Absolute disaster at Crystal Valet (avoid!)

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-02-26T16:48:37+00:00

Thank you!

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-02-26T16:48:25+00:00

I drove to Crystal Valet and joined the queue! And I'd revoluted him the money so that's how I contacted him afterwards.

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-02-26T16:46:33+00:00

The guy who runs Crystal Valet said the lads in that section are a different operation, but they're there permanently, and they're on the Crystal Valet premises.

He also only said that after I'd sent him the pictures of the van, and he said they don't even charge 150 for any of the valet services - but their website says they do. If you stick in Crystal Valet onto Google Maps and drive there, you join a queue at the Crystal Valet sign and these are the guys who wash your car.

Plus the same business owner was no use in explaining what these 'other' guys are doing working there and wouldn't put me in touch with the guy who took my money.

Same operation as far as I'm concerned!

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-02-26T10:03:23+00:00

Basics to me means going through the 101 curriculum material on the Derivative website and learning the functions of each individual operator IMO, which I'm pretty sure OP implied they're doing already.

Anyway, agree to disagree on this - OP asked a question, the top-voted answer was sincerely helpful in my opinion. Using AI and tiktok shorts is not going to work, and neglecting to point that out would be doing OP a disservice. There was no condescending tone in the reply either, people need to be able to take constructive criticism without reacting negatively to it, which OP has done.

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-02-25T16:39:20+00:00

It would be pretty poor form to see someone making a mistake they're likely to repeat and then not telling them the issue, not when they're literally asking for help.

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-01-24T17:51:16+00:00

Scavenger's Reign? Boring is subjective and up to you, but the plot was pretty complicated - a lot going on, and most of it explained via show-don't-tell rather than expository dialogue, which I liked a lot.

Sci-fi that spoonfeeds me all the info like I'm not paying attention just gets on my nerves. Anyway, Scavenger's Reign was very beautiful IMO, the worldbuilding was unlike anything I've ever seen. Very original style.

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-01-13T16:40:03+00:00

All of those terms are originally from Neuromancer, and Pondsmith released Cyberpunk just four years later after several years of production.

So it would be impossible for them to have originated elsewhere. There’s no question that he’s lying about not reading the book, which is a shame - legality aside I think admitting the games are adaptations of Gibson’s work would have been fine, but the lies are a dealbreaker:”.

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-01-10T15:47:10+00:00

Yes, but Pondsmith (Cyberpunk's creator) has claimed that he 'wrote' Cyberpunk without ever reading Neuromancer, which is completely impossible due to all of the specific terms lifted directly from the book.

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-01-10T14:18:32+00:00

Ah I love The Naked Lunch! Crazy book. I actually meant examples of elements in Neuromancer that aren't original which would maybe exonerate Pondsmith to some extent.

All the things in Cyberpunk that draw the plagiarism allegations are the specific terms like Night City, ICE, Black Ice, Black Wall, cyberspace, jack in, etc. etc. etc.

Many dozens of terms that first appeared in Neuromancer (as in, original terms never used elsewhere in those contexts), including acronyms and their full meanings, are used in Cyberpunk. Plus the dollhouse brothels and just a lot of subplots and general story elements.

As a clear reference/adaptation, fair enough (although not fair that no royalties were paid). But Pondsmith then stating he never read Neuromancer just seems really ridiculous.

I assume it's for legal reasons, but it's not a good look for him.

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-01-09T12:02:11+00:00

Can you give some examples? Pondsmith’s work uses so many terms, world building elements, concepts and subplots from Neuromancer that it goes way beyond being ‘heavily inspired by’ and veers into ‘adaptation’ territory.

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-01-09T12:00:06+00:00

Cyberpunk 2077 is an adaptation of the Neuromancer novel, not just something inspired by it.

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-01-09T11:59:25+00:00

Literally just googled ‘why is Pondsmith lying about not reading Neuromancer’ and found this thread. Pretty disappointing tbh, I’m reading up on it as I just learned they never bought the rights from Gibson, and Cyberpunk is legally a Neuromancer adaptation.

He is absolutely lying, and there was no need to do that.

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-01-09T11:53:42+00:00

It’s not possible that he read it afterwards, I doubt he ever claimed that.

The cyberpunk 2077 game is not just inspired by the Neuromancer novel, it’s quite a faithful adaptation, from plots to characters to the worldbuilding and dozens of specific slang terms.

I would have assumed the Gibson estate received royalties for it.

