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Wednesday February 25, 2009
Hello World! I'm very late but back with more of the good stuff. I may need to have fewer and less regular blog updates in the future but we'll see what time permits. My topic for tonight is graphics and the focus is on another fun and free program. Context Free is an art program that generates images from a set of written instructions called a grammar. The Context Free site has a great gallery of user contributed art and lots of examples. As a programmer I like the idea of using a limited scripting language to create images. The language itself is limited but flexible. I'll try it out and I'll post whatever results here.
There are no music loops this week, but I'll try to have some for the next update.
The picture of the week was created using Dogwaffle.
Click on the image for a full-siz
ed view
The DVD/movie of the week was The Dark Knight.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Sunday January 25, 2009Hello again! Sorry for the lateness of this post, but fate and reality have conspired of late to keep me from getting to all I'd like to do. It's another quiet Sunday night and the rain has passed for the moment. The topic for tonight is minimalism and the focus will be on small works of art. The essential challenge of a small art work is to express an idea in a limited space. Writing tiny poems on post-it notes is a great concept and one that bears further exploration. A poet in Ireland has a blog containing a number of sticky notes with some small and thoughtful verse. A favicon is a 16x16 square image that is used to identify a web page. You can view this cool article about how to create your own favicons with a good selection of examples. Finally, I've found a page with links to 25 brilliant animated short movies. The shorts here are varied and there's something here for just about any taste. And that's it for this tour of small art works. I'll have more stuff to share next week.
The loops of the week are some strange synthesizer loops.
The picture of the week was created using Bryce.
Click on the image for a full-sized view
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday December 5, 2008
Cool December greetings! It's a rather quiet day here in the Gray Cat's loft. The topic for tonight is computer graphics and the focus will be on Carrara 5 Pro. I've mostly used and written about the Bryce 5 and Anim8or because they're both good programs and available as free software. I acquired Carrara 5 Pro as a featured free program on a 3D Now magazine disk, but it should also be available at a good discount because there is a later version. The application has always had something of a reputation as a good lower-cost alternative to some of the more powerful and costly 3D packages. I like the marvelous range of options and presets in C5P. You can create a 3D scene quickly using a wizard or roll your own from scratch. Every aspect of creating still or animation from modeling to finished rendering is included as are a number of sample scenes, models and textures. I like how easy Carrara 5 is to use and the high quality of the finished 3D art. It takes a good amount of learning and practice to get good results, but the training time is worth it. Another very cool feature is that Carrara will take advantage of the 2nd processor on a dual-core CPU when rendering. The only drawback is that Carrara doesn't have quite the same recognition as the bigger programs such as 3D Studio Max or Maya. C5P is a great balance between price, performance, and features. If you can get your hands on a copy, then be sure to give this excellent 3D application a try.
Next week: Mark's Digital Arts turns 100!
The loops of the week are some sample generated strings.The picture of the week was created using Corel Draw.Click on the image for a full-sized vie
w
The DVD/Movie of the week was Ringers-Lord of the Ring Fans.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday October 24, 2008
Greetings! It's Friday night and time once more for my weekly share of artistic and technical rants and ravings. The topic for tonight is graphic and focus will be on creating tiled textures. I've been making a number of seamless tiled textured to use as repeating backgrounds. Repeating patterns are also useful as textures for 3D models. To create a repeating pattern I usually start with a blank page of any dimensions. Next do some drawing or cut and paste images onto your blank slate. If your paint program has built in rendering you can use that feature to generate a semi-random pattern. Now it's time to make the picture seamless. Shift the image by about half the width and height. The “break” should now be visible in the middle. There are a few different ways to smooth the image. You can use a smear or smudge brush to blend the edges. You can also cut and paste small bits of the image over the edge area. Use your imagination and the tools in your particular art program. It's rather satisfying to roll your own tiled textures. Give it a try!
The picture of the week was created using Bryce.
