A life of creation and discovery

Black hole

noreply@blogger.com (Anhstar) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:59:00 +0000

Today, I've found a tutorial on PhotoshopStar that inspired me to make something nice with photoshop again. The tutorial show you how to create a design like this:

I simply love the color and how it blends together. I decided to do the tutorial and then I see that I can add my own touch, make something of my own. After some experimentations, this is what I came up with:

I like think I did a good job, hope you like it too.
Cya next time!

Machinima

noreply@blogger.com (Anhstar) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:21:00 +0000

Hello! It's been a while since I last posted, but I was working on a machinima. You may ask, what the hell is a machinima! Machinima are videos captured in a game and by editing these videos and put them together, it tell a story.
Unlike conventional way to capture a video, with machinima, you don't need to spend thousands to buy cameras, hire stars. Everything can be done with your computer and some programs.

"Machinima (pronounced /məˈʃiːnəmə/ or /məˈʃɪnəmə/), a portmanteau of machine cinema,^[1] is a collection of associated production techniques whereby computer-generated imagery (CGI) is rendered using real-time, interactive 3-D engines, such as those of games, instead of professional 3D animation software." - Wikipedia.
Almost any games can be used to create a machinima, there are some that are better suit for it and those that have all the sets, characters that suit your story perfectly. You don't want to tell your space story with a medieval game, since space heroes need space suits and vessels right?!

I have been searching for good game(engines) to create machinima and I have found some. Below is a list of games that I'm using:
- The Movies from Lionhead studio
This game is a simulator that let you be a manager of a movie studio. It is very flexible and there is a good modding community that has tons of contents that you can download and use.

- The Sims2 from Electronic Arts
This game is life simulator that let you manage a family. Again, very flexible, a lot of built in contents with tons of mods and objects to download. Very good with facial expressions.

There are also more popular games like WorldOfWarcraft, SecondLife, Halo, etc that can be used to make machinima, you can find a lot of them on youtube.
If you want to have more informations about machinima, you can go to Machinima.com to get started and ask don't forget to check the forum, because there you can get info for all the popular game.
Making machinima is not only capturing video from game however, you will also need to edit it with a video editing program, search for music that match the mood of the machinima you want to create. It's a lot of thing to learn and do, but the reward to have a short film, made by yourself and tell the story that you want it to, is wonderful. In the next blog, I will talk about the video editing program that I use.
Thank you for your time, cya all later!

Dragon Eye

noreply@blogger.com (Anhstar) — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 17:34:00 +0000

I like red color. You can do a lot of thing in an art work with this color. Recently, I was inspired by the Lord of the ring and it's dark, intense scenes. That's the reason I came up with this new design, see for yourself.

I have an account on Flickr for a while now, but I didn't have a chance to use it. Recently, I have made some illustration and today I uploaded them all on Flickr. If you want to see my designs on Flickr, please visit: My Flickr Photos

If you have any questions concerning my designs, please email me at anhstar@gmail.com. Thank you and see you next time!

Vector pixel

noreply@blogger.com (Anhstar) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 03:40:00 +0000

I have been busy with work, but tonight I had to do something creative.
I have seen many artist combine vector and pixels together to form up some unique art style.
After searching for some idea, I came up with this:

The background image is actually a vector and the flowers are Photoshop brushes. You would think it's otherwise but it's not :) . I think I need to fully explore the power of a vector to do something more creative. So far, for a first, I think it's not bad. I was struggling to find a suitable color since the background image was green (bamboo's color), I tried to mix all kind of colors but at the end, the black and gray color seem to do the job.
I got more vector images and will continue to explore this time. So until then, take care !

Free music from meemix

noreply@blogger.com (Anhstar) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 21:59:00 +0000

I enjoy listening to different genre of music, whether it is pop, rap, percussion, etc, but there are so many and I don't exactly know which artist to look for. Most of the time, friends of mine would recommend me some songs or once in a while a good song can be found in some video clip on Youtube or on television.
Today I found a website called: www.meemix.com and it's main purpose is to give you a taste of various songs from various artist, genre or even time lapse. You can create different channels and listen to different kind of music depending on your moods. You have to register after playing some songs, but the process is painless and pretty quick.
Apparently, meemix is not the first of its kind and there are a lot of web radio all over the Internet for us to discover. Below is a list of some good ones:

Also some website like Last.fm let you embedded your stations easily into your blog.
Enjoy everyone!

Christmas card!

noreply@blogger.com (Anhstar) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:21:00 +0000

Happy new year 2008 to everyone!
I wish you all a joyful time spending with your family and friends.
On this occasion, I made a Christmas card for my girlfriend.

For this image, I used a 3D tree and add the decorations with various images. Put it on a gradient background and added some texts. My girlfriend like it and I think it has much more value since it is made by myself or yourself.

Once again, happy new year to all!

Amazing guitar players!

noreply@blogger.com (Anhstar) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:59:00 +0000

After watching Tay Zonday's song "Chocolate Rain", I explore further in Youtube to see if there are other people with amazing talents. Of course, I have found many, here are some good or godly guitar players:

and this is godly:

Amazing youtube

noreply@blogger.com (Anhstar) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:39:00 +0000

I was searching for a song on Youtube that my boss mentioned some days ago. The song was "Chocolate Rain" and I must say, the guy that sang that song is very good. I can't believe that it's his voice, he seem to be kinda young to possess such a voice. His scene name is Tay Zonday but his real name is: Adam Nyerere Bahner.
Here is the video:

JGoodies Framework

noreply@blogger.com (Anhstar) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:55:00 +0000

I work for a small company called EchosphereTech in Québec. In the project that I'm involing in right now, we use a framework called JGoodies. For a small team that need something to start with at the beginning, JGoodies was perfect and has help reduce the development time.
We were able to extend and add more features to certain nice concept like the ActionManager, the ResourceUtils, etc. The framework is divided into different smaller framework like:
- Validation
- Form
- Looks
- Binding
- Animation
- Looks

For a small company that focus on a desktop solution, this has help us to start.
You can have more information at the site itself JGOODIES
That's it for now. Thank you for your time!