robcat2075

So, over on the trombone forum I also say that having a conical trombone is possible like having a triangle with parallel sides is possible, and someone helpfully points out that in some non-plane geometry it is possible. Fine, I say, all you have to do is get to the universe where that works on a trombone. It's probably the universe where Spock has a mullet, I say, thinking there is no such thing. And then someone comes up with this...

I look forward to your report.

Very impossible. A truly conical bore instrument that you can also change the length to change the pitch is pretty much a geometric impossibility. Like having a triangle that also has two parallel sides. It's remarkable how much discussion there is over there when the trombone hasn't changed much in 400 years.

Over on the trombone forum someone was lamenting that you can't have a slide trombone with a conical bore from one end to the other.

Problem #2... re applying the decal doesn't fix it!

Mmmm... are those zucchini?

I think that would be a job for a "transparency" map.

How about if the bottom edge were more ragged instead of cleanly cut? How about if there were a visible part at the top? How about if there were different shades of gray in the hair?

Here's a clearer view...

Here's an odd problem. I used a bump map to make the thin ridges that run the length of the ladder rail.. But if I copy and flip that left rail to make the rail on the right side the bump map shades inverted on some patches, even though all patches are still facing outward...

Old hands will have lots of veins, bulging knuckles, thin bones

But it's good to have a job, right? Thanks, for the many things you do!

You have three weeks and six days to enter your Image Contest image!

Simon, You probably don't want yet another multi-part tutorial on decaling faces, but i have one. Perhaps portions of it will be useful to you.... It Can't Be Decaled!

Does it still look like that if you got to Tools>Customize>Appearance and change the color scheme?

For reasons not clear to me, Flatten unwraps around the selection's Z axis After you select your CPs, go to a side view, choose the traNslate manipulator so the axis gnomon will show, grab the red handle of the gnomon and rotate the gnomon so that the blue axis is vertical, then do Flatten. My experience with flatten is that the last patches on the side tend to get distorted by the stretch. You should include one more set of patches past the ones you intend to decal in your Flatten selection, then hide them before you apply your decal.

That's true, but it's the first thing that shows up when I do a search on "Summer Image Contest" It's about half way down the page when i click on "View New Content". And there's a link to it in my signature. Let me know if you still can't find it after you click on this direct link

D'oh!

How about smoothing or straightening the jowl line so it doesn't have the sharp angle below the nose?

This is from my Show & Tell at yesterday's Live Answer Time. I've been repainting my house for a while and I noticed that after I scrape off the loose paint... ... it makes patchy shapes somewhat like the noise combiners we use to make wispy cloud cover. This is Fractal Sum, stretched horizontally... However, the Fractal Sum noise is a continuous range of shades from base color to peak color and the scraped paint on wood is either there or not there. ON or OFF. If i crank the "amplitude" of Fractal Sum above 100, more of the noise pattern is forced to clip at the peak color and I get more solid shapes... ... but that still leaves lots of gray in the inbetween areas. i really need all or nothing. It is possible to use these noise combiners materials for Displacement instead of Color. This is a flat patch with a noise material set to Displacement... But how about if I had two layers of patches instead of one? Here is a flat patch with a wood grain material made with the Spherical combiner... Now I've placed another flat patch just behind with a displacement material on it, far enough back so that only the very highest points poke out in front of the wood grained patch. This gets me the all or nothing look I wanted... Here's a two-tone version with two displacement layers behind the wood grain patch with one slightly more forward, to simulate yellow paint on top of white primer.The yellow layer noise is set to slightly lower Amplitude so its peak areas are slightly smaller than the white ones... I can also vary the Scale parameters of the noise materials to make the paint areas larger or longer

I like the wrinkles on the middle version! To do "aging" on a toon character however I think you'll have to work with larger details... saggier jowls with more prominent folds, likewise with the bags under the eyes. A bigger nose. Everyone's nose gets bigger with age. Basically I think you would need more sagging on the big structures that can cast toon lines.

That was amusing! I'm a sucker for the classics.

Idea... What if you sold that iMac and bought a used iMac of similar vintage that had the more desirable graphics card?

Is there some sort of an exact model number that would identify that Mac with the problem video card?

I think that's a good explanation!