3/4 cup Almond Milk
about 15 ice cubes
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1-2 Tbsp unsweetened Cocoa powder
1/3 of a Banana

Put all ingredients in Blender
Blend till smooth

the busy:
No time to lose, no time to lose–spinning every weekday in your head? You may be so occupied by tasks in advance, that eating a proper breakfast isn’t an accessed point of mindfulness. It just doesn’t reach your zone of ‘urgency’. Other things, one of those your job belike, are priorities and press your dietary needs away. What if you feel like there is no time to grant attention to breakfast, in your hasty morning routine?
Since you might just feel that need of alertness, though, there is a chance you’re the typical person who falls back on coffee shots. By the time you get hungry–possibly no occasion to lunch yet–snacking is a pitfall. What can you do to start the day with some long-lasting energy?

* Prepare your breakfast the evening / night before. Maybe it’s not something your mind is very much ‘into’, after a day of work, but it really can do a trick to relax you, and decrease your stress levels, since you are doing something practical. A good time to do this, is after you’ve finished dinner. You need to clean or use the dishwasher anyway, so why not continuing making your breakfast in advance?
Another advantage is that your hunger (what I presume) is satisfied; therefore, all the breakfast ingredients should not tempt too much. You can even do it quickly; it’s just a matter of knowing what to make on the forehand.
* Create hand-held items that are more convenient to eat ‘on the move’, such as round-wrapped (flat)bread and a solid take-away cup that you can carry with you (or position in the car) once you’re out of the door (…filled with water, tea, coffee, juice, smoothie or shake). Do the environment (and your wallet) a favour; please, don’t use disposable (often plastic) cups. There are sustainable (very trendy and fancy) cups, too, available in any size and with any print!

the not-hungry:
There are apparently many people who get up without being very hungry, or with no hunger at all. A reason for this might be that, oftentimes, we don’t awake naturally (in literal sense: we have not biologically awakened), which upsets and confuses our body. Well–that sounds a little too dramatic. In fact, I point to our body functions rather than us ourselves (…our mental ego). We can still handle it, but it’s not pleasant in the first place. And there come these annoying sensations, e.g. our hunger seems distorted. I guess, though, the hunger incentive is a biological mechanism that still works correctly, and it seems much more likely that our behavioural coping is unnatural, due to socio-cultural circumstances. Are we even supposed to feel hungry at such early times?
Many in the working class are insinuated that they ‘ought to’ have breakfast, which then couldn’t fall out of the range from, roughly, 7 to 8 a.m. Each single time we get awakened by an alarm, what does it really do with us–and–how much is hunger (level) involved? Our body has to process a disruption, since it wasn’t ‘set’ to awake at that moment. (Obviously, this does not apply if you awake before the alarm rings.) Compare to how you feel at mornings when you are awakened by your biological clock.
What also may drop your appetite, is mental stress. Can you relate yourself to the profile above, ‘the busy’, then you are dealing with a common combination. Even though the idea of food possibly causes a qualmish feeling, you can as well start feeling weak and low in energy if you eat nothing at all. Especially if there is a physical chore in prospect, it doesn’t necessarily mean you just don’t need to eat. A (small) meal is better for your metabolism too, but the art is to spread and balance the act.

* Start with having a refreshing (watery) drink that doesn’t overwhelm your body. Zesty and minty flavours are usually very effective when you feel a little queasy. Maybe you are already into green tea, ginger tea or mint tea. Or have you tried lukewarm water with a little squeezed lemon juice? These ideas don’t come from my mind; they can be found via various sources spread over the internet–as they have become such popular (breakfast) drinks. Acidic fruits, like citrus fruits are, have beneficial effects on fat digestion. (By which I mean fats from your nutrition.)
Another tip, more convenient than tea during a hot summer: store, overnight, a glass of (spring) water in the fridge, packed with fresh mint leaves / a piece of lemongrass / a piece of ginger. The morning after, you can take that out, and these fresh herbs will have affected water’s aroma.
* Build up slowly and don’t start with a starchy meal, since a sandwich is probably not the thing you want to think of yet. And fortunately, there are plenty simple alternatives: just take a small handful of nuts (optionally mixed, e.g. with raisins), an apple, peach or mandarin orange.

