Mark Tomlinson

Blender - Zoom Moving Mouse Left and Right

2013-05-16T10:01:00.001+02:00

By default, it appears that, Blender zooms the viewport by moving the mouse up and down and not left and right as in other apps such as Maya, Silo, 3D-Coat for example.

This is a little frustrating, but it turns out easily changed, note though you can have up down or left right not both as in other 3D programs, an odd limitation but not important.

The setting to change is under User Preferences > Input

I did not spot this at first, even though I looked at it many times, so perhaps this is of help to you too.

Blender - Zoom Moving Mouse Left and Right

Apple Mac - Dock Delay Change

2013-05-06T13:43:00.003+02:00

I like to keep my Doc hidden on the left of my screen, I have a second monitor on the right. I like the arrangemnt but it does mean I am triggering the Dock to reveal a lot, as I miss icons and menus on the left hand side of UI's

To fix this I have increased the dock reveal delay slightly by using this in the terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 0.1 && killall Dock

To restore the default behaviour use:

defaults delete com.apple.Dock autohide-delay && killall Dock

Blender from a Maya point of view - first impression.

2013-04-09T15:24:00.001+02:00

Two Espresso Cups rendered in Blender Cycles

My trial of Blender is going well although my eyes feel like the have seen every video tutorial made I know there are many more to see, in a future post I will list the ones that stuck in my mind as being helpful.

This is one of my test renders using the Cycles renderer in Blender 2.65a I have attempted to simulate some SSS by building a shader network that combines translucency and a little transparency. The result is not perfect, and could be improved as it looks more glassy to me than porcelain, but it is a good start.

Here is the node layout for the material incase anyone wishes to see how it was done:

Blender Cycles Nodes for Pseudo Porcelain Texture

As I mentioned above I will be adding more feed back here as I go on including some tips and tricks for Maya transition. I may even do a little video tutorial or two.

Mailbox.app update

2013-04-04T14:14:00.003+02:00

I just though I would mention here that even though I liked the Mailbox.app on the iPhone I have removed it and I am no longer using it, for the time being at least.

The reason is the workflow of using Archived mail and custom IMAP folders to organise email workflow is very nice in the app but makes using other mail apps less intuitive. I found myself having to peck around within Desktop apps for the one mail I needed. So until a desktop version is released I am no longer using it.

On a side note I am trying out Sparrow.app on the Mac although this is being used in conduction with Mac Mail.app, which I actually rather like.

I would still recommended the Mailbox.app especially if your main email interaction is on an iPhone; but for now the integration is not good enough for me.

Reeder.app no sound on YouTube video

2013-03-29T12:15:00.003+01:00

Enable Internet Plug-ins Reeder

I recently had a problem with embedded YouTube videos from RSS feeds in Reeder, the video played fine but there was no sound.

I searched the Web for similar problems and found nothing, so for weeks I have been resorting to opening videos on the YouTube site. Today I spotted a button in the bottom righthand corner and clicked it and sure enough sound was restored. The button is tool tipped as enable Internet Plug-ins
How this got switched off I am not sure but turning it on restored sound and that's all I care about.

Bluetooth keyboard navigation on an iPad

2013-03-27T20:47:00.001+01:00

The iPad and the iPhone have some extra features for disabled people that can be useful for the more able-bodied, these lie behind the setting:

Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver > ON

The iPad navigation commands are as follows:

Control+Option+H – Home button
Control+Option+H+H – Show multi-task bar
Control+Option+i – Item chooser
Escape – Back button
Right Arrow – next item
Left Arrow – previous item
Up + Down Arrows together (or close together) – tap selected item
Option + Down Arrow – scroll down
Option + Up Arrow – scroll up
Option + Left or Right Arrow – scroll left or right
Control+Option+S – turn VoiceOver speech on or off

These shortcuts are used for App switching:

Command+Shift+Tab – switch to the previous app
Command+Tab – switch back to the original app
Left+Right Arrow, then Option + Left or Option+Right – navigate through Dock

As a tip the select with UP and DOWN arrow together works better if you press one slightly before the other.
Also in the Item chooser use the ALT + CMD + ARROW (left or right) to navigate to the list item and the use the UP DOWN arrow combo to choose it.

