Alien Abduction Act XV --Encountering The Alien Guards!

Butt befour we get to this particular chapter in my completely true Alien Abduction story, I think it's best if I actually put up a few pics (and maybe even a video!!!) of some Aussie critters.

Why, you ask? Cuz it's been a while since I have, that's why! Or didn't any of you notice? No? Perhaps that's because I haven't been as much of the prolific posting personality as I used to be?

Well, whatever the reason, I shall now just shut up and show you some pics of Little Corella Cockatoos!


Obviously that morning was pretty overcast. Hey, we do sometimes see clouds down here! Those little corellas were part of a slightly larger flock:


And that was about a tenth of the flock!

Some of you may know (or knot) that when you get a fairly sizable group of birds together that they like to talk amongst themselves. Well, parrots are no different!

Would you like to know what the sound of a flock of little correllas sounds like at 7:00 AM?

Would ya?

Woodja woodja woodja?

Of course you would. But first you have to make sure your computer sound volume is turned to maximum as you want to make sure the whole office building or subdivision can share in your joy at hearing these bird.

So, just, like, click play!


Soothing, isn't it?

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Now on with my true alien abduction story! With everything recreated by Yours Truly (don't swoon ladies, I'm human!) with his awesomely perfect photographic memory! Yes, this is what REALLY happened! *wink*

In case you missed some earlier acts due to hanging out in the lobby chatting up the sheila or bloke behind the popcorn counter or perhaps toking up in the bathroom, here's a quickie recap!

Note: some of my astute readers may recognize the following paragraph verbatim from Act XII but I don't mind plagiarizing myself!

Yes, it's time for another installment in the completely, 100% true story of my alien abduction. Don't you remember? This was after I died after cutting myself shaving with a meat cleaver in the pool and was then brought back to an undead, brain-craving, zombie state from a lightning strike and then was transported up to the A.S.S. (Alien Space Ship) cus I struck the pyramid on top of my roof with my lightning-charged sledgehammer and was then transformed into an undead, brain-eating, hulking beast with a club roaming the cave-like corridors of the A.S.S. that had the rego number of C4P-PFP2012.

Whew! And just in case any of you need sausage lynx to the previous acts...


Prelude to Alien Abduction. Nothing to do with aliens though. Just me being stupid.

Alien Abduction Act I. Where it all begins. Plus some pretty hot pics of me and Wifey-Poo!

Act II. This is where I use a meat cleaver to shave with whilst in the pool!

Act III. Buried at sea. And sushi too!

Act IV. Lighting storm reanimates my corpse!

Act V. My zombie self begins to calm down.

Act VI. A sledge-hammer wielding zombie is great to have in the kitchen!

Act VII. Blasting off Earth and towards the A.S.S. !!!

Act VIII. Photographic evidence of the A.S.S. from a passing Chinese spy satellite.

Act IXa. Promotional material for the real Act IX.

Act IX. Alien ship identified!

Act X. My arrival aboard the A.S.S.

Act XI. Very tricky aliens!

Act XII. We finally meet the aliens!!!!!!!!!!!

Act XIII. Charging towards the control room!


Now for a very brief picture recap! After which you'll get to see (and read) Act XV!

And here are some of those great, full-sized NON-PHOTOSHOPPED pics!

This one is from the passing, cloaked, Chinese spy satellite.



And here's one the Russians took from the ISS!


This is the one where I distinctly remember seeing the rego number on the A.S.S.


And remember, the Chinese spy satellite got a pic of the TOP of the A.S.S. too, also.


You may remember that after I materialized inside the A.S.S the aliens then activated some sort of hologramaphic device that changed the corridors to caves. I distinctly remember charging through the caves and encountering this sign:


I quickly hung a left (me being rather left-leaning) and as I charged down the cavern the rock walls changed back into the actual, real corridors of the A.S.S. However, I was still my lightning-charged, zombie-ized, club-wielding, brain-eating undead self. Fortunately, my body had retained it's original, studly self!




Now begins Act XV of my TRUE Alien Abduction!


Whilst charging down the corridor onboard the A.S.S. in search of alien brains to eat as I was still in my zombie state, I passed through several doors that opened and closed automatically as I raced towards what I hoped was the control room of the A.S.S. so that I could eat some tasty alien brains and just hopefully find an escape pod to get back to Oz and perchance find a way to get back to what passes for normal for me.


*Isn't that an awesomely great sentence from Yours Truly (don't swoon ladies, I'm human!) that I typed all by me oneses and Wifey-Poo (Most Wonderful Woman In The Entire World) tells me is actually grammatically correct?*

Just as I was beginning to think the A.S.S. with the rego number C4P-PFP2012 (remember kiddies, Gene Roddenberry proved that all space ships have rego #'s painted on the outside in English!) was totally deserted, I arrived at a pair of doors that hopefully led to the control and some tasty alien brains... and the door was GUARDED!

