SNOW. (29/11/15)

It’s snowing quite hard this morning. The first real snow of the winter.

See the pretty snowfakes
Falling from the sky;
On the wall and housetops
Soft and thick they lie.
On the window ledges,
On the branches bare;
Now how fast they gather,
Filling all the air.
Look into the garden,
Where the grass was green;
Covered by the snowflakes,
Not a blade is seen.
Now the bare black bushes
All look soft and white,
Every twig is laden,
What a pretty sight!

Hopefully the sun will shine later and I’ll be able to see far enough for a landscape picture or two.

NO FUN. (28/11/15)

I still haven’t managed to get MathMap to work. I think after several goes I have found out why. I am on 64 bit Windows and there are no bin dll. files for 64 bit only 32 bit. GIMP is 64 bit and that works fine. I’ll have to reinstall it as some files have got into Adobe Elements. If I wanted to do that I wouldn’t have a chance. I have looked on the internet and some folk seem to think Mathmap will work in 64 bit but I can’t get it to run. Not to worry. I do have PhotoSpiraysis and I could try and get some better results out of Ultra Fractal. It’s a pity as MathMap has a mini compositor for combining filter effects. It will work as a stand alone programme on Macs but I can’t afford a Mac just for a filter. Can’t afford a Mac at all.

Here is one I did this morning.

Whilst having a quick look at GIMP 2.8 I found this filter It’s a one click job and may come in handy for something.

It is really vile here, the overnight sleet has turned to heavy rain and both the dogs and I are damp and miserable.

I hope the weather is better where you are.

MORE FUN. (25/11/15)

Yesterday I was reasonably pleased with finding the PhotoSpiral thingy application but it was lacking an important command…………No it wasn’t, it was me being thick. If you look very closely you will see a tiny red dot and if you click and drag then it will shift the centre of the image. This is a necessity in any of these algorithms. Usually you have to draw a selection. Those that have had a play will have given all the sliders a shove this way and that. You will have noticed that the Magnification slider does not magnify the image but it does increase the number of iterations so your image gets smaller but with many more of them.

This is always a problem for me with any software and some hardware as many of the developers/manufacturers have English as a second language; think a person like Trump but one that has more intelligence than Trump. Most of humanity and nearly all invertebrates I suspect.

I struggle with stealing and pasting HTML and just when I think I am getting there we get HTML 5. Most things are backwards compatible but the other day I found something that wasn’t. Should have written it down but that wouldn’t have helped as I use pads of plane A4 paper, write on both sides and then rest a coffee cup on them, when there is no more space, use a biro over the pencil, coffee and beer stains. An A4 pad lasts me a year but is about as much use as my Desktop on the machine. I end up with icons on top of icons and I’ve yet to find a virtual tool like a squeegee to scrape them up to one side and spread them out again.

Back to the PhotoSpiral whatsit.

Yes it’s hard to spot but does glow brighter when you click it.  I was just playing again and this is what it made.

No use on it’s own but depending on the resolution I can get out of it I can imagine having a video title shooting from the centre and stopping on a zoomed out or in road.

Having ascertained that Adobe won’t let me use Pixel Bender I downloaded Gimp and a cracker of a filter called MathMap. I know it can eat this job as I’ve seen the results. I used to use GIMP and got seduced by a free copy of Photoshop Elements 4. Elements did me for years with annual updates and I forgot about GIMP. It is still a bit tatty round the interface but then so is Photoshop. Down loading and installing was a three click job from start to finish. It knew I was on Windows 7, It knew I was on 64bit…..It knew my grandma’s shoe size and it’s free.

I wish, Oh how I wish I could be computer literate. I unzipped MathMap and sent it to my desktop. After twenty minutes I found it and opened it. I opened up GIMP; looked in my ‘C’ drive and was thrilled to find it there. I then thought all I have to do is drag the MathMap bit into the file folder called Plug-In. No. Gimp doesn’t have a plug in folder. I created a new folder called Plug In, then noticed the unzipped MathMap had a Plugin file so just dragged that into GIMP’s list of files then popped MathMap file into there. Re-booted the bloody machine and still I can’t find MathMap Droste Effect and to add insult to injury I can’t recall where I put the bloody file. It’s not where I thought I did so that is why the blasted Gimp can’t find it in Filters. I had this trouble a couple of years ago getting fonts into Photoshop. Blender is easy it doesn’t bother loading an access path, I just type the words then click on a wee box and all my fonts show up then I pick one and job done.

