Creative Owl

8 best iPad apps for designers

2012-10-08T01:23:00.002-07:00

We've spoken to leading designers from around the world, and asked them to reveal the free and paid best iPad apps for design, creativity, inspiration and organisation.

In this first instalment, covering the 40 best iPad apps for designers, we've spoken to Nicholas Patten, Dan Mall, Jeffrey Zeldman, Elliot Jay Stocks, Si Jobling, Ben Winter, Claudio Guglieri, D. Keith Robinson, Brian Hoff, Anna Anna Dahlstrm, John A. Jacobs, Shane Mielke, Anthony Woods, and Ajaz Ahmed, to find the iPad apps that they simply couldn't live without.

Bigger screen, bigger apps

Unlike the iPhone, Apple's tablet has enough screen space to enable more complex interactions. It's therefore no surprise many within the design industry are using iPads for research, organisational tasks, finding inspiration and even creating work. In this feature, designers give us their take on the best iPad apps for designers.
If we've missed your favourite in our list of the best iPad apps, let us know in the comments.

Nicholas Patten's choices

Nicholas Patten

Based in New York City, Patten is a video editor, graphic and web designer, and product manager of DirectMarkets. You can follow Patten on Twitter here, and you can also check out his very own iPad app, Spatik, which enables you to combine sharing services in one app (he cheekily worked it into his list, so read more below).

1. Adobe Photoshop Touch, £6.99/$9.99

Given how hugely complicated Photoshop for desktop is these days, a part of us wishes Adobe Photoshop Touch wasn't just for iPad

It may not be Photoshop CS6, and Adobe Photoshop Touch isn't without its limitations--there's no RAW import, and the maximum image export size is 1600-by-1600; however, it retains enough of its desktop cousin's features (and places them in a sleek, pared-down, tablet-optimised interface) to make it an essential purchase, and one of the best iPad apps for designers. Patten says he particularly likes "how it allows the user to still use layers and control opacity levels and blend modes". And the fact that it costs less than a pub lunch doesn't hurt either.

2. Adobe Ideas, £6.99/$9.99

Adobe Ideas: providing all of the colours (but, sadly, none of the skills) to enable you to draw pretty flowers

Suitably named, the thinking behind Adobe Ideas is to get visual brainwaves down rapidly. The app provides a simple but effective toolset for outlines, thumbnails and rough drawings, and you can draw over the top of images (photos, screen grabs) should you wish to. Usefully, exports are vector-based and so can scale indefinitely. "It's a great app for fast sketching of any ideas and designs," he enthuses.

3. Touch Draw, £5.99/$8.99

TouchDraw is the perfect app for crafting vector hillsides. It's also not bad for logos and floor plans, if hillsides aren't your thing

Although seemingly in a similar space to Adobe Ideas, TouchDraw is a more full-featured vector-drawing app. While it's suited to illustration, it also enables you to create libraries of reusable shapes or use bundled examples; TouchDraw is therefore suitable for working up flow charts, graphs, diagrams and floor plans along with logos and other imagery. However, Patten believes it's the interface that makes it one of the best iPad apps: "I like how the toolset doesn't take up much space, giving you more room to edit the image."

4. Palettes Pro, £3.99/$5.99

Palettes Pro might have an interface that breaks your eyes, but it's great for rapidly creating colour schemes

Although the previous three products showcase how the iPad can enable you to create artwork, some apps turn your device into a focussed environment for critical ancillary tasks. For example, Palettes Pro provides the means for creating myriad colour schemes, either from scratch, through the use of colour models, or by grabbing colours from photographs and websites. "I really like the way it enables easy colour capture, and how it gives you the ability to build themes for anything you like," says Patten.

5. Spatik, £1.49/$1.99

Spatik: for those times when you want to automate sharing, like you're living in the future with a robot butler

Patten's snuck one of his own creations into our list of the best iPad apps--he's the co-creator and CEO of Spatik. However, the recommendation itself is sound, with the app enabling you to combine services that help you share into a single app. "Spatik has all of my RSS feeds to design articles, inspirational sites and tutorials, and I use it to organise my daily tweets," he says, explaining the the app was designed to "make it easier to set-up daily tweets in a timely fashion".

Dan Mall's choices

Dan Mall

Award-winning designer Dan Mall has in the past worked for Happy Cog and Big Spaceship and is currently founder and design director at SuperFriendly. Dan is also a technical editor at A List Apart, and - via his love/obsession for typography - he is also the co-founder of Typedia and swfIR.

6. FontBook, £3.99/$5.99

Beautiful typography? Check. New iPad? Check. An absurd amount of time wasted with FontBook? Definitely

'Comprehensive' is perhaps the best word to describe FontBook, which documents over 100 type foundries, representing 1650 type designers, constituting 35,000 fonts. Over-the-air updates ensure the data is always up to date, but Mall is most impressed by the manner in which the app enables you to explore typefaces: "There are resources online for browsing type categorically, but this app lets me browse non-linearly, which makes for a completely organic discovery experience."

7. Bjrk: Biophilia, £8.99/$12.99

Biophilia fuses art, interactivity and music, and probably makes traditionalists running record labels cower in fear

The iPad has made some of those working in traditional media rethink how creative output should be presented--books, movies and music are all being reconsidered by people in the field that have an experimental bent. Bjrk's app marries music with art, in what Mall calls "an excellent example of making music an interactive experience". He adds: "It's a different way of thinking about what a visual and auditory touchscreen experience can be."

8. Adobe Shadow, Free

Shadow: making web designers who create and test mobile websites weep with joy since early 2012

Mobile is increasingly important in the web design space, but testing websites on mobile devices can be a tedious experience. Shadow enables you to pair devices with a computer, and browse in sync, along with editing pages using remote inspection. "Adobe Shadow makes development across multiple devices much easier," explains Mall. "The ability for every device to update changes in sync is absolutely priceless and saves hours of debug time."

Claudio Guglieri's choice

Claudio Guglieri

Guglieri is a senior designer at Fi (Fantasy Interactive) in New York City, and is also a 'free time' Flash developer. Claudio's work can be found on the Fi website, and you can also find a selection of his latest projects on his Dribbble page. If you'd like to keep up with what Claudio's doing day to day, then you should also check out his Twitter page.

9. LiveView, Free

LiveView shows your Mac's screen on an iPad, so you can prototype interfaces (or, in this case, actually start making one).

Many modern designers are immersed in designing for mobile, but smartphones and tablets boast wildly different resolutions to desktop monitors, and so it can be tough to visualise how work will look on device screens. LiveView is one of the best iPad apps for quick 'n' dirty simulation, which mirrors your computer screen on a connected iPad. "It's the one iPad app I can't live without," claims Guglieri. "After trying dropping files on Dropbox, emailing screenshots and using Image Capture, this is by far the best app I've used to see what I design, at the correct scale, on an iPad."

Adobe Photoshop CS6 hands-on review (Updated!)

2012-10-08T00:50:00.000-07:00

Photoshop CS6 has arrived, and a new version of the world's number one image editing tool is always a highlight. In this review we reveal all the new features.

Those looking for the much-heralded Deblur filter will be disappointed: it's far too early for inclusion this time around. In fact, those looking for big splashy show-off features in Photoshop CS6 will also be looking in vain. (Check out reviews of the other apps in Adobe CS6.)

NEW UPDATE! Jump to our 'designer views' section where you can see the features other designers love in Photoshop CS6

Adobe Photoshop CS6 is largely an under-the-bonnet release, bringing a few new tools and filters but concentrating on greater speed, efficiency and ease of use. But the improvements are great, and this Photoshop CS6 review will reveal all!

