About yesterday...

 What. The. Hell. 

The problem with Geo-Scatter had come back. Scatters were elevated above the terrain height. It wasn't because of misplaced object origins or other transformation malarky.

 I did some basic fault checking. I'd installed Blender 4.32 and True Terrain 5 and was planning to test Geo-Scatter there. However, after doing a quick terrain render, I found my PC flashing red—FLASH RED from within. It's a function of the Corsair ICUE system that uses RGB lighting for various effects. This wasn't decorative, and it threw me into a panic. I stopped Blender and checked the system monitor. I could see 100 degrees on the CPU. Well, SHEEEET.

I closed Blender, and after a few minutes of feeling glum, I realised that after installing Blender 4.32, I'd missed the step to switch over to GPU rendering, so I'd been running Blender on the CPU. Still, it's a very poor showing that I got the CPU overheating just by rendering. It could be worse, I guess. All things being equal, it isn't really a fault; it is just a reminder that you need to use the GPU.

The Geo-Scatter fault might either not be a fault or is fixed. I'm still testing.

Terrain therapy

Creating terrains makes me feel better.

I did a quick animation of the same scene.

Next.

I need to make some money, so I need to make some models or assets. Maybe I will go back and start another vehicle, finally fix up one of my space vehicles, or start something new. First, a terrain scene.

Rig progress (regression) and test animation

 

This rough animation helped me identify problems that will matter in a fly-past animation. Look out for what looks like a stray point light that the ship flies through, causing a weird light bloom.

Some of the later changes are not working for me. I may have started on the details too soon. Elements like the thruster packs which were done quickly and without much enthusiasm. I will do some rebuilding and improving today. First, a break, I think. A terrain, maybe...

True-Terrain 5 BREAKS!!!

 Awooga awgooga! Full battle stations! My favourite Blender add-on has stopped working.


Just trying to add a terrain height map, scatter, or anything else results in a crash to desktop.

# backtrace

Exception Record:
ExceptionCode         : EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION
Exception Address     : 0x00007FF65B63DE53
Exception Module      : blender.exe
Exception Flags       : 0x00000000
Exception Parameters  : 0x2
    Parameters[0] : 0x0000000000000000
    Parameters[1] : 0x0000000000000000


Prior to the add-on becoming a crash monkey, I was experiencing a problem where Geoscatter's main scatter types were not working. It's possible that they were projecting scatters on an offset of the terrain's apparent ground level.

I re-added the add-on. I then installed it on a copy of Blender 4.3. It worked! 
I then completely removed and reinstalled it. Fixed! Phew!

What was the cause?

Not at all sure. Some theories:

1) I used Blender 4.4 through Blender Base, which might interfere with the configuration. I used Steam Blender from two separate PCs with different setups. I wonder if any hardware-specific configuration might have polluted the application files, so opening Blender on the other machine resulted in misconfiguration.

All unlikely, but it does seem weird that things went very wonky.

Today

Back to the Rig

Lots of tidying up to do. I want to have the build complete by tomorrow.

Quirk-o-clock

 Hmm...

I took a break from the rig to play with True-Terrain 5. 

Some stuff has gone weird. I've already experienced real problems selecting objects. Geo-Scatter doesn't work correctly for some scatter types, at least on True-Terrain 5 terrains.

Three terrains

I started to place scatters on the foreground terrain, but nothing worked unless I used a manual or quick scatter. 

I created a terrain manually and tried to scatter. It worked. I tested on both the old and new systems. Curiously, the first render showed a huge difference in render time. Later renders didn't show this difference.

Athena 9:42

 Vulcan 4:50

I'll be looking into this more closely, though this afternoon I'll be completing the build of the Medium Rig

Rig progress

 The Gypsey Vanner Medium Rig is progressing okay. When I left it last night, I was losing faith in the design, specifically the back end. It looked crude and a bit weird. This morning's polygon bashing has brought it back for me.

Time for a crit!

Key changes:

I want a rail on the fuel tank support rings. Those tanks come out by sliding forward. Maybe I should add tiny vernier thusters on the tank so they can guide themselves in?

The cargo rack is messy. I should redo it with cleaner lines.

The mid-section thruster block needs more work and detail. Like the forward thruster blocks, it is a detachable module.

