Computer > SYSTEM (C:) > ProgramData > Microsoft > Windows > Start Menu

or using the actual file path, as;

C:/ProgramData/Microsoft/Windows/Start Menu/

Additionally, individual start menu user profiles are now stored in the following location;

[user name] > AppData > Roaming > Microsoft > Windows > Start Menu

Or using the actual file path as;

C:/Users/[user name]/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Windows/Start Menu/Programs/Startup/

Because of the way Vista is set up, it's not generally possible to 'tidy' the Start Menu like you could with Windows XP by simply using "drag & drop" to re-order the files and shortcuts in the start menu itself; they now have to be edited directly from the Start Menu 'storage' directory.

It's also a 'hidden system file' which means it can't be seen under normal Windows operation. To fix that open up Windows Explorer (Start > Accessories > Windows Explorer) and do the fillowing;

• With Windows Explorer open, click on the "Tools" menu and then "Folder Options..." ("Tools > Folder Options...")
• In the pop-up window that opens, click the "View" tab to display the 'view options' for folders in Windows.
• In the "Advanced settings:" panel (has a list of text and check boxes) find "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)", select the item or click in the check box to deactivate that options - there should be no tick/check in the checkbox
• A "Warning" will appear, simply click say "Yes" to this (click the button marked "Yes").
• Hidden files will then be visiable.
• Once done adjusting the Start Menu following the same procedure but 're-selecting' the checkbox above will re-hide system files.

Because the subject of visualisation and the use of a 3D application in this context is too large a subject to be covered in a single book, the author has chosen to focus on the core skills and expertise needed to build architectural content; the reader is taken through the initial 'first use' of Blender, and rather than bog the user down with explaining all the features of the application, he instead concentrates on explaining the tools and different aspects of Blender 3D that are likely to be used within the context of the books content and the construction of man made objects.

Once that grounding is in place and readers comfortable with Blender, the new skills are progressively put to the test through a series of examples that aim to produce a couple of simple building related structures and furniture objects. Everything is purposefully kept simple; simple forms, simple shapes and focused content creation - at every step of the way the user is kept 'grounded' so as not to be overwhelmed with too much information in one go, helped by the brief summaries that 'bullet-point' what was learnt at the end of each chapter.

This progressive principle of taking the reader through various exercises will have artists using 'measured units' to build structural shells, doors and windows, simple furniture objects, as well as applying material and textures, UVW unwrapping, lighting and animation, plus some basic post-processing using a 2D photo editing application (in this case GIMP). Overall, the book covers every stage of the process in enough detail and in such a straightforward manner that it makes for an essential guide to artists new to using Blender 3D for the purposes of architectural rendering.

The only main downside, from the point of view of an educational book, is the omission of a content DVD/CD with sample files and other miscellaneous assets used and discussed in the book; if that were provided it would bump the score up and make it a much more useful book than it already is. I would certainly encourage Packt Publishing to consider that option - even as an additional file download. [EDIT - 18 July 08] I've since found out that you can indeed download a c.20MB "sample file" containing source material to accompany the books content. Only available on purchase of book.

NOTE: this review is based on the printed version of Blender 3D: Architecture, Buildings and Scenery. An 'ebook' version is available which is in full colour (c.12MB download).

Front cover of Allan Brito's book,, "Blender 3D: Architecture, Buildings and Scenery".

Close up showing the quality of the images included in the book.

• Pros
  • Project examples are straightforward.
  • Easy to grasp explanations.
  • Focuses on core skills and doesn't bog the reader down with too much information.
  • Broken down into sections relative to progression through a project.
  • Practical exercises clearly explained.
  • Suitable for anyone to read.
  • Chapter summaries.
  • Information can be applied to any type of 'building' or 'man made' construction.
  • Core skills are applicable all types of interactive 3D media.
  • Skills applicable to most recent version releases of Blender 3D (2.3x onwards).
• Cons
  • Black and white illustrations.
  • Illustrations not as good a quality as they could be.
  • A few minor grammar mistakes.
  • A few places where images and text explanations don't tie together.
  • No 'asset/sample' CD/DVD (although download is available)

We had some particularly bad thunderstorms over the weekend (Sat 5th July), lots of noise accompanied by some hefty bolts of lightning, one of which caught me out and cost me a laptop and wireless router. Thankfully, I've been using an external drive to store all my working data on so that was ok, had I lost that I would have been seriously "bummed", to use some American vernacular.