Before we begin: security check

Before you begin, you should ensure that your copy of Photoshop CS6 is the most recent release version. A security exploit, enabling malcicious users to compromise your system, was reported at the start of September. Simply go to Help>Updates in Photoshop CS6 and apply all updates. Users of Creative Cloud will have these updates pushed to their system when they next connect to the service.

Acceleration in Photoshop CS6

Photoshop CS6 makes full use of your computer's Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), which provides tremendous acceleration in many areas. So the Liquify filter, previously a sluggish experience, is accelerated to provide smooth, real-time smearing even with brushes up to the new maximum limit of 15,000 pixels; the new Oil Paint feature adds a paint-like texture, with controls that operate on the full-screen preview in real time. Of course, all this depends on you having a fast enough processor and graphics card; although CS6 will run on Windows XP/Mac OS X 10.6 with just 1Gb RAM, you do need a hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card to get the most out of it.

The Liquify filter in PhotoshopCS6 is now smooth as silk, with real-time operation even at huge image sizes and with brushes up to 15,000 pixels in diameter

The new features

The first thing you notice about Photoshop CS6 is its new interface. You now have the choice between four base colours, from near-black to pale grey - so Photoshop can look more like Lightroom if you choose. Everything has been subtly tweaked, from the hundreds of redesigned icons (the Pen and Lasso tools now indicate their active hotspots more clearly) to a crisper, more consistent layout.

Photoshop CS6's new dark look will appeal to photographers, as it's less distracting. The ability to filter layers by type is also a major enhancement

New HUD with key info

A new Head Up Display system (HUD) in Photoshop CS6 provides key information right at the cursor. This is context sensitive, so will show dimensions when dragging out a marquee, angles when rotating a selection, and so on. It also applies to the three new Blur filters, each of which provides a different type of blur - Field, Iris and Tilt Shift - with strength and radius controls directly on the image, rather than just in a side panel. All three new filters are also GPU accelerated for real-time previews.

Tilt-Shift is just one of the three new Blur filters in Photoshop CS6, each of which works in real time thanks to GPU acceleration. The controls are placed directly on the image for ease of access

Photoshop CS6 filters

There's just one new tool in Photoshop CS6, the Content-Aware Patch tool, which takes the technology introduced in CS4 (Content-Aware Scaling) and CS5 (Content-Aware Fill) and extends it to a tool that allows us to select and move or extend objects in a scene, patching their original location more or less seamlessly. In practice, the results depend very much on having the right image; it's a great idea, but doesn't always come up with the goods.

The new Content-Aware Patch tool in hotoshop CS6 can both move and extend objects - working well with organic objects, less well with man-made structures

A major new filter is Adaptive Wide Angle, which allows you to correct camera distortion simply by drawing over lines that should be straight. A hugely powerful tool, it allows even stitched panoramas with multiple perspectives to be corrected into a single landscape shot.

The new Adaptive Wide Angle filter in Photoshop CS6 does a great job of correcting camera distortion: simply drag over straight lines to make the adjustment

Enhanced Camera Raw

Also good for photographers is the enhanced Camera Raw dialog, which now has more powerful versions of tools such as Clarity (there's now no halo effect, even at maximum strength) and Defringing (the controls are gone, replaced by a single checkbox which just does the job). For the first time in Photoshop CS6, it's also possible to apply localised noise reduction.

Enhancements to Camera Raw in Photoshop CS6 include a greatly improved Clarity control, as well as the ability to apply localised noise reduction using adjustment brushes

Lighting Effects filter in Photoshop CS6

The Lighting Effects filter has had a major overhaul, ditching the previous tiny preview in favour of a full-screen, GPU-accelerated preview that shows changes in real time. It's of particular benefit to Mac users, for whom Lighting Effects disappeared in Adobe Photoshop CS5 unless they were running the program in sluggish 32-bit mode.

Tool enhancements

Designers will love the new Paragraph and Character Style panels in Photoshop CS6, which allow favourite combinations to be set and adjusted at will - as well as the fact that Shapes layers are now true vector objects, which means you can now apply strokes inside, outside and centred on paths, as well as being able to stroke open paths. Those strokes can now be dotted and dashed, and can be filled with gradients.
Adobe Photoshop CS6 will now not only save in the background, allowing you to carry on working while it's saving, but will also auto-save a version avery few minutes so that, in the event of a crash, you can pick up from where you left off. If you still manually revert to a saved file, though, it will always go back to the one you deliberately chose to save, rather than its own intermediate version.

Photoshop CS6 Crop tool

The Crop tool has been reworked so that cropping now pans the image behind the crop window. It seems a little unintuitive at first, until you rotate a crop, when it suddenly makes sense: now, the image rotates behind the window, so you can see how it will look without having to crane your neck as you did previously.
The Select Color Range tool now has an option to select skin tones - and, within it, a separate option to select faces. In practice, it works remarkably well: it's not perfect, and when used in conjunction with a mask on an Adjustment Layer it will require some manual fine-tuning, but it's a big help.

The Select Color dialog in Photoshop CS6 can now select skin tones automatically, with a special Face Detection mode that performs well - even when the subjects are wearing hats and sunglasses.

Extending Actions in Photoshop CS6

Actions, the means by which you can automate repetitive tasks, have been extended so that they can now store brush movements as well as menu and selection choices. This means that for the first time it's possible to record an entire painting operation, and have it played back with a single keystroke.

Layer tweaking

Photoshop CS6 includes a lot of small enhancements that will generally make much life easier for those working on complex artwork. The Layers panel now has built-in filtering, so you can choose to view just layers set to Hard Light mode, or those containing text, or Smart Objects, or Adjustment Layers - or just about any parameter you can think of. It's now possible to change opacity, light mode and colour coding on multiple layers, so if you search for all the text layers in a document you can change them all to yellow for easy reference. The Mask and Adjustment panels have now been combined in a new Properties panel, which is resizable for ease of adjustment.
It's also now possible not only to use Layer Groups as the basis of Clipping Masks, but to apply Layer Effects to an entire Group - previously, they could be applied only to individual layers. And the Eyedropper tool has now been tweaked so that it can sample underlying layers as if intervening Adjustment Layers weren't there, which makes patching and retouching very much easier.

Beyond image editing in Photoshop CS6

Users of the Regular edition of Photoshop CS6 will be delighted to learn that movie editing capability has made the leap over from the Extended edition. This means everyone can now edit movies right inside the app: you can apply all the standard selection of filters and distortions to moving images, as well as adding animated layers on top.
You'll still need to buy the Extended edition if you want to use the 3D Layer tools, which have had a major overhaul in this release. New HUD controls allow you to extrude, revolve and twist 3D objects directly in the middle of the artwork, as well as adding bevels and inflation.
Changing light direction is simply a matter of shift-clicking on a shadow and dragging to where you want it. There are many more 3D enhancements, including text and Bezier outlines on extruded shapes that can be edited after extrusion has been applied, and the ability to define a Ground Plane inside the Vanishing Point filter, and then use it as the basis for snapping 3D objects and locating shadows.

The ability to define a ground plane in Vanishing Point in Photoshop CS6 means you can integrate 3D objects into your scene with greater ease - and greater realism

Creative Cloud update

Now available as part of a Creative Cloud subscription, Photoshop weighs in at around 670MB. Once you've signed up for Adobe's new service, you simply download an installer app, which keeps tabs on the apps you have on your system. And this isn't software 'in the cloud'; Adobe Photoshop CS6 is still installed on your system, and you don't have to stay connected to the web to use the app. This means that the initial download can take a fair bit of time, so ensure you factor this in before you start the installation process.
We've only just started using Creative Cloud, but the option to store your files in the cloud, quickly drag and drop images into the browser, create colour swatches from your pics, and add the ASE swatch files to Photoshop is already getting us excited. There's not a huge amount of integration with Photoshop just yet, but with the option to roll out incremental updates via the Creative Cloud service, we can't wait to see what Adobe has in store over the coming months.

