Welcome to the fourth PDF issue of the PR Magazine! As you can see this is quite a large issue with over 250 pages! We have all sorts of interviews, articles, reviews, tutorials, and site stories to tell you! We all hope you enjoy this issue; all we ask though is that you leave us some feedback so we can better serve you in the coming months.
Thanks for reading!
Enjoy.
Welcome From the Team Intro. to the Contributors #1 Name: Jay Alias: Sorrow
Featured Articles N/A
#2 Name: Janne Alias: Divi Featured Articles N/A
#3 Alias: Anything Pink
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#4 Name: Tim Alias: Fury
Featured Articles
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#5 Name: Rav Alias: Rav
Featured Articles N/A
#6 Name: Mikey Alias: Mikey/Bootz
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#7 Name: Sentiment Alias: Sentiment Featured Articles N/A
#8 Name: Matt Alias: Tormenter
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#9 Name: Sean Alias: Scorcho
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#10 Name: UBA Fatman UBA Alias: UBA Fatman UBA Featured Articles N/A
#11 Name: NarutoGoku Alias: NarutoGoku
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#12 Name: Stuart Alias: Torak Firenze
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#13 Name: P-jay Alias: flayr ♥
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#14 Name: TTRibal Alias: TTRibal
Featured Articles A Small Introduction to Photography
#15 Name: Alex Alias: AgainstAll
Featured Articles N/A
CONTENTS Page 1- Front Cover by Tokyo Rose Page 2- A Note From the Team by the Blog Contributors Page 3- Writer's Introduction Page 8- Contents Page
Section: TTRibal Page 10- A Small Introduction to Photography
Section: Silver Page 13- Team Battle Report
Section: Silver and Tokyo Rose Page 30- Top 10
Section: Dragonite. Page 37- First Impressions - Cross Edge [PS3] Page 39- Understanding the Sony Lawsuit Page 43- First Impressions - Touhou 13 Demo [PC] Page 45- Hardware Review - GPX2 Wiz Handheld Emulator Page 50- Firefox 4 - My First Impressions Page 55- A Brief Overview of "Operation Odyssey Dawn" (and the events that lead to it.) Page 58- Everyday Python Lesson 2 - Classical Functionality
Section: Tokyo Rose Page 65- Aureus: A Fractal Tutorial Page 87- Orbis: A Fractal Tutorial Page 139- MARE SOMNIUM: A Fractal Tutorial
Page 169- The Artist's Palette: Girly Edition Page 173- The Artist's Palette: Colors in Fashion Page 176- Top Five of the Month Page 179- Warp Interview: Part One Page 185- Warp Interview: Part Two Page 190- Warp Interview: Part Three Page 195- Art Feature: Warp Page 212- Smiling Demon Interview: Part One Page 216- Smiling Demon Interview: Part Two Page 220- Smiling Demon Interview: Part Three Page 225- Art Feature: Smiling Demon
THE END Page 276- Closing Note
A Small Introduction to Photography Photography has become extremely popular worldwide in our current time, with the introduction of cheaper and more efficient cameras, and with visual information being used in every segment of the world economy. With disposable cameras costing little more than a few dollars – a mere pittance compared to what a camera would have once cost – photographs have changed from being a strict form of art, to an incredibly widespread method of documenting everything from weddings and social rites of passage, to disastrous events (a great example of this being that cameras are even integrated into mobile telephones, showing the ease at which pictures can be taken). Becoming ubiquitous as they are, photographers need to be evermore special these days, to receive any sort of credit or applause, so children are being encouraged to start photography at a young age, and develop the necessary skills earlier and to have more of a chance of becoming a successful photographer. Photography became popular in the early 20th century, as a result of the technology becoming far more popular, and portraitures of people progressed from paintings being the most popular type, to photographs, because of the accuracy in detail. Recently as well, a large change in photography has been the development of digital photography, with digital SLR cameras becoming the professional's choice. Even with the accessibility for the general population to cameras, film cameras and film photography is still an incredibly large art source, with websites such as Flickr.com having pools and groups dedicated to film photography, and a large proportion of artistic photographers preferring film to conventional digital photographs. Photography is incredibly easy to start, and as Alberto Korda¹ said in advice to aspiring Photographers, “Forget the camera, forget the lens, forget all of that. With any four-dollar camera, you can capture the best picture.” All you need to start photography is simply a camera (obviously the better the camera, the chances of better control and execution are higher, though any camera will do), a creative mind, and determination to spend your time taking photographs.
Another great misconception is that interesting photographs have to be taken in interesting environments. There is some truth behind this, with photographs obviously being easier to take in an environment where aiming your camera in any direction will result in an amazing photograph, though unfortunately not all of us are lucky enough to live in places as interesting as these. The real challenge of photography is portraying the environment and atmosphere around you in an interesting way that nobody would have thought possible, and being able to convey more than a simple image - whether it be conveying a mutual feeling with the viewer, or simply enlightening the viewer’s intelligence. With intelligence being said, the advantages of photography all contribute to the intelligence of the photographer, and an incredibly interesting factor is that your outlook on the world can genuinely change, with the appreciation of every beautiful moment being that little bit stronger. Next issue, I'll be covering how to get started with photography, from hints and tips, to making the most out of a home environment.
¹The photographer of Che Guevara, who is considered to have captured one of the most notable and recognised Photographs of all time, ‘Guerrillero Heroico’.
Vs. Battle Thread 6v6 tag Battle Outcome: 11 - 5 Demented Ninjas win ----------------------------
---------------------------Alx Fanta Whiskey Bess Zeven NG. ----------------------------
---------------------------sorrrow rajin lian freezer lekill dn
Even though this battle happened last month I had to add it in! Before I left DN had just lost their leader and was slowly getting back on their feet. Since than they’ve began to produce higher level, higher quality pieces, tags and LPs alike. When DN leader TimTim heard the Team Battle Report was back he was astounded by it. While TimTim seemed enthusiastic about the win, Hollow’s leader, Lian, acted like it was nothing. How will these feelings affect the next battle for each team? Anyways, onto the battle summary! Each team started off with great pieces in this 6v6 battle. My first thought seeing the entries were “Team 1 has some solid entries, but I think number 3 will bring them down.” Once I saw Team 2’s (Hollow’s) entries I felt the same. While DN started off to an early lead it didn’t take Hollow long to catch up. However, hose votes were not enough to stay afloat with the second wave of DN votes coming ashore. Even with the end in sight for DN, Hollow still had a few votes coming in but not enough to score a win. Will this lose affect Hollow in their next battle, or will it aid them? Will DN overtake their next opponent, or will they fall short?
Here are a few quotes from the team leaders: TimTim, on 15 May 2011 - 06:01 AM, said: phew, for a moment there I thought we were in trouble when I saw you were the one who'd made a topic Mandy xD but it's cool, I liked that battle so it'll be fun to see what you write =)
Lian, on 14 May 2011 - 07:28 PM, said: yeah add that we only used 2 lp crops and lost To close this out, my favorite pieces of the battle:
This reminds me of a few things. When I first saw this it instantly reminded me of the “villain� on Meet the Robinsons. Looking at it again it reminded me of the old comic books my grandparents always had at their house.
While it isn’t a huge favorite, when I first saw it, it reminded me of a WIS tag with his shapes and colors.
Another great tag by DN. I enjoy his colors, lighting, and effects in this piece.
Lastly, was Le Kills’s piece. The effects weren’t over powering; I feel they helped the render out in this one. The background wasn’t too chaotic, simple with an elegant touch.
Vs
Battle Thread; 2 LPs + 5 tags v 2 LPs+ 5 tags Outcome: 11-4 TTR wins
---------------------
--------------------ChaungUy Obstination
AgainstAll ByTheNight Obstination ChaungUy drsynyster ---------------------
--------------------Chandler Snowii fux + Lekill collab LeKill Zev ME24saken Koepaard
This is another battle from last month. I figured we’d just go ahead and add in a few battles from last month to get this Battle Report going again. Like the DN vs Hollow battle I wasn’t around for it too much but I still looked through their battle thread. I don’t see Hue and TTR caring too much about win or lose. I know when I was in Hue they were more about having fun than winning or losing. It’s always great to win, though. In my opinion, these two teams are evenly matched; I was predicting that it would be a close match. Both came out of the gate with a pretty even line up. Toxic started with an early leader until Bess took their momentum away with his vote, “Team 2 gmv, tho team 1 had better LPs. I LOVED all team 2’s tags.” Even with the wind knocked out of Toxic they continued to gather votes while Hue struggled to reach four. In the end Toxic received more votes due to their LPs and overall appeal. How will these two fair in their three-way? Will either be able to defeat MoonLight?
As also, favorite pieces from the battle:
Vs
Battle Thread; 5v5v5 Outcome: HUE Wins; 2 - 11 - 9
-------------------
Vs
------------------birdunit Csky. birdunit Againstall vasco -------------------
------------------Koepaard Again Kevs + Travi collab Mira + Divi collab vynka Dusk -------------------
------------------Ryuu Junk huMAC Morbid JTR
Three-way battles are always fun to be a part of and not to mention to watch. Last month TTR dominated Hue in a 5tag+2LP battle. Is this a remix for Hue and TTR or just a fun three-way? Will ML come in and ruin any hope for the other two teams? Team One (TTR) came out with interesting tags with interesting color schemes. Team Two (Hue) came with a manip and an interesting photo. Last but defiantly not less Team Three (ML) delivered some fun, palette teasing, and vintage pieces. My vote went to Team 3 because their pieces appealed to me and I enjoyed their color use. But, of course, not everyone agrees with each other’s opinions or thoughts. Surprisingly the members agreed with that statement while ML took an early lead. Like all good things, they must come to an end, which happened here when Hue took the lead from ML and left Hue struggling to get votes to stay in contention. The three-way battle ended more towards just ML vs Hue with TTR fighting the currents to stay afloat and alive. The close fight ended in Hue’s favor with Peggy Sue giving Hue the last hit they needed to defeat ML and Hue. Even with the devastating loss last month against Toxic, Hue curb stomped them and went 15 rounds against ML. Will ML ask for a rematch next month? Will there be another three-way battle with these teams again next month? Or will each team find new challengers to test their might? My favorite pieces of the battle:
I love the vibrant colors and the creativity in this piece.
Reminds me of my childhood; skipping rocks at my aunt and uncle’s log cabin on the lake.
Vs Battle Thread;20v20 Sprite Tags Outome:11 - 0 MoonLight wins [b] -----------
----------morbid morbid dn morbid ryuu kricket x'posion maq humac kricket dn humac kricket jirachi nonfiction nonfiction x'posion x'posion method humac -----------
-----------
fraq fraq fraq+.vem bess bess bess black ID / whiskey black ID / whiskey black ID / whiskey Zeven Zeven NG. Zeven Ng. Fanta Hacheka Kun Sz Sz Vem
With a title “The Sprite Battle of the Year” who isn’t keen to open the thread? Each year it seems the teams all wish to be a part of the “The Big One,” however, it’s usually only two-three teams in it. This time it’s a 20v20 sprite battle. With a background like ML’s they are my early favorites in this battle, despite a loss in their previous battle (Hue vs MoonLight vs TTR). However, in a 20v20 battle it’s hard to keep consistency, in my opinion. Here are some early opinions of the battle: Darkrai “Battle of the year is now up. Or battle of May” Juelz “Hmm, team 1. They just have better tags overall.” Craiz “I voted team 1, more creative” Zev “Well, I just looked it over and they’re all nice tags… But not one fully animated sprite tag?
Seriously? This one doesn’t count, btw,
only the sprite is moving.”
Team 1 jumped to an early lead with overall look and creativity as the reasons. If you stopped the battle when Team 1 reached 11 votes it’s easily a clean sweep. Team 2's late vote came from Golden
Member JU571N “Team 2, that earthbound tag is fucking ace.” It seems ML recovered rather well from their three-way lose, can they keep the momentum up? DN fell victim like many other teams to “The Big One.” Can DN rebound? Favorite Sprites of this battle:
Brings many memories back. She really captured the old style game in this piece.
Reminds me of seeing art galleries for some reason. I love the vibrant colors and effects.
This is a fun tag. The pastel colors are great. How the pokemon are reminds me of the old game Pokemon Snap.
If that is truly pixel art, the artist did a great job. Colors could have been better but, imo, it's all good. I could go on but I'd end up posting a third of the tags
Battles to look forward to next month! 7v7v7v7v7 featuring DN, Hue, Hollow, TTR, ML 5v5v5v5v5v5 LP Battle featuring Hollow, ML, TTR, Hue, aV, DN
TOP 10
By: MorbidSheep This tag shows a spectacular usage of the 3D fractal program Mandelbulb. I love the sci-fi like aspects of this tag and the color scheme. Wonderful job!
By: Dusk The insane perspective sets this tag off, as does the somewhat muted colors. The sun's descent though and its sunshine is what really makes the image, beautiful shot.
By: Koepaard Again Swirling eddies, a rough color scheme, darkness and light at the same time... Produces this tag.
By: Kitkat+MorbidSheep
How I miss childhood! This brings back old memories of neon colored play sets. Beautiful job. Oh, and the textures are a nice touch as well.
By: Pro BTN Textures, chaos, oranges, browns, glow. This tag has it all. And oddly enough it all flows together perfectly.
By: ryuuzaki This is a really neat tag, I love all of the details that have been put into it! Especially the flowers and leaves, perfect for this season!
By: Detective Harry I love all of the details in this one! Really interesting use of c4ds and other various effects.
By: Divi Interesting color scheme, I love the muted feel. Even though the colors are somewhat warm, it does project a cool feeling. Good work!
By: kitkat This is very interesting, I love the meaning behind it and the symbolism. Very good job on the composition as well.
By: kitkat I love the grayscale on this piece, it just makes the slight colors stand out so much more. I also like how detailed it is! Overall this has been a great month for tags!
First Impressions - Cross Edge [PS3] With the recent PSN outage, I needed to focus more on single-player games for the console, so I decided to buy Cross Edge on the PS3. Released by KOEI and NIS in May of last year, Cross Edge is one of the many now-popular "cross-over games" that have cropped up on the PS3 in the past few years, combining characters from various popular games by companies such as Capcom, NIS, Bandai, and others. The story revolves around York Neely, one of the original characters created for the game. The writers tried to make him the "cheeky rouge" archetype when writing him it seems. Unfortunately the writers failed miserably and York simply comes off as more of a misogynistic asshole, for lack of a better term. The other characters more or less exist to either develop the plot (in the case of the original characters) or to make fanboys/fangirls happy (the non-original characters), and both types of characters do their jobs. (York excluded) On the topic of a story, Cross Edge is VERY generic. The various characters from the various worlds have been kidnapped the story's world, and must work together to free trapped souls and defeat evil people because they are evil and must be defeated, you go through various maps and dungeons in your evil-slaying efforts, recruiting more licensed characters from games with better plots.
Now onto the gameplay, Cross Egde has a fairly standard turn-based with active ability system that players of many of the cookie cutter RPGs of recent times will find familiar. There are combos and limit-break-esque moves for those who like min-maxing, and if you're a fan of these types of games, the system works, but it's nothing special.
Outside of battle is where things get a bit more tedious. All I can say is I hope you like menus, because if you don't, this game will get to you fairly fast. Almost everything not combat-related is menu-related, and you will be spending a large amount of time navigating menus. This is backed up by a very number-based, traditional JRPG stat system which will require a lot of grinding. This is another issue, there is a lot of grinding in this game, which if you're an old school JRPG kinda person such as myself, is a GOOD thing. For those who detest grinding however, the major core of the game consists of it, which will likely mean this game isn't for you.