There is likely to be a bit of a delay before I get things sorted, I’ve got muddled up. It would be sorted much faster if I had a clue what I was doing, were better organised, educated and a bit more non thicker. I’ll have a rest, get on t’internet and ask some bugger on a forum how you do it. If the bugger is as smart as they profess to be he’ll know where the MathMap folders have disappeared to.

I guess more fun tomorrow.

FUN. (24/11/15)

This is a quick post for those that haven’t seen the Droste Effect before. There used to be an excellent plug-in for Photoshop but is no longer supported by versions after CS5. Ultra Fractal can do them but it is a real pain and not very controllable when compared with Pixel Bender---Droste Effect. This is a quick online creator from PhotoSpiralysis. It has been around for ages but required your browser to support Silverlight and not many do these days. THIS VERSION works fine in Chrome. Upload an image and play with a couple of sliders and you will get something like this to save.

This is what it looks like.

It doesn’t name files uniquely so after you have clicked Create Final Image, rendered it and saved it you will want to open it in your photo editor and give it a unique file name. This is not that big a chore as the images are PNG file extensions and are a bit big for Blogger though it will accept them.

It’s nothing like Math Map in Pixel Bender you can’t really do very much with it but it would just about suffice in a composite. It appears to be free and is worth a bit of a play.

HO HUMM. (23/11/15)

It has been a cool clear and sunny weekend but despite wandering around I have very few pictures to show for it.

A LITTLE BIT OF SNOW.

WET WOODLAND.

THE DOGS.

That’s all for today, I’ll go before I say anything about Hameron and ConAir.

HAPPY DAY. (19/11/15)

Yesterday I could have happily curled up and died. The weather was awful and so was the news. Today is a gorgeous spring day in autumn. The van doors are open and so are the windows and everything is drying out in the sunshine. I am just back in from a short wander, I took the medium format camera but didn’t use it. The light is reasonable but not astounding. I got a couple of images that given a slightly lower angle of the light may make a decent black and white negative. The weather is mixed but with some sunshine for the next few days so hopefully with strong winds forecast there may be some good landscapes to be snapped.

I am going to have a go with the enlarger and printing malarkey tomorrow. I have given Ian a memory stick with a negative on it so that he can print it for me onto film. The ink has to dry for a day apparently. I will then have another go at contact printing a bromoil mess. He has also purchased a UV lamp to use for exposing the image. Last time I just sandwiched everything together and left it in the sunshine for half an hour, this should speed things up and be controllable. I forgot but ought to have printed a load of those strips that go from white to black so that I could do a test run across the bromoil treated paper with different exposure times. It has all the makings of an entertaining afternoon. I have also got some of those gloves that mechanics wear. I have only just lost the black on my fingers from the stuff that I used three weeks ago.

BLUE SKY. (18/11/15)

I was going title this ‘TERROR.’ Thought we have all had enough of that horrific malarkey. I agree that what happened in Paris, Beirut and Ankara is truly awful. Thought I would look ‘Outside The Box.’

Had it happened in New York then god help us or perhaps he doesn’t need to apart from a nod towards condoning a bit of torture. Topping malefactors and Guantanamo’s dubious criminal incarceration…That made a big difference. Of course it did…….Think a bit…It made things worse.

It’s a great book the bible it allows one to condone what one wants. You should not kill. Pretty obvious. Christians are killers. How come? Killing seems to come as second nature to people with power as long as they are once removed. I don’t know about adultery. Well I do but know it is naughty and just brilliant. God said that was really bad. Moses didn’t say how much fun it is. Bugger all he knew about it.

Humanitarians have to fight to stop the nasty folk. Any time you see antisocial behaviour don’t hesitate and dive in.  . Come on; get over it. Infra something heart disease  kills everyone much quicker , definitely sooner than the individual anticipated. I suspect most American fast food outlets kill more folk in a year than a terrorist could wish for. Roads and cars do. I have been looking at Mersad’s blog and no wonder they die young. They are eating processed food disguised by salt and sugar. I don’t feed my dogs on that shit.

Here is a little snap. It’s called …..

POWER

It’s just a pylon.

I know I’m an atheist but also looked after white skinned and brown skinned ones all over the northern hemisphere. I saw some die, sickening it was but I was near to a full throw up at pictures of Dithery’s tears at a football match. We bloody won  2-0 a white wash. He should have been cheering.