Photoshop CS6 pricing

Full £556 (ex VAT), Upgrade £159 (ex VAT), £38.11/month as part of annual Creative Cloud subscription and £57.17/month as part of month-by-month Creative Cloud subscription. For details on where to buy, please visit the Adobe Store.

Photoshop CS6 system specs

For system specifications for Adobe Photoshop CS6, and other apps in Adobe CS6, please visit our Adobe system specs page.

Designer views of Photoshop CS6

We've spoken to a number of designers from across the creative landscape - from 3D, web design, illustration and more - and asked them to reveal their favourite new features in Photoshop CS6. Here's what they had to say! (Click below to see their views.)

Click to reveal design opinions

Verdict:

Score 10/10

Photoshop CS6 is a major upgrade that will appeal to many kinds of users. Montage artists and retouchers will appreciate the new Blur and Liquify filters, the HUD controls and the ability to sort layers by type; designers will value the new text and Shape tools; and anyone with a recent digital camera will find the movie editing functionality a major bonus. Those who fork out for the Extended edition will find 3D object creation is easier than ever, and the new ability to match the 3D perspective with the perspective of a photographed scene means 3D objects can be seamlessly integrated into your artwork. But what really marks out this version is the time-saving nature of the enhancements, which means it should pay for itself in a very short time. Everything feels slicker, smoother and more sure; the fact that so many filters now act in real time means there's no waiting for the computer to catch up with your actions. It's definitely a recommended upgrade.

Uppers

Head-Up Display adjustments
GPU-accelerated graphics performance any interface enhancements
Excellent text and shape improvements

Downers

Fast graphics card is essential
Meretricious oil paint filter
Older filters still not updated
Variable Content-Aware Patch results

Behance portfolio of the week: Dusty Diamond

2012-10-08T00:24:00.003-07:00

We've partnered with online portfolio site Behance to bring you inspiring work from some of the most exciting designers on the planet. This week: Seattle graphic designer Dusty Diamond.

Dusty Diamond is an independent graphic designer based in the Seattle area who's worked both in large agency settings and as an independent contractor.
An experienced illustrator, he enjoys the challenge of creating unique design solutions that seamlessly combine all areas of his expertise. When not in his office, you can find him somewhere in the mountains or around the way sampling some of the best brew the northwest has to offer.
His portfolio is wide-ranging, taking in T-shirt illustrations, videogame promotion, logo design and much more beside. We've selected five of our favourites, but head to Behance to check out a fuller selection of Diamond's imaginative and inspiring work.

01. Logo

Whatever you think of this design, it's certainly attention grabbing

This awesome logo for a snowboarding video is as eye-catching as it is imaginative (albeit slightly disturbing at the same time).

02. Postcard

We're not sure what it is, but we'd love to have one as a pet

Diamond created this awesome postcard design for designer and classmate Lisa Volz.

03. Advertisement

The Elvis impersonator skeleton is our favourite

This full page advertisement announces Symptoms and Spooky Kookys: two new vinyl toy lines from Flapjack Toys, a new company from Mike Becker (formerly of FunKo).

Also read: 20 inspiring design toys for your desk

04. Record cover

It's a vinyl sleeve! It's a poster! It's great, that's what it is.

We love our album art at Creative Bloq and think back wistfully to the days when the record player reigned supreme. But vinyl's by no means dead, and Diamond created this 7-inch inch vinyl packaging - in the form of a 18x24-inch folded poster sleeve - for Seattle indie band Forgive Durden.

05. Branding

Making a Microsoft product look hip is a tall order, but we reckon he's managed it here

This illustrated brand work for the Xbox Music Showcase initiative puts a refreshing new spin on the videogame console's image.

Liked this? Then read these!

20 inspirational photographers to follow on Behance
20 inspirational industrial designers to follow on Behance
How to create a design portfolio that STANDS OUT

Make 3D Yet Flat Looking Shopping Basket Icons

2012-10-02T21:38:00.001-07:00

Shopping for a new icon? Look no further. Learn how to create a custom shopping basket icon for your next web design project. We’ll combine 3D qualities with a flat look. You’ll need a firm understanding of Adobe Illustrators tools to complete this tutorial.

Final Image Preview

Below is the final design we will be working towards. Want access to the full Vector Source files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join VECTORTUTS PLUS for just $19/month. You can view the final image preview below.

Step 1

Start by selecting the Rectangle Tool (M) and drawing a rectangle with a 4 pt stroke. Ensure that you are using a light color for the stroke so you can see what you’re doing when you apply the 3D effect. Do not apply a fill to the rectangle.

Step 2

Go to Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel. Give your shape a rotation for the X, Y and Z axis’ and an Extrude Depth of about 16. Click OK. Copy and paste this shape to use for the next step.

Step 3

In the Appearance Palette double-click on 3D Extrude & Bevel. Enter a much higher Extrude Depth and click OK.

Step 4

Put the shapes on top of each other and make either the top or bottom shape slightly smaller or larger than the other. This way you can tell there are two shapes that comprise the basket. This is what your artwork should look like right now.

Step 5

In order to manipulate the shape further you will first need to go to Object > Expand Appearance. Using the Direct Selection Tool (A), drag to select the points as highlighted below. Move the points inward a little so the whole basket is a little skinnier at the bottom.

Step 6

Ensure that you move the points around the top edge of the basket too.

Step 7

We’ll apply a blue to black gradient on our basket. When working with black make sure you use a black that has zero values for R,G and B. This will give you a much richer black.

Step 8

Select the face of the basket and go to Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter about -10 and click OK. This will create an inner area with the same proportions of the larger shape. We can then apply two different colors to the shapes to give the basket more visual interest.

Step 9

Give the other face of the basket the same offset path treatment.

Step 10

If you want your gradients to be consistent across multiple shapes than make sure you select both shapes at the same time. I’ve created the look of a very reflective surface by abruptly changing the color in the gradient. Getting a realistic reflection will take some experimenting.

Step 11

Select the inner area on the face of the basket and go to Edit > Edit Colors > Adjust Color Balance. Enter 5 for each value and click OK. This will make the blue color 5 percent lighter on the selected area and give the impression of a subtle change in the surface of the object.

Step 12

This is what your artwork will look like right now.

Step 13

Continue to give the rest of the basket gradients. Observe how the reflective look is not too overdone. I tend to give each face of the basket no more than one abrupt color change. But of course, rules were made to be broken. Just keep trying different angles and intensities of color until it looks right to you. Also notice how the inside of the basket does not make much use of a reflection, only a dark to light gradient.

Step 14

Making the holes that cut through the basket is easier than you may think. Using the Pen Tool (P), draw a shape like the one below. Ensure that you follow the lines of the basket. Basically, making sure that your top lines are parallel to the top and bottom of the basket and your side lines are parallel to the sides of the basket.

Step 15

Copy and paste the shape and overlap them as shown below. In the Pathfinder select Subtract from Shape Area followed by Expand.

Step 16

You will be left with a shape that looks like the edge of a window.

Step 17

Since the main window shape is still on the clipboard press Option + F to paste the window shape precisely where you copied it from. You can now use this shape to create the other windows. Since the basket shape tapers down toward the bottom you will need to adjust each window ever-so-slightly to make them look correct. Use the Direct Selection Tool to adjust each window shape.

