dsavi

You already have the case and dvd drive, the $400-500 is on top of that. Should have made that more clear. Also, I believe Nadril and Ultimania made it quite clear that it's possible to build a decent gaming rig for under $500 (It could have been $400 actually).

Space weather watching is getting trendy lol.

You have this case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119115 , and this DVD drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136144&Tpk=gh22np20 . You have $400-500 to spend, and you must get Windows 7 (Not home basic). This is for my uncle, who went to me for advice on what to get. I'm pretty sure he doesn't game (:razz:), but I'd like you to max out the specs anyway. My dad's family is pretty technical, another of my uncles worked with one of those punch card programmed computers in the '70s and at one point knew assembler, and my dad is an engineer and programmer, so even if he's just under sixty I'm sure he can figure it out. Build away :-)

Hmm. I was hoping that would actually tell me something. But it didn't. :razz:

It's not? .....The film nut inside of me just died a little. I thought it was some sort of a sitcom until my friend told me what it is about.

adfadsf

It's your browser. I don't see any green.

Yeah I don't like the updates and changes they've made, also there are some basic things that Echofon does that are really stupid (Like making it impossible to use other windows while Echofon is open).

Wait, did you find a replacement for echofon? I would be interested to hear what it is.

In that search thing, type in terminal, when it opens type in ps -A. (I may be making up commands here) Copy and paste the results into a post.

Like I said I'm not actually happy until someone does one of these tutorials. Is there some tutorial that someone would actually be interested in doing that I could write? Here's some I have in mind: Modeling basics (Enough so that you could go do a more advanced tutorial) Very basic animation (Basically how to add keyframes, and a bit of graph editing, again enough so that you could do something more advanced) Compositing basics, like depth of field, motion blur, glow, color correction etc. Rendering and lighting basics

Ah, in that case, one thing you can do is strengthen your legs so you can jump higher. Keep doing it on the trampoline until you can do it in your sleep so you can get some rotation down. Then keep doing it on the trampoline, but don't bounce. Stand still on the trampoline, and then do a front flip. The tension on the trampoline will give you some extra bounce than you would on the ground, but not so much as you would actually bouncing, so it's a good transition. Once you can do that, try standing on the bar of the trampoline and try front flipping. BE CAREFUL. I suggest jumping forward while doing this to prevent an accident on the bar. If you're not 100% confident, then DON'T DO IT. Once you're comfortable with these, then work on the ground. I'd recommend getting a spotter while you do it. The strengthening of your legs will allow you to jump high (high enough to get a full rotation), and the rotation practice on the trampoline will allow you to rotate faster. I've done it a few times on the ground, I can do it "in my sleep" too. Also, I've gotten rid of most of my confidence issues. Here's the problem; My trampoline has a net (Which has saved my neck more than a few times), making it impossible to do a flip into the trampoline. Wait a minute, that doesn't add up. I can take part of it down. Thanks for the advice people. :-) Much appreciated.

Programmer: Okay maybe not. I do program though. The closest I get to "Your scene sucks" is "Prehistoric Emo", although I'd never wear half of that stuff. I have thick-rimmed black plastic glasses (See image), pretty short hair, I play the flute, bike a lot, do computer graphics and listen to modern classical. That probably leaves me at nerd. [spoiler=My glasses]

Can you land it? Or do you not rotate fully around? I can land it (In a crouch) but it hurts. You mean doing a PK roll afterwards? Yes, if you're going from a trampoline to the ground, the roll will be beneficial in the long run, as it takes some pressure off your joints from the impact. Yes, if you're going from a trampoline to the ground, the roll will be beneficial in the long run, as it takes some pressure off your joints from the impact. I didn't mean that literally (Should have phrased it better), I mean I know how to do a good in-place (i.e. from a level jump) front flip on a trampoline, and I'm trying to learn to do it on the ground properly. E: Sorry something went wrong with the quotes.

Did you get it in that format? If not, then go back and save it as PNG.

