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photo of Andrea A. Bianco

Andrea on my.opera

my little personal space on my.opera community

Posts tagged with "software"

Poladroid

Thursday, 10. December 2009, 17:28:45

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It's a while I'm playing with this nice toy that I discovered thanks to a Twitter contact : it's called Poladroid and it's a fun software that tries to simulate a (guess what?) Polaroid camera. And I mean, not only the look of the photos : it also implements the waiting during the development of the photo itself, the sounds, the fingerprints, stripes on the paper, rotation and some more parameters. Here are some of my tests with it (using some old photos I took ages ago) :



I created a Poladroids album here on my.opera, where you can find more of my experiments with the software. All in all it's an entertaining activity and it can also produce some interesting results, depending on the photos you use with it of course. You can download it from their site, and it's free : poladroid.net

Of course we can get similar or even better results with Photoshop or a cheaper tool like Paint.Net, very likely using no filters -- but I think that what makes Poladroid so fun is the same concept behind using an Holga camera : you shoot and wait to see the results, hoping for some happy accident. It's great to drop photos onto the camera icon and see what will happen to our casual snapshots. The software can work with high resolution photos too, so it is not impossible to get a very nice result and print it. The "problem" could be that all the photos will become square, but we can crop em getting rid of the paper frame and bringing them to a non square format. I developed some tricks about that, I'll maybe post about that later.

Ciao people! :smile:

4 comments

Pixelformer

Sunday, 31. May 2009, 06:57:42

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Pixelformer is a small but very cool (and free) bitmap editor that is expecially useful for creating and editing icons. It's using only kinda 2.6mb of space on your hard disk and its download size is just 880kb.

Its main features are (taken from its site):
  • no restrictive limits for image dimensions
  • support for different color depths up to 32-bit RGB with alpha channel
  • semi-transparent colors
  • multiple layer support
  • free-form masking
  • in-place supersampling
  • lossless target color depth switching
  • independent access to color and alpha channels
  • dynamic palette generation
  • multiple file format support
  • extensible architecture
  • icon extraction capability
  • PNG size optimization
  • Vista icon optimization
  • alpha premultiplication
  • deep undo buffer

It can import BMP, PNG, ICO, CUR, JPEG/JPG, TGA, and PSD image files, as well as EXE, DLL, or ICL multiple image containers; BMP, PNG, ICO, and TGA file formats are available for export. You can freely convert images between these formats.

This is the link to its site http://www.qualibyte.com/pixelformer and this is a direct link for downloading it http://downloads.qualibyte.com/Pixelformer.Setup.exe in case you are in hurry :smile:

It's taking very few space and resources and it can be very useful and efficent when you need to manage graphics for the web. I didn't try any pixelart with it yet (not enough time for doing everything I would like to do!) but it looks like it could be a great tool for it too :smile:

4 comments

Wings3D 1.1.1

Thursday, 28. May 2009, 19:23:55

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Wings3D is one of the best polygonal modelling software on the market, and it's used by thousands of professionals and in various studios, even in high profile pipelines. And it is complitely free. The 1.0 release was an historical moment for the software, since it took kinda 8 years of development. It got followed by some more dev releases, and we are now at the 1.1.1 release number.

Wings3D offical website : http://www.wings3d.com

You can choose to download the latest stable release or the latest dev one from the panel on the left on Wings3D official website. From that same website you can also reach many forums and interesting places, to start/continue your adventure with polygonal modelling. Wings3D is expecially useful for sub-d modelling of objects to be imported in other packages like Max or Softimage or Maya.