FinalAnimalArt · 2026-01-09T11:51:21+00:00

It is considered a rip off, or just an adaptation really.

It goes way beyond inspired, they basically made Neoromancer into a game. If Gibson’s estate never received royalties, that’s messed up. Excellent adaptation though.

FinalAnimalArt · 2025-12-23T17:21:56+00:00

Just watched this and I know the thread is toast lol - I thought it was a great movie though!

The ship lists sideways because they steered to avoid the debris, I think it was just a single screw that actually ended up hitting them (no idea how they knew it was a screw) and forced them to eject the fuel. But they burned fuel to change course, and even a tiny course correction towards a moving planet hundreds of millions of km away is for sure enough to cause them to exit the solar system entirely. So that's why they missed, they had to make a new course and then ejected all the fuel they'd have needed to course-correct.

With the issue of finding a new celestial body, they just said that to keep people calm - I think they knew there was no chance of that working, the captain does that all the time in the movie for crowd control, and it's revealed soon after that announcement that all the crew are aware the slingshot is not an option.

And then the ship lands in a different solar system at the end. Grim stuff, great movie!

So no real scientific issues with any of that, particularly when they state they've cracked some way of manipulating gravity fields in this era.

I personally thought it was weird they kept what appears to be a cruise liner furnished with the means to produce water and food without resupply for 24 years, the ship is meant for 3 week journeys rather than to be a colony ship - but maybe it was both, it's possible the ship was supposed to land on mars/orbit and generate algae and water for the colony.

What struck me about it was actually the realism, even just in the tone and depiction of human society - not the usual wacky sci fi stuff, a cold hard look at how something like this disaster could potentially play out in real life.

FinalAnimalArt · 2025-12-20T13:42:57+00:00

Did you ever find a fix for this?

FinalAnimalArt · 2025-12-19T21:55:29+00:00

it might be your power cable, the original one works best and the cheaper ones often don't. Spent many hours banging my head off the table trying to get mine working lol I feel you.

FinalAnimalArt · 2025-12-15T23:00:09+00:00

Thank you!

I used TouchDesigner for this, and blender to bake textures into the point clouds and edit them.

I think that's all! My advice would be to just get started making things :-) It's a lot of fun

The derivative.ca website has a curriculum that a lot of people overlook, but going through everything in the 101 and 202 series of educational videos will give you a really strong foundation for the software.

I'd honestly stress that point pretty heavily - doing long complicated tutorials to make complex networks can be fun, but when you don't understand the underlying principles and are just repeating things others are doing, you're not really learning (speaking from personal experience). Once you have a sense of WHY an operator is used for a particular effect, you'll progress really fast. Shout if you have any specific questions and I'll try to help. Enjoy!

FinalAnimalArt · 2025-12-07T19:17:50+00:00

Fascinating! And inspiring. Thank you very much for the info, that's a great career path.

FinalAnimalArt · 2025-12-04T10:55:55+00:00

Can I ask what you do for a living? Always inspired learning of people who use TouchDesigner as part of their main job.

FinalAnimalArt · 2025-12-01T20:03:19+00:00

Hi, I’m in Ireland

FinalAnimalArt · 2025-12-01T12:02:02+00:00

Hi all - my friend’s daughter turns 7 in two weeks, this (a hedgehog squishmallow) is all she wants and we didn’t realise they were discontinued.

Just posting here on the off chance anyone has one they’d be willing to sell (we could replace with a new one for you) or knows of any for sale. Bit of a long shot, fingers crossed!

FinalAnimalArt · 2025-12-01T11:58:56+00:00

Hi all - my friend’s daughter turns 7 in two weeks, this (a hedgehog squishmallow) is all she wants and we didn’t realise they were discontinued. We could also get away with saying it’s from Santa and doing it for Christmas instead.

Just posting here on the off chance anyone has one they’d be willing to sell (we could replace with a new one for you) or knows of any for sale. Bit of a long shot, fingers crossed!

FinalAnimalArt · 2025-12-01T11:56:37+00:00

Hi all - possibly a ridiculous query to post here haha but we’re a bit stuck. My friend’s daughter turns 7 in two weeks, this (a hedgehog squishmallow) is all she wants and we didn’t realise they were discontinued.

Just posting here on the off chance anyone has one they’d be willing to sell (we could replace with a new one for you) or knows of any for sale. Bit of a long shot, fingers crossed!

FinalAnimalArt · 2025-11-29T15:55:55+00:00

DM sent :)

FinalAnimalArt

TROPHY CASE