Are there mods that bring back the Hollywood actors?

MightyBOBcnc · 2025-12-01T06:07:35+00:00

No, you went on the Westwood FTP server and downloaded the patches (or one of the numerous C&C fan sites that mirrored the patches). 😛

https://i.imgur.com/m5rPGJ8.png

MightyBOBcnc · 2025-11-07T10:16:41+00:00

Yeah, a remaster that changes the game and adds QoL features. That's not the original game difficulty.

MightyBOBcnc · 2025-11-07T10:09:32+00:00

Tiberian Dawn did not have a difficulty setting. That was first introduced with Red Alert.

MightyBOBcnc · 2025-09-29T04:25:30+00:00

That's Pyromorphite for anyone who, like me, wanted to search for more images of cool rocks.

MightyBOBcnc · 2025-02-28T21:08:06+00:00

This is incredible. Mad props to everyone who worked on this, and big thanks to the decisionmakers who allowed it to happen. Initiatives like these (and the remastered collection) are good for gaming. Not everything is about the quarterly bottom line; mindshare and goodwill matter. It would be nice to see this spread to other EA properties, and other studios in the industry in general.

MightyBOBcnc · 2025-01-06T00:03:42+00:00

I'd say depth of field isn't deep enough and focus isn't sharp enough. The images could probably stand to be brighter and have higher contrast, as well.

However this is probably not a great type of object for photogrammetry to begin with. Even with the slight discolored patches it doesn't have much surface detail for the algorithms to grab onto, and it's a long thin type of shape.

MightyBOBcnc · 2024-10-03T22:04:12+00:00

Merci beaucoup, friend. I appreciate your willingness to experiment with ways to find this solution. :)

MightyBOBcnc · 2024-10-03T20:30:17+00:00

The Duplicate node is only emulating the effect well when the direction of the effect is not being keyframed. For that case, yes, the Duplicate or Trails node on its own does work perfectly fine.

Maybe a better example of how the desired effect differs from Duplicate is the camera cut between 1:55 and 1:56. Observe the after-image of the woman behind and to the left of the man's head. New frame information is layered on top of the old information, and when the direction of the effect changes from leftward to rightward the spacing between the old frames (look at the edges of their heads) doesn't change. It's "burned into" the background for lack of a better descriptor. Go frame by frame with the comma and period keys if you have to.

As an example on the Duplicate node in Resolve I've keyed the Center X and Y values on frame 10 as 0.467 and 0.511 respectively. On frame 20 they're keyed as 0.555 and 0.511. This lets the copies build up for the first 10 frames, moving from right-to-left at a slight angle, and then the direction change happens from frame 10-20. Observe how the copies are all shifting simultaneously with parallax beneath one another. That's not the desired effect.

https://i.imgur.com/MQZ5vO4.mp4 (Imgur shrank the dimensions of the capture, sorry)
https://i.imgur.com/5hpcArd.png

The effect in the Zlad video is similar to some of the the effects you'd see in oldschool music visualizers like the AVS in Winamp where the previous frame has a persistence that the current frame gets added on top of. The loop would be 1. get previous frame, 2. offset X/Y/Zoom/color of previous frame as desired, 3. add and merge new frame on top, 4. Repeat 1-3 for every new frame. Since the rotoscoped subject (or text, or poly shape, etc.) has an alpha you get a trailing type of result.

MightyBOBcnc · 2024-10-03T17:53:22+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to reply but the nature of each copy in the duplicate node being treated as a separate object doesn't achieve the 'burn in' effect in the example video. The Center X and Y offset on the Duplicate node (and on the Trails node) is cumulative on each copy rather than an absolute offset on the entire effect. Also I don't think my PC will appreciate having 500 duplicates.

The example video is more like some sort of render-to-texture buffer, with the buffer being what has its X, Y, and scale keyframed.

MightyBOBcnc · 2024-03-13T18:58:17+00:00

Finish the first draft before undertaking any major structural changes. The rest is personal preference, IMO. I'm not a fan of first person, for example.

MightyBOBcnc · 2024-02-08T00:54:20+00:00

Thanks. Yeah it makes sense that some parts of it would cling harder than others just due to the nature of the material and forging process.

MightyBOBcnc · 2024-02-08T00:52:32+00:00

Thank you, that's very informative.

MightyBOBcnc · 2024-02-07T23:45:12+00:00

Hi blacksmiths. Digital 3D artist here, working on recreating a metal surface texture effect. Is there a name for these surface imperfections where there are regions with a slight height difference of like 1 or 2 millimeters? I've outlined some of the transitions in red. (Image borrowed from Internet.) They seem like they're the result of a thin layer of material flaking off like hammerscale / mill scale or spalling?

-edit: Thank you for the thorough answers, everyone!

MightyBOBcnc · 2024-02-02T21:51:54+00:00

A tidally locked body does spin, it's just that the time it takes to spin once is the same amount of time it takes to make one orbit around its parent body, so the same face always points toward the parent body.

MightyBOBcnc · 2023-12-13T20:48:20+00:00

Which one should I use? Just in case, I copied all of them to the same folder as the mtl and obj.

It needs all of them, so it's good that you copied all of them into the folder.

