Vanderpol’s mysteries

Hi ! I am pleased to tell you about my Flickr gallery that will feature all my webdesign works…

Here is an excerpt…

Feel free to leave any comment on the work… or hire me ;-))

My name in FlickR is : pierrevanderpol

Ever thought Flash could turn a picture into an ASCII art ?That’s the ascii generator…

Howdy people  !

Yesterday, I browsed Adobe Flash official website and realized it is full, yes, FULL of great exemples, bug free (rare on the internet), with the .fla sources and stuff.

If you are looking for rss readers, effects generators, Action Script 3 ascii art, effects Generators (blur, layer modes, dropped shadows), and much more, you have to visit the official page and download the pack.

Another tip. If you’re looking for a wordpress to display .swf and flash objects on your pages (I don’t think this one works for .flv , there area other plugins for that) : SWF Plug-ins for WordPress

Where to find as3 tutorials or ressources ?

I like http://yazo.net/, it’s David Tardiveau Action Script ressources. He is a teacher at Gobelins school.

It features explanations in french. It’s fantastic for beginners.

More crazy flash artists:

Here with crazy depth effects

and HERE !!!!!

If you have been looking for a Machinima editor (and free by the way) to produce quickly 3D movies or animations, MovieStorm is definitely for you !! It’s easy, fun to use, fast…

You don’t have to create your characters, since you can download bundles/libraries with lots of basic settings, clothes, and characters. However, in case you want to get out the beaten moviestorm track, you’ll have to stop by the shop. They sell tons sets, accesories (musical instruments, guns, …). Nothing’s free.

There are also tons of animation movies online about any kind of topics (love, mafia, music, sports, politics..). This is a good source of inspiration. A few are golden nuggets, but most of them lack originality or even really sucks (there are probably many tennagers trying their luck ;-P

However, Ihave used the first beta version realease and experienced some bugs, and the animation of characters in the time line in (almost) real time can be hassle and is not so smooth as it should be to make this tool really easy to use. Anyway, this is the best machinima soft I have tried so far, and I highly recommand it to every person who wants to be involved in 3D movie making at low cost and without spending months creating mesh and modelizing items.

One could say It allows you to create your movies like THE SIMS, and make the whole character choreography and life : you lead them with the “action” palette. It’s a palette full of action verbs, such as “shoot at”, “kiss”, “lean head”, “sit down”, “punch”, “walk toward”, “run”… but the best is the emotional palette.

You can change your character feelings and emotions troughout the whole footage, like he can be happy and smiling at the begining and when you want it, he can start to weep or scream and raise his middle finger. That’s really a plus because you can make your animation from home with a more “human” or emotional touch.

You will also find the director’s room where you can set you cameras, the angle, positions. Combining the timeline and the camera palette, it’s possible jump from one camera to the other anytime. Nice, but sometimes, having your camera following a character’s head is not so easy to do…

At last the render is done in .AVI, but you’d better have a race horse as a computer anyway, because 3D pumps all your ressources…

It took me 2 afternoons to make the whole dialogs and story (moviestorm can record your voice too but you’d better avoid it… an audio editor is far such as Garage band because audio slows down MS too much) and choreography. The render took between 10 to 14 hours…

So here is my parody of Ozone, a forgotten boys band :-p

Enjoy !

P.S. : (there are no subtitles but I imagine it’s not so hard to understand )

Once again it’s the Blender community that’s behind the scenes…

“As a follow-up to the successful project Orange’s “Elephants Dream”, the Blender Foundation initiated another open movie project. Again a small team (7) of the best 3D artists and developers in the Blender community have been invited to come together to work in Amsterdam from October 2007 until April 2008 on completing a short 3D animation movie.”

Read more, learn about this nice 3D animated movie Big Buck Bunny and support them !

SIncerely, the rendering of super high quality, highly professional, and should be in any movie theatre !

The DVD is available now… 34€ here

So, let’s hail the team’s work.

I am going on my summer break, so enjoy the movie and see you later.

Cheers,

Pierre

Hi pals !

I have been roaming on the internet desperatly to find insights of design geniouses,

and how to design great landscapes, à la Dylan Cole or à la John Harris.

We have all in mind the poetic futuristic city of “Blade Runner” ,

or fantasy book covers (Dune, Arthur C.Clark, Philip K.Dick …).

But these days have seen a whole generation of digital painters, and

even more impressive, “speed painters”.

They paint beautiful strange matte paintings / settings at the speed of light.

How do they do that ? What technic do they use ? How to develop it ?

These questions have been echoeing in my mind without answers for a while…

Internet has just been a source of disapointing amateurs posting loosy

tutorials on matte painting, to higher their page ranks, but nothing

extraordinary there. Until recently.

A friend of mine lent me the best video tutorial I have ever seen.

Unfortunately, it is not free. But quality has a price, and this time it’s priceless.