Step 18

Draw the windows on the other face of the basket.
Select each window shape on the face of one side of the basket and give them a brown to black gradient simultaneously. This will guarantee that the gradient is uniform and consistent across all the windows.

Step 19

To make the boxes that go inside the basket first draw a square shape.

Step 20

Go to Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel. Enter the variables below and click OK.

Step 21

Copy and paste the boxes a couple times and change the Extrude depth to make different heights of boxes.

Step 22

To continue working with the boxes you will need to expand them by going to Object > Expand Appearance. Very important: Ungroup all the boxes until you can no longer ungroup them. To ungroup the boxes go to Object > Ungroup.
Next, rotate the boxes so they’re all on slightly different angles. Give them a warm brown gradient making sure to vary the brightness of each side of the box to create a more realistic look.

Step 23

Add a little more detail by copy and pasting the top of the box and using the Direct Selection Tool to reshape the object to look like a piece of tape. Fill the shape with white and adjust the Opacity in the Transparency Palette to about 10%.

Step 24

Go to Object > Path > Offset Path and enter -5 then click OK.

Step 25

Select the inner shape and adjust the gradient so it doesn’t blend into the other shape behind it.

Step 26

A quick way to make it look as if the boxes are inside the basket is to apply a Clipping Mask to the them.
Using the Pen Tool draw a line where the dotted line is. Your line won’t need a fill or stroke color. The red line below is just for representation.

Step 27

Make sure the shape you just drew is in front of the boxes. Select all the boxes and select the mask shape then go to Object > Clipping Mask > Make. Your boxes will instantly look like they’re inside of the basket!
If you would like to further edit the color or shape of the boxes double-click on them to enter into what is called Isolation Mode (Illustrator CS3 and up) and adjust them to your liking.

Step 28

Create some highlights on the basket by first drawing a basic shape with the Pen Tool. Go to Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur and enter a variable that looks good to you.

Step 29

Copy and paste all the elements thus far. Select the copy you just made and in the Pathfinder Palette select Add to Shape Area followed by Expand.

Step 30

Give this shape a thick stroke. Set the caps to Round and Join as highlighted below. Next give the shape a drop shadow by going to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow.

Step 31

Put the shape behind everything else.

Step 32

You can easily make this icon into a set by changing the windows to a blue to black gradient and making an arrow out of a triangle and square shape.

Final Image

Here it is, the final shopping basket icons.

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Draw the Bamboo Body

2012-10-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

Draw the Bamboo Body

Create a path like the image below with the Pen Tool and fill it with the color green. Select the Mesh Tool and click on the lower left corner of the bamboo body (pt. 1) to add a mesh point. Then change it to a lighter tone of green (yellow-green). Now add another Mesh point at the upper left corner of the bamboo(pt. 2). Add another point above pt. 2. Add a final point beside pt. 2 and select a darker green tone for the shadow.

2. Create the Bamboo Stick

Select the bamboo body you’ve created in the previous step, hold down the ALT key, drag it up to make a copy (you can use Copy & Paste if you like). Then resize the new bamboo body horizontally with the Selection Tool. Send this new bamboo body behind the first bamboo body by selecting Object > Arrage > Send Backward or press Ctrl+[. Repeat this step until you get a stack of 5 or 6 bamboo bodies.

3. Duplicate the Bamboo Stick

After you’ve finished the first bamboo, make a copy of it by ALT drag or Copy & Paste. Select the new bamboo stick, apply Filter > Distort > Twist(Angle=3) so that they don’t look identical.

4. Draw a Bended Bamboo

We want the bamboo to look natural, so we need to create some bended bamboo. Repeat Step 1 & 2 to create a bended bamboo like the image shown below. Now we 3 different forms of bamboo: straight, bended, and twisted.

5. Duplicate More Bamboo

Make more bamboo by ALT + drag. Flip and resize them around so they don’t look alike.

6. Create the Bamboo Leaves

Create the basic shape of the bamboo leaves. Use the Mesh Tool to apply a mesh gradient on it.

7. Make a Bamboo Leaves Symbol

Drag the bamboo leaves to the symbol panel to create a new Symbol. If your symbol panel is not visible, go to Window > Symbols or press Ctrl+Shift+F11.

8. Symbol Sprayer Tool

Create a new layer and lock the bamboo sticks layer(Layer 1). Select the Symbol Sprayer Tool and pick the bamboo leaves Symbol. Spray it on Layer 2 by dragging the mouse.

9. Symbol Sizer Tool

To create various sizes of bamboo leaves: use the Symbol Sizer Tool and randomly click on the bamboo leaves object. Tips: hold down ALT key+click to reduce size.

10. Symbol Spinner Tool

Use the Symbol Spinner Tool to rotate/spin Symbols.

11. Symbol Shifter Tool

Use the Symbol Shifter Tool to spread out the bamboo leaves by dragging your mouse around.

12. Symbol Stainer Tool

Select a lighter green color and use the Symbol Stainer Tool to tint the symbols.

13. Symbol Screener Tool

Use the Symbol Screener Tool to reduce the opacity of the bamboo leaves. This will result in a transparent effect.

14. Make More Leaves Behind

After you done with the leaves on Layer 2, make a new layer(Layer 3) behind the bamboo stick layer. Lock Layer 1 and Layer 2, use the Symbol Sprayer Tool to create more bamboo leaves(refer to Step 8-13).

15. Add More Bamboo Sticks

Duplicate more bamboo sticks. Resize and send them behind the big bamboo sticks.

Final

Here is the final image.

Interlocking Rings

2012-10-01T19:49:00.000-07:00

This tip is a great exercise in using COMPOUND PATHS and the PATHFINDER PALETTE for the sometimes difficult task of making interlocking objects. Give it a try!

Open a new document, I started with a custom document 400 pixels wide by 400 pixels high.

Select the ELLIPSE TOOL. Remember, to view a tool that is hidden, hold down the mouse button on the visible tool. To select a hidden tool, continue to hold down the mouse button, drag the pointer over the tool you want to select, and then release the mouse button.

Hold down the SHIFT KEY, click and draw a circle the size you want your rings to be.

Click on the RADIAL SWATCH on the SWATCHES PALETTE. If the SWATCHES PALETTE is not visible, click on SWATCHES in the WINDOWS MENU or press F6 (This will open the swatches palette).

You will notice that the circle now appears to have a glow as if it was a sphere.

To create the illusion of a ring we need to change the way the GRADIENT is arranged. Click and drag the left GRADIENT SLIDER until it is at approximately the location shown below.

Add an additional SLIDER by clicking under the GRADIENT BAR. Move your cursor to the black side of the COLOR BAR. Your cursor will turn into an EYE DROPPER.

When you click the EYE DROPPER on the COLOR BAR your SLIDER will turn black. Notice how the GRADIENT THUMBNAIL is a ring of light around the black center.

Your circle should now look like this. If you need to change the width of the highlight go back to the GRADIENT PALETTE and adjust the SLIDER positions to your satisfaction.

Select the ELLIPSE TOOL and position the cursor in the center of your circle. If your first circle is still selected, you will see a blue square in the exact center of the circle. Align your cursor with this dot, Hold down SHIFT + ALT (PC)/OPT (Mac), click and draw a circle the size of the original circles black area as shown below.

Use the SELECTION TOOL to select both circles.

Press CTRL+8 (PC)/CMD +8 (Mac) or choose COMPOUND PATH>MAKE command from the OBJECT PULL DOWN MENU.

You will now notice that the inside of the circle has been deleted.

