A few days ago I did a digital portrait of my old dog, Max – who has crossed the Rainbow Road a few years ago.
The software I used was Krita, on an XP-Pen Artist 12 tablet.
I also took posting this as an opportunity to experiment with embedding some of my social media posts on here, since my last post was around a year and a half ago!
And of course, here’s the original image…
tl;dr – If you take anything away from this post, back up your data to an external drive.
Please learn from my mistakes
Another post, another ‘I haven’t posted properly in a while introduction’.
I just wanted to do an update, since I actually have something to talk about – data loss.
The past couple of weeks, I’ve lost a lot of data – some through my own fault and clumsiness – and some of them weren’t, and I want to talk about those first and segue into the events that as far as I’m concerned weren’t so much.
It has been a few weeks where I’ve actually had such a string of bad luck, that it has to be a cosmic message to tell me to change my ways, or a divine digital reset to force me onto a new path with my life.
The first was that I received an email out of the blue that my YouTube channel that I had been working on for a few years had been terminated, for spam or scamming.
I don’t know exactly what it was that I had purportedly done for them to make this decision, and reaching out to Team YouTube on Twitter was as helpful as one would expect.
I have a suspicion that a policy change was implemented, and the content I had been uploading had retroactively flagged with that policy, and found to breach it.
I uploaded a lot of colourisations of TV shows and movies, and maybe they thought because I uploaded them without context, I was claiming to be the person that had made them.
When trying to find out what had happened, I was met with the same stock, automatic replies that most small creators are met with when they are faced with the same situation, and never received an answer.
My appeal was met with the same level of automation, and I had received a response within 15 minutes – it is quite clear that no human had even looked at my appeal.
My experience with both the appeals process, and their social media team is one that many people will also have endured: when it comes to terminating channels, they are the judge, jury and executioner before I had even entered the courtroom. It’s their website, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
The long and short of it is that I’m done with YouTube; since if I create another channel, this faces closure for ban evasion.
Suffice to say I have cancelled my YouTube Premium subscription, so that will save me £13 per month at least.
Thankfully, I set up synchronisation of my channel with another video sharing platform, Rumble – which does seem to have retained the majority of videos that I had uploaded over the years, so I am thankful for that.
Given that most of my existing content is already here, I will most likely continue my uploading predominantly here – I’ve already begun replacing my YouTube links on this site to Rumble videos so that the site works as expected.
I appreciate that the audience on Rumble is very different to YouTube, and I’m unsure how well I’ll do as a content creator on there, but as long as I can link the videos here, I’m happy for now.
This happened just the other day, out of the blue – whilst watching a video, my Windows 11 PC started misbehaving – and Blue Screened with the error code CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED.
I’ve no idea what happened, but when I had loaded it the next day and managed to boot into Automatic Repair, found that the partition it was on had errors – which chkdsk reported that there were errors on the drive, and it had apparently repaired them – but I was just unable to boot into Windows after that.
Honestly, I had been having BSOD errors with Windows for a few weeks before and could not understand what was causing it.
I should let it be known that I do not use CrowdStrike – which caused an outage of Windows machines worldwide just a month ago.
I opted to install Linux, because at this point – booting from Live USB was my only option, and intended to run Linux as my sole OS.
I have a separate nVME drive that houses all my documents and data, so no biggie if I have to reinstall the OS.
Wrong. Not anymore.
So everything I had that was vaguely important was on a separate nVME hard drive, and as long as that was OK – I didn’t care too much about reinstalling the operating system because at least most of the sentimental stuff was on another drive. This drive.
When I went to install Linux off the Live USB stick, it hadn’t recognised my Windows partition at all, only the nVME drive – so when I went to install it, it asked me if I wanted to install it to the drive it opted to, I (absently mindedly) clicked Yes.
This is the part that’s my fault, because I hadn’t read the message properly, and it wanted to install to nvme0n1p1 instead of one of the /dev/sda devices and clicked Yes – which instantly nuked my NTFS partition with everything on it, and said ‘EXT4 file system creation failed’ – but it was too late, the drive had been wiped.
I have a lot of the content backed up onto an external drive, relating to past YouTube videos I’ve made for my now defunct channel, but the things I had kept on that drive were sentimental things that I wanted immediate access to.