Sometimes, there’s even more challenge to expand your creativity. E.g., when you are vegan, if you are on a weight loss diet or when we are talking about the breakfast of a very picky kid. I’ve been trying my best to represent all four of the categories (‘the busy’, ‘the not-hungry’, ‘the vegan’, ‘the picky kid’) in these both innovative and healthful breakfast recipes. Actually; they are all yummy anyway.

bran-coco pancakes with quark, raspberries (& honey) – approx. 5 – 8 portions (family recipe):
Mix up 150 g (wheat) bran and 50 g coconut flour with 400 ml (almond) milk and 1 beaten free-range egg. Add a tiny pinch fine salt, and ready is your batter.
Add butter / oil into a frying pan and wait until sufficient heat. Pour in a dash of pancake batter. Keep watching and change heat settings if necessary; the pancake shouldn’t burn. Turn over when the upside looks well and the bottom is finished. Wait until the other side is done the same way.
Serve with a clot of quark and put a handful of fresh raspberries (…or different berries) on it. Wrap up for convenience, and if you’re really a sweet tooth; add some honey on top. Without, your pancake will only have a subtle sweet taste, but greatly natural.

For ‘the busy’, because… the batter, and even the pancake(s), can be made the day before. In the fridge it can be stored for max. 2 days. You can reheat the done pancake just before you serve. Wrap up compactly–ideal meal for in the lunch box!
For ‘the picky kid’, because… pancakes, fluffy and moist, are a hit anyway! That doesn’t need further explanation, right or right? The decadent taste of coconut flour will surely be a success.

Bran is an extremely good source of fibre. Don’t eat too much bran at once, though, when you’re not so used to eating it yet. If you’re intolerant to gluten; you don’t necessarily need to use wheat bran. Other examples are oat bran, millet bran, rice bran and corn bran (make sure no gluten are ‘secretively’ added anywise). Coconut flour has a rich and sweet taste and contains lots of valuable fatty acids. It’s maybe even one of the healthiest foods that exist–so many benefits as coco has. Quark is smooth and freshes up the dish. Raspberries simply make a perfect pairing to that!

beet-banana porridge with almonds, fresh ginger & mint – approx. 1 portion (single recipe):
Cook (about) 50 g oats with 100 ml water, added only a tiny pinch of fine salt, (raw) sugar / honey if you wish. If you like mint to be present in taste, you can also boil with some mint leaves in the water. The boiling process will take you approx. 5 – 15 min. Just keep watching well. Pour the finished cooked oats (essentially porridge) into a suitable bowl. Cut a small – medium peeled banana into pieces and mash it, then add into the porridge bowl. Stir. Get about 100 g of beet(root), the skin peeled, raw. Use a grater / peeler to obtain coarsely grated / shredded pieces beetroot. Add them to the porridge with banana mash; stir again. Add a handful of (raw) almonds, if you wish they can be chopped. Grate a peeled piece of fresh ginger (very finely), as topping; spread over the bowl. Eventually mix up the grated ginger, while stirring, and finish off this porridge with a few leaves of fresh mint.

For ‘the vegan’, because… the porridge is dairy-free, and vitamin C in beetroot helps your body absorbing minerals like iron, calcium and zinc (check almonds).
For ‘the picky kid’, because… oats with banana makes a sweeter and more delicate porridge. Although beet may not be liked by some–in fact, it is sweet and still naturally healthful. Tip: children may appreciate it even more with extra raisins / dates and some cinnamon.

This porridge is really decadent and sophisticated. The addition of banana is a classic, whilst along with beetroot, it makes an unusually surprising dish. Almonds add a nice, distinct accent. Ginger and mint are pungent, sweet and freshening. As I mentioned before: you can also enrich this with raisins / dates and a little sprinkled cinnamon! It’s not a dish that you make in a rush, but I would rather imagine it for relaxing Saturdays or on a lazy Sunday. A food for the moment. Slowly enjoyed from the bowl… not yet pondering your plans in advance. A percipient source of energy!

green tea smoothie with avocado, kiwi & flaxseed – approx. 2 – 3 portions (couple recipe):
Make about 250 ml of sencha / green tea. Sencha is the most common as well as most popular type of green tea in Japan, the country where its roots lie. The taste is both refined and versatile. Coming health benefits of green tea are praised among the Asians since decades (…even more than that long!). In the Western world, however, the population is now getting more colloquial with their product. Wait until your tea is lukewarm to cold, or just store in the fridge overnight. Recommended is to make tea the day in advance, so that you will end with the right temperature. If so; add tea into a blender.
Then peel 1 fully ripened avocado and cut into pieces. Do the same with 1 tender (ripe) kiwi, pref. a large one. Add all ingredients to the green tea in the blender. Lastly, add a handful of flaxseed. Turn on the blender until the smoothie looks finished.