Duplicate the ring by selecting it and while holding down ALT (PC)/OPT (Mac), drag the new ring to the right.

Duplicate one more ring and place it above the bottom two.

Select all the objects. Now we will use the PATHFINDER tools to break our rings into individual segments.

If the PATHFINDER PALETTE is not open, click on WINDOW>PATHFINDER or click SHIFT+CTRL+F9 (PC) or SHIFT+CMD+F9 (Mac). Click on the TRIM button to break the rings into individual shapes depending on how they overlap.

Click SHIFT+CTRL+A (PC) or SHIFT+ CMD+A (Mac) to deselect all objects. Notice that there are fine lines indicating the separate visible segments.

To make the rings interlock, we will need to create the illusion that as we look at a ring, it appears to go over, then under, over, and under the other rings. To do this, SELECT the section of a ring that you want go under and click the DELETE button to remove this section.

The example below shows what your rings should now look like.

SELECT the segment that needs to go under and click DELETE.

The rings now appear to be interlocked. The only thing left to do is to get rid of the lines that separate the individual segments.

SELECT the segments that are adjacent to each other as in the example shown below.

Again, go to the PATHFINDER PALETTE, but this time, click on the MERGE button.

Continue to SELECT and MERGE the next set of segments.

Continue doing this until all segments are joined. Your interlocked rings should now look like the example below.

If you want your rings to have more of a three-dimensional look, Open the EFFECTS MENU and select DROP SHADOW.

In the DROP SHADOW DIALOG BOX make sure the PREVIEW box is checked. Adjust the settings until you are happy with the appearance of your design.

There you have it, I hope this tip has inspired you to think of inventive ways to use COMPOUND PATHS and the PATHFINDER PALETTE.

Creative CVs

2012-10-01T05:15:00.000-07:00

The importance of a resume cannot be over emphasised. Your resume is your surest channel of communication with a prospective employer. Given the number of resumes of potential candidates that a recruiter scans, the chances of your resume being overlooked are high.

THE CREATIVE ADVANTAGEEnter the creative CV: A resume that breaks the norms of regular, boring resumes. A creative CV, as the name suggests, is daring and different. It has spunk and personality. It will help you stand out, get noticed among the sea of resumes and get you noticed by a potential recruiter.

Explains HR manager Sheela Shetty, “We have to screen scores of resumes for every position. It’s just not humanly possible to pay specific attention to each application. So when we see a resume that’s different and stands out, it forces us to stop and give it a second look. Most often, we are intrigued and end up calling the candidate in for an interview. This is one of the cases where it pays to step away from the herd.”

The beauty of a creative CV is that it allows a candidate to display his/ her creativity, innovation and original thinking. “When applying to fields where creativity is something an employer is actively seeking in a recruit, the creative CV works fabulously. Say you’re applying to an advertising agency or media house. A creative CV shows prospective employers that you have put thought into your CV, and that you are serious and deeply passionate about the field,” explains Dennis Matthew, account planner with an advertising agency.

DO IT DIFFERENTLY So you’ve decided to make a creative CV—but don’t quite know how to go about it? You could start brainstorming keeping two things in mind. Firstly, what are your distinctive talents, interests or strengths? Secondly, what is the industry, profile or field you are applying for jobs in? Develop your CV based on this to ensure that it remains relevant at all levels.

Journalism student Priya Kejriwal, while applying for summer internship jobs, designed her CV to resemble the front page of a newspaper. “I had sent in my CV at several newspapers, but hadn’t received any response. I decided to try something different, and so came about the idea of a newspaper CV. It also gave me an opportunity to showcase my skills on designing software to potential recruiters. I’d say it paid to do something different because I received three interview calls after sending in my creative CV.”

There’s no dearth of ideas when it comes to making a CV that doesn’t follow standard formatting. The timeline approach is very popular—graphically depicting major educational and professional milestones. Multimedia CVs (popularised by Barney Stinson on the TV show How I Met Your Mother) are making waves as well. Right from building 3D models to placing resumes inside baked cakes (as a corporate folklore goes) the sky is the limit! Textile designer Ruchika Gupta printed her CV on a piece of fabric, instead of a boring sheet of white paper. She says, “I added a touch of embroidery on the borders as well. Using fabric allowed me to add an interesting yet relevant touch to my CV, without coming across as overly gimmicky or compromising on the content.”

KEEP IN MIND
While designing your creative CV, do keep certain points in mind. Creative CVs may not be appropriate for all companies, job profiles or industries. For example, a creative CV would be more appropriate for a job in advertising or media than in the banking and financial services sector. Make sure that being unconventional is acceptable in the field you are applying.

Ensure that the content of your CV is the most important thing—do not sacrifice content for the sake of design. A creative CV may attract attention, but it is the content in it that will get you that interview call—and ultimately, the job. Try not to go overboard in the name of creativity. Being bold is one thing, but being over-the-top or overly flashy will not help your cause. Remember, certain professional standards must be maintained. Finally, be practical—a three dimensional CV may be interesting, but will the company store or file it?

Take some time to review your CV and examine whether you can add an element of creativity. Dare to be different, and the rest will fall into place.
Source : education times

10 Killer Adobe Photoshop Tips For Designers

2012-09-29T04:42:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, if you’re using Photoshop to design website, you’re on the right path to become a successful web designer. This is simply because Photoshop is one of the most advanced tool in the design industry that can make your creative imagination comes true with its plethora of professional tools which boost your productivity at the same time.
But how well do you know about Photoshop? Sometimes we’re wondering why certain web designer can design a website layout with extremely heavy graphics in 5 days, while we need around 10 days to complete that kind of design. It’s probably not about how fast you can click, it’s about how well you know about Photoshop, how you gonna unlock its full potential to boost your productivity.

We want you to know how to unlock its full potential. Yes, that’s why we created this post, to provide you 10 extremely useful Photoshop tips to boost your design speed. There can be shortcut, feature or setting you don’t know about, but not anymore. With this article you gonna learn them all, and you will design faster, and faster.
Note: Shortcut keys mentioned in this article are in Windows Photoshop format. If you are using Mac, be sure to know that Ctrl = Cmd (Command) and Alt = Opt (Option).

10. Undo, More Undo Please

I totally believe that we designer are very addictive to undo something, even until when we made a mistake on sketching, we tend to ‘undo’ it.
Well as you might know by pressing Ctrl + Z in Photoshop you can undo the previous action you made, but when you press the same key combination again, it will redo the previous action. This is quite unnatural and troublesome as you always need to undo multiple times to get to the state you want.

Believe it or not, Photoshop has a specific button for multiple undo, and it is Alt + Ctrl + Z. Yes, by using this key combination you can undo multiple times, according to the value of History States you set in Edit > Preference > Performance.
If you’re used to common Undo’s key combination which is Ctrl + Z, you can simply press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + K to access Keyboard Shortcut panel and change Undo’s key combination under the Edit section to Ctrl + Z.

9. Sampling Color, anywhere!

Stumbled upon a nicely designed website and wondering which exact colors is it using? This happens very often when I’m seeking inspiration during the time I’m doing site layout in Photoshop. For me I will launch a color picker, pick the color and get its hex number, then click on the color palette in Photoshop, then input the hex number then get the color, pretty annoying isn’t it?

Well you don’t really need to suffer like that, you can actually just click on Eyedropper tool or pressing I to activate it, then click on the Photoshop’s work screen and drag the Eyedropper icon to anywhere on the monitor screen to get the color you want. Yeah, it’s really that easy.

