Sunset Six: Exotic Variants

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

The final two tests for the Art and Music category are again, a little bit out of my league resources wise. The Test of the Formal Garden for example requires you to have already caught three ibis to turn their feathers into quills (on top of everything else). That's just for the Gazebo too - the actual garden is made of different plants and based on your knowledge of genetics, horticulture (for lilies) and xenobotany (for roses) to crossbreed them into more exotic variants.

So many plants!

The Test of the Windsong is the only actual "music" test and construct that I've seen in the game. Simply put, you need to make a chime tower and have it play a pleasant tune by creating correctly tuned and arranged chimes, and have seven people rate it as "good". The hardest parts for assembly here are the "cut gems" which I simply don't have practice in cutting. Also doesn't help that I don't have any. :P

Chimes with some Raeli art in the background.

Double Space: Infini and Interstellar

Infini

Featuring teleporting with seizures!

In the future, 95% of the world is in poverty. How is that important? It isn't really. Stupid introductory text! In any case, mankind has progressed a lot in the exploration of space managing to practically teleport across vast distances via "slip streaming" using some grafted technology. A clever way to get around requiring space ships in the film, though it does come with some "BS time dilation" jargon which one of the characters in the film actually lampshades.

Any who most of the film focuses on one guy's disastrous first day on the job which sees him sent to the most distant, abandoned space outpost. Another squad is then sent to retrieve him but things go really bad when it's discovered there's something else out there with them. I have to say it's a pretty gripping thriller at the start, where you don't know what the hell is going on but as things become more clear it sort of loses traction a little and at some points even becomes silly (intentionally, judging how some scenes are cut).

Trippin balls in space.

This is one of those films that I feel could have been made a lot better if it did "x" (like a better focus on fighting) but for what it does do - it's pretty good, and it does make sense at the end why the combat isn't really the main focus of the story. I'm not going to give it away here, so if you like futuristic space thrillers then I think this is at least worth one watch. Expect to have a few unanswered questions though! Personally, I'd actually watch it again and give it three manual overrides out of five.

~~~

Interstellar

A lesson in relativity.

It's the future and the Earth is dying from simple starvation as crops simply lose viability. It's up to Matthew McConaughey and the remnants of NASA to find a new home for the human race. Right off the bat this is a high quality production from the much required and well done CGI and the experienced "big name" people that might even just show up for ten minutes of screen time. There are also lots of quiet moments, musically but these work well for the scenes they are used and are a nice contrast to the rest of the orchestral sound track.

Keep an eye out for them aliens.

Yes, much like the deus ex machina wormhole there are holes in the plot too, especially on the science end I would imagine (I wouldn't know though, not really my field) and the last section really just goes ultra weird but for me anyway it tied everything together decently (though not perfectly). Despite all that this is a bloody enthralling movie despite the long run time and one I would definitely watch again. I give it four gravitational pulls out of five and would definitely like to watch it again. Also, props to having a unique idea for robot design!

Sunset Six: Up into SPACE!

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

Continuing with the discipline of Art and Music, that gearbox lesson from last time was required to build the thing I am most proud of currently: my fountain for Test of Dancing Waters. Also found it cool that ants make glue! Most people have a number of basins that shoot water from one into the other but for me, I just put one basin, two el cheapo nozzles and made it shoot in one direction: up.

Up into SPACE!

Pleased with my showery design, Lazybum was kind enough to donate an explosives package ("with enough gunpowder to level River Plains") to assist me with the Test of Fireworks. In it you must design and display a fireworks show and basically be among the best to pass. It's an expensive hobby, requiring a bunch of materials to make each type of effect but thanks to the package I've got mine ready to go. Just need to be online the next time an official fireworks test is on.

Very cool to play with.

Keeping with the aerial theme, the Test of Flight has you construct a raeli glider port and build gliders from treated boards to put on pretty displays for everyone. No, you can't ride them but there are functional hot air balloon ships you can use in game. The only problem with them is that running is supposedly way faster. :P

My glider port was boring - this is a much better example.

Double the Romance: A Walk in the Clouds & Cinderella

A Walk in the Clouds

What's a romance movie doing here?

Keanu Reaves is soldier returned from war to what looks like a not so good marriage. While trying to reintegrate into society he meets a random girl (over and over again) and due to his sense of duty ends up pretending to be her husband when she returns home, just to save her from getting yelled at by her dad. Yes. He tries to help her with lies. Good plan! Obviously things get complicated when the rest of the household quite likes him and he starts falling in love with the girl he tells lies for.

Fly Neo... Fly!

I have to admit, the acting, setting and story here are all decent enough. I especially liked the dad and grand dad of the "fated" girl. While I'm not sure -I- would have done the same thing Keanu's character did I'm pretty sure the only thing I don't like about it is that it's a romance flick. No guesses on who chose this movie (thanks wifey). :P Ultimately I give it two and a half clouds out of five, but isn't something I'd watch again.