By aliens!

Imagine my surprise as my zombie self became the first Earthling to come face to face with REAL aliens!

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Yeah, I'm quite sure I looked EXACTLY like that!

And what did I see in front of me?

Glad you asked mates!

And now we finally get to see what the alien guards who are guarding the door which may or may not be an entrance to the control room look like!

Are you ready?

Are you sure?















As you can tell, this is about to get... shall we say... Interesting?

Stay tuned for Act XVI as more silliness comes your way from the merry old land of Oz!

Alien Abduction Act XIV The Charge of The Heavy Brigade

Yes folks, my memories of my time aboard the Alien Space Ship (A.S.S) are starting to come back to me in much more better and fuller colour than ever! Well, a new computer and new 3d software helps too... sorta, kinda.

I'm sure that my long time readers will remember the first 13 acts of my abduction; How I died, came back to life as a lightning-charged, sledgehammer-wielding, brain-eating zombie, was transported up to the A.S.S. and am now roaming the A.S.S (rego number C4P-PFP2012) looking for alien brains to eat. Right?

Oh, you mean some of you just may have forgotten? No worries mates, lemme give you the links to the whole story up till now!

Prelude to Alien Abduction. Nothing to do with aliens though. Just me being stupid.

Alien Abduction Act I. Where it all begins. Plus some pretty hot pics of me and Wifey-Poo!

Act II. This is where I use a meat cleaver to shave with whilst in the pool!

Act III. Buried at sea. And sushi too!

Act IV. Lighting storm reanimates my corpse!

Act V. My zombie self begins to calm down.

Act VI. A sledge-hammer wielding zombie is great to have in the kitchen!

Act VII. Blasting off Earth and towards the A.S.S. !!!

Here's a teaser pic from Act VII



Act VIII. Photographic evidence of the A.S.S. from a passing Chinese spy satellite.

Act IXa. Promotional material for the real Act IX.

Act IX. Alien ship identified!

Act X. My arrival aboard the A.S.S.

Act XI. Very tricky aliens!

Act XII. We finally meet the aliens!!!!!!!!!!!

Act XIII. Charging towards the control room!


At this point as I charge from the signpost in the caverns (holograms, remember) towards what I was hoping was the control room I noticed a change occuring in my surrounds.

The cavern faded and was replaced by what was obviously an A.S.S. passageway, the lighting became more subdued, the stalactite I was carrying became more defined and I became even more studly looking than before! (Ain't new 'puters great?)

And with that I continued to charge towards the control room of the A.S.S.!



Coming soon, Act XV The Battle With The P-Bots!

Don't swoon ladies, I'm human!

Picture caption contest!

Yes indeedy mates! I know it's been a while since we've had a picture caption contest here, so we may as well have one now!

I'll be putting the picture up via whatever service blogger uses now, along with the flickr pic so hopefully one of them will load for you.

My caption is this: Ah, excuse me sir but it appears that Planet Ulkhurr has installed a brand new, state-of-the-art defensive mechanism and I do believe it's trying to tell us to kindly bugger off!

Of course, that caption just might make a wee bit more scents if you actually saw the picture. Right?

Just scroll on down to have a squizz at the pic, then feel free to come up with your own caption in the comments, no worries.

And don't worry, no one will make fun of you!

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Ready for the pic?

Please click on the pic to get the full sized picture, it's much more better that way mates!

And for those of you who want the flickr pic:

Baby Koala Picture!!!!!

Yep, the baby koalas are now big enough at this time of the year to see them out and about with their mommy. This mommy/baby pair was only around 15 to 20 feet up a gum tree so, needless to say, I got some awesomely great pics of them.

Would you like to see one of them? Of course you would. I'll put the flickr one up first at 640 by 480. You can click on it to be able to see the 1600 by 1200 picture. The other one will be the blogger picture embed and you can click on it too to bring up the full size 1600 by 1200 picture.





And here's the same pic via blogger's picture engine:





I stepped outside the other day and found some aussie wasps busy starting a nest.



Needless to say, my next stop was to Bunnings to get some wasps nest killer. Sorry guys, but building your nest right next to my grill is THE WRONG THING TO DO!

Hey, look! A thistle flower!


You can also view this at 1200 by 1600 if you so desire, no worries.

Have you ever been out camping in the middle of nowhere? Perhaps on a small, rocky ridge overlooking a foggy valley as the moon rises over the mountains in the distance? Well if you have then I'm sure you know to keep a VERY close eye on that fog cus you just never know what is gonna come sneaking up the slope to your campsite to feast on your brains!

Here's what I mean:




At full size it's 1514 by 855 so just click on the flickr pic to bring it up.

Or you could just embiggen this one:


Have fun camping, campers!

The Hatchening of Sarah Palin

Didja ever wonder where Sarah Palin came from? Was she hatched from an egg or born live? Or did she spring out of pixels, processors, and programs in a 'puter way back when?

