Oolite Bulletins

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Thu Aug 28, 2025 12:08 pm

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Thu Aug 28, 2025 10:30 am

Come in, Number 5, your time is up!

They're all too busy hiding in the tunnels!

Talking about tunnels (sort of caves), I'd suggest Descent game series, where most of the action happens in mining tunnels across the solar system.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Thu Aug 28, 2025 12:08 pm

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Thu Aug 28, 2025 10:30 am

Come in, Number 5, your time is up!

They're all too busy hiding in the tunnels!

I don't know that one, but if you hum it I can play it.

If we don't get another troglodyte by ... oh, say Sunday evening... Yeah, Sunday; end of the Grand Prix (which may not be defined by the clock - just a little bit of randomness) I will award you an emptied and thoroughly washed Chalice.

Commander_X wrote: ↑Thu Aug 28, 2025 4:54 pm

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Thu Aug 28, 2025 12:08 pm

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Thu Aug 28, 2025 10:30 am

Come in, Number 5, your time is up!

They're all too busy hiding in the tunnels!

Talking about tunnels (sort of caves), I'd suggest Descent game series, where most of the action happens in mining tunnels across the solar system.

Oh, Sorry Cholmondley, I didn't notice this one straight off. So, no Sunday Chalice for you, and instead it goes to Commander_X.

Yes, I remember that game indeed. As I recall it was fiendishly difficult on the controls, and really intended for joy-stick use - which with a 10kg baggage allowance, wasn't going to happen. Or maybe that was just my thumbs.

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Fri Sep 05, 2025 3:13 am

[...]
Yes, I remember that game indeed. As I recall it was fiendishly difficult on the controls, and really intended for joy-stick use - which with a 10kg baggage allowance, wasn't going to happen. Or maybe that was just my thumbs.

Mouse & keyboard was Ok for it, and the difficulty wasn't on the controls themselves, but on configuring them to access easily all your 6 degrees of liberty movements. And shoot, both guns, and launchers. And switch, both guns and launchers. But mostly movement was the main challenge. Once that figured out, the others came ... naturally

<taking a circumspect look a the chalice>
Will switch a bit the specific on this topic.
Let's bring in 5 sci-fi examples where there is documented knowledge of the 3D software used to support the production. And when saying 3D, it's about modeling and/or animation (of models). The main rule of uniqueness should apply both to the software, and to the example.
That is, e.g., if Microsoft Word was used in "Tionisla Chronicles", "Ensoreous Oligarchs" cannot be mentioned, although LibreOffice Calc was its maker. Of course, both these examples won't qualify regardless, as neither software is 3D.

There's room for everyone, don't rush!
Will let this settle some more by the end of the week.
I'll try to give a hint at that time for the main example I had in mind when I chose this.

Commander_X wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 2:27 am

Will switch a bit the specific on this topic.
Let's bring in 5 sci-fi examples where there is documented knowledge of the 3D software used to support the production. And when saying 3D, it's about modeling and/or animation (of models). The main rule of uniqueness should apply both to the software, and to the example.
That is, e.g., if Microsoft Word was used in "Tionisla Chronicles", "Ensoreous Oligarchs" cannot be mentioned, although LibreOffice Calc was its maker. Of course, both these examples won't qualify regardless, as neither software is 3D.

I'm unclear as to the question.
Is it asking for sci-fi examples which mention documented knowledge of 3D software mentioned in it? Eg.: Wildeblood's  Encabulator
Is it asking for sci-fi examples which mention already existing documented 3D software (how is Microsoft Word relevant - and what are the Ensoreus Oligarchs?)?
Is it asking for sci-fi examples which were created using modern 3D software/CADCAM E.g.: Wings3D used for Murgh's  Iron Ass OXP suite

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Wed Sep 17, 2025 10:17 am

[...]
I'm unclear as to the question.
Is it asking for sci-fi examples which mention documented knowledge of 3D software mentioned in it? Eg.: Wildeblood's  Encabulator
Is it asking for sci-fi examples which mention already existing documented 3D software (how is Microsoft Word relevant - and what are the Ensoreus Oligarchs?)?
Is it asking for sci-fi examples which were created using modern 3D software/CADCAM E.g.: Wings3D used for Murgh's  Iron Ass OXP suite

Although unclear, you'll be first on the list for taking out Oolite (through the Iron Ass OXP) and Wings3D. (I didn't find Wings3D in the page you linked, but I'm sure it must be somewhere in the references used for that wiki ).
I'd guess this should also be an "yes" answer to your third question above.

For the first question (about "mentioned documented knowledge of 3D software mentioned in it"; BTW your wiki reference leads to an empty page), the answer should be "no".

The second question seems a bit similar with the first, but it seems to be raised by the totally made-up example I tried to come with, so the answer would be the closing phrase, after the example:

Commander_X wrote: ↑Tue Sep 09, 2025 2:27 am

[...] Of course, both these examples won't qualify regardless, as neither software is 3D.

Ensoreus Oligarchs is just a made-up title (yes, unlike Tionisla Chronicles) -- I wanted two sci-fi "works" in Oolite universe as potential submissions.

Keeping track:
#1 Cholmondely -- Oolite/Wings3D

 Encabulator now links. Sorry.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Wed Sep 17, 2025 5:32 pm

 Encabulator now links. Sorry.

