Roger

While I'm not doing this now, I have done it in the past and I would suggest you be very careful with "suggestion creep" by clients. Meaning, you quote say $1000 for a job and know it can be completed in 20 hours, giving you a profit of $500 (assuming half for overhead/taxes). They start asking you to change a something here, something there and before you know it you're working for minimum wage. I would suggest if you're going to bill in the low end range, make it very clear that since it is such a deal, they get what they signed off on with no changes or they can request changes but it will cost them. For your part, make sure you underpromise and over-deliver. If you think something will take a month, tell them 2 or 3 so that way when you deliver in 6 weeks you look like a hero. You don't want it to be the other way around, that's bad for your personal and business reputation. I call this my "Scotty" theory of deliverables (as in Scotty from Star Trek...he'd always pad his estimates of how long it would take to fix the warp core...the downside of this is if they figure out that's what you're doing). Be wary about working for very little pay or no pay on the promise of future work later. They will expect to pay you less later, too. Get a portion (1/3 to 1/2) up front and the rest on completion. If they aren't willing to agree to that, they're not serious. I would suggest billing such that you're making at least $20-$25 an hour after all your costs. Otherwise, why bother?

I have to say, it would eliminate a lot of the bother with product activation, or using AM on multiple systems, since you could only use it on one machine at a time, but have it available on several systems. Tablet/laptop and desktop, for instance. But I imagine Martin would have to give a pretty decent size cut to Valve, so I don't see that happening if only for that reason.

I'm glad he's recognizable, at least. I let myself get to caught up with it being "perfect", between that and waiting too long to pick it back up, that was what did me in as far as making the deadline. I think if I can knock out the details tonight, add a "skirt" or bumper to the base, he should start looking pretty close. I'd like to redo the head, and if I wanted a photoreal version then I'd probably have to spend maybe another week getting the textures and lighting right. But even with a half-finished model, if you knew what it was right away then that's a success in my book. Just need to finish now.

Well here is what I was trying to bang out last night. I think you might be able to guess what it is. I didn't feel comfortable sending it in, though. I'm going to finish it today and post in the WIP thread. Even if I missed the deadline, I think it's worth doing still. I wish I had started over from scratch a few weeks ago, I might have gotten him done in time. I was really wedded to doing a strict recreation but then decided "screw it, I'll just do an interpretation of the character" but by the time I'd settled on that I had let too much time go by. I think it would have been tough to finish the eyes, ears, tail, gun/snout and properly texture him with only an hour to go.

I thought I was going to be able to knock something out at the last minute. As usual, what I think and what is the reality of things are completely different. Rather than turn something half-ass in, I think I will keep working on this and just post it later, and wait for the next contest.

Is there any way to bevel after the fact? I'm racing to finish my contest entry, and one of the parts is looking really awful with knife-like edges, but I'm not sure how best exactly to bevel it. I could try adding more CPs and then smoothing the points, and seeing if that helps. It looks really rough right now, though.

Well that is good, gives me until about 1:55 AM Central then.

So are these due midnight Pacific time?

I disabled the integrated graphics but haven't had time to properly test it yet to confirm it fixed the problem.

I too found a regular Wacom tablet awkward to use. i was doing and re-doing strokes until I got it in the right place. Generally not usable for me. Drawing on the screen is way better. I'll note that I got my 18" Cintiq used, for about $600 on ebay several years ago and the same model goes for much much less now. The stand is handy in that it tilts down to a regular drawing angle but I also need my adjustable chair that boosts me up to a high enough level to feel right with the drawing surface. That's more in my range but a ways down the road. Maybe next tax refund.

I am perfectly capable of drawing on paper, it is the problem with looking at a monitor and then drawing on a smaller tablet with no display that is difficult for me. Drawing directly on a tablet with a display would be a similar enough experience to paper. But it looks like what will be the case is that I can't afford what I want, anything I get that I can afford will likely have serious compromises, so I'm better off spending $100 on sketchpads and pencils than pissing my money away on an inferior product. Maybe I will revisit the whole drawing tablet thing a few years from now. Or when I can afford $2000 for a proper Cintiq or $1200 for the "lite" version.

