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Thanks, Carl

I'm not the best person to answer that question but the phrases: "Those with faith will inherit all things." "Those with faith will rejoice in all things." Sounded like likely candidates to me however knowing everything is on the net somewhere I found this site but I can't find any verse that quite fits. http://bible.gospelcom.net/ Thanks, Carl

I know someone that is trying to get this translated. Here is what he knows about it: "I have this little metal sign that my parents got many many years ago from a friend. We have no clue what it says, but we do know that it's suppose to be a bible verse. Forgot to mention. The guy we got it from was Taiwanese. Don't know if that makes any difference." I thought for sure someone here would be able to help him out. Thanks, Carl

I think the official answer is they are non-scale. Most sites list them a 1:100 but they are bigger then that. They aren't quite 1:72. SHE himself first called them 1:75 seen here: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/models...she_75yf21b.jpg But this is the SAME kit he later called 1:100 and that even later sold with no scale information on or in the box. I don't even think all the SHE kits are in scale with each other. His focus seemed to be first on making the bast variable kits he could make and scale was secondary. At least that's my take on it.

I hate to disagree with Graham but it all depends on what you are buying them for. To me these kits are works of art in and of themselves and are true marvels of engineering. True the toys are better to play with and some of the fixed posed models can be made to look better but to me the SHE kits capture something that's unique. I can remember when I used the think transforming mecha in general was all anime magic. The first toy I went to nearly the ends of the earth to have as a kid was Jetfire. It just hit me so hard with that feeling "You mean that thing can be made to do that in real life!". True the toys still do that... the 1:48 the most I think but the SHE's leave me in awe of the engineering that went into them. I certainly recommend them as works or art. They aren't meant to be toys or the best looking fixed posed model possible. Carl

Well here are the VF-2JA kits: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/models/b-club/b-club.htm And the best picture I have on-line at the moment of the battlepods is here: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/models...musa_v2_box.jpg Its not the best picture though. I don't think any pictures of my Gigamesh are on line at the moment. I'll fix that if I can find it. Carl

One ugly animation... Here is the very first animation I've ever made guys. Its just 19 frames long. Can someone tell me how to take nice sharp pics and turn them into an animation that isn't so pixelated? Surely its possible to do better then this. Thanks for any help, Carl first.mpg

I made this for a friend named Dave. If there are any Daves here they are welcome to this as well. Here is the story of how this came to be. My friend posted this picture: Dave Pillow Pic And it hit me how easy it would be to turn it into an Ambigram. So I made the Ambigram and showed it to my friend. It wasn't till then that my friend pointed out that the original TRON logo was an Ambigram itself. Check out this picture to see the original TRON logo: TRON hat Enjoy... Carl

This one just finished. Reflectivity and transparency turned on for the body this time. Enjoy... Carl