The editor is : the gnomon workshop

They offer top of the range tutorials from Maya to Photoshop, including painter,

lightwave, maya … there are tens of softwares and applied technics like

character design, animation,  texturing, rendering, and tons of others.

A picture from the dvd :

I tried : From Speedpainting to Concept Art

What is so great about it ?

It’s on DVD, so the videos are full quality, the sound is perfect,

during the demonstration, we miss no details and

the authors included his .PSD files and the brushes in the DVD folder.

The author is David LEVY, a well-knowned digital artist, involved

in Turok, The Red Star, Prince of Persia the Two Thrones, and Assassin’s Creed…

What is it about ? Basically, speedpainting and matte painting technics,

through the creation of your own brushes, that become in turn tools

to produce inovative, abstract objects, settings, backgrounds.

However, the magic and the talent are not included,

but learing those tricks will save you ages…

Topics covered :

• Custom Brush Creation
• Speedpainting
• Teamwork
• Lighting Strategy
• Detail Brushes
• Scene Refining

Length of the video : 2.5 hours

Price : 59 $ (it’s cheaper for we european guys !)

My ranking : 99%  (because I wish we could have all the demos from the site of course

Exerpt from the matte painting tutorial

My only regret : I wish I had discovered these tutorials earlier in my life !

One last comment : gnomon features the great Dylan Cole cityscape and landscape painting tutorials,

so start saving money, this is going to be fantastic !!!

I’ll post something on it as soon as I can buy it.

Stay tuned and remember, the suns always shines on the internet… :-p

Hello all,

your Photoshop software on its own is as useful as a car without wheels, steering, geer box and body… really. Why ? Because you need to enhance with tons of brushes to design great forms and shapes quickly, texture to use on your layers to make your work look more realistic, fonts to use sthg else than “arial black” or “times new roman” and be original, more creative… and of course, to use piece of real photographs to blend it all. I’ll show you some tricks later.

So how can you tune-it up easily ? Visit the sites below and download everything

That should take you between 2 to 5 months only ;-)) Then you should be able to reply to any of your customer’s bid.  ITAM, and TSSYALT…. as you’ll see, some are for free, some are costy, some are under specific usage licence.  So read well, but this is worth it.

BRUSHES
http://www.brushes.obsidiandawn.com/
http://www.deviantart.com
http://www.prettybrush.deviantart.com
http://www.brushes.deviantart.com
http://gamarai.deviantart.com/
http://www.brusheezy.com/
http://dezignus.com/
http://www.psbrushes.net/
http://www.actionfx.com/pfree-addons.html
http://inobscuro.com/brushes/
http://pixel.nascimpact.com/tut_iso.php
http://myphotoshopbrushes.com/

FONTS
http://www.dafont.com (in french - oldies but goodies both free and $)
http://www.misprintedtype.com (this guy is a great artist and you’ll find there brushes in limited quantity but of very high quality, I love them)
http://www.fontfreak.com/ (many fonts both free or $)

PLUG-INS
http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/free_plugins2.html
http://thepluginsite.com/resources/freeps.htm#webdesign
(various qualities of plugins from ugly and useless to usefull)
http://www.toocharger.com/windows/multimedia/outils-pour-photoshop/
(plugins search engine in french $)
http://www.mehdiplugins.com/pages/index.htm
(corel, photoshop, paint shop pro plugins, free, but of very different usefulness levels)
http://www.emob.fr/dotclear/118-plugins-gratuits-pour-photoshop-1499
(high quality plugin to make your own effects on photoshop + 118 free plugins, in french and english)
http://www.xero-graphics.co.uk/freeware.htm
(ugly webpage but some usefull effects generator to grab)
http://www.redpawmedia.com/ ($)
http://www.richardrosenman.com/software/downloads/
(this guy is a slayer !!! limited quantiy but quality again, even if some effects are not novelties)
http://www.filterforge.com/download/
(free trial versions and $)
http://www.autofx.com/
(filter creator $$, some effects looks great, but many looks really cheesy !)
http://technotarget.com/free-photoshop-plugins/
(nice effects, some are $)
http://www.pluginsworld.com
(online catalog to buy plugins and effects generator, broad line of effects, at all kind of prices)

Now, you can start working seriously. There will be more to come in a next part

PLease feel free to share your ressources with us, and of course your comments about the one you tried.

so, WYD ?

Hi there,

We are going to talk about “line art” today. This tutorial is a bit long (about 1.5 hours or more if you really go deep into small details…). We are going to learn to do that:

…starting from that :

So this is basically going to be about colors, and about how to turn a black thread into a great cover. This a job for colorists! We are going to start from this comic character (”Marvel Heroes”, november 2007, N°1. see http://www.marvel.com to order it), to save time (and I liked the character too ;-). So, anyway, even if you don’t know how to draw, this is not lost! This tutorial is for you!

