mojovox.pandromeda.com has set channel members only flag to MojoMania
mojovox.pandromeda.com has set topic settable by chop only flag to MojoMania
Stevo has joined MojoMania
calyxa: hi, Stevo
02.00.21 Stevo: Heya Calyxa
02.00.33 Stevo: How's it going?
calyxa: Mo isn't going to make it tonight... "arthritis"
calyxa: it's going pretty well, actually
02.00.54 Stevo: What's the good news
calyxa: almost have the tutorials page put together for the main Pandromeda site, so we'll have real tutorial links, yay!
02.01.18 Stevo: Cool
02.01.39 Stevo: That one tutorial with the sun has really helped me
calyxa: excellent. I haven't filed that one yet. I'm debating if there should be a separate Pro UI section?
Chas has joined MojoMania
02.02.02 Stevo: The Time node is great
calyxa: hi, Chas!
02.02.06 Stevo: Hi Chas
02.02.08 Chas: Yo
02.02.23 Chas: Thanks for those mp3s
calyxa: did you listen to them?
02.02.52 Chas: Yeah... now ya got me searching Grokster for a buttload more fun
calyxa: that Deth Specula one is by some friends of mine in Santa Cruz (from about 5 years ago...)
02.03.29 Chas: So... somewhere I'm gonna have to go in lurk mode so I can burn it all for tonights radio show
02.03.40 Chas: That's SWEET
02.03.59 Chas: There's some fun twistedness in there.
calyxa: heh, cool. glad you like it.
calyxa: pales in comparison to what I've sent to Craig, tho... sigh.
02.04.26 Chas: Doc Mojo won't be with us tonight... unexpectedly
calyxa: yeah, saw your mail on that.
02.04.49 Chas: Artheritis or something
calyxa: almost have the tutorials page together... I should have you check out what's there before it goes live. tomorrow will be fine, tho, there's still more I have to do.
rex has joined MojoMania
calyxa: hi, rex!
02.05.23 rex: hey there!
02.05.37 Chas: What's up stevo. luv the animations. Didn't get back to the email though from earlier today about the one that wouldn't play for me.
02.05.38 rex: how is everybody tonight?
02.05.53 Stevo: Hi Rex
calyxa: pretty darned good, actually. it's been a good day.
02.05.57 Stevo: Thanks Chas
calyxa: met up w/ Chris Drake, the guy who wrote up that Sample Worlds Torn Apart thing... he's just in the next town over.
02.06.22 rex: hey steveo - what animations? i wanna see ;-)
02.06.45 rex: caly - cool! is he done yet? ;-)
calyxa: if they're going to Chas, they'll shortly be in the anim gallery
02.07.07 Chas: My eudora's off, but he's got it up somewhere. What's that addy stevo?
02.07.09 Stevo: Thanks Rex
calyxa: I uploaded everything this afternoon - parts one and two are there, more may get added to part two... maybe.
02.07.24 Stevo: http://www.spacerevolution.com/images/Bighills2.mov
calyxa: click
02.07.55 Stevo: http://www.spacerevolution.com/images/ISUN.MOV
02.08.19 Chas: OK... I gotta go into lurk mode so I can burn a CD
02.08.55 rex: caly - very cool! I gotta go see 'em!
02.09.02 Stevo: Is anyone familiar with QuickTime5 compresion?
calyxa: I have QT pro, but haven't done much with it....
02.09.33 Stevo: I just bought it two days ago
calyxa: brb...
02.09.54 Stevo: ?
02.10.02 rex: steveo - i get an error on the mov files - "The data requested by the plug-in did not download successfully" am I missing something?
02.10.25 rex: brb = be right back
calyxa: back
02.10.36 Stevo: Thanks Rex
02.10.45 rex: see? ;-)
02.10.56 Stevo: It should load in QuickTime5
calyxa: thanx, rex. I got the same error on the first one, but the second one just played (now to watch it this time!)
calyxa: there's something intensely weird going on with those clouds!
02.11.40 rex: i'm trying the second one...
02.11.47 Stevo: It's the sun orb
02.12.01 Stevo: very close
02.12.24 rex: mighty BIG sun - a "hot" place to be i guess! ;-)
calyxa: huh, so the sun light really is a point light... maybe make the sun halo bigger?
02.12.44 rex: so where is doc the slacker?
calyxa: "arthritis"
02.13.13 rex: huh? he's not making it tonight?
calyxa: yeah, he's not gonna make it...