3D Model from photographs

2013-03-22T16:57:00.000+01:00

This one was made using the amazing software application 123D Catch on an iPhone 4.

Mailbox.app - IMAP Folders Disabled

2013-03-06T20:02:00.000+01:00

Mailbox.app male screen

So I finally got to the front of a very long queue and downloaded the latest greatest email client for the iPhone Mailbox.app but before I could use it I had to jump through hoops to get my gmail account installed.
Initially I had not set up the correct labels in the Gmail settings as required, of course you wont know this until this error message is presented, not the most helpful I think we can all agree. Still following the instructions on their site I got it correctly configured, but it still wouldn't work each time resulting in the same, now irritating message:

IMAP Folders Disabled

The most annoying thing for me is you have to go right back to the beginning of the setup each time, and as I have 2-stage verification, like everyone else right, it takes even longer to get back to this damn screen.

I finally got my first email information entered after doing a reset of the app and starting again. The second email address only took two attempts before it worked. The third has a brand new complaint this time it is an authorisation problem what ever that should mean, so I will try that again after I have topped up my patience.

The application despite all the annoyances installing is very very nice and in the end worth the hassle of installing, it is well suited to the small screen and makes ample use of gestures, I am highly recommending it; of course you will have to get in the queue about three weeks for me.

Maya - Dark patches on poly's

2013-02-27T14:38:00.001+01:00

Occasionally when modelling polygons in Maya you may find they become discoloured with dark patches as in the screen shot below.

To correct this select Normals from the Menu and the select Set to Face as below:

This will set all normals to their faces in effect setting all edges to hard:

Finally you will need to Set the Normal Angle to the desired fall off the default is 30º

Your object should now be displaying correctly, if it isn't, use the Cleanup option from within the Mesh menu

Interactive 3d model test two

2013-01-21T18:06:00.000+01:00

Another embedded model test this time from p3d.in

Chair - Interactive 3D model

2013-01-17T20:16:00.001+01:00

This is my first attempt at an interactive 3D model within a webpage.

Apple Mac wakes from sleep

2013-01-07T20:43:00.003+01:00

I have been having trouble getting the Mac to stay asleep, I put it to sleep but almost as soon as it is asleep it wakes again on its own.

To find out the reason for it waking you can check the Console or better yet use the terminal and type:

syslog |grep -i "Wake reason"

You will see a list of messages starting with Wake reason followed by a code such as ECB or OHC some of the codes and their meanings are listed bellow.

OHC: Open Host Controller, USB or Firewire. OHC1 or OHC2 generally a USB keyboard or mouse.
EHC: Enhanced Host Controller, USB or a wireless devices like bluetooth, they're on the USB bus.
USB: A USB device woke the machine up
LID0: The lid or cover of MacBook, triggered when you open the lid.
RTC: Real Time Clock Alarm, generally from wake-on-demand services.
PWRB: The Power Button on your Mac

One thing to try with repeated USB problems is to delete the PowerManagement.plist and the AutoWake.plist from the locations below:

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist

There are many reasons for machines waking up but hopefully this will help locate the cause.

Bluetooth - Trackpad sleep connection problem

2012-12-25T12:10:00.000+01:00

Bluetooth Logo

Since the upgrade to Mountain Lion OSX on the Mac I have had continual connection problems with the bluetooth daemon and the Apple Trackpad after waking the from sleep.

Interestingly the problem only effects the Trackpad and not the Bluetooth Keyboard. The only solution I have found to this annoyance it to restart the Bluetooth Daemon, this is done by killing it from the terminal after which it will automatically restart. Enter the following line in the terminal to do so.

sudo killall blued

Note this is only a temporary fix and the problem will likely reoccur; the first time I did it the problem remained fixed for a couple of days, recently however it is more frequent.