I just saw this: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.ht...02/10/12.00.sfc SCI FI Green-Lights Battlestar SCI FI Channel on Feb. 10 announced that it has given the green light to produce 13 episodes of a new Battlestar Galactica series, based on the channel's "reimagined" Galactica miniseries that aired in December 2003. The network has ordered 13 one-hour episodes of the show, which will bring back cast members Edward James Olmos (Adama), Mary McDonnell (Laura Roslin), Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) and Tricia Helfer (Number Six). Production is slated to begin next month in Vancouver, B.C., the network announced. Ronald D. Moore (Carnivale, Roswell) returns as executive producer. Galactica will be produced exclusively for SCI FI, in association with Sky One and distributed by USA Cable Entertainment, where David Eick, an executive producer of the miniseries, serves as executive vice president. ***** http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.ht...02/10/13.30.sfc Moore: Galactica Takes Off Ronald D. Moore, executive producer of SCI Channel's upcoming new series Battlestar Galactica, told SCI FI Wire that the 13-episode first season will pick up where the hit December miniseries left off and will build on that show's characters and situations. SCI FI on Feb. 10 formally announced a green light for production to begin on the Galactica series, which will bring back cast members Edward James Olmos (Adama), Mary McDonnell (Laura Roslin), Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) and Tricia Helfer (Number Six), among others. Production commences next month in Vancouver, B.C. As the new series begins, "a few days have passed since the miniseries, and we're in sort of a dire situation right from the get-go," Moore said in an interview. "I think one of the hallmarks of the series will be that it's always going to be a tense situation. These people are always going to be one step away from disaster. Which doesn't mean that the Cylons will be attacking them every week. But I think the nature of their situation and the reality of what they're facing out there alone, with most of them left with the clothes on their back and whatever food and supplies they happen to have on those ships when the events of the pilot occur is only, God, the beginning. And it's going to take a long time for them to get to any kind of stability or normalcy." Moore said that he is currently assembling a writing staff for the series, which may include colleagues from Moore's old series Roswell, Star Trek: The Next Generation and HBO's Carnivale. Moore is drafting the script for the series' first episode, has roughed out stories for the first three and has written a series bible, with story and character arcs for the first season. "The series is going to take its cues from the miniseries," Moore said. "The tone and context will be in that vein. There will be lighter moments. I'm sure there will have things that are unexpected and fun to play as time goes on. But the miniseries, that's the bar. That's what we're trying to [do]. ... We want to do that show every week." Moore said that he may eventually adapt a few of the original 1978 series' old episodes for the new show. "I've talked about revisiting the 'Pegasus' episode, because I think that's a cool idea at some point. There's a possibility in my head we might go back and play around with the ship of lights that was in the original series. And I'm going to sit down and watch all 22 of them again, kind of go through it. But the first thing that springs to mind is that the old show did a lot of planet-of-the-week type episodes, and we're specifically not doing that on this. So a lot of those aren't going to translate very well." Moore added that he'd like to find a place on the new show for some of the original series' actors as well. "That's something that I would like to approach them about," he said. "I'm probably going to approach a couple of the actors, if not all of them, at some point, and talk to them about that possibility, because I think that would be kind of cool and fun. And I think it would be interesting to find things for them in the new series. And not just, like, a walk-on, although you could do always do that. But it would fun to give them a role and have them bring something to the new show." *****

If I had just posted this picture do you think anyone would have noticed what was added?

Here is an idea I've have in my head for 20 years and I've never seen anyone else do. So I finally sat down and put my light cycle sidecar on-screen so-to-speak. What do you think? Does it fit with the TRON slogan of reminding you of something you've never seen before?

I for one remember the ice Tread Armo-Fighter. Do you think I could forget? So when do we get to see the rest of your arctic camo custom VF-1S? You are off to a great START. LOL!!! Carl P.S. Any reason why this work of art doesn't deserve to be in the FRONT yard? Or did you use up all the snow there making the headless VF-1S body?

Hello, To your first question I'd have to say yes. If I can ray-trace anyone can. Check out my TRON thread here. I'm not up to doing meshes yet like most of the objects here but I'm just building my models from primatives (boxes, spheres, cones, etc.) just like they did for these two subjects in TRON itself. My thinking was start where the profesionals started 20 years ago. You can get POV-Ray for free here and I got started by just reading the documentation that came with it and I've had fun so far. Enjoy, Carl

I just saw this: Galactica2003.net reports: ***** January 30, 2004 - Battlestar Galactica Greenlighted! - According to a handful of sources, Battlestar Galactica has been given the greenlight for series. More information will be published as soon as more official word come from the Sci Fi Channel. *****

A friend of mine had the link so I actually didn't have to do any digging. Thank you. This is cut from a JMS post dated (09/27/2003 08:18 AM): To the many questions that have arisen here of late...yes, as I mentioned before, there is the possibility of something Babylon 5 related on the horizon, but again I don't want anyone getting excited until we know if either one of these two projects is going to actually come to fruition. We should know where this lands in the next few weeks. The only thing I will say is that they're not print projects, so if you were to assume it's for TV or film you wouldn't be too far off...but that neither of them are series. And that's all I'm going to say about them for now. There I think everyone now has as much info as I have. Enjoy, Carl

