djehmli's Blog

I am fascinated by Architecture, specifically ornate architecture, and luckily where I live, in this tri city area there are wondeful examples around just about every corner.  Unfortunately, like any city, my home town had the growing pains where folks moved out of the inner city, into the farm lands, and the inner city became ghettos.  Beautiful homes from the late 1800 and early 1900 are being systematically destroyed because of in fighting between the preservation societies and the city councils.

  Due to this stupidity homes that could be saved due to their historical significance have been left to rot, as required mainenance is not being allowed.  Over 72 victorian homes were on the preservation list, 49 of them were released to be demolished in August because they are now beyond the ability to preserve.  Like Detroit, soon our inner city will revert back to the river fronts and fields that they once were.

Below is an article about a mansion called the Webber House, it is a perfect example of this stupidity that continues today.  Please take an interest in your own home towns history and architecture, so much craftman ship and knowledge has already been lost, help stop it if you can.

Essay is copy write Public Libraries of Saginaw

She was 82 years old when she died. Children cried when they realized she was gone. It had been a four-year struggle to survive, but she didn't make it. Seventeen years after the death the newspaper still found that there were persons who remembered and mourned the death of "The Queen" as they described her.

The "Queen" had been the residence of William L. Webber and his family at 536 Millard in Saginaw. William L. Webber, who had been the attorney for Jesse Hoyt, made his home in the elegant mansion together with son-in-law James B. Peter. Originally, the mansion was being built by Chester B. Jones, but construction had been halted prior to the purchase of the property by attorney Webber. Mr. Jones, who had been a member of the East Saginaw Board of Education, had suffered some personal misfortunes. It is surmised by historians that these tragedies probably kept him from finishing the home. William L. Webber asked son-in-law James B. Peter if he thought the mansion would be adequate to serve both the Webber and Peter families as a residence, and they continued the construction project. In later years a legendary story about the original owner evolved, and the mansion became known as "Jones Folly." Most historians dismiss portions of the legend itself as folly.

The account of the fight to save this mansion from the wrecking ball is itself of legendary proportions. However, the Committee to Save the Webber Mansion lost the battle. Never before had the possible destruction of a mansion caused so much public controversy. The home in which the last surviving Webber family member was residing had been acquired by the Saginaw Board of Education about 1934 and was being used for office space. Made of brick and stone with 18-inch thick walls and 10-feet high double doors, the "Queen" and property occupied half a city block and was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Inside were marble fireplaces. There were 16 large rooms and several small rooms, among them a law library and a study on the third floor. Also on the third floor James W. Peter, Webber's grandson, kept a trapeze for workouts. There were servant quarters and a tower room. William Atherton, the caretaker for twenty-two years, used a special opening in the tower wall from which to hang the U.S. flag on holidays. At this home the Webber family had entertained William Howard Taft and other dignitaries. Webber, Peter, and Jones were three men who had been involved with the development of East Saginaw's educational system and library resources. It was an unfortunate day when the preservation committee brought suit against the Saginaw Board of Education over the rescue of the trio's former home. One resident called the destruction of this home an act of "official vandalism." It was reported that no architectural salvage company rescued its treasures and that everything went to a landfill. But over the years, some books from the Webber home had found their way into the collections of the Hoyt Public Library. And today Saginawians can find copies of East Saginaw council proceedings or books of city ordinances which bear the name William L. Webber on the inside cover. It has been said that people have forgotten about the Webber house, but even today there are Saginawians who read the history and see the pictures and ask, "How could they?"

To say I was stupified when I saw the invitation for Featured Artist is an understatement, did I drool and fret over Select Artist?  I'd be lieing to say I was not, but I never considered Featured.  I have all of you to thank for that.  The great thing about the type of items I enjoy converting from Real Life to the Sims is the never ending supply of ideas and inspirations.  It is absolutely fascinating seeing and hearing what some of you come up with when you use them.

I hope I do not disappoint you in the future, and please, continue to let me know what you would like to see.

I haven't given up on the meshing, I am just a perfectionist, which means I trash alot of my stuff when I probably shouldn't because it's just not 'right' yet.  Devil is in the Details!

I few of the falling down queen anne style homes in my area are being restored at the moment, you are probably going to see alot of that influence in the next few months.

Again, thank you sooooo much for all your support and feedback!

J

Thank you, all of you for your support and encouragement.  And thank you TSR for the honor of being chosen as a Select Artist, I am over joyed to be part of such wonderful group of artists.

Most of all I thank my Niece Kalikins, she was the one that introduced me to the sims originally (thank goodness!  That was alot of xmas and birthday gifts covered!) and it was her encouragement to submit my first patterns that got me addicted to creating for others as well as myself.

As I head out the door to start my holiday vacation, this was a wonderful gift to receive from all of you.  Thank you again, and may you all have a safe and wonderful weekend!

<hugs all around>

I am getting more familiar with my 3D program, which is blender.  Learning the key board short cuts sure makes designing fly. Starting to feel like I am playing the keyboard like a piano to an internal design voice.  As I've said in the last blurbs, I haven't even attempted to link any thing through import export or cloning into workshop then the game.  I am mainly concentrating on learning how to create my own meshes,  so I expect my learning curve to be steep for a while.  I am kinda the type of person who opens the box then reads the instructions later :)

Below is a render of the porch railing I have developed and put together and one of the ginger bread pieces, I am still having issues where certain regions touch together that I have to work out. I also will be dipping my toes into the UV mapping soon.  Then... <drum roll> importing from workshop the clone item.  I know if I was using milkshape, alot of that is already documented.  Obviously I like doing things the hard way as Workshop directly to Blender back to Workshop scripts are still being worked on.

