This is the lazy way of blogging … I’m just copying my RB journal post!

Here’s a new bunch of somewhat interesting but unsellable photos You can click the thumbnails to get larger views (640×480).

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I worked with my Dad last week near Burke’s Luck in Mpumalanga, Souh Africa. We didn’t go see the potholes (too expensive to just run in for a few photos!) but I did get to see the top of the Blyde River Canyon from a vantage point few other tourists would get to go.

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This is a paper flower. Ok, that’s not very scientific! But the petals really are papery and if you pick them, they stay like that for months! This was also taken near Burke’s Luck.

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This is a most amazing little fungus I found in our little overgrown valley. It’s really very very small. Each one opens up like a cup and inside are these little metallic-looking balls, I suppose spores or spore packages. I’ve never seen anything like them before.

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This is just another pretty fungus.

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An amazing sunset the other day…

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This is what our back yard looked like last week right after a terrible hail storm. As you can imagine, all our garden plants were shredded. It looks like mid-winter now.

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And this is the rainbow I captured earlier this week. The bush doesn’t look too bad on this photo, but if you could have seen it before the hail, you’d know the difference

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And finally, a proper photo of my two doggies. Jack on the left, and Tessa on the right. Jack is Tessa’s younger brother. They’re Boerboels, and quite huge for the breed. And it’s very hard to get a nice pic of them. I sneaked this one through the window!

In honour of South Africa’s growing electricity crisis…

A free prop set for Poser. I haven’t tried it in Daz Studio, should work with some tweaking of the materials. Includes candle holder, candle, flame, match box, light set and textures. Set is parented to candle holder for easy scaling and translation. See readme for more info.

I’ve been learning about UV mapping. And getting some results although I can see I’ve a long way to go still. Anyway, today’s prop has a texture/bump map that only sits on one side, which is what I was shooting for. This download includes the texture map, Poser material settings as well as an attempt to make it work in Daz Studio … adequate but not great, I’m not used to Daz shaders. The render was done in Poser with no post work, and I think it came rather nicely. Background is an Apophysis fractal.

I’m really having fun with Blender. My only problem is that I’m not quite grasping the whole UV Map thing. This bottle, for example, should have a label, but I can’t seem to generate a UV map that separates the inside from the outside, so the label ends up on both, and since it’s a transparent bottle, the inside label is way too visible to suit me. So, this label has been soaked off

I had a nice day playing with Blender. I learned how to make cups, plates, vases … so, it’s fairly simple but they all look quite cool. All available as free Poser props, unrestricted use.

Crockery Series: Goblet

Crockery Series: Plate

Crockery Series: Amphora

Another free Poser prop in the Vines series.

Here are the Vine/Swirl props I mentioned last time.

Some more coming up soon.

Another Poser prop for download. I e-mailed Courtney Davis, whose book of designs I used to make these, for permission to do these uploads, but he’s not responding. Until I hear otherwise, I’ll keep them online, but I may have to remove them eventually, who knows.

I’ve finally come up with some stuff I can release as freebies for Poser. These are Celtic knotwork props that can be nice to add some atmosphere to a render. I’m uploading them to ShareCG.

Click the thumbnails to go to the download pages.

Celtic Prop 1:

Celtic Prop 2:

More to follow soon. I have in mind some swirls and vines and other stuff too.