I am perfectly capable of drawing on paper, it is the problem with looking at a monitor and then drawing on a smaller tablet with no display that is difficult for me. Drawing directly on a tablet with a display would be a similar enough experience to paper. But it looks like what will be the case is that I can't afford what I want, anything I get that I can afford will likely have serious compromises, so I'm better off spending $100 on sketchpads and pencils than pissing my money away on an inferior product. Maybe I will revisit the whole drawing tablet thing a few years from now. Or when I can afford $2000 for a proper Cintiq or $1200 for the "lite" version.

The "globes" were amusing. I think I remember seeing a clip from "girl can't help it" with an erupting milk bottle when Jayne Mansfield walks by the milkman. You can't tell me THAT wasn't "code" for something

I'm very tempted to get the Surface 3 as I would love a cintiq but can't really afford one (unless I look for used ones, then I might swing it). I've also been looking at the Thinkpad Tablet 10, which should be coming out soon. It has one of the newer Atom chips and is supposedly on par with a lower speed Core i3. It comes with a Wacom digitizer. However, these are very much "wants" and not "needs". I have a Wacom Intuos currently but I have problems with hand/eye coordination given I'm not looking at what I'm drawing. I'm just leery of getting another gadget that will have a limited lifespan. So maybe I'm better off sticking with what I've got than trying to find a budget solution and ending up with something that isn't all that great. I don't do a ton of digital painting/photoshoppery and would like to do more, but can't quite get used to the disconnect between drawing on the tablet and seeing the output on a monitor.

Ok, I think I know what is happening now. The center panel is closed off properly, but none of the other facets of the panel are. Since none if the other facets are closed off properly, the only one that is rendering is the main one, thus hiding the others. I'm pretty sure that is what is happening, anyway. Edit: Well, I think some variation on the above must be what is happening, but what I've tried to fix it isn't working, so I'm going to step away for a bit and give it another whack a bit later.

I'm sure it has, and I'm just rusty as heck and forgot. However, made the correction and still have a solid surface with no indent. You mind if I shoot you an email?

Ok, after seeing your example I see how to fix it and was able to close off the inner panel. I just wonder why I didn't run into this before. Maybe I just never tried to create this type of depression before now, or forgot to create the interior patches in order for it to close properly. I guess this underscores the need to get back to daily Hashing.

I guess they must be, but how could they not be on the same spline? It seems like they would more or less have to be on the same spline. I see why it would fill with the 3 point patches, but it seems as if it should also fill the other way. But I realize that may just be the way it works.

Here is an example of what I'm trying to do. Although now I don't know why the inner panel doesn't render, since 4 points should be a valid patch.

So I managed to settle on a project for the sci-fi contest, and if I finish it early I may do another entry. It seemed like a relatively straight-forward bit of modeling, but something isn't working quite right. It could be that I haven't sat down in front of AM for so long that I'm missing something obvious. Here is my problem: I've got one rectangular surface with another rectangle inside, and I'm trying to push the inner rectangle inwards to create a depression or indent in this robot (I would post an image but it will be immediately obvious what my project is, I think). I thought I knew what the problem was, I didn't have any splines connecting the 2 areas, so I put 2 splines per side and then pushed the inner panel inwards. While it looks right in wireframe mode it doesn't look right in shaded mode, there does not appear to be any indent at all. What do you figure I did wrong?

I wasn't aware that was a requirement, that AM had to run in basic mode.

Is there a reason AM would be doing this? I think that might be why I'm having display problems.

Well I wanted to do a Breaking Bad tribute piece. While it is fiction and has science, I'm not sure it would be considered sci-fi (unless I have Walt cooking his meth on a UFO).

So does "mad science" count or is it more spaceships, robots, aliens and such? I'm interested in doing an entry but need to pick something g I can pull off with the new deadline.

I completely disabled the Optimus feature and the Intel graphics, so I'm going to load the ball bounce project I did a while back and see if that fixed the problem.