The nose section should contain some fold-out sensors, chiefly a parabolic dish on a mast. If it looks too distracting, I'll go with something simpler.

 Although I now like the back end, it needs to be broken up a bit. Some detail blocks and possibly a docked drone/decoy on the top/centre line.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho

I write this entry just before heading off to my first day at my new job. Just 2pm-5pm, today.

Nervous? Yes, a little. As it should be, I think. On the Blender front, the Medium Rig I started a couple of days ago has turned a corner.

The sketch that nailed the overall design

First blocking-out

Middle detail and...bust

I didn't like the framework. While it was built more cleanly and quickly with the right approach, it doesn't look like a space system. Not "structural engineering" enough. So I restarted. This time the plan was to ditch the frame element, which didn't appear in the original sketch, anyway.

Into the level-3 detail too soon.

Still important decisions to make about the back end.

So far I'm happy with the results but I should have resolved the engines in more detail before worrying about the trimmings on the front. I'll go back there next. After work, in fact.

Weekend

 This is the last weekend before I start a new part-time menial job. While it doesn't pay enough, it will allow me to complete my commercial Blender efforts, get more products into the Blender store, and do other stuff—like my Tabletop Role-Playing Game. After a few months, I can evaluate whether I need to do an additional job to bring in more money. I will miss the comfort and security of a salary job, but I think global events will massively disrupt the next five years. I think there will be economic turmoil that will impact employment across the board. Cheerful stuff, eh?!

We will see.

Blender School: Pipework

I am always doing this wrong. Here's the right way.

1. Add a primitive plane and delete all but 1 vertex.
2. Shift+S to make the origin sit on the remaining vertex.
3. Extrude (E) the vertex in your required direction.
4. Once the frame is modelled, add bevels (Ctrl+Shift+B).
5. Convert to a curve. Adjust the Bevel to make the pipes solid.
6. Convert back to mesh and add some loops.

Voila! No more fighting to make pipe bends consistent...

Benchmarkery

RTX 5090 (Vulcan) 36s: RTX 4090 (Athena) 43s That's about a 19% uplift

RTX 5090 (Vulcan) 39s: RTX 4090 (Athena) 39s Sometimes parity!

It's clear that the 5090 does not demonstrate much higher performance in real-world applications. The extra VRAM and some higher bandwidth will nudge the 5090 ahead, but not by much. A lot has been made of the 5090's eye-watering cost, but my 4090 cost about the same on release. The difference is that I got the 4090 at the time of release, not six weeks later.

Vulcan sits on his fiery throne

 The new workstation is mostly set up. Blender is installed, and countless add-ons and asset packs are installed. We're ready for business, I think.

Side-by-side render competition

Errr.... what?

The new machine is fast, but it's not wildly faster than the 4090 machine. Other system parts, such as the PCIe 5 SSD and latest-gen CPU, might help reduce some bottlenecks, but the side-by-side render test didn't show a wild uplift in rendering performance.

There will be more testing to follow...

So far, okay. The quirks: The machine initially didn't boot up. Then, I installed the latest GPU driver and was rewarded with a BLACK SCREEN—the very thing these driver updates are supposed to fix.

Dead System Saga: Episode 7: The Return

Unpacking

The beast is back! I have named it "Vulcan", the Roman name for the Greek god of fire. Hopefully, this doesn't result in an irony attack when the damned thing catches fire.

Everything looked okay on inspection. The GPU support tool was still in place but a bit wonky. 

Wonky, but nothing appears broken.

That said, the machine took a few boot-up attempts to show a display, which was a Bitlocker unlock screen. Once that was resolved, everything looked good.

First Job: install Mouse without Borders, a keyboard and mouse share application, so I can use the keyboard and mouse across both my machines. It took a few attempts, but that's working.

Next Job: Transfer the Blender directory. 1.34TB of data, which Windows predicts will take three and a half hours to copy from my Western Digital Portable SSD.

All my Blender eggs are now in three baskets (Athena/Vulcan (new machine)/portable storage.)

Dead System Saga: Episode 6 - Second Coming

 

I received a text message containing a link to a video of my system slowly spinning on a little turntable. A woman proudly announces that the final quality control checks are complete, and my repaired system will soon be dispatched. I'd all but given up hope of it getting out tonight, but the dispatch notification arrived at about 10pm. Way to go, SCAN!

