Well, there goes my day...
First off, I like to include at least one render/piece in these posts. Here's one that I did yesterday for the Porn Tropes thread, featuring fanart versions of some of the DMD cast members...
Since this is a development blog of sorts, I like to keep people updated on what hardware I use and such. Well...
So, I've been eeking out the last bit of life out of my TV, while trying to find a good deal on the specific power supply that my dead monitor uses. My theory is that the power supply that powered my 4K monitor that's been offline for almost two months now is what failed, not the internal electronics of my monitor, but I can't find a 'works with my specific monitor' choice on Amazon that's not over $40. There's some close equivalents, but my specific model isn't listed in the model choices, so I'd be taking a bit of a leap of faith. Since it's an experiment, to help me avoid having to ship my monitor to the factory, I don't mind being out $20 maybe, but yeah $40-$60 for something I spent $300-$400 for is getting to be a bit pricey. I suppose I could call CS, but they'd probably just want me to ship the monitor back, and I hate repackaging and shipping things...
Anyways back to the TV. I've been using my TV as a computer monitor in the interim. The picture would occasionally disappear, or the TV would shut down entirely, but I could work around this by unplugging the TV and plugging it back in, at which point it'd be good for hours of monitor duty for my PC.
Well, this morning, after toggling it on and off a few times, I got the picture working again, but noticed these wisps of dust or smoke drifting in front of the screen shortly afterwords. Then I smelled it. Something was melting/burning inside of my TV! I shut it off and unplugged it, but yeah that TV's done! I can't complain, I managed to get 10 years of use out of it.
BTW, the laptop I'm typing on now has a 13.3" screen, and is NOT well suited for Daz work (no Nvidia GPU). I did learn Daz Studio on it, but that's what prompted me to buy a better system for my Daz hobby, once I decided I enjoyed doing 3D art as a hobby.
So anyways, I won't be able to work on any more fan art until I buy and install the replacement TV. I need to make a wider shelf, as I'm looking at a 55" 4K to replace my 43" 1080P, and the new monitor has two pairs of legs, instead of a single center support. I have one picked out that's on sale, but my truck needs a new battery so I need to get the new battery first, then use the truck to pick up the TV. My car is too small for a boxed 55" TV to fit. That'll be most of my day today.
I could get a smaller TV, but the price on the 55" is a pretty good deal, plus I do use it to watch movies so I might as well get the biggest screen I can afford. Plus my vision gets a bit blurry sometimes, so a larger monitor might help make the text a bit more readable.
I probably procrastinated for too long on this, but at least I eeked out an extra 3-6 months out of my TV! I almost burned down the house in the process, but yeah fortunately I avoided that last part...
I really need to get some cash flow going, via Subscribestar or something. I keep putting that off too, because of whatever reason I can think of at the moment, but yeah my cash situation is slowly dwindling, which is why I'm afraid to spend money right now, at least not until I ABSOLUTELY have to. I've even cut back on my Daz budget significantly, but I have a lot of Daz stuff at the moment, so I can manage pretty well with what I already have.
I HAD hoped that I could put that off (setting up a Subscribestar, etc. account) until the new 7nm Threadrippers hit the market, but yeah that's at least 4-6 months away, possibly longer. My current system does OK for rendering, but renders take me hours to set up and crank out, so I can usually manage only 1-2 a day, sometimes more if the pose changeups, etc. between renders are minimal. The Threadripper system I have in mind would have 3-4 GPUs, which would cut down render times significantly, hence improving my workflow. More memory and CPU cores should also help with the viewport responsiveness - I'm using a 4 core/8 thread processor now with 32 GB of memory and an integrated GPU for the viewport, and it can take a bit for larger scenes to load, or for changes to poses, etc. for those larger scenes to be computed and shown.
I don't really like the idea of being 'obligated' to generate art for my patrons necessarily, but yeah other artists are doing that to make a little extra cash, and a little extra cash would help my long term situation right now. I like being a bit of an 'anon' with my art - a Subscribestar, etc. account would have an associated paper trail, which could potentially limit the breadth of my erotic 3D art a bit...
Enough blah blah. Just wanted to let people know that there's been a delay, or hiccup in my regular stream of generating fan art. Carry on!