That done, let's address the elephant in the room, the graphics for this game are very bad, at times falling to the PS2 era, expect sprites, and lots of them. This really doesn't diminish from the game for me, but for those who expect a PS3 game to use the full graphical potential of the console, you've been forewarned. On the topic of audio design, the games music is average, and voice acting is acceptable for both the Japanese VAs and the American ones. (and yes, the game has dual audio and decent subtitling for those who care about that) All in all, if you're a JRPG fan and can get past the sub-par graphics and menus inside of menus inside of menus, you'll get a good bit of enjoyment out of this game. That said, this is definitely something that can be classed a "niche" game, and people outside of it's niche will find nothing of interest at all in Cross Edge. Here is the Amazon link of you wish to purchase this game: Cross Edge on Amazon
Understanding the Sony Lawsuit A full week after the shutdown of Sony's PlayStation Network, the first salvo has been fired with the class-action lawsuit filed against Sony by a California based law firm. Because of the digital age we live in, a pdf of the complaint is already online, but since legal documents are generally designed to be long, redundant, and boring (Here is the full document, if you are curious: http://ps3movies.ign...laint-FINAL.pdf ) I decided to write a short article explaining the general complaints levied against Sony. I won't re-explain the whole PSN situation, as it has become so mainstream as to reach Time magazine's website, and as such should be mainstream knowledge. The "causes of action" (reasons for the suit) are eight-fold. Five of these are violations of laws or acts (California Business & Professions codes 17200 and 17500, the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, and California Civil Code 1798.80. The three other causes of action are breach of explicit contract, breach of implied contract, and plain old vanilla negligence. Now, let's get the easy ones out of the way. The negligence complaint is simple to explain, the plaintiff in the case is alleging that if Sony maintained adequate security on the PSN data, the breach wouldn't have been compromised. Next are the two breach of contract causes, the explicit breach is the claim that Sony entered into a contract with PSN members to "properly maintain...members' data and provide uninterrupted service", thus with the breach and week of server downtime, this contract is broken claims the lawsuit. Implied contract is somewhat more fuzzy than the explicit contract. The suit asserts that PSN users and Sony entered into implied contracts via marketing materials, product packaging, websites, etc., that alleged that user data would not be disclosed to third parties. This in turn, means that it is to be expected (or so the suit claims), that the data would be well-maintained and service un-interrupted, so that this implied contract could be maintained. Since there was a breach and service down-time, this contract was breached as well, according to the suit. With that done, we get to the alleged law breaches, let's start with California Civil Code 1798.80 Et Seq. (et seq loosely means "and the following"; this is quite a big legal document), the suit claims that Sony did not inform the public about the breach as soon as they knew about it, and that no law enforcement agency told Sony that releasing the information about the breach would impede an investigation. This claim is likely based upon this except from California Civil Code 1798.82, subsection A: Any person or business that conducts business in California, and that owns or licenses computerized data that includes personal information, shall disclose any breach of the security of the system following discovery or notification of the breach in the security of the data to any resident of California whose unencrypted personal information was, or is reasonably believed to have been,
acquired by an unauthorized person. The disclosure shall be made in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay, consistent with the legitimate needs of law enforcement, as provided in subdivision Š, or any measures necessary to determine the scope of the breach and restore the reasonable integrity of the data system. Moving onto the California Business & Professions codes 17200 and 17500. Okay, the section for 17200 in the suit cites about 20 laws and regulations that would make this article about a thousand lines longer, but to generalize it, the suit claims that the faults claimed in the "Substantive Allegations" section of the lawsuit imply that Sony engaged in "unfair, unlawful, and fraudulent business practices", and that this unfair competition violates a slew of business laws. Code 17200 itself is just a set of guidelines for procedures regarding to these slew of other civil codes that Sony had broken. Moving on to 17500, the suit claims that Sony used false advertising to sell PS3's and PSN subscriptions, and that the advertisements concealed flaws in both products that Sony was aware of. In the actual Civil Code 17500, this claim is likely...well, bullshit, but here is the excerpt from Code 17508 sub-section A that it is likely based on: (a) It shall be unlawful for any person doing business in California and advertising to consumers in California to make any false or misleading advertising claim, including claims that (1) purport to be based on factual, objective, or clinical evidence, (2) compare the product's effectiveness or safety to that of other brands or products, or (3) purport to be based on any fact. This brings us to the last two causes for action in the suit, the Song-Beverly act and the Consumer Legal Remedies Act. The Song-Beverly Warranty Act basically states that if a manufacturer cannot repair an item after making a "reasonable number of attempts", that they must offer the consumer either a replacement or a refund. Since the PSN is what is "broken" as opposed to the actual consoles, and since the PSN isn't something tangible, I imagine this is just a reach to add more to the suit. The section of the Song-Beverly act that this claim is likely based upon is from section 1793.02 sub-section c: Š If the buyer returns the device within the period specified in the written warranty, the seller shall, without charge and within a reasonable time, adjust the device or, if appropriate, replace it with a device that is specifically fit for the particular needs of the buyer. If the seller does not adjust or replace the device so that it is specifically fit for the particular needs of the buyer, the seller shall promptly refund to the buyer the total amount paid, the transaction shall be deemed rescinded, and the seller shall promptly return to the buyer all payments and any assistive device or other consideration exchanged as part of the transaction and shall promptly cancel or cause to be canceled all contracts, instruments, and security agreements executed by the buyer in connection with the
sale. When a sale is rescinded under this section, no charge, penalty, or other fee may be imposed in connection with the purchase, fitting, financing, or return of the device. Finally, we come to the CLRA. There are quite a few codes referenced here, so I will not be quoting the exact source for the claims, but let me summarize this section of the suit as thus: This section claims that Sony has engaged in deception as well as unfair competition which has caused "damage and suffering" to the public. Furthermore, it claims that Sony intentionally did these acts, and as such, violated numerous acts in the CLRA, by representing goods or services of a "particular...quality" when they aren't, advertising goods as one thing while selling them as another, claiming users have certain rights at sale but not provided, and inserting an unreasonable provision in the contract. To quote the lawsuit itself: 81. The Defendant’s policies and practices are unlawful, unethical, oppressive, fraudulent and malicious. The gravity of the harm to all consumers and to the general public from Defendant’s policies and practices far outweighs any purported utility those policies and practices have. So this is a fairly serious allegation they're making, and along with the previous seven claims, this is what makes up the substance of the lawsuit against Sony. There is one last section of the suit I feel would be useful for me to cover, the "Prayer for relief" section (legal terms like to sound religious when they aren't), which covers what the Plaintiff wishes to occur as a result of the legal action. It is split into ten parts, so let's go through them. They are as follows:
1) An order certifying this case as a class action and appointing Plaintiff and his counsel to represent the Class. 2) Restitution and disgorgement of all amounts obtained by Defendant as a result of its misconduct, together with interest thereon from the date of payment, to the victims of such violations. 3) Actual damages for injuries suffered by Plaintiff and the Class. 4) Compensatory money damages according to proof. 5) Statutory damages according to proof. 6) An order requiring Defendant to immediately cease its wrongful conduct as set forth above; enjoining Defendant from continuing to falsely market and advertise, conceal material information and conduct business via the unlawful and unfair business acts and practices complained of herein; ordering Defendant to engage in a corrective notice campaign; and requiring Defendant to refund to Plaintiff and all members of the Class the funds paid to Defendant for the defective PlayStations and PSN services; ordering Defendant to pay for
credit card monitoring for Plaintiff and all members of the Class. 7) Punitive damages. 8) Attorneys’ fees and costs. 9) For statutory prejudgment interest. 10) For such other relief as this Court may deem just and proper. The first "prayer" simply means that they want this suit to be class-action, which is a very American and English type of legal action, which leads it to being common parlance in these countries. For those unfamiliar with class-action lawsuits, the basic concept is this, rather than an individual or small group being the plaintiff or defendant, a very, very large group takes the place of one or both of these positions. The second "prayer" is rather self-explanatory, the suit seeks that Sony "refund" all money it made by the "illegal and unlawful business practices" that the suit alleges Sony had conducted. The third "prayer" refers to "actual damage"; Sony should refund the money lost by consumers by the network being down for as long as it has, as well as any credit card theft, if there is any proof of it during the trial. The forth and fifth "prayer" just mean they want money adjusted based upon whatever they may learn during the course of the trial. The sixth "prayer" is self-explanatory but not brief. The suit seeks that Sony stop all of the legal code violations it alleges and that the members of the class (the plaintiffs) , the money for the defective products. The seventh "prayer" is money. The eighth "prayer" is because printing the thousands of pages of forms to file a lawsuit is expensive. The ninth "prayer" is for interest on the total sum awarded between the time of "injury" (the PSN outage) and the time of judgment. The tenth "Prayer" is just a blanket clause because who doesn't want more money?
And that, in a nutshell, is the class-action lawsuit filed against Sony, hopefully this article will help you understand the bland legal-ness of the document a bit more. As always, feel free to leave comments or bash my legal knowledge (as a college student who has never needed to take a law class) below in the comments.
First Impressions - Touhou 13 Demo [PC] *NOTE: All videos can be found in the internet version of the blog.* The games in the Touhou series of so-called "bullet hell" shooters has been series that I've played on and off since Touhou 7 - Perfect Cherry Blossom was released in 2003. The combination of a short attention span and a sinfully low level of skill with shooter games (and yes, I am one in the camp that still refuses to call FPSes "shooters") meant that I never really got too invested in the game, nor did I ever really spend too much playing the games. However, I do play the games every once in a while, so when the demo for the newest game in the series, given the sub-title of Ten Desires, was released I decided to download it, play it, then give my opinions of it. Okay, lemme get over the non-gameplay things first; this is a doujin game programmed and designed by one guy, so my comments on the graphics and such will be reflective of this. In terms of graphics, they server their purposes, I don't like the style of drawing for the characters that the designer uses, but that doesn't do much damage to the game's enjoyment, since most of the time you are dealing with the sprites, which are fairly well done. The backgrounds of the levels seem nicer than the last game and look pleasing while not becoming a distraction for the player. The music is average, most definitely not the most memorable of the series, but by far not the worst. That's all that's there to be said about non-gameplay things since these types of games are mostly made for the sake of the gameplay. It's...a typical Bullet Hell shooter, your chosen character (there are 4 playable chars) moves from the top to the bottom of a the screen avoiding projectiles shot at you, shooting other projectiles at enemies, leading to boss battles. There are three levels in the demo (as opposed to the 6 usually in most games)...and...okay, I'm not going to beat about the bush. In the genre of bullet hell shooters, the Touhou games have always been very easy. TH13 does not change this trend. It's fairly comparable to most of the other Touhou games in terms of difficulty, and that's not going to be an impressive challenge for hardcore players. For people with my level of suckitude as me, it will be as impossible as ever to play beyond "Normal" difficulty. For the average player, it should provide a few hours of entertainment. On the topic of playable characters, as I said before there are four of them: All playable in previous games (Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, Sanae Kochiya, Youmu Konpaku). Most of them play like they did in previous games, except for Youmu, who has a new style of fighting. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention, almost all of the characters in the series are teenage girls because...Japan. You get used to it after a while. That aside, Reimu, Sanae, and Marisa play fairly similar to each other when compared to the...somewhat strange style that Youmu uses of close range charge attacks (something you don't usually see in shooters). Overall, I'm not a fan of the new shooting style that Youmu implements, but then again, I generally just play as Reimu (for those not familiar with the series, Reimu is generally the "Vanilla Flavor"), so perhaps that's why I am so bad with this new style. That's all there really is to talk about, there is a story, but it's mostly tacked on and also in Japanese, so I don't know any of it. When the full game comes out, it will kill a few hours of my time, then I will likely
never play it again; the same story as with all the other games. So in conclusion, the status quo will be maintained, and a supply of art will be produced for people to rip to make forum sigs with. Oh how I love the internet.
Here's the videos of my craptastic blind runs through the demos (blind runs as in I recorded the first playthough of the game with each characters and didn't try for perfect runs or anything (I suck too bad to try that anyways))
*NOTE: Videos have been removed for the PDF version of this article. Please refer to the internet version of the blog for the videos. *
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Hardware Review - GPX2 Wiz Handheld Emulator
A NOTE BEFORE THE REVIEW BEGINS: Getting screen footage of the console was neigh impossible with the software I found for the system. Because of this fact and the lack of any real TV out cables for the console, I was unable to get any real game play footage. Sorry. Keeping in the theme of me not being able to resist impulse buys, I recently purchased a GPX2 Wiz handheld emulator. What the hell is that you ask? Why it's a handheld device for running old video games via the magic of emulation. So on this one little handheld you can play all the old games from systems going all the way back to the Atari 2600 spanning all the way to systems like the PSX (Playstation 1...don't know where the X came from, it's just the acronym people use.) The packaging for the Wiz was fairly nice looking...for a cardboard box, here's a promotional image of the box and it's contents since I am too lazy to buy a good camera:
My box did not contain the cheap crappy headphones or the spare battery, but other than that, the contents of mine were the same as that picture. The unit itself, the mini-cd, and the charging/connection cord (as well as pointless papers I didn't bother reading). The mini-cd contained pdfs of the device's manual in different languages, and was pretty useless. The cord is USB one side, and on the other side what appeared to the the connector for an old cell phone. In the end, the cable works, and that's all that matters. (although, it's slow as crap for transfers. It took me about 10 minutes to get
the ~350 MB Castlevania Symphony of the Night ISO onto the device) As for the device itself, in terms of looks, it's rather nice, with a red/black color scheme and a nice smooth feel to it. The Construction is solid enough, with most of the buttons feeling all right to press, with the exception being the home and select buttons, which feel a bit cheap. As for the rest of the build, the speaker covers are fairly cheap feeling, and the power switch is hard to hit. However, the major issue with the console is the size. As a rough estimate, the device is about 25% the size of my DSi. While it isn't small enough to be unusable, the size does make it slightly uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time. Here's another promotional image to show the device up close:
You might have noticed that I left something out that you might have seen in that first photo, that the device comes with a stylus. It does, because there is a touch screen on the device. It's resistive (hence the stylus), and it works okay. It isn't really used much though, and seems to be there simply for the sake of being able to print "touch screen" on the box. A brief aside for reference, there are two main types of touch screens used these days, resistive and capacitive. The basic difference is that capacitive screens use electricity while resistive screens use a physical mechanism. Since capacitive screens use electricity, they require being touched by a conductive material (say for instance, your finger) to work, whereas a resistive screen can be operated by anything that can impart force. An example of a device with a capacitive screen would be any of touch-screen iPods/Phones/Pads. An example of a resistive screen would be the Nintendo DS. Lastly, the battery. The Wiz charges very slowly, taking about 4-6 hours to get a full charge from being dead, and the battery lasts about 4-6 hours from a full charge. And that's pretty much all I have to say about the physical side of the device. So, let's take a look at what the Wiz can do. A thing to note, the Wiz is in essence a small computer that is designed to run games, it runs Linux and most of the software for it is open source, as is common with the Linux territory. It comes pre-loaded with a few built-in games as well as some flash games (and you can add more of your own later), let's start by looking at those: Built-in games: Animatch - It's bejewled with animals instead of jewels. You seem to make the animals explode when you get a match. Overall decent enough game. Bonus points for making the pause screen say "paws" instead of pause. Touchscreen controlled. Boomshine2x - It's one of those "chain reaction explosions" games. I don't like these kinds of games, so this wasn't that fun for me, but game is functional. Touchscreen controlled.
Myriad - You are a tiny UFO with eyes and you blow up skyscrapers while being attacked by space doughnuts. Pretty boring game. No touchscreen interaction. Square Tower Defense - It's a tower defense game. Seems alright, but you've probably already played better ones. No touchscreen interaction. Tail Tale - Some kind of match-4 game where you drag blocks around to make matches, the interface was in Korean. Wiztern - This is apparently a demo of a game... apparently going by the copyright, this game is from 1998 and features "ripped graphics" as well as "original graphics". It's a crappy hogans alley shooting gallery game...I think. It crashes every time I try to start the game. Minus points for the background song not being made to loop. Pre-loaded Flash "Games": IQ Jump Addition and Subtraction - The title screen of this game features a black man with a large afro and big puffy lips. Way to keep it classy Korea. The game consists of doing math problems. If you find 5 + 5 exciting, this is for you. IQ jump Crisis Ladder - You click letters and Captain Racial Insensitivity makes farting noises at you. I don't get it. IQ Jump Look for the coin in the saving pocket - Catchy title, rolls right off the tongue. There is some goal here, but I just pressed random things. Has something to do with coins. IQ Jump Find the missing number from the order - You find the missing number from the order. IQ Jump Look for the same pictures - Do I need to explain?
Here's the other multimedia features that you have better devices to do: Other Features: Picture Viewer - Works fine. Bit slow to change pictures. Comic viewer - Works, but screen is so small that reading comics from it is a bit of a chore. MP3 player - It's okay, both my old iPod and my Zune completely outclass in in sound quality, but that's to be expected. Video player - It works, but the screen is freaking small, it's pointless. E-book Reader - Why would you be so mean to you eyes? Paragraphs don't linebreak well, text is too small.
That done, we can get to the real meat of the device, emulation. Note that the device comes with no emulators installed on it, so you have to install them yourselves, which isn't that hard. I'll try to cover all the emulators I can find, but since this is a linux-based device, there's a lot of them. I'll at least hit upon the popular systems in the US. I couldn't find a N64 emulator and didn't care enough to try any emulators for the GBC, GBP, or GB. Also, to be blunt, I really didn't care too much about the old computers (C64, ZX Spectrum, etc). There are also a metric crapton of NeoGeo emulators as well as emulators for some of the arcade systems, CPS1, CPS2, that I couldn't cover for lack of time. Keep in mind that I only took the results of the best emulator I could find in cases where there were multiple emulators to choose from. Emulation: Atari 2600: I played Moon Patrol. It worked perfectly, then I got bored. Not much into retro gaming. Atari 5600: It kept crashing and I didn't care enough to try and fix it. When it did load I couldn't do any inputs. The emulator also crashes the whole device on exit. Lovely. Atari 7800: Seems to work perfectly. Played dig dug for the 5 minutes it took me to get bored with it. Sorry, just don't like the 80's games. NES: Castlevania 2 ran wonderfully, absolutely lovely emulator. SNES: This one is strange. The emulator itself freezes aster about 5 seconds, and if you don't get to the rom menu by then and pick a game, you need to hard reset. It also freezes whenever you bring up the menu at all, making this emulator all but useless. I managed to get to the FFIII rom I had (well, actually, FFVI...but FFIII on the SNES was FFVI) by rapid button pressing, and it did indeed run, and did indeed run at 60fps. But, I can't change any options due to the freezing issue. Disappointing. GBA: Works really nicely on many turn-based games (FFTA, the Fire Emblem games), there's some slowdown for more action-oriented games if you don't want to overclock (a side note, the device is designed to safely overclock, but doing so will reduce the life of the device and battery life as well) Sega Genesis (called Megadrive outside the US): Played an English-patched Japanese game never released in the US called Advance Military Simulator. It was boring, but ran fine. PSX: Symphony of the Night runs at about 20-30 FPS (if you overclock the CPU) when you have no sound. Still, impressive that you can run a PSX game like that that fast. Don't buy a Wiz if you want a portable PSX though. There is apparently a patched version of FFVII floating around that was patched to work well with the Wiz...because that's how crazy FF fans are.
And that's all the emulators I tried out on the GPX2 Wiz. Now comes the part where I tell you if you should buy this, and that's a definite maybe.
I bought this mostly for the sake of GBA emulation, because that's what I grew up with (curse me for my youth/lateness in entering gaming), and I found an emulator that works damn well for that. However, aside from the GBA, only a handful of the emulators I found worked. Some for systems I care about (NES), some for ones I couldn't care less about (Atari 2600). Some of the newer systems work well (such as the PSX emulator), and some of them don't function at all (Atari 5600). Worst of all, a few of the emulators only semi work (the case of all the SNES ones I tried), and that's more annoying than not working. Since I really only wanted GBA emulation and the other systems were merely bonuses, the $100 US price tag was worth it for me, however if you're expecting perfect emulation of every retro console then prepare to be let down, for that is not what the Wiz will do. If you're willing to work with the machine and forgive it for it's quirks, it may just be worth your time.
Firefox 4 - My First Impressions I decided to upgrade to the recently-released Firefox 4 today, and as soon as I saw it open for the first time, I knew I wanted to write a blog about it. So without any ado at all, here we go with my first impressions of the browser. Benchmarks Let's get these out of the way first. I ran all of the following benchmarks on FF4, Chrome 10, Opera 11, and Internet Explorer 8 (I didn't use IE 9 because the installation process required a system reboot, and that put me so far out of the "IE mood" that I'm just using IE 8...I'll spare you the microrant I had about my linux box being able to update it's kernel w/o rebooting while Windows needs a reboot for it's effing web browser...) Here's the Peacekeeper results for my machine, for these results, a higher score is better:
The Peacekeeper benchmark is a general-purpose benchmark thingie, as you can see, Firefox 4 did not do too good on my machine for one reason or another, however other bench marks I have seen on other machines lead me to believe that this result might indeed be the result of something about my system rather than the browser. Perhaps the most notable that I do not run a "clean" install of FF, since it is my main browser on this computer. Here's the SunSpider results for my machine, for these results, a lower time is better:
SunSpider is the first of 3 JavaScript benchmarks I ran, and the results here? Lol Internet Explorer. Putting IE 8 terrible time aside, the three other browsers were all comparable; a 20 millisecond difference isn't exactly earth-shattering. Here's the Kraken results for my machine, for these results, a lower time is better:
NOTE: IE8 was incapable of running the Kraken benchmark on my machine without registry editing, which I am too lazy to do. Suffice to say, most Kraken benchmarks were around 3 minutes (in a test that measures in milliseconds). This is the second of 3 JavaScript benchmarks I ran, a more "intense" version of SunSpider. Well, as for the results. Chrome and FF4 did comparable, Opera took almost double the time of either two, and IE8 was incapable of even starting it on my machine. Here's the V8 results, for these results, a higher score is better:
Note: IE 8 was also unable to complete the V8 test, and the registry edit that was suggested to fix the problem did not work, therefore, I can't be bothered to try and fix it and as such, gave IE 8 a 0. Judging by the progress it made before the test failed to complete, 0 is pretty damn close to the score it would have gotten anyways The V8 test is the third JavaScript benchmark I ran, and Chrome pretty much ran away with this one. FF4 did better than Opera did, and once again, IE 8 could not finish the test. Here's the HTML5 Test results, for this test, a higher score is best and the max score is 400:
This is the first of two HTML compliance tests, specifically testing compliance to HTML 5 features. Google has invested a lot of time pushing HTML 5, and as such, Chrome is the best in this category. I was honestly surprised that IE 8 didn't get a 0. Here's the Acid3 results, for this test, a higher score is best and the max score is 100:
The Acid3 test tests compliance with many web standards. Chrome and Opera got the max score, FF 4 was close to perfect, and IE 8...was IE8
Appearance and Usability Well, now that that's done with, I can get to the part that really matters, since unless you use IE 8, the browsers are close enough in performance for you to not notice much of a difference. No, what's really important is how the browser feels to use. Now, when I first opened FF4 after upgrading (which was a painless procedure), I thought to myself "this feels familiar, this is trying to be similar to something...but I don't know what..."
