing

If someone posts an in-depth explanation with pics

iKlsR

Another thing which I will explain tomorrow. This isn't code per say, we are dealing with a 3d application. Some things might be extremely hard or tiring to translate into words

@jesterKing agreed

Leathe

indeed

iKlsR

I try to add an image as deemed necessary to all my answers

I even edit them into others

Leathe

this made me think of something. is it okay to have an answer that's pretty much a tutorial, even if the question doesn't ask for one

imho that should be just fine

iKlsR

6:51 AM

@Leathe I prefer the term indepth explanation

Leathe

well yeah

but tomato.. uh tomato

that doesn't work very well when it's written.

or maybe it's "tomatoe, tomato"

iKlsR

heh

Leathe

o.O What's that "174" under my name now

jesterKing

Tom ate a toe. Tom ate a tomato. Tom ate tom

iKlsR

@Leathe days left to live..

O.o

Leathe

6:56 AM

well, it's pretty high then.

o.o

iKlsR

XD

It's your total SE rep

Leathe

oh

most of that comes from superuser.SE :b

hm. gaming.SE is really quiet

everyone's asking questions about candy-box

silly place.

iKlsR

heh

Leathe

but back on topic: what would distinguish a guide from a tutorial?

is it just more specific?

iKlsR

@Leathe I am working on it now?

Leathe

7:10 AM

alright alright :P

iKlsR

here is a small one I just answered

0

A: General 3D Graphics

Try not to ask overly broad questions, questions that may numerous solutions, be too subjective or too open to interpretation or likely to start a discussion. - Best lighting for a specific set? This is too broad and the title is extremely vague. There will be numerous ways of doing it if the a...

Leathe

7:48 AM

Oh lord... eu.fab.com/sale/7920/product/160735

>.< that makes me a bit mad

jesterKing

why? :O

it is a great picture of Finland!

Leathe

yeah :P

jesterKing

<3 Finland

Leathe

now if they only got the name of the country right on the poster

jesterKing

But yah, why they'd call it Norway WC Print... :)

I live in Finland

meh, no /me in here. How stupid is that?!

Leathe

7:53 AM

i live in finland aswell :b

jesterKing

oh!

so where does Leathe hail from? I make the old capital more lively.

Leathe

hki :p

jesterKing

heh

Finland has many great Blender developers (both active and inactive)

too bad I'm not a Finn by origin :(

Leathe

where are you from originally?

finland is all over stuff that's open source :P

jesterKing

I'm Dutch

Leathe

8:04 AM

ah

jesterKing

But I've been living in Finland since 1997. And started studying Finnish accidently in 1995 (in the Netherlands at Groningen University)

Leathe

how does one accidentally study a language?

jesterKing

Simply be actually wanting to study something completely different, notice that the first year of a language study for it is required, really hating languages still at that point, deciding to create a list of not-so-popular languages like Chinese, Japanese, Arabian, Finnish etc, then picking up a pen, closing eyes and letting fate decide.

Two weeks into the study I just fell completely in love with the language. It's AWESOME.

Leathe

:b

iKlsR

8:33 AM

@jesterKing I had a HD 5570.. loved it immensely

jesterKing

@iKlsR I have 2x HD 5550 with 4 monitors

iKlsR

@jesterKing I saw the setup in the link on a question and you showed me the monitors this time on irc ;)

jesterKing

:)

Leathe

GTX 660 \\o

need to buy a hdmi cable so I can go back to my dual monitor setup

iKlsR

@jesterKing now rocking 8GB Gskill DDR3 - Win7 x64 - A8-3870k w HD 6550 :3

and i ordered a HD 7850 last month, getting it soon!

jesterKing

8:35 AM

I must say I dislike the vendor-lock situation that's come in Blender through Cycles

iKlsR

very!

that's why I rarely use Cycles

jesterKing

Upgrading my machine has to wait until I've got the monnies for it again.

iKlsR

that always sucks .. :/

jesterKing

Haven't done any upgrades since 2009 :O

iKlsR

:O

jesterKing

8:37 AM

well, I got the monitors, but no other extras.

