Call for Collaboration ~ UE5 Cinematic Showreel

Students. Hobbyists. Aspiring filmmakers. Somebody, somewhere, ought to be interested in this pitch.
Loyal House – Unreal Engine 5

The author of a Science Fiction series has assets to share!

  • Blender and Unreal Engine models — two flying houses. See the video.
  • Character designs
  • A story universe
  • An action scene suitable for adaptation into a 3-to-5 minute animated short

Mura Upadravin’s Regrettable Indiscretion

A serving suggestion, if you please

They were straightening up the catering counter when Loyal House sounded an alarm. A virtual helm console appeared between Francine and the dishwasher. The house pushed up, then sideways. She barked with surprise, grabbing at an open cabinet door. Display panels popped into augmented reality, forming a circle with her at the center.

Exterior cameras followed four intruders falling into the ocean, one of them trailing smoke.

Loyal House reported, “Enemy destroyed, shell intact, flank speed, acquiring altitude, staging Saraf Drive, waiting for instructions.”

Henri chittered at them from a sofa, clinging to a pillow, eyes like saucers. As soon as the deck steadied, he shot across the room into Elbert’s arms. Francine kicked shut the cabinet door she’d been hanging onto, cursing. “Is the woman insane?”

Left to right: Claude, Francine, Elbert, Henri

Left to right: Claude, Francine, Elbert, Henri

Upadravin House, The Peoples’ Sea

Mura Upadravin watched a replay during which four gun cameras blanked out at the same instant. Her thirty-fives were destroyed so quickly they didn’t even have time to report return fire. She was shocked, suddenly disabused of the notion that no flying house could possibly stand up to diamond lasers. Fear clawed at her intestines.

Upadravin House was flying in H2 airspace, transponder off., adversaries half a planet away. They’ll never find me, and if they do, it’ll be days from now. There was, she thought, plenty of time to decide what to do.

A lance of coherent light pierced the ceiling — humming, crackling, flashing combustibles instantly out of existence, producing a caustic stench, followed by smoke and flames.

Mura would have darted here and there, screaming her lungs out, but there was no time for that. In seconds, she was standing in her parlor with only two opposing walls preventing what remained of the roof from caving in.

The counterattack was apparently over. There was no sound except wind whipping through her legs.

A black PMI Interceptor bearing the Vasa State sigil hovered two meters past the new edge of her house, operator’s window rolled down, a uniformed Mahat Limar hanging his arm out. “Where’d you get the thirty-fives?”

She looked down at her feet. The remainder of domicile was losing altitude, but miraculously still flying. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Who wants to know?”

Roman Nataf wiggled fingers at her. “Bye.”

She stammered. “They came off a migration ship.”

“Who, specifically, gave them to you?”

Mura hesitated. The house dropped, the aircar did not. She shuffled to the edge, steadying herself against a wall, looking up, raising her voice. “An executive at Tvastar Geotechnical.” She shouted her co-conspirator’s name.

The planet came up to meet her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Mura Upadravin understood it was fair to be abandoned, consigned to H2’s unforgiving sea, because that’s what she would have done.

But wait! There’s more!

Indeed, there is. More work than I can tackle.

I’m not stuck on this storyline. I’m not stuck on anything.

The Loyal House model, in Blender and UE5, is ready to fly. However, before it can be used as a soundstage, it’ll need some work.

I was talking about this to my cousin the other day. She said, “Where are the students, in those programs, at those schools, where they’re supposed to be learning how to do these things?”

Yeah! That's what I want to know.

How to buy a flying motorhome on Jivada

Another work-in-process teaser, this one from Elbert, the first book in the Anye Constituency series. Illustration by Khoi Anh

Badari

The seller was a goat farmer, living on the rocky north coast not far from the SagGha temple where Guru Orsa disembarked the day they met him. He was Mahat Limar, talkative, apparently richer than King Midas, having a leasehold spanning a huge tract of land dotted with feed stalls and animal shelters.

The travel coach was kept in a barn, a space dedicated more to veterinary science than goat hospitality, but there was community on hand. Charlotte would have taken one home if she had a place to keep it. “This female is adorable!” Continue reading “How to buy a flying motorhome on Jivada”

How to build an alien death ray

Another teaser from a work-in-progress novel, demonstrating that it's hard to write hard science fiction. This bit might have flaws, as I've never actually built a laser. Comments from those who have are solicited.

Chapter 167

Titan Pass, Nevada

Lasers are uncomplicated devices, but as one scales them up, they can be challenging to build. Small gas and ruby lasers are easy to make; but if one desires a large-scale diamond laser, he’d better have on hand an assortment of supplies and tooling.

Borosilicate glass pipe, taken off the bill-of-materials of a coal dust combustion reactor (for a never-to-be-assembled abrasives processing line), makes a fine armature for a lasing rod.

Insert the pipe into the chuck of a CNC lathe/vertical milling machine, trickle in refined diamond grit, pulse into a liquid state with an Anye-tech fuser mounted to a servo-driven tool arm, manipulating crystal lattice structure with components made for a quantum assembler (which you will also never finish).

Dope the mix with semiconductor manufacturing chemicals, forming internal optical circuits. Measure with a full-spectrum LED shop light and high-resolution imager (a phone camera).

Mirror coat the borosilicate pipe. Apply a suspension containing light emitting precipitate (Anye-tech homebrew chemistry) to plastic-backed graphene mesh (Japan), and wrap that around your pipe. Tap the graphene mesh for power. Finish the assembly with parasitic cooling tape (from your nanoscale fabricator) and Plasti Dip automotive wheel paint (RockAuto).

Walla! You now have in your possession a thirty-seven-centimeter-long laser core which, when powered, is capable of instantly destroying meter-thick concrete. It’s also past midnight, you’re dead tired, and you haven’t built a flying platform yet.

 

Note – Featured image by Tom Edwards, a UK cover artist.

Blurbed.

It is said that it’s a waste of time to do much in the way of marketing until one has at least 3 books to sell. Well, I now have 4 books published, so I suppose it’s time to review the essays I’ve been hoarding on my bookmarks bar. You know the ones – “How to turn your inane ramblings into a #1 Best Seller in 5 easy steps.” 

Fortuitously, Ricardo Fayet over at Reedsy sent me an email the other day – me and probably 150,000 other people, not that I’m complaining – entitled The Ultimate Guide to KDP: How to Succeed on Kindle Direct Publishing. I’ve seen this advice elsewhere – but it’s neatly organized and, as far as I can tell, all the salient points are covered.

Number 1 – Create a polished cover.

I think I have that, even though I didn’t use Paul Trif at TwinArtDesign for Silken Thread, choosing to do that one myself. I know – that’s often a mistake. Paul made 3 great covers for my Anye Legacy books and there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t do it again. Be sure and tell me if you think I’ve goofed on this one, otherwise I’ll blissfully move forward not knowing any better. Continue reading “Blurbed.”

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