Just in case you are curious, I created the T-Rex model you see in the screenshot, and here you can see a test rendering I did :



It is a quite old project that I dropped for some reasons. You can see it is unfinished in various parts. I started it mainly as a way for learning texturing in Blender, but I ultimately stopped using Blender and so the T-Rex didn't get finished. The textures were hand painted in Photoshop (I only had a mouse at the time, no tablet ahah) and UV mapped on the T-Rex. I could take the model into ZBrush or Max and give it a second chance, we will see :smile:

14 comments

trueSpace's end

Sunday, 24. May 2009, 10:39:13

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I did find this on net yesterday : http://www.caligari.com/News/news_200905/LetterFromTheFounder.html

as you can read, it is a letter from Roman Ormandy, founder of Caligari and creator of trueSpace, in which he says that Microsoft is closing the trueSpace division. For the ones that are not knowing about it : Microsoft bought trueSpace a while ago, for reasons we really don't know. Some people thought they did it cos they wanted to compete with Google SketchUp + Google Earth, by providing a trueSpace + Visual Earth solution. Who knows. Anyway, I am reading a lot of users are ranting about Microsoft, as usual, saying that they "killed the software" and that they are the Evil. I don't think so.

First of all, Microsoft didn't steal trueSpace, they bought it. And you can buy only if someone is selling to you. So the first one to blame is mr. Ormandy (together with the other managers at trueSpace), since they sold their company and got their bank accounts filled with money.

Second point : trueSpace is not a good 3d software, and this is proved by the fact that there are no good artworks done with it, and that no studio is using it. It was a great introduction to 3d and we can say it was part of 3d software history, but 3d is a such a competitive market and there is no place for such a tool anymore : a tool that has the worst and less productive gui ever created, that is buggy and hardly fitting any pipeline.

trueSpace is a good software on paper, since it is promising all kind of advanced and revolutionary features, but there's no way someone can produce art with it. I have spent years trying all kind of 3d softwares, and trueSpace is the only one I never became comfortable with. I can't imagine a studio using it for creating feature film contents or even good game assets. So what is all this crying that you find on net? People feel betrayed by Microsoft, as if the fault was their one, and not trueSpace creators' one.. they spent years with unfixed bugs, making the gui even worst, never trying to open the tool to the other eventual pipeline components. Microsoft released it for free and what happened? Do you think someone produced good art with it? Nope. And why? Cos after a gloriuos start trueSpace had turned to an hobbyst tool, and I don't blame Microsoft for taking the decision of saving money and closing that department.

truespace reminds me of Hash Animation Master, a 3d software that was revolutionary in the past (so many great animators started their careers using it!!!) and that is now a small buggy hobbyst tool (look at their site and gallery...brrr...). It is sad, but 3d market looks to me like a small lake stuffed with 11 meters long white sharks. Hard times for small fishes that are not evolving.

I am of course not happy for what will happen to the ones that are maybe losing their jobs. That's sad. I do hope they will have the chance to still earn money for a good living etc. I wrote this post to state my point of view about the fact that trueSpace is closing : in my opinion the faults are on trueSpace company itself, since they never evolved listening to what users said about gui and bugs, and they sold to another company when they had the chance. I am so tired of reading that Microsoft is the devil and everyone else is poor, weak and unlucky. Look at Blender : it is a kickass tool and users are creating good art with it. And the same goes with Wings3d. Look at all the "new" wave of softwares like Modo, Silo, Mudbox.. trueSpace could evolve and find its place, but they never did it, and so they close. Microsoft gave it for free in the hope (it is my own idea) to see if some good artist could produce good stuff with it and justify money investment. Months passed and it didn't happen; who's to blame?

4 comments

Sumo Paint

Monday, 27. April 2009, 18:53:28

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Sumo Paint is an amazing online and free software for image editing and painting. It's like a scaled down Photoshop and I'm currently amazed cos of it's many features, speed and great interface. I'm spending some time painting with it and I must admit it is very great and it'll stay in my bookmarks forever :D

This is my first painting done completely in Sumo, in kinda 20 min (I painted it with the same size you see it here, 830px in width):


It's quite strange to paint without tablet support (not tablet opacity or size control!) but it's actually possible to produce great art I guess, it is just a matter of learning the tool and understanding it is probably more suited for fast sketching than for complete and finished artworks.