02.13.31 Chas: Wow... I found some REALLY nice Tom Waits stuff
02.13.37 Stevo: To many fights with the Dalek's
02.13.46 Chas: Mo's SLACKIN
02.13.51 rex: drat - does he really have arthritis? does it bother him often?
02.14.06 Stevo: He must be typing all the time
calyxa: rumor I hear is that he's entertaining a potential investor...
02.14.38 Chas: or something like that
02.14.47 rex: mo' money...mo' money... Yea! That means more features!!!!
calyxa: Sandy's got him hog-tied in the basement again
02.14.57 Stevo: hehe
02.15.17 rex: too much information!
calyxa: that's not information, it's wild speculative abuse!
02.15.35 Chas: Man... We NEED it. It's been a bear after 9-11 keeping the ball rolling for us. But we're giving it all hell
02.15.46 Stevo: because he's not here?
02.15.58 Chas: Well... mo-money... not hogtying
calyxa: it's our moral obligation to abuse Mo whether he's here or not.
02.16.28 rex: amen sister!
02.16.30 Stevo: that sounds fair
02.16.34 Chas: So he's entertained when he reads the log
02.17.22 rex: chas, I hope things improve for you folks...my biggest fear right now is that MJW will "go away". I would be crushed!
calyxa: it's gonna be a blast to have Mo, Daulton and Codini here...
02.18.00 rex: when is that happening calyxa?
calyxa: two weeks, for the Game Developer's Conference
calyxa: that's "in" two weeks, not "for" two weeks!
02.18.35 Stevo: http://www.spacerevolution.com/images/Bighills2.mov
02.19.15 Stevo: This isn't working?
calyxa: it hasn't given me an error yet this time.
02.19.36 rex: i couldnt get it to start...the other one is downloading now... (*&%&%*#@ dialup!!!)
calyxa: whups, there it is...
calyxa: "The data that the plugin requested, did not download successfully"
02.20.03 Stevo: ?
calyxa: that's the error I get when trying to d/l the Bighills2.mov
02.20.20 Stevo: It works on mine--very strange
02.20.24 rex: caly, you decided to go to bryce camp yet? (please! please!!!)
02.20.41 rex: same error i got...
calyxa: it's being talked about, but I don't have two dimes to rub together, so we'll have to see....
02.21.20 Stevo: That's technology for ya
02.21.35 rex: you could go as an "offical pandromeda representative" to assist in our hostile takeover of it! ;-)
02.22.00 Stevo: Or a Dalek spy
02.22.07 rex: how many folks do you think would be interested in a mojo camp? any idea?
calyxa: Mo said something about possibly defraying some of my costs if I convince participants to buy MW...
calyxa: Stevo, did you save that Bighills2.mov as a stand-alone movie or with dependancies?
02.22.54 Stevo: I'm not sure
02.22.58 rex: i'd help a little bit if it would help get you there!
calyxa: I'll bet it's saved with dependancies... I got a little bit more explitit of an error msg from IE on my Mac
02.23.25 Stevo: I saved it with Pro from an MW QuickTime
02.23.39 Stevo: It compressed it down
calyxa: a whole lot?
02.24.03 Stevo: Yes
02.24.17 Stevo: almost by 500 times
calyxa: yeah... it's finding the local data on your hard drive for you. for us, it doesn't find movie data at all.
02.24.32 Stevo: Hmm
calyxa: there's an option "save self-contained" versus "save with dependancies"
02.24.50 Stevo: what's the difference
calyxa: one saves it as a large file containing the movie data.
calyxa: the other saves it as a tiny thing that finds the movie data on your local drive...
02.25.25 Stevo: oopps
calyxa: (damn telemarketers...) yeah, I made that mistake once or twice...
02.26.04 Stevo: I'll try and load it again
02.27.57 rex: steveo...what is the sun doing in your second movie - is the sun rotating or are there two suns - because I see a highlight on the sun surface at the end???
02.28.45 rex: caly - can i ask you some more questions about my tutorial issues?
02.28.47 Stevo: Glow channel for the sphere and very close to planet
calyxa: go for it, rex!
02.30.08 rex: ok, local sample. (your favorite I know). how does this get picked and can you specify how/where it's picked?
02.30.21 Stevo: brb
calyxa: I _think_ it is "from where your current camera is" and I'm pretty sure it's based on the altitude shown in the preview swatch zoomy thing.
