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Friday April 11, 2008
Hi All! It's another fine Friday evening here in sun-drenched so cal. The topic for this week is the creative process and a method for finding your muse. I deal mostly with art as it relates to technology but sometimes you need to take a step back to break a creative block. If you're a visual artist, try spending an hour or 3 away from the PC screen and drawing with pencils or crayons or ballpoint pen on a sheet of 3-hole binder ruled paper. The point here is to return to the media of childhood and see if there is a fresh source of ideas in the mud-pies we all made while growing. If music is your thing, try beating simple rhythms on a hand drum or tambourine. Pick up your old harmonica or ukulele or recorder and see what melodies emerge. If you write, try composing a silly story in the style of Dr. Seuss. Creativity and imagination are the basis over which we build artistic technique. Try it and see if it doesn't jump-start your inspiration.
The picture of the week was created using Bryce.
Click on the image for a full-sized view
The loops of the week are a set of deeply effected sampled guitar bits.
The PC game of the week is still Command and Conquer 3. The battle for tiberium continues.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday April 4, 2008
Hola and TGIF! It's April and the weather is mild and suitable for springtime. This week I started my first SDL project using Dev C++. I've done some work in the past with SDL and the Euphoria programming language, going so far as to write a header for SDL and a number of associated libraries. Euphoria quite a bit easier to work with, but C++ has the advantage of being a much more widely used langauge. I had a couple of false starts trying to add the SDL files to my project by hand before stumbling onto the the DevPak which contains all the necessary SDL stuff in an easy-to-install package. So far I'm still at the mud-pie stage, but if this works I'll try adding some other SDL libraries such as SDL_mixer and SDL_TTF. The other programming news of the week was that I downloaded and installed a copy of thinBasic, yet another interpreted programming language with a syntax based loosely on BASIC. It looks quite cool, but as always I've more projects then time to work on them all so it will have to wait for a decent test drive.
The picture of the week was created using Project Dogwaffle.
Click on the image for a full-sized view
The loops of the week are a set of sizzling synth bass parts.
The PC game of the week is Command and Conquer 3.
The book of the moment is Beginning C++ Through Game Programming, 2nd Edition by Michael Dawson.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday March 28, 2008
Greetings! It's Friday once more and the theme for tonight is music. I've embraced randomness as a tool for music creation, and I'm starting to do some work with white noise. Most simple software synthesizers have a white noise generator as one of their basic oscillator types. White noise in a raw form seems distinctly non-musical, but by applying some filters and effects you can transform the noise into strange and lovely sounds. This technique works particularly well for creating percussion sounds for synthetic drum loops. Give it a go and see if you can creates some truly unique sounds of your own.
The picture of the week was created using Project Dogwaffle.
Click on the image for a full-sized view
The loops of the week are a set of synth drum sequences.
The PC game of the week is still Sid Meier's Pirates!
The book of the moment is still Desperate Husbands by Richard Glover.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday March 21, 2008
Good Evening and Good Friday to all! Spring has sprung once more along with warmer weather here in the Gray Cat's neighborhood. This week we're going to focus again on graphics. In a previous post I promoted the excellent open-source program MakeHuman, which creates highly detailed 3D models of people. At least one inventive Blender user has devised a method for creating clothing for use with MakeHuman figures and has written a tutorial for this multi-step process. The cool thing about this ingenious idea is that the basic method should work with 3D applications other than Blender. Hair is still an issue, but that may also be addressed in a later version of MakeHuman. Give it a try and stayed tuned for more developments.
The picture of the week was created using Anim8or.
Click on the image for a full-sized view
The loops of the week are a set of synthesized chords
The PC game of the week is Sid Meier's Pirates! A combination of action and role-playing with lots of color and atmosphere.
