I discovered a new, tiny detail in Blender3D. It's a tiny thing that made a big difference. I was trying to make etches onto a cube with an image -- like engrave the image in. I wanted it to look like this: See, nice and clear! However, it was just looking like this: Much less… Continue reading Texture vs Point in Blender materials
Author: mh
Scicomm made polished, part 2
I was bemoaning the apparent lack of polish in my science animations and not quite understanding all the criticisms, but now it's a few days later, and something has dawned on me. I remember now reading people's blogs, and them saying all all their photos are put through pre-sets in Lightroom. Meaning every photo gets… Continue reading Scicomm made polished, part 2
How to make scicomm look polished
They say you should be open to feedback, and of course, of course, yes, yes. But ugh, I so hate being told that something I've done isn't "polished". I hate hate hate that. So I met with a designer yesterday, and I showed her this latest Twitter thread I made for work. And yes, after… Continue reading How to make scicomm look polished
Explosions in blender
I need to make an explosion in Blender for work. First I used this tutorial, which was only 7 minutes long, and I followed it easily and got the result. But then I decided it looked too cartoonish, so I went for this tutorial, which was 14 minutes long. So still quite short, and for… Continue reading Explosions in blender
All about pens
Today I saw an hour-long demonstration by a professor at Rice, all about pens. It was very interesting! He had a pen straight out of the 1800s, or 1700s. It doesn't look like a pen; it looks like something you'd have in a toolbox to scrape paint. It's a wooden stick to grip, and then… Continue reading All about pens
Honest feedback from kids
When I make animations with kids, part of the point is that other kids will want to watch the stories and learn something about the environment and about science on the way. Well, after I had finished "When Anders, Dilsa, and Reza were mean: a bird story" with the kids at a local summer camp,… Continue reading Honest feedback from kids
How to view Instagram photos past the new limits
(More accurately, how to stalk people on Instagram without having an account yourself.) I always derive so much joy from doing this. And in fact, my Instagram-stalking skills came to my aid when I worked as a writer at WIRED for a summer. But recently, Instagram made it harder to stalk people. They made it… Continue reading How to view Instagram photos past the new limits
Public transportation in Houston
Everyone says public transportation in Houston is horrible. I've lived there now for a few months, without a car, and it's not as bad as everyone makes out. There's some real positives, in fact -- but there also are some real drawbacks. I'd say the biggest drawback is that you really cannot get out into… Continue reading Public transportation in Houston
Configure Windows laptop without making a Live account
I was setting up a new laptop, and it was a Windows system laptop. I guess that means the Microsoft spy tentacles are already buried all over the place. But then the Microsoft spy tentacles wanted to ensnare themselves even further -- way more than I wanted. Have you ever tried to configure a brand-new… Continue reading Configure Windows laptop without making a Live account
What if you forget to write the zip code on a piece of mail?
I dropped three postcards in a rush into a blue mail pick-up bin in Union Station in Los Angeles on a Monday evening in December. In my hurry, I had forgotten to write the zip code of the delivery address on two of those postcards (I wrote the addresses down from memory, and meant to… Continue reading What if you forget to write the zip code on a piece of mail?
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