02.31.23 rex: so the only was to "move" it is to fly around somewhere else?
calyxa: yeah, or switch cameras. I really ought to submit a feature request for a 'pan around' in the preview swatches.
02.32.56 rex: so if you have a large LFS what is the best way to find out what the ranges really are for the world (everest to dead sea kinda thing)
calyxa: use the zoomy thing to zoom way out
calyxa: you'll still never know the absolute range tho.
calyxa: it'll always be an approximation
02.33.48 rex: so the larger the "patch" via zoomout the more info you get on the max min then?
calyxa: the more there is for it to sample, yeah.
calyxa: but I think it "skips" data when it's zoomed out, so it could skip over that 10 Km spike....
02.34.32 rex: hmmm. gotta think about this.
calyxa: I'm answering similar questions in a thread on r'osity...
02.36.50 rex: so, when a fractal generates it's numbers - how does that relate to the whole "mandelbrot" pattern thing. I've been thinking about the "classic" fractal picture and I'm trying to understand how it gets -1 to 1 out of a pic like that?
02.37.35 Stevo: Rex; I used very large result scale and max feature on the glow channell and did a rapid and frequent red, yellow shift on the gradient. I followed Calyxa's tutorial on using the time node to shift orbit position
02.37.39 rex: or am i just missing it badly...and the only thing fractals are doing for you is the infinite scale...
02.38.18 rex: very cool steveo! I like it!
02.38.28 Stevo: Thanks Rex
02.38.47 Stevo: The Time node is way cool!
02.38.51 Chas: I'm back... Gotta cut out though for radio. MAN!!!... we gotta get the word out more on these Vox nights. There's certainly bunches of 'nauts out there active in the communities... We gotta find a way to round 'em all up for Thursday nights.
calyxa: how does a Mandelbrot pic get colored in the first place? -- the formula for generating a Mandelbrot set is very simple (tho I forget what it is...). all values put into the formula either collapse to 0 (and that's usually colored black), or they "escape to infinity" and it's how fast they go to infiniity that is how the colors are chosen.
calyxa: see ya later, Chas! I'll try to listen in
dj4321 has joined MojoMania
calyxa: hi, dj!
02.39.22 Stevo: See ya Chas
02.39.24 rex: have a great night chas - rock on!
02.39.28 Chas: Was'up dj
02.39.30 rex: hi d!
02.39.37 Stevo: Hi D
02.39.39 rex: opps dj
02.39.59 Chas: Will do. www.wcsb.org 11pm - 1am EST
02.40.24 Chas: Me and the right Rev. Ivan Stang
02.40.54 Stevo: brb
02.40.59 Chas: Toodles all... Next week I'll post in all the forums and galleries about Vox night
02.41.04 rex: okay...gotta think about that too caly... whew!
calyxa: cool
Chas has left channel MojoMania
calyxa: a lot of that stuff is just barely at the edges of my understanding... too much math, feh!
02.42.54 rex: I agree! ok, lets talk about the result scale to min max curve stuff. am i right in thinking that if the result set is something other than 1 (say 4) that I need the curves min and max inputs to also be -4 and +4? and how does that effect the output then?
calyxa: welcome, dj - how are you finding MojoWorld?
02.43.29 rex: yeah, dj, how long have you had mojoworld?
calyxa: well, that's the answer I'm going to be posting on r'osity for fleanbilly later... it all depends on what you want to be doing w/ the curve...
calyxa: it could be that you only want to affect part of the output, so you'd use an input range smaller than the inputs you're expecting...
02.44.43 Stevo: I thought that it generally max out at -1 + 1, from the book, if that's right
calyxa: multiplied by the result scale
02.45.06 Stevo: How's that
02.45.16 rex: ok, now the offset on the on the mountain terrain fractal just specifies the the movement of the position of the fractal terrain generation from where you are currently sitting, right?
calyxa: yeah, and driving that with a texture creates "offset distortion" which is basically the same as "phase" in Bryce's Deep Texture Editor.
02.47.29 rex: steveo, from what i understand so far you can multiply the numbers out of the fractal with the result scale before they go into the curve editor, then you can also multiply them by cranking up the min and max output in the curve editor...right caly?
02.47.56 Stevo: I'll have to try that
calyxa: yup
02.48.03 rex: cool, caly, i hadnt thought about using the offset for distortion...neat idea...
02.48.22 Stevo: How about driving it with the time node?
calyxa: driving offset w/ a time node on a fractal applied to a terrain patch is how Kent once animated a waving flag
02.48.54 rex: i havent quite groked the different impact on the terrain if you use the result scale to multiply vs. the curve...but i'm trying!
