I thought these walls were supposed to be sturdy!

Blender functions without the correct version of python installed, but not everything works. A lot of the key controls may as well not exist and the entire use of the right-click functions are gone.

Thankfully everything is menuful – and there are a LOT of menus, but I was able to wade through and even though its been years (something like 5?) since I’ve played with 3D models (and I didn’t do it for very long either), I was able to accomplish nearly what was being instructed to do in the book.

The codeplex exporter works so well that it makes you feel as though it must have a bug or a hitch. It just – works and takes next to no time at all. About the amount of time that it takes for you to release your mouse button from clicking on the “Export to XAML”.

So my thanks to the creator of the export to XAML plugin and to the great people within Freenode’s #blender IRC channel for your help and humor.

I ran into an issue with my Observable Collection and after comparing my code and xaml against the one made available for download on http://www.windowspresentationfoundation.com I decided that I’d come back to it and work on the next chapter which deals with handling 3D elements and their export to XAML.

The first part of the chapter is essentially the same as what was done back in chapter 3.  So I skipped ahead to the portion where the author is asking the reader to download and work with Electric Rain’s ZAM 3D program.

The problem is, since they are no longer in testing, the product has officially released, they are no longer making a trial available for download.  They state that the functionality is entirely the exact same as their primary product, save for the export functionality to XAML.

I’m not going to let that keep me down though.  I did a search on google and discovered a great paring.

Someone on codeplex.com made an export tool available for download which hooks into the open source 3D program made available for download at blender.org

They don’t mention it, but when you install blender, it directs you to python.com as it will not run without python installed and functional.  So if you’re following along in the book, you’ll need to be sure to hit python’s download page and make note of where the Windows installation is (3 links down) on the page.

I’ll let you know how things go with this alteration to the book‘s direction.

Edit: There’s a great wikibook available called, “Blender 3D: Noob to Pro” available which can get someone jump started into using Blender.

If you’re not following along while going through the book or aren’t already ahead of my knowledge curve, this post may possible just shoot way over you head. I’ll try to keep it from shooting too far, but I can’t guarantee anything.

Chapter 9 has us creating a c# based class file.

Quite a few posts ago I’d written a blog regarding classes – superclasses, parent, and children. Well at the very beginning of the C# documents, the first thing specified are the classes which each document is referencing – inheriting.

In regard to this set, Victor’s book says that I should see the following collection:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Collections.ObjectModel;

But that’s not how Visual Studio 9 (final release plus SP1) created my C# class file.  It created it like this:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Collections.ObjectModel;

…

I was in the middle of writing that I was hoping that it wouldn’t be a problem that I don’t have something which is displayed in a later portion where the author is having us add an item – but now that I’m typing it and flipping back and forth between the pages, I’ve discovered something odd.

Look at the first set of classes in this post.  Now check this out – page 194 of Chapter 9 has him directing us to add something called, “System.Collections.ObjectModel;”  But wait – that’s already there.  Or well – it has been the entire time he’s showing us what our code should look like.  He’s even bolded it.  What I AM seeing is soemthing else which is quite interesting.  An addition which is not mentioned and not previously shown.

Excerpt from the book –

… (see the following bolded code).

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
using System.ComponentModel;

I’m not so concerned regarding the bolded – because it was placed there by Visual Studio. What I want to know about is where the heck did using System.Linq and using System.ComponentModel; come from?  My Visual Studio already had .Linq but I don’t have the “ComponentModel”.

I’m going to add it to my code but… what the heck?

Edit: Page 196 he shows us what the code is supposed to look like entirely.  System.Linq is not a part of this example!

The actual C# the author steps you through adding – I wouldn’t have been able to get myself through that on my own.  As I work with C# more, I believe that I could, but at this point, I comprehend what the code is doing, but I know that I wouldn’t have been able to engineer it from “thin air”.

Somewhere in chapter 8, Victor Guadioso, the author of the Blend 2 book that I’m going through, talks about MouseEnter and MouseLeave events and says:

“In Flash and HTML, this is commonly known as Rollover and RollOut states”

Sorry to correct the author, but HTML coders – unless you’re talking about the mid-90s, stopped using Rollovers in favor of CSS hovers. Just the mention of Rollovers makes me cringe inside in the way that the movie Hollow man makes me cringe when the guy is running and you can see his body moving, fully in tact save for his skin which is invisible. (Note: That’s about one of the only things where I become squeamish.)

On a completely side topic, all of these blogs auto-populate to my twitter which feeds my status message to facebook.

The last week or so I have received several messages daily of new people following me on twitter. I click to view who the heck they are just to discover that they’re people who JUST created themselves a new account and from what I can tell, they’re just going through and “following” people so these people will visit them and hopefully obtain a few clicks. These are businesses.

I hope the people who work on twitter give the ability for people to decline or approve the act of following.