The application Finder can't be opened (-10810)

2012-12-04T19:57:00.000+01:00

Recently I had a few Finder crashes that couldn't be resolved using usual tricks such as ALT clicking on the Finder icon and selecting relaunch, or using Terminal and typing killall Finder& which only returns the message: The application Finder can't be opened (-10810)

The only solution I have found short of restarting is to launch the Finder executable from within the Finder.app by typing:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder &

After a second or two Finder.app should launch.

Doctor Who - 2005 Dalek Toon Render

2012-11-20T17:52:00.000+01:00

2005 Dalek

The Daleks were created by a Doctor Who scriptwriter by the name of Terry Nation and designed by BBC designer Raymond Cusick. They were first introduced in the second series of Doctor Who in December 1963, and I have loved them ever since, almost, the Fat Daleks are not in my definition of Daleks but are little more than grotesque caricatures of the real thing.

Finder - Duplicate Open With Programs

2012-11-15T11:31:00.002+01:00

If you have a cloned copy of your main hard drive (Applications) on a Mac you may find that the Open With menu contains duplicate programs.

To remove them first unmount the cloned drive and then run this command (one line) in a Terminal window.

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/
Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister
-kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

You will need to redo this as often as the clone is detected and the list corrupted, to avoid this the cloned drive is best left unmounted until it is needed.

NB: this should be entered as a single line, it is formated into 3 lines above to fit the page.

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Maya - Photometric Lights Mental Ray

2012-11-14T14:56:00.000+01:00

The Problem

One difficulty in using base mental ray shaders to render a physically correct scenes with GI (using photons), is in balancing the photon energy and the direct light correctly. The reason for this is that the intensity is generally specified as an intensity for some given direction (for example the peak intensity on a spotlight), but the energy is the sum of (or technically, the integral) of all such intensities in all directions.

So for example for a spotlight, for the same peak intensity, you would needdifferent photon energies depending on the width of the spotlight cone, and depending on the shape of the intensity distribution within that cone. And while this can be calculated for a mathematically defined intensity distribution (such as a spotlight cone) what about an arbitrary distribution as defined by a light profile?

Furthermore, to ensure optimal convergence of the photon solution for a light which varies its intensity based on the direction of light (e.g. a spotlight or a light using a light profile), instead of emitting photons of different energy in different directions, one should emit photons of similar energy in differentdensities. So the amount of energy-per-area (the density of photon energy) at a given point must match the direct light arriving at that point.

The Solution

To solve all these issues, we introduce the mia_photometric_light. It takes all the guesswork out of balancing the photon energy with the light intensity by peforming a numerical integration of the chosen intensity distribution to calculate the proper photon energy automatically, as well as takes care of adapting the photon density to the distribution, all automatically.

To use it, simply use the same instance of the shader as both light and photon shader on a light source. The light must have an origin (i.e. the shader does not work on an infinite light source). The light must be set to emit photons, and must be given a nonzero energy value (although the actual value will be overriden by the shader, a nonzero energy value is required, or mental ray will not emit any photons at all for the light). The exponent should always be 2. If the light is a spotlight, a spread value should be used. See the mental ray manual about lights.

shader "myLight" "mia_photometric_light" (
    "on" true,
    "color" 1 1 1,
    ...
)
light "theLight" = "myLight"
        emitter = "myLight"
        origin 0 0 0
        energy 1 1 1
        exponent 2
        caustic photons 20000
        globillum photons 20000
end light

The shader is declared as follows:

declare shader "mia_photometric_light" (
       boolean "on"           default on,
       scalar  "multiplier"   default 1.0,
       color   "color"        default 1.0 1.0 1.0,
       # How to define the light intensity
       #   0 = using a manual peak intensity in cd
       #   1 = using a total amount of lumen 
       #   2 = using the information stored in the IES file
       integer      "intensity_mode",
       scalar       "manual_peak_intensity_cd",
       scalar       "manual_flux_lm",
       # How to define the light distribution
       #   0 = Isotropic spherical distribution
       #   1 = Spotlight distribution
       #   2 = using the information stored in the IES file
       integer      "distribution_mode"   default 0,
       scalar       "spotlight_cosine_bias",
       lightprofile "profile",                  
       # Scene and lighting unit management 
       scalar      "units_to_meter_scale" default 1.0,
       scalar      "cm2_factor"           default 1.0
    )
    version 2
    apply   light, emitter
end declare

on turns the light on or off.