Work-in-progress scene 

This is a test scene for introducing Blender 4.4. It's just a rough-up that took far too long. I'm rusty with Geoscattter. I had a couple of crashes with Blender 4.4 but it might be quirks of the specific scene.

Old and new photogrammetry assets

I captured a couple of objects while out walking. I am considering bundling them all up for a Blender Market product—at a very low price, given these are low-to-medium-quality assets.

Blender 4.4 Released.

 


Always a happy day when Blender levels up. That said, I should be installing on a new machine in a couple of days. I guess I do want the new version on both the current and the new, so I should deal with the pain of upgrading.

And what a pain!

I installed 4.4 through Steam without a care in the world. Come on, it wasn't that long since the last reinstallation! Everything was good, so I elected to install my version 4.3 settings. This causes the system to hiccup as masses of files are copied from the 4.3 directory into the new 4.4 directory.

The end result was a major malfunction of some keybindings. Basic stuff like "Deleted Selected" or "Add (Shift+A)" didn't work. I first thought this was an add-on compatibility issue, but I didn't try troubleshooting all the add-ons. It would be quicker to install them again, so I did.

Some crashes with True Terrain 5... 


Developing

A road through a desert (Road still to be created)

Fuel Drone thing and next Blender School

 The fuel Drone thing is finished!

Thunnini is the Latin word for Tuna.

It's nice to polish off a model in a few hours. Although the sketch had been sitting around for a couple of weeks, the model was finished in about three hours, split into two sessions.

What's next? 

So, I really need something to sell. A really nice space vehicle is the way to go. An orbital Elements Light Rig is the way to go because it's not too big and should have reasonably broad appeal as a generic space object.

The secondary objective is to accumulate space objects that can be sold as a kit-bashing set. This extends my idea last November of selling a set of modular space vehicle parts that could be quickly chopped and changed into a set of space vehicles.

Before that:

Finish the Mesh modelling course.

07 Modelling a Soccer Ball

Subdivision doesn't need to be a modifier.

Subdivision

Smoothness =1 to keep the curvature of a sphere, for example.

Good Topology

A definition:

When the mesh components efficiently define the intended form and can be easily manipulated.

Efficient:
Localise the introduction of more geometry/edge loops

Easy to manipulate:
Less geometry is generally better. Use non-destructive changes for as long as possible. Usually, this switches around when you animate. You apply modifiers and join objects together.


Bad practices

Broken faces: When a face gets twisted without the underlying edge.

Concave quads: Convex for the win.

Long thin faces: Not performant and often results in shader problems.

Dense geometry: Not performant and can be hard to manipulate. 

Manifold/No-manifold: Lose edges/vertices. Overlapping.  

09 Custom Normals and shading

Normals are a critical part of polygon modelling. A normal applies to a face and tells the render engine how to apply light to a surface. Smooth edges are shaded without interruption. Edges that are treated as sharp will show a clear edge.

Blender can apply a Smooth by Angle modifier to treat any edge of a certain angle as sharp.

Setting custom normals in edit mode can be much more performant because the engine doesn't need to calculate smoothing for every frame.

Tools not working as expected, or the shading looks odd?
Check normals are consistent. Flip or Set Outwards.

Weighted Normal

Shifts shading blend towards smaller faces, removing rendering artefacts.
See https://blender-life.blogspot.com/2023/12/blender-school-weighted-normals.html 

Dead System Saga - Episode 5 Repair

 Scan sent me a message to confirm that they are at the investigation stage of repair. Hurrah. Tracking down the problem shouldn't be too difficult. *strokes chin*

The big fracture in the PCIe interface should help with overclocking, right?

This is where the GPU release lever should be. This makes GPU release super easy, right?

I'm making light of a rum situation. I'm thankful that SCAN is being extremely thorough and would rather they take their time and get the repair right. I'll be honest, The crack in the 5090's PCB might have occurred on the trip back to SCAN. I didn't notice it when I investigated the card, but then I didn't fully remove it once I'd identified that the release lever was missing.

