psd files

I just discovered that psd files (Photoshop something file) can serve as a common file format for different painting softwares. Also there is a small bug in oC (openCanvas) that bothers me a lot. When one select large-sized pencil tool with pressure detection corresponding to pencil size, the sampling rate in oC is not high enough. So at some places the stroke will decompose into a series of small circles, which is kind of annoying. I certainly don't want my hair to be strands of circles. Which means that I'll stick with SAI for a while and save a psd file as a backup in case the development stopped.

Happy birthday!!

Not to me. My birthday is in May.


Happy birthday to Asakura Nemu!! I saw people did this a lot, but didn't actually sit down and draw a picture.

I've just started to make computer graphics very recently, as you can see there are a lot of eccentricities in the picture. Well, being afraid of erring won't get me anywhere, so here I start. This picture took me a whole day to make (though it looks simple), in total about 7 working hours. It looks kind of low-quality though I used more colors than normal anime-quality graphics. Well I guess it's a matter of practice. Or probably a larger canvas will do.

(ps. Her birthday is actually 12/28, but I don't think I will have time posting things tomorrow, so.... But, well, she's Japanese, so I'm not that much off :p)

Some comparison between computer-painting software

Hi everybody, I'm FHead.

The above sentence has nothing to do with this article.

Recently I'm interested in making computer graphics. I tried three so far....not enough to make advise or conclusion but figured I could as well jot them down here.

Corel Painter Essentials 3

+: Layer grouping, realistic air brush
-: There isn't an obvious way (if any) to me to mark and save some region selections of the canvas (ex. Adding shadow to the plates but not the table since the reflecting properties are different). There are the standard selection tools (rectangular, lasso, etc.), but you really don't want to reselect a complex shape to apply some small changes every time. Not optimal for my purpose....
=: Comes with Wacom tablet, so I have no idea how much this costs.


SAI

+: A lot of Japanese painter uses this program, and is proved to be capable of producing high quality graphics.
+: The "region-selecting" brush solves the selection problem.
-: Japanese-only interface
-: This program is currently free-ware, but once the developing group finishes the project, one need to buy it. It's in the $50 range, pretty acceptable. The problem is that it is under development. The distributed program is only valid for 30 days, and one has to download a newer version (or key?) from the official website every month. There is certain chance that the developers will drop the project, which means that within a month, all the program copies will become invalid. It's a potential threat to draw/paint using this program.


openCanvas 4.5 plus

+: One can lock (or protect) the transparent parts from change for each layer, so the problem of reselecting also goes away.
-: No layer grouping
=: About $75. (￥7800)
-: The interface is not perfectly tuned. For example, if you want to resize a window, the right side of the window won't let you drag. One has to use the top-right corner for horizontal rescaling. Not a big problem though.


Adobe OOOO:

=: I haven't had a chance to try it out. :p


Currently I'm using openCanvas 4.5 Plus.

Hyper-pressure: final madness

:) <== This is how I feel right now.
:'( <== This is how I feel earlier this week.

It begins with some sample AI final project writeup's posted by our professor. I have thought that the final project is just to play around with some model, and shouldn't be a too time-consuming task. I can as well spend 4 whole days to do it. That's 40 hours of work, and should be more than enough. But....the sample project reports are all large-scale projects. I really mean large-scale. Something that's ready to publish to conferences or even journals. Oops.

I also have one final exam which will take moderate-amount of time to prepare. Some 10 hours I estimated. Then I started to look into lecture notes. Then I'm surprised that my concentration power is fading away pretty fast. And so it take me more time than expected. Hmm.

There's also the personal stuff (in some sense more urgent than schoolwork) floating around and I have to spend time figuring out what to do.

It seems that things are being settled down.

The seemingly overwhelming AI final project now looks better (thanks to the fact that I'm undergraduate :p). For us, all we have to do is implement a model and play with it. Then write a report. For graduate students things are different. They have to conduct original research, and then write a conference paper length writeup. Until now I reimplemented a model and extended it a bit, so I'll be fine.

Now that the project is okay, I also have time to study for final.

The other problem also seems to be fine, though some necessary steps have to be done next week to ensure safety. The detail is too personal, so I won't put it here.

Daymare town

This is a escape-the-room type flash game, except that it's escaping a town, not a room. And with a creepy touch. It's very hard, but fun to play. This is a happy blog, and I don't want strange background music, so I put the link here instead of embedding the flash game in the blog:

Click me to play!

Quote the author of the game:
“sketchy outline-only drawings give more artsy look to the gameplay and create a bit of minimalist atmosphere. Add creepy sounds and twisted story and you get the picture. DMT is the harderst puzzle game I made so far. It’s really nasty, so be warned. It’s for advanced pnc gamers.”

What am I up to these days?

Well, too many things are happening at once, and I didn't have time to post anything (partly because of laziness).

The classes I took came with a wide variety. First there's the don't-know-what-to-expect music composition class. Now, after all the small "composing" projects, it was actually quite fun. And worth it. Then there's also the mysterious AI class. The whole Baysian thing (also Monte Carlo, PCA, etc.) is totally new to me. It's like a completely new way of approaching problem (as opposed to the algorithms I knew before). In simpler terms, I had a "cultural shock" :p. It prompts me to think about physics in some new aspects, but let's put those off until later if I feel like posting stuff. The other classes are more "normal" to me, but then, it's still a lot of work.

From Japanese Exam...

Last week I took the Japanese language proficiency test (level 1). In New York. This is the highest level, so hopefully this is the last time I take it. Spending a Sunday going to New York and do no work is really harmful. Thanks to the test, I'm busier than usual this week.

From Wacom Intuos3...

I bought a drawing pad (Wacom intuos3 6''x8''), so I started to practice sketching, in preparation for the DWS project. This is only the first step to drawing though. After I'm more familiar with sketching, I still have to practice coloring. And that's supposedly more time-consuming. (Which means that I still have a long way to go >__<... There is still the whole world with music and sound).

The character (Belle) in the below picture is from a game called Katahane. The company who created this excellent game seemed to be bankrupted soon after finishing this game, so I don't think it's that famous. It's a great game nevertheless. One can still buy it on the internet.

From Sketch practice

Then there is also the big fight against the ants. They seizured my scanner, so for some time I can only scan single-paged documents. This is a big barrier to my drawing practice. I then bought a used scanner on ebay, but I got a broken one. The refund time is 7 days within payment, but the shipping took more than a week. I still don't have an idea whether I should protest or not. The scanner is only 10 dollars, but that's also money. Right now I can still see some ants around....I wonder where they come from.

Fortunately the graduate application process is almost done. All I have to do is to wait (+remind) the professors to send the recommendation letters. My grades are not that great, and I hope things will work out.

I'm also trying to do some work in the lab side. Homeworks and games and animations have been keeping me busy. I really didn't have much time left, so I did a bit of work here and there. I guess I'll work on my senior thesis in the winter break or in the next semester.

Well, I still got two final projects in front of me; I'd better save some time now instead of writing posts.