In this tutorial I'll go through basic smoke simulation in Blender 2.5. You can achieve some very nice looking results with just the right knowledge. You'll also learn how to put the first tutorial into practice. If you haven't read it yet, go read it: How to Understand the Blender User Interface First some demos, however. I want you to know what kind of smoke we're talking about. Yeah, that kind of smoke. This tutorial won't produce results that awesome (It would be maybe almost twice as long) but it will certainly get you started. What you'll need: Blender 2.53 Beta (http://blender.org) A beverage of your choice (Depending on your weather I would either recommend lemonade or tea) Possibly a sandwich too Open up Blender, there should be a cube in the center (But not as big as in the below picture). The cube is selected by default, if it isn't then right click on it. We're going to scale it to five times its current size. Press S, (Scale) then Numpad 5 (Multiplies the size by five). Hit Enter to confirm. What we are doing right now is creating the smoke domain. The smoke domain is the area that the smoke can "live" in. This restriction cuts down processing time significantly. (Otherwise Blender would have to calculate smoke physics in an infinite area, which could result in infinite processing time needed I'm not sure). Next, in the properties window, click on the physics tab. Under a heading that says Smoke click on the Add button. Then click on Domain. Next we'll add an object to emit smoke. Press SHIFT+A (Add), select Mesh->Icosphere. The problem is that now it's in the middle of the domain and we want it to be on the bottom, so that the smoke has room to rise. Press G (Move) Z (Z axis) and move your mouse down. Click or press Enter to confirm. Oops, I moved it too far (Okay so it wasn't a mistake, and it's not visible in the above picture BTW), so we need to make sure it's in the domain by switching to a side view. Press Numpad 1 (Front view), and then Numpad 5 (Which changes the view to orthographic). Orthographic is the opposite of perspective, so lines to not converge on the horizon. Now make sure that the sphere is in the domain. If it's in the square, it's inside and it's okay. If it isn't, press G and then Z again and move your mouse so that it moves up into the bottom of the domain (Leave some room below it too). Click or Enter to confirm. I like working in perspective mode, so press Numpad 5 to go back to perspective mode. The Physics tab should still be open. Again, press Add under Smoke, but this time press Flow. This means that smoke will flow out of this object. Now it's time to change some particle settings. Go to the Particle tab, and change End to 20 and Lifetime to 5. Now I'll explain what that means. Particles are just points in space, that can be used to simulate a number of things (In this case smoke emission). They can also be used to simulate liquids and Newtonian particles (Speed = 9.81m/s² etc.). Each particle, starting from when it is emitted from the "Emittor", has a lifetime. This means it will disappear after a certain amount of frames. The "Start" and "End" values dictate when the emission will start and end. The amount is the amount of particles. So since there are 1000 particles emitted over a 20-frame period (Less than one second at 24fps), 50 particles are emitted from the object every frame. Got that? Good. :razz: It's not critical that you understand that. Now scroll down in the particles tab to the "Velocity" header. I forgot to highlight it, but change "Normals" to 0 and "Z" to "1". Whoops, I forgot something else too. Go back to the Physics tab. Check "Inital Velocity". This means that the smoke will have momentum when it is emitted from the emitter object. Time to test it out! My computer is three years old (Although it was pretty decent at the time) but this is still quite resource intensive. So don't be worried if it lags. Press ALT+A, and watch the smoke rise. (Pressing ALT+A again will pause it) YEAH. Pretty metal. :razz: But it sucked. That's not as awesome as it can be. (Your smoke probably looks different than mine) Let's add something for it to collide into. SHIFT+A (Add, again) Mesh->Cube. Now to make the result more unpredictable, let's move it over a bit and make it into a cuboid. First click on the red arrow and drag it in the direction of your choice. Now let's go into the top view with Numpad 7 and resize it on the X axis by pressing S and then X, and then moving your mouse around. Click when you're done. Scale it on the Y axis a bit too. Can you guess the keyboard shortcut for that? :razz: With that done, let's go back into the front view by pressing Numpad 1. Make it a bit thinner by scaling it on the Z axis. Now in the smoke panel, press Add under Smoke and click Collision. Now press ALT+A again. It should be even slower, but have patience. :-) We need to set up a material for the domain now. Wait, the domain is only a container that should be invisible, why would we set up a material for that? Actually, the domain also acts as the only place that smoke can be rendered. It's like a machine that "Reveals" the smoke when the smoke is inside that area. So go to the Materials tab, and click on Volume. Smoke is a volumetric material, like steam or fog. This means you can see through it, and light is scattered around in it. To put it simply. Change the Density to 0. Why are we changing the density to 0? We will define the density by a 3D texture which has 3D pixels called voxels. (Volumetric + pixels). The density value is given to every voxel before the texture is applied, which means if we leave it at 1, we'll get a cube that just looks filled with smoke. Go to the Textures Panel (Barely visible under that dropdown), and change the texture Type to Voxel data. Scroll down, and under a heading that says "Influence" uncheck "Emission Color" (Here you can only see "Emission C") and check "Density". This makes so that our texture will influence the density and not, you got it, the emission color! Whoops, looks like I've forgotten an image here. Somewhere in the same panel there should be a header "Voxel Data". Under that header there should be something that says "Domain object:". Click on that, and from the dropdown select "Cube". Time to do a first test render! Press F12. Well that sucks. Fortunately I know what's wrong, being all-knowing and wise as I am. First let's just fix the camera. In the front view, (Numpad 1 if you're not already there- See the top left corner of the 3D view) zoom out a bit by scrolling down and press CTRL+ALT+Numpad 0. Now to fix that wispy junk we got in the first render. Go to the materials tab, and change "Density scale" to 20. This basically makes it twenty times as dense. You can render it now if you want, and you'll see the difference. (Those objects won't be black by the end of the tutorial). But it's time to kick it up a notch. This is where the beverage and/or sandwich comes in. With your domain selected (Right click so that it's highlighted orange), go to the physics tab one last time, scroll down, and get out the big guns. First change the domain resolution "divisions" to 64. Check "Smoke high resolution", scroll down, open the panel "Smoke high resolution cache", and select "Bake all dynamics". Do not do this if your computer has less than 2GB of RAM and a 2gHz dual-core processor. Unless, of course, you have prepared a three-course meal and have lots of plans for the evening, including but not limited to theater and possibly a night on the town. When it's done, change the frame in the timeline (The horizontal thing at the bottom) to 1, and press ALT+A. This also might take a while. When it's at a cool looking frame, hit ALT+A again (Be patient) and when it stops lagging like crazy press F12, That's more like it. Two more things. Those other objects (The emitter and the collision object) are black in the render. Select them one at a time, go to the materials tab, scroll down to the Shadow header and check "Receive transparent". Smoke casts a shadow of varying opacity, and Blender turns off the reception of transparent shadows off by default (It's rarely used). The other thing you should do is go into the material tab with the domain selected, and change the step size to 0.05. (Scroll down). Now I'm tired and can't be bothered to show you the (Quite simple) lighting setup I made. Just throw some lights in there with SHIFT+A Lamp->Point. Move 'em around a bit. You can even rotate them a bit. I honestly don't care. When you're done, go to the first tab (The one all the way to the right), and change the output to AVI Jpeg if you want video or PNG if you want just a still image. If you want to render video, press CTRL+F12 after that (Look for the resulting file in C:\tmp or /tmp). Learn Sanskrit or take skydiving lessons or something. If you want a still image just press F12. That is all.