8. Flexible Guide

Tip #8 is actually combination of 2 tips, I hope you don’t mind about getting more tips. As web designer we have to deal a lot with guide to position an element correctly, in other words is pixel perfect.
How do you create a guide? Click on View, New Guide then decide it’s horizontal or vertical guide, input its position and click Enter? Alright, you can save these works by just pressing Ctrl + R to activate the Ruler tool, click on the tool and drag it down to create a horizontal guide, or vice versa.

Besides instant guide creation, here’s another useful tip for you. While dragging a guide with Move tool which can be activated using V key, press and hold Alt key to change the horizontal guide to vertical guide, or vice versa. Now you can probably consider yourself as professional on using guide.

7. Fun Layer Style Cloning

Layer styles are very entertaining when you can just apply them to make, let’s say, a social media icon looks pretty charming and unique, but it will be very tiring if you want to apply same layer styles to all social media icons which usually come in multiple pieces.
Have you ever realized that there’s an fx icon beside your layer? Well everything exists for a reason, if you press Alt and drag the fx icon to another layer, it will copy first layer’s styles to the one you dragged to, convenient isn’t it?

Also if you are interested about the common use of that fx icon, it allows you to move a layer’s styles to another and all you need to do is simply drag the icon to another layer without pressing Alt key.

6. Element Centering Made Easy

In order to achieve a pixel perfect design, we oftenly have to position element to exactly where it should be. This seems easy as you can just create some guides and snap the element to those guides, but it will be daunting if you want to absolute center an element in certain area, which requires a lot of guides, measurement and focus.
In fact you have a way to make this entire process a lot more easier, click on the element’s layer which you want to absolute center, then press Ctrl + A to select the entire document. After that, fire the Move tool and you will see some icons beside the option, Show Transform Controls. Click on the 2nd icon to vertical center the element, then click on 5th icon to horizontal center the element, there you go, an absolute centered element.

You can not only absolute center the element in entire document’s area, but also absolute center it in certain area. Let’s say I want to absolute center an element in footer area, I can simply select the footer area by using the Selection tool which can be activated by pressing M key, then absolute center the element in that specific area.

You can study other alignment options beside the Show Transform Controls option, they are very useful for aligning your elements in a wide range of situations.

5. View Selection, One At A Time

Often in designing a layout you need to check how an element looks exactly by its own or by few elements, for example in website layout below, I want to check slider’s buttons to confirm that they do not have transparency so they look exactly the same with or without slider’s image.

In past I have to turn off the visibility of slider image’s layer, slider background’s layer and even content’s background layer, but now I can just simply hold down the Alt key, then click on the ‘eye’ icon beside the button group to turn off all layers’ visibility so that I only view those buttons. After I checked them, I can just repeat the trick again to bring all layers’ visbilibity back.
This trick is also extremely useful while it comes to image slicing. You want to slice slider’s button without any other element like slider image, so you can use this trick to turn off all layer’s visibility to just slice the button, then repeat the trick to recover all layer’s visibility so it saves a lot of time wasted on turn on and off layers’ visibility.

4. Customize Font’s Tracking, Anytime

This particular tip shows you how to increase the font’s tracking in certain part of the type easily, so it might only be used on certain specific situation like logo or button creation, but it’s a professional tip that can save lots of time on finding fonts with suitable typography for your logo or button creation.

Alright, let’s say I want to decrease the tracking of the type, ’360′ so my logo’s type looks unique that visitor remembers it easier. I can select ‘POLO360′ by using Type tool which can be activated by pressing T key, then hold down the Alt and press < button to start decreasing the type’s tracking, which will bring the result above.
You can use this trick to tackle tracking issue of some artistic fonts, so there’s no worries about tracking next time you want to find graphical fonts for your logo creation!

3. Instant Layer Selection = Win

Layout design is an exhausting job as we have to tackle lots of issues such as typography, spacing and graphic, but it will be overwhelming if we want to find a specific element’s layer from hundreds of layers.

Let this trick makes your designer’s life easier. Activate the Move tool using V key and hold down the Ctrl key, then click on the element and you will automatically select the element’s layer. It’s really that simple but keep in mind that if you put elements into a group, then by using the same trick you will be selecting the group’s folder that contains the element you clicked, as shown above.

2. Smart Object For Smart Designer

Just as its name, Smart Object makes your editing smarter by carrying out 2 primary functions: perform nondestructive transforms and perform filtering. This feature comes in very handy especially when you’re producing a site layout with heavy graphics like stock photos, social media icons and UI kits, and all you need to do is right click a layer, then click ‘Convert to Smart Object’ to enjoy its benefits.
The first function says that once a layer is converted into a Smart Object, you can transform it anyway you want without losing its original quality. In our case we want to make the image slider smaller so we convert image slider’s layers to Smart Object and transformed it into something smaller.

Ouch, it’s just too small so I decided to change it back.

Looks like everything’s okay and nothing happened right? Below is the result if you applied a backward transformation without converting layer to Smart Object.

So you can probably see the difference here, especially slider’s buttons part. The backward transformation without Smart Object applied on layers makes the slider and slider’s buttons lose their quality. So by converting a layer to Smart Object, you can transform it to any smaller size you want but once you regretted about your decision, you can change it back without losing quality.
Another benefit by converting layer into Smart Object is once you applied filter on a Smart Object, a filter’s layer will appear under the Smart Object’s layer so you can disable filter easier by just turn off the visibility of the filter’s layer, and that’s called nondestructive filtering, great time saver for your project.

1. A Snapshot Of Beautiful Past

Now you learned how to undo multiple times, copy layer styles, faster layer selection and using Smart object these great time saving tips. Well, these are really handy skills that greatly boosts your productivity but how about after 2 hour’s work, you regretted your editing and decided to start from the middle? Redo it completely will be very exhausting and boring even you applied all killer tips you learned before, so that’s when Snapshot kicks in.

Snapshot allows you to create a temporary copy of any state of your editing so when you have trouble on improving your design and decided to go back, you can simply click on a snapshot to bring you back to the state you desired. To take a snapshot, you just have to open History palette, and click on the 2nd icon you see on the bottom of the palette.
There are also some useful features for snapshot like you can take multiple snapshots so you have more choices and you can name them so you remember them easier. Ultimately you can also use these snapshots to compare different effects you created for your design.
However, be sure to remember that once you closed the document, snapshots will be deleted instantly so if you want to keep those states, you can click on each snapshot and save the document as another file.

THE FOUNDRY AND LUXOLOGY JOIN FORCES

2012-09-29T04:34:00.000-07:00

THE FOUNDRY AND LUXOLOGY JOIN FORCES

Combined group will provide a new avenue for computer graphics
production

London, 25th September 2012 – Leading visual effects software developer, The Foundry, today announced its merger with Luxology. The two companies are a great fit in terms of technology and markets. The combined portfolio will open doors to new ways of working, providing artists and designers with increased creative choice.

The Foundry with its stable of award-winning 2D and 3D VFX software, including industry standard compositor NUKE, sees Luxology’s complementary technology as a natural addition.

Luxology’s innovative 3D modelling and rendering technology and its flagship product, modo, are world class and favoured by thousands of artists and designers globally.

The collective product range is very exciting, but equally important is the shared ethos of the two companies and the staff within them. Both The Foundry and Luxology have strong reputations for being community driven and good collaborators. They are widely recognised for building tools around customer needs, providing artist-friendly workflows and great support.

This union will allow us to push the boundaries for our customers across a wide range of industries.