God Almighty. He is our leader and not even a mediocre actor. I would have stood to attention and saluted. No tears. Should we dispose him or just ignore him? As an afterthought what was our next but one thinghy doing there popping a posy down? Threat. Nil. How they you would like them to think the Islamic nutters are a threat. Just a load of towel heads pissing about. Unlike Dithery I have been amongst them. They are nice people. Better than hoorays and a bit smarter.

They are having a bit of a laugh at the expense of infidels. They will be let off it it suits pocket lining politicians

PEACE. (16/11/15)

I haven't posted for a few days as I have not had anything to say that could begin to describe my horror at recent events. I still haven’t anything constructive to contribute and sadly from all I’ve read neither has anyone else.

I wish for peace.

PEACE.

MOVEMENT. (12/11/15)

I think I’m getting towards a movement.

I have looked at dozens of these damn things and the ones that move all seem to have exaggerated shading round colour. I think this does creep a bit, more of a fart than a proper movement but let me know what you think………..please say it creeps.

This is the pattern. It isn’t perfectly symmetrical but good enough to play with. The patterns have to be tileable, by default they are but you know what I mean they have to link up as……there’s a word for it………they use it in 3D UV unwrapping…Can’t recall. I will have another go. I’m thinking of two ellipses in contrasting colours then the white bits will tile to look like the black bit.

I then dropped them in a new file extended the canvas up 30%, inverted it and converted to polar coordinates and added a bit of a twirl. If anyone is having a go then lets see one that really shifts.

This is what I got.

It is actually two of the polar distorted images with the top one rotated 33+°. and it’s opacity dropped. Don’t think it makes any difference. It does move if you nod your head or scroll it so I am thinking a more symmetrical tile pattern and smaller tiles. It’s a start.

Have fun.

OP ART. (11/11/15)

Carrying on with procrastination I was inspired by an image that FRANCES posted. I decided to have a go as it looked fun. It is fun but very processor hungry. Here is Optical Art by me.

These were done in Photoshop as I couldn’t get Ultra Fractal to perform without spending hours. I suspect were I to do them again then I’d put a thin black border round the coloured bits and maybe a black dot in the green and a white dot in the blue. I’ve had enough today as my eyes go funny looking at them.

This is the last go. I’ll leave you with a joke someone sent me.

“A man died and went to Heaven. As he stood in front of the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him. He asked, 'What are all those clocks?'
St. Peter answered, 'Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone who has ever been on earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie, the hands on your clock move.'
... 'Oh', said the man. 'Whose clock is that?'
'That's Mother Teresa's', replied St. Peter. 'The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie.'
'Incredible', said the man. 'And whose clock is that one?'
St. Peter responded, 'That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abraham told only two lies in his entire life.'
'Where's David Cameron’s clock?' asked the man.
St Peter replied, 'We are using it as a ceiling fan.”

ONE PENNY. (10/11/15)

The other day I was a little abrupt. I read a silly comment just after experiencing another Blender cuckoo or more accurately, an Adrian cuckoo whilst using Blender.. You have all seen remarks like, I can’t stand photo manipulation, I can remember when everything was done in camera…Blah de blah de blah….Total balderdash. What they really mean is that they either can’t afford Photoshop or can’t work it. There is no excuse for the former as GIMP is free; there is every excuse for the latter but I just wish folk would refrain from confusing their ignorance with a simplistic ascertation that photography has ever been straight out of camera. Theirs may have been but I doubt it unless they enjoyed perusing black negatives and white prints. Laziness and ignorance are not  virtues neither is procrastination though it can be an art and that is why I am writing this instead of posting a fireworks video that has never seen a camera.

I have started using film again and have been promised the use of a darkroom. I have ordered some resin coated VC paper and will swap a bottle of falling down water for the electricity and chemicals. Last Friday I realised that I didn’t have a clue what to do. I went on the internet to have a look and found lots of ‘How I Dunnits’. I then found a book that seems pretty comprehensive.

I couldn’t believe my luck when it arrived this morning and is full of illustrations, words, tables and examples. I’ll have a proper read whilst I’m waiting for the paper to arrive. I have a feeling that what with printing test strips and a test print or two I could well use the box of paper without any result that I would be prepared to share. I’ll see.