For ‘the busy’, because… if you plan well, it won’t ‘steal’ much of your time to prepare it. At least, you are recommended to produce the tea one day before, and then you can even make the whole drink one day in advance. Be sure to store it in the fridge! A drink is fast when you’re in lack of vacant time, and this recipe contains enough substantial ingredients for a filling start of the day. The ingredients are ideal to keep you fresh–even more when served cold! For that, you can also add an ice cube.
For ‘the not-hungry’, because… this smoothie is substantial, yet not a stone on the stomach. It still feels light and ‘clean’–well, it’s even good for your digestive functions.
For ‘the vegan’, because… the ingredients are purely vegetal (as obvious), and the content of quality fatty acids is seriously important in your diet.

This smoothie is a super health (and mind) booster! Also, it’s so refreshing and relaxing, even if it were just for its verdant look. To me, it represents zen. Green tea is high in antioxidants, and has antibacterial, antiviral and detoxifying capacities. In the Eastern world, it’s even in medicinal use, since it has proven benefits for so many diseases. People there have been using it for ages. Anyway, it has very good profit for your e.g. liver, kidney and overall metabolism. Avocado is a source of good fat and will give this smoothie its creamy texture. It’s very satisfying, yet still nice to drink if you don’t desire a big bite for breakfast. Kiwi adds more zest and fruitiness to the drink–an essential element to me. Flaxseed, with a nutty touch, fits really nicely with the combination of ingredients. Flaxseed also has an excellent nutritional profile. The smoothie may be part of a weight loss / low-carb diet, is paleo approved, and is low in sugar content, to consider diabetics… How multilateral!

So! That was a huge post. It took me several days to complete. And now I feel that I need to make a special post on almond milk; I would love to get that homemade… moreover, not only in the bran-coco pancakes it is processed, but even in more dishes for my future plans!
I hope you will have a good morning, at least around breakfast time. In case I forgot something through the flow of details–or you just got a question–comments are welcome, by the way.

(And what do I now realise: sorry, for the lack of photos! It’s a wee bit bald, yeah… I don’t have them available yet, but I’m trying to capture and add. Just can’t promise how soon exactly.)

Starting to get the feel of active falloff modifiers.. Still feels odd, and I’d like it if the faloff travelled through connections and took that distance as ‘range’ instead of pure distance between verts. Oh well. Random pictures of work progress below:

As Said before, wanted to make something that relied on cabling. Thus.. some cable-grabbers (one not enough, three would make it too long. Or maybe not, we will see)

Instead, added more medium-level detail. Given the proportions, will probably leave it at that, the final render won’t be upclose to them, I think.

Naturally, solar panels are required. Naturally, they look nothing like actual solar panels. They still need the actual connection point, and I’m thinking a bunch of wires that supposedly would add that ‘bend’ to the frames.

Another problem is hiding areas. I can split view, but haven’t yet found out a way to hide area. So now in my scene there are multiple areas and I am really pissed off. Usually when I get this feeling I shut down the program and need to wait atleast few hours before trying again.

Reblogged from Momisms - My Moments in Motherhood:

Why should you get a Vitamix blender today?.

I love my Vitamix - it is simply amazing. Yes, it was expensive, but I use it instead of so many other appliances in my kitchen and it's a great way to eat wonderfully whole and raw foods.

I make my gravy, smoothies, and a host of other recipes in the Vitamix.

Read more… 119 more words

The first day, I mixed an apple, orange, avocado, a handful of spinach, half a lime, and water into the blender. It’s a new blender that we got a year ago with the biggest intentions of using it, but you know how great intentions go.. (they get buried and forgotten). Anyway, it turned out a lot thicker than it should have been due to minimal water in the mix. It was good though, and very filling.

Looks like green goo lol

The second day, I added the rest of the lime (actually threw in a chunk of it with the skin still intact) and added more water and a bit of soy milk. No avocado but the rest of the ingredients remained the same. More liquid-like today and not as sweet since I added more spinach than the first day. I think I’m addicted now to juicing. It’s easy and fun and I get a load of veggies and fruits all in 2 cups. Yay!

Before

After!