The whole Sumo Paint website/community is an amazing piece of technology, and I just have to say that those guys are knowing what they are doing. I have always thought Finland is stuffed with informatic heroes (and with great drivers!) and this proves it once more P:

My advice for you all is to go there and play with Sumo Paint, and then post here your creations, if you want :D (by the way, Sumo Paint is FREE and you don't have to register anything to use it! I joined their community cos this way you have access to other stuff, but I repeat it is just a personal choice).

I am considering opening a Sumo Paint section on Art At MyOpera :smile:

The link to the software & community : http://www.sumopaint.com and to my profile there : http://andreabianco.sumopaint.com



EDIT : USE SUMO PAINT 1 OFFLINE
The only problem with Sumo Paint is that being an online application I can't use it when I have no net (it can appen, expecially when I am travelling or when my stupid adsl stops working). So I started reading about, hoping that since it is a Flex application there was a way to have it working offline.. I found nothing about it, so I managed to find an easier solution on my own :D

Here it is : open Opera download manager, type this url into it
http://www.sumo.fi/products/sumopaint/snapshot_1101.swf

and start downloading the 1,05MB file. You can then open that file with the standalone Flash player, and have your Sumo Paint working offline (without all the community stuff of course, since you supposedly have no net).



EDIT 28th August 2009 : USE SUMO PAINT 2 OFFLINE
There is new version of Sumo Paint. The new address for the swf is :
http://www.sumopaint.com/flash/sumopaint/sumopaint_2002.swf

By the way, I am experiencing some problems using Sumo Paint offline, and I still can't understand what's going wrong. I can't open any image nor create a new one, while it worked in past. I'll post more info as soon as I have.



EDIT :
Here it is my second attempt at speed painting using only Sumo Paint (resized to fit blog layout) :


EDIT :
Their official youtube video (in higres) :


EDIT :
Some more speed paintings I did with Sumo Paint (I keep adding them here and in the gallery, where you can often find higher resolution versions) :
















31 comments

Autodesk Softimage Mod Tool 7.5

Monday, 20. April 2009, 08:56:08

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Autodesk just released Softimage Mod Tool 7.5. From Autodesk site :

Autodesk® Softimage® Mod Tool software (formerly XSI Mod Tool) is a free* 3D modeling and animation package for creating non-commercial games and "modding" (modifying games). Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 is based on the same professional toolset found in Autodesk® Softimage® 7.5 software, used by game developers to create 3D characters, levels, props and animation. Game developers can use Softimage Mod Tool to help extend the life of games and recruit talent with a modding community.



I suggest you to read through their microsite : http://www.softimage.com/products/modtool/ and download&install the software :smile:

The Mod Tool is indeed a complete version of Softimage, with some limitations :

  • Non-Commercial End User License Agreement – Softimage Mod Tool can only be used for non-commercial games – the only exception to this is the Softimage Mod Tool Pro designed exclusively for Microsoft XNA Creator’s Club Premium members.
  • Exported geometry is limited to 64,000 triangles per object.
  • Cannot write .scn files.
  • Uses .exp file format which cannot be opened in a commercial version of Autodesk Softimage.
  • Watermark on render output.
  • Watermark on viewports.
  • Watermark on FXTree.
  • Ultimapper/Rendermap image size limitation of 2048x2048 (no watermark).
  • ICE compound export using XML only.
  • No geometry shaders.
  • Point cache – No PC2 or ICECache support.
  • Cannot generate .mi files.
  • No support for third 3rd party rendering engines.
  • No software developer kit (SDK) support. Scripting within Softimage software only.
  • No Batch capabilities.
  • Cannot reference models.


They are quite heavy limitations if you plan to use it to create finished illustrations or animations, but they let you use the software to create great geometry for games and such, for instance. Autodesk is releasing it so that people can get used to it and learn to produce assets for games (and hopefully become a Softimage user).

It's a great tool if you're into XNA coding : I started messing with it & C# in past but I stopped cos I wanted to stay on the creative side of game developing.. if there's someone that is coding with XNA and wanna collaborate, drop me a line :smile:

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