Can you land it? Or do you not rotate fully around? I can land it (In a crouch) but it hurts. You mean doing a PK roll afterwards?

I think the B&W one stood out a lot more.

Not an odd question at all actually. One goal of the Blender 2.5 project was to make so that users did not have to be admins to use Blender. You have to be an admin to install it, of course. But to use it you just download a zipped file that contains an exe that you can run as any user account. It does also create a .blender folder in your home folder where Blender has its default file. Since the user interface information (How you have your windows set up etc.) is stored in the default file format (.blend), there's a .blend file in that folder that Blender loads every time it starts. I should also mention that I'm almost done with the next tutorial (Smoke simulation). Here's a screenshot.

I am attempting to get into Parkour. I don't have anywhere to practice it, but I'm trying to start by learning the basic moves (PK roll, wallflip, wall up) etc. So far I can almost do a back handspring, which isn't really a PK move but it certainly helps the strength of my shoulders for other moves like the front handspring (Which I have tried but find entirely different to the back handspring). What I mean by almost is that I can do it on a thin mattress, I haven't moved to doing it on grass yet. I will probably try soon. I learned to do a backflip incorrectly, all I can do is one of those lame throw-yourself-backwards-on-a-trampoline moves, which is necessary for a back handspring but completely useless if I want to do a backflip on the ground. Anyone have tips for moving a front flip from a trampoline to the ground? I've tried it a few times but it hurts my ankles so much that I know I'm doing something completely wrong.

@Everyone: I like the positivity, but I won't be satisfied until someone tries this out. :razz: I wouldn't normally ask for a tutorial to be stickified, but since I spent three days on this, and I don't want it to go unnoticed in the list of tutorials, I wouldn't mind a temporary sticky. (Maybe a month or so) After writing this tutorial I realized that it was stupid to just make a tutorial on the interface and give users nothing exciting to do in Blender. So I'm going to make at least one tutorial. I'll make one on smoke simulation in blender, then I'll see what people want to do and what I can write a tutorial on.