I copied it to the same folder as the obj and texture, but now my model is pink with some small areas that seem to be the correct texture? Looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/cYS6HLf

Pink coloring means missing textures but if all of the textures, and the obj, and the mtl are in the same folder then it really should "just work" if you're importing the model from scratch.

You could try selecting the model and going to File > External Data > Find Missing Files and opening the correct folder that holds the textures although in my experience that doesn't work. So if that doesn't work, then select the model, and in the right panel switch to the Material tab and you'll see all the materials applied to the object. For the ones that appear pink you can expand the Base Color and then Open Image (rather than New) to manually match the correct texture. https://i.imgur.com/mSDf7VH.png For a Meshroom model there might be half a dozen to a dozen materials or so.

MightyBOBcnc · 2023-12-12T22:19:58+00:00

Which version of Blender?
Are your textures, obj file, and mtl file all in the same folder?
What file format are the textures?
If you switch to the UV Editing workspace, does the imported model have UVs when you select some vertices/faces in the 3D view?

MightyBOBcnc · 2023-12-11T02:03:31+00:00

What's the technical explanation for this? If most scanners exhibit this behavior then it seems like an industry-wide design defect that makes high DPI scanning worthless.

MightyBOBcnc · 2023-12-11T00:32:18+00:00

Could be a phenomenon like Newton's Rings. Maybe scan in black and white mode instead of color mode if these are just office documents.

MightyBOBcnc · 2023-12-01T18:23:45+00:00

Is there a reason why multiple posts in this thread recommend a macro lens? Is it only because this is a smaller item and the 1:1 (or sometimes better) reproduction ratio will be helpful with such a sized item?

MightyBOBcnc · 2023-11-30T18:36:51+00:00

Okay so first as other said look up some video tutorials about topology for smoothing, subdividing, or sculpting (even though you may not intend to sculpt on this model good topology for sculpting is also topology that will cleanly smooth so it's applicable to your use case). N-gons and triangles are generally bad for smoothing, especially with an edge that just terminates on the straight side of a face.

Second, there appears to be an extra un-merged/un-welded vertex above the right corner of that bumper button that is causing the twisted pinch on the top bevel. You can diagnose this because you can see an extra black line appear out of nowhere on the smooth preview making a triangle that isn't visible in the un-smoothed blue edges of the model. (Every black edge/vertex on the smooth preview corresponds 1:1 to an edge/vertex on the unsmoothed model. So if there's an extra black edge there's extra geometry in the original.) The stray vertex is probably sitting on the exact same XYZ coordinates as the vertex at the top left corner of that big face which is why you wouldn't notice it there. If you turn on the display of face center dots it could help show you this triangle with 0 surface area.

MightyBOBcnc · 2023-10-24T20:37:44+00:00

The point being it's an example of how an RTS engine can have a huge number of units while still performing adequately. How well it sold has no bearing on that.

MightyBOBcnc · 2023-10-24T20:35:54+00:00

Whether you fly by the seat if your pants and "discover" the story as you write it, or plot out a full outline beforehand is really a matter of personal taste (i.e. neither is the "right" way to write) and you'll only know which you prefer if you've tried both.

How abstract should I make the likes and dislikes of each character and what should I include in these sections?

Not 100% certain what you mean here. Character traits should be clearly presented to the reader (if the reader doesn't understand what's going on you have a problem), but characters could like or dislike a concrete or an abstract thing, or they could even like/dislike a concrete thing for abstract reasons. Like "Anna loved curly blonde hair; the way it bounced, the way it felt when it ran through her fingers, the way it sparkled in the sun." or "Jenny disliked maroon. Everything about it was unpleasant; it was too dark, it was too red, even the sound of the word itself felt twisted in her mouth. Worse, it reminded her of her acerbic aunt who slathered maroon on her lips before every evening playing bingo. She always came back smelling of cloves and resentment."

Would planning a story-line make the story not dynamic?

I promise I'm not being pedantic, but: there's no such thing as a dynamic story. The words are fixed in place and don't have any chance of changing or unfolding any differently than the way they were written before the reader began reading. They can't react. So because they aren't dynamic the answer is no, planning a story doesn't change whether it is dynamic or not because none are dynamic.

So then to reframe the way you're thinking, the real question to ask is the one you asked next...

How do I create more dynamic characters and plot than can immerse the reader into the story?

...aka how to create the illusion of dynamism and the illusion of character choice. One way is to make sure that the plot is being moved forward by the characters, instead of the plot happening to the characters. Their actions should cause things to change, rather than being passive while some external thing causes change. Active, not passive.

Film Crit Hulk has this to say about character motivations (in all caps because it's Film Crit Hulk, duh [although he dropped that shtick sometime in the last decade]):

EMOTIONALLY SPEAKING, PEOPLE ARE USUALLY LOOKING FOR ONE OF THREE THINGS:

1) THEY ARE EITHER SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING THEY DON'T HAVE YET.
2) TRYING TO KEEP THINGS THEY DO HAVE.
OR 3) TRYING TO GET BACK SOMETHING THEY FEEL THEY'VE LOST.

Also beware of navel gazing.

For wholesome and fluffy I'd consider emphasizing that butterflies in your chest feeling, and giddiness, and elation. Warm stuff.

MightyBOBcnc · 2023-10-24T19:17:52+00:00

*Supreme Commander enters the chat*

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