Hmmmmmm. Well, no matter as I happen to have a picture of Sarah Palin hatching from an egg. So now you know: She hatched from an egg. Proof:



Please click to embiggen the picture, you'll be happy!

But how did this start? It first started with me playing around in Bryce 7 Pro. I was learning the terrain sculpting tools and came up with the main "egg" and also the "top" of the "egg" overturned to the side. The material used is actually a sea ice material with some coloration changes to make it look cracky.

After that I went over to DAZ and made a cool looking Ice Dragon whilst applying various add-ons, textures, bump maps, etc to get what I wanted. I also went WAAAAY overboard on the bump mapping of the skin, horns, teeth, etc as I knew the dragon would be used in a long shot in Bryce and that Bryce has a tendency to "soften" the DAZ textures. I had to forgo the glasses as she didn't start wearing them till she was all grown up. Some would argue that she still hasn't grown up.

Here is a close up of the dragon in DAZ. Compare it to the dragon in the finished picture and you'll see why I had the bump mapping in DAZ turned up to "bloody-well high, mate!" as I knew it would soften with distance in Bryce. As always, please click to embiggen.





How's abouts them blueish sparkley things around her body, wings, egg interior and egg top? They were easy. Each one is actually a squashed sphere with a texture applied. No lights were needed and it makes for a very cool effect.

I'm going to show you a screen capture of the Bryce workspace showing the meshes for everything. You'll note that there is a squashed sphere on each wing, one large squashed sphere in the middle of the egg, and a smaller one of the egg top that's been tossed aside. Click to embiggen, of course.



The blobs on the far left and the far right are the other two eggs in the picture. I did those as object instead of terrains. Since they aren't hatched there was no reason to sculpt them, right? You may have also noticed the two yellow lights in the middle. The lower one lights up the egg interior along with the dragon body, and the other lights up the head from below. The light falloff is logarithmic so it's not "fakey" bright and the top one has a very low intensity as I only wanted it on her head. The size of the light mesh has NOTHING to do with the light itself, it just makes it easier to find in the jumble of meshes.

We'll now move to a left side view. You'll see just how far back the unhatched eggs are and you may also make note of the 2 light positions to illuminate the egg interior and the dragon properly. Make the picture larger with a click.



Notice the top red line that is just below the dragon? That's a layer of thin clouds. Go look at the very first picture and you'll notice some thin clouds just above the fog. Now you know what the red line is. It's a flat plane with a thin cloudscape applied to it. Oh, the low fog is an atmospheric effect so there's no mesh to see for it.

The top view is interesting as you'll see two things. The unhatched eggs aren't in the shot cus they are soooooooo far back. I made them huge and placed them waaaay back for two reasons. One is that the haze atmospherics will be more visible and the other is so the "eggy" textures look right. Small sized ones placed just behind the main egg DO NOT give the illusion of depth. Trust me, I tried.

The other thing to notice is that the terrain texture appears flat from above since you are viewing the terrain as a mesh. Valuable little tidbit to keep in mind, that is. Don't forget to click the pic.





I'm going to give you a cool shot of the back of the Ice Dragon rendered in DAZ. Why? Because I think the tiger strips look sooooooo cool! I think it looks neat at full size. Do I need to tell you how to bring the pitcher up to full size? No, didn't think so.





The last bit of nuts n blots for you: I made the scene on my old, decrepit P4 with 2 gigs of ram and a crappy video card. It was rendered on a modern quad core with 4 gigs built in ram, 4 gigs external ram, and a 1 gig video card. It still took 7 hours to render! Why? The sea ice texture used for the eggs is very complex (so's the blue sparkley stuff) and we cranked the rendering options sky high. However, if I had it set for total, top-of-the-line rendering it would have taken DAYS on the quad core. Just another example of software ALWAYS being light-years ahead of hardware. Well, at least affordable hardware.

Bye for now, time to go make some planets.

New Toys!

For me birfday!

Thought I'd put up a work in progress. I'll be making a new terrain backdrop, put in a lava lake, etc. Also I've got a few hours of work still on the main bloke. Loads of detailing still to do on him, lighting, etc.

But I figured I'd better put something up so y'all didn't think I was blowing smoke about all the cool software goodies I got.

Please keep in mind this is in NO WAY complete. Just click on the image to embiggin it.

I think these are extinct now...

I saw this bloke at one of the glacial entrances to the Harding Icefield back in '48. I'm surprised the photo turned out as well as it did considering it was a gloomy, overcast day.

I think they've all headed way further north now as all the glaciers have been retreating and these critters really need ice and cold temps to thrive.

Anyone else ever seem em? Titanium just got back from Harding, I wonder if she saw any of them...

You'll also be happy to know that I had one of the first widescreen cameras way back then so the photo is the perfect size for someone's widescreen computer monitor.

Just click on this picture to embiggen it and feel free to save it, no worries!







What? Don't you believe me?