Do you mean having some service convert it or just getting the .flv? If you just want the .flv which can be converted later, you can just copy and paste the file that flash caches while you watch the video. On Linux it puts it in /tmp, but I'm pretty sure Windows does it in a similar way.

I have run the latest version of Blender on a laptop with a 366mHz processor and 256mb of RAM. Not so that it was usable (Something went wrong when it was compiled), but it was a good proof of concept. What I'm really trying to say is that Blender has been designed to be extremely lightweight, just as long as you don't try to do fluid simulations you'll be more than fine.

The designers of Blender 3D have taken a very unconventional approach to UI design, an approach not familiar to anyone who hasn't used UNIX workstations in the 90's but nevertheless very effective. This confuses people trying to start using Blender to learn some aspect of 3D, and often they never give Blender a second look. This is a pity, as Blender is good enough to compete with commercial products such as 3DS Max and Maya. I have been to this mysterious land of strange UIs and back, and with me I bring the knowledge of Blender's outer workings. So this is what Blender's UI looks like: Whoops, I lied. Put that picture out of your mind, for it is no more. Blender's interface has been rewritten entirely to be more logical and consistent. (Note: everything here works in Blender 2.53 Beta and above. Don't use any lower version. The beta can be downloaded on http://blender.org) This is roughly how a default startup of Blender looks like: (But larger of course) If that looks more confusing to you with even more buttons, don't worry. There's a method to the madness. The key to knowing what on earth Blender's UI is trying to tell you is called windows or areas. Bear with me. When a user more familiar with Blender looks at the above pictures, they see that it is divided and subdivided into different areas that do different things. Here I've highlighted the different areas shown in the above picture: Now pause for a moment and forget about Blender. Imagine a computer desktop, where instead of having different programs floating around overlapping each other like this: The windows were arranged in a flat grid so that you never had to ALT+TAB, at the expense of the windows not being very big. Yes they exist (Okay so maybe only nerds use it anymore- and maybe is stretching it a bit), and that's how Blender's UI works. Each window has its separate function, and it's just the same in Blender. The difference is that if you make changes in one window in Blender, the changes are sometimes reflected in other windows (Because the windows are not separate programs). Get it so far? If you don't please reply. I'm going to assume you do understand that much. So in Blender to make the interface you want, you split windows in two, merge two windows, or resize windows. Here's a little demonstration. To start with I have gotten rid of everything but the 3D view. Next I'll demonstrate splitting. Here I've split the 3D view in two vertically, so now there are two 3D views side by side. I'll go through how to actually do this later. Here I split the one on the right horizontally. Then I went crazy. But having a million 3D views isn't useful, now is it. I went back to the start and split it once vertically, and then chose the "Properties" window type. This changes that window into, you guessed it, properties! Here you are with that one window turned into properties. I also split the other window into two. Here I turned that bottom window into a timeline (Like the bar on the bottom of Windows Media Player or the top of iTunes that shows where you are in the song). This shows merging, the opposite of splitting. When I let go of my mouse button it joined the 3D view and the timeline to go back a step and create this: Got it now? I really oversimplified it, but repetition is how you learn I guess. This system of splitting, merging, and changing window types can lead to some pretty complex setups that suit your taste exactly. So now it's time to experiment on your own. See all those corner things I've highlighted in red? Those are important. They're what you click on to split and merge... ...Open Blender, click on one of those corners, and drag in some direction. Try this over and over again, and see if you can figure them out. If a new window appears, you're splitting. If an arrow appears while you have your mouse button down, it will merge two windows. The dropdown list that appears if you click on the icon in the bottom left (Sometimes top left) corner of each window/area changes the window type. I'm not sure that an explanation of this is as good as trying it yourself. Go do that, then read the next part. [spoiler=Useful to know, not necessary]The fact that nothing ever overlaps is one of the main three principles of Blender's UI: Non-overlapping Non-blocking Non-modal And also non-lethal, non-fiction and non-alcoholic but that's beside the point. You know what non-overlapping means by now I hope. Non-blocking means that you are never forced to do something before you can continue, like when a program asks for information (Say when you're using a filter or adjustment in Photoshop) before it allows you to do anything. Non-modal has to do with consistency. For example, Blender uses the same keyboard shortcuts for all the things that different tasks have in common, like moving, resizing, or rotating. Next part This part should be used as part tutorial, part guide. Don't try to take it all in at once, especially the big list. So that was cool, but you still don't have any idea how to use Blender. The best place to start is probably explaining what the different windows do. Listed from the bottom of the list in Blender up, here's a basic overview so that you can get some idea of where to find things. 