StevieJ's ReliefPainter-Oils by StevieJ

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Foxxee wrote: I'd love to know what's hiding in his noggin

not much.....just some loose change and a few leftover marbles

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Foxxee wrote: I like your new avatar too, Carl... self portrait?

LOL..... Carl, you've been "cheekied" by Foxxee.....I think we're rubbing off on her

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ronviers wrote: Wow! StevieJ this is excellent. I especially like the effect on architectural images. It turns an otherwise boring image into a classic oil painting. Nice work!

Hey Ron, great to hear from you!!!

Yeah, that was my intent with this filter.....turn the most mondane pic into a work of art.....

So, do you you like this filter so much that you are considering coming back to FF to share in the fun???

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Carl wrote: I usualy have to lie to steve and say I love his filters

Excusy!!! .....so you've just been stroking my ego all this time, eh??? Well, it worked

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ronviers wrote: Yeah, this one was easy - I hardly had to lie at all

Thanks Ron......I think??? LOL....

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ahimsa wrote: you're quite the beast

Who me??? I think you have me mixed up with Carl

I'm just a mild-mannered

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ahimsa wrote: So what if Carl likes wearing a floral wreath on his head, has a rose in his mouth, and is completely nude while making pretty filters? He does it in a tough and rugged way and that's all that matters.

......

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mmmmmmmm is this help or am I getting slapped from both sides

Don't feel that way.

Hi ahimsa and Foxxee and Steve. sorry about the delay - I have been have no end of hardware problems. I am running on a backup to my backup. My Maya machine is down so I am going crazy. I have had my main graphics card fail (you all probably know how much I love my graphics card), my main drive fail, my secondary monitor fail, and the fan on my laptop fail - all in one week.


But you're right Carl - keep looking up. That's where the bluebirds and sunshine is

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ronviers wrote: (you all probably know how much I love my graphics card),

Don't we all!!!
Sorry to hear about your troubles... I've been having a few today myself. Hate that feeling when something happens (or doesn't) with your computer and you can feel you heart start to pound, ringing in your ears, sweat beading up on your forehead...

Hehe... well, I'm only assuming you all feel that way. Of course I NEVER loose my cool... never ever

Okay, you got me I barely watched the beginning of "Kill Bill" and only remember that I like the song "One of the Living" by Tina Turner from the third Mad Max Movie

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Carl wrote: Fixed yet Ron

Not totally but better every day. I bought a replacement monitor for my bad one. I got it from a local guy, friend of my parents, who had it in his garage - 25USD. It had focus and convergence issues but I was able deal with that - unfortunately I had to take it apart but it went well. It is a 19" CRT, big by my standards, now with a perfect picture. I guess the focus problems kept it from being used. The installation of the new drive went very well. I was able to recover all my data. Microsoft Office gave me the most problems - I hate Micro$oft so bad.
Still waiting on my graphics card but should be here tomorrow. I am able to work in Maya again, even if it is just one monitor, so it's not the end of the world.

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Carl wrote: I don't recall either but just a bit of triva they auction of maxs original car recently which was an American car while the majority of cars in the film are Australian modified cars

You know, I have puzzled over his car before but since I didn't recognize it I figured it must have been Australian. Interesting that it is American, I would have to guess somethink like an AMC Javelin, but I have not seen any of the movies in more than a decade it is just a guess - good one for you StevieJ. If I remember correctly it had right handed steering.

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Carl wrote: Ford Intercepter XB GT

Well, hate to admit it, but I have never heard if that car. I did a quick google and found that there were less than a thousand made. It looks like it has an early 70s Mustang frontend with an AMC Javelin backend.

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Carl wrote: unfortunatly have my own

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help out.

What OS?

The replacement graphics card is here!!!

Everything is almost back to normal - both monitors working perfectly - hard drive bigger and faster than ever. Still waiting on one replacement for a bad DIMM but I that's not stopping me from doing anything.

Now if we can just get your CD working again.

