ATCP, LLC

Since the job title Sales Engineer (Wikipedia entry I created) is new, I see employers confusing the hell out of this role. I just had to post about it in the hopes that at least one employer or head hunter will realize how they are making things for real Sales Engineers worse by doing so.

When an HR professional, recruiter, or head hunter puts the title “Sales Engineer” on a job description that isn’t, it makes my job (and those of other real Sales Engineers) much, much harder. PLEASE stop doing this.
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I am on the road. A LOT.

The hotels I usually stay at have no variety in television, even though they almost all have the same sattelite provider I do at home (Dish Network). This means I can’t watch things like the Red Sox on NESN. Not any more!

I bought a Slingbox Pro at Best Buy and am still stunned at how good a device this is. It communicates with a private tracker at Sling Media so that any client on the Internet can access it. My networks sit behind 2 firewalls, so pin-holing took me a little time, but there are no changes needed to external machines-even those with personal firewalls on them.

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I’ve been thinking about ways to render in such a way that wouldn’t
require starting and stopping max for each picture. I thought of techniques I use to do lots of camera shots overnight.

Idea #1: If one were so inclined, time could be saved by animating the
material(s). I would suggest a blend material, using auto key, and
swapping out each material with each keyframe. Make each keyframe a
single frame right after the last one. Then export your frames as
individual images, as all animations should be. Works with NR (Network Render), too.

FYI: You can’t change the material type if you are animating a material.

Idea #2: Create an AVI or MOV that has in each frame the material you
want. This is for simple, non-compound materials, of course. Then
simply apply the movie as a material, and continue as above.

Note: When animating stuff like materials and all things that are not
positional/rotational in the root, you should see a set of red
brackets, the same as with “open” groups in the viewers, around the
widgets/parameter thingies that are being animated.

Don’t ask why, but sometimes setting manual keys does not work, and you need to use “auto key”. Personally, I think auto key creates risk when animating, and this may not be a bug… it may just be a retarded way to do it.

Another caution is that animations of any kind can be adjusted to
loop, stop, yo-yo, etc. when done. Get familiar with the curve editor
and dope sheet, using them as often as you use layers and the light lister.

Bogus Exception