By Ian Hollidae, 2025/08/20

After my first attempt at a 3D photo gallery, I knew I'd want to try again with a different approach. A better navigation setup. A bigger effort regarding a theme. Maybe experiment a little more with lighting. I had a number of dramatic cloud pictures that I wanted to post, so this seemed like a good opportunity.

My first thought was how to layout the feature photos along the wall of a square structure with the viewer inside. But this turned out be too restrictive considering the openness of the theme. The layout needed to be spacious. The problem with this approach is if you take too long to go from one feature to another, the UX could possibly suffer.

Another layout idea was to have some sort of "sky" gallery where the avatar is set to FLY mode. Then the user would glide from picture to picture. But that wound up being similar to a previous project. I also wanted a floor.

In the end, I created something like a centralized "pod" with eight spots to post pictures. I also set the avatar to swing around to view more of the scene beyond the feature photos. This allowed me to post secondary photos as part of the overall theme. The floor texture was made from a cloud photo that would've never been posted as a feature. Maybe I'll create a texture post for it in the future.

The Between The Clouds presentation.

Tags: Web 3D

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/08/14

I'm not sure if this statement is any more true now than previous end-of-Kodak statements but here's what they're telling Wall Street (via DPReview):

In its earnings report, the company warned that it doesn't have "committed financing or available liquidity" to pay its roughly $500 million in upcoming debt obligations ... "These conditions raise substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern"

-- Kodak CEO Jim Continenza

Kodak is the one company that should have thrived in the era of digital photography. If they really do fold, I doubt it would have any effect on the photography industry. But could we say it doesn't matter?

UPDATE: Kodak has apparently responded to initial reports of its demise in a press release.

Tags: Photography

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/08/07

This is the entrance to the recreation center of a local park. It was closed down during COVID and remained closed for quite some time while undergoing renovation.

When I took this shot, I was conducting a photography project capturing windows and door knobs. The fact that the handle was broken was a bonus. Glad I caught it before work crews fixed it.

Photo Only

This post is a continuation of the Beginners Photography Project.

Tags: Feature Photos

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/07/30

I've been finding a lot of decorative rocks as of late. But unlike the last one i posted, which had a more chiseled surface, I found the random "veins" interesting. The cloudy conditions also muted the colors somewhat, eliminating all the bright spots and small shadows.

Select a thumbnail to see a preview.

Download the Drizzled texture set under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Tags: Textures

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/07/24

A recent Wall Street Journal article, How YouTube Won the Battle for TV, highlights how Hollywood is losing the battle against YouTube. The following sums things up:

For most of the past 20 years since it was founded, YouTube was an alternative to television, a home for cheap, low-quality ephemera like how-to videos and skateboard tricks that Hollywood worried was distracting people from real entertainment. YouTube started as a website to watch videos on PCs. It made its way onto televisions in 2010, but the interface was clunky. By the 2020s, a generation that grew up watching internet videos alone on their phones and tablets began watching YouTube together in their living rooms and with their own children.
...
In the process, [YouTube] became a media juggernaut. MoffettNathanson analysts estimate YouTube's revenue last year was $54.2 billion, which would make it No. 2 among entertainment companies, behind only Disney.

I could waste a lot of words on the disconnect between Hollywood and the so-called amateurs but what would be the point. Hollywood spent hundreds of millions of dollars (or more) trying to be the next Netflix. They spent practically nothing trying to meet the YouTube challenge. I'm guessing somewhere down the line, YouTube might just swallow Hollywood whole.

As for the average daily YouTube viewer, we just keep on watching.

Tags: Streaming

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/07/14

And just like that, I've been blogging on Chromalucent for a year. As someone who isn't a natural writer, this has to be viewed as an accomplishment. To be honest, I didn't think I'd get this far. Glad I was wrong.

I wrote a while back about my blogging efforts. I can't say that anything has changed. I do wonder if had chosen to blog on Twitter/X, as opposed to going my own way, would I have lasted this long. While Twitter/X has plenty of people, cutting through the noise requires a different set of posting tactics. I guess I could add Twitter/X as an outlet and find out but I think a traditional blog is enough.

And now, on to year two.

Tags: Blogging

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/07/07

Unlike a lot of my early cloud photos, lucking into the shot, I was ready for the possibility of this photo. Definitely a step forward in my photography.

Storm conditions of the previous two nights were more or less the same for this night as well. I knew exactly where to be, and when, so it was simply a matter of waiting (and staying dry). Once it was all over, editing wound up being straight forward. This version is one of the dramatic preset filters.