Thumbnail, click to enlarge. Oh yeah. Chrome. Yeah...it's hard to deny that the new interface feels kinda...Chromey. And it's not just the tab design, because all of the modern browsers uses that style of tabs, it's many other things. The removal of the status bar in place of a "tooltip" like thing, the reduction of size in the toolbars, the more button-oriented method of dealing with add-ons, this browser just wants to be Chrome so freaking badly. That said, if you put that fact aside, the interface works with a few kinks. The home button is in an incredibly inconvenient place, and the first time I launched FF, I didn't even notice it was there. Something I feel I must mention also, the "Mozilla startpage" looks like it was done by a college washout from an online university. Google can get away with minimalist designs because it's a search engine. The Mozilla homepage is the Google web search without any of the helpful features, which actually was in the FF 3 homepage, since it sorta integrated the Google top-ribbon thing....ah, but I'm getting too angry about a start page, albeit a lazy half-assed start page.
In terms of general functionality, it works like FF 3 for the most part, and you won't really notice the difference in your everyday browsing. The most notable difference is that they finally included a "paste and go" option if you have a URL in your clipboard, but that isn't really that earth shaking, is it? In regard to add-ons, most of the add-ons I had installed on FF3 transferred over to FF4 well enough, and the ones I cared most about (NoScript and AB+) didn't even require updates to transfer correctly, which is nice. In terms of new add-ons, there weren't many. The add-ons library is still fairly the same. Of course, some new roll-out add-ons would be nice; it would have been a good surprise to finally have a decent twitter add-on, as nothing on any browser I have used seems to be anywhere close to being as good as the Chromed Bird extension on Chrome, but that said, the library still has most of the essential add-ons you'd want compatible for FF4. Graphically, FF4 still uses the persona system from FF3, and my Persona automatically transferred. I am still disappointed by the lack of shooting myself in the head or tarot cards in a system that calls itself "persona" (or...evil zombie Hitler...the earlier Persona games were kinda weird). My opinion of the persona system is...well...it feels just like Chrome's skin system, not that that's a bad thing, the Chrome skin system works perfectly fine. A note about FF4, it uses a new rendering system for fonts, and as a result, while very large fonts looks nice, very small fonts look very not nice, then again, most people use fonts bigger than the size where FF4 has problems rendering, so that should be a fairly moot point. Conclusion And that's all there is really; A web browser is a fairly basic thing after all. As for my opinion on Firefox 4: well it's a vast improvement over Firefox 3, but in the end, Chrome is still a nicer browser overall in almost every category. In fact, the only reason I still use Firefox as my main browsers is the NoScript extension, for which there is no similar add-on for any other browser. The day Chrome gets something similar (and that's unlikely to happen any time soon if you know how Chrome is designed), I will likely have reached the end of my "Firefox Lifetime" That aside, purely on it's own merits, Firefox 4 is a competent, modern browser, capable of whatever web-related activity you might want to do...unlike IE 8, which suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkks. Maybe IE 9 is better...and maybe I'm just a hopeless optimist.
A Brief Overview of "Operation Odyssey Dawn" I felt like writing another informational piece, and with me already writing one relating to the major topical issue (the disasters in Japan), I now shift to the other major newsmaking event in the world today, the rebellion in Libya, and hopefully this article may clear up any misconceptions surrounding the issue that you may have. As you may know, a coalition of UN forces from the UK, US, France, and other European and North American powers are imposing a "no-fly zone" over a 3000 square mile area in Libya. I'm getting ahead of myself however, for the current situation was the result of actions four months ago in Tunisia. In December of last year, protests broke out in Tunisia after Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, attempted to commit suicide by dousing himself in petrol and lighting himself on fire. Bouazizi did this in response to a government official confiscating his merchandise for not having the correct permits. 28 days later, under pressure of protests and the police's inability to stop them, Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country, ending his 23 year reign. In the aftermath of this, similar protests broke out in many parts of the middle east, and the next country to receive the media's attention was Egypt. Large scale protests were more televised than in Tunisia, and with the global pressure inflicted with this, the powerful military command of Egypt eventually decided to side with the protesters, and President Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down. The next place to receive media attention was Libya, where similar results were expected among the international community. That was until the Libyan government violently cracked down on protesters, and the rebellion via civil disobedience that the world was expecting turned into a rebellion of a more traditional type. With large chunks of military forces defecting to the rebellion, President Moammar Gaddafi was forced to consolidate his military power to the capital of Tripoli and other western cities, leaving the rebellion to claim many eastern cities and establish a new capital in the Eastern city of Benghazi, as well as several other cities in the east such as Ajdabiya, and one city in the west, Misratah.
Political map of Libya While the rebels quickly advanced towards Tripoli, Gaddafi had begun his counter-attack. The rebels were poorly armed, and the military units that defected weren't much better, and this was by Gaddafi's own design. By making the majority of the military weak, he ensured that when the elite, loyal forces of his army were both better equipped and better trained than any of the units that might defect. As an aside, that doesn't mean that these "elite forces" are all that elite. While better equipped that the other military of Libya, these elite units are still using Soviet-era tanks and aircraft they bought from France in the 70's. But compared to the rebel forces and their technicals (essentially pickup trucks with guns attached), the Libyan army and the mercenary force Gaddafi has brought in completely outclass the rebels, in equipment and training. And with this, when Gaddafi's forces launched it's counter-attack, the lines consisting of unarmed men collapsed to the tank brigades and artillery, and the rebels were pushed back to their cities, the "advance on Tripoli" halted in it's tracks. This was about the first time where a "no-fly zone" was mentioned, with the video of Gaddafi's aircraft bombing rebel targets. This notion gained popular support, despite many military experts saying it would do little to stop the attack on the ground as well as the fact that most people seemed to not know that "imposing a no-fly zone" is an involved activity.
You see, a key to imposing a no-fly zone is the need to impose your air superiority over the country/area you want the zone to be in. It's hard to do that if the people in that area are shooting missiles at you. Therefore, imposing a no-fly zone requires an initial artillery/missile bombardment to eliminate surfaceto-air defenses as well as radar. Unfortunately, most people, including the Arab League apparently, thought a no-fly zone entailed just having fighters patrol the sky. But popular support for the no-fly zone resulted in the UN passing resolutions that resulted in our current situation, one resolution that "permitted the use of force" to protect Libyan civilians, and another to impose the no-fly zone. These resolutions had enough support to avoid vetos from China and Russia and military operations began. (for those who don't know how the UN works, the permanent security council members, the US, UK, France, China, and Russia have what is called "veto power". This means they can veto any resolution and it will be implemented. Russia and China abstained from the vote) Now came the issue of who would impose the resolution. While the Libyan military was indeed so weak that any of the UN member nations could overpower it, the only country which had the assets in the region and could actually launch the attack soon enough was the United States (the US always has a fleet stationed in the middle east due to the two wars in the region as well as the tension with Iran), and thus, the US was the one to reluctantly spearhead the operation, named "Operation Odyssey Dawn" by coalition planners. US and UK warships launched missile strikes, American bombers bombed things, and French Mirages began patrols over the cleared airspace. As part of the "use of force" resolution, aside from the no fly zone stuff, US and French Air Force units took out Libyan armor, with their goal to break the siege at Misratah as well as the attack on the rebel capital at Benghazi. The results of these attacks? Well, aside from being condemned by the Arab League, the initial goals of the attack, forcing the retreat of Gaddafi's forces from rebel cities has had mixed results. To paraphrase a military analyst talking on why a no-fly zone would be pointless "Air power is flashy, but the real work is done on the ground". The higher-tech collation air power is no exception to this rule, and the air strikes won't end the fighting on the ground by themselves. It is the hope of the coalition that the strikes will force Gadaffi to "negotiations". The result thus-far? Gaddafi's forces are still attacking, and while the attacks have been weakened by the strikes and bombardments, they haven't stopped. The collation has been taking flak from the Arab League as well as Russia, China, Brazil, and other nations. On the local side of things, many in congress say that Obama has "exceeded his constitutional right" in launching these strikes without congressional permission....despite the fact of every president since Truman has done similar things (albeit with congressional support, if not approval), but it's American politics, so expecting politicians to know history of the US is a bit of a stretch. And that's where we stand today in Libya, the strikes have begun and only time will tell if France and Britain are correct that they will stop the violence or if I'm correct that this will just result in American flag burnings and more violence. If my understanding of Arabian history is correct, the latter is more likely. Then again, in some countries, burning an American flag is just called "Tuesday", so we'll just have to wait and see.
Everyday Python Lesson 2 - Classical Functionality
Blah blah blah Python, blah blah blah lesson 2, blah blah blah introduction, blah blah blah let's begin. Eliminating Code Repetition One of the most common "sins of programming" committed these days is repetition, not repetition when done in loops mind you, but when code is repeated in a program. Take for example this code to do something fundamentally pointless:
Now, as you see, this pointless program firsts displays the content and placement of 1 list, then repeats the same three lines of code (with one minor change) to produce the same result for a second list. Now, while one could get away with it here, what about if you needed to do it numerous other times in a situation where looping wasn't an option? You could copy-paste the code in all these locations, but that would make your code much longer, not to mention more confusing to read. No, the best option is to use some sort of structure for implementing repeating code outside a loop, called a function in many languages. Functions In Python, the function takes the place of duties performed by both functions and sub-routines in other programming languages for the sake of clarity. The key difference between sub-routines and functions for those new to programming is that functions return a value whereas sub-routines do not. What I mean by this is that you can set a variable equal to a function, such as setting var1 = range(1, 10), since range is a function that returns a value. In all honesty, all functions in Python return a value, regardless of if you use the keyword return to manually return a value. If you do not return a value manually, the value of None is returned automatically, the standard "null value" in Python. Things will be easier to explain if I just show you, so here's an example of a function:
Now this function is designed to do a similar (useless) task as the above code, but it can be repeated multiple times without having to copy-paste code. All functions start with the keyword def, short for definition, then the name of the function, in this case "printLists". After the name, there is a set of parentheses where your arguments go (we'll explain this later), then a semi colon, the function block then begins on the next line after indentation. You can use any code that you would use anywhere else in this code block. Inside the parentheses go the arguments you wish to use in the function, that is, what values you wish to take from outside the function to use inside the function. You see, you can only use variables inside the functions have what is called a "local scope", that means they only exist inside the function (so if you declare a variable inside a function, you can only use it inside the function) and while you can reference variables in the same file as the function, when you reference the file from a different file (such as if you were to create a library), it will not work, so it is always better to pass any variables you need into the function as arguments. As with many programming languages, the names you use for arguments does not matter, you could use "fluffy" instead of "listnum" in that example, and it would still work, the argument name simply is a placeholder for a variable. For example, the range() function has three arguments, start, stop, and step. They have informative names, but range(1, 10, -1) would work just as fine if the arguments were muffin, giraffe, and solarSystem. While we are on the topic of arguments and the range() function, arguments can be made "optional", such as the start and step arguments in the range function. The only argument always required for the function is the stop, as the other two arguments have values assigned to them. You assign values to arguments like you assign values to any other object, with the = operator. So for instance, if we wanted the listnum argument to be optional we could type it as def printLists(listnum = [1, 2, 3]): and it would not require any arguments to call. As I said before, functions in Python always return a value, but you can also manually return a value using the keyword return. With this, you can return a value when the function is completed. For example, the range() function returns a list with numbers in it, while the str() function returns a string. You can assign variables the value of functions because of this, so listRange = range(10) will work. In
fact, even if the function has no return keyword in it, it will still return a value: None. Therefore, if you write the line var1 = print(""), that is valid code, if you print() the value of var1, "None" will display on the shell. And that's all you need to know about functions. They are one of the most valuable tools you have in Python, and you will soon be using them quite a bit, they allow for scalability (you can use the same program to do tasks of various sizes easily.) and shorten your code, thusly allowing you to get more done and allowing for easier debugging. Before we move on to the next topic, allow me a not-so-brief aside. CamelCase and Descriptive Variable Names You may have noticed a trend with some of the naming I do for things in my example programs (such as variable names, function names, and later in this lesson class names. These stylistic choices are simply results of the naming conventions I impose on myself, and are by no means needed. Python (and most programming languages) are perfectly happy with non-descriptive names, a is just as good as finalTotal in the eyes of the language. Naming conventions are meant to help humans to read your code, like proper use of whitespace is. So, if you're simply coding something yourself and are confident you will know what things are, you can use vague names, however I do not recommend it; the time saved initially might be lost if you cannot understand your code in the future. As for specifics on my particular set of naming conventions, while I use Python on an almost daily basis, I am still a Java programmer most of the time, therefore I use many of the Java conventions for naming, namely three: Avoid abbreviation when possible, use CamelCase (that is, capitalize new words in multiword names; nameOfCity is easier to read than nameofcity), and only start with a capital when referencing a class(all other items, such as functions and variables start with a lower case letter). Of course, this is all optional and the interpreter doesn't really care, so it's up to you. Now, moving to the next topic in this lesson, we start to get into classes. Object Oriented Programming - Concepts Most modern languages allow for the implementation of what is known as Object Oriented Programming, a method of programing used in most professional pieces of software these days. Without going into too much detail, OOP consists of creating objects by using classes. Classes can be considered as "blueprints to create objects". For example in a housing development, all of the houses are built with the same blueprints(class), and have a similar look. However, each of these houses(objects) are unique. They might have a different color paint, and there might be differences on the inside of them. Another example is this: I am a "human object" of the class Homo-sapien, generally similar to other objects of the same class, but unique. Now, these objects have data and it can have methods. Data means variables, such as house color or hair color in our two examples. Methods, in THIS case, refer to functions that manipulate the variables.
I'll be blunt, the topic of OOP is rather confusing for some people, warranting the writing of entire textbooks on the subject. I'll be even more blunt, I more likely than not will not be talking about or using OOP in any future lessons; I am mentioning it as a matter of completionism, and personally find the inclusion of OOP functionality in Python to be akin to adding a nitrous-oxide system into a minivan: cool, but ultimately pointless. This said, I will include briefly the syntax for classes in Python, but will only explain syntax. If you are interested in OOP in Python, there are numerous books on the subject. I personally liked this one. (despite the average reviews) Classes Here is a basic example of a class with one variable and one method, one that creates a basic "dice" object and allows for rolling of it:
Classes are constructed using the keyword class followed by the name of the class and a colon. Anything to be done in the class is done in the intended block below it. The first function I defined in the class has the special name of __init__, which in some languages is called the "constructor", this is not so in Python, but going into detail on it is beyond the scope of this writing. Suffice to say, anything in the __init__ function is executed whenever a new object is created using the class it is in. Inside this function, there is a variable declared called self.size, anything with the prefix self. inside of a class refers the the specific instance of the object, as classes are only blueprints for objects. (as a note, all functions inside a class must have the first argument of self, but it is considered an error to pass a value for self when calling a method, so creating our Die object with the arguments (self, 6) will result in an exception being thrown) After the init function, there is another function defined called "roll", this is how a method is declared. The syntax is the same as a normal function, however it is called differently. After that the class ends and the program proper begins, the first line creates a new object using the blueprint defined by the Die class called "newDice". The next line calls the method roll that is part of the newDice object. And that's the absolute basics on creating a class, there is one more topic I want to touch on with regards to classes however.
Inheritance Inheritance is a core concept of OOP, so I feel I must give a basic definition of it. To understand inheritance, one must first understand the concept of the "has a"/"is a" relationships. Lets say we create a class such as below:
Now, I won't bother explain the syntax, it's similar to the previous class we did. Suppose we wanted to create a "beer" object, well a beer is a type of alcohol, and that is the key phrase that implies that inheritance is to be used. Anything that the parent class can "have" would mean that rather than inheritance, you would just add things to the base class. For a (rather poor) example of inheritance, look at this example:
As you may see, I created an object in the Beer class rather than the Alcohol class, yet I still was able to call a method from the Alcohol class. This is because I inherited the Alcohol class when I created the Beer class by putting the name of the class I wished to inherit from in the parentheses when creating the Beer class. When I inherited the Alcohol class, I made it so that all objects on the Beer class had all the data and methods of the Alcohol class as well as the method in the Beer class. And this concludes all I wish to talk about pertaining to classes in Python. I would like to reiterate that we will not be using classes for most of the future lessons as they will be mostly focused on creating quick little scripts to help you in day to day activities rather than large programs for distribution to the world. The Sample Program I was advised against using this program for the sample program, that it was too complex and didn't
show the encapsulation of data. Well, I didn't explain the encapsulation of data, so I'm going to use the program anyways. The following program is a basic class-based framework for an IRC client...I say basic because you can only see what is said and not reply and the data you see is raw IRC output...also you can only end the program with a keyboard interrupt(ctrl+c)...so not very useful. Nevertheless, here is the source code:
Thumbnail, click to enlarge And it has a result SIMILAR to the below(it will be different):
Thumbnail, click to enlarge This program first imports the socket library (we'll get into detail on the library in a future lesson), then creates a class that represents an irc connection, getting the details needed to connect to an IRC server in it's __init__ function. The next function, ircConnect handles the commands needed to connect to an IRC server, bu first starting a connection with the server then sending the commands with the requisite data to the server to allow connection. The joinChan function sends the message to the server to join a channel. The processForever function starts an infinite loop. It then creates a buffer to store all of the information it receives as a string, it then splits the string into a list delimited by the IRC newline char, \n. The next line calls the .pop() method of the list item, which removes the item at the end of the list and returns it, in this case setting temp equal to the most recent item added to the readbuffer. The for loop after this splits the data coming from the readbuffer so it can determine when a specific message (the server sending a PING message), then sends a response to the message (a PONG message). At this point, the program has done absolutely nothing, only defining a class, now the program proper starts. An instance of the ircConn object is created called irc. The methods .ircConnect(), .joinChan("#lordkat"), and .processForever() are called, and the program goes into an infinite loop until the user ends the program with a keyboard interrupt. Now, we'll explain server interaction and IRC next lesson, but for now note how little work had to be done after the class was created to run the program. Conclusion And that's all for this lesson, and with this lesson ends the "basic" phase of these tutorials. I've covered the core concepts of the Python language, and the remaining lessons from now own will be "themed", introducing concepts relating to different aspects of the computer world.
Next week we will be covering the glorious world of the Internets, and how to use Python to perform internet-related tasks. We'll cover the basics of the http library, which provides tools for interacting with websites, the urllib, which has to do with the functions relating to Uniform Resource Locators, and will close with a brief look at the socket library, which allows communication with servers. Thanks for reading. Source Code
Lesson "Notes" Sample Program
AUREUS
Welcome to the eighth part of this series. Today we're going to make this fractal:
This fractal is not very complex and has repetitive steps. It doesn't look like much till you enable the final transform. The final transform is what creates the shape of the fractal. So let's begin! Create a new blank flame. On transform one enter these variations: Linear3D: 0 Blur3D: 1
That's all; you're done with that transform! This transform is the most versatile transform in the entire fractal; I suggest trying out different variations. Later on in this tutorial I will give you several examples of what you can do. Here is what the fractal should look like so far:
Enable a second transform. Input these variations: Linear3D: 0 Rectangles: 1
Now go to the triangle tab and move the triangle to the left by 0.251 units. Move the transform down by 0.76 units.
This is what the fractal should look like so far:
Enable a third transform. Input these variations: Linear3D: 0 Rectangles: 1
Once more go to the triangle tab and move the triangle to the right by 0.75 units. Move the triangle up by 0.55 units.
That's all for the third transform. Here is what the fractal should look like:
The fourth transform is incredibly easy, just duplicate transform three!
This is what it should look like:
The fifth transform is also easy. Duplicate the fourth transform and change the rectangle variation to 5 instead of 1.
This is what the fractal should look like:
Now enable a final transform. Input these variations: Linear3D: 0 Julia3D: 1
Input this variable: Julia3D_power: -4
Now go to the triangle tab. Scale the transform down by 600 units.
Now move the transform downwards by 0.15 units. Move the transform left by 0.25 units.