multiplier allows tweaking the intensity like a dimmer. Only when this is 1.0 will the intensity settings mentioned below be accurate.

color is the color of the light. Only if this is a normalized color (i.e. that themi_luminance() of the color is 1.0) will the intensity settings mentioned below be accurate. Fortunately, functions such as mib_cie_d and mib_blackbody do return normalized colors.

intensity_mode guides what parameter and in what unit the light intensity is defined:

When intensity_mode is 0, the peak intensity of the light is defined (in candela) by the manual_peak_intensity_cd parameter.
When intensity_mode is 1, the overall flux of the light is defined (in lument) by the maual_flux_lm parameter.
When intensity_mode is 2, the intensity is directly derived directly from the values stored in the IES profile assigned to the profile parameter.

distribution_mode defines how the light is distributed in different directions:

When distribution_mode is 0, the light is isotropic, i.e. it shines exactly the same in all directions.
When distribution_mode is 1, the light is a spotlight. The light must have aspread parameter to define the width of the beam. The distribution of light within the cone follows a cosine function, raised to the power of thespotlight_cosine_bias parameter. Hence, a bias below 1.0 will push light towards the edges of the cone, and a bias above 1.0 will push light towards the center of the cone.
When distribution_mode is 2, the intensity distribution of the light is derived from the values stored in the IES profile assigned to the profileparameter. Note that it is legal to combine this distribution mode with either of the manual intensity modes 0 or 1. In those cases, the IES profile is used in relative mode, trying to accomodate the desired intensity but still accomodate the directional distribution of the IES file.

Since physical lighting in real world units is highly scale dependent, theunits_to_meter_scale defines how many scene units goes into one meter. E.g. if one scene unit is one millimeter, this would be 1000.

Finally, the cm2_factor is the conversion factor between pixel values and candela per square meter luminance values. In short, this should match thecm2_factor of the mia_exposure_photographic shader to yield a photographically correct render, intensity wise. See also page Units.