All good questions. I could be funny and say this was The Minbari operating System - About the fall of Microsoft but to be honest your guess is as good as mine. Here is what JMS has said in the past... (this is cut from a post of his dated 11/30/2003 02:34 AM) On the B5 front, there has been something of rather substantial proportion that's finally gone from talk to money, such that I'm now working frantically to meet some deadlines, but there's nothing I can say about this until after January 15th, probably closer to the end of that month. The only thing I can say is that phase one of the new project is a go, hence the furious writing schedule at this end of things, which is why I've been silent until deciding to kick up some dust on the political discusion. I've been writing my little brains out. I know the immediate result of this will be speculation, but if we could keep that to a low roar on the nets to avoid precluding anything, that would be a wonderfulness. But trust me: I wouldn't go on about something in this way if it wasn't a significant development. Just trust me on this one for a bit and hold fire until further word. (Longtime followers of the various news groups know that an eep means that something significant has happened, but that I can't talk about it...the eep is just a way of saying, on the QT, that something has, indeed, happened and it's real, not just speculation or maybe-gonna-happens. So on that basis, you may consider this an eep.) So up till now B5:TMoS has just been refered to as "eep". As to the second question JMS has said it's not a series and that it's not for print. I'd have to do alot of digging to find those posts though. I think most are thinking it will be a made for TV movie. Thats really all I know at this time. If I learn more I'll share. Enjoy, Carl

Here is the post from JMS... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jms at B5" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 9:01 PM Subject: Re: JMS New Babylon 5 related project (sorry if it´s already been > It's taken longer than hoped for to be able to talk about this, because it's > taken longer than hoped for to go through all the machinations of the deal. > Depending on the nature of a given deal, it can take a few weeks to a couple, > three months to actually cut the deal and finalize the language in terms > everybody can agree with. We only literally finished the deal last week. > > Writing on B5:TMoS is complete, and as soon as the powers that be sign off on > everything, it can be turned in and we can start moving. At that point, I can > say more about this. > > Figure another couple of weeks. > > jms > > > (all message content © 2004 by synthetic worlds, ltd., > permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine > and don't send me story ideas) Enjoy... Carl Edited to remove JMS's email address.

WOW!!! I can only think of one thing I'd want to add. Someone with more photoshop skills then me should take one of these pictures and put the mospeada in the foregroud of a legioss model that's adjusted to be in scale with the bike. I can just see the bike sitting in front of a legioss with the cockpit open or maybe the armor standing in front of the leg of the battloid. Don't put the whole legioss in the picture to keep the cyclone the focus... I just think it'd make a very kewl back drop. Great work!!! Carl

I liked it too for the most part. It was fun. There were a few points that struck me as not being all that well thought out. How can the cylons have the technology to make synthetic humanoids yet only be able to make just 12 different models or was it 7? And the bit there at the end with the cylons sitting outside the nebula waiting for the good guys to come out. If they didn't want to go in why not just send an a-bomb in to say "Hi". But yes it was sure fun enough to watch as a series. And you are correct if they named it something else everyone would have still been upset. Giving people what they want is very tricky busness and you don't have to look any farther then Macross toys to figure that out. On to B5. I think JMS sometimes gets off to a slow start. Try comparing the first season of B5 to say the 4th. Cursades also got off to a slow start but I was really into it at the end and would still love to see it come back. I don't think that's too likely at this point. Did you read the unproduced scripts that JMS made available briefly to see what he had planned for the end of the first season? WOW!!! Is about all I can say. I would have even liked to see The Legend of the Rangers been given a shot. JMS likes to try new things and see what works and what doesn't. With LotR JMS was testing the waters and doing alot of playing. Not all of it worked but I'm sure had it gone to series JMS would have mastered what worked and what didn't very soon. I still remember how B5 was recieved when it first came out. I don't think anyone could look past Londo's hair and I think I was one of them. I'm glad I stuck with it as it was sure a fun ride. I trust JMS would have done the same with LotR. On another JMS note I haven't seen a single episode of the second season of Jeremiah yet as I canceled Showtime when I lost my job. A dear friend has been taping the show for me and she just got the last episode herself recently. She'll be sending me the tapes soon. I can't wait. Carl

Did you mean to say Star Trek? Even there the new series aren't re-tellings of the old. If you are talking about the tweaks GL made to the first 3 Star Wars films I woun't really call that a remake. As for BSG I did watch the new series. I liked it for the most part but didn't really go in expecting much and I didn't try to think of it as BSG. If the series gets picked up I'll watch it. There was enough there to hold my attention during the pilot but I see why some wish it had been named something else. As for good SciFi I want more Babylon 5. If you follow JMS's posts it looks like I just might get my wish too. There is susposed to be an "eep" coming soon

I saw a post here that's dated the 22nd that says "I just read that Sci-Fi has ordered six episodes". He doesn't give a source so I'm not sure if its true or not.