That's all! Make sure all of the transform's placements match the ones on the screenshot. This is what the fractal should look like:
Now it’s time to learn how to make the main alternative fractal, this is what we’re going to make:
Remember, these steps will replace what the normal settings are on each of the mentioned transforms. On transform two change the rectangles variation to -1. Set the weight to 0.75. On transform three change the rectangles variation to 5. Set the weight to 0.1. That's it! All you have to do is change those four settings and you'll get a drastically different fractal. Here are transform one's alternatives:
Image one is a setting of blur3D 0.25, as you can see the image becomes far sharper. Image two is a setting of linear3D 0.01. This makes the image sharper still, the shell like pattern also becomes a bit disorganized. The third image is a setting of polar 0.05. This creates a flower like look. The fourth image is a setting of cylinder 0.1. This once more changes the fractal into something flower like, the center is far superior to the third one. The fifth image is a setting of rectangles 0.1, this leads to a somewhat smoother looking fractal. The sixth image is a setting of block 1, this leads to a whirlwind of shapes as well as a more pronounced shell like texture. The seventh image is a setting of crackle 1, crackle_cellsize 0.5, crackle_power 1, crackle_distort 1, and crackle_scale 0.5. This once more creates a storm of shapes; the texture is somewhat smoother as well. The eighth image is a setting of layered_spiral 0.1. This leads to a glowing look in the fractal. The ninth image is a setting of lissajous 5. This leads to the fractal becoming mainly lines; it is also very sharp looking. The tenth image is a setting of modulus 1. This leads to shapes forming, as well as a smooth texture. Here are some alternatives to transform two:
Image one is a setting of rectangles 5. This creates a better focal in the center and flower like shapes. Image two is a setting of rectangles -2. This creates a less sharp version of image one. Here are the alternatives for transform three:
Image one is a setting of rectangles -5. This creates a sharper and harsher texture. Image two is a setting of rectangles -1. This smoothes the texture out once more, it is also highly detailed and layer looking. If you haven't noticed I'm only showing alternatives that are changes to the rectangle variation. This is because the fractal is using the rectangle variation mostly; it’s based off of it. If you want to use a different variation I suggest changing transforms 2, 3, 4, and 5 to something other than rectangle. Here are the alternatives for transform four:
Image one is a setting of rectangles 2. This creates a highly smoothed fractal. This smoothness takes the fractal almost to a point where there is not much texture. The second image is a setting of rectangles -2.5. This creates a sort of fluffy texture, it somewhat looks like some sort of stargate. Here are the alternatives for transform five:
Image one is a setting of rectangles 15. This creates a layered look in the fractal. It also makes a cross like feature in the center and an appearance of the fractal getting smaller and smaller. If you mess around with some settings you could probably make this look like a warp scene in a sci-fi movie. The second image is a setting of rectangles -5. This creates a very smooth look, but it still features the appearance of things getting smaller and smaller.
Now, let’s play with the final transform:
The final transform is the transform that shapes the fractal. It is the most IMPORTANT transform for this type of fractal. It is literally what gives the fractal its entire shape. So hint here, use it, explore it, and experiment with it. There are a ton of options here and I'm certainly not giving you all of them. Image one is a setting of Julian 1, julian_power -3, julian_dist 2. This creates a sort of trillium flower appearance. The many spokes of the fractal become only three. Image two is the direct opposite of image one. There are literal tons of spokes, almost like a bicycle wheel. Image two is a setting of Julian 1, julian_power -10, julian_dist 3. Image three is a setting of Julian 1, Juliascope 1, julian_power -10, julian_dist 2.5, juliascope_power -10, and juliascope_dist 1. This creates a star like center as well as a spiky look. If you explore the powers and dist variables you can find many different looking fractals. Just one little change can drastically change the appearance of the fractal. For example the fourth image is a setting of Juliascope 1, juliascope_power -10, juliascope_dist 2. While the Julian has been removed, look at the drastic change overall. This image is highly organized and looks like a sand dollar. Image five is a setting of bipolar -1. This creates a disorganized fractal. But it is visually interesting with a glowing center and flowing network of golden squares. Image six is a setting of disc3D 1. This makes a giant swirl out of your fractal with a curling center. It’s almost like a whirlpool. Image seven is a setting of polar2 1.5. This creates a column like appearance. The texture is back, and the fractal is very tall looking. The tops are gentle curves as well. The eighth image is a setting of xtrb 1. This creates a celllike look. As you can see there are many options for alternative fractals on the final transform. If you need any help with this tutorial please send me a note. Enjoy and good luck!
ORBIS Welcome to my ninth tutorial in this series. Today we're going to make this fractal: I call the fractal we’re going to make today a very happy accident. This was one of my first decent looking fractals and the original base was made FOUR years ago. It’s a bit cluttered and complex, but I enjoy it nevertheless. It’s also very repetitive and relies a lot on Julian. Today we're going to make this fractal:
Anyways, let's begin! Create a new blank flame. On transform one, there is only ONE step. Here are the variations settings: Linear3D: 0 Blur: 0.5
Here is what it should look like:
On transform two input these variations: Linear3D: 0 Julian: 0.2
The variation on this transform is VERY IMPORTANT. If you want to fiddle with it, I recommend sticking to Julian based variations. Because the rest of the variations are Julian settings other than the final transform you can't really use more than a Julian type variation on this one either. They overwhelm any other variation. Input these variables: Julian_power: 4 Julian_dist 1
Playing with the variable settings is a very good idea on this fractal. You can get all sorts of changes if you play with it.
Now go to the transform tab and input the weight at 80. (Like I said, this is a dominant transform).
Go to the triangle tab and rotate the transform 180 degrees counterclockwise.
This is what your fractal should look like:
On transform three input these variations: Linear3D: 0 Julian: 0.3
Change these variables: Julian_power: 2 Julian_dist 1
Change the weight to 2.
Rotate the triangle 90 degrees clockwise.
Here is how it should look now:
On transform four change these variations: Linear3D: 0 Julian: 0.4
Here are the variables: Julian_power: 2 Julian_dist: 1
Change the weight to 2.
Rotate the triangle 90 degrees counterclockwise.
As you can see, many of these steps repeat, I was building up the fractal using a very gradual build up method. You can also see that the fractal has now formed a diamond shape in the transform editor. This was intentional. You will see later on in the tutorial how each transform builds upon another. This is what it should look like so far:
Transform Five has a variation setting of: Linear3D: 0 Julian: 1
The variables should be set to: Julian_power: 2 Julian_dist 1
The weight should be set to 2.
Now it’s time to move the fractal, instead of degrees, we will be moving it by units. Move the triangle left by 1.09 units, move it downwards by 0.57 units.
This is how it should look now:
As you can see it’s slowly building up. On transform six input these variations: Linear3D: 0 Julian: 1
Here are the variables: Julian_power: 2 Julian_dist: 1
The weight should be set to 2.
Now flip the triangle horizontally. Move the triangle to the right by 0.095 units, now move it downwards by 0.57 units.
Here is what the fractal should look like:
Here are the variations for transform seven: Linear3D: 0 Julian: 1
These are the variable settings: Julian_power: 2 Julian_dist: 1
The weight setting should be set at 2.
Now flip the triangle vertically. Move it to the right by 0.093 units. Move the transform downwards by 0.325 units.
Here is what it should look like:
The variation settings for transform eight are: Linear3D: 0 Julian: 1
Here are the variable settings: Julian_power: 2 Julian_dist: 1
The weight should be set at 2.
Now flip the triangle vertically, then horizontally. The next step is to move the triangle to the right by 0.36 units. Now move the triangle downwards by 0.325 units.
Here is what it should look like:
The variation settings for transform nine are: Linear3D: 0 Julian: 5
Here are the variable settings: Julian_power: 2 Julian_dist: 1
The weight setting is 2.
Now flip the triangle horizontally. Move the triangle to the left by 1.1 units, and move the transform down by 0.6 units.
Here is what it should look like:
Here are the variation settings for transform ten: Linear3D: 0 Julian: 1
Here are the variable settings: Julian_power: 2 Julian_dist: 1
The weight should be set at 2.
Now flip the triangle vertically, then horizontally. Move the triangle to the right by 1.105 units, and move it upwards by 0.59 units.
Notice how there's a lot more to it now. It will become just a bit more developed before we warp the shape using the final transform. This is what it should like:
Here are the variation settings for transform eleven: Linear3D: 0 Julian: 5
These are the variable settings: Julian_power: 2 Julian_dist: 1
The weight setting is 2.
Now move the triangle to the left by 0.015 units, and move the transform down by 0.125 units.
Here is what it looks like so far:
On transform twelve the variations settings are: Linear3D: 0 Julian: 5
Here are the variable settings: Julian_power: 2 Julian_dist: 1
The weight should be set at 2.
Flip the triangle vertically and then horizontally. Now move the triangle to the left by 0.02 units. Move the transform up by 0.12 units.
This is the last regular transform for this fractal, we're almost done! Here is what it should look like:
Now enable a final transform. Here are the variation settings: Linear3D: 0 Bipolar: 1 Ngon: -0.3
Now move the triangle to the right by 0.013 units. The last step is to scale the triangle up by 673 percent.
That's it! You're done! Here is what the final fractal should look like:
Now it’s time to construct the alternative fractal. This is what we’re going to make:
Here is how to make the fractal. Delete transforms 5, 6, 7 and 8. Make sure to delete these exact transforms, it might be best to start with eight so the transforms you are deleting won't be re-numbered. Now on transform two; change the Julian variation to 0.175. Change the Julian_power variable to Julian_power 6. Now set this transform's weight to 20. On the final transform here are the variation settings: Linear3D: 0 Julian: 1 Julia3Dz: 1 Here are the variable settings: Julian_power: 3 Julian_dist: -1 Julia3Dz_power: -9 That's it! Now let's explore some other alternative fractals.
Make sure to leave transform one alone, you won't be able to change much about it. You can probably make some changes to it by changing the weight to a high number like 20 or more. Then you can change the variation settings. Just remember that this will change how the entire fractal looks though, transform one acts like a building block. Here are some alternatives for transform two:
Image one is a setting of Julian 0.15. As you can see it forms a weaving pattern. Image two is a setting of Juliascope 0.2, juliascope_power 6, and juliascope_dist 1. It makes things become wider and little bit more firm. Image three is a setting of Juliascope 0.2, juliascope_power 3, and juliascope_dist 1. This
setting makes the branch portions stand out more. The fourth image is a setting of Juliascope 0.2, juliascope_power 6, and juliascope_dist 2. The higher juliascope_dist setting makes things a little bit more oval in shape and gives the fractal some movement. The fifth image is a setting of Juliascope 0.2, juliascope_power 10, Juliascope_dist 2. This makes things wider once more, but not uniform. The sixth image is a setting of Juliascope 0.2, juliascope_power 10, and juliascope_dist 3. The Juliascope_dist 3 setting makes things a little thorny. It adds interest to the fractal.
The first image is a setting of Juliascope 0.2, juliascope_power 10, and juliascope_dist 4. As you can see things become even more interesting with the higher juliascope_dist setting, things become more
interestingly shaped. The second image is a setting of Juliascope 0.2, juliascope_power 12, and juliascope_dist 4. Things are far more interesting though with a higher Juliascope_power setting, it takes on the traditional form of the fractal but with a twist. The third image is a setting of Juliascope 0.1, juliascope_power 20, and juliascope_dist 1. This makes the weaving look come back and is almost floral looking. The fourth image has a setting of Juliascope 0.1, juliascope_power 10, and juliascope_dist 1. This is highly weaved and is somewhat Julian like in nature in the center areas. The fifth image is a setting of Juliascope 0.075, juliascope_power 10, and juliascope_dist 1. This makes an ornate looking fractal; it’s one of my favorites texture-wise. The sixth image is a setting of Juliascope 0.075, juliascope_power 50, and juliascope_dist 1. As you can see the higher juliascope_power setting makes things blur out and makes a flat boring fractal.
The first image is a setting of julia3D 0.1, julia3D_power -5. As you can see the image is not uniform and sort of bulky. The second image is a setting of Julia3D 0.1 and Julia3D_power -10. Now the image becomes uniform and ornate looking. The swirls add an elegant look to the fractal. The third image is a setting of flower 0.25. As you can see I don't recommend using other variations other than Julians on this transform. Things come out a bit weight. Now it’s time mess with weights to show you the importance of them in this fractal. The fourth image is a weight setting of 20. As you can see it makes a fractal that's somewhat blurry but okay. The fifth image is a weight setting of 15. Things don't really improve. The sixth image is a weight setting of 160. This now double the original setting of 80. As you can see the fractal is more lines than anything else. The seventh image is a weight setting of 1000. As you can see the fractal is nothing but lines. The importance of weights is that you have to have the correct weight setting otherwise you'll end up with a blurry fractal or line art. Here is an alternative for transform three:
The one image is a weight setting of 80. Only by shifting the weight high can you really change transform three. You can see what transform three controls by shifting the weight high like this. This creates a lovely ornate look and makes the circular areas come out better. Here is an alternative for the fourth transform:
Once more this image is a weight setting of 80. As you can see transform four controls the arms of the fractal. This does not create a beautiful fractal, instead if makes it look bloated, but it does show you what this transform controls. I suggest keeping the weight low. Here are some alternatives to transform eleven:
The first image is a weight setting of 80. As you can see transform eleven controls a lot of the fractal, this a good way of making it appear more Julian like in nature. The second image is a weight setting of 80 as well as julian_power 3 and julian_dist 2. As you can see things get a lot more interesting looking with this image, there's a lot more detail to it. The third image is a weight setting of 80, Juliascope 1, juliascope_power 3, and juliascope_dist 1. This makes the image jagged looking. The fourth image is a weight setting of 80, Juliascope 1, juliascope_power 3, and juliascope_dist -2. This makes the fractal have very little detail and next to nothing in form compared to the others. The fifth image is a weight setting of 80, Juliascope 5, juliascope_power 3, and juliascope_dist -2. As you can see there's some flowing appearance to the outward areas of this. I suggest you play with this transform some more and
heighten this effect. You might get something truly interesting. (When you fiddle with the transforms after transform two you have to increase the weight setting for anything to appear). Here are some alternatives to transform twelve:
Image one is a weight setting of 80. As you can see this transform controls some more of the Julian areas. It makes a lovely image doesn't it? I love the detail this makes pop in the outer areas of the fractal as well as how the center is more uniform. The second image is a weight setting of 80 and Julian 2.5. As you can see the center is still lovely but the outer areas are a mess. Be careful not to make set the variations too high. The third image is a weight setting of 80, Juliascope 1, juliascope_power 3, and
juliascope_dist 1. This makes a uniform fractal with firm areas, but the outer areas are not that interesting. The fourth image is a weight setting of 80, Juliascope 2.5, juliascope_power 3, and juliascope_dist 1. As you can see the fractal becomes unbalanced looking. It’s visually interesting though. The fifth image is a weight setting of 80, Juliascope 5, juliascope_power 3, and juliascope_dist 1. It’s unbalanced once more but uniform in general, it’s alright because of the detail level. Here are some alternatives for the final transform:
The first image is a setting of bubble 1. This produces a circular well-patterned fractal. The second image is a setting or rings2 1. This produces a flower like fractal somewhat similar to one of my first
fully constructed fractals. The third image is a setting of Julian 1, Juliascope 1, julian_power 9, julian_dist 1, juliascope_power 6, and juliascope_dist 1. This makes an ornate fractal with tons of detail. It’s one of my favorites in this tutorial. The fourth image is a setting of Julian 1, Juliascope 0.5, julian_power 9, julian_dist 1, juliascope_power 6, and juliascope_dist 1. This creates a black area in the center and it’s not nearly as nice as the previous one. It’s still visually interesting though. The fifth image is a setting of Julian 1, julian_power 1, and julian_dist - 1. This once more creates a circular fractal with a well detailed pattern. The sixth image is a setting of Julian 1, julian_power 1, and julian_dist - 2. This once more creates a circular pattern, but it’s not as interesting as the previous one.
Image one is a setting of Julian 1, julian_power 10, and julian_dist - 5. This creates a circular fractal, that while detailed isn't that interesting. As you can see, the julian_dist when set negatively can create a mess if you're not careful. The second image is a setting of Juliascope 1, juliascope_power 6, and juliascope_dist -2. The image is now far more interesting, there are also plenty of details. The third image is a setting of julia3D 1 and julia3D_power -10. As you can see, while the fractal is detailed, it has a big hole in the center. The fourth image is a setting of julia3D 1, julia3Dz 1, julia3D_power -8, and julia3Dz_power -2. This makes a very detailed fractal but a messy one. The fifth image is a setting of Julian 1, julian_power 1, and julian_dist 1. This fractal is the original fractal I made with these parameters. It’s flowery and beautiful. This fractal was one of the very first ones I made from scratch. The sixth image is a setting of curl 1. This makes the fractal fling apart but it’s still detailed and uniform. The center also remains lovely.
Image one is a setting of rectangles 1. This creates a paned look to the image with nine separate pieces. Each piece is ornate in its own way. The second image is a setting of bipolar 1. This inverts the fractal itself; this is a highly complex variation. I suggest playing with it thoroughly because of all that you can do with it. The third image is a setting of bipolar 1 and bipolar_shift 1. As you can see my activating the bipolar_shift part you've inverted it once more, can you see what I mean? The fourth image is a setting of edisc 1. This creates a gem like area with plenty of details. I suggest playing with this some more as well. The fifth image is a setting of elliptic 1. This creates a highly detailed fractal but since it’s so uniform it’s not as visually interesting as the previous one. The sixth image is a setting of loonie 1. This creates a flower like structure; it’s beautiful except for the very center.
Image one is a setting of ngon 1. As you can see it’s visually interesting, but there is only one flaw. The image is skewed in one direction. I'm not sure why. If you can fix this, this would make a good piece. The second image is a setting of octagon 1. As you can see, it’s a mess, but it’s unique in its warp drive center. The third image is a setting of polar2 1. This creates the column look, but it’s also the bottom portion is highly detailed. The fourth image is a setting of scry 1. This creates a circular fractal that is detailed in the center portion. The fifth image is a setting of xtrb 1. This creates a complex outlined looking fractal. The sixth image is a setting xtrb 1 and xtrb_power 1. This creates a three pronged looking fractal. The details are more stretched out though.
Image one is a setting of xtrb 1, xtrb_power 3, xtrb_radius 0.5, xtrb_width 0.5, and xtrb_dist 1. As you can see this forms an outlined cellular looking fractal. It’s very uniform as well in its own way. I suggest tinkering with xtrb some more, you can come up with very complex looking fractals. The second image is a setting of xtrb 0.75, xtrb_power 3, xtrb_radius 0.5, xtrb_width 0.5, and xtrb_dist 1. The flower shape is back and only the center portion has the outlined cellular look to it. This makes it appear more ornate in the center. The final transform is one of my most treasured transforms to use. It can warp the fractal in all sorts of different shapes and do so easily. I suggest exploring it, the options are limitless. If you need any help with any portion of this fractal please don't hesitate to send me a note. I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and good luck!
MARE SOMNIUM Welcome to my tenth fractal tutorial in this series. Today we’re exploring some more of the Julian based fractals (my favorite). This is a relatively easy fractal to make with a simple result. It can produce complex alternative versions though. Remember, I won’t spoon feed you the information on how to do everything. I’ve explained all of this in earlier parts of this tutorial. Anyways, let’s begin!
Create a new blank flame. Zoom out to -3. This is a large fractal and zooming out is the only way you'll be able to see it in its entirety. Trust me on this. Transform one is somewhat simple, it stays in its basic position. There are only two changes, the variation and the weight.