3D View The place where you can see rough previews of the objects in the scene. Note: You'll notice that the 3D view, by default, should have some sort of panel looking thing on the left side. (If not press T with your mouse in the 3D view) This is called the toolshelf. More on that after this list. Timeline Shows which frame you're on and allows you to scrub Graph Editor Edits graphs that are used in the animation system Dopesheet Also for animation, I won't go into detail NLA Editor Also for animation, allows you to edit actions you've created for your characters UV/Image Editor Edits UVs (Textures you've mapped to a model) or images Video Sequence Editor A video sequencer Text Editor An editor for writing scripts for Blender to extend it Node Editor Edits material or compositing nodes Logic Editor Edits the logic of a game Properties Edits all the properties of objects and render settings. This is so important that I'll go through each of the tabs: [*]Outliner Shows all the objects in the scene in a list you can select from [*]User Preferences Just what it says [*]Info The "File Add Render Help" menu you see on the top [*]File Browser Just what it says [*]Console Don't worry about this unless you want to write scripts for Blender Modes This only applies to the 3D view. There are so many things to be done in the 3D view that different tasks have been split into different modes: Object Mode Allows you to select move, rotate, and scale any object in the scene. Edit Mode (You could think of this as "Modeling mode") Allows you to edit the actual models in the scene. Pose Mode (Not always visible) This is for animation. It allows you to pose characters that you have given a skeleton. Sculpt Mode This is like edit mode, but you sculpt instead of editing the mesh directly. Blender now has sculpt features comparable to Zbrush. Vertex Paint For painting models without using a texture. Colors are assigned to individual vertexes, to put it simply. Texture Paint For painting models using textures, which are images stretched over the model in question. Weight Paint This is kind of an advanced feature, no need to go into detail. To switch between two modes, press tab. This works like ALT+TAB. The 3D view toolshelf and Properties In Blender 2.5, there is the concept of "Tools" (Often called operators) and "Properties". Tools are, uhh, tools. They are buttons that do things, like performing an action on an object. For example, you can use the delete tool by selecting an object with a right click and pressing X. Tools are searchable; With your mouse on the 3D view, press the spacebar and type something related to what you want to do. There are probably over 200 tools, some very specific but there are only a few that you always need to know. Tools are like verbs. Properties are values assigned to an object/model. A property could be the color of the material that a model uses, the position of an object in 3D space, or anything else that could be used to describe the object. All properties are displayed in the properties editor window, divided logically into tabs. Properties are like adjectives. Toolshelf The toolshelf is in the 3D view, you can open or close it by pressing T with your mouse on the 3D view. It is filled with the most useful tools depending on the mode. Use a tool by pressing its button with an object selected and see what happens. Sometimes tools have options. Try adding an Icosphere by pressing SHIFT+A on the 3D view and selecting Mesh-> Icosphere. Now make sure the toolshelf is open, and look at the bottom of it. There should be options like "Subdivisions" and "Size". Try changing them. Properties shelf The properties shelf is also in the 3D view and looks a lot like the Toolshelf. It can be opened and hidden by pressing N. It has the most basic and therefore useful properties in it for easy access. Basic keyboard shortcuts: The three most important keyboard shortcuts in Blender are the following three: G - Move R - Rotate S - Scale These three shortcuts are shared among every single editor, where they apply. To take full advantage of Blender, you must have a numpad. The above three shortcuts are commonly used with the numpad in the following way: Press G, R or S Press the axis you would like to move, rotate, or scale on Type the number of units you would like to move, rotate, or scale by into the numpad So to rotate something by 87° on the z axis, you would press: R (Rotate) X (X axis) 87 (87°) Or to move an object negative five units on the Y axis, you would press: G (Move) Y (Y axis) -5 (-5 units) Or to make something 7.55 times bigger on the Z axis: S (Scale) Z (Z axis) 7.55 (7.55 times larger) One more shortcut and and you're good to go. X - Delete The Mouse Blender uses the right mouse button to select, and the middle mouse button to pan. Try this: Open Blender, put your mouse over the 3D view Hold down the middle mouse button With that held down, move your mouse around Now try selecting and de-selecting objects by right clicking on them. That is all I can think of. It took me three days to write, so please read all the way through. I will clarify anything that needs clarification, I know I have forgotten something. If people understand this, I will write a second tutorial on how to actually do something in Blender.

I would really like to read the comics. The movie trailer looked really good to me, but of course I haven't read the comics as previously mentioned. E: Awesome, the library system has it. With SIX reservations on the first one. :wall: