The Spiro collection - Making of

It's in no way a perfect render, but this was the 3d scene that I was referring to in my Zone post. This set was modeled by me which I did so by referring to this real world collection here. The collection consists of a Spiro Bar Stool, a Bistro (italian for pub) Table and a Spiro Tea cart. Found this one after googling for table sets images and loved the simple elegance.

I posted a small tutorial on this in a small forum because, though simple it is, the table seemed to be baffling to one of the members. So, I am posting the tutorial here too, incase someone reading this needed a pointer on how I made this. So here goes.

At first attempt, I struggled a lot not knowing how to create the table. Here's my preliminary attempt:

This picture, which is grossly wrong, was pretty difficult for me and was made as shown in this screenshot:
I first created "guide circles" (those scaled up circles in the side views.). Then in the front view I drew a line with as many vertices as there are guide circles from the bottom circle to the top one. Then in the top view I just moved the vertices of the line so that it conformed to each circle at different angles. It's kinda difficult to explain but I guess u will understand from this. This method was so tedious and error prone that I was struggling with it for more than an hour.

The later, more faithful, version of the table was made this way:

I just created the four inner, curved legs that u can see to set the scale of the table. Then I drew out a Helix on the top view and modified its height in the side view so that it forms a good shell over the four rods (For the helix parameters, see the above screenie). Then, I edited the helix at the bottom side to make it look more like the one in the reference photo. Since in the reference table there are 4 legs with two helix per leg, I rotated and cloned the helix 45deg seven times.
This method only took me 5 minutes to make this table.


Actually, the entire scene is made from lines (well, splines) that were given a renderable thickness value. It would've been difficult to the same with 3d solids.

For the material, I used the default Brushed metal. The rendering environment was set to uffizi_probe.hdr from debevec.org. If u had tried to learn to light a scene, you would've known that lighting is so tuff. So I didn't bother much with it. Just used one sunlight with final gather set to 700. This means you don't get to see sharp Caustics and control over shadows, but this method has, as I found out, the best mix of realism and speed.

For the cloth, I just used the default "carpttan.jpg" as diffuse and bump in an architectural material with template set to 'Fabric'. It is my default way of creating a cloth. For the cushion, I used a chamfered box with meshsmooth and a lot of fillet segments.

Hope it helped someone. (I know this is expecting too much as I don't have a lot of readership, but I've got to keep alive the hope.)

In da Zone.

I always lock myself in my room with my computer and very rarely go to that big room called "Outside", you know, the one with a very bright yellow-white bulb and lotsa concrete structures. (Infact, I must be the only kid in my friend circle who had the honour of his parents asking hopelessly to "go roam the streets"). Though I've started to go to a local Gym for some time now, I usually release my pent up energy by jumping, walking, running in-place in front of the mirror, or, if I am extremely annoyed/exhilarated, punch the walls in my bedroom with my knuckles a couple-a times.

The other day, I had just finished creating a 3D scene which I thought will inevitably join the list of unfinished 3d scenes. So I was euphoric, especially because the render turned out not-so-ugly too. So I was punching the wall a few times listening to iTunes, while I remembered my new gloves distributed in the Gym to aid in lifting barbels. I donned one on my right hand and punched once with my usual reserved force. This was when I made my mistake of thinking that the padding might protect me no matter what the force is. So there was I, punching with all my might into the wall a few times.

But was there pain then? Nope. There was no pain at all. This encouraged me to sock it to the wall a few more times. It's needless to say, I still have terrible pain over my knuckes though it's been a few days now. I don't know if they have cracked or not, but the color of the skin there has changed a bit to the darker side.

But wait, Why didn't I feel anything? Why did the pain wait for sometime to be felt? What was going on in my mind?

Here's another such experience in my life. When I was in sixth or seventh (I really don't remember) standard, I had joined a local karate class. I was attending this class for a year, I guess, and obtained an Orange belt. Shortly before my Master decided to start a new class somewhere else, he made us participate in a karate tournament. It was an awesome experience, needless to say. But I was throughly distraught at the possiblity of facing a well placed round-house kick from some of the l33t black belts there. I remember that in the first round, I sparred with an equally matched opponent. But I bet him by some points. This boosted my confidence to high levels.