Set the variations to the following: Linear3D: 0 Bubble: 0.15 Zscale 0.1
Now go to the transform tab and set the weight to 0.1. As you can see there is nothing visible so far, this will change with the next transform. Here is what the fractal should look like so far:
I wasn’t joking. There’s nothing visible. Now add another transform.
Set the variations to the following: Linear3D: 0 Pre_blur: 0.001 Pre_ztranslate: -0.456 Zscale: 0.75 Julian: 2
Now, it’s time to play with the location of the second transform. The first step is to move the transform 0.23 units upwards. The second step is to rotate the transform counterclockwise by 45 degrees. This is what the fractal should look like now:
As you can see there’s a little bit of the fractal showing now!
Once more add another transform.
Set the variations to the following: Linear3D: 0 Zscale: 0.5 Julian: 0.5
Set the variables to: Julian_power: 2 Julian_dist: 1
Now rotate the triangle counterclockwise by 135 degrees. The fractal should now look like this:
Once more add another transform.
Set the variations to the following: Linear3D: 0 Bubble: 0.01 Pre_blur: 2 Ztranslate: 1 Curl3D: 5
Set the variables to: Curl3D_cx: -0.48750 Curl3D_cy: 0 Curl3D_cz: 0.5
Now go to the transform tab and set the weight to 0.25.
Rotate the triangle counterclockwise by 45 degrees. Now move transform four down by 1.2 units. Your fractal should look like this:
As you can see the fractal is now taking shape and details are forming.
Now enable a final transform. (If you do not know how to do this refer to the earlier parts of this tutorial.
Set the variations to the following: Zscale: 1 Curl: 2
Set the variables to: Curl_c1: 0.29864 Curl_c2: 0.385273
Now, this step is exactly like transform four’s. Rotate the triangle counterclockwise by 45 degrees. Now move transform four down by 1.2 units. This is what the fractal should look like:
That’s it! Easy isn’t it? Now let’s explore the alternative fractals, let’s begin with the main alternative fractal. It’s only a few simple changes to get the alternative. On transform one change the bubble setting to 0.2. On transform two change julian_power to 5, and julian_dist to -1. Now go to the final transform and change the settings to curl 0, and disc -5. That’s it! You’ll get this as the result:
As you can see the changes are drastic with just a few changes to the parameters. Now let’s explore 86 more alternatives to this fractal!
The following images illustrate the changes to transform one that are possible. You probably can figure out several more though, these are just a few examples of what is possible. Image One: Bubble 0.05. Image Two: Rings2 0.5. Image Three: Weight 0.25. Image Four: Weight 0.5. Image Five: Scale the triangle up by 1,000. As you can see the images are not changed a lot. The fractal is hard to change in transforms one, two, and three. As you can see the image generally becomes sharper looking. Image one is sharper; there’s very little difference in image two other than a less prominent center areas. In image three it’s not very different either, image four is sharper though. Image five is somewhat different mainly due to the tiny center areas.
The following images are some of the changes that are possible with transform two. Image One: Julian 0.5. Image Two: Julian_power 5, and julian_dist 1. The following images do not have a Julian setting. Image Three: Rectangles 1. Image Four: Hemisphere 2. Image Five: Bipolar -3. As you can see changes to the Julian setting can cause drastic changes, though not very pleasant ones. Image one shows how making the setting smaller can make the fractal itself smaller and more condensed. Image two shows what can happen if you mess with the Julian variables. I suggest playing with those by the way; it’s a quick and easy way of changing your fractal without making a mess too much. Image three shows what can happen when you change the variation from Julian on transform two. The simple answer is chaos. It’s hard to produce good looking results if you go beyond the Julian on this transform.
The following images are changes to transform three. Image One: Julian_power 3, and Julian_dist 1. Image Two: Julian_power 5, and Julian_dist -3. Image Three: Juliascope 0.5, Juliascope_power 3, and Juliascope_dist 1. Image Four: Bipolar 1. Image Five: Weight 0.25. A change to the variables can produce drastic changes; observe the differences between the first three images. On image three there is an additional change to the variation. As you can see as long as you stick with a Julian based variation there won’t be too much change. If you add additional variations there are some changes, look at image four and five closely, they’re not as balanced due to the additional variations.
The following images are changes to transform four: Image One: Curl3D 2.5. As you can see there is not a drastic change when messing with the curl variation. It looks just about the same as the non-altered fractal.
The following images are still changes to transform four, but these images do not include the curl3D variation. Image One: Julia3Dz 1, and Julia3Dz_power 5. Image Two: Julia3D 1, and Julia3D_power -2. Image Three: Julia3D 1, Julia3Dz 1, julia3Dz_power 5, and Julia3D_power -2. Image Four: Julia3D 3, Julia3Dz 3, Julia3D_power -5, and Julia3Dz_power 5. Image Five: Rectangles -3. On all of the images the changes make the fractal flatter looking. It’s like you're looking out at a fractal plain. There are only slight differences between these five alternatives.
Image One: Hemisphere 0.25. Image Two: Hemisphere 0.5. Image Three: Crackle 1, Crackle_cellsize 1, Crackle_power 0.2, Crackle_distort 0, Crackle_scale 1, and Crackle_z 0. Image Four: Crackle 1, Crackle_cellsize 1, Crackle_power 0.5, Crackle_distort 1, Crackle_scale 0.5, and Crackle_z 1. Image Five: Crackle 1, Crackle_cellsize 1, Crackle_power 0.2, Crackle_distort 1, Crackle_scale 0.5, and Crackle_z 1. Image one and two have a cluster look to them due to the hemisphere providing some roundness. Image three shows some sort of webbing like areas due to the crackle variation. Image four and five shows what happens when you play with the crackle variables, you can form a blocky sort of look instead of webbing.
Image One: Disc3D 0.5. Image Two: Duality 1. Image Three: Duality -1. Image Four: Loonie_3D 0.5. Image Five Lissajous 0.4. As you can see disc3D seems to make the image sharper. Duality in image two and three make the fractal appear to be more solid with solid curves forming. Image four is an example of loonie_3D, which makes the fractal plain looking. Image five shows what lissajous can do to a fractal, once more some sort of web like features appear which are interesting visually.
Image One: Oscilloscope 1. Image Two: Oval8 0.1. Image Three: Pie 25. Image Four: Pyramid 15. Image Five: Rays3 3. On image one oscilloscope creates lots of different lines on the image giving it a sort of striped appearance. On image two oval8 creates another sort of web but it’s not very visually appeal. Pie on image three creates lots more stripes than oscilloscope. Pyramid on image four creates a sort of volcanic explosion in the center of the image but overall its appearance is sharper. Image five shows what rays3 does to the fractal, it’s sort of overlapping stripes, it’s not very visually appealing.
Okay, the following are the last two alternatives for transform four. Both of them relate to the weight of the transform. Image One: Weight 0.1. Image Two: Weight 0.001. The image becomes a little sharper as you get lower in the weight as you can see via image one. But if you go too far down the scale your image becomes not very appealing, as you can see via image two. So be careful with your weights on image four!
The following images are examples of alternatives for the final transform. All of these alternatives do not include the curl variation. Most of these changes are drastic changes with dramatic results. Image One: Sinusoidal 5. Image Two: Spherical 5. Image Three: Swirl 3. Image Four: Horseshoe 5. Image Five: Disc 5. As you can see Sinusoidal makes a column like appearance with a center that is fascinating. Spherical centers the fractal and makes it once more very appealing. Swirl makes a mess but it’s also interesting. Horseshoe makes a city like appearance but it’s also too chaotic. Disc is my favorite as you can tell by the main alternative fractal. It creates a turbulent yet orderly looking fractal with tons of energy.
Image One: Diamond 5. Image Two: Eyefish 5. Image Three: Sinusoidal -5. Image Four: Eyefish -5. Image Five: Bubble -5. As you can see in example one the fractal gets sort of diamond shape along the plane of the fractal. In image two the fractal becomes circular with a sort of sunken center. On image three the column reappears but because of sinusoidal’s negative setting the center appears to be levitating up the column. On image four become of the negative eyefish setting the center now appears to be rising. Image five shows a negative bubble setting, the fractal appears to be on its side or falling.
Image One: Cylinder 5. Image Two: Rings2 5. Image Three: Rings2 -5. Image Four: Julian 3, Julian_power 1, and Julian_dist 1. Image Five: Julia3D 3, and Julia3D_power 1. Image one shows what cylinder does to an image, as you can see it warps the image and makes it into a column. If you look closely you can see how it warps it into the cylinder by staring at the bottom of the image. Image two and three shows what rings2 does the fractal. The positive version shows the center rising, the negative version shows a sunken center. Both are visually appealing. Image four and five are examples Julian based variations, as you can see regular Julian produces a beautiful fractal city, whereas julia3D produces too much height in the fractal making it look messy but still very interesting.
Image One: Curl -3. Image Two: Curl3D 3. Image Three: Curl3D -3. Image Four: Hemisphere -5. Image Five: Bipolar -5. Image one shows regular curl does not produce an appealing image, everything but the center is flattened. Image two and three show the positive and the negative sides of curl3D. Both of these produces puckered looks. Image four shows what happens when you use a negative hemisphere, the fractal becomes skewed to the side slightly, but it still looks okay. To me the best of these five is the last image; a negative bipolar produces a centered fractal that looks dramatic.
Image One: Block 5. Image Two: Block -5. Image Three: Butterfly 5. Image Four: Butterfly -5. Image Five: circilize -5. On image one and two you can compare the positive and negative aspect of the block variation. As you can see both forms a diamond like shape, but the positive remains flat while the negative version seems to rise. Image three and four is another comparison set, this time for the butterfly variation. The main difference is that they're flipped versions of each other. The butterfly variation just makes butterfly wings in the fractal. Circilize is image five, this creates an okay looking fractal but nothing special.
Image One: Crescents 0.5. Image Two: Curve -5. Image Three: Edisc 20. Image Four: Foci 5. Image: Five -5. On image one the crescents variation creates a strong center area but very little detail. The second image shows what curve does, you get a beautiful well centered fractal. The third image shows edisc, this produces a side fractal with some nice detail. The last two images show what happens when you use a positive and a negative foci setting. The positive gives a centered fractal with the center closer to the screen. The negative version gives a far in the distance look to the center which seems to be on a platform.
Image One: Foci_3D 5. Image Two: Funnel 5. Image Three: Hypersphere 5. Image Four: Hypertile 5. Image Five: Layered_spiral 5. Image one is interesting visually; it’s sort of dramatic with a lot of energy. I recommend exploring using Foci_3D. The second image is also dramatic; it’s also got some slight perspective built in. The third image is also interesting, it’s got a skewed look, but because of the center it’s decent. The fourth image one more is towards the side, but it gives it a city sort of look. The last image has a swirl look to it with a fascinating stable center. This is another variation you should explore.
Image One: Loonie_3D -1. Image Two: Modulus 5. Image Three: Ngon 5. Image Four: Ngon -5. Image Five: Polar2 5. Image one is set far in the distance. I suggest playing with the zoom to see it in its full detail. It’s interesting though. Image two is sort of a mess, but it’s okay. Image three and four is another comparison between negative and positive, this time with the variation ngon. The positive brings the center forward while the negative pushes it far into the distance. I prefer the positive image since it doesn't have a square void in the middle of the image. The fifth image is also interesting due to the height involved.
Image One: Polar 2 -5. Image Two: Rippled 5. Image Three: Snowflake 5. Image Four: SphericalN -5. Image Five: Squarical 5. Image one is somewhat interesting, this is due to the repetitive background, the height, and the center of the image. Image two is not very good in my opinion, it’s too chaotic, I suggest avoiding rippled. You might be able to pull it off if you explore a lot though. Image three is okay, but it’s got the void in the center that ngon had as well. Image four is somewhat the same, except it looks closer, but it’s got the same void. Image five is abstract almost, it’s got a very sharp cutting image too it. I suggest playing with the squarical variation.
Image One: Synth 5. Image Two: Xtrb 2, Xtrb_power 1, Xtrb_radius 1, Xtrb_width 0.5, Xtrb_dist 1, Xtrb_a 1, and Xtrb_b 1. Image Three: Xtrb 2, Xtrb_power 1, Xtrb_radius 0.5, Xtrb_width 1, Xtrb_dist 2, Xtrb_a 1, and Xtrb_b 1. Image one is interesting looking with its height, its center also helps give it a beautiful look. Image two and three both involve the Xtrb variation, the difference between the two is the variables. Image two shows a centered fractal, with a beautiful but small center. The center is surrounded by other portions of the fractal. The third image shows a center that is larger; it almost looks like it’s in a plain. This is one of my favorite alternatives.
Well, this is it! Thank you for reading my tutorial, if you have any questions feel free to send me a note. I’ll be happy to try to answer them. Good luck and have fun exploring!
The Artist's Palette: Girly Edition
As most of you guys know I'm female. You guys also know that I rarely partake into girlish stuff, but spring is in the air and I've caught the spring fever pretty badly. I've already got the house clean as a whistle (mainly due to fireworks going off in the oven and a repairman having to come and replace the darn blown out element. Yes, I did clean the house so the poor guy fixing the thing wouldn't think he was entering a house full of hooligans. Though, in reality he was in a house that houses two of them, and they're majorly messy people)... Occasionally I like to learn about girly stuff... Like wedding dresses. (I also feel the deep need to torment you). To make this somewhat relevant to the website, I'm going to teach you guys the brief history of wedding dress from the regency period and how they went from colorful to white. For those who don't know what the regency period is... GO BACK TO SCHOOL. But since I'm nice I'll tell you. It’s the period between 1811 and 1820 when George the III was completely bonkers and his son was his regent. The reason is obvious; George III was off his rocker nuts, no one wants a crazy person in charge, do they? OR, it can mean the period between 1795 and 1837, the monarchy was not a very stable thing back then. It went from a man who was nutters, and then it was held by two of his sons. Neither of them were father to the eventual heir to the throne; Queen Victoria. This period had a definite characteristic to it, especially in manners and style. This was the period of the slim dresses and empire waist, a drastic change, since for centuries full dresses and normal waist lines were the norm. These new styles were based off of art from ancient Rome and Greece. Thus, the fashions had a floaty light look to them.
Portrait of Madame de Verninac, notice the obvious ancient influence. Even the hairstyle was influenced by the ancient world. Anyways, back to the point, the reason why regency wedding dresses have been studied so much is due to the popularity of the period in literature. Also, it doesn't hurt to have a Jane Austen obsession or two... I would guess by this point that you guys are wondering about colors, since most of you are thinking what the big deal is about different colors of white... Well, you have the wrong impression. White only became a popular color for a wedding dress after Queen Victoria wore white at her wedding, before then wedding dresses were ALL SORTS of different vibrant colors. Yellow in fact was the most popular color for wedding dresses during this period. Blues, pinks, black,
deep reds were all colors brides wore. Why not white though since it symbolizes purity? It’s a matter of money. Wedding gowns back then were not worn just once; they were worn all of the time. They were even reused and made into different clothing. It was considered a girl's best dress, meant to be worn over and over again. Now remember, this was two hundred years ago. Were things paved? Were there washing machines? Would you want to wear a white dress that would be a pain in the neck to clean? Thus, most brides made the practical decision to stick with colors that would show dirt as much. The dresses' fabric was also put to good use. It was worn all of the time, and then it was recycled, either into another gown or turned into repurposed into children's clothing. Take for example Jane Austen's mother, Cassandra; she was married in a red riding habit. Not only did she wear the gown many a time, but she turned it into a gardening gown. Further down the road she used the fabric for a hunting jacket for her son. Thus, you can see the importance of the dress not being white.
Princess Charlotte's wedding gown. Don't ask me how they got it to look metallic. The only people who could have a gown just made for that one occasion were either the very rich, or the royalty. The biggest wedding of the regency era was the wedding of Princess Charlotte. Her wedding gown was silver lamĂŠ on a net, with a silver tissue slip, as well as Brussels lace. Royal brides usually wore silver. Other wealthy women tended to wear white.
Queen Victoria though did not wear silver; she decided to wear white due to a lace she wanted to use. It didn't look good with silver. Due to photography everyone who could get a newspaper could see her picture. Afterwards white was associated with brides.
Queen Victoria's wedding picture. See what a chance 20 odd years can bring? I'll leave you with a poem. There's a poem for how regency brides viewed their color options: Married in white, you will have chosen right. Married in grey, you will go far away. Married in black, you will wish yourself back. Married in red, you wish yourself dead. Married in green, ashamed to be seen. Married in blue, you will always be true. Married in pearl, you will live in a whirl. Married in yellow, ashamed of your fellow. Married in brown, you will live out of town. Married in pink, your fortune will sink. Sources: http://janeaustenswo...ridal-fashions/ http://www.suite101....0#ixzz1DQnA2FZZ
The Artist's Palette: Colors in Fashion
In some times and places there were strange laws that dictated what colors, fabrics, and materials people could wear. These laws were called Sumptuary Laws. In England from the reign of Edward III to the 17th century these laws were in place. They were used to dictate what people of all ranks and incomes could wear. This was meant not only to make sure that the home textile businesses were safe from foreign shipments to the country, but also to make sure that those of lower ranks did not dress like the nobility or the wealthy. These laws were not very well enforced until Tudor times. Today we're going to concentrate on Elizabeth I's laws on women's clothing. Yes, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on men's clothing because frankly, men's clothing bores me. Sorry guys
Also, isn't it
interesting to learn what a woman imposed on other women in an all powerful situation? find odd things interesting.
Yes, I do
Common women were only allowed wool, liner or sheepskin cloth. They had very few items other than a basic dress and a cloak. The colors were very basic as well; think very boring colors like beige, russet, basic greens and plain blues, this meant using woad instead of indigo.
An example of Tyrian Purple. Does this look familiar?
Source: Wikipedia.
The next step up was knights’ daughters, the colors stayed the same, but they were allowed damask, taffeta and silk. They were also allowed petticoats which put some spice in what they wore. Though, it was still relatively boring. Let's skip up a little bit, ah, wives of baron and other such things, they were allowed velvet, satin, and tufted taffeta, they were also allowed to wear gold and silver. This was an important step up! Silver and gold cloth were very important, only the very rich wore them. Heck, royal brides used to wear silver wedding gowns. This was symbolically important. Let's move on, wives had a bit more choice, especially barons' daughter-in-laws and those of knights. It wasn't color per say that changed much other than the addition of grey, but the accessories... Leopard fur, spangles, gowns, cowls, linings, all sorts of things changed here. It was much more varied. As we move up the line crimson and black was given to the ladies like the wives of the Knights of the Garter and other such important ladies. Crimson was economically a very important color, it was made from cochineal. Cochineal is a small tiny little bug found in Latin America; they spent their lives on cactuses. Now Latin America at this time was under Spanish control. Now, who do you think processes the cochineal? That's right, the Spanish, they had a monopoly on the dye for about three hundred years. Now who did Elizabeth I dislike? Once more the answer is the Spanish. She wanted to limit how much cochineal dye would come into her country, thus reducing the Spaniard's profits. This is why she limited it to be worn by only the most powerful of women in the court. Now, the most important part is the lady relatives of the queen, and the queen herself. They could wear anything they wanted from the list, but the most important part of it all was that they could wear purple. Purple has been associated with the all powerful since Roman times, hell, the emperors wore it. Not only was it a royal color, but it was also the most expensive. The color of royalty in particular is called Tyrian. It’s from Tyre in Lebanon, and it’s made by crushing thousands upon thousands of Mediterranean Murex shells. Hint here, we're talking large numbers. You want a purple emperor toga? 10,000 shells. For one toga. I'm not sure if Elizabeth I used this particular dye since when Constantinople fell in 1453 it hurt production and Tyrian purple was rarely produced afterwards... Madders and lichen was used instead, but there was some production of Tyrian. But it is telling that the color was so highly associated with wealth and power. Another important thing the queen and her relatives could wear was ermine fur. It’s the fur of a nasty little weasel called a stoat. Anyways, it produces a beautiful white fur with black spots. Now put all of this together and it might explain this:
Elizabeth I. Source: Wikipedia.
