Well, still working, studying, working. My age has two sections and the first section is built, though there is still mountains of work to be done to finish it. I've got footstep regions, sitting mods, working buttons for animations. The tutorials are very detailed and have walked me through everything. I've been working at least 2 - 4 hours a day on this and my biggest complaint is not having more time to spend on it. It's fascinating. By it's nature, the first section in my age is a bit simplistic compared to what I have in mind for the second section. That's worked for me because I can use what I've learned so far to prepare me to move into the more difficult modeling, texturing and lighting techniques I'll need as I go forward. Geez, I've already got textures layered 4 deep to get the right 'look'. I find it best not to think about what it's going to take to build the whole age, but rather focus on this one thing I'm trying to get right.
I've spent days getting a single object right. A good example would be rusty tin cans. My son suggested that putting these in one scene would help and he was right. That sounded pretty easy to me. DAYS later, I was reminded of my life-long tendency to open mouth and insert both feet. Modeling the first can was easy, texturing and lighting this little object, not so easy. Then there was the crushing and opening the lids, which changed everything and required re-texturing and re-lighting. I'm still not 100% satisfied, but for the moment I'm leaving them alone. They definitely add the finishing touch. He also suggested flies buzzing around. I'm thinking little tiny black spheres with a couple of little planes for wings on a continuous loop. Sounds easy enough. After the cans, I'm afraid to even start . I haven't even done any serious studying on adding sound emitters. It'll be really cool when it's done. Just keep saying that over and over and I'll get there eventually.
On a good note, I found the website for the Guild of Linguistics (sp?). It's packed with information on the D'ni language structure and how to translate, so I'm once again hopeful that I can get a good age name.
That's it for today's rambling. I hope all the other noobs are enjoying building their ages as much as I am.