Obs. : you need a scanner to do the whole exercice with another material - unless you start with the drawing above

1) Step 1: getting started with a model and a neat stroke

Once you have chosen a character to redesign, take a transparent paper sheet and a sharp black pen, and trace the stroke of the chosen model. Chose a thin ink pen and not a ball-point pen because the stroke has to be perfectly neat (unless you are fond of selections that are hassles :-p

2) Step 2 : digitalizing the drawing

Set your scanner to “gray scales”, and a picture resolution of 300 ppp. No less, no more.

While the computer is working for you, you can COAHAB (see “The mystical Vanderpolian glossary guide to the multimedia galaxy” if already lost).

Now you have a digital picture that should be pretty alike as the one just above these lines (if not, then it’s maybe time to think about growing vegetables in Vladivostok…).

Set your picture to RGB : image -> settings ->RGB

Then we correct the color of the background (it’s grey-ish, and not white). Very easy. Let’s check the levels for that: ctrl+L (cmd+L for mac). And merely press “Auto”. We are back in white now.

Then it’s time to DOFOSAWASOP (see glossary).

3) Step 3 : Unleash hell ! Prepare the setting…

Unlock the background layer in the layer palette (double click upon the locker - see red rectangle).

Label it : “line art”

As the observant ones have noticed, my snowboarder was oriented to the left, while in the original marvel cover, she is surfing the other way. LECPAABLEH! (see mystical glossary)

Image -> rotate canvas -> horizontal symmetry (pour les français qui ne comprennent pas les traductions des actions photoshop, elles sont toutes là - non je ne suis pas un traître).

Now we are back on track!

Create a new layer : layer -> new -> new layer (ctrl+shift+n or cmd+shift+n for mac users).

Label it : “background”.

Set the colors in the “tool palette” as follows :

• Foreground color: #bce0ff (light blue)
• Background color : #FFFFFF (pure white)

Now apply on your “background layer” this filter : filter -> render -> clouds

If not cloudy enough, apply it twice! ctrl+F (cmd+f). SHOFITFY…

And then apply the radial blur : filter ->blur -> radial blur.

In the box, choose the settings :

“zoom”, value : at least 50 (it can go up to 100 if you dare…)

Quality: normal.

Move the center of the blur at the bottom left site of the box. Validate.

This should look more lively for snowboarding!

SAWOASYTNEE.

Hi there,

I have bought a couple of months ago the David Sprunger’s method “Play piano today”.

I started piano after 10 mediocre years of guitar playing (ear-spanking ?). I decided to start playing piano after I tried a podcast called “blues for piano and keyboard” (I love blues!) made by David Sprunger, a piano instructor for over 12 years. it is for free. He explains super well so you have to try it ! the adress is :

http://playpianotoday.com/podcasts/ppt_1.xml

After playing the tunes for some time, I decided to buy the whole package. It was around 80€, which is nothing for 17 DVD / cd-roms + music book (the price of 2 piano individual lessons with a flesh and bones teacher). I don’t think it can replace a real teacher, but you can learn any time you want, and it is super high quality (see other reviews on Google !)

This method gives me real fun and pleasure every week, since it is divided into very progressive difficulties and levels. It is super well done, clear. Songs are oldies but goodies, and you really learn to perform them following your inspiration and adding tons of gimmics, patterns, style.

The author, David Sprunger is a great teacher, gives good tricks, he is funny and he sings very well (you can even sing along if you’re good enough - I am not run for your lifes when I start singin’ ). Plus the video really helps to see his hands techniques and positions.

His website : Piano Lessons Online Demo of “Rhythmic Patterns” and you can order the package.

Of course, if you’re not ready to spend a certain amount of time behind the keyboard, this method is useless for you… adn you’re helpless !

The catch phrase is “This piano lesson podcast contains a rich library of piano lessons for absolute beginners through very advanced players. ” and that is a real good summary.

To conclude about this method, buy it or borrow it if you are any interested in music. I would have saved years if I could have the chance to find it 10 years ago.

Sincerely,

Pierre

Welcome to my blog!

It is dedicated to multimedia and digital art, one of my passion and my job. My goal, through this site, is to share methods for teaching, insights, ressources and everything else that can help to make us “better”, for the cheapest cost and in the most efficient manner.

Sometimes, I have the feeling the pros don’t share all their “tricks” in books or tutorials. I understand this position. They want to value their knowledge. But for beginners, where to begin ? How to avoid wasting hours on some bugs or lack of experience ?

For the time being, I am working as a teacher, I love my job and sharing is fantastic. Giving away is a wonderful feeling. Ideas grown and breed news sets of ideas…

In order to make young people more creative and more imaginative, I want to give them some “keys”. This is why I will try to post my findinds ASAP on video editing, 2D design and tricks (photoshop, my favourite !), CSS, SEO and 3D too. Maybe I will post some short stories, novels from time to time.

Why ? Because their are so many technologies that you have to have a global knowledge of them to make your own personnal combinations and show your style… So let’s begin this journey !

Many thanks to the creators of OpenOffice and Wordpress. Your work is fantastic and of high value.

Sincerely,

Pierre V.