Click on the image for a full-sized view
The loops of the week are some more dynamic drum parts.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday September 26, 2008Greetings! It's another warm Friday evening and I'm back with my weekly report of creative and fun stuff. This week the topic is graphics and the focus will be on vector drawing applications. The distinction between drawing and painting programs is whether they're vector or pixel based. Pixel paint programs draw and store everything as pixels, or tiny colored dots. Vector drawing programs draw and store pictures as dots, lines, curves, and shapes. The advantage of drawing programs is that they create artwork that can easily be scaled with no loss of detail. It's helpful to have at least one vector art application in your tool kit. Inkscape is a cool open-source vector drawing program with lots of features and excellent support. If you have a slightly bigger budget you can try Corel Draw 9 (or later). Corel Draw has a wealth of features and there are lots of tutorials online to help you learn. The remaining vector drawing program in my arts arsenal is OpenOffice.org Draw. OO Draw is the drawing component of the excellent Open Office suite. The benefits of OO Draw are greater simplicity and good integration with the rest of the OO package. There are many other vector drawing applications available but these three are a good start. Whether drawing a business diagram or your next art illustration, give vector drawing a try.
The picture of the week was created using Corel Draw.
Click on the image for a full-sized view
The loops of the week are some dynamic drum loops.
The movie/DVD of the week was Burn After Reading, a dark comedy from the Coen Bros.
The book of the moment is CSS in Easy Steps by Mike McGrath.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday September 5, 2008
Hi again! It's another warm summer evening and I'm here with the weekly dose of artistic and creative doings. The topic for today is Graphics and the focus will be on UV mapping. I gained an interest in UV mapping after reading about it in a chapter from a book on creating digital dinosaur 3D models. UV mapping is a graphics technique in which a 3D model is projected onto a flat surface image. You can then use the 2D flat map to apply colors or textures to the faces of the original model without warping or distortion. UV maps can also apply to bumps, specularity or reflections. If your favorite 3D modeling/rendering application doesn't include UV mapping you can use the excellent UVMapper program. The free “classic” version of UVMapper is comprehensive enough for all but the most demanding work, while the “pro” version offers more features. I intend make use of UV maps in my future animated efforts and 3D scenes. Give it a try!
The picture of the week was created using Spatch and Bryce.
Click on the image for a full-sized view
The loops of the week are some junkyard drum riffs.
The book of the week was Modeling Digital Dinosaurs by Ken Brilliant, a step-by-step guide to creating realistic 3D prehistoric creatures.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday August 8, 2008
Hello Again and TGIF on this lovely and hopefully lucky 8/8/8. The topic for tonight is graphics and the focus is on tutorials for my favorite free/open-source applications. First off there is a very comprehensive set of lessons on using the POV-Ray 3D/Ray-tracing program at the Online POV-Ray Tutorial page. Users of Project Dogwaffle and the various descendants and variations thereof can try a wide range of tutorials that cover the gamut from starting out to mastery. The last of my suggested sites for the week is a very cool selection of tutorials on Jonatan Bijls' Anim8or site. Jonatan has included lots of links to other Anim8or tutorials in addition to his own. No matter what your skill level is, it's good to learn something new, and these tutorials will give you a lot of info for just a small investment of time and effort. Give them a try and send me a comment if you have any other free graphics tutorials or applications to plug.
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 some simple piano loops.
The PC game of the week was Unreal Tournament 3.
The DVD/Movie of the week was Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday July 11, 2008
Welcome and a most jolly July to all! It's Friday once more and the topic is text as a visual art. A very early example of combining text and graphics into a single artistic statement is the art of illuminated manuscripts. The handwritten letters were embellished with beautiful patterns and decorations that blended illustration with calligraphy. Concrete Poetry is a form in which the placement of the words on the printed page is used to convey and accentuate the poetic content. Concrete poetry evolved into (and overlaps) a form known as Visual Poetry in which the text may form an image, further reinforcing the intent. A modern web-page is an example of how content and style interact and combine. The idea is to emphasize the words by selecting their placement, font, size/weight, color and other attributes. The good news for those wanting to create their own visual/concrete poetic masterpiece is that it takes little more than a PC and a decent word processing or publishing program. Try composing an ode to nature in the shape of a tree or a minimalist sonnet that forms a neat triangle or square of text.
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 drum/percussion parts.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it. Bye for now!
Friday June 27, 2008
Hello Again! It's another lovely warm summer night here in the old gray cat's loft, and I'm here with more stuff to share. The topic for this session is Graphics and the focus will be on a very useful 3D technique. I've been working on a project in Anim8or that required some facial animation. I decided to make use of morph targets to move the characters mouth, eyelids and eyebrows in a convincing manner. To use morph targets you define the start and ending positions for the points (vertexes) of a 3D object. The rendering software can then fill in the intermediate in-between positions, creating a smooth animated sequence. It's just the thing for lip-syncing recorded speech to an animated mouth. One of the drawbacks to this technique is that it becomes unwieldy when dealing with more than a few points. A partial solution is to define your object as a subdivision or spline surface, reducing the number of points to translate. Try it for yourself the next time you need add a bit of expression to your animation.