At this point in time, I am not sure what I have lost – probably things I can get access to via the cloud, emails or instant messages and the websites I had purchased assets from, but it was all so well organised on this drive!
I still have this partition on my 1TB drive, and just opted to install Linux on this drive, and if I’ve lost anything, I’ve lost it – but being able to boot into Windows Recovery Mode, I could access the C drive from the command prompt, and by some miracle of grace, my Unreal Engine was installed to this drive – which still had my Projects folder.
The main thing I was concerned about is the Sheffield game that I had been working on for years – there it was, still there.
I breathed as much of a sigh of relief as my asthma would allow.
The Blender file I used for the map however was gone, but I was able to download a copy of it from 2020 from this website.
Thankfully, past me had had the foresight to upload a copy here, that I could continue to use.
Since the nVME drive was now empty, I decided to install Linux onto it, so I at least had a working computer – and could always use PhotoRec on the drive to try to restore files, which did work – kind of.
It found a load of files, but not in their original file structure, so I now have a folder full of randomly named files that it had restored on my 1TB drive.
I’m writing this from my PC as we speak, so it is working again – every now and again something pops into my mind to say ‘you’ve lost that’ but it is what it is, it’s only digital data – a lot of it is in the cloud, and I could get it back if I need to – but right now, I’ve had to start from scratch with everything except my passion project – which was the game I’m working on.
Opening the project in Linux is going to be a challenge, but at least I still have that data available safely.
I feel like it’s also important to write a section on Password Managers, if your entire drive gets wiped and you lose access to that browser, the one that remembers all your passwords for you – you’re stuck.
I use (and I’m not affiliated by) Bitwarden – I encourage you to do your own research on something as important as a service that is going to remember your passwords for all of your online identities, but this is the one I use. I have it on my phone, and my second computer – and as long as you remember your email address and master password, installing it is easy.
On the first install, it’s so handy to have it available to remember your Google password, because this opens up everything: Your mail, your video site (that you are now banned from), and your Drive.
I will come back to the game I am working on, I just don’t know when.
I’ve recently invested in a 3D Printer, so I’m looking to explore what I can do with physical art that can’t be deleted, either by a massive conglomerate on a whim, or myself – accidentally.
If anything, this has taught me how fragile digital data is, and how easily something you have worked on for years can just disappear.
The past couple of weeks have felt like a cosmic intervention, something to make me change my ways and not rely on a computer for your legacy – so I’ve decided to paint more – be it 3D prints, or canvases – because these are the things that the world can’t take away from you at the slip of a button or our tech overlords deciding that they don’t want you on their platform anymore for reasons only known to them.
I’ll read more books, draw things on paper – at least they are physical and permanent.
Also, again. Back up your data to a device that isn’t plugged into your computer all the time.
Same for you, don’t be plugged into your computer all the time.
I tried out the free lighting setup by using a model of a car from Assetto Corsa, and rendering a video of a Mixamo character against a green background.
I have to say I’m so impressed with the results of this lighting setup!
Download it from Gumroad at
https://flwdbydsgn.gumroad.com
—— Links and Sources ——
VOLVO 850R WAGON T-5R 1997
by Wack updated/edited by Subetin v1.0
https://assettoland10.wixsite.com/assettoland/volvo
Interior photo
Photo by Max Vakhtbovycn:
https://www.pexels.com/photo/spacious-living-room-of-modern-house-7031618/
Interior Scene: ‘Room’
Dimmyxv / BlendSwap
https://blendswap.com/blend/6776
– Character dancing and sitting poses from Mixamo
– Ballroom image generated with Midjourney
– Music track ‘Symphony of Luxury’ generated with Suno
It has been so long since I’ve uploaded a video or wrote an article on here, and it seems like such a waste to have this site, and not use it for its’ intended purpose!
I’ve changed the theme of the site, and will be working to make the site work a bit better in the coming weeks, and trying to remember to use it more.
Note: This is taken directly from my original script, so it may not be exactly as it appears in the video, because some parts I had to cut out – if anything, this is more in depth than the actual video, since I had to cut it for brevity.
Intro
Hi, how’s it going? Hope you all had a great start to the year.
