Checking my Google Analytics site stats today I found that the top search words sending people to my site were;-
Number 1, Traveller RPG
Traveller is a role playing game set in the far future, where brave adventurers pit their wits against the evil plans of bug-eyed aliens and fiendishly intelligent robots – or at least that’s the way I play it. It is of course possible to tailor your game campaign world to better reflect whatever your science fiction proclivities happen to be.
Some of the cool Traveller stuff here at Starbright includes;-
A bunch of spaceship illustrations
Special spaceship rules for the Tarazet setting
Civil spacecraft for Traveller
Luxury cruiser spaceship design
Convoy escort spaceship design
Should I use D20 for Traveller?
Another mining planet, a better one
Number 2, Spaceship
These are the savage beasts of any science fiction role-playing game. I love spaceships very much, I have ever since watching Star Wars at a formative age. I produce lots of spaceship illustrations using both GIMP (an image manipulation and illustration application) and Blender (an application which I use to produce nice 3D models of spaceships).
Some of the spaceship illustrations on this site include;-
The Starhound, a 3D illustration
The Legendary, a spaceship painting
The Caravelle, a simple 3D illustration
Number 3, Embed VLC
I was having problems getting QuickTime to play a 3D animation I had produced using Blender. I found that VLC Player would play the .mov file even though QuickTime – the application this file type was designed for – would not. I thought a quick fix for my problem would be to embed the VLC Player into my web pages instead of the more usual, but more rubbish, QuickTime. It turned out to be beyond my technical abilities, although I thought I had cracked it at one point. I went back to the drawing board and worked on the .mov file settings that Blender was using until it finally spat out a file that would meet with QuickTime’s approval. Judging by the number of people who come to my site searching for a way to embed VLC Player, I’m not the only one who has had problems with finicky ol’ QuickTime.
Number 4, Illustration GIMP
As I mentioned above I do a lot of my day-to day illustration tasks with GIMP. GIMP is the open source alternative to Photoshop and although it is a bit more primitive and doesn’t seem to be able to use memory as efficiently it does just about everything I need it to and it is free. Let me repeat that, it doesn’t cost any money. I use a plug-in called save for web to document the illustrations as I make them. I end up with a series of snapshots of the process that led to the finished illustration and which form a sort of step-by-step tutorial for anyone crazy enough to want to illustrate in the same way as I do.
Number 5, Bamboo Quick Sketch
The other indispensable piece of kit that I use on just about every illustration is my Graphics Tablet. It’s a cheap little thing called a Wacom Bamboo Pen and I am as happy as can be with it. It is quick and responsive, there is no lag between the stylus, pointer or paint effect and the textured drawing surface is very pleasant to use. All in all it’s no surprise that this search is so high in my analytics results.
Lower than number 5, Sci-Fi eBooks
And way down the list, some people also come to this ite looking for free science fiction eBooks.
I have indeed found a few links to free sci-fi eBooks, and they include;-
Science Fiction Books to download
» Brave, a digital painting for Illustration Friday
» The Duelist, Technical stuff to get my art Vega Strike compatible
» Second Edition of the Spaceship Space Opera Role-Playing Game - » Beginnings of a Witch’s Cat and Another Mech Obsessive's Blog
- » D20 spaceships for gaming: and MegaMek: A BattleTech Video Game... for Free?!