In the second round, I was again sparring with someone of equal stature to me. Punches were exchanged and kicks were dealt. I was concentrating so much on landing left punches (of which I was famous for in my karate class) on my opponent that I had barely noticed any other thing. I heard no sound. I saw no faces peering from all around us. I saw no referee(or whatever he is called) moving close by us.I had no realization of whether I am within the sparring ring line that I was not supposed to cross. There was no nagging thought about home, doubt of losing, how bright the light is, what people are thinking about me right now, does my stature make me look awkward or not, etc. I was doing the only thing that I was supposed to be doing: defeat the opponent.

Then came the whistle.

This shook me up. Suddenly, as though someone has turned the master volume of the world up, the loudspeaker from the results of the sparring ring next to me, the cries of encouragement and suggestions to land a round-house kick from the eager crowd, the call of the referee towards him, plastic bags and covers crinkling as their owners took out snacks from them and everything else could suddenly be heard. My eyes too seemed to have suddenly recognized the world as if for the first time since I got there. The referee had called us because one of us had stepped out of the ring (i don't remember which one of us, clearly).

But the damage has been done. I feared that state of nothingness and actually felt a bit stupid. This loosened me up considerably and I lost to my opponent.


What is this state of automatic response by the body and mind to the present situation? I didn't know it then, but this is when psychologists say that you are "In the Zone".

What is this 'zone' thing? (And where are you when you are not in the zone?)

It is the state where your are performing automatically, kinda pre-programmed. Mostly, soldiers and athletes NEED to be in the zone. To give you a glimpse of what athletes and sports people experience when they are at their peak, take the everyday activity of brushing your teeth. For almost as long as you can remember, you have been brushing your teeth in the morning (and night, if you are unlike me). Now, can you think of someday when you have been on your way to your work and suddenly wonder whether you had brushed your teeth or not? Then there you go, you've been in the zone, albeit a smaller one than what hte atheletes occupy.

So being in the zone means that your body and mind are performing at their peak. You may think that it's certainly a good thing, and you won't be wrong. But how to acheive this state of harmony? Certainly not in an easy way.

Since your mind and body are involved, getting in the zone needs you to train them together. For the body, as hinted in the above example involving brushing, practising to the point of automation is the only way in. For the mind, you need to practice zen meditation. Don't worry, zen meditation, according to my Max Excel guide atleast, "is the easiest to do, although none of us practice". Zen means to "live in the present". In other smaller key word terms; concentration, feeling challengd, confident, being positive and calm.

How you acheive all those at the same time, is through another keyword: dedication. I guess it will be clear now why athletes seem like a well oiled machine at their activities. Writing an exam, computer gameing, driving a car, eating food (i guess), etc are some of the automatically programmed sequence of movements that we access, much like calling a pre-made function that can be called by the program. This is definetly faster and efficient than when it has to figure out a new way of doing it.
Perhaps your life was littered with such events and was bewildered like I was. Now, I guess, you know what it means.

(originally posted: Aug09)

A simple matter of Evolution.

Someone sent me this above picture among others for me to get a few laughs. Unfortunately, I couldn't decisively conclude on the author's message. So I let my right-brain run amuck and came up with a few good candidates for the author's intention. Here are some that I can come up with:

I guess this one's talking about stature of the depicted person (coz I don't believe that everyone's using computer in that particular way) which has returned back to the one characteristic of the primate to the extreme left.

Another way of interpreting this would be that the mobility of human beings is on the decline. (I can imagine an AD with the above picture and another one below it depicting the latest human using a palmtop standing straight and walking around as well, as a promotion for palmtops.)

Or maybe the picture is depicting a world where humans evolved but chose not to wear anything, even after reaching the info age, and the words below as saying that something on earth went wrong because we on earth wear clothes. (Maybe an AD for a Nudist Club?)

Or, maybe the author is all for a hairy guy and wonders what went wrong as the humans got lesser and lesser hair coat than the chimps.

Or, maybe it is talking about the too abrupt shift from Hard tools (spear, jackhammer, etc) to soft tools like the computer, and the comment can be taken to be wondering what made the sudden shift.