Multi-render passes - Mental Ray

2012-11-01T12:09:00.001+01:00

Render Pass	Description
2D Motion Vector	Relative motion (in raster coordinates) of objects in your scene; in other words, how far each pixel is moving between two frames. Vector is expressed in normalized pixels. Note When using motion vector render passes with a scene that involves camera movement, and with Raytracing set as the rendering mode for mental ray for Maya rendering, you must enable the following string option to obtain the correct motion vectors: trace camera motion vectors on Boolean
3D Motion Vector	3D motion vector in world space. In mental ray for Maya, the 3D motion vector is expressed in internal space.
Ambient	Ambient contribution of the surface. In Maya, this is the material color multiplied by the ambient light color. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Ambient Irradiance	Amount of ambient light received by the surface. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Ambient Occlusion	Ambient occlusion contribution from both self ambient occlusion as well as primary ambient occlusion, which is derived from surrounding objects. You must enableAmbient Occlusion in the Render Settings: Features tab in order to use this render pass.
Ambient Material Color	Reflectivity of the material with respect to ambient light. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Beauty	Final color computed by mental ray for Maya. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Beauty Without Reflections or Refractions	Beauty pass without reflections or refractions. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass. You may want to create this pass and a separate reflection or refraction pass, then composite the results. This allows you to tune the tint and intensity of the reflection/refraction separately from the rest of your passes.
Camera Depth / Camera Depth Remapped	Extracts the distance between the camera and the intersection point. Choose between normalized distance and real scene distance. See Camera Depth render pass attributes for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Coverage	mental ray Coverage frame buffer. This frame buffer offers only silhouette coverage. Self-coverage is currently not supported.
Custom Color / Custom Depth / Custom Label /Custom Vector	Use in conjunction with the writeToColorBuffer, writeToDepthBuffer,writeToVectorBuffer, and writeToLabelBuffer shaders to write data to the framebuffer. Or, create your own custom pass if you are using custom shaders. Seemental ray render pass utility shaders for more information.
Diffuse	Diffuse shading of material. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Diffuse Without Shadows	Diffuse pass without shadowing information. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Diffuse Material Color	Provides constant diffuse color or textured diffuse color, excluding light contribution. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Direct Irradiance	Direct light arriving at each sample location. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Direct Irradiance Without Shadows	Direct irradiance without shadowing information. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Glow Source	outGlow output of surface shaders; affected by pass contribution maps. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Incandescence	Additive color. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Incidence (Light/Normal)	Measures the difference between the direction of the light ray and the surface normal. If the surface normal is facing the light, this value is 1. If the normal is facing away from the light, the value is 0. Create a pass contribution map to isolate the light ray of your choice. If there is no pass contribution map in your scene, Maya performs its calculations based on the sum of all lights in your scene.
Indirect	Indirect lighting from final gather, global illumination, and caustics. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Light Volume	Extracts all light-centric volume effects, for example, a light cone volume effect. SeeRender pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Material Incidence (Camera/Normal)	Measures the difference between the direction of the camera ray and the surface normal. If the surface normal is pointing to the camera, this value is 0. If the normal is facing away from the camera, the value is 1. Any angle greater than 90 degrees is also translated to 1. If bump mapping is applied to the shading network, it will appear in this pass. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Material Normal (Camera Space / Object Space / World Space)	Interpolated surface normal. Choose from one of Camera space,Object space andWorld space. If bump mapping is applied to the shading network, it will appear in this pass.
Matte	The object's matte, excluding transparency/opacity. This pass serves as the render layer compositing mask. Should be solid white in areas where objects are intersected. Independent of transparency/translucency. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Normalized 2D Motion Vector	Relative motion (in raster coordinates) of objects in your scene; in other words, how far each pixel is moving between two frames. Pixel displacement is normalized to (0—1). Static objects are expressed with 0.5,0.5 values. See Normalized 2D Motion Vector render pass attributes for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Object Incidence (Camera/Normal)	Similar to the Material Incidence (Camera/Normal) pass but does not support bump mapping.
Object Normal (Camera Space / Object Space / World Space)	Similar to the Material Normal (Camera Space / Object Space / World Space)pass does not support bump mapping.
Object Volume	Extracts all object-centric volume effects, for example, smoke that is contained in a glass object. Also includes volume particles, volume fur, and fluids. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Opacity	The object's opacity, which is derived from transparency/refraction. In compositing, the object's opacity can be controlled independently from the render layer matte. SeeRender pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Raw Shadow	Similar to the Shadow pass but calculated only with respect to the irradiance in the scene. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Reflection	Reflection results. Includes self-reflection, primary reflections, secondary reflections and environment reflections. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Reflected Material Color	The reflected color parameter of the material. Pure constant reflection color or textured reflection. Used as a reflection matte to determine where reflection would be revealed (colored and noncolored). See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Refraction	Refraction results. Includes self-refraction, primary refraction, and environment refraction. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Refraction Material Color	The transparency color parameter of the material. Pure constant refraction color or textured reflection. Used as a refraction/transparency matte to determine where refraction is revealed (colored and non-colored). See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Scatter	Scattering effects that result from the material’s scattering attributes (for example,Scatter Radius, Scatter Color). See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Scene Volume	Extracts all scene-centric volume effects such as fog, layered fog, haze, and so forth. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Shadow	Pure shadow contribution for both self-shadowing as well as direct shadows. The shadow pass can be luminance or colored shadows. Takes into account material contributions. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Specular	Specular shading. The specular component is modulated differently depending on the type of material associated with the object. For example, Phong, PhongE, Blinn, and Anisotropic materials produce specular contributions differently. On a Phong material, the specular pass can be modulated using cosine power and specular color. SeeRender pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Specular Without Shadows	Similar to Specular but without shadow occlusions. See Render pass Attribute Editorfor more information on the attributes for this pass.
Translucence	Back shading contribution revealed on the front surface. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
Translucence Without Shadows	Similar to Translucence but without shadows. See Render pass Attribute Editor for more information on the attributes for this pass.
UVPass	A UV pass converts UV values to R/G values and creates a rasterized version of UV space. Using a UV pass, you can replace textures in 3d renderings as a post-process, without having to track new textures in place. NoteYou must save to the openEXR file format when rendering this pass.
World Position	A world position pass converts position (x,y,z) values to R, G, B values. Use this pass for relighting workflows in compositing. NoteYou must save to the openEXR file format when rendering this pass.