Normally when storms happen I'll look out the window to determine where they are and if it's then worth shutting down, turning off and unplugging everything. 99.999 times out of 100 there's no need to do that as storms aren't anywhere near the area. This happened to be the 0.001 time that it was. I got up to do the usual inspection, after seeing a couple of strikes in the distance accompanied by claps of thunder with increased volume, and just as I got to the window there was a simultaneous "crack", "pop" and flash from a ball of light as a bolt hit the lightning conductor on the top of the telephone pole about 15 feet away from the house. The laptop didn't even get a chance to let out a cry in its final death throw - that pop-fizzle sound of fried electronics with the accompanying peculiar 'ozone' smell; all too familiar when working with computers - it just died it was that quick; the music playing (Internet radio for the win!) was the only immediate indicator that something happened as that just stopped. "Buggeration", I though, "better check the computers".

Of course, of the two laptops running you can guess which one had died?. That's right, the new one, the machine used for work. The long-in-the-tooth Fujitsu was sat nonchalantly humming to itself like nothing had happened - if it could smile I'm sure it would have had a rather smug look on it's face, especially as I'm constantly complaining about how naff it now is. Roll-eyes at self.

The 17" MSI on the other hand, was off, it didn't respond to CPR, nor indeed to the extended attempts to resuscitate it by all the means known to technically supported mankind; even a few incantations to the "gods of thunder and lightning" didn't work (which was thoroughly disappointing, I can now see Richard Dawkins point) - hardly ironic considering they were the ones the just mucked up my laptop!.

I've ordered a replacement and as usual it's better spec'd for less money, as is the way with computers. The dead carcass might be salvageable but we'll have to see as it's not usually a good idea to use shock damaged equipment in other machines, however, I'll probably stick the hard drive into an external bay and see what can be recovered from the few things that are on it (OS disk so potentially bootable over USB).

So yet again my friends I have another lesson for you. When thunder and lightning abounds turn off and unplug your equipment, lightning only needs to strike once, and not even a surge protector can save your skin from a sizzle. I'll report on the new laptop when it arrives.

BT engineer fixing the telephone pole after a lightning strike, which cost me a laptop!

However, as you would expect, there are a few caveats that must be understood when using this method of building, all of which are discussed in the advanced section of the tutorial; for everyone else that just wants to export 'stuff', the top section will suffice. Go read and make some maps!

• Creating a map with Blender 3D (exporting a model to *.map)

TUTORIAL - exporting a model to a map

This tutorial also marks a slightly different way of presenting the information in tutorials here on katsbits, so from now on future material will be broken down into at least two components - "how to" and "advanced user" information. The "how to" caters to those that just want to get stuck in and do what's required - without the extraneous details, with the "advanced user" information (at the bottom of the page) for those that want to delve a bit deeper into the subject being covered. The amount and type of information usually written up into the tutorials hasn't been compromised in spite of the slightly different presentation.

• Baking ambient occlusion maps for terrain models / meshes using Blender 3D

With Blender 2.46 the introduction of creating and editing the UVW map assigned to a model has shifted into EDIT mode, but other than that the process works the same in earlier versions of Blender (that actuall have the AO ability).

What does it mean? It refers to the way in which users of a given product, community or game are either unable to, or not allowed to, move, look, associate or use material outside of a particular environment - XBox Live was like this and often described by developers as a "walled garden" because users were in essence 'walled in' to the XBox community and not allowed to roam outside of that (to get 3rd party XBox goodies).

The observation is similar.

For some reason novices interested in entering in to the production of their own 2D/3D content for use within a given community or interactive product, or game modders wanting to make a start editing a particular game, never seem to step outside those respective communities to look at what sort resources may be available but which may not appear to be directly applicable to what they were originally doing, to see what can be found, used and picked up for reapplication within the context of the activity that originally had them needing to go off and investigate what they could find on the subject in the first place!. Bit of a loop-de-loop that.

