Jeff Patton JeffPatton Location: Lexington, USA Language(s):
English Member Since: August 2002 Last Updated: 29 June 2008 Portfolio Views: 484640 Chosen as Favorite: 303
Nice of you to share that tutorial of the airport! I think alot of people can agree with that one. Weren't there any Mental Ray users at the airport to speed up the waiting time?
I feel your pain man. Next time i'm taking the bus. It would probably get me to my destination a lot quicker and i'd know my luggage was underneath me at all times.
Our trip to England a couple months ago was HELL! Let me break down our trip for you so you don't feel so bad about yours.
Leaving for England From LAX we were delayed an hour and they put us on a last minute flight to Atlanta which we thought was going to save us a ton of time. On our way to Atlanta, we ended up flying 3 full circles over Alabama without any notice of why we were doing so from the pilot or co-pilot. We then had to stop in Alabama to re-fuel the plane in order to get to Atlanta at all (not even on time) By the time we got to Atlanta, we missed our flight, but our INITIAL FLIGHT FROM LAX was on time and they made their flight. The next flight out was the next day at 3PM, keep in mind that we were in Atlanta that night at 8PM so we had to pay for a hotel room because they were only willing to give us a discounted rate, not even comp us a single night in a hotel. This turned out alright because we talked a couple of Delta people into pushing our tickets back an extra day so that we wouldn't lose any time in England and we also got a night in Atlanta, and the day to explore downtown. Through all that, our bags arrived fine to my surprise.
Leaving Manchester, every went perfectly smooth flight wise. Nothing was delayed and we even got to see our bags in Atlanta when we re-checked through customs. So I was content knowing that we'd be back on time and have our bags there with us. Sure enough we get to LAX and one of our bags is missing. Of course it's the most expensive peice of luggage that we own and it's also the bag that we had ALL of our clothes in and ALL of the stuff that we bought in England as well. They couldn't tell us anything other than "your bags are on their way and should arrive in a day or so" Well, good thing, we ended up getting them back but it took them a week to get it to us.
Lol I feel your pain. It really sucks. I had about the similiar experience you had except I didn't have to stay at a hotel. When I flew to Washington DC from Oklahoma to visit my girlfriend. I lost my luggages so when I arrived to Washington DC I had to report it. So after that I went to see my girlfriend at her dorm at an University. I have asked the person at the counter if they can deliever my bags to the dorms, and they said yes they can... which didn't happen. So we had to call to see what's up since I had no extra clothes to wear.. I had to wear the same clothes for 4 days.. Ugh! But my girlfriend was sweet enough to wash my clothes so they'd be fresh. After we contacted the airport about my bags they informed us that the security at the University won't let the deliever person to bring in my bags bc I am not an student of this University. So when it was time to go back home, I went to the counter about my bags. They had them so I picked them up and went onto my flight back home. The flight had to stop at a town in Conn. There I went to the next gate, the flight is announced to be canelled. I was like oh gee.. my lagguage is already on the way to Oklahoma while I'm stuck in Conn. The lady at the counter found me a other flight to catch which head straight to my hometown instead of Oklahoma which I accepted. So I jumped onto that flight and got home. I had to have my parents to come pick me up since I'm truck-less now. The next day I had to have somebody to bring me to Oklahoma to pick up my lagguages and my truck. When I arrived, the person at the counter almost wont give me my lagguages back. Finally after a several minutes of agruement with the person at the counter, I finally got my lagguages back. Now I have to go pick up my truck and since the truck has been there for an extra day I had to paid more fees for having it parked there. That weekend is one sweetest weekend I've ever head (NOT!) I wasn't happy at all but had to think positive. So that's my story that happened to me two months ago.
It's a shame what the airline business has turned into over the last decade. I just don't see how people that travel frequently cope with all the hassle from these airlines that have completely lost sight of what matters most to them....the customers. The bus (or train) actually sounds pretty appealing these days.
Wow those skydome is very nice. I've had a techique I'd come up with (But doesn't work as great as that techique) I didn't use Physical Sky to get my background bitmap to show up. I just removed the Physical Sky from Enivorment Map and replaced it with an paranomia sky. I just set the Mr Sun and Mr Sky to .01, turning off the Exterior Daylight in Log. Exposure. Then there it goes, I get a nice, clearer background scene than if I added the background image into Physical Sky and turn up the output. But the problem is.. if I set the Paranomia Sky as enivorment sphere map, the background looks horrible and over stretched. So I just used Screen and stretch it a little. I like your techique much better than what I came up with. I'm surprised we're able to bring some of the shaders into Max 9 from Max 2008.
Hey since the production shaders works with 3.4 versions and above in Mental Ray. Is it possible to bring in the new photo. exposure control into Max 9?
Thanks for all the blog entries - they're always very useful. Can you give some advice on using the new Sky Portal. Should you be using it with FG only or can you still combine GI as well. I'm struggling to work out where i should be controlling the photons. In the mrSun or in the mr Sky portal settings.