The cost of this tome……….£0.01p. I had to pay another £2.83p to get it delivered but it’s still seems a bargain. Cheaper than The Cuckoo by Robert Galbraith; an excellent book about a one legged private eye. I am enjoying it and it is wonderful to procrastinate with. I didn’t realise that it is written by J.K.Rowling who wrote the Harry Potter books.

To delay matters still further Hull City are top of something and will no doubt win the World Cup, Wimbledon and the Ryder Cup all in the same year…………Yawn.

Have fun and try and get on with the job you are supposed to be doing like I am.

STILL HERE. (08/11/15)

It’s still reasonably warm out but definitely not photography weather. It’s dull, wet and quite depressing.

I am getting quite confident in Blender and should have a short video within a few days. I just keep finding better ways to do things and would now like to do all the compositing in Blender as well as just construct the rockets and stuff.

Here is a quick snap of the last of the leaves. It really has been a wonderful autumn.

I keep alternating reading with 3D messing and now it’s time for a bit more of my book.

Have a good week.

STILL HERE. (08/11/15)

It’s still reasonably warm out but definitely not photography weather. It’s dull, wet and quite depressing.

I am getting quite confident in Blender and should have a short video within a few days. I just keep finding better ways to do things and would now like to do all the compositing in Blender as well as just construct the rockets and stuff.

Here is a quick snap of the last of the leaves. It really has been a wonderful autumn.

I keep alternating reading with 3D messing and now it’s time for a bit more of my book.

Have a good week.

LIFE IS HARD. (05/11/15)

I am really struggling, I wish I could find unpaid work in a dog friendly games or 3D graphics studio. Preferably the latter as games have never attracted me or not virtual ones. I’m glad they came along though as it made GPUs affordable.

I started out about a month ago drawing up a story line….It went like this.

PART ONE.

A river or lake with a floating barge…Foreground.

A few buildings and street lights…..Mid ground

Sky……Background. Something like this that I borrowed

I made into into this but of course had to model the buildings for 3D. I ended up with a draft version of it. In 2D.

Quick and cheap would probably pass with stuff happening in the foreground but I must remember to mask and erase the gradient. I’ll also do something with the water like putting a bit of a jetty in to act as a base for the display.

PART TWO

Rocket trails. starting from the fireworks launch barge. Which isn't there. I did those last year they were okay to minus middling but in a bit of video as good as the shark in Jaws. A little better I think.

PART THREE.

A Catherine Wheel with just two rockets spinning round on the front of the barge………..I tried getting smoke and particles to follow the rocket as I key famed it rotating. I got the particles to follow the path but I am daft. Not a cat in hells chance. Smoke is regarded as a fluid so I have to pop a wee box round it to bake the particles one rocket at a time. do I? I then duplicated the main emmitter split this from the main emitter and grouped them with a lamp. Near perfect. For only one rocket For those interested, I used 100 somethings but will increase that for the final render. Mac users won’t have to worry as Macs can handle anything as long as it doesn’t require a USB port. I digress.

PART FOUR.

A rocket sending those explosive balls out. I have half worked things out. This is what my 3D screen looks like.

Talk about things being hard. The green bits are a sphere I added inside the emitting sphere , I suspect it could be anywhere like off to oneside but I like things neat and tidy and the green circle is a lamp or spot light to light the little buggers when I render; Picked up this bit off the internet. I selected both and pressed ‘G’ to link them. I must tie my hanky in a knot to remind me to pop the green/ orange . Put one or the other on a new layer or it will render and we don’t want that, do we?  The streaks are the particles emitted from the orange sphere. Which is shown as a 3D mesh. Press ‘Z’ to switch to solid view.  Not here, It won’t do anything. My fingers are raw with this job. It’s great for long dark nights. Better playing with computers than playing with my …..Never mind.

My computer shows tracks when in CPU mode.That’s because it is a screen grab, I hope my poor little laptop is using it’s GPU . I have told it to but I haven’t heard the fans running. It looks nothing like a firework but I know it will.

I can remember going for a coffee whilst I did HDR. I can remember when Adobe gave us posh panorama stitching for twenty pounds and it did the business in Elements before PS CS. I love playing with this stuff. Win or lose you have specific gravity and acceleration at your finger tips. When you sort that you have random and Boolean behaviour. Lots of others. I bet a pound to a shilling there are no teachers teaching this complex stuff. I am really struggling to get to grips with what does what.