~~~

Cinderella

Disney proves it has a lot of money.

A live action remake of the cartoon classic, Disney really outdid themselves in recreating Cinderella. From the sets, to the CGI, to the costumes, everything is of fantastic production value. Obviously there's great music too but if you are looking for the sung songs they are scarcely used during the actual film and were plonked at the end credits instead, much like in the footsteps of Maleficent.

Count the number of different dresses.

While all the actors play their parts well, for me Cate Blanchett really stands out as the cruel step mom. Unlike Maleficent there are no real "dark" bits here that parents might shield their kids from though and if you remember the original film then you basically have the whole story repeated here for you. This is both a plus and a minus in that there's nothing new, but you know what to expect. All up I give this movie four glass slippers out of five, and can recommend it to pretty much anyone (unless you absolutely hate all things Disney - you monster! :P). Would I watch it again? Hrm... I'd have to say no. Maleficent is more my thing.

Sunset Six: A Gearbox Lesson

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

Gearboxes are required for mechanized things in game, and they look pretty damn complicated to build especially when your only guide of building one is a weird combination like "Gearbox A250-A350 D140-200 G460-560". Fortunately Balthazarr was free to give me a tutorial at the zFree laboratory on how all this works. First thing to know is that all Gearboxes start at A1 and that position always spins at 100%. By using a variety of gears, you can manipulate the speed of the next gear as shown here:

"Same, faster, slower."

You also need to take into consideration the expenses of building the gears you use - simply put bigger gears are more costly to build. Fortunately all the math for the ratios is already done on the wiki so all you need to do is look through the range you are interested (as defined by the requirement, so A has a range of 250-350) to see which sets will be the cheapest to build. The 5/3 numbers on the side there are the number of teeth per gear to achieve that speed with five being medium and three being small.

For this range, the cheapest to build would be A333 D167 G463.

This means that we want A8 rotating at 333%, D8 rotating at 167% and G8 rotating at 463%. To get to that top line, you simply need to make a snake of gears up to the desired spot like so:

Since the gears are all the same size, D8 is spinning at 100%.

That's nowhere near strong enough, which is where using the 5/3 gear combos help to boost it up. Also, the gears can be multi-levelled so you can have a big one right above a small one or one on top of a "spacer" for example. Ultimately the final box of A333 D167 G463, which obeys the initial range of "Gearbox A250-A350 D140-200 G460-560", looks like this:

Thanks for the lesson Balthazarr! :)

Just FYI - It's worse IRL. :P

Epic

Surprisingly, fits the title.

This is a tale of good vs evil on the smallest of scales, which for me made me feel "ho-hum" right at the get go - but upon starting it up was instantly drawn in by the absolutely gorgeous art in this film. Yeah, unlike the environment the characters are a bit cartoony but they are filled with good animation and tons of expression. There are good themes for kids here like the daughter trying to reconnect with her estranged, slighty crazy dad and the reckless orphan who needs to learn about duty. I quite like that even the "bad" guy quite obviously loves his kid.

Yes it is.

Surprisingly though, there is a fair amount of death! And not just of the "oh, that guy got killed" variety but the type where people are working through loss. That... yeah that slightly makes it a non-kiddie movie. Also, if you are taking the scientific approach to things then there are many holes here you won't like. Time altering glasses would probably make the top of your list if all the fairies don't. :P

Anyhow, despite that I ended up quite liking it, wouldn't mind watching it again, and give it four leaf men out of five. 

Sunset Six: Pop Quiz

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

Pop Quiz: You are playing an MMO and encounter a horrific, giant beetle. What do you do?

Yuck!

The correct answer in this game is: You pick it up. They are needed for the school of Art and Music's Test of Khefre's Children. You actually need more than one as you must breed them (males pass down color and females pass down pattern) then make statues of them and worship them as gods. Ok not that last part, but if you want to pass this test you must have the most votes from the public to win three rounds of competition.

Preparing to windmill in case they come to life and rush me.

Getting public votes of "good" or better is a theme in this discipline, and it is the same for the next test of the Raeli Mosaic, which requires you to construct an artwork from raeli tiles (not all the colors link). This is a lot harder than I thought since it's almost like playing evil tetris as the shapes given to you are pretty hard to put together into a logical picture.

Everything has to fit perfectly. >.<