Leathe

I hadn't done any since 2008 :p just got all the new parts a few months ago

jesterKing

so maybe next year is my turn!

iKlsR

yh HD 5xxx is getting dated

Leathe

I had a HD 4870 ;b

jesterKing

Well, as a coder I don't really need an uberpowerfull graphics card

iKlsR

8:38 AM

I want 8gb more of RAM and a third monitor hopefully

@jesterKing I work with Java :P

Leathe

I have 3 monitors in my room, but can't use them because I lack cables ;P

jesterKing

But I do like the 16GB RAM I have in my machine

@iKlsR so do I. http://www.renderfarm.fi backend is in Java

iKlsR

:3

@Leathe lulz

Leathe

need to get a hdmi and a dvi-i.. I think

not exactly sure which it is

ah no, it's actually a DVI-D

google images for the rescue

iKlsR

@jesterKing ah, i remember when starting. swing didn't thread well, had me scratching my head for days, high cpu usages etc

jesterKing

8:40 AM

@Leathe: letwory.net/albums/v/oldsite/20110226_006.jpg.html

iKlsR

@Leathe there are several variations of DVIs

Leathe

but apparently I have a DVI-I. My GTX 660 only has HDMI, DVI-I and DVI-D connectors

jesterKing

@iKlsR, fortunately this is more 'just' server programming. Tomcat7 + Java (BURP is the backend code)

iKlsR

lovely

Leathe

@iKlsR yeah there are dual links and single links, etc

iKlsR

8:43 AM

repcap sucks.. I'm not really driven by it though, I still go about my normal duties but I cry when I see the lost rep.. щ（ﾟДﾟщ）

Leathe

@jesterKing well, now I NEED to get my 3 monitor setup running .P

:P*

need to order the cables next month

jesterKing

@Leathe, yes, of course you need 3 monitors. I can't understand why people use still only one or two (or three)!

iKlsR

:O epic.. :D

the fonts are hideous

Leathe

the fonts make it look like you're on Microsoft Server 2008 or something :P

iKlsR

sweet, I see me respawning in irc, (first window top right) :D

so much vim

jesterKing

8:53 AM

win7

Leathe

arrrg. Assembly Summer 2013 on my birthday again

can't really bother to go this year either

jesterKing

9:07 AM

I was at assembly in 2010 or so, talking about rf.fi

oh, 2009

assembly.org/summer09/seminars/sessions#ore

iKlsR

nerd. :P

jesterKing

obviously

it takes one to know one, eh

iKlsR

;)

@jesterKing no recordings?

jesterKing

There should be somewhere

iKlsR

oh Campbell and I talking about some stuff in #blender-podcast , we feel that the quality of the questions especially from some users are very poor

Please guys do some moderation if you have the time, if a question is lacking, edit for flag for low quality.

jesterKing

9:14 AM

heh, podcast. Haven't been there in a long time

too many IRC channels already anyway

and now this :O

iKlsR

IKR!

Sometimes I forget I have a Google+ and Fb

jesterKing

and twitter?

iKlsR

every now and then, I tweet like every 2 weeks .. :S

Leathe

this is why I use pinned tabs :b

iKlsR

►

Leathe

9:31 AM

argh. can't remember what that one blender tutorial thingy was called

the one you pay for

it has like a crap-ton of stuff

iKlsR

Wow Factor?

Leathe

well, it

asdjopgfjwpad stupid enter key

It's more like a course than a tutorial really

Wow factor doesn't ring any bells

iKlsR

hmm

Nature Academy

Leathe

ah yes, that one

iKlsR

What about it?

Leathe

9:37 AM

was just trying to remember the name :P

might look into it one day

iKlsR

@ideasman42 welcome :)

ideasman42

hey there :)

Leathe

9:59 AM

hmm. other browsers could actually mimic IE with color coding the tabs, depending on where they originated from

but even in IE that color coding is gone if you move the tab

:I

jesterKing

two places with lots of stuff that you can pay for: cgcookie.com/blender and blenderguru.com (latter is nature academy guy)

Leathe

10:33 AM

I'll probably use free tutorials to catch up with blender. haven't been using it for months

or, to catch up with my knowledge, rather

jesterKing

always a Good Plan

Leathe

back when I had my Q9450 cpu rendering took a crazy long time

RolandiXor

4:01 PM

Hi everyone :)

iKlsR

o/

RolandiXor

0

Q: How can the Blender API be used to access Blender from another application?

Take Openshot for example. It has some form of Blender integration and is written in Python. I'm not sure if it directly accesses Blender's API or if it simply generates a .blend file and then launches Blender (as it seems to do with Inkscape for SVG titles). What I would like to know is: a. C...

python-api external-applications

I hope my questions don't seem too random/contrived - I really want to know these things lol.

Although I do have other intentions as expected ;)

iKlsR

4:24 PM

huge meta post coming.. I will need some suggestions.

RolandiXor

cool

iKlsR

4:43 PM

@RolandiXor @Leathe

0

Q: Regarding questions and answers as tutorials

Since I proposed the list of possible topics that should be off-topic, it seems it has been well received and people are working with it. However, there have been several discussions in chat, numerous comments and several other posts about #1. 1. Requests for tutorials Can anyone show...

discussion questions answers

Feel free to leave comments and I will improve as such, I might be well off on some parts

RolandiXor

Aight checking it out now

iKlsR

:D

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