Because it can't always be about crashing

Didn't crash. Yay!

Didn't cash. Yay!

All that grash, didn't even crass!

 

Another exciting crash post

 

Time to look at Crash logs

This is the crash I tend to get:

 INFO (gpu.debug): Notification : Texture state usage warning: The texture object (0) bound to texture image unit 0 does not have a defined base level and cannot be used for texture mapping.

INFO (gpu.debug): Notification : Texture state usage warning: The texture object (0) bound to texture image unit 0 does not have a defined base level and cannot be used for texture mapping.

INFO (gpu.debug): Notification : Texture state usage warning: The texture object (0) bound to texture image unit 1 does not have a defined base level and cannot be used for texture mapping.

Error   : EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION

Address : 0x00007FF7377145B9

Module  : blender.exe

Thread  : 00007264 

 Could be a bug somewhere in the massive pile of add-ons. 

I may install the latest Blender Beta, running without all the plugins. See if I can bake the scene so that I can render it without True Terrain.

Did some mapping (Sort of a Blender break)

 

Missile Silo map for a table-top role play adventure I'm writing. I used Blender to block out the basic shape, although I ended up not needing to use the model as a guide because the shap was really simple.

True Terrain scenes kept simple

True Sky

Bagapie play

True Terrain and True Sky

The truth is that while I really love True Terrain and True Sky, they are super unstable for me. I get a lot of crashes, even for what I consider to be simple scenes. I'm starting to look into the crash logs to see if there's anything helpful they can reveal. I'd like to think this is a driver or software issue that fixes itself through a few upgrades. We'll see.

A training course! Blender Strategies for Modeling and Texturing
It's a beginners course but did pick up some useful things just from the first lesson. I have so many big gaps in my knowledge.

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Cutaways

 Who doesn't love a good technical cut-away diagram. Looking inside stuff is cool. I used Blender to knock-up a quick illustration to aid in the understanding of a game location's layout.

This is Silo-08-C1S "Oasis", located in the Mare Imbrium region of the moon.

Too big. The missile launcher is too dinky

Rebuilt to have a small central chamber. proportions feel better.

Blending add-ons

 I love how so many Blender add-ons work seamlessly together. 

Bagapie assets/Terrain-Mixer/True Terrain (for the water), PSA for the sky

Bagapie assets/Terrain-Mixer/True Sky/True Terrain (for the water)

I bought MESHtools. Looks great but it might have displaced my Fluent Powertools keyboard shortcuts.

Meshmachine Blender add-on

 So I bought an add-on, years and years ago. It was promoted through HardOPs, which I'm going to learn to use, one of these days. It was called MESHmachine, and it looks really cool. Think: hard-surface modelling without the subdivision. MESHmachine provides a big bunch of tools that let you modify polygon models in a non-destructive way. Chamfer and fillet, then fuse, then undo stuff.

Fast forward a little bit. I'd very typically not invested the necessary time and effort to learn to use the add-on. Blender got its big developmental bump and Mesh Machines split its add-on into two separate versions. I didn't see the upgrade email so was left with  an add-on that I couldn't use with the current versions of Blender.

Well I finally got around to contacting Machin3, the developer of the add-on to ask if there was an upgrade path. Well he only went and gave me a free upgrade for both Mesh Machine and Decal Machine, the companion add-on for adding surface decals.

I've no idea what I'm doing but I managed to add those little screw holes. So much to learn!

See more on the Blender Store: https://blendermarket.com/products/meshmachine.

More progress (Luna Lander)

 I did some rebuilding, cleaning up and material assignment. 

And then I installed Bagapie V9. Some head-scratching ensued as the pie-menu asset selector has been removed in favour of using Blender's native asset browser. This is a shame, but It only took me a few minutes to adjust to it.

But then I got another blue-screen-of-death. That really sucks and its the second in a week or so. Blender is running but the crash happens randomly, not triggered by an obvious action, such as rendering.

Luna Transporter Progress

 This effort is a little different from the usual Blender project work. It's for use in a table-top role-playing game adventure, so it can't be left to gather dust. It also needs to be time-boxed. So with these constraints in mind, I decided to do some kitbashing, using bits I'd built last year.

Source sketch

Too "droney"

I didn't find a way to make mounted engines look right.

No time to make new engines? Just dig out the ones you made earlier.

Don't have time to do the payload capsule. Just dig out the one you ... you get the idea.

Stick on wheels and a front cabin: the module becomes an ATV.

Luna Transporter

 

Another vehicle for my Orbital Elements TTRPG

Another release from Blender Guppy. Random Flow 1.9.x. Some nice refinements!

Stuff in production

 I really need to invest my time in lots of tutorials for all the crazy good tools I've accumulated. Especially Substance Painter, which is so powerful but I can only scratch that substance surface without a lot of additional knowledge.

"Bullet Rig"

Red Hills

Sanctus Updatus

 
Add-on News

There's been another update to the Sanctus Library Procedural Materals Add-on. More ice cream!

Food!

This library of procedural materials is super useful, and getting more materials is no bad thing. 


I just bought Grunge Shader Set, a new set of shader group nodes for grunge materials. It's from Blender Guppy, the developer of RandomFlow. It's for adding quick grundge, again through procedural materials.