the time here in America.
Posted on 07/09/2015 6:05:37 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
In a move that’s prompting questions about the stockpiling of weapons by the federal government’s nonmilitary agencies, the Bureau of Reclamation wants to buy 52,000 rounds of ammunition for use in law enforcement at Hoover Dam and Lake Mead.
After learning about the purchase request, Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei vowed to inquire with the bureau about its operations, number of officers carrying firearms and how much ammunition it uses, according Brian Baluta, a spokesman for Amodei.
(Excerpt) Read more at lasvegassun.com ...
I understand that is rattlesnake territory (sarc)
Not bad. Someday they’ll figure out how to really do faces in CGI. Getting closer every day.
Half of the ‘people’ in movies today are CGI. They topped that challenge in 2001 with Final Fantasy: Spirts Within. Most people thought the black dude in the commercial was real.
The pic above is from a video game. If the same model and textures were reimported to 3DS and rendered in proper lighting, I think she’d look completely real.
I can tolerate this one, because Hoover Dam is a huge strategic target, not just for terrorists, but for foreign powers. Knocking it out would put five western states in immediate water crisis, as well as possibly crashing a big part of the western power grid. Annual power generation 4.2 billion kWh.
Good info...thanks for the correction....
How about gas powered flame throwers? Hoover Dam is one of the most dangerous places on earth!
Not if they have to do close-ups on the faces. If you saw the movie "Gravity", you saw a movie that was almost completely rendered in CGI, except for one thing - the faces. Recognising faces is one of the first things we learn as infants, so it is awefully hard to fool us with CGI It's one of those things that folks who do CGI and similar stuff are well aware of. They can do a pretty good job, but ultimately, folks can tell the difference between a real face and a rendered one. It's easier to do with stills, because many visual cues are lacking in a still, that will be instantly recognisable in a 'real' image.
The pic above is from a video game. If the same model and textures were reimported to 3DS and rendered in proper lighting, I think she’d look completely real.
I disagree. She'd be close, but no cigar. I've yet to see a rendered face that didn't look at least somewhat 'cartoony'' There is a lot of work going on though, in bringing this kind of thing to 'life'. I suspect they'll eventually be able to make characters that you can't distinguish between CGI and live action. They are still a few years down the road from that.
The tech is there but with movies it’s a cost/benefit ratio.
Take “lydia’ above. The 3d Model is dead on. It’s the details of the textures/mapping that would be the issue.
Her textures are 4000x4000 pixels because to go higher rez would take a lot of memory and CPU to render at 30 FPS video framerate. And she still looks pretty good.
If you jack up the texture resolution, thats all it takes. The lighting render tricks like subsurface scatter and the rest are all there now. the hardware is there now. But time is money. If Hollywood isn’t making it real yet it’s a cost thing. But it CAN be done if the animator/artist has the skill.
For anything else, yeah, there is no way to tell. Bodies, clothes, fixtures and whatnot are up to par, but I do not believe faces are. However, it's extremely rare that you can be fooled when you see a CGI character walking, or just generally moving around. Generally, the movements are too smooth to be real.
I don’t ‘totally’ disagree with you. So far it’s absolutely true that if you really pay attention you can likely tell. I just think that’s a matter of the $$$ and people rather than the tech.
But there are cases IMO they pull it off. The black dude in the commercial was a close up. BUT it was a fairly fast cut so no time to linger on it and study the details in context.
The distance thing is purely a texture issue. The animation/movement is probably the big one here. Most animators are pretty good but there is a lot of detail in movement that contributes to actual realism. And thats a time/money thing.
Just as a side note, I did 3D as a hobby back in the Amiga/Video toaster days as a hobby. When Commodore tanked, it was too expensive for me on the PC and SGI systems were fantasyland.
Every time I play modded Skyrim I marvel at 60 FPS at HDMI rez when I remember a 320x200 pixel mirrorball/checkerboard was an all night render for a single frame.
We have come far ;)
You're not kidding. I haven't done any 3-d stuff, mainly because I have zero artistic ability. Unlike my daughter, who actually draws playing cards for a living. (She obviously didn't get that from me)
On the other hand, I remember doing deep zooms with Fractint on a 33Mhz 386 that would take literally a week or more to render. (i.e., I couldn't use my computer for the week that it took to draw the screen.
Today, the same zoom level is practically real-time given improvements in pipelining, floating point processers, and the speed of the multi-core CPUs in general.
Astounding. Couple that with the multi-GB of RAM, and there really is no comparison. My desktop has 18GB of ram, whereas that lowly 386 had 1MB originally, though I eventually upgraded to 4MB, and used 2MB for a ram disk most of the time.
AmP
Am I ever relieved. I was thinking that the number of ND incidents had skyrocketed. All those professional being so much smarter than the rest of us.
;>)
Are there any fedgov agencies that HAVEN’T received bulk orders of ammo?
He/she will be made the new head of OPM cyber security.
Thank goodness! I can use some 40mm HEDP for my M79, and another dozen rounds for the recoilless would certainly be nice.
The Panzerfausts are okay, but at only 60 meters range, they're kind of short-sighted.
Me too. But memories of the dam pale in comparison to memories of a young lady standing atop the dam in sheer white pants and underwear that read Satisfaction Guaranteed easily visible through them.
Hey guys,
They needed dos 52 tousand rounds to defend the river against the EPA.
Da EPA released ol dat polution an now dey need to atack dem!!!
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