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 samples.
The PC game of the week was Travian once more. I've been recruited into an alliance and now stand a significantly better chance of survival.
The Movie/DVD of the week was “Hellboy”
The diversion of the week was Sudoku.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday June 6, 2008
Greetings again! The topic for tonight is graphics and the focus is on creating your own extensions for Project Dogwaffle. I recently acquired and started using the tBDW thinBasic Dogwaflle scriptable interface. This package allows you to create your own plug-ins for Project Dogwaffle using the ThinBasic scripting language. There are only about a half dozen statements and a like number of equates to get your head around, so getting started is relatively easy. Your thinBasic script can either render a completely new picture or modify an existing one. I've written some simple scripts to convert color pictures to b&w and to generate mathematical patterns. It's fast, fun, and easy so I'll recommend it to anyone looking to expand the basic functionality of PD.
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 some boogie drum loops.
The PC game of the week is still FreeCiv. This TBS game is an open-source clone of the classic Civilization 2 PC title.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday May 30, 2008
Friday Greetings! It's another nice late spring evening and I'm back with more of the good stuff. Tonight's topic is computing and I'll focus on portable applications. A portable application is a program that can be that can be installed and carried around on a portable storage device and used on any Windows computer. What this means is that you can take a small suite of your most used programs on a handy USB flash drive or portable hard drive and have them ready to work wherever you go. PortableApps.com has collected a number of free/open-source programs with a handy launcher application. The set includes portable versions of Mozilla Firefox, the OpenOffice.org productivity package, and ClamWin anti-virus. Being the artist/musician/geek that I am, I was also interested in graphics, games, programming and music applications. For 2D drawing you can use GIMP, or Project Dogwaffle. For 3D graphics, Anim8or and a few different portable versions of Blender are available. For music you can use the brilliant and free Audacity sound editing application. For games you have a fair selection of low calorie, limited resource options to choose from. Programmers can use the Decimal Basic programming language to create small applications. As an exercise I put together a bunch of portable stuff that took up only about ½ of a 2gb flash drive. It's perfect for computing and creating away from home. Give it a try!
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 some fat bass parts.
The PC game of the week is the classic puzzle game Bejeweled.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday May 16, 2008
Hola! It's Friday once again and I'm back with more stuff and fun to share. The topic for tonight is graphics and the focus will be on layers. Layers in computer graphics and animation are a part of most 2D applications whether commercial or free/open-source. You can think of a layer as a drawing on a transparent sheet. When you stack a number of layers, those closest will appear to be in the foreground. You can superimpose one image over another, or build a scene comprised entirely of overlapping images. In the case of animation you can create the illusion of motion by moving an upper layer around a background. This technique was the cornerstone of traditional animation in the days before computer graphics. Each frame of every scene was assembled from transparent cels over painted backgrounds. Thousands of cels would need to be meticulously hand-painted to create the finished animated film. Layers in 2D graphics are important enough to have inspired at least one book on the topic of using layers in Adobe Photoshop. Layers are also a key feature of Anime Studio 5 and Corel Draw. If you're using a 2D graphics editing program, check the documentation and help files for layers. You might have a wealth of untapped graphics power at your fingertips. Check it out!
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 some funky drums.
The PC game of the week is still Travian.
The book of the week is still The Poetry of Robert Frost
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
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 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 February 15, 2008
Hola! It's the Friday before President's Day weekend and the topic for tonight is free software. I have a couple of new additions to my ever-expanding collection of graphics programs that deserve a bit of attention. The first half of tonight's double-feature is MakeHuman; A free (GPL) program for creating detailed 3D models of human figures. MakeHuman produces very high quality objects with an almost eerie level of realism. The controls are easy to use and you can adjust the parameters to make almost any male or female body type. The one deficit I could find with the program is that it doesn't include any means of adding hair or clothing to your carefully constructed human model. So MakeHuman is great for making a model of a nude, bald person. If you really need hair and clothing you might do well to buy the more widely-used Poser package. The other freebie software pick of the week is Bryce 5.5, a program I've been promoting here for some weeks now. Version 5.5 is just one step behind the current cutting edge (6.0) and while not quite as powerful, it's still a full-featured commercial release with all the bells and whistles intact. Bryce excels at creating landscapes, but has enough features and capabilities to do animations as well as realistic images. Huge kudos and thanks go out to DAZ Productions for releasing the last version of Bryce, when they could've simply dropped it and kept selling the latest. I can only hope that this practice becomes a trend in the industry.