Hi Ron, Kraellin - using XP on a Dell dimension 8300 with pentium 4 [ the machines about 4 years old ] I tried your suggestion - no luck [ but did learn and turn off a program that irrataiting launched on start up ] and I think I know what caused it - a while back I got Vista because it allow me to write with a pen and translate into text and other bits and pieces using the tablet, on installing the program tells you will have to uninstall certain programs for installation to commence - there was programs that I wasn't going to be able to reinstall so decided along with the bad reviews not to update to vista, no installing was carried out but I'm pretty sure thats when the problem started - Dell has a resource cd to help with problems and install drivers etc - but of course it on cd - I went to there web page and tried to update driver but It tells me my drivers are up to date - they won't help unless I buy a service contract with them yeah thanks Dell
If either of you can help that would be wonderful

I have another problem at the moment that I'm not getting notification email from FF of postings and I've tried unsubscribing and resubscribing doesn't help so I won't know when or if youve responded so excusy if I don't respond quickly

Tried what you suggested and it did what you said it would but unfortunatly nothing fixed - thanks Ron for your help.

glad your back on track apart from your Dimm [ what ever that is LOL ]

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Carl wrote: nothing fixed

Sorry I couldn't help, I really wanted to. Maybe Kraellin will be along soon to do some proper diagnostics.

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Carl wrote: back on track apart from your Dimm

Yep. I am happy camper - thanks

I appreciate your help, if nothing else I learnt a bit more

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Hey ahimsa, Something I have been wondering about. When you buy a model do they typically come with UV maps? Also will they have skeletons and rigging as an option or is that something you have to add yourself. And one more thing, will they be sold with any non-linear animation bits or kinematics, for example, a walk cycle or facial expressions? It would be cool if they sold packages of animation just like they sell models. Btw, what have you been working on lately? Do you have any new 3D stuff I can look at?

Ok, I haven't slept yet so I am unable to remember if I know what the UV maps are. If you go to DAZ you can download their free models and look at them first hand.

http://free.daz3d.com/free_weekly/archive_list.php

Animation, facial expressions, and pretty much each and every detail of models seems to be broken up and sold seperately, but they are available. You buy Vicky...she is bald, naked, has base skin, and freaky eyes. You have to buy her skin, eyes, hair, and clothes. She costs more to dress up than a real person!

Hans has my site set up and will be adding what pics I have done there today or in the morning. (He is in Germany).

ahimsa I was just checking out that link you posted. Look tat this:

http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/popup/-...um=0&h=675

This has to be *our* Rawn. That's amazing! This is the closest to a celebrity I have ever been.
Now I will be too starstruck to post in his threads.

Yes, that is the same Rawn.

My site is still being set up http://home.arcor.de/isabella_nanette/

O and Steve hope you don't mind Ive highjacked your thread, no worries if you would prefer I start a separate thread or move it somewhere else

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Kraellin wrote: can you read other cd's and/or dvd's? can you see any data on any OTHER cd's? could just be that disc you bought is bad.

Can't read any cd - with dvds I can play or open up [ any ] to look at the files on the dvd

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Kraellin wrote: are you using the same cd now as you ripped from before or is it a different one?

Tried the same one and others - it like there is nothing in the tray

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Kraellin wrote: so, can you inspect ANY cd or dvd with windows explorer?

no cds - dvds yes

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Kraellin wrote: can you inspect that ONE cd with windows explorer?

no - as if no cd in drive

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Kraellin wrote: do ANY dvd's play automatically?

Yes no problem

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Kraellin wrote: do ANY cd's play automatically?

No

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Kraellin wrote: have you tried opening the case and putting your hand on the cd/dvd drive to see if it's VERY hot?

I nerviously opened the case and it seemed to be mildly warm - so I'd say no it's not hot

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Kraellin wrote: can you hear the drive spin up at all?

no - It makes a short sound several times then the icon disc on the screen disappears and it is silent - strangly dvds are not making the same amount whirling noise either [ it might be that I've not really paid attention to the sound previously ] like they use to but are playing perfectly smoothly

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Kraellin wrote: are all the plugs connected to the drive and securely so; no loose or hanging ones?

everything seem to be secure and it's nice and clean inside

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Kraellin wrote: when you did the aborted vista install, did you get any other errors from xp after that?

no nothing - ya know I get little bugs or crashes of programs occasionally but no different to before, and nothing that doesn't fix it self when reopening programs

