Zurawski

I was sooooo afraid to open this thread for fear of seeing an Anal-Buster 2000 with remote I almost turned off my PC.

What I find funnier is that little-lost-sheep who apparently lost contact with their flight group.

Alright... I'm pissed and standing of a soapbox. I read this article this morning and for me it's the last straw: HUFFINGTON POST LINK In this article, this families daughter died at the result of Facebooking while driving. Now the family is making noise in regards to making Facebooking illegal. While I am sympathetic to the families loss and I in no way condone Facebooking while driving... I am furious with the current mind-set that anything "bad" should by proxie also be considered "illegal". This kid used poor judgement, paid the price for it with her life but somehow it's Facebooks fault for providing her a means to do so?! I am so sick and tired of people not accepting responsibility for their actions and or inactions and choosing to displace blame on everyone and everything else, creating bally-wick legislation and bills to effectively "protect us from ourselves". I've watch several similar developments like this in Wisconsin... One where a motorist stopped to help another person with a disabled vehicle on a bridge. The person was struck by another vehicle and was thrown from the bridge to their death. Now there is efforts underway to mandate the installation of a 14ft high fence spanning the length of the bridge. SERIOUSLY? Again, while this was a tragic accident, it was a freak occurrence that has never happened before over the lifetime of the bridge... Yet, its logical and practical the foist unnecessary cost burden upon the city and the taxpayers for something like this!!! Another (Yeah, I'm on a roll)... Kids playing near a swollen runoff canal... they fall in and drown. Tragic loss... Family wants a 14 ft. fence installed along the length of the entire canal system (Miles mind you) Ugh... Another "feel-good" resolution to placate a grieving family. Long and short... Our society has become so quick to displace blame instead of accepting the fact that some accidents happen... occasionally as a result of poor judgement and or outright stupidity. It is not the state or the governments job to protect stupid people from themselves... Meanwhile, Good, practical commons-sense laws designed to protect the many and not just the few... I don't know... drunk driving laws, child predator laws and drug offender laws are handled flippantly and with general morass. WTHell has become of my country and a rising percentage of the population? I'm at a loss.... but I feel better having vented. You may now commence beating me about the face and neck for being insensitive and uncaring.

No law is worth the spit used to wet the quill if it's not enforced... Like I said, the laws are already there. Giving it a name and by proxy creating a redundant law does not give it any more teeth. All it does is weaken the judicial system because when you give it a "name" it losses it's global empowerment because it's protectorate become focused on that single infraction. Gun laws don't stop criminals from carrying guns... Drunk Driving laws don't stop habitual offenders and in this case... Texting while driving laws will not stop the self-absorbed morons from texting while driving. That said... these laws might work if the punitive damages were damaging and were enforced with strict application. Sadly, we are saddled with a criminal justice system where the criminals have more rights than those who they prey upon. Drunk drivers are released to re-offend with little real repercussion until they kill someone. Child predators are released and almost instantly re-offend, stealing the innocence of children or outright destroying their lives, futures and the souls of their parents. Why? Because some panty-waist wine sipper who believes they are more evolved than the rest of us, label these blights on society with made up illnesses, coddle them and blindly commit to throwing copious amounts of money at fancy rehabilitation programs designed to help them... Meanwhile the rest of us have our pockets picked by the government to support these worthless programs under the pretense than they can be made into model citizens... A population of debtors? Not sure if you've looked around lately but every civilized nation in the world is beholden to it's government looking for social support, debt amnesty and absolution for being burdens on the tax system. The US is definitely not alone... I know I'm waxing poetically but there was time when a man didn't want anything he could not provide for himself, his word was his bond and held no one but himself responsible for maintaining his moral compass... Sadly we live in world where most everyone is looking for the next hand-out, cannot be trusted any further than you can throw them and have no moral compass because the society intelligentsia allows them to live with little fear of repercussion.

I stand corrected... Facebooking while driving... The laws are already in place... it's called inattentive driving or driving while distracted. Why is it necessary to label it and put yet another redundant law on the books. Simple... People want to have something to blame for their stupidity and arrogance. I will not allow you to attempt drag this into a "bad government" argument... This is not a case of bad government, bad fiscal governmental or a prolonged war. This is nothing more than the government placating societies inability to shoulder their own personal responsibilities. If you want to pidgin a "bad-guy" let's look at the blood-sucking lawyers who help push forward frivolous bills like these examples so they have yet another opportunistic vehicle to gouge individuals, companies and governmental agencies alike!

Okay... Working on the F-86H (Hawg) I've got two conflicting sources in regards to the fuel-tank pylons... One source says they jettison with the fuel tank, one says they remain on-wing. Any of you learned scholars have any meat and potatoes on this subject? Thanks in advance... even if you have no useful information and simply choose to poke fun at me!