I know it’s been a while since I made one of these, but I told myself for the new year – I will get back into uploading again.
Just the other day, I saw a new tool come out – and just had to give it a try! It’s called UEVR, by Praydog – and it’s currently in beta and available for free.
It’s designed to take games that are made in Unreal Engine, and make them VR – even those that weren’t originally made to support VR.
Installation
Installation is quite easy, ive put a link in the description – though configuring it to work with the game that you are playing may not be so easy and will need some tweaking.
Naturally, it won’t work for every game – and the development team have compiled a spreadsheet of the games they have tested, as you can see – most are in green, which is a great sign.
Rai Pal
Another free application that I’ve come across that works hand-in-hand with UEVR is Rai-Pal – again, I’ll put a link in the description for this. It’ll give you a breakdown of what engine was used to create the games in your Steam library, and even the Games that are in your library that you don’t have installed.
Please don’t judge me on the games I have! There’s also a lot of tools for debugging Unity games, which may be useful – but I’m not going to go into that in this video; maybe I will in another.
Raji
As you can see from this list, the only game I have installed that was created in Unreal is Raji: An Ancient Indian Epic, which is a 2D platformer that’s set in ancient India, and loosely based on Hindu mythology.
For the purpose of this demonstration is perfect, because it’s the total opposite of a game that’s designed to be played in virtual reality. One thing I found really impressive about this, is that for a game where the camera is set so far away, the close-up details are absolutely fantasic – especially for something that the developers would never even expect you to see.
My Project
And for the main reason I’m making this video, I want to try and see how this plays on my own work-in-progress project. I’m going to be using this with SteamVR, so I’ve opened Unreal and used the build process to compile the game into a Windows executable.
[17 Hours Later]
So, the building has completed – and I’m going to add it to my Steam library. I do this by loading up the Steam application and selecting ‘Add a non-Steam Game to my Library’ from the Games menu, and selecting Browse to find the compiled EXE on my hard drive.
You’ll notice that the project name is MrWhizALSRep – this is because the template I’m using is MrWhiz’s ALS Replication template, but using my own level.
[MrWhiz ALS]
I’ve been using this as the basis for my game for quite a while because it’s updated quite regularly on their Patreon, so whenever a new release comes out – I can just drop it into my project to update the functionality. I’ll put a link to MrWhiz’s channel in the description of this video in case you want to check it out, they do also have tutorials too if you just want to follow them.
When you’ve added it, it’ll show at the top of the selection – make sure it’s ticked, and select Add Selected Programs.
It’ll then show in your library, so what I’d then do is right-click on it, select Properties → Controller – and Enable Steam Input.
I don’t know if this actually makes a difference, but it seems like the right thing to do for compatibility.
Make sure you have UEVR loaded, because you’ll need to launch it from Steam the same way you’d open any other game in your library – but once it has loaded, you’re going to want to Alt + Tab to UEVR to select the running process.
Once selected, press the Inject button – and it should come through to your VR headset.
The first thing you’ll want to do is is Set Standing Position, so it’s relative to your actual position – and recenter the view.
Let me move this out the way for you. My knock-off, Xbox layout controller isn’t working – so I have to feel for my mouse and keyboard, and try to find the WASD keys with my headset on – which isn’t easy!
Ok, so now if I look around….
And I can see the player character if I look down, and to my right..
A few people have asked about this track, and I just thought I’d show a couple of updates to the Irungattukottai track for Assetto Corsa
There’s a couple of things I need to work on next, they’ll be
00:00 – Player POV
WIP track is available to download from the Downloads page:
https://thefan.uk/downloads
Fiat Uno TURBO I.E. MK1 mod from:
https://www.assettoworld.com/car/fiat-uno-turbo-ie-mk1
Using the Blender-osm (now known as Blosm) tool to import 3D Tiles from Google Maps using Blender
Tutorial incoming!*
In this video, I take a car file from the racing game, Assetto Corsa and import it into Unreal Engine 5.
The car I used is a Fiat Panda, but this will work with any car file.