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Kraellin wrote: is the cd/dvd drive a burner drive? and, if so, can you burn cd's still? dvd's?

yes it's cd/dvd burner.won't burn cds, well I thought it was a dvd burn as well but I can't find an option to burn dvd it say please insert cd when i've tried to rip from a dvd to be able to burn, it as I can't find any dvd stuff on my computer to test burn. Having not looked at the icon for the dvd/cd drive [ in the My Computer window ] before when playing something is it suppose to adopt the the name of the dvd [ in this case Tropfest] and no longer say dvd/cd - rw drive [d:]

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Kraellin wrote: if you have any games that require the cd to be in the tray, do those games still work?

Unfortunatly I don't have any games on the machine at the moment,[ tried loading on to machine ] tested Oblivion which is a DVD rom and it works, tried a cd rom game to load on machine it's as if nothing is in machine

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Kraellin wrote: do you have a 2nd drive that works or doesnt work also?

no I only have the one

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Kraellin wrote: do you have an old cd that still works, but isnt installed right now?

tested a few thing but they all behave like theres nothing in the tray

I hope something is of help - and thankyou very much for trying to help

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yes it's cd/dvd burner.won't burn cds, well I thought it was a dvd burn as well but I can't find an option to burn dvd it say please insert cd when i've tried to rip from a dvd to be able to burn, it as I can't find any dvd stuff on my computer to test burn. Having not looked at the icon for the dvd/cd drive [ in the My Computer window ] before when playing something is it suppose to adopt the the name of the dvd [ in this case Tropfest] and no longer say dvd/cd - rw drive [d:]

ok, when i say 'burn a cd', i mean burn TO a cd, not rip something off it. can you copy information from your harddrive ONTO a cd?

i've never heard of this happening, and i'm not totally familiar with cd/dvd combo technology, but it sounds like the drive is going bad. i'm still not sure yet, though. if you're putting a cd in the tray and trying to start it, and you see the little icon come up on the mouse cursor, windows is seeing the drive, at least in part. that you cant read anything on a cd also indicates a bad read/write head, but i dont know if the cd/dvd combos use the same read/write heads. so, that's inconclusive so far.

that you also uninstalled the cd drivers and reinstalled also says the drive may be going bad. cd drives are true plug and play. windows almost never has a problem with these. but, that you started having troubles around the time you aborted another o/s install is suspicious, but may also just be coincidental. so, nothing conclusive there either.

one thing you could try is uninstalling the driver again and then, before installing again, do a registry cleanup. no guarantees, though.

i've had several cd drives go bad over the years, and they almost always go partially at first. some little thing doesnt quite work right and then it gets worse. if you cant hear it spin up, that's a good sign that something's wrong. when you start windows especially, you shld be able to hear and even feel the drive spin up. and then you shld hear it spin down once windows has been up for a bit. drives are quieter these days, but not that quiet.

the absolute best recommendation i can give you is, get your hands on another drive and swap yours out. this will tell you in an instant if it's your drive or windows.

the one thing i can say is, it's not the cd's. if you tried an assortment you knew were working before and they all come up as not showing any data on the drive, then it's either the hardware or windows. so, that eliminates one possibility.

so, the best thing to do now is eliminate the other possibility, hardware failure. if you can get your hands on, borrow, beg, or whatever, another drive, do that. that will make this much easier.

the circumstantial evidence says it's your drive going bad. good that it's not hot, bad that it's 4 years old and bad that it's not apparently reading cd's. good that it's still reading dvd's. could still be a windows thing, but that's harder to test for and you've already swapped the drivers in and out. so, most signs point to hardware failure at this point.

so, go borrow a friend's drive, buy one from the store and return it within 30 days (you didnt hear me say that, but if your drive is bad, you're going to need it anyways), whateva. i have no magic diagnostic tool that will tell me the inner workings of a cd/dvd drive. it either works right or it doesnt. and since it's not working right, apparently....

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Kraellin wrote: i've never heard of this happening

Yeah, it happened to me before a couple of times..... Once by corrupted driver.....and another by suspending the driver in a hardware swap......

Something like that......the driver was there, got rejected for some reason and wouldn't read CDs, but still read DVDs like Carl's problem.....