No problem, now I can confirm that the answer "no" was correct. No "sci-fi" show-off of 3D software (at least that's my understanding of what "Encabulator" would do).
That is, mentioning or presenting screens of the 3D software "during"/"in" the final product is not a proof it's been used for production, unless it's stated as such.
E.g. in the (fictional) sci-fi book "Cholly's Pain With Non-Enhanced Save Games", there could be pictures taken of (fictional) AutoTable 3D software screens as 1000 words replacements. Unless there is some kind of note either in the book, or on the intertubes, or elsewhere, that AutoTable 3D was indeed used for the creation of these pictures (and not, say, MS Paint/Gimp/Photoshop), then just the pictures from the 3D software in the sci-fi book are not enough.

Commander_X wrote: ↑Wed Sep 17, 2025 6:58 pm

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Wed Sep 17, 2025 5:32 pm

 Encabulator now links. Sorry.

No problem, now I can confirm that the answer "no" was correct. No "sci-fi" show-off of 3D software (at least that's my understanding of what "Encabulator" would do).
That is, mentioning or presenting screens of the 3D software "during"/"in" the final product is not a proof it's been used for production, unless it's stated as such.
....

I'm totally confused by the question too. Given a month since the last posting in this thread (damn - now I need a Unix epoch - to YYYY-MM-DD converter to check what " time=1758130358" means), I suspect I'm not the only confused one.
3-d software? In SF? Well, I don't particularly recall any particular product ever being mentioned. But it's ubiquitous in the background, so to speak. Worse - it's so ubiquitous that nobody has ever mentioned what we all know to be a reality of software life : incomprehensible file formats, and format wars between product vendors.
Consider the infamous Star Wars series, and it's recurring theme of reading the plans of a 3-d structure (death star, underground base, the hidden holds of the Millennium Falcon). Not once in the saga do I recall Obi One Leia going "I have the plans ... and bloody Microslouch 3-d BattleStationer won't read it because I've got version 7.6.3, and it was drawn with 8.4.2! Plus my license expires every time I exceed lightspeed. Every damned time!"

Not only has software interoperability and vendor lock-in been defeated, but they never have a dodgy memory-stick either.

Thinking back to Star Wars, I have vague memories of a computer game which used the "you're flying down a tunnel towards the reactor vent" display ... but given that SW was in 1977 (?) and I'm remembering computer games from 1988 ... which is the cart and which the horse ... I dunno.

Were Star Wars computers big-endian, or little-endian? Very likely they were one or the other. But that doesn't come through in the story either.

Or am I completely misunderstanding @Commander_X and his challenge? Not even wombatting the right cassowary, sideways and dry?

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Sun Oct 19, 2025 4:51 pm

[...]
I'm totally confused by the question too. Given a month since the last posting in this thread (damn - now I need a Unix epoch - to YYYY-MM-DD converter to check what " time=1758130358" means), I suspect I'm not the only confused one.
3-d software? In SF? Well, I don't particularly recall any particular product ever being mentioned. But it's ubiquitous in the background, so to speak. Worse - it's so ubiquitous that nobody has ever mentioned what we all know to be a reality of software life : incomprehensible file formats, and format wars between product vendors.
[...]
Or am I completely misunderstanding @Commander_X and his challenge? [...]

I will name Cholmondely the winner of this round (the unique and only ). The chalice with its bitter contents passed accordingly.

Two examples of what I was looking (besides our winner's, of course) were:
- Babylon 5 series, created with the help of LightWave 3D (which, to take the list from Wikipedia, was also used for "Star Trek: Voyager, Space: Above and Beyond, seaQuest DSV, Lost, and Battlestar Galactica"). "Avatar" is also mentioned later.
- Stargate (the movie) had Wavefront as the main 3D contributor. And Wavefront is the creator of the infamous ".obj" 3D format that somehow leveraged the "format wars" issue.

Talking about Star Wars, ILM (its main CGI creator) don't seem to have their own 3D modeler. They did bring though the ".exr" HDR file format (as their main target was VFX, after all). And we know that the initial trilogy didn't make use of CGI that much.

Since I don't know enough about this sort of thing to act as any kind of judge, here' s my question:

What is your favourite SF book. And why?

OK, I'll go with John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar (1968), his overpopulation novel. About the first near-future SF book I read that really got on board with the idea that the future will be complicated, have multiple problems that will NOT neatly solve each other, needs to be told with multiple viewpoints, some of whom will be part of the problems, and is not going to be fixed by Doctor whoever pulling out some weird technobabble that guarantees a happy ending. At the end the main characters have some ideas, but implementing them will be complex, expensive and morally dubious.

It's also been unfortunately accurate about some social trends, such as the spread of random violence, and has one of the coolest characters ever - Shalmaneser, the AI who drives a lot of the plot, and gets the last chapter of the story which I will quote in full because it isn't a spoiler as such:

Bathed in his currents of liquid helium, self contained, immobile, vastly well-informed by every mechanical sense: Shalmaneser.

Every now and again there passes through his circuits a pulse which carries the cybernetic equivalent of the phrase, "Christ, what an imagination I've got."

It doesn't count, since I set the question, but I'm tempted to go for Merchanter's Luck by Cherryh. Describing the love affair between a lass from a wealthy merchanter ship and a chap who was survived a traumatic pirate raid on his, and is whizzing around the galaxy in it almost single-handed - and how utterly dangerous it is.