3DSimED tool:
http://sim-garage.co.uk
Hello – and welcome, or welcome back to the channel. I’m going to be using some Sheffield buildings I found on 3D Warehouse, and importing them into my Unreal map. With them using imagery from Google Earth, I can’t actually use them in the game – but for a sense of where things should go, and how they should look – they’re a lot more useful than the grey blockout buildings you see on the screen. The building we’ve just ran past is Montgomery Theatre on Surrey Street.
I’ve got 3D Warehouse open, and I’m going to use Sheffield Library for this example. So, I download the Sketchup file. I’m going to use the 2023 version, because I’ve downloaded the latest Sketchup – and activated a 30 day free trial of Sketchup Pro – the reason for this is that the Free version of Sketchup doesn’t allow you to export files like we’ll need to do.
I should also apologise for the ReStream overlay, I wasn’t expecting this to come up while I was recording offline screen activity – and don’t feel like re-recording the footage.
Once I’ve opened it, I’ll go to File → Export, and save it as Collada DAE Remember to select Options and ensure that ‘Export texture maps’ is enabled.
I’ll jump over to Blender, where I have a map of Sheffield from the blender-osm plugin, and find the Library. In this map, I’ve coloured all the Sketchup imports yellow, so that I can identify them later – and I’ll search for Library. Once I’ve found it on the Outliner, I’ll press Numpad full stop, or period – to jump to the building on the map
I’ll go into edit mode, select the roof – and Shift S → Cursor to selected, and back to Object mode.
Now when I’ve imported the .dae file, I’ll press Shift → S again and this time ‘Selection to Cursor’
This will snap the imported Sketchup file to the approximate region of the actual building on the map
I’ll eyeball it so it lines up with the map, and select Origin → To Geometry
You’ll be able to tell when it has worked, because all the elements will have those orange dots on them.
Once that’s complete, click File → Export – and this time you want to export to an FBX file.
Now I’m going to head over to Unreal, and import the building.
Open the Content Drawer
I’ve got a subfolder for each building, because they are made of a lot of different parts of mesh.
And I’ll drag the FBX file into the newly created folder, and select Import All.
I’ve got a search filter enabled to only show Static Mesh, and I’ll Select All, and drag them anywhere onto the scene.
To put them into place, I’ll reset the Location and Rotation with the backwards-facing arrow button – and then ‘F’ to jump to the building on the map.
This building actually has quite a bit going on; the yellow mesh is the previous Library I had there -but untextured, so I’ll be replacing that. The dark grey building is The Graves Gallery, which occupies the same building as the library.
I’ll open the content drawer, and I want to adjust the collision for all these mesh elements -so I’ll open a row at a time, to keep track of which I’ve done.
From the panel on the right, I’ll search for Collision to filter out the settings, and change the Collision Complexity to ‘Use Complex Collision as Simple’
Now I need to do that for all of the tabs open.
File → Save All
Now I can delete the yellow mesh-only library, and you can see the textured version in place.
I’ll click Play from Here, and see how it looks in-game.
It’s above ground level, and that’s to be expected – I need to model in the walkway, and the library actually has stairs up to it to access the entrance.
And then if we come up to the roof, you can see how the two buildings are merged.
Let’s have a little run across the rooftops, to make sure the collision is working
And while we are here, we can enjoy the view.
From up here, we can see one of the University buildings straight ahead, and if I run over here – we can see a building I’d prepared earlier – the Millenium Gallery.
I’ve done it again with the City Hall. This time I’m going to let it play out in realtime, so you can see what I’m doing.
If we have a quick run around it, we can see that it’s raised off the ground – but in actual fact it does have steps raised up towards it, so it won’t be flat on the ground – again, I’ll have to put the walkway in for it.
This is why it’s so important to set up the collision on the mesh elements – you’ll see on some parts, the player seems to be walking on the air.
A quick look at the Blackshark @blacksharkai7250 demo of New Orleans for Unreal Engine
Check out blackshark at https://blackshark.ai
In this update, I want to give you a sneak peek of our upcoming level set in the heart of Sheffield, UK.
Specifically, I’ll be showcasing a section of Norfolk Street.
I hope you enjoy this preview of the Norfolk Street section of the level, and I can’t wait for you to experience it for yourself when the game is ready.
Thank you for watching, and we’ll see you in the next update!