Free High Res Content for DAZ Studio

I'm back on my graphics kick again, and just spent some time in DAZ 3.0, an unbelievable free piece of software. A couple of weeks ago I picked up a copy of 3DWorld magazine, and the October issue came with a CD with hundreds of dollars of software and resources, including a copy of DAZ 3 and a neat, high res image of a brain courtesy of Flat Pyramid.

The brain comes in a couple of formats, and the .obj was easily imported into DAZ Studio. I was impressed with detail and size of the object. In the image I created below using DAZ's Aiko Character, and I had to reduce its size to 0.03% to get it to fit into her head.

The texture comes in at 2048x2048 jpg file. Nice and slimy looking. A great piece for your 3d scientific imaging needs.

I've got a bit of free time, so I'm off to either play some Warcraft 3, or do some more rendering!

Enjoy!

Experience Dublin: Second Life Style

After all this time, it's hard to believe I've never tried Second Life. Second Life (SL) is a virtual world where you can take on a 3D avatar and wander a totally virtual world... but it's even harder to believe that even some techy people still ask what Second Life is. I bit the bullet last week, and have now logged in about 40 minutes of time, and its my current favourite thing. After my honeymoon in Dublin this summer, I've found and connected to a virtual Dublin, and I'm loving it.

(Click here to view the larger image)

I work at a post-secondary institution and I'm interested in Linden Labs' work on the Second Life Grid and how it can be used in academia. I'll be attending a workshop on SL on Dec 2 and I'm interested in seeing how its being used here in Canada, and I want to see if there is any potential for me to be involved in an SL project here in the future. I was trying to find some information on the speaker, but due to an mis-spelled Google Search, I ended up at a blog entry by Dan Power. Dan writes about his experiences setting a virtual Iowa and has even included a PowerPoint presentation he's put together. As a warning, the online slides he's using won't view very well unless you're using Internet Explorer.

A virtual world like Second Life has a wide variety of uses, and many universities are taking part in areas ranging from course delivery to recruitment. The question is how it can be adapted for my specific needs. And that is a question I would *love* to investigate.