Fuel Drone thing

I took a break from all the stuff I've piled up. I took a sketch I did a couple of weeks ago that struck a chord and built it in a couple of hours.

Blender School (Big-time)

 So, there's about a week before I re-enter the world of work. Monday through Friday will consume three hours per day of menial work. I am counting on the fact that when you have less time to spare for things, that time becomes more valuable, and often, I am more productive because time becomes a precious resource. We will see.

So this next week is going to be a maximum Blender School period.

Starting today! 

Mesh Modelling with  Jonathan Lampell (Part 1)

Note: It has to be said that Jonathan's free lessons were my formal entry into Blender.

01 Fundamentals

Mesh - The underlying vertex/edge data that informs the object.
Object - Above the mesh data where modifiers are applied.

Number 1 Failure

Bad proportions. Getting the proportions wrong is nothing to do with tools or technique, but it will haunt your modelling efforts if you don't constantly look out for it.

02 Modelling a snowman

Rename an object without going into the Outliner:  F2

Placing a duplicated eye using the Snap tool
Center: Face (Align Rotation to Target)
Turn off snapping!

Place the Cursor at the World Origin to help with starting each object.

Batch rename!

1 Select your objects.
2 Edit > Batch Rename

03 Creating a Sci-Fi Crate

* Snap by Grid for getting the initial changes equal on all corners.

* When creating an edge loop, you can select "E" to make the cut even with one end or the other.

* For exact measurements, use overlays. Measurement: Edge Length / Angles

When you extrude edges, do so along the normals. Also, consider "Offset Even" to stop the results from being wonky.

Also, you may need to Snap by vertex to make extrusion edges straight through the mesh.

When you create an Ngon but need to create a loopcut:

1) Use the Knife tool to create a quad.
2) Use Ctrl when moving the new vertex to enable the snap (vertex) to line it up with the previous vertex along the new edge.

Bevel a single vertex "V"  (Ctrl+Shift+B) or Ctrl+B, then V

04 Selection

This is a subject that you must already have under your Blender tool belt, but there's more to it, and you need deeper selection knowledge to progress.

Three modes: Vertex/Edge/Face
Affecting a selection works the same regardless of the mode you are in.
What you see is what you can select.

Note: Wireframe view works like X-ray view!

Alt+Z (should be X-ray), but this shortcut gets sequestered by add-ons.

Change Selection mode on the fly:

B - Box Select
Ctrl - Lasso

Ctrl + or Ctrl - (number pad) to increase or decrease selection

Select Similar (Shift + G)

Select by Trait - Loose geometry (helps with clean-up and cleaning up a clean-up)

Save selected vertices (etc)
Create a Vertex Group!

To save Faces or edges (Use attributes)

05/06 Mesh Topology Tools

Fill tool 
Fill only uses triangles so fills won't usually work well. However. Use "F" to create quad flows.

Creating new edges doesn't work because it doesn't split the face. "J" will split the faces. This is the cure for floating faces.

When refilling, you lose curvature. Use Face>Grid Fill to restore a mesh's curves through a fill action.

Disolve 
Get rid of an element without changing the underlying mesh structure.

Rip a vertex 
* Drag a new vertex out (V)
* Also works with edges 

Rip vertex and fill: Leaves the rip connected. (Alt+V)


When vertices get mangled, you can use Smooth vertices to spread them out and make them less mangled.

Mirror
Under the bonnet, the mirror tool scales by -1 along the selected axis, resulting in flipped normals. Just remember to flip them back. It is not the ideal tool for editing mesh. 

Symmetrize
Copying along a selected axis. It's very useful! It works through face selection, so you don't need to apply the tool to the entire mesh.

Caveat: It's prone to creating double-vertices and internal faces if used on selected faces.

Shear (Shift+ Ctrl+Alt+S)
Rotate a selection without distorting the mesh. Use Shear. The toolbar version is less painful to select. 

Push/Pull
Great for moving selections in and out.

LoopTools (Free and included with Blender, but not enabled by default.

Circle and Space are great! Make a selection into a circle. Works for Squares and Triangles which are the equivalent shapes when you don't have enough vertices.

Space does the same for creating even spaces. 

Dead System Saga - Episode 4 Received

 My new workstation was unpacked and verified by SCAN's engineer.