Ok... here is my first shot at post processing so go easy on me. I took the shape above and cut the floor in half and added a flat blue background. See insert. As to why I left any of the floor in this picture was I wanted the reflections on the sphere of the grid however note now the left side of the box is missing its reflection. I then cut out the shape, made the blue backgroud transparent (my idea of how blue screen works), and pasted it on top of the same image redered with a complete red sphere covering the black one. Not too bad... I obviously don't know how to get rid of all the blue as I still see a blue outline around my shape and this test highlights some serious problems with a post process solution to this problem. I think if I knew what I was doing or had the right software I should be able to get rid of all the blue but what about the reflections on both the object and the foreground? I think I'll leave my model as it is for now. I really like all the reflections and that's not something they had to deal with origionally. A questions for those of you that have been at this longer then I have: Is there some software out there that will allow me to cut that shape off of the blue background and not only make the 100% blue pixels transparent but make the partially blue pixels at the edge partially transparent so they'll pick up the red of the solid red sphere when I perform the paste? I know the PNG file format allows for layers of partial transparency but the free software (ImageForge) that I downloaded doesn't support that feature or I can't figure out how to use it as the documentation isn't all that user friendly. Thanks, Carl

Hey... I was in High School back in the mid-80's. 1983 to 1987 to be exact so PLEASE don't call yourself old. My wife says I'm in denial. I can remember back when my High School offered its first ever computer course. They gave the job to the teacher that had taught typing for the past 20 years and I assume a computer back then was thought of as nothing more the a complicated typewriter. I however had taken a computer camp the summer before and learned some basic and forth (there is a langue I haven't heard of since). Long story short I ended up teaching the teacher as she knew nothing more about computer then most of her students. Those were the days... That course was on Apple II computers and I had a list of fun peek and poke commands as I recall that I used to play mind games with the other students. My first computer was a Sanyo 555. Anyone remember those? On to POV-Ray... I don't believe the primitives in POV-Ray have an underlying polygon mesh. And even if they did you wouldn't want to see all the lines that made it up. Hmmm... I'm having a hard time visualizing this I think. If the sphere has a red interior and you make it bigger and turn it inside out you wouldn't see any of the smaller black sphere. Let me tell you what I've done. No... its easier to show you... Lets say I want to outline the shape formed by the union of this box and sphere: box {<-50,20,-75>,<100,150,75> texture {clear_black}} sphere {<100, 120, -85>,75 texture {clear_black}} I pick the size of the red frame I want it to have. In this case 10. And I add spheres with that radius to all the corners of the box: sphere{<-50,20,-75> 10 texture {red_frame}} sphere{<-50,20,75> 10 texture {red_frame}} sphere{<-50,150,-75> 10 texture {red_frame}} sphere{<-50,150,75> 10 texture {red_frame}} sphere{<100,20,-75> 10 texture {red_frame}} sphere{<100,20,75> 10 texture {red_frame}} sphere{<100,150,-75> 10 texture {red_frame}} sphere{<100,150,75> 10 texture {red_frame}} I then add cylinders to all the edges of the box with the same radius: cone {<-50,20,-75>,10 <-50,20,75>, 10 texture {red_frame}} cone {<-50,20,-75>,10 <-50,150,-75>, 10 texture {red_frame}} cone {<-50,20,-75>,10 <100,20,-75>, 10 texture {red_frame}} cone {<-50,150,75>,10 <-50,150,-75>, 10 texture {red_frame}} cone {<-50,150,75>,10 <-50,20,75>, 10 texture {red_frame}} cone {<-50,150,75>,10 <100,150,75>, 10 texture {red_frame}} cone {<100,20,75>,10 <100,20,-75>, 10 texture {red_frame}} cone {<100,20,75>,10 <100,150,75>, 10 texture {red_frame}} cone {<100,20,75>,10 <-50,20,75>, 10 texture {red_frame}} cone {<100,150,-75>,10 <100,150,75>, 10 texture {red_frame}} cone {<100,150,-75>,10 <100,20,-75>, 10 texture {red_frame}} cone {<100,150,-75>,10 <-50,150,-75>, 10 texture {red_frame}} The edges formed by the intersection of the box and the sphere is taken care of with and intersection of oversided copies of the original shapes. intersection { box {<-60,10,-85>,<110,160,85>} sphere {<100, 120, -85>,85} texture {red_frame} } Which makes the image you see attached. Note: I still don't have the sphere outlined in red. As for post processing I do have a few ideas that I think will work to a degree. I'll post something about one of them today if I can get it to work. Lets see... some of your other points. Yes I know the light cycle has the outline effect too. Its not seen on the pre-production pictures I copied though. Come to think of it the red framework isn't seen of the pre-production tank either. I don't really have the desire to add it to the light cycle as I don't think it adds much. The color difference isn't there and it doesn't stand out as much. On the tank however I do think the red frame on the black tank parts really does stand out. In the movie it ties the red lighting of the helicopter seen in the real world to the tanks in the computer world rather well and it gives the tanks alot of character so I was persuaded to add it back in. Note the first pictures I posted here didn't have it on the tank either. As for making my own rendeer I think that's more work then I really want to put into this. I'm not out to make perfect copies and I can get all the fixed lines added to the tank already. I've already gone far beyond what you see in the movie with textures, reflection, shadows, etc and I don't want to take that step backwards. Come to think of it even if I could add the lines that depend on camera postion back in they may look odd in animations. It will no longer look like that tank is covered on neon lights as the detail you can put into a POV-Ray render may make it jump out that "Hey... some of those lines are moving." I could also point out that not all of the edges of the turret/cannon get the red line effect in the movie and which do isn't always consistent from one sceen to the next. Thank you so much for all the feedback. I really appreciate it. Carl