So was there any way of getting out of these restrictions? Yes! Royal servants could wear whatever their masters gave them to wear; also you could buy a license to wear different apparel. These licenses were usually granted to actors. As you can imagine a play would be awfully boring without bright colors. Hope you guys enjoyed the clothes lesson Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoat http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk http://en.wikipedia....ry_Laws#England
Top Five of the Month
http://planetrenders...howtopic=285463 BY: August Strindberg Our first signature of the month is a very textured piece with an interesting composition. The colors are somewhat unique as well, with the mostly greyscale colors setting off the few bright ones.
http://planetrenders...howtopic=285216 BY: D채mK. Our second signature of the month is strong because of its green color scheme. There are plenty of different versions of the color. The glowing areas of this signature also set it apart and bring it up to the forefront. Beautiful work!
http://planetrenders...howtopic=285246 BY: dr-lawl Our third signature of the month is strong because it appears soft and sharp at the same time. The composition is good, and the stock choice is great. The lighting works well, and the pastel colors are beautiful.
http://planetrenders...howtopic=285386 BY: ChowChowTheRav Our fourth signature of the month is interesting due to the very reserved color scheme. Its basically white, black, grey, and shades of red. The splatter like pattern works well for the composition.
http://planetrenders...howtopic=284957 BY: ChaungUy Our fifth signature of the month once more has pastel colors. Pastel works well during the Spring time, especially around Easter. It also helps that he's carrying over his shoulder a bunch of lovely flowers, which also ties into the Spring theme. The simple composition also seems to work well here, there hasn't been a lot done, but what has been done simply works incredibly well. Good job guys!
All of these signatures have been recommended by Sade.
Warp Interview: Part One Wendy: Tell me a little about yourself. Warp: Hi, I'm Warp. I'm a 20-year-old Architecture student from the Netherlands currently residing in the old town of Delft. I love cats, whiskey and hugs but can't stand overexcited woman. On to the interesting stuff: digital art has been a hobby of mine for close to 5 years now, mostly photomanipulation and I've been increasing my work with digital painting, that's all a bit on the low though, university is keeping me busy. I basically spent time trying to run the LAOTF here on PR and be a useless nuance to people Wendy: Where is Delft and what is it like? Warp: Delft is a small town in the western urban area of the Netherlands in between The Hague and Rotterdam. It became a city in the 13th century and has played some interesting parts in Dutch history for not a very large town. The old city centre still remains, with its canals and bridges and cool old buildings and churches(a lot like Amsterdam) it's now mostly stores, fun cafĂŠs and restaurants. Because of the Delft University and some other schools located here, around 10% of the population is a student, making for a very young vibrant town(a welcome change from all the tourists). Wendy: What was growing up in the Netherlands like? Warp: On the whole it was very interesting, I think as far as western countries go Holland has some interesting quirks. I grew up in a very rural not so densely populated area(for our standards) so quite different from where I am now. But as a bit of a clichĂŠ I'm always around or on the water, lived part of my life on a boat and still life right next to a canal here in Delft. I'm not very connected to the Netherlands on a patriotic level though, partly because Dutch politics bore me to death, but also because it's a very internationally orientated country and I feel more a citizen of the world then a country. (many a tourists praise our English speaking capabilities) Wendy: What do you mean by you lived part of your life on a boat? Warp: Before I was born my parents bought a small freighter ship(inner waters) and converted it with living accommodation in the cargo hold. I spend 8 years of my childhood on it. I still miss those days a lot, once you go boat you never wanna go back. Wendy: That is awesome
What was life like on a boat?
Warp: It was awesome! The atmosphere is just really different, the gentle swaying and the sound of waves against the hull. And whenever you go on holiday you just take your house with you^^. Of course there are downsides, space is limited and living in a steel box can be noisy and quite cold/warm(especially when the insulation wasn't finished). But the good things outweigh the bad by a mile. Wendy: What are you currently studying? Warp: I'm in my first year of Architectural Engineering and absolutely loving it, it's a very broad study, incorporating general design aspects, construction and engineering and even art history. Wendy: What do you plan on doing with your degree? What are you inspiring to? Warp: I'm not entirely sure yet, like I said it's a very broad study so it will largely depend on which masters degree I choose. But I can defiantly see myself working as an architect, even though it's very possible to do something completely different with the skills I learn, we'll see what the future brings. Wendy: Why architecture? Warp: Well my father is a naval architect so that got me into the idea. But it's main attraction for me is the combination of structural engineering, the technical side, and design work, the creative side. Such a combination is found in only a few studies. Wendy: What is naval architecture like, that sounds neat Warp: It's pretty much just like normal architecture but for ships. With the added complexity of round shapes/hydrodynamics, precise weight distribution/limitation and a boatload (excuse my pun) of extra installations. Wendy: How did you first get started in digital art? Warp: I first started out on Sal's runescape forum where the digital art corner caught my eye. Also there where Eil, Aeoll, CookTheChef and many others, sigmaking quickly got me hooked. Wendy: What was Sal's Runescape community like? Warp: I don't really remember much of it, but it defiantly had a fun core group at the time helping people out and being silly. Wendy: Can you show me some of your earliest digital art? Warp: Pfff I'd have to have a dig around, this is one of my earliest sigs:
(good old Gimp flame filters) and this is a very early LP:
(that might actually have been photoshop already but I'm not sure). Please don't judge me
.
Wendy: How did you find PR? Do you miss the old days of the site? Warp: I found PR via Sal's forum, looking for renders, after a while I signed up to the forum and started rendering myself( a great skill to have when I started photomanipulation). The old days where great, some big names being active and the whole site buzzing with resources and people helping and inspiring each-other, it's still here but a lot smaller, but I think that goes for a lot of graphics forums these days. Wendy: How do you like being a staff member on the site?
Warp: It has its ups and downs, the main reason I joined up was for the LAOTF and to bring larger works to the people on PR. I barely realized the rest of the staff duties at the time. xD All in all I have no regrets though, it's been fun most of the time and we got a great close group of staffers going on. Wendy: What are some suggestions you'd like to put out there to make PR a better site? Warp: Not sure, I think for the most part a community makes itself, if certain contests or events are desired they will appear one way or the other and we as staff can jump in with that. Right now I think it's most important to give the community the chance to work fluently again, to finally get rid of all the bugs and unfinished area's and get the PR-points economy rolling, the rest can be stimulated but will have to/will be done by the people mostly. Wendy: What art inspires you? Warp: I've recently developed a love for portrait photographs from photographers like Gwarf and OlgaC, but I also really like elaborate scenes with lots of small hidden things going on especially if they contain a hidden meaning of funny anecdote, that's a bit closer to the stuff I like to do. Wendy: Had digital art effected your career choice? Warp: Yes and no, architecture has been a pretty solid choice since childhood. However because of my exposure to digital art I considered that field strongly when I made my choice, but decided not to go for it because it's a very though career to make a living out of and there are no university fields in digital art it that I liked(at least not here in Holland). It has also had a large influence on my creative side which is of much use in my design work. Wendy: What drew you to large art? Warp: Mostly the ability to really depict a scene and tell some kind of story, and to do more then just add effects around a focal(something I'm actually not very good at at all). I wanted to express my creativity over technical skill I guess. Wendy: Can you show me a piece that has a story to it? Warp: There is this one for instance: http://warlock-warp....lores-105060451 The "Building my imaginary world" subtitle is a clue to the rest of the concept. The "construction" of a world around you because of a severe dislike and detachment of your surroundings(something I was feeling strongly at the time). Followed by the inevitable decent into loneliness and discomfort and to eventually give up. (there is no lead character displayed, just the world he created, and a few bugs in the foreground to help sell an abandoned place). And as the last mean trick played, the constructed soul mate who was supposed to be the solution
to it all, but she then connects to the real world instead (the bird). This was a very personal piece so most of these conceptual details aren't apparent to the average observer, but I believe such depth and emotion put into a work shows nonetheless. Wendy: What sort of work went into that one piece? It seems like there's infinite details! Warp: Actually the most work went into the furniture, the entire room is just a single stock where the most challenging part was getting rid of the very bright floor in front. That table is entirely made out of flat wood textures(no chance in hell of finding a table stock in that particular frogs eye perspective), the chest is also made from two side views of the same box. The rest of the furniture is flat book photographs. Rendering that hairy spider was quite a bit of work too, but some focal blur smoothed out the errors. The woman is also fairly unedited except for the lighting(especially where the dress hits the table). I actually did very little colour editing in this entire piece, just lighting and shading. I find it adds a good sense of realism to use all the natural colours, as long as everything is saturated and illuminated the same. For the final touches, the paper design posters in the bg, the light streaks, and the veins are drawn from scratch. Wendy: What role does symbolism play in your art? Warp: Usually not a very deep or important part, but I like it when it's there so I try putting it in here and there. The dreamcatcher in Delores is a good example, it can relate to the concept quite well but the observer can fill in all the details. Wendy: What sort of styles of art do you really enjoy making? Warp: I enjoy photomanipulation the most, the amount of detail and realism you can achieve with it still amazes me every day, but it takes up a lot of time to make a single piece. Digital painting is mostly unimpressive sketch-work for me, but as part of my study I have classes traditional drawing, which is pretty cool. I used to be decent with it but I've improved loads over the past few months and it's a lot quicker to get something on paper. Wendy: What are some tips you can give to someone new to photomanipulation? Warp: Like I said stocks are very important, taking the time and effort to search for good high quality stocks is absolutely worth it and will improve the overall quality of the work, it will also let you get away with a lot more editing mistakes and issues that will disappear after down scaling (I generally work in at least twice the resolution of the final product, preferably more).
You also have to work with the stock, especially as a beginner it will be so much easier to analyze the stocks attributes and utilize/enhance those, instead of trying to force a stock into doing exactly what you had in mind, that's a lot harder. Using and molding those properties also add an extra level complexity to a work, which would have been hard to think of when starting blank. As an extension of the "kill your darlings" rule I have an "admit defeat" rule, I had a hard time growing the guts to just throw away a stock if I simply could not get it to work even after putting in hours of work trying to get it in, it's so important because a single element that doesn't fit right can ruin a piece. Furthermore, photomanipulation involves a range of different techniques, most not followed to perfection but try to get a good taste of everything, for starters look into digital painting/rendering/filters and a good knowledge of photoshop techniques for non-destructive editing. Painting is something you won't(have to) do very much, so a basic look at some tutorials is all you'll need. Spend some time rendering right here on PR, read a few quick tuts and get going, try and put some stuff in the gallery and learn to take pride in making that perfect cut, you'll be doing it a lot so might as well enjoy it. Filters are pure experimentation, see what it does, maybe one day you can use it for achieving that one effect you want. I really only use blur and sharpen on a frequent basis. Non-destructive editing requires good knowledge of photoshop, there are probably hundreds of ways to shade, colour and cut, but only a handful that will allow you to go back and change it. Try and get accustomed to using those the most. However I do it the quick and dirty way all the time, or I get lost in the large amount of layers and merge a few, with permanent results. So I try to keep it up as long as I can make sense of what I'm doing, when the piece finalizes I merge my edits more and the last few tweaks I have to do I can fit in without too much loss in quality. Arguably I could do with a more structured work method, name and group those layers! Woah, that's quite a bit of text, have a look at this dA news post as well: http://news.devianta...article/148061/ It explains some basic principles, and there's a list of tutorials at the bottom, even GIMP ones!
To be continued...
Warp Interview: Part Two Wendy: Can you explain the kill your darlings rule to me? Warp: The kill your darlings rule is a rule of thumb used in a lot, if not most, art forms. It's about a certain section or element in your work. Perhaps you put in loads of detail or coolness, or maybe it just turned out damned perfect, but however much you love that particular thing, it can ruin the balance of the overall piece so you'll have to get rid of it for the sake of end result. Wendy: What sort of stocks do you look for in your art? How do you pick them out, do you look for a specific aspect or do they just jump out at you and inspire you? Warp: I've used all sorts of subjects one way or the other but I always look for the biggest high quality stock I can find, preferably something that's universally lit. A lot easier to add shading and contrast then to try and remove it. I search for most of my stocks on sites like sxc.hu, usually with a pretty good idea of what I'm looking for but very often something does jump out, maybe completely unrelated to what I wanted, but I either think it can work with my current project or save it for later. Wendy: For the non-art majors, what does universally lit mean and why is it a good thing? Warp: I'm not an art major I just explain things weirdly sometimes :3. What I meant was this, if you take a photograph of an object for stock purposes, and you have a really strong lighting situation(say a spotlight) it will force you to use that direction in your work. Such strong shading is very hard to change without making a mess, and there's a chance the level of contrast wouldn't match the rest of your work even with the proper light direction. So soft (2 or 3 point) lighting, or a lot of indirect light is the way to go with stocks. Wendy: Can you tell me some more differences between bad and good stocks to use? Warp: Well generally you want a stock that can give you as much freedom a possible, so preedited stocks are a no-no in my book (some stock providers pre colour their stocks or make standard "backgrounds" :puke: ) Another thing to try and avoid are stocks with subjects cut-off (say piece of an arm missing) this is off course only a problem if it takes up a small part in your compo, in something like Artificial Emotion this wasn't a problem. I personally like stocks with a ToS that doesn't involve me crediting the stock artist everywhere I post my work(in something like a portfolio it's just not convenient) Stock provider's rules can differ quite a bit so always keep an eye on those! Wendy: What is your favorite piece of art of all time? Warp: Oh I really have no idea, I couldn't possibly answer that. It would change very quickly anyway, I like certain things but what specific works speak to me depends very much of the time
and state I'm in, just browsing though my dA favorites makes me go wtf sometimes. Wendy: What is your most favorite of your own art? Warp: I think it's this one http://warlock-warp....motion-84883443, it's quite an old one but it's one of my first highly detailed manips and I still love it. The concept is a bit clichĂŠ but I do like the simplicity of it, something lacking in a lot of my other works. Wendy: What is the inspiration behind that piece? Warp: I'm not sure anymore, but I do know that I built the entire piece based on the stock. It was large and high quality, so I wanted to do something with it. I then made the choice to make some kind humanoid/robot of it. The pose and expression of the stock led me to the "artificial emotion" concept, so I was mostly working in the direction the stock gave me. Wendy: What is your most detailed piece? What sort of work went into it? Warp: I think it could be this one: http://warlock-warp....Sleep-118676220 . There's a lot of little scene's going on across the piece. And I went a bit crazy putting in all the little shadows and highlights and giving every edge some dimension. Take a look at the WIP compilation if you want, http://warlock-warp....ation-118680565 Wendy: Can you walk me through the technical aspects of Sleep? Warp: Sleep is really interesting because I made just about everything from the ground up with textures(except the person of course). The little blobs are digitally painted, with an opaque texture added to enhance detail and match graininess to the rest of the photo's and final shading was done with dodge and burn tool(they increase grain as well). The plate work is made from the same set of air plane hull textures I used in Artificial Emotion( I really love them) carefully transformed to flow with the skin, then given thickness and an edge with the dodge and burn tool(very destructive editing but also very quick). A similar method is used for the pipes. The red liquid flowing through the pipes is also just one texture, the idea of a glass cover is achieved by taking the dodge tool directly to the texture, and the edges are done once again with a very small, high value dodge/burn tool. Even the lightning bolts are made from scratch, come to think of it the only non-texture stock I added is the little vial in the foreground. It's a work method I find myself resorting to when I want something very exact, which is usually impossible to find a stock for. Wendy: How did you create this sky: [url="http://warlock-warp.deviantart.com/art/TheInheritors-180565618"] http://warlock-warp....s-180565618url] Warp: Using just two similar cloud stocks of a very busy and contrasted sunset, I cut out a few
sections, copied them around and curved them to the shape I wanted(made a quick compositional sketch with my tablet, I always do that first). Clouds, water and that kind of stuff are really easy to merge together, just a softbrush eraser( or layer mask!) is all it takes. Then I desaturated the whole thing and on a new layer set to color mode I painted on the gradient from light brown to red. Then I used a different sky stock with a much further perspective to run from the horizon to the tunnel. Wendy: How do you feel about photography? Warp: I try to play around with it from time to time, and enjoy it very much, but it's on a low level at the moment. I have a small Canon Powershot S5IS which is a good starter camera but I've outgrown it. These days I sometimes shoot my own stock, do some slightly above average holiday photographs and play around with long exposure times a bit, nothing much. It's useful knowing a few things about a lot of different media though so I try to keep it up. Wendy: What is your dream camera? Warp: I have no idea, I don't follow exact developments because it will just make a me jealous and want it :3 I'm a Canon fan boy though so if I ever buy a new camera it will probably be one of those. Wendy: My Mom has a Canon camera, I can tell you it’s a wonderful brand. Good taste you could choose any place in the world to shoot, where would it be and why?
If
Warp: I'd love to go to western China, there's some stunning scenery and I'd love to try my hand at that. Wendy: What sort of stock images have you shot? Warp: Small objects I've had laying around, textures and a few buildings, sometimes I shoot stock of myself because I'm looking for a very specific pose. http://warlock-warp....Arrow-121440545 This work was made entirely with stock I shot myself. I especially enjoy shooting textures, just walking around anywhere with a camera in macro-mode and you'll find tons of unique things nobody has. Wendy: How did you get the detail work on that arrow? It’s amazing! Warp: The base is a 3D model I did in blender, then I added over a texture(I think it's from a scarf I have) and worked on that with some emboss and painting to give it depth, I strengthened the shading and shininess that was already on the model and finally I went in with the pen tool to add the highlights(small brush set to stimulate pressure is something I use a lot) and I went a little overboard with the flares =P Wendy: How is blender different from c4d? Warp: I have no experience with c4d, but the basic principle is the same. However I know most
people find Blender to have a very different interface then most 3d programs, it does have a very extensive feature set though and it's every growing. Mostly thanks to its open source base and communities like the Blender Foundation. Wendy: What programs do you use? Warp: I use photoshop mostly, and a bit of blender. But as part of my studies I will also learn AutoCAD and autocad-like programs and maybe some Maya. Wendy: Do you have some tips for using 3D programs? Warp: It will save you a lot of time later on when you start out by learning the basics very well first and develop a good work method. You can make a model in many ways but if you then decide you want to animate it or do more with it, the method you chose might be digging your demise. At first it's probably wise to focus on only one program at the time as well, subtle differences like short-keys, navigation tools and editing modes w/e can drive you mad if you're using multiple programs(you can often change those to your liking but that might get you in trouble with tutorials or if you use the program somewhere else). Wendy: What's Maya? What is it useful for? Warp: Maya is another 3-d modeling program used in a variety of professions, from architects to movie special effects artists. Wendy: What does AutoCAD do? Warp: AutoCAD is a drawing program that's mostly used for technical drawings and construction-plans for all sorts of things. Right now my faculty is moving to a different autodesk program called Autodesk Revit, especially made for architecture. It works a little bit different then most programs because it involves giving an object(say a wall) specific attributes, like thickness, material, type of insulation etc. and from those floor plans it produces a 3D model and other sections. I'll be starting with this next week so I'm interested to see what it's like, it could save enormous time but I think it might be very complicated to draw something that isn't a standard building solution. Wendy: Why are those things important in an architecture program? Warp: Time saving mostly, it's goes a lot quicker to just say, I want this kind of window there, with this and that size, and type of frame, as opposed having to model all the nooks and corners of the window frame by hand. And depending on the extensiveness off the database you can have a direct link to real available building materials. I'm not sure I like the development though, it's a complicated program to learn fully, and you can't use that skill in many other fields, where as Autocad has a much wider user base. Wendy: Are there particular 3D programs good for certain jobs or are they all about the same other than different shortcuts etc.?