Appreciate the offer ma'friend... Got the Warbird tech-manual as well as the Duncan F-86 tech manual (Good reads, but both are short on H stuff)... Amazing how some birds of this era are rift with data... while others like the H are pretty scarce relatively.

Just a little "visual update" to let everyone know I'm still breathing... and so is the Hawg. Nowhere near done... but she's starting to look real pretty to these bloodshot eyes!

Thanks! Some progress pics here: Progress Images

Thanks for the offer... I might very well take you up on that! I'm not ashamed to state unequivocally that my digital painting skills are only rivaled by a cross-eye finger painter!

I'm working on my bumpapping skills... Sadly, like my textures, they suffer from the 3rd-grader with a fat crayon syndrome that I'm famous for...

Thanks guys... I'm about 99% done model wise and will then be turning to texturing... which honestly I'd rather have an rash in my nether-region than do. Thankfully, I stumbled upon a few new tutorials and a couple tools than is supposed to make my life easier... We shall see. BTW... since I have lots of peoples attention right now... What is the communities consensus (Since I think I only have the internal fortitude to do one scheme myself): 1.) Bare metal (Shiny Aluminum) 2.) 3/4-tone SEA scheme

Brilliant! Something long needed for these birds. Dziekuje!

Failing to bring roses AND delivering an automatic weapon... You sir are one brave Jedi! That will end soon when she realizes has to continually sweep and mop the thing to keep it looking shiny and new...

Say Hello to my little friend!

LOL! Sorry... but that made me think of this: SAFE FOR WORK PORN

Hmmm.... You guys are thinking too limited in scope! (Let's see if this works)... I bet the next batch of screen shots are rift with geek-p0rn! If we get a pic of a LSO in a babbydoll nighty I'll deuce a brick!

Just need to vent to people who might understand... (Mrs. Z has absolutely no frame of reference nor appreciation.) Is it just me or does everyone else who works on 3d models find it absolutely frustrating to take a beautifully laid-out mesh where you've carefully positioned quad seams to avoid pinching where you know you have to cut say... a air-brake door, only to watch in horror when you start actually cutting and your mesh smoothing starts to go to hell in a hand basket! Finally got it but MAN... nothing like wasting 2-to-4 hours cutting and snapping verts because you're anal-retentive and refuse to let the bastard pinched surface smoothing beat ya! WHEW! Thanks that I feel better already!

I have a pet prawn called Simon... you wouldn't call me a loony!

Ah yes... The L-Class Diver, the Navy's effort to develop a "green" sub hunter! This prototype is better known to the general public as the Loon. It's development has been marred by various boycotts instigated first by PETA and then Green Piece for obvious animal rights concerns. This picture is especially interesting in that is shows the Loon armed with the experimental parasitic recon drone the UAV-Chickidy. While not nearly as heavily armed as other UAV's, the Chickidy is the only organic UAV in the US inventory. The L-Class Diver is considered the Navy's premier example of stealth technology. It's diminutive size, lack of a traceable heat signature and "silent running" technology makes it a deadly sub-hunter in deed. At sea, the L-Diver is easily recognized by it's unique acoustic signature when it's sounding for submerged vessels.

Hey FC, What you see above is close to your example. The convex "ports" are separate elements. It's the initial cuts that were kicking my proverbial arse. When I did the original Sabres, their ports were part of the nose mesh... I got away with that because the mesh where the ports were was essentially planar... With the Hawg, this same area (Because I'm using a much higher poly count) is convex both horizontally and vertically and wouldn't you know it... the ports were positioned literally smack-dab in the middle of it. Looking at the above example I'm sure some of you look at it and go "you could snap at least a dozen of those verts and clean that right up... truth is, I had to keep those few odd, poly-quads in place to hold the smoothing because snapping the verts caused stretching / pinching which obviously created all kinds of ugly shadows... Right now I'm fighting a similar beast at the air-brake cutout because it's "exactly" where the fuselage transitions / lofts from a triangle'ish shape into a cylindrical shape heading to the exhaust port. What sad times we live in when roughian polygons are allowed to intimidate smoothing groups...

Despite coming late to the party and not bringing the requisite Spam and eel casserole... We offer unto you the best Christmas wishes as well!

No need to kick up a fuss, dear; I'll have your Spam. I love it!

Great... "I Win" What the hell am I going to do with a years supply of spam? >> And the forum erupts into a chorus of Monty Python's rendition of the SPAM song... <<

Taking into TK's propensity to avoiding actually answering questions... The Acronym is fairly obvious... SF2:NA (No Answer)