MSW your comments were not taken to be negative so please don't worry about that. I enjoy the feedback. I'm curious why you are familar with the "funky shadows" and "popping polygons" though. To be honest they were things I never noticed till I sat down to try and model the thing. Did you have anything to do with the film or have you made your own models? And yes I noticed the menus on the SE DVD. I personally think I did a much better job however I'm not up to animating mine yet. And yes I agree with your assesment that its a very dificult job to copy the visuals of TRON exactly. The part I had the hardest job with was the red outline of the turret and even there my copy is missing parts I see no easy way to add. I have all the fixed edges lined in red but note the tank in the movie also had the domes outlined in red. There is no physical edge here as its just the outline of the shape against the background and its location depends on where the camera is placed. So I'm note sure how to add it to my model. At the moment I've just left them off. I think it would look better with them and I have an idea or two how I might be able to add them with some post processing but I'm not sure its worth the effort and if I ever animated my model and camera I'd have to do this post processing on each frame. There is one last idea that I haven't tried yet though. POV-Ray has a 'media' feature that I might use to add a thin shell of red 'fog' over the turret and cannon. I think if I make it thin enough you'll be able to see through it to the black underneath and at the very edge you'll just be looking through the red fog so you'll see a red outline. I have serious doubts as to rather it will work as I've already tried to cover it with a thin red glass. And even if it does work I'm afraid it will take much much longer to render then it already does which will make it useless for animation anyways. I've watched all the stuff on the SE DVD and its obvious the tank and the light cycle are made with what POV-Ray calls CSGs. However POV-Ray has no easy way to outline these CSG's as you see done in the movie. I doubt I'll ever do the solar sailer as its a mesh and I don't really even know where to begin with trying to copy that. I would however like to make a recognizer and after the work on the tank I think is should be rather easy to make. As it has no curved surfaces I can even add all the edge lines in and have it look right. A couple general question for you (or anyone that might be able to answer): (1) If you know how I could add the dome outlines to my model in POV-Ray I'm all ears. Since their location is camera dependant though I just don't see an easy solution. (2) I modeled my Lght Cycles before I saw all the info on the SE DVD. On one part of the DVD it shows how the cycle was made my adding the differences and intersections of simple shapes together. In it is shows the front wheel as being made from one large center sphere with two just slightly smaller spheres or spheroids cut out of the sides. I've always assumed that the pieces cut out were cones and thats how I modeled it. However now that I've seen that animation of the cycle being made on the SE DVD I'm tempted to go back and change my model. The thing is I don't think it would look right. All the pics I've seen of a complete light cycle don't seem to suggest that kind of curvature to the front wheel cutouts. Its possible I'm not interpreting the meaning of that part of the short light cycle assembly sequence on the DVD or maybe that part of the model was change before the movie was made. Does any have any high quality pictures of this part of the light cycles where it would show if that part is a cone or if it has some curvature to suggest that it needs to be a spheroid. I know there is an Art of Tron book out there and I'm sure there may be other sources I don't have. Thanks, Carl