Warp: There are certainly different kinds suitable for different jobs, but there is a lot of overlap. Some work by a completely different principle though, the gross number of 3D programs use some kind of vertices/nurbes etc. based modeling method. These are suited for a large number of things and are often very well suited for technical work. A program like sketchup works slightly different(essentially by manipulating faces) and it's very quick and easy to use, but I find it has a lot of limitations when doing complicated things( it's getting a lot better though and it already put its mark in the business). Then there's the really specialized programs, like Revit, it works with a huge library of building components which you essential just give a place and modify, so it can only be used for those kind of applications. Wendy: How would someone go about learning how to model stuff in 3D? Is there anything a beginner would have to understand? Warp: Hmm, I think it would be good to understand that in most programs there are a few ways to go about the actual modeling, start from scratch, modify a basic shape, or construct your model from a large number of basics shapes (or any combination of those). Growing a good feel on how to go about building up your model and what's best for you(with an eye on future applications, animation/texturing/movement) is a skill you can apply in a lot of programs, unfortunately there are no set rules for it, it's gained by doing it a lot.
To be continued...
Warp Interview: Part Three Wendy: What is your favorite photograph that you've shot? Warp: Probably this one: http://warlock-warp....dland-166529679 It's my favorite area in New Zealand and this was taken just a day’s walk into the national park. The beautiful green glacial hill formations and warm evening sun make for a vibrant colour scheme(with a little help of a polarization filter) and the clouds where gorgeous that day. But I still haven't completely sorted all my photographs( I know, I know), so maybe there is something really interesting hiding in there, Wendy: That photograph is stunning! What were you doing in New Zealand? Where else have you visited? Warp: I was backpacking around New Zealand for 4 months, took a gap year after high school and saved up for it. It was an awesome experience and I'm glad I decided to do it, really changed the way I look at things a lot. It was my first time travelling by myself, but I've also visited England, France and Sweden a few times with family. Wendy: What was New Zealand like? Warp: Incredible, beautiful scenery off course, but the people are also some of the friendliest I've ever seen, despite having to deal with millions of tourist a year they're always willing to help out :3 Wendy: Can you show me some of your pictures from New Zealand? Warp: Here are some I have uploaded on dA: http://warlock-warp....ngton-180567134 http://warlock-warp....n-ish-180567941 http://warlock-warp....aland-156972902 And a few others: I still got like 3000 photographs to sort so this is a quick pick http://img5.imagesha...06/img9044j.jpg http://img821.images...2/img4476qf.jpg http://img833.images...90/img5547d.jpg Wendy: How did you even manage to take 3,000 pictures??? Warp: It actually boils down to about 20 photographs per day, which in a country like New Zealand really isn't that much. I did spend a fortune on SD-cards and back-up usb-drives though Wendy: What did you like best about that trip?
Warp: It's very hard to point out one thing after doing sooo much, but in terms of things that was a totally awesome and fun experience doing this come to mind: http://img828.images...92/img1516c.jpg Wendy: Some of that terrain looks pretty rugged, did you get special training on how to deal with that before you left? Or was it a learn as you go sort of thing? Warp: Nah, just learn as you go, I just got some good hiking boots and backpack, I was a little worried about how my knee was going to hold up but after a few weeks it was trained pretty well. NZ has a very large number of well maintained hiking trails so traversing bare nature is something I only had to do a few times, it's a lot easier than most people think. Wendy: http://img833.images...90/img5547d.jpg How is kayaking? I've never tried that, it looks quite interesting! Warp: I love kayaking, my parents own a set of kayaks we take out once in a while and we even brought them with us to Sweden once, but I never went sea-kayaking before. It's a very nice way of enjoying nature, very quiet and not too fast and of course being on the water is something I always enjoy. It's also pretty awesome to land at some random empty beach, open up the storage bay and pull out a coffee making set or a bottle of wine(I couldn't dream of bringing bottles of wine and stuff with me when hiking). I can definitely recommend doing it sometime! Wendy: "Nice to walk around the corner of a 6 hour uphill hike and see your endpoint (for the day), The Luxmorehut, which features real flushing! toilets. :D" That's the description of your Civilization-ish image. Exactly how rural was this area??? Warp: Very rural, this trail was actually right next to the town(most require a bus trip or something to the start of the trail) but even then that hut is the only building you'll see the entire day. Further up the park there are a few more huts and one hydro power station but that's IT. No flushing toilets, running water and sure as hell no cell phone reception, just awesome. ^^ Wendy: What where you hiking to see when you stayed at The Luxmorehut? Warp: Nothing specific, just the national park it self Wendy: For would be travelers what places would you suggest for them to visit in New Zealand? Warp: EVERYWHERE! Seriously though, all places in New Zealand are very well equipped for travelers, both experienced and novice. If you want to go to specific places it really depends on what you want. NZ has a plethora of different landscapes, high snowy mountains, sunny beaches, dense rainforests and desert-like volcanic areas. It also depends which time of the year you're going, the north has a much warmer climate and is quite pleasant even in winter, while the south(west) can get very rainy and/or colder in the winter(ski season!). Just read up on it and see
what you like :3 Wendy: What are you doing in this image: http://img828.images...92/img1516c.jpg bungee jumping or skydiving? And how in the world did you do it without screaming your head off much less holding the camera perfectly in focus???!!! Warp: That's skydiving, and I sure was having fun. That's why you can get an extra guy skydiving with you taking photographs (and a video) from his helmet cam, he does that like 1020 times a day so he can keep it steady Wendy: Why in the world would you considering jumping out a plane fun? Or is this an acquired taste? (Disclaimer: I'm terrified of heights and it would take a lot of liquid courage even to get me on a plane much less make me jump out of one). Warp: Ehhh....because it IS fun? And don't worry, fear of heights and fear of flying are two different things, I'm not too fond of heights myself, but I have no problem flying, even in small glider planes so you could be a great skydiver! It's a very interesting sensation freefalling from a few miles high. There's a strange sense of calmness that becomes you, you're weightless and don't feel like you're falling at all. Then there's the beautiful view beneath and around you, the feeling of our planets vastness suddenly becomes real, you're in direct contact with nature instead of looking through a window. That combined with a giant boost of adrenaline is just amazing. Will do again. Wendy: You also do digital paintings, what sort of work goes into them? Is the work completely different from photomanipulation or are the two related in some ways? Warp: I combine digital painting and photomanipulation a lot, but apart from all the general compositional and lighting rules the technique is completely different. Most interesting difference is that when you do a digital painting you work from a rough sketch, to more precise colored area's all the way up the to final detail work, where as in photomanipulation the detail is right there just some lighting and shades to do (something you do before detail work when painting). And it's a completely different principle, where as photomanipulation is basically a collage of things you put together digital painting is working from scratch. I find they can complement each other in the learning circle a lot though, things you'll run into when editing real-life photo's can then be applied to your painting to increase realism, and colour and shading techniques from painting can be used in editing again. Wendy: How is digital painting different than real life painting? Do the same principals apply? Warp: A lot of the same principles apply, the small differences also depend on which program you use, some programs other the photoshop focus on making an even more realistic painting experience. The biggest advantage of course is the ease of editing things, erasing mistakes or moving whole sections of the painting slightly for a better compo. Wendy: Do you have any tips for a beginning artist?
Warp: The best tip I can give is to not be scared to just go with it, I've noticed a massive change in the way I work in all creative fields when I try a new technique(or even an new medium) with an open mind and not worry about if I could do it as good as the person showing it to me. The end result will leave you surprised about what you can do. A good thing to remember along with that, is that sketch-works are awesome too! When trying something new resist the urge to make something huge and absolutely perfect, perfect your technique first then start a really cool project. Wendy: Do you think there's any particular art style that's easiest for a beginner to pick up? Warp: Not really, I think it's easiest to pick up a style you enjoy doing regardless of what it is. Off course one could argue that painting or traditional drawing would be best to start out with because it teaches most fundamentals, but it's not really how I did it so you'll probably be alright either way. Wendy: What sort of ToS rules should a beginner learn quickly? Warp: They all differ, you should learn to always know what rules apply to your stock, most common are: non-commercial use only, credit stock provider, notify stock provider when used, and some also limit their stock to certain subject matter, so no nudity/racism etc. Wendy: What programs do you suggest for a beginner to play with, are there a few that are easier to pick up? Warp: It really depends on what you want to do, but photoshop is a very general use program and once you know it, it makes the step to other ones like illustrator easier so that would make sense. Off course if you want to do more 3d work there's plenty of choices but 3d programs are a lot harder to learn(properly). But all popular programs have plenty of resources, help files and tutorials available so it's all up to you. Wendy: What is your opinion on the usage of tutorials? I know some older members have a bit of a beef with using them. Warp: Meh, I don't mind them, in the end you did it yourself and would be able to replicate it without the tutorial next time, so you probably learned something. That doesn't mean I don't get a little annoyed when I see a LAOTF-entry that is an exact copy(down to the stocks) of a tutorial. Exactly copying tutorials is a bad habit anyway, mixing it up a little will defiantly teach you more and help you make something creative at the same time. Just pointing out that you used a tutorial and maybe link to it is never a bad habit either, it's shows an extra layer of honesty and anyone liking the results can give it a try too. Wendy: Where do you see your art eventually going? Warp: Just a hobby, it would be nice if I could eventually make a few bucks from it, maybe even do a commission once in a while but I don't think I would enjoy it so much if it became work.
Wendy: Alright, let's wrap this up
Any last words?
Warp: Last words? That doesn't bode well for me. Seriously though, it was fun talking to ya and I hope others find it interesting/helpful as well. If anyone has any questions feel free to drop me a PM. Wendy: Yeap, last words xD Feel free to run Warp, run as fast as you can you for this interview sweetie! It was great talking to you
To be continued...
Anyways, thank
Art Feature: Warp Welcome to our art feature on Warp! If you wish to visit his DA here is a link to his profile: http://warlock-warp.deviantart.com/ Here are a few of his works:
Warp's First digital painting
Warp's Daily Deviation
Smiling Demon Interview: Part One Wendy: Thank you for allowing me to interview you, can you tell me a bit about yourself? Alastair: Hi Wendy, I'm 21, from Scotland and studying Structural with Fire Safety Engineering at University (basically I'm learning to make sure buildings stand up and then stay standing if they burn... I also get to burn things in the lab which is great (see: http://a6.sphotos.ak...00_361254_n.jpg)). I also love my sport playing football (soccer) and golf and being a big Rugby and F1 fan. But I guess the real reason I'm here is my love for art, and this is what I spend most of my time on, doing either digital artwork (mainly Abstract although I've dabbled in most things in my time) or photography. Wendy: How did you get interested in Fire Safety Engineering? Alastair: Long story this one, but I'll try and slim it down. When I first went to university all I knew was that I wanted to do some sort of engineering, use my physics and maths ability in a more practical manner. So I started at Edinburgh Uni where first year engineers get to taste all the main discipline's before being tied down, through this I realized that what I enjoyed most was Civil Engineering (rather than Mechanical, Chemical or Electrical) and its structural side. Then during my second year at Uni we were introduced to the possibility of doing Fire Safety Engineering and were given some rough ideas of what it would be like to study (the head of the course is also a bit of a legend at our Uni, and in the world of Fire Safety Engineering too... it was him who the US Government got to investigate the collapse of the Twin Towers and WTC7). Then in September last year I had to make a decision, weather I would stick with my straight civil line, or if I would switch to fire. I gambled and switched to fire, admittedly mainly to avoid having to do a module called Water Resources (aka water sanitation and sewage mainly). I haven't regretted it since, the subject is really interested and definitely my favorite module since being at uni (only had 1 different module from the straight civils so far, Fire Safety instead of Water Resources, all the structural, computing and fluid mechanics courses are the same for both), gets a little more different next year. Wendy: What sort of things did your professor say about what happened on September 11th? Alastair: Well nothing overly exciting, other than the reason that they collapsed was due to bad design. Basically they were designed to withstand a plane impact (if you think about it a plane is a thin metal tube with a couple of thin wings, the only part which would do any real damage is the engines). The reason they fell down was they hadn't thought about how the heating due to fires would effect a bigger section of the structure, they had thought about individual elements (i.e. a single beam or a single column), but not about anything bigger (i.e. a beam supported by two columns), and so when the beams heated up, they generated large compressive forces in them (they tried to expand due to the heat but the columns restrained them) and so buckled... this gives you longer column sections (no longer stopped from moving sideways due to the beams) and so they buckled and then you have a chain reaction and down it comes.... that basically sums
it up. Wendy: Why did you want to avoid Water Resources? Is it a hard course or is it just disgusting with the sewage part? Alastair: Nah neither of them really, I found it a little harder than my other courses as a large part of it is remembering facts... rather than methods of solving things. But mainly it was due to the fact that I really disliked the lecturer and also I generally found it quite boring. Wendy: How did you get your start in digital art? Alastair: Through a school friend. I saw him making sigs on PS for a small emulation and gaming forum and thought it looked awesome. So I joined up, got a copy of PS7 off him and started my journey. From there I then joined a couple of graphics websites, Climb-X and DigitalIndustries (dunno how many others will remember them) along with my mate and a guy called Benny (otherwise known as ECN, some people might recognize some of his sigs like: http://i3.photobucke...ion/14432pz.png and http://i3.photobucke...on/ed8fbbbd.png). Later on (after both these sites died for various reasons) I moved around quite a few sites; GFXDugout, Bratzergfx and quite a few others whose names I can't remember at the moment. The big one though I guess was ActOne, it was here that I got into my Large Art with the help of PD, by this point my two mates for the original site had stopped and gone on to do other things. Since then it’s been onwards and upwards, first The Luminarium, then IN, then Digital-Flow and final EvokeOne being the artgroups I've been in. Still going strong with The Luminarium, IN and Evk. Wendy: Can I see your first signature? Alastair: Haha sure, enjoy:
Wendy: What sort of signature styles were in vogue when you started out? Alastair: Those where the days of grunge brushing and fractal brushing... build up layers of brushing, slap in a render, brush a bit over the top, do a little colour fixing... or at least that's what I was doing. I remember some people were starting to use c4d, but not sure how soon after I started that was. Also a lot of custom brush making was going on back then to give people slightly different effects. It was probably a year or so after I started that a lot of stuff that spawned all of today's styles started getting made. Wendy: What sort of styles have you noticed over the years? How are things totally different from 2005?
Alastair: Sig sizes have changed quite a lot over the years; there was a stage when they went really small. Also styles and contents have changed a lot, grunge brushing was huge when I was starting out and then after a while it went out of fashion, and in came more "environment" based sigs, like characters with a background to fit them in, or pure landscapes things like that, sprites have been in and out of fashion a few times, grunge has kinda come back in twice, firstly with smudging and then with heavy use of textures. I can also remember c4d coming into it more, although there were some very early c4d only sigs when I started out, there wasn't too much in the way of using c4d for effects that more appeared a year or two in... Admittedly it might have just been that I hadn't come across them. I also think sigs these days might use a bigger range of colours than they used to. Wendy: Do you think signatures currently have a dominant style? Or have things started to change? Alastair: I'm not going to lie I'm a little out of the loop when it comes to sigs at the moment, I only really see stuff that people in AV make for battles. And it’s hard to see a dominant style in there as everyone is really recruited so that we have a good range of styles. Wendy: Is that a fractal I see in that signature??? Alastair: Yup, back then fractal brushing was all the rage! That was made using a load of brush sets downloaded from DA. I thought it was amazing at the time lol. Wendy: Why do you thing signature making and digital art in general has gotten so much better over the years? Alastair: I'm not sure it has got "better" as such, I would say there are more people making really high quality stuff these days, but there were some superb people back then. Anyway I just think the main reason is that it’s become more accessible. People have faster computers which can do a better job of running your heavy 3d programs, everyone has a broadband connection to upload and view artwork. There is just more people, who are better connected with each other. Ideas and techniques spread quickly, but I'm not sure I would go as far as to say that the "top" has got any higher, saying that the average ability might well have. Wendy: While people have more access, why do you think that graphics forums have been in a steady state of decline for the past couple of years? Alastair: Maybe the wow factor has worn off a bit? I'm not sure, maybe it’s a bit of a progress to larger canvases and people a large amount of the "pioneers" as it were, the people who were great already when I started, or even the people more of my "generation" have moved onto doing larger canvases or finding art/illustration jobs and not just doing it for fun so much, or even just moved onto other things as they grow up (I'm not suggesting that it’s a particular immature pursuit, but just that people’s opinions of things change with time). And often what holds together communities online is an inspirational figure or two who everyone looks up to. Dunno, just rambling a little here. Maybe in a year or two the interest will pick up again and we will get
a large resurgence. Wendy: How long ago did you get your start in digital art? I don't recognize those site names. What were they like? Alastair: I can tell you exactly when I made my first sig lol; it’s on photobucket and has the info, 26th of March 2005. So 6 years ago now, been doing it for a while I guess. Those sites were pretty big back then, Climb-X was massive. It was run by a guy called Metal-CX who made PS brushes (go onto DA and you should be able to find some of his packs pretty easily) which were probably the biggest on DA at the time (it was how I found the site). I remember it being good natured, really busy and having quite a bit of knowledge floating about. Digital Industries was the other big one back then, it was of a similar nature, but just had a different group of people there, it’s the place the likes of Glorious and BlackMaterial developed their trade. Wendy: How large were those sites? I've never heard of them. Of course I started digital art about a year after you did so I may have missed them. Alastair: Pretty large, Climb-X at its peak probably not dissimilar to here I would have thought, Digital Industries was a little smaller, although not much smaller. ActOne more similar size to Digital Industries. Wendy: What is ActOne? Alastair: Was would be more accurate. It was a graphics forum set up by Glorious after the death of Digital Industries, started off as sig based and had a lot of emphasis on doing new things where possible. It slowly changed its emphasis to trying to encourage sig artists to start moving towards larger artwork and seeing sigs as more of a way to learn your tools. It was here that I started working on larger artwork with the help of all those learning around me it helped I think, I felt less intimidated by the lack of people coming out with things completely beyond my level (a lot of people better than me, and who I could look up to, but no one who made you feel you abilities were insignificant in comparison). It then turned out that they had been using a pirated version of the forum software, so a lot of the more senior members (not me, despite being staff at that moment) went off and set up Intrinsic Nature and the few of us remaining managed to get a new set of forum software and tried to keep the place going, also set up a small artgroup with it and we released a few packs together, but unfortunately we just couldn't get it going. It was a key site in my development as an artist. R.I.P. AO. Wendy: What do you mean a pirated version of the forum software? Alastair: They didn't have a license for it basically, and then they got caught and had to close it down. No idea how they managed to get a copy of the software without the license though. And people don't do it, not worth it.
To be continued...