OS X Mountain Lion: Change Finder Sidebar Font Size

2012-10-26T11:39:00.001+02:00

One of those things you forget where to find quickly is the settings for the Finder Sidebar Icon and Font size in Lion and now Mountain Lion OS X 10.8. By default the font size is set to medium which for some reason is very large and tends to make the sidebar ugly and waste space.

To change the size of the icons and therefore the size of the fonts go to:

System Preferences > General > Sidebar Icon Size.

OS X Finder Side Bar Font Size Medium

General Preferences Sidebar Icon Size

Finder Side Bar Font Size Small

Rendering with sub-surface scattering

2012-09-13T14:06:00.000+02:00

Sub-surface Rendered Raisins

Sub-surface scattering is an excellant way to mimic the way light travels through a translucent object such as a piece of fruit. The effect mimics mathematically the refractions of light as it is bounced around the envelope of the object being rendered. I say mimic as it is an approximation as the object generally has no insides to reflect or refract only an enveloping surface.

The advantages are it is fairly easy to achieve realistic surface scattering with only a few maps. The disadvantage is generally much longer render times.

These raisin above contains only one sub-surface map and a very weak diffuse map the main effect is created by colouring the materials refractions in the material settings.

Hard Drive - Mount Unmount Toggle Mac

2012-08-04T18:30:00.001+02:00

I wanted a way to quickly remount an external USB hard drive attached to my Mac. Ejecting is easy enough but mounting it requires a trip to the Disk Utility or the Terminal app.

So I created a little if else toggle in Applescript the dialogs are set to time out on their own with the unmount time a little longer as a safety net.

tell application "Finder"
 if exists (disk "Black Drive") then
  display dialog "Unmounting Black Drive in 3 Sec" giving up after 3
  do shell script "hdiutil unmount /Volumes/Black\\ Drive"
 else
  do shell script "diskutil mount Black\\ Drive"
  display dialog "Black Drive Mounted" giving up after 2
 end if
end tell

Here the drive is called Black Drive you will notice the \\ before the space in the name this is to escape the space character to allow it to be used in the path (standard in Mac OS).

To change it to your drive you will need the name of the drive shown in Finder and replace "Black Drive: with your drive name.

The giving up after value of three is the number of seconds before the dialog closes in this case 3 seconds on unmount and 2 on confirmation of mount.

screen - protect remote logins

2012-07-28T20:49:00.001+02:00

The `screen` program allows you to use multiple terminal windows and preserve jobs even if client disconnects.

Features

If your local computer crashes the processes you establish through screen remain active. To resume the screen sessions you use: screen -r
You detach the screen processes when logging out to resume where you left off.

Starting screen

To start screen, enter the following command: screen

General commands

Note: Every screen command begins with Ctrl-a .

