CompuServe Messages

Hi! Doing fine. It's the Detroit area and it was an overly interesting flight back. First 1 generator failed (there are 3) and they had to get the maintainence people to inspect and sign off on flying with 2, then when we finally started our take off roll, all of a sudden the thrust cuts back and we coast down the runway…aborted takeoff due to a wing lift spoilers light. So they stop the plane and run up the engines while braked. One of the pilots, over the PA, tells what happened to an uneasy group of passengers, and that they just did a check, and it came out OK. The plane rolls back to start, and this time takeoff. One of the things that bugged me about the whole episode is… what is the chance that two unrelated electrical faults happen within, lets say, about 1/2 hour of each other? That's the first time I've ever been on an aborted takeoff. I would much rather that they had wheeled us all back to the airport. Anyway… I've started on character animation work. I've hardly started building my character (I'm going to try to make my own simple character) and I'm realizing that this is going to be a bit of work! Is it the complexity of your character's skelletons that drives your render times to high? (as in raytraced shadows on ribs or are you only having the shadows cast on the ground and walls?) Bruce