3D Studio Max 9 - At least it's stable

I was a bit frustrated by the 3D Studio Max 8 SP3. The application kept hanging up at some strange place. I finally got so feed up with it that I installed 3D Studio Max 9 and started using it. It seemed to work pretty well, and no crash so far.

Animation render problem with 3D STudio Max SP3

I experienced something strange like this: if I render an animation with 3D Studio Max 8 SP3, and in the middle of the rendering process I tried to something else, the 3DS8 application will hang up. So whenever I render a 3D animation, I have to leave the computer alone all the way until it finish the rendering. It's great that I have a spare laptop, so here I am, working on my laptop. In fact, I think I may just install 3DSMax on this laptop. That way, I can use this laptop for time consuming render while I have my main computer doing something more useful, like work.

A bug in Painter XI.5

Previously I had problem running Painter XI.5 after upgraded it from XI. Yesterday I finally figured out the reason: I forgot to reset the default setting, as instructed at the web site right next to the download link! (So, yeah, my bad).
So now Painter XI.5 is running smoothly on my machine.

However, I guess I stumbled across a Painter XI.5 bug. Try this:
(1) Create a new document.
(2) Add a layer (Layer 1)
(3) Select the Canvas layer, and then select [Canvas][Canvas Sizes...]. Add 400 pixels to bottom.
(4) Select layer 1
(5) Now try to draw at the bottom of the newly added area.

You will find out that you CANNOT paint in that area. However, try save the document and then reopen again. That bottom area in the layer 1 in now accessible.

Is it a well known bug, of something I discovered and should be reported to Corel?

Painter XI.5 update

I tried Painter XI.5 update, and create an portable app using it. But it seems very unstable and crash everytime I tried to draw something on the Canvas. I wonder what the problem is. But in the meantime Painter XI will be were I stay.

A bad habit to break

There was one tiny issue that sort of bugged me for a long while ever since I brought the Wacom Graphite 4 Tablet: that when I use Photoshop and Painter, I found that very once in a while I saw some dots got left inside the sketch of my drawing. At first I thought it was some setting problem, and it got to a point that I almost thought there's something wrong with the Wacom tablet. But today when I closely monitor how I sketch, I realized that the problem is actually on ME.

See, I have a tendency of slightly slamming the pen on the tablet surface even when I tried to draw a light line. I might intended to draw a smooth thin-then-thick-then-thin line, but my instinct tends to slam on the surface first before pulling all off to very light force. As the result, a spot was created. In fact, the tablet and the pen ACCURATELY and EXACTLY replicate what I did when the pen. It was just that I was in denial.

So I really need to practice sketch by breaking this bad habit. In fact, to think about it, I had the same habit when dancing by using all the force on preparation steps and thus ruin the whole thing. Gotta work on it.

Imperfection of the Maya 7 green version

It seems like everytime when I tried to apply material to an object in the green version of Maya 7 I made, the application will crash and burn. Oh well, I knew that hacking stuff is prompt to have problem :-I .

More more and more color tools

So many color tools that almost sickens me :-D.

Color Scheme resources, online and offline

I was trying to find a way to find a right color scheme in an organized way instead of random testing color. I eventually found this downloadable web based tool called "Color Scheme 2" which pretty much does my job. And the best part is that I can even put it in my Pocket PC! Although I have to say that it's pretty darn slow on my Pocket PC.

Other online color scheme resources:
- EasyRGB
- A bunch of color Tools online
- Pallette Test
- Color Palette Generator : Generate color palette based on a photo
- Color Palette Creator : Inspirated by this create palette article

Suitcase 9.2 truly is portable

Just found out that Suitcase 9.2 true is portable! I create several set of font group on my home machine while the whole Suitcase 9.2 application is on my removable harddisk. I unplugged the harddisk and plugged it to my note, and found that all of my font groups are still there. This is awesome because that means wherever I go I got the same set of font group I organized.

Suitcase for Windows - Using font without comittment

I found it amazing cool that Extensis Suitacse 9.2 is actually portable friendly. Now I can have a font set in my removable harddisk, and access thse fonts wherever I go! Sure, it has problem preview the current system fonts, but all I care is the ease of accessing fonts on my USB HD, and for that it works good.

BTW, it's always a good idea to restart an application before using it after a set of font was activated, otherwise the font on the app will act strange.