The book of the moment is Desperate Husbands by Richard Glover.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday March 14, 2008
Hey All! The ides of March are nearly upon us and it's a fine Friday evening. The topic for tonight both graphics and also constructive criticism. This past week I shared a few of my animation efforts with my old friend Mark of the Illogical blog. He had more than a few choice comments in response that made me think bout how any artist can take critiques of their work. It's helpful to have someone else review your work before you publish or share it with the world. Family members are often less than objective but a good friend with a dispassionate eye or set of ears can pick out details that you may have missed. It's like writer getting a proofreader, or a game designer lining up a play-tester. You may be too close to your own masterwork to see the small flaws and inevitable errors that creep into even the finest final draft. Even after you've posted your artistic efforts use whatever reviews you get, either positive or negative, to improve your next work.
The picture of the week was created using Anim8or. It's a single frame from a short test/demo animation I did.
Click on the image for a full-sized view
The loops of the week are a set of R&B drum parts
The PC game of the week is still Titan Quest.
The book of the moment is The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams. This is a kind of animation boot camp for novices by one of the masters of the craft.
The web site of the week is the company page for Idle Mind Productions, which is run by a group of filmmakers based in LA with some very cool and edgy stuff.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday March 7, 2008
Hi again! March has marched in and this weekend marks the start of daylight saving time in the US. I generally balk at the loss of an hour's slumber but that's cause I'm a lazy old gray cat. The topic for tonight is music and I'm going to clue you in on a very simple yet interesting technique for creating bass loops. The simple part of this formula for bass lines is that there are just 2 notes used; the root note and a second note pitched 1 octave higher. Now open up your sequencer of choice (I use Orion Pro) and start up the step or pattern editor. You'll probably want to select a synth bass, but I've found it works well with a sampled bass too. We're going to alternate between the first low note (L) and the second note that's an octave highter (H) every 16th of measure, (or 32nd of a measure if the song tempo is slower than 90bpm), for one whole measure. That's it. You have a retro bass that will juice up your techno masterwork. If you really want put some cheese in your tacos try adding a bit of phase, flange, or wah to the effects chain . You can also vary the basic Low-High (LH) pattern to add some variety. Try HL, or better yet, HLLH-LHHL. It's fast, easy, and works surprisingly well, and now it's part of your musical arsenal. Go nuts!
The picture of the week was created using Carrara Studio.
Click on the image for a full-sized view
The loops of the week are some energetic synthesizer runs
The web site of the week is the official Star Wars site. Here you'll find a wealth of information about the movies, merchandise, and just about everything else related.
The PC game of the week is Titan Quest, which combines a cracking good FRPG with the rich world of Greek Mythology.
The book of the moment is Digital Sci-Fi Art by Michael Burns
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday February 29, 2008Hello and happy leap year! Once again we have an extra day on the calendar to ponder our fates and to celebrate the good stuff. The topic for tonight is computer games and the history thereof. Any regular reader of this blog will know that I'm very keen on space games of all types and the game I'd like to focus on is one of the earliest. Star Trek, an unauthorized computer game based loosely on the TV series first took flight in the early 70's. The first versions of the game were written in BASIC and were text only. The Star Trek game put the player in command of the starship Enterprise, defending a small number of star bases against a horde of Klingon enemies. The game was turn-based and required more strategy then quick wits and reflexes and favored any player who was good at doing polar to rectangular coordinate conversions. It would take later generations to add graphics and real-time action to the mix, culminating in games like Atari's Star Raiders. You can still find a number of free versions on the web including some vintage 70's and 80's programs that run on emulators. One of the demo programs included with the Euphoria programming language is Langwar; a game very much like classic text Star Trek with the names changed. For the real lowdown check out the Star Trek page on the Games of Fame site.
The picture of the week was created using Project DogwaffleClick on the image for a full-sized view
The loops of the week are a group of deep bass synthesizer samples
The web site of the week is the Language Guide, a site with descriptions of several major and a few obscure computer programming languages.
The PC game of the week is still Dark Star One. Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.Bye for now!