Bill Collis, CEO of The Foundry comments:
“We were impressed by modo's strong roots in a variety of markets - including VFX, design and games - and by Luxology’s focus on creating artist friendly, highly advanced technologies. Both comapnies are a great match for each other. The Foundry and Luxology's products are highly complementary, and we both like our products to be open and flexible, letting the customers choose how they want to work. In the short term we will be continuing to develop the interaction between our products, which will be of immediate benefit to all of our customers. We can’t wait to see what our combined experience and knowledge will allow us to build in the long term.”

Brad Peebler, President of Luxology comments:
“The Foundry has an impressive pedigree in the visual effects industry, where its products and attention to customers are second to none. Creative industries are converging in terms of media, quality and deliverables. Joining forces with The Foundry will allow us to accelerate the development of modo, ushering in a new era for our customers. We simply can not wait to leverage our combined strength to change the landscape for content creators everywhere.”

A year ago, at a chance meeting organised by ILM, John Knoll threw down the challenge of integrating products from both companies. This initially sparked the idea that the two companies could be a greater force together than apart and the merger idea snowballed from there.

John Knoll, Visual Effects Supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic comments:
“I am a big fan of both Luxology and The Foundry having been using modo for quite a while and KATANA here at ILM in the last 18 months. Their marriage is really exciting for the VFX community. Their combined technology and similar approach to working with customers is a very interesting development. I’ll definitely be keeping my eyes on them.”

About The Foundry
The Foundry is a world-leading innovator in visual effects technologies and is internationally renowned for its product design and collaborative approach. Founded in 1996, the company has established itself as a critical partner to major feature film studios and post production houses worldwide including The Mill, ILM, The Moving Picture Company, Walt Disney Animation, Weta Digital, Framestore, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Digital Domain.

The company's products have been used to create breathtaking effects sequences on a wide range of features, television projects and commercials. High profile examples include the 2012 Oscar® winners, "HUGO" (Best Visual Effects) and "Rango" (Best Animated Feature Film) as well as the EMMY award-winning "Boardwalk Empire."

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded a Sci-Tech Award® to The Foundry’s development team for the FURNACE image processing suite in 2007 – and the company now holds two products with AMPAS Sci-Tech Award® winning technology including high-end compositing system NUKE.

In 2011 The Foundry ranked 54th in The Sunday Times Tech Track (up three places from 2010), and debuted in both the Sunday Times International Track and the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 lists.

Backed by The Carlyle Group with a substantial portion still owned by the staff, The Foundry is run by its original management team.

© The Foundry, its logo and product names are registered trademarks in the UK, USA and/or other countries. Academy Award is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

About Luxology
Based in Mountain View, Calif., Luxology® LLC is a technology company developing nextgeneration 3D content creation software that enhances productivity via artist-friendly tools powered by a modern underlying architecture called Nexus®. Founded in 2001, by Allen Hastings, Stuart Ferguson and Brad Peebler, Luxology is home to some of the top 3D engineering expertise in the computer graphics industry.

Luxology’s modo is at the centre of an active global user community producing models, images and animations of the highest quality. Luxology’s rendering technology is under licence to Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corporation and Bentley Systems, Incorporated.

More information on the company, its licensable Nexus technology, its flagship product modo® and a gallery of images from the Luxology community is available online at www.luxology.com.

Relaxo VFX Making Starring Salman Khan by Futureworks India

2012-09-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

Seeing this ad being played on our television sets very often these days , pervades us up with our admiration for the Superstar and the Larger-than-life presence that he creates amongst everything around him… Yes , we are talking about the entertaining "RELAXO TVC" that features Salman Khan rescuing the ladies from dangerous situations ..

However , what we are unaware about is the VFX studio that has given the look that the TVC carries today and makes us fall in love with the commercial. FutureWorks Media Ltd. India is responsible for the magnificent VFX incorporated in the TVC. Founded in 2007 , FutureWorks provides state of the art post production services to television commercial and feature productions.

Futureworks India has been gracious enough to share with us the VFX Breakdown of the whole TVC and gain an insight into the challenges faced by them shooting for the ad.

Visual Computing Labs (VCL), a division of TATA ELXSI Ek Tha Tiger

2012-09-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

Visual Computing Labs (VCL), a division of TATA ELXSI, located in Mumbai has delivered 1300 VFX shots for YRF blockbuster Ek Tha Tiger which released last month. The Vfx was delivered using a customized pipeline designed for the complexity of these shots. Up to 60 skilled technical artists were deployed by VCL for this project, which was completed in a record six and a half month period. The entire duration of CG/VFX in the film spans over a 30 minute duration.
Presiding over the team were the Creative Director of VCL, Pankaj Khandpur and Vishal Anand, Visual Effects Supervisor at Visual Computing Labs (VCL).
Ek Tha Tiger is a romantic action thriller directed by Kabir Khan and produced by Aditya Chopra , Yash Raj Films. The movie stars Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif in the lead roles and Ranvir Shorey, Girish Karnad, Roshan Seth and Gavie Chahal in supporting roles. The movie marks the third collaboration of Kabir Khan with Yash Raj Films . This film also marks VCL’s 24th collaboration with Yash Raj Films.
Talking to AnimationXpress Ishpreet Chandock, about his experience working on Ek Tha Tiger, Pankaj Khandpur – Creative Director, VCL said, “We started working on the movie 7-8 months before the actual shoot started, where we did a pré viz of all the sequences as it was going to be an action packed film. There is alot of action sequences in the story shot across countries, such as Ireland, Turkey, Cuba and of course the last bit we have shot in Thailand which was supposed to be Cuba, so as it was a action oriented movie we were brought on very earlier into the scene.”
Kabir Khan, the director of the film wanted to pre viz all the action sequences before the movie went into production. So based on the director and action director’s brief we worked on the previs which was done shot by shot, sequence by sequence. We also had reference pictures of the locations it was supposed to be shot in, which gave us a very clear and detailed idea , and helped usmake iterations with clarity.
However we had to compensate for the certain things we hadn’t thought of, for instance for the dublin shoot , for the tram sequences, we had to create a CG tram , a lot of background in CG and all the sequences around the tram as the crew were not permitted to shoot certain shots, also, the shots on top of the tram are all simulated by various ways in CG just to make the sequence look larger than life.”
“The sequences at Cuba had a simple narration compared to Dublin, but we had to work on a lot of effects on the action sequences especially the climax, for the plane sequence, a CG plane had to be created , a lot of action also had to be simulated. So, in a nutshell we did around 1300 shots, which for such a feature film should have been around 2000 shots but we curbed it down with using a lot of CG work. Personally, this is arguably the biggest indian film which we have done so far.”
‘Ek Tha Tiger’ also marks VCL’s 24th collaboration with Yash Raj Films including films like ‘Dhoom 2’, ‘Hum Tum’,’Rab Ne Bana De Jodi’, ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ and the count just continues.
Sharing his thoughts about this long collaboration and his experience throughout these films, Pankaj Khandpur said” It has been a wonderful experience working with Yash Raj, the 24 films done by vcl just symbolize the same. We hope we create more magic together in the upcoming projects.”