My goal is to compile them into a video and make your eyes pop. It’s not going to happen this year, I’m just far too stupid. Nothing to do with Blender though that is getting more obtuse than Photoshop.

It’s much easier to just film a firework display but I am fascinated by visual art and as I will never be a painter so cheat a bit. Cheating is very hard, extremely hard  but requires little in the way of artistic talent. Much like most artisan work. Jackson Pillock and Tracy Emmen. Are to my eye rubbish. I do like the latters drawing but they are little better than mine.

Please feel free to pop by and discuss the problems with Blender, I love it but do find finding the 3D cursor a pain. What the hell it’s free and depending what you have spent on computing power unlimited. Just because I am running a bit behind don’t knock Blender.

A DAMP SQUIB. (03/11/15)

It is annoyingly foggy today, the sun is doing it’s best to burn the mist away but is just too far south of the equator to manage the job.

My 3D fireworks have all the impact and sparkle of a damp squib. I have got lovely trails of sparks and smoke, the explosion needs some more work but it’s all at the particle stage. I am determined to master the Node compositor malarkey but keep getting lost and then can’t find the damn particle system I want again when I need to increase or decrease size, randomness or whatever. It’s very hard to imagine what something will look like until you give it light emission. I’m going to read a book for a bit. Then I’ll have another go. I think I’ll start again and name everything and write down what I’ve called stuff. I still have a couple of days to produce something worth seeing.

Here are a couple of views from earlier today. The mist wasn’t as thick then but it was coolish on my fingers.

Dithery has not invited me to his hog roast on Bonfire Night, perhaps he has decided against one this year.

ASBO. (02/11/15)

As you can see I have a new temporary header. I am trying to get the writing to follow a path through the trees and then finish at the bottom. After Effects could cope but I don’t have that so will have a go in Blender. CS6 doesn’t want to know though it will let me scale the text front to back. I have just had a thought and it may if I pretend it’s a 3D animation. I also notice that it has chopped a bit off. I can never remember how wide my header is so always have to look in ‘Inspect Element’….I did that but then decided to add a bit of a matt and forgot to resize it again. Sorry about that.

This morning I’d been wandering in cold fog for half an hour, when I met Mal. We were chatting away about the revolting weather when one of her dogs decided to set about Alf. I said can’t you feed Cooper before you bring him out. She said he needs a “Busy” round to give him an ASBO. Ian was walking towards us and remarked that we would be lucky to find one as there weren’t enough to police Remembrance Day. I thought he was joking….It only takes one to manage the parade and bugle blowing…Hardly an excuse for insurrection is Armistice Day. Pound to a penny they find enough for the great and the good to stand looking solemn for the photocall at the Cenotaph. After a few minutes discussion on the likelihood of the Cubs and Brownies running amok with their flags and the Veterans mowing folk down with Zimmer frames the conversation moved on to the crossword puzzle and what was a word like Hanah called? I told Ian it was a palindrome. Mal said did I know that there were palindromic numbers. I’d never thought about it but yes 393, 1441, hundreds and thousands of them. She then went on to say that if a non-palindromic number is summed with itself reversed then you will get a palindromic number.  24+42= 66. It doesn’t always work on the first iteration but in all but a few cases it does and apparently when it doesn’t they are known as Lychrel numbers. The things I find out on a walk. Thought you would be distraught if I failed to let you know.

Have fun, I’m going back to Blender and Photoshop.

A BEAUTIFUL MORNING. (01/11/15)

If the rest of the month is like the first hour of daylight today then I’ll be happy. It was a grand walk, we met half a dozen different dogs and a stag which stood it’s ground and gave my two terriers pause for thought.  Serve them right if it had really frightened them.

I have been thinking of a new header. What do you think of this for a concept?

I would only have it run once. I quite like it but there is an awful lot of work to make it perfect. The key framing is a bit off but that is simple to sort. the mask opacity is proving more difficult. I also need a better start image but thought this sky would be as difficult as skies get.

Here are a couple of sunrises. I am not one for taking the Technicolor ones but these were a bit close for comfort.

Have a good week and an even better month. I’ll see if I can finish making my fire works for Bonfire Night.

Before I go I would like to give this a plug. It’s more complex than it looks JOHN’S HALLOWEEN. Much harder to accomplish as as far as I know he uses a linear editor. I was impressed and amused.