Smiling Demon Interview: Part Two Wendy: What brought you to PR? Alastair: Really it was through making friends with EvilC (anyone remember him?) on AO. After a while he asked if I would join his team on PR (that was High Definition), it took a little persuading, but I eventually agreed. I might have dodged the system there a little too; I joined the team while only on 0 posts... not the required 50. Thankfully no one picked up on it (admittedly it didn't take me long to get those 50 posts, at that point I was averaging over 30posts a day on AO, and probably did something similar here). And since then I've just kinda stuck around the team area (although I must have posted outside a bit as I notice I've got over 1k posts now...) and made a few friends. Wendy: LOL, you may have joined the team before the 50 post rule was enacted. It was due to a glitch in the system originally, but it’s stuck over the years. What was it like being in High Definition? Alastair: I dunno, I'm pretty sure I remember being told to rack them up as soon as possible so I didn't get noticed... it could be a false memory though! High Definition was great, good bunch of people there, and I remember it having a pretty relaxed attitude as well and some great joking going on. It was a while ago now admittedly and there isn't much more about it I can remember. Wendy: What was it like being an LP only team on this site? I can imagine it was tough considering it was like pulling teeth during the tourney for some teams to submit a LP. Alastair: Yeh it was pretty tough, the main problem was that no one would battle us, either because they felt we had the best LPers (not sure though, because AIR have always had quality LPers) or just because they didn't think they could produce enough in a short enough space of time. Within the team it was great though, we were ambitious, and all wanted to learn as much off each other as we could! Wendy: Where did the idea for an LP only team come from and why did you guys call it The Luminarium? Alastair: Can't really answer those questions I'm afraid, I joined when applications opened after the team had been made here on PR. You would have to ask Chaz or Jorik. Wendy: How did the Luminarium form and what is your role in it? Alastair: Ahh good old Lum. Are we a bit of a PR legend these days? Anyway we started as an LP only team here on PR (was it 3 and a half years ago now? Maybe nearer 4? I really can't remember), it was set up by Akajork and Chaz as a way of encouraging those LPers here on PR. After a few weeks of running Chaz decided that he didn't have the time or the motivation to help
run a PR team and I stepped up to Co-Leader. It was soon after this that we all thought that maybe we could do something more with the group of people we had (especially as none of the other teams wanted to do battles with us!) and we started work on our first artpack. We also brought in ViusalFour/Warlord to work on a site for the group and after a few months the first version of The Luminarium was released. I've been part of the admin team for the group since the beginning and these days I'm one of two (the other being Somni) as VisualFour and Akajork no longer have the time to dedicate to running the site (they still participate) due to work and collage commitments. Wendy: What is it like running The Luminarium? Alastair: Time consuming! Very time consuming, and at times expensive as well, all I can say is a huge thanks to our host David Bixler who gives it to us for free, because without that I'm not sure we would exist as I almost definitely wouldn't be able to afford the hosting. At times it can also be a small challenge keeping all the artists motivated, but with new artists often coming in (our applications are always open people ) it isn't too bad, and I have a great staff team to help me out. We have a few things lined up that we plan and getting into action over the summer (basically as soon as I finish my exams work will properly begin on them), and the next exhibit should be superb and unlike many things seen before... so also it can be very exciting. And finally I'm just quite proud of what we have achieved, which is a great feeling to have. Wendy: How do you come up with the exhibit themes? Alastair: Through discussion with the whole artists team, everyone puts forward ideas and explanations, people bounce ideas off each other and after a while normally a couple of favoured ideas can be seen and we put them into a vote, the most popular one wins. Occasionally staff members come up with an idea outside of the normal theme cycle and we put this to the artists and often the artists like it and we give them a shot (such as the one we are working on just now, can't tell you any more about it unfortunately). Wendy: What sort of work goes into an exhibition? Alastair: Well there is the creation of the artwork by the artists, then from a staff point of view we have to keep them motivated, provide help and inspiration to make sure they all understand the theme properly. For me apart from creating my own artwork, the largest amount of work comes at release time, here we have to decide on the featured pieces of artwork, the featured artist and interview them. Also we need to set up all the release files (like the DA preview, the site banners, all our DA Journal images) and write an exhibit description/release note. It ends up being a full couple of days work where I do very little else. Wendy: Oh, I have a feeling I know what you're talking about when it comes to those buy couple of days. Sounds like magazine release day. How do you manage to decide on what's going into the exhibition? I can imagine that would be a really hard choice to make Alastair: Yeh I can imagine it would be. Actually no its quite easy, we have a voting system in place so people submit their pieces as they finish them and all the artists can vote on if it should
be in or not. Pieces with enough yes votes get in, those that don't. Choosing features is a similar process, the staff all votes for their favorite pieces and the ones with the most votes get the features. It's all quite democratic really. Choosing the featured artist can be a little harder and require a bit of discussion between the staff to come to a decision but often there is a stand out artist from an exhibition, someone with 2 or 3 outstanding pieces. At most there is 2 people up for it and that little bit of talking between the staff team decides it. Wendy: How does The Luminarium select its artists? Alastair: We are open to applications from anyone, but there are a few criteria that people need to have to get in. There are the basic artistic ones like an understanding of values (lights and darks), lighting, colour which all can be shown through their artwork. Artwork wise we have to feel that you are either at a level or close to a level where you would be able to contribute to the exhibits (we don't expect everyone to be able to contribute straight away, but we do expect them to give it a shot). Apart from this, and most importantly to us is that the artist shows a willingness to learn and to help others learn because ultimately that is what The Luminarium is all about (and always has been from its days as a team here) learning from each other. As well as applications we also are constantly on the lookout for artists that we think would fit well within the group and we invite those we find to join us. Wendy: What is it like being in an artgroup? Alastair: Artgroups are great, they help you work to deadlines, they force you to push and develop your skills and imagination. They are a superb place for CnC and learning new tricks and pieces. A fantastic opportunity for collaborations and also a great place to meet people. A lot of my best online friends have come through artgroups. They can be a bit of hard-work though, and you will only get out what you put in. If you get into one and then appear once an exhibit to submit a piece and then disappear again, well it’s not worth it, you won't get much out of it, and everyone else in the group will probably get annoyed with you! Wendy: What is it like going to university in Edinburgh? Alastair: Edinburgh is amazing, by far my favorite city I have ever been in. It’s got some fantastic Georgian architecture, a superb landscape (Arthur's Seat looks like the top of a mountain just dumped into a city). It also has a fantastic amount of (maybe a little high-brow) culture and just an all round fantastic atmosphere. One of my favorite things is a Sunday morning in Edinburgh where you can wander through large parts of the city, and see vast amounts of green, and have barely any traffic and people... like it isn't really a city at all. Wendy: What is Arthur's Seat? What are some sights to see in the city? Alastair: Well http://29.media.tumb...dec13o1_500.jpg is a picture taken from my bedroom window last winter when we had tons of snow, the big hill in the background, that is Arthur's Seat, and its right in the middle of the city. It’s the bottom of a volcano from millions of years ago, the part that hasn't been eroded by glaciers. Other things to see? We have the Castle (which also sits on a big bit of volcanic rock), along with our other big hills, Carlton Hill (lots of
monuments and things on it) and Blackford hill. Err The Royal Mile (the road going between the castle and Holyrood House (the Queen's Edinburgh Residence)). Also all around the Royal Mile there are all sorts of little streets which are quite cool. Wendy: What is life like in Scotland? Alastair: Scotland's great too I think. It’s a beautiful country, the highlands are some of the most fantastic places I have been in my life and having them right on your doorstep is great. As a people we are a bit bitter about a few things (mainly the English lol) and are incredibly patriotic, but are actually really friendly which is great. We have Irn Bru, which is the most amazing drink in the world... and which basically doesn't exist anywhere else. Otherwise I wouldn't have thought it’s overly different from most other places. Wendy: What are your own feelings about the English? Alastair: Nothing against them really, although as a group mentality (and largely the British Press are a bit to blame for this), they can develop a group mentality (normally around sporting events) where they feel they are massively superior to everyone in the world... which at times can be a bit frustrating. Other than that they are just people, and like people from anywhere in the world, it all depends on the person not where they come from. Wendy: What sort of drink is Irn Bru like? Or is it totally different from anything else? Alastair: It’s a soft drink, bright orange and fizzy. Tastes completely different to anything else I've ever drank, and it’s amazing... not really sure how else to describe it other than that if you ever get the chance to have some do.
To be continued...
Smiling Demon Interview: Part Three Wendy: What drew you to photography? Alastair: This is a little harder to answer; I can't really put my finger on it. Some point while I was at ActOne I started into photography but I can't really remember what triggered it. It was before I got my DSLR as me being into photography was the reason I got my DSLR! But I can't really remember what it was. All I can remember is how I love capturing natural landscapes and views, and preserving them. But that's a feeling post being into photography, I really can't remember what started it! Wendy: What is a DSLR? Alastair: Digital Single Lens Reflex camera, one of those digital ones with detachable/interchangeable lenses. Wendy: Where have you traveled for your photography? I know you recently went to Cuba, what was that like? Alastair: I like to combine my holidays with places I would love to take photos of, so dramatic scenery is a must. I've been a few places; I'm quite often into Scotland's highlands to go take photos. I've also been to the Alps quite a few times, amazing mountains the Alps, anyone who should get a chance to go must! I've also travelled across a large amount of the states (Arches, Monument Valley, Colorado's Rockies, Yosemite, Grand Canyon...). Cuba was fantastic fun, completely different to anywhere I've been before, the architecture is amazing, and the music is fantastic. Importantly for me the rum is cheap, although cigars are still stupidly expensive. Hopefully got some good shots, although I have realized on the trip that my urban photography skills aren't up to much, and as I spent the week in Havana there might not be too many. I haven't gone through all my photos yet so there might be a few still. Fingers Crossed! Wendy: What did you think of the states? Alastair: Hmmm got a mixture of feelings there, as a landscape not many better, it has such a huge variety of things going on that you guys are really lucky. Your humor seems a bit... well uncomplicated I guess from a British point of view, your slapstick isn't quite as wacky as ours and the rest just isn't quite there lol... (Saying that there are a lot of American comics/comedies that I do like, it’s just generalizations here ). Politically you’re an absolute joke... the Tea Party? Really? How are they a valid group of politicians, they would be a laughing stock over here. Maybe I would describe a lot of Americans and American culture as a bit naive... also when I was in the states I couldn't help but feel that while most of the people I met around the place were really friendly it was all a bit fake.. as if they were being friendly to me because they felt they had to, and not because it was ME that they wanted to be friendly to... but then again
I've met a huge amount of superb people from the states online or who have come here for Uni (either for a degree or for a year's exchange), so maybe I was just unlucky in my visit. I hope so! Wendy: It depends on the regions you were in on how people act. Where were you exactly? I noticed a lot of the pictures were from out west. Alastair: That would make sense, with the states being such a large place there would be big changes in the atmosphere in different places. I went quite a few places, started in Chicago and worked my way westwards. Chicago, Denver, Arches, Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, Vegas, Yosemite and San Francisco. This was on a little mini-bus with 12 others (10 other nationalities) over 2 weeks, camping (apart from in the Cities), was great fun. Then spent the rest of the time with family friends (a Scot and an Australian who went to uni with my dad and then moved out there) in Sunnyvale. Wendy: Did you notice a difference between how people acted in Chicago and San Francisco? Alastair: Yeh I did a little, the feeling I was talking about before was more prominent in San Fran, but this could have been that I was there for 2 weeks and met more people, whereas I spent 3 nights and 2 days in Chicago with family friends (who were awesome) and the only other people I really met was there family... so that might have had something to do with it lol. The other thing I did notice about Chicago was how clean it is! Unlike any other city I've been in that respect, it was odd... or at least an odd thing to remember, but yeh, my 3 memories of Chicago are how awesome the people I stayed with were, how clean the city was, and how the architecture was pretty cool. Wendy: What is your dream photographic trip? Alastair: Oooo tough one, there are so many places I want to visit to photograph. One that is quite high on my list is Vietnam, admittedly mainly after watching a Top Gear special where they went there on bikes, but the landscape just looks amazing. But yeh anything which gets me shooting dramatic landscapes would be right up my street! Wendy: What inspires you? Alastair: Everything really. I love nature's landscapes, they are just so gorgeous. I listen to music a lot and what I'm listening to while I'm making a piece can definitely affect the outcome. Also books, films, other people’s artwork are all things which can set those sparks going in my head and create an idea. Wendy: Who is your favorite artist? Alastair: Ooo damn hard one, one of my favorite photographers is Ansel Adams... and artists like Esher and Dali did awesome stuff. But I'm also a big concept art fan, and love a lot of what people around me are doing as well. It’s really hard to pick out favorites! Wendy: What is your favorite piece of art by another person?
Alastair: Once again incredibly tricky to pick favorite pieces of art... but http://www.anseladam.../1701112101.htm by Adams has to be up there and another photo that I am absolutely in love with is http://sirgerg.devia...llery/#/d18d0rq or in a vein more along the lines of what I create myself http://silnc.deviant...llery/#/d19brvw or http://atleastwedream.com/#20. Another piece that always sticks in my head is http://browse.devian...scifi/#/d15wh7v but there is so much amazing artwork out there these days, some of the things that when I first saw them made my jaw drop still get lost in the mists of the rest of them! Wendy: Why do pieces like http://sirgerg.devia...e-Mist-74510630 and this http://max4ever.devi...raNova-70379563 seem to jump out at you so much? Alastair: It’s the atmosphere in the first; it's so spooky and so full of feeling that I love it. Along with its nigh on perfect composition, great leading lines and superb use of contrast lol, it just has it all. The second one is full of atmosphere as well, but it’s the detailing and the lighting on it that always amazes me. One of the best uses of Vue I have ever seen. Wendy: What is your most favorite piece of art you've created? Alastair: A little easier this one to answer, http://fc03.devianta...mon-d3c20ei.jpg for my solo digital work, http://fc09.devianta...iling_Demon.jpg collab wise (although to be fair Kire did most of the hard work!) and two photos; http://fc02.devianta...mon-d33bd0m.jpg as a landscape, and the one in my sig http://28.media.tumb...dec13o1_500.jpg is also one I just love. Wendy: Do you collab with Kire a lot? What is it like to collab so extensively? Alastair: First and only time that I have collabed with Kire, although I hope to get more chances in the future. Collaborating is great fun; always get something different out of it. You get ideas and styles springing up which wouldn't happen if you just did things by yourself. One of my most recent collaborations was with Keith Kosmal (aka http://genesis-orbit.deviantart.com/) and I learnt a lot from it, which I adapted to my own style more and which you can see in my latest two pieces. Wendy: How did you create http://fc03.devianta...mon-d3c20ei.jpg and http://fc09.devianta...ing_Demon.jpg?? They're both amazing Alastair: Thank you :D. Fusion went through quite a few different stages and versions and ended up looking very unlike its original wip. Firstly I decided on the concept (I wanted to show atoms being drawn together in a fusion reaction and portray the great energy of it), then I went into c4d and rendered myself some abstract renders to fit, deciding on my basic colour scheme at the same time. When I had about 4 or 5 renders I took them into PS and decided on my main one (a different one to the one I finally used as it turns out, but normally I end up sticking with that). Then it was a case of trying to work out how to portray the atoms, the final image involved quite a bit of basic brushing, duplicating and the warp tool. For Birth of a Solar System, most of the work was done by Kire... well in fact all of it except taking the original photo, we got in contact
with each other and thought that he would love to work on one of my panoramas as a base... so that's what it started off with, and then he duplicated it, flipped it and used the end which can't be seen at the bottom to create the roof, after that its huge amount of painting for all the fire and space effects in the middle, with me inputting ideas here and there, but all the leg work being done by him. A fantastic artist Kire. Wendy: How do you know when to get the perfect shot? Like http://fc02.devianta...mond33bd0m.jpg and http://28.media.tumb...dec13o1_500.jpg ? Alastair: I wouldn't have said they were perfect but thank you very much. Well the main part is patience, especially when it comes to landscape photography, that one was right at the end of the hike, we had just come off the last peak of the day and were making our way along the ridge before descending (it had been pretty miserable all day), when suddenly we were in the cloud with this great glowy lighting, so I let the guys wander on a bit and got out my camera, got my settings fixed for the light, composed the shot in my head (end up needing to stitch two shots together to get it right) and fired away, took about 4 different compositions of it, this pano, and 3 other single shot ones. This was my favorite so it’s the one which came up. Gig photography is another kettle of fish; it involves shooting away all the gig, being ready for any sort of lighting that comes up, any movement that any of the band might make. I was lucky for that one because I had already shot that band in that venue (this meant I had a good idea of what the lights were going to do) and when there is 8 of them on a small stage it doesn't leave much room for movement so I had a little more time to compose my shot. Wendy: I'm not sure what you mean by gig photography, can you tell me what that is exactly? Alastair: Just shooting of live music, a gig is a concert band/singer/artist as they perform.
So merely taking photos of the
Wendy: Opps, you can tell I don't need to be writing questions when I'm sleepy, can't you? What is it like being a photographer at a concert, it must be an amazing experience I know you have to be able to get a special spot to take all those pictures Alastair: I've not really done any gigs big enough for that, although I might start applying for a few over the summer see if I can get one, because it would be amazing. So far I've only photographed a couple of friend' bands. Mainly an Edinburgh band called Delta Mainline (if you like psychedelic sound-scape rock definitely worth a listen, also they are fantastic live) who are in the process of recording their debut album after releasing an EP late last year. Anyway shooting gig's is great fun, you get lighting conditions and the like that you just don't get anywhere else, also if you like the music that's being played then you can really get into the atmosphere and its great. Just good fun all round! You just have to remember that there are other people watching and photographing the gig and so you should always be courteous and not get in their way if possible. Wendy: What programs do you use? Alastair: Photoshop CS4 and Cinema 4D. Although I have been known to dabble in just about
everything, from your beloved appophysis (did I spell that right? lol), to Vue, to after effects, to illustrator. Wendy: Nope, you didn't. Apophysis. You put in an extra P. What do you think of that program? Alastair: Damn me and my inability to spell anything! I quite liked it; it’s definitely a cleaver piece of kit. And superb if you know what you’re doing with it. But I really think that you need to understand fractals, for people who just want to mess around with it and see what happens it’s not so good. Sure you can still get pretty things that way, but they aren't really anything more than pretty things if you don't really understand what is going on. Wendy: Do you have any tips for beginners? Alastair: Firstly no matter what anyone tells you, there is nothing wrong with reading tutorials. Before you can do anything as an artist you have to learn your tools and tutorials are great for that (don't try and pass off the results as original art though, because it isn't). After that, just practice, practice and practice. Also don't worry about if a piece isn't quite going how you want it to, my latest piece Fusion got "scrapped" and started again about 4 times before me and everyone else at Lum was happy with it. So if you have a specific idea that you really want to do, just keep at it, and don't be afraid to do wholesale changes. Wendy: Do you feel like you made a clear progression with your artworks, or did you have spurts of growth in it? Alastair: If you look over my gallery I definitely feel you can see progression, often even where ideas that I've kinda had in one piece get implemented better in the next. But equally I think I often improve in spurts, I'll have a little bit of time where I produce a lot of artwork and it improves quite quickly but then I'll have longer times where I don't produce much and the level seems to be of a more standard level. I would guess that's how it works with most people. It all depends on how much time and motivation you have I think; when you have lots of both you improve quickly, when not so much you don't. It all goes in cycles anyway and you just have to not get too down in the drier patches. Wendy: Any last words? Alastair: Firstly thank you for the interview, it’s been great fun. Also going to do a little shoutout to everyone in AV, you guys rock! Also all my Luminarium buddies, your fecking awesome, keep on impressing me with everything you do. Apart from that, just that everyone should keep on making art and enjoying it! Just follow your heart guys and girls!
To be continued...
Art Feature: Smiling Demon Welcome to Smiling Demon's art feature, the following are some great works by him! Here is the link to his DA if you wish to explore: http://smiling-demon.deviantart.com/
Final Note...
Hope you enjoyed reading the fourteenth issue of the planet renders magazine! If you've got any suggestions or complaints, you can express them by leaving comments on each separate article. Be sure to vote in the poll above as well. Want to get involved?
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