VIEW Conference Unveils 2012 Highlights

2012-09-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to bringing together experts from around the world to inspire, engage, teach, and astound, VIEW, Italy’s leading computer graphics symposium, proudly announces highlights from its upcoming 13th annual confab.
“This is shaping up to be one of the most exciting VIEW conferences ever,” says conference director Maria Elena Gutierrez. “We are privileged to bring two feature film directors to Torino this year, Genndy Tartakovsky and Eric Darnell. Also, the European premiere of the Pixar Animation Studios latest short, Partysaurus Rex presented by its director Mark Walsh and also the amazing Gary Rydstrom from Skywalker Sound, and director Dan Attias who shares his award-winning expertise in broadcast television. Plus, we have highly-honored speakers from the top visual effects and game development studios. And, we are offering our first Creative Bootcamp. I couldn’t be more thrilled with the program this year.”
Presenting the Italian premier of footage from Sony Pictures Animation’s feature film Hotel Transylvania, Genndy Tartakovsky shares his experience directing this CG feature, his first. Tartakovsky has received 12 Emmy nominations and won three Emmys for his work in broadcast television, and in 2007, he received the Annie Awards’ Winsor McCay Award.
Writer/director Eric Darnell introduces VIEW to the wacky world of PDI/Dreamworks’ Madagascar 3, the third film that Darnell has directed in the series. The critically-acclaimed Madagascar 3 has now earned more than half a billion dollars at the box office. Dan Attias, one of the top television directors in America, has 65 titles to his name including episodes of The Killing, House, Raising Hope, and Alias. In addition to winning the Directors Guild of America award for The Wire, Dan Attias has received DGS nominations for Six Feet Under and The Sopranos, and Emmy nominations for Entourage.
This year, Skywalker Sound’s Gary Rydstrom, who joins the roster at VIEW for the first time, added sound design for Disney/Pixar’s Brave and Wreck-It-Ralph to credits that extend across 96 films and videos for which he has received a remarkable seven Oscars and 16 Oscar nominations. Gary Rydstrom received two Oscar nominations in 2012, for sound mixing and sound editing for Steven Spielberg’s War Horse.
In addition to these directors and sound designer, VIEW welcomes key artists from the visual effects studios behind films certain to be on the short list for 2013 visual effects Oscar.
Two-time Oscar nominee and Oscar winner (Inception) Paul Franklin, and one of the VIEW’s favorite speakers, is back to present the Double Negative’s work on Warner Bros.’ The Dark Knight Rises. Jason Smith, associate visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic, joins VIEW for the first time to present the digital effects in Paramount Pictures’ incredibly popular The Avengers, which has grossed $1.5 billion dollars at the box office. Animation supervisor David Schaub from Sony Pictures Imageworks, whose presentation on animation two years ago at VIEW ranks as one of the best ever, returns to soar through the studio’s work on Marvel Studios and Columbia Pictures’ The Amazing Spider-Man.
Also highlighting the conference are these can’t-miss speakers:
Josh Holmes, creative director of HALO, who will premiere HALO 4. Rex Grignon, head of animation at DreamWorks Animation. Mark Walsh, supervising animator at Pixar Animation Studios. Rob Bredow, CTO at Sony Pictures Imageworks. Chris Perry, founder of Bit Films, professor of media arts and sciences at Hampshire College, and a technical director for A Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo. Vander Caballero, creative director for Minority Independent Studio, and creator of the beutifully compelling PAPO Y YO. And, video game evangelist Marco Mazzaglia.
And, with an eye toward the use of digital technology in everyday life, VIEW 2012 launches the exciting and innovative VIEW CREATIVE BOOTCAMP.
In this multi-day event, participants will explore ways in which technology, society, economies and industries may evolve. The workshop will bring together leaders working in many industries to flex their creative powers. Together, they and the participants will design state-of-the–art cars, personal robots, miniscule medical equipment, smart running shoes, self-healing buildings, and, of course, future games and movies. Led by Glenn Entis co-founder of PDI, former chief visual officer for Electronic Arts, and now a founding partner in Vanage Capital, and Tom Wujec, Autodesk fellow and author of three books on innovation, the Creative Bootcamp promises to be a lively, interactive workshop that propels participants into new worlds of the future.
“With the Creative Bootcamp, we’re extending VIEW 2012 beyond entertainment into the real world in exciting new ways,” Gutierrez says. “It will be a wonderful adventure for the people who choose to attend.”
In addition to the speakers, VIEW 2012 again offers its extremely popular, practical workshops geared toward professionals and aspiring professionals who want to perfect their craft. A list of these workshops, which participants can reserve in advance, is on the VIEW conference website.
Preceding the VIEW conference, the annual VIEWFest, the Italian evolution of Resfest, features a screening of Disney/Pixar’s Nemo in stereo 3D, a compilation of Pixar Shorts, and the European premiere of Siggraph 2012’s Electronic Theater, a selection of the best short films, visual effects excerpts, scientific visualizations, game cinematics, and commercials.
“We are so fortunate to be able to bring such talented and highly-honored artists to Turin,” says Gutierrez. “I am grateful so many people are willing to help us continue building the best digital technology conference in Italy. They inspire me. I know they will inspire all the professionals and aspiring professionals who attend. I cannot wait for this conference to begin.”
VIEW Conference 2012 is made possible with the support of: Piedmont Region, Province of Turin, City of Turin, Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione CRT, Chamber of Commerce of Turin and Autodesk.
Registration is now open for the VIEW conference, which takes place October 16 to 19, and for VIEWFest, our digital movie festival following the VIEW Conference from 19 to 21 Oct. For more information, please visit our website
www.viewconference.it www.viewfest.it

20 Clever Uses of Stickers in Advertising

2012-08-28T01:19:00.004-07:00

Everybody loves stickers, right? You might not think about it often, but those cute little pieces of sticky paper that often feature an amusing message or supportive slogan are always a lot of fun. We love getting free stickers in magazines, in goody bags, or even at parties and events, but stickers can also mean serious business. Advertisers and brands are constantly thinking up original and creative ways to use stickers as part of their marketing campaigns, and a well-placed sticker can be some of the most powerful and effective forms of advertising out there. If they’re doing it right, you won’t even realise it’s an ad. So, with that in mind, we’ve done the leg work of trawling through the deepest and darkest depths of the internet to find the smartest use of stickers you will ever see. Join us on this most sticker-licious marathon!

Lays, or Walkers to us British folk, stuck a sticker on the ceiling of a subway, which gave the impression that potatoes were growing above commuter’s heads. This was to emphasise that the ingredients used are home grown as opposed to being outsourced on the cheap.

Kleenes – Got Flu?

During a flu epidemic, Kleenex added some rather off-putting stickers to soap dispensers in public bathrooms. Their aim was to highlight the fact that Kleenex tissues are a great way catch and kill the snot inducing virus.

Pedigree – Cat Food

Pedigree launched an advertising campaign that involved placing scented stickers on the floor outside of pet shops and supermarkets, to entice dogs and encourage their owners to purchase their dog food.

Batman Begins

To promote the launch of Batman Begins, stickers were place on the ground lights outside of cinema theatres, projecting his signal when the lights came on at night.

Tatto – Stickers on the Mirror

Thinking about getting a tattoo but hesitant to take the plunge? A New Zealand tattoo parlour stuck stickers on mirrors in rest and changing rooms so people can try before they buy.

Indavideo

Indavideó, Hungary’s equivalent to YouTube, partnered with Vodafone to advertise the launch of mobile internet. They placed stickers over bus windows, giving the impression that passengers were watching a video as the outside world passed them by.

Irish Pub – Hot Wings

Le Cactus restaurant and bar wanted to advertise their “Monday Hot Wings” on a shoe string budget, and came up with this ingenious vinyl to stick over the rear brake light.

Superman Movie

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope, it’s an awesome advertising stunt to promote the Super Man movie using vinyl stickers. This is sure to brighten up anyone’s morning on their way to work.

Jobs in Town

As part of their advertising campaign, a German job website added clever stickers to the side of coffee machines, ATM’s, laundry machines and juke boxes to emphasise the fact that life’s too short for the wrong job. The campaign was a huge success and drove vast amounts of traffic to their website.