Nikos Afentakis is working hard...

I am happy you have stumbled across my website, however it is not ready to launch yet. I work hard to get it up and running. This short introduction is the best I can offer for the time being.

My moto stands as: "Attract memory to what is really for keeping - Keep in memory what is really attracting". Thus the name of this website.

Originated from a small island surrounded by the blue Aegean sea, always involved in ships (I was raised in one and since I was able to go to school I lived upon it), later educated as a Production & Management Engineer, I always wanted to make my humble illustrating abilities serve the greater cause. During the years I was able to purchase and read a great amount of books and plans, research and get inspired from the same-minded people. The time has come to elevate my true love in a profession, to combine modern 3D design software with art, historic knowledge with research, to become an active part of a small but dedicated community. WWI vessels will remain a paramount of human endeavor in all aspects (materials, skills, knowledge, morals, politics, etc), and I am proud for being able to help boost the awareness they deserve.

What I am working on...

I believe knowledge never ends: the more I know, the more I have to study harder in order to have a better grasp upon the matter.

• Hardware: Build and test. And spend some money along.
• Software: Install and test. And spend some more money along.
• Library: Use of online tools, local OCR and indexing tests, selection of proper workflow. Some more information in Resources tab.
• Library: Digitize all the paper material - I already started but this will continue for ever(!)
• Ships: Build the first hulls (Rhino, Orca plugin and Delftship).
• Ships: Build the superstructures.
• Ships: Draw and UV for the proper textures.
• Ships: Select the timelines and render views.
• Site: Template and design.
• Site: Wordpress implementation, blog rules.
• Site: Marketing plan for the site -what I have to offer.
• Site: Design of all social interaction.

I aim for excellent results...

Best results will come as long as I maintain a strict dedicated scheme for information production and organization.

• Step 1: Research »I maintain a great library of books, magazines, plans, photographs, and more. Having all of it at my fingertips in a digitized form means I can offer to myself (and to others) some great research services for every project I (we) undertake. Reality check: means, among others, some terabytes of main and backup space, hours of painstaking photograph and scan sessions, extreme sensitivity for all legal copyright.
• Step 2: 3D Reconstruction »The main project that involves deep knowledge for every detail in a given timespace, for every ship model in question. Also you have to be great with the tools of the trade (modeling, texturing, rendering, compositing) and to legally own the software.
• Step 3: Publicity »Doesn’t matter if you have a great horse -since you don’t let it in the races. I seek all similar-minded people to form or to contribute to relevant think-tanks for in-depth knowledge of each individual ship -so I will be able to contribute effectively in any form.

My selection of projects

These are the projects I am involved in. Please expect some great results (but not at once for all). I am thrilled for each and one of them and I work according and towards the purpose I stated in the previous tab.

Main library

You can visit my LibraryThing book archive at anytime. Mind that I have included here only books (it excludes: ship plans, internet links, videos, photographs, scripts, etc). Updated in every new acquisition, surely reflects my enormous interest on the matter.

Hardware

For those interested, a few notes about my main hardware: 2×6-core main PC stations (8 GB RAM, twin NVidia Quadro FX5600 cards), a small renderfarm of 5×2-core PCs, 4×QNAP servers of 4 TB each for dedicated backup and storage purposes, 3×photographic cameras, 2×flatbed scanners (A3 and A4 size), all the rest paraphernalia (screens, UPSs, WACOM™ tablets, good music, 2×mountain bikes, good running shoes, etc).

Software

Software I use for my reconstructions and project support: Rhino3D™ with Orca™ plugin, Brazil™ renderer (owner), Delftship™, Terragen™, Blender™ (free), trial versions of Maya™ and Mari™ (hope to buy them some day), Wordpress™, Zotero™, Mendeley™, WhereIsIt™ (owner). Also various free editions for OCR, indexing and PDF production of documents.

Keep up the good work

These are few of the addresses that inspire me all the time -their work is so amazing I cannot praise enough. Hope one day I will be as good as they are in what they are doing:

Thomas Schmid old site: http://www.3dhistory.de/

Thomas Schmid new site: http://3dhistory.de/wordpress/

Andrew Wilkie: http://www.viribusunitis.ca/index.html

Stefan Dramiński: http://bismarck3d.prv.pl/

The Dreadnought Project: http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/tfs/index.php/Main_Page

U-boat War in WWI: http://uboat.net/wwi/

Pre-Dreadnought Preservation: http://www.oz.net/~markhow/pre-dred/victoria.htm

Divernet: http://www.divernet.com/Wrecks/

...and much much more.