They don't mess around. There's a bank of reference photos that would support a case against refunds or repairs if I'd decided not to repack the system properly. They identified a big crack in the 5090's main PCB along the PCIe connector. It's the kind of fracture that would occur if some meathead decided to drop the box off the back of a van. The weight of the GPU is sufficient that a heavy impact would easily stress the connector and cause that kind of damage. 


So, the machine is officially lined up for repair. SCAN ensured that a replacement 5090 was ringfenced; otherwise, I could be waiting another month, which is not acceptable. It may be time to call it a day and get a refund. That said, while lots of shit has gone wrong, I can't fault SCAN's team, so far they've been very professional and effective. 

Terrain therapy

My go-to place for rest and recovery is creating 3d terrains.

Dead System Saga - Episode 3 Transit glitch

 Yesterday, the new workstation was due to be dropped off by the courier. Uncertain as to who holds liability for the machine, I was worried about it being lost in limbo and SCAN then declaring that it wasn't their problem. My fears appeared to have been realised as the courier's tracker noted that he, "Dave", was running late after the end of the expected delivery window (11:30-12:30). The hours passed, and the status did not budge. After five hours of waiting, I decided to call Scan to see if they knew what had happened. The agent was unsure but said their tracking page showed the delivery was still on the van. I left him to investigate and then, ten minutes later, received an email that confirmed that, in fact, the system had been delivered at the beginning of the delivery window. A glitch!

So what's next? The system must be verified before it is marked as received. Someone must photograph the bits and verify serial numbers, as I can see RMA as a potential target for passing off faulty stuff. Hopefully, the system will be in the hands of an engineer who can qualify the problem and do all the necessary rebuilding before it comes back repaired or, given the apparent damage to the motherboard, rebuilt.

Luna Lander

The lander's construction progressed slowly. It seemed slow for a relatively small vehicle that had yet to be plastered with tiny details.

Nothing is outrageously wrong or bad. Sometimes, a design drifts away from you as you make minor tweaks. I wasn't going for a yellow thing; it just looks nice and bright in that colour. I will go for a more sophisticated scheme: two-tone greys with some stipes and technical decals. 

The cargo canister was built years ago using Fluent Power Tools. It's alright but not great. I may rebuild it this morning.

What to do:

• I might make significant changes to the proportions, such as making the legs bigger and chunkier.
• Cargo container isn't a perfect match, although it's reasonably well built.
• Internals within the cockpit area
• Surface details and decals. Lamps/clasps/ladder rungs, those sorts of things.
• Colour scheme.
• Clean-up and decide whether I want to sell it.

D.O.A.

 The new system arrived. I unpacked it, plugged in the necessaries and turned it on. POST! No display. I repeated the steps a few times but nothing. I tested with the motherboard's built-in VGA. Success! So why is the GPU not running. I tried to coax it back via BIOS settings but it wasn't obvious there was a selector.

I called up support and took a closer look inside the machine..

Oh shit!!!

The first thing I noticed was some small plastic fragments sitting inside the 5090's top fan bay. I carefully fished them out. I called support. They verified that the likely cause was damage in transit. It was suggested that I might attempt to remove and reinstall the GPU. As I went through the required steps, I noticed that the thumb lever for releasing the GPU appeared to be missing. This is likely what the small broken-off pieces are. There's also some twisting on the GPU's backplate, although it seemed to have still been firmly attached.

So, yeah. SHIT.

In a classic case of Bolting the stable door. The base unit was repackaged and sent back today.

pink and squishy on the inside.

Still Fragile! 

Scan.co.uk won't cover any damage done during the return transit if it isn't sent back in the same highly protected state it came in (ha, bloody ha), so I purchased additional packaging tape.

The courier was alone and not equipped with a hand tractor (one of those two-wheeled trolleys) which is, excuse my corse language FUCKING INSANE. I couldn't bear watching him drag the box to the lorry.

So, I'm not a happy camper. All said and done, we just watched a shocking and profoundly worrying geopolitical shift that makes my computer woes look a tad trivial. 

Onwards and upwards (until the U.S. occupation forces arrive in Nuuk)

Luna Lander

I know; I'm a bit mad on landers. I'll sell it on Blender Market if it, and the accompanying landing pad scene is good enough.