As I expected, Suitcase has problem dealing with Chinese fonts, particularly:

- It does not work with Chinese .TTC (Font Collection).
- It cannot recognize Chinese font name, and display a blank name instead. And it even has problem loading more than one Chinese font since it sees all these attempteed to be added fonts with the same name, BLANK. There are some fonts that work though. Strange.

So I guess I need to find some way to rename a font and heck to make it work. Once a chinese font is being activiated, it works pretty well, though.

3D Studio Max 8 hanging problem seemed to be resolved.

Today I seemed to have 3D Studio Max 8 hanging problem resolved by turning OFF the Autobackup by the following checking off the following checkbox:

[Cutomize]->[Preferences ...] ->tab "File"->Auto Backup. [ ] Enable

I also set the viewpoint Display drivers to OpenGL instead of DirectX. I doubt about this is a related factor, though.

Now that I have the desktop one working OK, I am trying out the VMWare version and see how goes.

Cure 3D studio Max 8 crashing

I was a bit fustrated by the constant crashing of 3D STudio Max 8 on both my work machine and the VMWare. Maybe this article can help fixing some of the mess.

Installing 3D Studio Max 8 on VMWare

In order to faciliate my "3D modeling everywhere" dream, I have 3D Studio Max 8 installed on a VMWare system on my removable harddisk. It works pretty OK. The only catch it take I have to set the 3D engine to Software instead of DirectX or OpenGL. Other than that it seems fine.

I also have Service Pak 3 install. No problem encountered so far.

Strange thing about Painter IX with myGraphite 4 on my desktop PC

Last night I experienced something a little bit strange: the 2B Pencil tool in Painter IX doesn't look right on my desktop. I know this has nothing to do with Graphite 4, and probably has more to do with my display and the nVidia graphic card. The symptoms is this: it seems like the anti-alising was not done too well with the 2B Pencil. A lot of rough edges was formed on the screen, makes the result looked very odd.

I twisted left and right, and finally found that adjusting the min size and size step seems to help a little bit. But at the end, I blame the stupid LCD screen. :-m

Now I remembered why using Poser is such a fustrating experience

One thing that makes using Poser such a fustrating experience is that there's no simply way to lock a part while you trying to modify the other part of the body or props. So a lot of times I accidentally moved the parts I didn't want to move simply because the program didn't pick up the mouse click I had on the screen properly. Maybe there are ways to correct such a problem. Maybe there are ways to lock things properly. Obviously, I am still searching for it.

Dozens of artisitc animation shorts

You may have watched a lot animation shorts from YouTube.com. I found most of those clips entertaining more in the sense of teenager taste (lots of smashing, frating and such).

Recently I came across a site which host a dozen of more artistic animation shorts. They are candidates of a animation shorts competition, and I think they deserve you viewing time and vote. So take a lot at http://www.animex.net/audience and enjoy some nicely done animation short by today's young people.

Endorphin version 2.5.2 Retail version?

Found NATURALMOTION ENDORPHIN VERSION 2.5.2's retail version at this web site. And it was like: is this for real. Fortunately it doesn't catch up to the retail version 2.6. But still, scary.

endorphin 2.6 - More links to fun download

Here's more link to downloads stuff related to Endorphin. I definitely will spend sometime to try it out:

- Community Forum for posting question and sharing information about Endorphin
- Download tons of tutorial video to learn Endorphin.
- Download the LE version

OH, and I found out that I can turn Endorphin 2.6 LE as a portable application. Sweet. Now I can learn it wherever I have access to a PC.

Trying out my my Graphire 4

I brought my Graphire 4 to work so that I could spent some time to really try it out (sort of trying to optimize my lunch time) and had the following tidbit finding:

- I need to explictly trun on the tablet proption setting . By default it fully utilize the tablet area, but may not proptionally match the screen . This may create some ill effect when I sketch, so I definitely need to turn this feature on when I get back home.

- So far the best to sketch on the tablet is using Painter IX, and I haven't even start using any brush other than 2B Pencil :> . It feels very nature, and I really realized that what hidders me from making good sketch is just my drawing skill. Practice. Practice.

Natural Motion's Endoprhine LE 2.6 - Great toy

You can think of the Natural Motion's Endophrine LE 2.6 as a great 3D toy for you to see what happen if you push someone from the edge of a hill. Sadist, but hell, so is Poser >.:-} .