What this means is this.

Jo is modding the Sims and wants to know how she can make a chair for it; she saw a picture on a web site whilst she was browsing around one day and thought "oh! That'd make a nice furniture item for my Sims characters house". So she sets about the inter web to find out what she can about making a chair for the Sims and how to get said chair in to the game. Bad news however, she can find information on getting the object into the game but can't find anything on actually making a chair for the Sims.

This is a pretty common scenario that many newcomers find themselves in when looking for tutorials on content creation and game modding and it's a problem they're not even aware of; like Jo, they are being too literal (explicit) in their search for information - Jo for example, is looking for this;

• 'Making a chair for the Sims'

Instead of looking at this;

• 'Making a chair'

Of course being new to content creation Jo (and her buddies) doesn't realise (as yet understand) that making an object for any game or 3D environment can be broken down into two distinct steps;

• Making the model/object

And;

• Getting the object into a game/3D environment

Wanting to get a chair into the Sims or Half Life 2 obviously means the chair has to be built first and then exported to game; as a chair is a chair, exactly how you model that chair relies on exactly the same core principles and methodologies regardless as to its destination (aside from obvious idiosyncrasies associated with misc. game/3D engines that need to be taken into account).

There's a certain level of understanding required at this point from newcomers but where does it come from and how do they learn about it if they don't know what to look for. But, it's not even that, it's deeper than not knowing, it's a fundamental 'lack', it doesn't even occur to them to look, so taking what might appear to be a side step to look at seemingly unrelated topics of interest just doesn't happen; "making a chair” is seen as being different to “making a chair for the Sims", because it doesn't explicitly tell the reader what they need to know in relation to their eventual goal it gets dismissed out of hand without much more than a cursory glance through.

As a tutorial writer I'm often puzzled by this problem and how to solve it; it's not the tutorial itself that's the problem, it's knowing how to grab the attention of those particular groups of users that would most benefit from reading it when it doesn't appear at their first glance/inspection to be what they're after.

One could title such tutorials as "making a chair for the Sims, Quake 3, Second Life, Half Life 2 and other misc. [enter game name here] games" but it obviously makes the title rather long and crucially misses a couple of games from the list (pretty much 99.9% of moddable games in fact), and of course now, along comes Bob looking for a Crysis tutorial (he needs a chair for his jungle hut), he notes the "making a chair" part of the title but doesn't find "Crysis" along side it so he summarily dismisses what would have been something of use as completely useless.

What happens to 'Bob' and 'Jo'? Well they rinsed and repeated the narrow search they started with until they both got fed up at not being able to find exactly what they was after and quit game modding altogether; all too common a cause-reaction-result.

The moral of this story? There isn't one as it's not an easy issue to fix because it relies on people reading beyond the initial 'catch', which isn't something that can be forced on the reader. However, if the following (or similar) 'disclaimer' appears at the top of future tutorials then it's a good chance that it may be of use even if it's not specifically about what you're looking for.

"The following tutorial discusses some of the core skills needed in order to create 2D and /or 3D material for any game or 3D media that allows users to edit its content."

"...we're very excited to announce that Splash Damage has entered a long-term partnership with developer and publisher Bethesda Softworks for our latest project, an original title coming to PC and consoles."

[puts on speculative hat]

This is interesting for a number of reasons;

• Splash Damage has broken away from their previous publishing partner, Activision
• Also means that they've possibly split from id software
• Chances are they're not using idtech (in future)

There are some others but those are the main question marks in this deal; Bethesda have a per chant for what was the NetImmerse game engine (now called "Gamebryo") which powered Morrowind and Oblivion and now potentially Fallout 3, so, does that mean a switch of engine tech for the chaps at Splash Damage? Huge contiguous games a-la Oblivion?

Traditionally Activision has been the publisher of choice for id powered games, they also have a particular portfolio and demographic so is Splash changing tact in regards to the games they're wanting to produce as well as target a slightly different demographic?