Is this style of porch railing appealing to fellow Simmers?

 After almost two weeks of solid study and reading fun, I finally made a porch column that is almost perfect.  I have a few issues with the bottom (haven't created the base yet) and a couple odd pokey things that didn't disappear when I removed duplicate vertexes.  But!  At least it is standing straight and not leaning... (remembering that I can lock on the z axis would be really nice to remember, I actually had to put a sticky note on the corner of my monitor)

Once I figure out what I broke with the pokey thing, and can lathe up columns at will, I will start working with the import/export to Milkshape, then see what happens when it's applied to a clone.  I am still foggy on what I need to make sure follows the .obj file, so more reading for me!

Here is a picture of the alpha column.

First, The chair came out real nice, second, the UV map was.. interesting to say the least.  Show the chair Julie! Um nope.

So learning to mesh from scratch is turning out to be fun.  My stance is better to learn how to build from the ground up, then just altering a ready made mesh for now.  If I don't know how to fix my own mistakes, it will be highly probable that I will miss important items in a ready made model.

Meshing has also made me vulnerable to what can be a really bad habit.  If you use Photoshop or Paintshop Pro you may identify with the plugin, filter, brush, tubes and texture fetish where you just cannot seem to get enough for your collection.

Well.. I am finding myself starting to do the same for import/export scripts, Textures, Tools, and scale objects. I wasted my lunch googleing my way through the internet for tools and scripts. <grins sheepishly>

Back to my chair this afternoon.  It wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be, and the built in uv mapper in blender wasn't as scary/difficult a time as I had trying to figure out one of the recommended stand alone products. 

The more I mess around with this, the more ideas that start flowing through my head.  Stay tuned, you never know what this mad scientist might come up with.

<waves Goodbye>

I am playing with meshing.  Since I haven't opened up a mesh tool since Lightwave 6 (a college class that required me to recreate my car) I am a bit behind the eightball.

I have Milkshape and Blender, and for me, blender is more intuitive.  Don't ask why, it just is.  So I'll put up with the extra import export pain in the ascii later.

In today's tutorial I got to meet... well I call him George.  The Blender Wiki has such fun tutorials. (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro)

George started out as a simple cube, then something that resembled a bad day with scrabble ending with a cherry on top.  Finally his George ship began to take a really rounded shape.  The poor man's hips could put mamma Sincinelli to shame, and that belly! His feet were a bit short and his head defintely askew.  But he was my george in all his glorious jelly belly yumminess.

Now off to more challenges, supposedly next I am to create a hat, I wonder if George likes flowers?

<walks off whistleing>

One of my employees is on leave this month due to shoulder surgery, the young college student that is trying to cover for him is doing and excellent job, until he accidently placed a box of parts ontop of my glasses.. snap!  Now admittedly they probably shouldn't have been laid down in the middle of my desk, but I hate trying to stuff them inside of safety glasses when I have to be in the shop.

Anyhow, I made the appointment with the eyedoctor dutifully and headed into his office for new frames.  Lovely, someone misfiled me and they cannot locate my 20 year old files, must have been too thick for their new filing drawers!  Fill out all new forms and wander in for the tests.

Dr. Y grins when he is done and says "I have some good news and some bad news, the good news we have the contacts you need for your perscription right here.  The bad news is that your eyeglass perscription is totally different.  Miss J.. it's time for progressives!"

Argh.. bifocals.. NOOOOOO!

I Love my contacts, I can see, it's wonderful, they are terrific, but I cannot wear them at work.  I picked up the new glasses a few hours ago, and oh boy this is going to be interesting to get used to.  Look down to read report, look up to enter into database, dizzy for a few moments weeeee!

New patterns comeing this weekend, but please forgive me if they are a bit.. wavy or something.  I am going to blame it on the new eyeballs!

<hugs to all>  Hope you are having a wonderful week and a even better weekend.

I am sure many other creators are guilty of the same, you get caught up in that Lot design, or mesh, or texture, Sim, pattern or paint, and instead of playing Sims you find yourself constantly loading up that 'test' neighborhood.  The place where you don't have to worry about accidently breaking your favorite family with a whacked out experimental hair mesh or new counter.  (did you know that sometimes those hair meshes LOOK like counters?) <Boggle>

So here I am, with tons of my fellow creators objects downloaded, but not necessarily installed, always putting off Loading that legacy neighborhood I spent so much time on.  Never really taking the time to appreciate all that other have done and contributed because I am so focused on my own.

I ask myself how did I end up this way, Legacies and the family trees I used to lovingly create used to be my only pleasure with the Sims, why now do I ignore them for spending the Majority of my time in Photoshop?

Maybe it's because of the multitude of bugs that cost me two of my largest legacies. Maybe it's because I get frustrated that I have to use a Mod for true story progression.  Or maybe it's because I've discovered that there is just as much joy to be found in creating for the game as I once found in observing what occured in the game.

Whatever it is, someday soon I promise the Drew Family, The Harlson Family, the Myzer family and the Pocketz family that someday I will return and they will once again be able to babble away at each other and at me while I watch and guide them through their daily lives...

Oh wait, that home looks pretty blah, maybe it needs a good face lift, you know that texture I saw the other day at Joanns would look really nice here.. hmmm...

A big thank you to all the other creators here on TSR, when I do get back to playing, your creations are another reason I find such pleasure.

<hugs to all>