I’m excited to wake up tomorrow to try out another assortment of stuff to throw into the blades. I hope I can keep this up and not abandon it after a week. Haha, isn’t that what happens to most trends? :]

Since I started liking cream cheese at about the age of thirteen (I was not an adventurous eater as a child), cheesecake has been one of my favorite desserts – it’s sweet, filling, and crazy decadent. I could hardly ever even finish a whole piece. (Who am I kidding? Of course I could!)

But even so, it sits a little heavy in the stomach, and I much prefer this dairy-less alternative! After having vegan cheesecake in a few restaurants, I decided to try my hand at making it myself, and found that it is super easy and absolutely worth the effort!

I adapted this recipe from Hungry Hungry Hippie and have already made it three times! In addition to being vegan, it is also gluten-free for those of you with allergies. Every time I’ve made it, it comes out a little bit differently – but I think it’s improving! Try varying the recipe a little bit to suit your preferences.

To start, set two cups of raw cashews to soak for six hours (I follow the recommendations on this website, but without adding salt). Once those are ready, you’re all set to whip up your cheesecake!

Start off by making the crust:

• 1 cup mixed nuts (I use raw pecans and brazil nuts, and add a little hemp seed and flax seed too)
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• about 8 medjool dates, soaked and pitted

First, pit your dates and put them in a bowl of water to soak for a few minutes. Blend the nuts, coconut, and cinnamon together until they are an even consistency.

By the time you’re done with this, your dates should be plenty soaked. Add them to the blender and your crust should form a sticky mass.

Each time I’ve made this, the crust has been a little bit different consistency, but it’s tasted great and worked just fine every time. As long as it is sticking together, it should work. If it’s too crumbly, try adding another date or a little bit of water to get it to stick. When your crust is all blended up, press it into your pie tin and it’s ready to go – no pre-cooking for this crust!

This is a really flexible crust recipe. Try using different nuts, or a different type of date if you’d like (or if you can’t find medjool dates in your grocery store). As long as you get a cohesive texture, I don’t think there’s much going wrong here!

Now, it’s time to move onto the filling. Rinse out your blender and add the following:

• 2 cups of soaked cashews (measured before soaking, so you’ll actually end up with over 2 cups)
• 1/2 block (8 oz.) tofu
• 1/2 cup of maple syrup
• 2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon raw apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla

Here you can take some liberties with the recipe again. I added the apple cider vinegar and increased the lemon juice a bit for flavor, and reduced the amount of syrup as it was a little sweeter than I prefer the first time around. Give the blended mixture a taste before you go ahead with cooking your cheesecake to make sure you like it.

Here it is ready to be blended up!

And then, pour into the crust…

Smooth out the top with a spatula, and you are ready to bake it!

Bake 20 minutes at 350ºF and then 20 minutes at 250ºF (so that the crust doesn’t burn). If you’re baking in something smaller than a standard pie tin, decrease cooking time accordingly.

Here it is hot out of the oven:

Refrigerate until cold (I usually wait at least overnight), cut, serve, and enjoy!

Next time you get a craving for cheesecake – give this a try instead of the dairy version. It’s super easy to make and packed with protein and good fats. Nevertheless, enjoy in moderation! You can have too much of a good thing!

Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 scoops 100% whey vanilla protein powder

1 banana, skinned and diced

1 cup frozen berries (rasperries and blackcurrents were used in this smoothie but you could replace them with any other berries you wished!)

1 cup plain ‘pouring’ yoghurt

Unsweetened almond milk, to desired consistency

1 T chia seeds

Method:

1) Blend first 5 ingredients until smooth

2) Pour into drinking ‘vessels’

3) Top 1/2 of each of the smoothies with chia seeds

—> Simple and delicious!

I learned how to draw and animate flames in GIMP. It is ridiculously easy if you know how. Uses a q3a animMap shader. I’ll add some particles and whatnot, and I hope to get the billboard rotating correctly. Textures are placeholders.

Walltorch model done in Blender, as usual.

Reblogged from Uncle Leo's Blog:

Current thoughts – Dont know if i’ll use textures or not. Upsides of using textures: I learn how to do stuff with textures; I get some textures for future use in my library. Downsides: the mesh is not good at all for texturing (UVwrapping will be a timeconsuming pain), I’m not entirely sure how to *make* textures as such (I’d like to do tiled textures rather than full-baked ones, as that allows a lot more resolution and detail – but I’d have to make at least 5 tiling sets to have at least the minimum amount of variety of detail), and.. Yeah. The parts that are ready are NOT made for texturing, at all.

