Time-off, Time-out

 I'm resting a bit this weekend.

Watching TV

Clara and I started watching Apple TV's adaptation of Hugh Howey's Silo novels—which I haven't read. I wanted to watch it because it looks like it will help me with the development of my Orbital Elements project - research into living in archologies. It's a great show! By episode three, it reminds me of Lost: a mystery show that uses flashbacks to broaden its storytelling palette. Less so here, as the flashbacks stay within the confines of the Silo, while Lost had this amazing global setting. Rebecca Ferguson arrives late to her vehicle, only appearing in the final moments of episode one; how very West Wing.

By the end of episode three, it's clear that Ferguson's character is a fellow neurodivergent. It works! Ferguson has a knack for physicality—the nods, twitches, and sudden loss of constraint that could look manufactured—but it always feels authentic. It's the same acting superpower you see in play when you watch Barry Keoghan. I don't know where that level of physical coordination and control comes from. I get how a musician makes an instrument an extension of their body—lots and lots and lots of practice—but I don't understand how great actors can measure and learn to express themselves with such nuance. Magic, I guess, or lots of video cameras pointed at them while they rehearse.

TV 2026: Everything looks amazing because of clever creatives with computers

The Silo doesn't just have a great troupe of actors (whispers: so many British/European thespians!); it also has brilliant art direction, staging and craft. The place is fascinating and convincing. It reminds me of an essay I read about Utopias, and their limits. The Silo is a spatial utopia: a society can be an emergent quality of the living space, and if changing that space threatens to change the society, then such a utopia will fall to totalitarianism. Silo, right now, hides this fact behind rituals and a shared fear of those who would try to change...anything. 

Blending

Saturday morning's effort: create some strange statues for a future project using Hitem3D.

Hitem3D Marble Athena Statue

Shipping containers are a recurring subject for a quick modelling effort. The first one I built in SketchUp, when it was still Google's excellent free modeller.

Shipping container modelling. About 2-hours work

I'll be using it as the basis of an environmental design project, one day, week, month, year soon.

This morning

Before heading out for a walk, I created a base terrain in World Creator and imported its heightmap output into Gaea, creating a 1GB eroded bowl.

Imported into Blender/True Terrain 5.2

At a wider (25mm) focal length

A bit dark, eh

I'm still looking at ways to reduce True Sky's and True Terrain's combined habit of making terrains a bit sludgy, soft, and dark.