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Today's project is sitting here reading the BAT essentials tutorial from ST and staring at the GMAX interface. I tried this several years ago and got overwhelmed by the backward compatibility issues in just getting to the beginning of making functional model files with a 64bit system, so here we go again.
As I remember, It was like going back in time to the ancient world and trying to figure-out how to build stone pyramids with a brain educated in the modern world.
Those geniuses back then only had plumb bobs and set squares and some Pythagorean math and Euclidean space (geometry), and look at what they achieved without calculus, algebra, trigonometry, particle physics, laws of gravity, motion and thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and relativity.
6000 years later, and still today, the best engineers can't figure-out the exact construction specifications of the Great Pyramids, and the legacy of the Pharaohs lives on.
SpoilerThe Great Rift Valley,
The Nile River Delta,
and The Giza Plateau:
The Beginning of
Civil Construct.______________________________________________________
Practical Application
GMAXLOC environment variable not found.
GMAXLOC environment variable is re-set to C:\gmax\
The BAT program is hard-coded to look for GMAX in C:\gmax\.
NO plug-in directory was found:
3DSMAXgmax failed to start
The B.A.T. self installs in the GMAX directory gmax\gamepacks This is where to make the 3DSMAX folder.
The B.A.T. now loads as a plugin of GMAX with no further errors.
Before beginning to follow the tutorial it must be determined that this setup will load and save .3DS files in format required for making models that SC4 will recognize. The STEX has some .3DS files that can be used to test the setup.
If I remember correctly this is where things got overly convoluted. There are three extensions associated to the process .gmax .3ds and .SC4Model
The open file function only allows .gmax and the import function only allows .3ds and .prj Seems to be a bad sign that .SC4Model is not listed, and not in Save As either. The Export function only allows .PD3 At what point then is a .SC4Model file generated?
The next step is to put away the tutorial and cease learning to use the B.A.T until it can be verified that all programs required are available and operational. The only good part is that the B.A.T. part is not too complicated this time around. Simply, its a 3D drawing program. SimCity is not a game; its a city-planning, building and management simulator.
Further researching on ST and elsewhere, I could find nothing giving a technical explanation of the structure of files and their function. I'm at the same impasse I was before, and it was so long ago I forget the explanation that was given to me by somebody that understood structure of process.
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Structure of Process (Systems Theory and Cybernetics)
Coming back to the philosophy regarding the history of engineering. We began with ancient stone temples and the greatest engineering done since was the Apollo lunar landing(s). From a bioscience POV, that was one small step for a great ape and one giant leap for an evolving planet. Physicists see nature's beauty; biologists see her truth. Engineers see the mechanics of both. (Neil Armstrong was educated as an Engineer)
The SOP model described by Linda Glassop (2007) opens up a way of looking at anything by considering:
- What the thing is composed of (the structures that distinguish it),
- How the thing is composed (the organization of the parts), and
- That a whole thing is an organized structure (the process of comprising the parts).
Structure–organization–process
Structure–organization–process - Wikipedia
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The Domain of Life
Darwin statue, Natural History Museum, London
The model's name is Tovah, which is Hebrew meaning God is Good. The African Lion's name is Panethera Leo, referring to his species' classification in biology,
Human Origins
The greatest of the great apes fell out of the trees and confronted the lions. Man probably was inspired to verbalize himself talking to the BIG cat. The ape lost his hair (alopecia) and needed to learn how to make loincloth. Not lion cloth made from lion skin, but loincloth made from plant fiber and the skins of the herbivores the carnivores eat.
Think of how frustrating it must be for the males of other higher evolved mammals. They can't talk to their females. (No wonder they roar so loud). Nature's greatest masterpiece of evolution was the development of language skills in homo sapiens, and by which civilization, arts, science and technology have advanced to today.
The BIG picture question is why did the lion allow the human female to evolve? The lions could have easily devoured hominids to extinction. What does she know that I don't know about the workings of nature? Einstein said, "Look deep into nature and you will understand things better."
da Vinci pulled what would be effective to at least 7 PhDs in today's world. He spent 4 years looking at Lisa del Giocondo. The models today are the daughters of the Darwinian Academy, superior in refined qualities of form and function to the daughters of the Ancient Platonic Academy.
Practical Insight
My God, That Panthera Leo is so civilized he won't attack any female that reminds him of his own, and his female is so merciful she won't attack any species that reminds her of her own.
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Rise of the River Delta Civilizations
The Fertile Crescent
1. Nile — Egypt
2. Tigris and Euphrates — MesopotamiaCentral and East Asia
3. Indus and Ganges — India
4. Yellow River — ChinaThe School of Architecture
The B.A.T. will have to wait because I'm lacking the clairvoyance required to read the minds of the ancients sufficient to composing the specifications for building (monolithic) stone temples.
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Conclusion
Bioscience isn't very romantic, but its kind of sexy. The only reason why humans exist is because some sexually dimorphic gametes selected each other to recombine their chromosomes (sexual selection), and whatever offspring were generated at least sustained functionality of the species in its natural ecosystem (natural selection).
Take this Prescription of Science. May it Serve you well.
All things must evolve or perish. The Cosmos, the Earth, the species, and even for civilization there is only either evolution or destitution. Evolution is the structure of process of all physical law differentiating and integrating from the quadratic functions of high and low, positive and negative entropy into the composition of all that was, is, or ever will be.
"We are the highest achievement reached so far by the great constructors of evolution.
We are their 'latest' but certainly not their last word."
--Konrad Lorenz, zoologist and ethologist.
This report seemed to need some examples of Darwin's vision
Vision
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
-Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 1859
One thing the great physicists are renowned for is expression of vision. Can you see Einstein's universe? Isn't it amazing? The vision of biology is obviously closer to the human condition. Potentially, the comprehension of the model of reality of evolution may fill the soul with valuation of self-identity and purpose in common existence with all living things, proceeding to heal the mind of isolation and the insanity of a world disconnected from nature.
Self-Actualization
❝Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system — with all these exalted powers — Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.❞
--Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1871
Commendation
It should be noted as well that some of the most eminent physicists usually cite Darwin as a superior (Erwin Schrödinger is one example). Darwin may be referred to as the greatest scientist of all time given the magnitude of work he did and its impact on all science. One may even go as far as saying that Darwin founded modern science in terms of 20th century developments.
I compiled this graphic for my own essays, but it may be freely used by high school, college or university arts or science students in their reports on the work of the Great One. He certainly achieved much for a being sharing 98.6% of their genes with a chimpanzee.
Reference:
'Origin of Species' is not too difficult to read and understand with at least a high school grade 10-12 or 1st year college education in biology, and is, at the same time qualified all the way up to the post-doctorate level Below is a link to the Gutenberg Project's free online publication, and where one may find a collection of many other classics of science and literature.
The Project Gutenberg eBook of On the Origin of Species, Sixth Edition by Charles Darwin
Thus concludes this status report/rapport