Another issue – I wasn’t sure how large th final thing would end out whilst initially detailing the engines. Thus, there’s a very large gap between macro-detail and micro-detail. For actual in-game use, this would not be good at all. So, this will be good for rendering some pretty images, and that’s about it. Still. Worthwhile for getting more used to blender’s modelling capabilities.

On that note, comments about blender: Eh, kinda not great. The viewport movement is a bit iffy, the zooming range is way too narrow, and Blender doesn’t do smoothing groups (which, for my habits, is utterly terrible). There’s also no way to connect just two edges with a bridging edge, you have to select a full edge ring, and spanning cross-over edges can only be added then. Baaaaad. Sigh.

So, yeah. current mesh:

Wires, engines, nothing else. Yep.

Was it because I adore David Wolfe?

Was it because I wake to the infomercial several days a week?

Was it because I am drawn to the 600 watts of power?

Was it because I’ve grown weary of chewing my smoothies?

Yes, yes, yes and yes.

I also wanted something I could easily take to work with me. This seemed to fit the bill.

I listened to a sales gal at Bed Bath and Beyond tell a few of us about it:
1) Milling blade for nuts, seeds and grains.
2) Ability to grind down carrots and broccoli.
3) Smaller container for the 600 watts to work in, increasing efficiency.
4) Two cups with lids and handles included.
5) How the cyclonic action creates a vortex that continuously pulls everything into the blades.

She did a good job. Three of us left with them and a promise of “just bring it back if you don’t like it.”

Smoothie in the morning!

So what have I been doing with my mass amounts of a free time? Well apart from an unhealthy amount of a FIFA (I know it’s shameful) and War Z I’ve been messing about with Blender. Now considering that in the near future I want to make or a least be practice programming my own games, I thought I might have a crack at 3D modeling. I haven’t really decided if this is actually a pointless waste of my time as I should be constantly practicing coding, but at least its game creating related.

Now when I started my first tutorial I was almost certain that I’d probably get bored with the tedium of it. I’ve always had the view that being a 3D modeler would be a dull existence, constantly clicking and moving vertices and clicking and clicking and clicking. I’d imagine that they’d end up hearing the noise in their sleep, that every button click in life is amplified to the point that they couldn’t even turn on the kettle without getting suicidal. Much to my disappointment, I really enjoyed my first lesson of Blender which involved creating a mug. It’s extremely satisfying to start from something as simple as a cube and then stretch, tweak and model it into something awesome. Describing a simple mug as awesome is a bit of an overstatement, but when you’ve made it from scratch its extremely satisfying. Que screen shots.

After getting to grips with the thousands of different hot keys of Blender (yeah, you think I’m joking) with my first tutorial I decided to tackle something a bit more challenging. Cause I’ve made a mug! Therefore, I can take on anything! But what to make? I know I’ll model a human!…..Fool. Turns out I wasn’t the pro that I believed I was after creating my beautiful porcelain liquid container of wonderfulness. I would blame the YouTube video which I used as a guide as my reason for failure, but I’m guessing it was me aiming to high, to quickly. Never the less I created a short, stubby little hench guy who doesn’t look too bad for a first attempt. I called him Jeff (I call everything Jeff). I’d imagine he’d drink bitter and get into bar fights cause he’s a man! Probably not, he’s only about 10 inches tall.

With Jeff created I decided that I’d have a go at the animation side of things; putting bones into models to make them move about bit. After a few failed attempts at making Jeff into the 10 inch, walking tall, bitter-drinking bar fighter that he was destined to be I gave up. My crap attempt at the human figure meant that Jeff limbs would get distorted when I moved them. So I moved on, starting a tutorial which supplied me with a model of an alien which wouldn’t look like a demented crisp packet when he walked.

Now, I used tutorials I found on YouTube for everything I’ve learnt so far and a lot of them have been complete shite. Fortunately, I found a great series videos which I learnt a lot from which can be found at the link below if you’re are interested in getting into Blender.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yiC6pEQMAw

Currently I’ve just finished a tutorial on how to add a simple armature to a model in order make animations. At this point I’m having trouble getting a walking animation look smooth so I’m not going to upload it until I’ve got it looking how I want. So I’m going to practice a bit more and will upload my result soon hopefully. Below is Jeff the alien with the armature I added to the model. Thanks for reading!