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 group of blues drum parts
The web site of the week is a history of computer graphics and animation.
The PC game of the week is Dark Star One, a space trading game in the spirit of Elite.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it. Bye for now!
Friday February 8, 2008
Warm winter greetings! I'm back for yet another Friday evening of shared artistic thoughts and views. Tonight I'll talk about the use of recycling in music and graphics. The term appropriation applies to the practice of using borrowed elements in the visual arts. In music a new composition can be made entirely from short sound samples or loops. Some controversy has emerged over the legal use of material under copyright, especially in the current electronic age. The alternative is to use royalty-free images or sound-bytes to complete your next collage. You can find more than a few sites offering free or inexpensive content, so consider making your next masterwork from some recycled raw materials.
The picture of the week is a sci-fi image created using Project Dogwaffle (textures), Anim8or (models), and Bryce (terrain and rendering).
Click on the image for a full-sized view
The loops of the week are some simulated acoustic guitar strums. These samples haven't been Acid adjusted.
The DVD/film of the week was The Big One, from director Michael Moore; a documentary dealing with corporate downsizing in the late 1990's.
The web site of the week is artist Debi McSwain's Daily Painting blog. I have trouble coming up with some words, a picture and music loops every WEEK, but Debi manages a daily post of some truly lovely paintings. Check it out!
The PC game of the week was still Sword of the Stars. I've started a small-scale search for another 4x game to slay my few remaining hours of free-time, but in the mean time SOTS is the best.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it. Bye for now!
Friday January 11, 2008
Good evening and welcome back! The topic for tonight is graphics and I'm delving into the realms of symmetry. The simplest use of symmetry is to mirror an image horizontally or vertically. By doing multiple reflections you can create a kaleidoscope effect. The mirror option is also useful in 3D designs. When making a human figure, you can create a left arm or leg and then mirror it to create the right side. That's the quick and easy version, but there are tons of other possibilities. Try to explore a few in your own favorite graphics application.
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 percussion sequences.The web site of the week is a cool list of 101 free games. This is the 2007 list and the new 2008 list will be up soon.The PC game of the week is still Forged Alliance. Money can't buy you love, but it will get you a slice of pure RTS goodness.
Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!
Friday December 14, 2007
Hi all and welcome back! It's Friday again and chilly tonight for So Cal. Most of my creative time and energies went into graphics and animation this week. I'd like to learn to use Carrara Studio or Blender, but every time I have a 3D animation project I end up going back to Anim8or. There are pricier and more powerful packages, but you can't argue with the sheer ease of use. The main animation projects this week were some more game art, an octopus character and a talking robot. With a cast of characters like that, can a comedy short be far behind? Stay tuned.
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 bell-infused drum tracks.
The song of the moment is the Commitments cover of Take me to the River. The Commitments are, without a doubt, the best Irish R&B band ever.
The book of the moment is Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman.
The PC game of the week is still Worms 4: Mayhem.Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.Bye for now!
Friday November 30, 2007
Warm greetings on a rainy Friday. I've been a busy gray cat this week, and once more my time management skills (or lack thereof) are getting pushed to their limits. I got a good dose of writing, doing more documentation for the Musubi project and writing up this weekly blog post. Musically I've fallen in with a group of guys for a weekly blues/rock jam and I've resumed work on a collaborated song that had been in the works for some time. In graphics, I've been creating new scenes and characters in Anim8or and I've started learning to use Corel Draw. Programming time was devoted mostly to SDL/Musubi in Euphoria and some preliminary work on a program for the Palm PDA. You'll likely see more of the results of those scattered efforts posted here on this very blog once they're in a state of completion. Next week we'll resume focus on the one topic or another.
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 synthetic bass runs.The site of the week is singer/songwriter Nicole Alden's page. I stumbled onto her site while on an unrelated search and was rewarded with awesome music and beautifully constructed songs. Catch this rising star while you can.The PC game of the week is Toribash. This game almost defies description; It's a martial arts game that is turn-based rather than real-time. The current version is free (always a good thing) and best played online, against other human players. It also earns a few extra coolness points for using SDL/OpenGL. Check it out! Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.Bye for now!
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