Windows Live Essentials beta

 

 

i am currently trying out windows live essentials beta and am fairly impressed by the integration.. it was a simple matter to setup all my email accounts (gmail and hotmail included) with windows live mail and the new photo gallery is great… except that it “saves” any changes you make to a picture without asking you

the revert button soon fixes this but it still annoys me

windows live writer seems to work well, its pretty seamless with blogger

 

my first annoyance was discovering that the new Movie Maker Beta was only for windows Vista… and i use XP pro

my main gripe is that windows live mail takes longer to download  some emails and pictures than just going to hotmail through your web browser (but i like how i just had to type my gmail account details in and it automatically setup imap and everything else

 

 

i will be keeping an eye on this package and hope to see it improve with the official release

Technorati Tags: windows,live,windows live essentials beta,windows live,messenger beta,windows live mail,hotmail,vista,Windows XP

how to get the latest ATI driver on a laptop

for those of you who have a laptop you may find that the drivers from the manufacturer are not the latest and ATI doesn't allow you to install the latest driver

the workaround is quite simple

download this file http://www.driverheaven.net/frontpage/modtool/MMDotNETSetup1110.zip

(from http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php) and install it

then go to http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html and download the latest DESKTOP driver for your card (usually there is a desktop and laptop version of each card model, in my case the Radeon series)

run the installer for the ati driver and it will extract some files to C:\ATI

once the extraction is done it will launch the installer, cancel this and run Mobility modder.


in mobility modder click on browse and browse to :\ATI\SUPPORT\8-11_xp32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_70226 (the last part changes a bit depending on OS and driver version)

hit OK

click on Modify in mobility modder and wait for it to finish

if your graphics card has MORE than 128mb click on settings (in mobility modder again) and then browse

got to either one of these locations:

Windows XP Driver = C:\ATI\SUPPORT\"Driver Version"\Driver\2KXP_INF or XP_INF or XP6A_INF

Windows Vista Driver = C:\ATI\SUPPORT\"Driver Version"\Packages\Drivers\Display\LH_INF or LH6A_INF

and select the .inf file

now choose your card and graphics memory in settings and click modify


once this is done open My Computer and navigate to

C:\ATI\SUPPORT\8-11_xp32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_70226 (or similar) and open setup.exe


once the install is done just restart and it should be fine


remember to uninstall previous ATI stuff from add remove programs beforehand

Audi TTT roadster

Hi

here is some images of the Audi TTT i am modelling

i started a few hours ago and have got  a fairly clean base mesh now
(as you can see in the images)

now i have to start detailing around the doors, headlights, tail lights and modelling all the other accessories such as windscreen wipers

more updates tommorow,

enjoy

here is a photo of the original car

 my model...

fire hydrant

hi

here is some images showing a project i have been working on now and then since i started learning 3d modelling

eventually this model will have full facial features and be able to talk.. and do some basic movement.. but for now its just a standard hydrant xD

just catching up on lost time by posting some old images ;)

here is the environment for a scene i have been planning (most of the textures are just place holders for the real ones and i am still adding detail to the scene)




the glass-topped table needs a different render techniqe (notice how the edges of the table reflect much more than they should and appear to be disjointed from normal glass) this is because the renderer is treating it like a normal glass surface.... not the edge of the glass which is usually dark and not as reflective

3d Waves

some testing i have been doing using some simple wave models and shaders

here we have about 4 different colors i tried

many of them have a plastic look to them which is not benificial to its feel





I am planning to add spray effects and make the waves larger in comparision to the scene
(once i have got the shader looking correct)






a blog that recently came to my attention for their interesting 3d animation