For a number of years I’ve had a lingering interest in digital photography and 3D artwork. I’ve been taking digital photographs for quite a while but very passively, not really taking the time to be “serious” about it.  However, in the last few months my interest has been growing and I’m putting some thought into becoming a little more “serious” about it this year.

I’ve also decided to try my hand at 3D art though progress at this point is rather slow.  I’ve been a fan for many years going back to the early days of Babylon 5 and, with today’s technology, the possibilities are incredible.  I’m still learning the software and basic principles but at least I’m slowly moving forward.

I enjoy nature photography, mainly landscapes, and what I like to call “perfect moments in time” where a number of elements come together to create something very special.  This ties in well with my interest in 3D art because, though the “photo studio” is inside the computer, the concerns are all the same…lighting, perspective, framing, background, etc.  The two are similar in a many ways.

I already use Paint Shop Pro for processing photos and figure it will also work well for post processing work on 3D images.  I recently installed GIMP but have very little experience with it.  I’d like to consider a permanent change at some point in the future once I’m a little more comfortable with the interface since I’m intending to transition to Linux in the years ahead.

Having never used any rendering software I downloaded & installed DAZ Studio, Blender, LuxRender, Bryce and Hexagon.  I figure that I can get a good start with these tools and figure out what I feel most comfortable with using regularly.  I’ve used all the tools a bit but I have a lot of work to do before I’ll feel comfortable with any of them.

So far, I’ve learned that Hexagon, Bryce and DAZ Studio don’t work all that well together even though they all come from the same company.  They’re nice tools but just don’t have the interoperability I was expecting.  My intent was to design backdrops in Bryce and use them in DAZ Studio but I’m still working on the best way to do make this happen.  I’ve been able to transfer objects from one to the other but not without a fair amount of rework following the transfer.

I’ve learned that lighting is difficult but makes all the difference when it’s right…not much different from photography.  I’ve had some success arranging my own lighting but I’ve done better so far using presets made by others.  Most of the time the setups I create from scratch never seem to do what I expect…the scene ends up either far too bright or much too dark.  I’ve got a lot of work to do but examining the presets along with tutorials available on the Internet are proving very helpful.

The last thing I’ll mention is that all the best renders involve multiple tools and steps to create the final product.  There are no masterpieces created without time, tools and postwork.

Ultimately I would like to develop better photographic skills while I’m learning the 3D tools.  Camera angles, lighting and composition can all be practiced in the virtual photo studio.  I would also like to get a better camera at some point.  Besides doing additional work with nature photography I would also like to do more work with starscapes, sunsets and sunrises.

Anyway, this blog will be the tool I use for tracking progress in the days, weeks and months ahead.  Thanks for reading!

Eventually you will wonder how the bezier curves work in Blender…You will add one & get a snakey line, but not be able to make it a solid…Ahem…(That was me!)…Finally…Here is how you do it:Go to Object data…Scroll down to the BEZEL slider…Slide that around-wow! Your curve becomes a tube! This is exciting…The other curves follow that same process…Use the other sliders beside the bezel one to further alter your solid…Resolution slider is neat too! Thank me…This was simple & yet for some reason, took me a while to figure out…But very very cool, no?

Style Note: Ok, so I changed the theme of this blog to Chalkboard…I love the way it looks…It makes me wonder if people will be inclined to read more because the chalkboard feel is very familiar…On the other hand I am breaking the rule that black on white is better than white on black…Please tell me if you have strong feelings about the theme…I am only using free themes for now, so there is no real commitment & I could really change it when I please…

droop

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Are you online for extensive periods of time but are lonely in the real world? Are you finding that even your online friends are tired of your aching neediness? Have they told you in not so many words? STOP…Get a life…Leave the computer…Really…Go out…Find some real company…If your career does involve online communicating you may be hurting your business by confusing business contacts with social contacts…Case in point:If you are a male artist & you are communicating with a female artist, this is not the time to discuss your sexual desires…I write this because I encounter this confusion quite often…If I am talking to another artist online I expect some professional boundaries, like in any other profession…Just because this is art does not mean that sexual innuendo is ok…Take a hint…

mach

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Add a mesh, like a cylinder or cube…In Edit Mode, select a vertex & extrude it-it will be like a line…Do this several times in different places, just for fun…

Ok, now go to the Modifiers(in Object Mode now), & select SKIN…This will skin your stick lines…Now in that same area select CREATE ARMATURE…This creates a workable rig inside your stick figure…

Now just select the stick figure, Hold SHIFT, THEN select the armature (right click on it)…Now hit CONTROL P…Select the choice “with automatic weights”…

Now the armature is the parent to the stick figure…

With armature selected go into POSE MODE…

Now you can ANIMATE your stick figure!!! So COOL!