`Ctrl-a c`	Create new window (shell)
`Ctrl-a k`	Kill the current window
`Ctrl-a w`	List all windows (the current window is marked with "*")
`Ctrl-a 0-9`	Go to a window numbered 0-9
`Ctrl-a n`	Go to the next window
`Ctrl-a` `Ctrl-a`	Toggle between the current and previous window
`Ctrl-a [`	Start copy mode
`Ctrl-a ]`	Paste copied text
`Ctrl-a ?`	Help (display a list of commands)
`Ctrl-a` `Ctrl-\`	Quit `screen`
`Ctrl-a D` (Shift-d)	Power detach and logout
`Ctrl-a d`	Detach but keep shell window open

Press the Spacebar or Enter to end a command.

To copy a block

To get into copy mode, press Ctrl-a [ .

To move the cursor, press the h , j , k , and l (the letter l) keys. The 0 (the number 0) or ^ (the caret) moves to the start of the line and $ (the dollar sign) moves to the end of the line. Ctrl-b scrolls the cursor back one page and Ctrl-f scrolls forward one page. To set the left and right margins of copy, press c and C (Shift-c). The Spacebar starts selecting the text and ends selecting the text. To abort copy mode, pressCtrl-g .

To paste a block

To paste the copied text to the current window (as many times as you want), press Ctrl-a ] .

Other commands

To run a program or execute any Unix command in a new window, at the Unix prompt, enter: screen unixcommandreplace unixcommand with the command name.

To automatically start several windows when you run screen, create a .screenrc file in your home directory and put screen commands in it.

Duplicate words and sorting.

2012-07-19T16:28:00.001+02:00

Looking through a list of keywords I had exported from Aperture I realised there were a lot of duplicates, and spelling mistakes but that's another mater. So I had a quick look for a way to remove the duplicates and sort them in alphabetical order and this is how I did it.

tr -s [:space:] \\n < filename | sort -u > sorted_file

Just change filename to the file to be sorted and sorted_file to the, well, the sorted file.
If you have punctuation you can add the [:punctuation:] flag after the [:space:] one and it will remove any punctuation.

I hope that is helpful to someone.

Village Ways - Hohenaspe

2012-06-07T10:14:00.001+02:00

A short film shot on location in Hohenaspe northern Germany, be sure to view full screen.

shocking - pondcasting in the pink

2012-06-04T15:56:00.002+02:00

Some of the more astute among you may have noticed the relocation of a previous video post. I decided that I would like to separate my video posts from those on here. So I have decided to open up one of my other domains pondcasting.com and use that as a multi-media type blog.

Since I bought the little webcam from Logitech I have decided to do some regular little chats on camera, this is easy enough for me as I spend a lot of time talking to myself anyway. No it isn't a sign of madness it is just that the audience is more receptive. Anyway take a look for yourself sometime.

Warning the colour scheme I have decided on for the blog is a little on the loud side. As there is nothing to read I thought I would take opportunity to bombard your rods and cones with all bucket full of Magenta, that's pink for the rest of us.

Mark Tomlinson

Blender - Zoom Moving Mouse Left and Right

Apple Mac - Dock Delay Change

Blender from a Maya point of view - first impression.

Mailbox.app update

Reeder.app no sound on YouTube video

Bluetooth keyboard navigation on an iPad

3D Model from photographs

Mailbox.app - IMAP Folders Disabled

Maya - Dark patches on poly's

Interactive 3d model test two

Chair - Interactive 3D model

Apple Mac wakes from sleep

Bluetooth - Trackpad sleep connection problem

The application Finder can't be opened (-10810)

Doctor Who - 2005 Dalek Toon Render

Finder - Duplicate Open With Programs

Maya - Photometric Lights Mental Ray

The Solution

Multi-render passes - Mental Ray

OS X Mountain Lion: Change Finder Sidebar Font Size

Rendering with sub-surface scattering

Hard Drive - Mount Unmount Toggle Mac

screen - protect remote logins

The screen program allows you to use multiple terminal windows and preserve jobs even if client disconnects.

Features

Starting screen

General commands

To copy a block

To paste a block

Other commands

Duplicate words and sorting.

Village Ways - Hohenaspe

shocking - pondcasting in the pink

The `screen` program allows you to use multiple terminal windows and preserve jobs even if client disconnects.