So chalk up another win for planning and organization. Don't let anyone tell you they're not important.

Photo Only | Interactive

This post is a continuation of the Beginners Photography Project.

Tags: Feature Photos

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/06/30

The PNG specification is getting an update for the first time in twenty years. The main focus is to simply recognize what the web community is already doing with the format. However, there appears to be a number of conflicts on the horizon regarding the future of image formats on the web.

The biggest issue is Google pushing its own WebP format, to become the defacto web standard, which some people aren't happy about. I've run across this problem myself (uploading a JPEG image but having it download as a WebP) while image testing. I admit, I'm not thrilled with this development.

There's also the matter of JPEG XL, the official successor to JPEG, which already does what the new PNG spec wants to achieve. All the major browsers seem to support it except for Chrome. And of course, JPEG itself will be difficult to replace, having been entrenched for so long. It makes me wonder if we might be at a point where any sort of friction between format stakeholders, mainly browsers and graphic toolsmakers, will lead to larger problems down the line.

In the long run, the more formats and tools that are available, the better. Let designers and developers sort things out. Hopefully this PNG update keeps things on that path.

Tags: Graphics

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/06/24

So we finally have some sort of legal direction regarding LLM's training on public material.

The tech industry will call this a win. The content industry, not so much. From the court summary (full PDF at the link above):

The copies used to train specific LLMs were justified as a fair use. Every factor but the nature of the copyrighted work favors this result. The technology at issue was among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes.

The copies used to convert purchased print library copies into digital library copies were justified, too, though for a different fair use. The first factor strongly favors this result, and the third favors it, too. The fourth is neutral. Only the second slightly disfavors it. On balance, as the purchased print copy was destroyed and its digital replacement not redistributed, this was a fair use.

The downloaded pirated copies used to build a central library were not justified by a fair use. Every factor points against fair use. Anthropic employees said copies of works (pirated ones, too) would be retained forever for general purpose even after Anthropic determined they would never be used for training LLMs. A separate justification was required for each use. None is even offered here except for Anthropic's pocketbook and convenience.

And, as for any copies made from central library copies but not used for training, this order does not grant summary judgment for Anthropic. On this record in this posture, the central library copies were retained even when no longer serving as sources for training copies, hundreds of engineers could access them to make copies for other uses, and engineers did make other copies. Anthropic has dodged discovery on these points. We cannot determine the right answer concerning such copies because the record is too poorly developed as to them. Anthropic is not entitled to an order blessing all copying that Anthropic has ever made after obtaining the data, to use its words

As someone who spends time on both the tech and the content side of things, I think the content side will eventually come out just fine after this. I'm not sure I could say that before now.

First, it appears that copyright precedence was followed. If you download/obtain something legally, it falls into fair use. This seems pretty straight forward. Some part of what Anthropic did cleared the established legal hurdles.

Secondly, storing copyrighted material in a permanent database without compensating the owner is considered piracy. This part of what Anthropic did fell short of the established legal hurdles and will go to trial later this year. I think it was this aspect of LLM training that really cause a lot of angst. The idea of web crawlers scouring the web without restraint and with no regard for ownership seemed inevitable. I'm glad to see some rational lines being drawn.

In some ways, this ruling is a bit of a relief. Enough of the talk and speculation and the start of rubber-meets-the-road action. Looks like the results are off to a good start.

Tags: AI

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/06/20

Ever since I started my dive into 3D, I've wanted to do a maze. Nothing fancy or difficult. Just get from one end to the other using free-style navigation. I thought about making this a semi-guided tour where the presentation will do the actual navigation. When you reach a certain marker with the maze, the user would be prompted to click a button to continue on.

I also debated about how big the maze should be. Since I'd never created a maze before, it was clear I needed to do a search. Surprisingly, there was a fair amount of information about mazes. The big issue was how to fit a guide map into the scene. One idea was to have a button that would elevate the user to a “birds eye” view and allow them to see where they were. Ultimately, I decided on an external map so the viewers path/motion wasn't disrupted.

Overall, I like how this turned out. The one thing I'm not sure about was how to “end” the maze. The end of the maze has the same cove as the start and there's a finish marker on the floor to signify you're done. When you actually make it through, it feels a bit incomplete. I suppose I could set off a few lights but that seems a bit much.

I think the next time I do a maze, it'll be multi-level affair with a few perpendicular levels. That could be fun.

The Mini-Maze presenetation.

Tags: Web 3D