Update theme: Well, chalkboard theme lasted about 5 minutes! Back to SELECTA…I did change the colour palette though to a neon green background…Probably because I am doing animation…

snak

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Ok, so here is how to use HOOKS in Blender…With the Bezier Curve…

So you add your bezier curve…Go to Object data & change the bevel depth & resolution to suit you…

Now go into Edit Mode…

Hit CONTROL H…This brings up the Hooks…Choose the first option…Hook to new object…

Tadahh , you have now attached a hook to your Bezier curve…

What this means is that now, in Object Mode, you can move your curve around to Animate it!

The video shows two curves with hooks attached! neat eh?

hooksb

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In the video above, I tired putting many hooks into a face sculpt…Theoretically, the hooks help with when you go to animate, to make the mouth move…I sort of got the idea, but it could be better…One extra thing about adding hooks-so in Edit Mode, select a vertex on your object…Now if you want to select say several vertexes in that same area, just hit SHIFT, then CONTROL + … Control + selects additonal vertexes near to the one you already chose…Keep hitting Control + & the area increases…Then when you add a hook there, CONTROL H, your hook will control that whole area…Like the cheek of a face, or a lip, or an eyebrow, or a clump of hair…

If you increase the render resolution from the default 50% to 100%, of course your finished render will be much bigger…It also takes alot longer…This last video is a render at 100%…Notice how it is different…

grassy

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Ok, so, combine your above lessons to get to here…In the video above, this is what I did:

First I added a bezier curve…In object data I adjusted the bevel depth to make it a solid…& the resolution there as well…

Ok then I went to the object modifiers & added an ARRAY modifier…Then I adjusted the slider to make many iterations…So your curve becomes many curves, sort of all attached together…

Then I copied that one-manied curve, using SHIFT D(d is for duplicate)…

Did that several times…

Now select one of the curves in Object mode, click TAB to go into Edit Mode, & add a hook-remember how-hit Control H to add a hook…

Do this for each curve you have…

Now when you go to animate, each curve has a hook you can grab onto & move around to make your curve move…

But remember, your curve is actually an array-so when you move your hook, your whole array of that curve moves…So you get like grass…

I only did a few…But you could do more to have really animated grass…

I slowed the frame rate down to 12 frames per second…It is jumpier, but good enough to get the point across…

I also dropped frame resolution back down to 50%…It was way too slow with it set at 100%…

The plane has a green colour on it, then in the TEXTURE menu, an Image file that has the colour UNCHECKED & the NORMAL checked…(scroll down in texture to see these two boxes…) Then I slid the Normal bar way up…This makes the plane have a texture but not the colour of the image file I inserted…I also did this for the material & texture of the grass pieces…

The background image is just a design I did for a heated bird nest…To set a background image you go to World & add New…Then from there, in that order, go to Textures, & add an Image file…Then unclick Blend & click Horizon(in Textures)…Go back to World & click Paper Sky…

I render the film in Quicktime at Mpeg4 setting…

Then drop the file into SimpleMovie, copy it, then paste it back several times to get several loops…Then file Export, AppleTv setting…

From that file, I drop that into Garageband, show Loop browser & add some loops…Then share that to my iTunes folder where I store them…

If there is Nutella in my house it doesn’t seem to last even a week. As you may have seen from my other posts or to just simply quote the frank’s red hot sauce lady, “I put that sh*t on everything.”   I try not to keep it in the house because every time I walk into the kitchen I seem to grab a spoonful.

I really love the taste of hot-chocolate but it tends to lose its luster when the summer months come around.  Frozen hot chocolate , if you haven’t tried it, is a funny thing.  I know the first time I tried it I was just expecting a typical chocolate milkshake… but no.  It is totally different; it tastes just like hot chocolate but an icy version.  So anyway, this week I decided to attempt my own version of frozen hot chocolate (or what I like to call a Fro-ho).  Nutella happened to be in the house and before anyone could stop me Nutella ended up in the blender.  These frozen Nutella hot chocolates makes for an amazing spur-of the moment summer treat.

Per Serving: Calories {206} Total Fat {10 g} Protein {6 g}

Ingredients:

Frozen Nutella Hot Chocolate

Makes 2 Fro-ho’s/Serving Size 1 Fro-ho

1 Cup Ice

1 Cup Milk

6 tablespoons Nutella

1 Packet instant hot chocolate

To make frozen hot chocolate:

Things have changed since then.