02.49.07 Stevo: interresting
02.49.09 dj4321: I'm new to Mojo and Vox. Just stopped by to see what the power users are up to .
02.49.11 rex: cool!
02.49.27 Stevo: Are you liking it D?
02.49.36 rex: oh, i would not call myself a power user...not yet anyway... ;-)
02.50.01 rex: how long have you had mojo dj?
calyxa: I have a hard time thinking of myself as a power user, but then again, I'm comparing myself to Craig, which just isn't fair.
02.50.22 dj4321: Still getting the hang of message composition.
02.50.29 rex: boy, calyxa, i'd say!
calyxa: Craig, and Kent, and that Krummen Hacker dude... wow!
02.51.23 Stevo: And Hacker's got the quick machine
02.51.28 rex: that's cool dj...take your time (we're all patient here...heck, we do renders! <grin!>)
calyxa: heheh
02.51.43 Stevo: Good point Rex
02.52.04 Stevo: PATIENCE
02.52.17 rex: so how high can you realistically crank result scale before it gets ridiculous?
calyxa: I've got that P4 for a few more days, but have managed to bring it to its knees w/ the reflective water (which Mo just told me today is a 2.0 feature, not a 1.2 feature... :(
02.52.33 dj4321: Just load the Generator and am now working my way through the manual.
calyxa: depends on how far away from the planet you get, rex.
02.52.53 rex: good point...hmmm...
02.52.55 Stevo: I think it depends on how far away your object is
calyxa: Kent has some wild things in the Pandromeda gallery - like that planet that looks like a popped kernel of popcorn...
calyxa: that's gotta be some serious result scale.
02.53.41 Stevo: PRO UI?
calyxa: not necessarily. I haven't looked at his planet file, it's there for the d/l tho.
02.54.02 rex: Oh, thats how he did that - makes sense now!
02.54.46 Stevo: I'll have to figure it out
02.54.55 rex: what about the roughness setting...I know chris said that negitive numbers work better? i don't get how this fits in...
calyxa: where did he say that?
02.55.56 rex: oops...maybe i was thinking zero offset...I cant remember...ack!
02.56.06 rex: <digs for tutorial...>
02.56.17 Stevo: I thought he meant the detail
calyxa: zero offset - yeah
calyxa: roughness corresponds to "fractal dimension"
calyxa: tho the zero offset will also affect how rough things are
02.56.53 rex: fractal dimension?
calyxa: fractals aren't 2 dimensional and they're not 3 dimensional... they're in between... or so I've read...
02.57.52 Stevo: eh?
calyxa: and my guess is that the roughness param is the fraction on the fractal dimension
calyxa: that's where the term 'fractal' came from, the fact that they're of fractional dimensions
02.59.06 Stevo: Raised eyebrow
03.00.05 rex: so do i need to understand how all this fits in or should i just understand what settings give me what effect? how do you do it?
calyxa: I twiddle the settings 'til I like it.
calyxa: I pay as little attention to the math as possible.
03.01.00 rex: hmmm...I guess its the programmer in me that wants to know WHY certain settings cause certain behavior...<sigh>
calyxa: search for the sci.fractals FAQ then...
calyxa: I was poking at that when you asked for a "simple" tutorial and I rejected it as too complex... but you might find interesting bits anyway...
03.02.38 rex: ok, another question. is the mountain fractal the only fractal you can use to make a terrain in the terrain editor? i have never been able to get the others to do anything but flat planet...
03.02.51 rex: thanks! i will grab it!
calyxa: any fractal will work
03.03.06 rex: but math is a four letter word! ;-)
calyxa: sure is.
03.03.29 rex: hmmm. i must have been doing something wrong then...it was in my earlier days...
calyxa: I usually use mountain fractal, but also new multifractal can be good.
calyxa: heterofractal will have a lot of flattish spots.
03.04.08 Stevo: Do you have your result scale pumped up enough?
03.04.32 rex: so are most of your textures on your worlds simple color driven ones with fractals for params? or do you folks use map images for textures?
03.04.34 Stevo: I find that the most useful
calyxa: I've never used a mapped image for a texture other than on an imported model.
calyxa: and those beachballs I made have a pro-ui graph for their coloring :)
03.05.40 Stevo: I liked the Poser one you did Calyxa
03.05.51 Stevo: She was hot