Perhaps the real meaning is not for me to know :)
I guess I have too much free time.

How would you like your probablities? Relative or absolute?

After my previous post on quantum theory idea, I went through a lot of emotions: 'uncertain', 'kinda stupid', 'I-shouldn't-have-posted-this', sleepy, and then 'hmmm-there-could-be-something-in-this..' and then 'whatever'.
But I didn't know if whether I am correct or not. So take this with a grain of salt (and pepper too, really, it's ur call).

It's a very simple and small thing, which is why ofcourse I am building up towards it with all these fluff. Ok, imagine someone throwing a ball straight up. Let's say that this someone is doing the said innocuous activity in the USA, so that it is easy to imagine when I say that he is being spyed upon by a camera mounted on a street-side pole. This camera observes the ball travelling at 10km/hr.
Let's say an Alien spaceship that was passing near the earth had suddenly stopped because their fuel had run out (poor them) and they were watching the earth with Acme Super Magnifier at this now almost-popular someone in the USA, at this exact same moment.
The aliens will notice that the ball was thrown at almost 107,005 km/hr, much to their surprise, by a puny mud-man.

Ofcourse, their surprise wouldn't have lasted a few milliseconds because they would've worked out the revolution speed of earth on which the mud-man was enjoying a ride himself (which is, ofcourse, 107K km/hr).

Now the moral of the story is that we have to add the speed of the "platform" or frame of reference to get the absolute speed. But getting the absolute speed here was possible only because I take it that that's the absolute speed of the earth. I don't know if considering the possiblity of bubble universe theories, which would've meant that the universe itself might be translating in it's mother universe, would've changed the speed of every object.
(Of the Bubble universe theories that I know of, one says that universes are made in clusters, much like bubbles in a foam. Another theory says that bubbles of universes form inside a much bigger universe to explain the uniformity of the present universe ("uniformity of matter in the present universe" is in itself a much bigger and interesting concept). Sounds like some pot-smoking-60's-hippy created theory? Tell me 'bout it.

Now, if u have read my this post over here, which I somehow doubt that any soul other than me did, you could've gotten a fleeting glimpse of what I am arriving at. Basically, I thought that if parallel universes suggested by quantum theory is how I imagine it to be, then you can imagine the universe you (THIS you) exist is one of the (temporal)leaves of an immense tree that branches out whenever a chance exist in that universe.

Now to tie "relativity" and quantum physics together. Imagine our world is shrunken down to sub-atomic level and that u are banging your head on the walls of your sub-atomic house. Now according to quantum tunnelling, even though you don't have enough energy to smash the walls with your head and enter your house, there is a finite probablity that you will eventually do go through the wall without breaking the wall and head (Kinda like "no clip" cheat code in games. Get it? I don't either). This happens only when your energy level and the wall's has a small difference. But the probablity is very small. Let's imagine, for our sake, that the probablity is 0.1, so as to avoid writing too many zeroes. This is what I am calling "relative probablity", if there can be such a thing.
Relative to what? The big tree of probablity that I was talking about, ofcourse. So what is the probablity that we are looking for in this tree? It is the probablity of THIS universe being possible. Add to this probablity the 0.1 that we assumed, and you will get what I call "absolute probablity" (again, if there can be such a thing) for you to quantum-tunnel yourself into your house in our little thought experiment without smashing anything.

Rest assured, that even if what I supposed was correct, this probablity should be so small that it can be ignored completely and still things will work the same as they have did. After all, when u are on earth, there is little difference if the earth is moving at 30km/sec or at 30.1km/sec (except for projectile calculations, ofcourse).

[Edit: Oops, I've rushed it. The way to calculate the current unverse's probablity of existence should be using "Particular probablity", not direct addition.]


Referred this wonderful lecture for earth rotation and its effects. Read the other lectures in that site too.
I also recommend u read this simple explaination of quantum tunnelling. Read the wiki on this too.
For bubble universes, I could point you to this explaination on the web, but I suggest reading a good simple book on the subject. I am reading Time Travel in Einstein's Universe and Stephen hawking's books on universe and stuff.