For one, I no longer hate the control scheme. Well.. there’s still things that nag at me, to be sure, but I can get by. Another thing heavily in favour of blender is.. well, everything that comes after mesh-creation. I really like the material editor(s), I really like the composition window, and I absolutely love the uniform node-manipulation graph/interface. What follows will mostly be pictures, with minor comments as needed.

This is where we last left off.

Unwrapping the UVs, as lazily as I can manage.

UV-maps are a critical thing for 3D models..If the interface for unwrapping and editing these maps is bad, then the whole workflow could end up crippled. Blender’s is… well, it’s okay, I suppose. There were some odd differences when trying to access the ‘island’ selection mode in the UV-wrapping viewport. Still, it is not agressively bad, and exporting uv-map files is a breeze.

Just selecting faces, one by one, to apply a new material…

Material Node editor.

Composition (node) editor. This is the post-processing step that happens after rendering out objects in their layers. Extremely powerful… There’s two groups of about the same complexity hidden as single-node icons, there. Without grouping up, you’d see about 3x as many nodes.

Final composition that I got out of blender. Took 20 minutes to render out. Very unhappy with the ‘smoke’ trails – turns out the renderer I used does not work with smoke/liquids/other volume-based physics objects.

A ton of blurs and more blurs, and the contrails are.. Well, okay, they still look bad. Not *as* bad, though.

So that caps off the first tutorial project of mine, in Blender. On the whole, not bad. Certainly will look forward to doing more stuff, this was fun. Should think about something fully textured and a lot more detailed, tbh…

But the amazing motivators I have around me kept telling me about the benefits and how great they felt doing this every day.

So after  unloading all my ‘excuses’ onto a friend she told me about how she started with hers; the Young and Raw 30 day Green Smoothie Challenge. She spruiked; they’ll send you a shopping list for the week, they’ll send you the recipe every morning, you can get all of the ingredients easily, they are quick to make and they don’t taste like grASS!    http://secure.youngandraw.com/30daychallenge/

So I signed up (for free) and started on day 6. It starts at the beginning of each month, I missed the mark on that part, but starting the middle is better than not starting! I had a shopping list in my email account 10 minutes after signing up. The ingredients were all easy to find in my generic supermarket and it didn’t add much to my usual grocery bill. Coming home from my first shop and filling up my fridge was a sight, I have never seen it look so green, to think I was going to eat all of those vegetables.

For the first week I got up each morning and through the fog of morning brain was able to follow the recipe that magically appeared in my email account overnight. And by that I mean put various whole objects into my blender and press ON.  It was quick, it tasted good and when I was running late I could take it to work and drink it at my desk.

Let’s be honest there were a few teething problems, for starters my blender is not fancy or particularly strong. Through a process of trial and error I learned to pack it for the smoothest end result.  One and a half months on it has stood the test of 30+ days of hard blending and there is no need to replace it yet.

Most health gurus say it takes 21 days to make a habit, well I think I have hit my stride with this one. I’m making green smoothies 6 days a week; I’ve finished the Young and Raw challenge and have started to branch out. Now that I am in the habit I find I can make my shopping list for the week from a couple of recipes from the challenge and some from the absolute multitude of recipes available online. Coming into winter I am starting to look at fruit that is in season and using spices like cinnamon that make my smoothies have that warming feel.

Overall my skin is clearer, I’m hydrated, I’m full until lunch time most days, I’m thinking clearer and am more productive at work. And this one is for Mum, it has taken me 24 years but I am finally achieving my 5 plus fruit and vege a day!

So to answer my initial hesitations:

How do I know what to put in them? Start with young and raw and after that literally anything that’s fresh! Will my blender cope? Wait and see. Will it blow my budget? No. Doing the sums, it added $5-10 a week to my food bill, but he benefits are well worth it. Do I have enough time? It is literally quicker to make than my old usual breakfast. And thinking about it if I don’t have an extra 5 minutes to spend on my health, what the hell am I doing with my time?

A final word of advice in the green smoothie department, if you add blueberries to your smoothie and take it to work to drink, when your finished go to the bathroom and make sure there’s not bits stuck in your teeth! If you get that right you’ll avoid an embarrassing moment with your boss.

If you have any great smoothies recipes or websites please pass them on!

Love Caroline