The press release that announced this didn't say much in the way of what they're up to other than the usual "yeah this'll be great for both of us" rhetoric so it should be interesting to see what cooking in the Splash Damage and Bethesda kitchen.

[/takes hat off]

• Download Blender 2.46

Important note : If you're using Blender 3D to create content for IMVU the new version no longer includes the (now somewhat obsolete) CAL3D exporter, so you should keep using version 2.45 and/or 2.36/8, which can be found here in the Blender release archive.

I'm still trying to understand the full implications of this so read the following with that in mind.

There's are a couple of bills (H.R. 5889 & S. 2913) passing through the US Governmental Houses that are causing more than just a little bit of concern for artists and creatives the world over. Even though it's currently an issue specific to the USA, it does have wider more far reaching implications, it concerns something within the realms of copyright called 'Orphan Works'.

If you've not heard about this before then 'Orphan Works' are essentially any creative work (image, painting, sculpture, digital work etc.. etc.. in short any form of creative expression that's put down in "tangible form") for which the copyright owner and/or originating author cannot be found or determined, hence it being 'orphaned' (without [sic] 'parents').

All creative works are protected under (local and) international copyright laws, the most important of which, internationally, is something referred to as the Berne Convention. In a nutshell this 'treaty' protects creative (authored) works from being exploited without the originating authors permission by placing them, upon creation, under the all encompassing protection of 'copyright' (the Berne Convention apparently doesn't recognize or give merit to anything that would be considered 'Orphan Works'). It also sets in place a mechanism authors can use for the levy of heavy financial penalties if works are exploited, and it's this latter aspect that the current Orphan Works legislation concerns (amongst others); the limitation of damages liable by copyright infringements;

"...Potential users of orphan works often fail to display or use such works out of concern that they may be found liable for statutory damages, amounting to as much as $150,000." [1]

This whole debacle is based on the setting up legislation that effectively removes or severely limits liabilities due from people and/or entities that infringe copyright (on purpose or not), to the point where it all but (in)directly requires authors to register their works with the Copyright & Patents Offices in order to (re)gain fair and just compensation as laid out in previous copyright related treaties; that, in part, is exactly what they protect against, the direct or indirect forced or coerced registration of copyright. In other words, with this new Orphan Works legislation it becomes (in theory) cheaper for entities to infringe (claiming 'due diligence') and pay a minimal fine against Orphan Works, with the 'fault' being placed in the hands of authors for not registering their works - copyright protection previously made no such requirement a necessity.

It's not presented that way, obviously, it's purpose is hidden under the guise of being able to;

"... preserve important parts of our personal and national heritage, without giving a free license to infringe on established copyright protections." [2]

Whilst that quote is in part a bit of a red herring (it suggests 'historical' or 'education' use only) it's the latter half that is of concern from the stand point of the legislation itself; whilst it may have the language in place to 'imply' that it prevents a [sic] "free for all", the exact criteria of prevention are not set in stone nor indeed laid bare for all and sundry to clearly see and succinctly understand, in fact the only criteria that are mentioned translates as a rather open ended "due diligence" which is subject to interpretation and thus (potential) abuse.

Have a read through the following and act as you see fit, even if you don't agree with it, pass the information around, this is a real problem and a real law that is going through the motions that could have wider global implications.

• H.R.5889 - Orphan Works Act of 2008 (Introduced in House) [alt]
• S.2913 - Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 (Introduced in Senate) [alt]
• Summery - Leahy, Hatch, Berman, Smith Introduce IP Legislation
• CGSociety topic of discussion (additional information)
• Written Statement of Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner on Behalf of the Illustrators’ Partnership of America - this issue was raised in a somewhat sensationlist fashion by an article associated with the IPoA, whilst I don't agree with it having been done that way, it did bring the issue quite dramatically to front face of the greater creative community.

If you want to take action then take a look at the following, a series of sample letters that can be edited and 'personalised' before sending off to your Government representative. It's also suggested that International creative contact their local Gov. representatives and voice their concern from an international perspective.

• Sample letters of protest
• International sample letter of protest