K-mort

[perezoso]

Father Francisco Zappicus



la vibora roja

[Doreen Peri]

I enjoy looking at and creating digital art, myself.

Are these your pieces? Did you create these?

Very nice.

If so, what application did you use to create the animated gif? Just curious. I'm just now learning to create them.

[perezoso]

Yeah, they are mine. I use Micrographix to tweak photos and graphics ( as in first two) and a math software program called Maple ( that how's I did the animation ---a sine function set to polar coordinates and exported as .gif file) which will animate 2d ans 3d plots. I have a java-jdk console too and have the source and HTML animation of "party animal' ( a series of inverted, filtered images) but the applets won't export right onto blogs...you have any suggestions? I have photoshop too but its sorta lame. But Paint is the f-in worst.



This is an example of what Micrographix's effects panel can do. (I took a graphic of a "hindu jesus," tweaked colors a few times, then run through a few filters.....now if those steps could only be animated..actually they can but it's a bitch to write the java code. Another way to animate is simply to scan images (photos, graphics, cut up shapes, whatever) and then create a sequence with them. Thats how a lot of java types do it--no cameras, no video, all the editing done by code--but anything long will take megaspace and require mega source.

I think animation--combining narrative with constructed imagery--is still a very viable art form and juvenile crap like South Park and the Simpsons have just scratched the surface.

[Doreen Peri]

No, no ideas, sorry.

Interesting.... At first, when I hit this thread, your animated gif was working fine. Second time I hit it, it's not working at all. Hmmm...

I'm not familiar with those apps... I use Photoshop, primarily, for image manipulation and filters but I also have Fireworks and use that from time to time.

I just downloaded two apps the other day for creating animated gifs.... Gifbuilder and Headline Studio. (Not sure if these are only for Mac or not. I use Mac.)

I've never used Paint before. Is hat a Microsoft product? I hate Microsoft products. The only one I use is Explorer. If I have to create a Word file for work, I cringe. It's a god awful application.

[perezoso]

Yeah I hate most of the stock Microsoft apps. too; though you can tweak Windows XP, customize it, hot rod it. Word is not so bad after you learn how to use it--I much prefer it to Word Perfect or most of the others. You just have to snuff the little animated paper clip and doggie. Gates may be a scumbag and Microsoft tyrannical, but Macs are so pricey and I think overrated, slow, though they are cool for graphics. I don't think FrontPage is as bad as the Mac geeks say it is, f you add a lot of clips and flash, applets. etc. Im not paying 450 -500 bucks for Dreamweaver or Fusion just to get some cool movie-fades or whatever they offer. Really you can do decent stuff just with HTML.

Micrographix was popular about 5-6 years ago-- now I don't see it but the effects panel are way cool. I guess photoshop will do those things as well but I don't enjoy the Kodak--snapshot quality of the whole thing. For home built, low budget animation I think java is the way to go, but you have do the programming...or get scripts and tweak them a lot (but you have to know what to tweak). Or you could get out a Super 8 and draw what 24 images for each second of projector time.....

[Doreen Peri]

Word is so cumbersome, I hate to touch the damn thing. It's a memory hog and is packed with tools nobody needs. For page layout, I use Quark. For typing, I just open a text window. Who needs more than that?

I sprung for Dreamweaver because designing websites is part of my bread and butter so the first site I designed, paid for it. I've never used FrontPage, but it's probably similar to Dreamweaver. All of those apps that write the code for you don't really work well. You ALWAYS have to go into the code and fix it.

I was a Mac lover for years. Now, they aren't Macs any more. I could kick Steve Jobs' ass. He screwed everything up. OSX is a Unix based system. Everything has changed. I installed it on one computer because I HAVE to move forward because they aren't going backward, but I stay away from that computer as much as possible and work on system 9 on the other one most of the time. Eventually, I'll have to upgrade this machine to OSX and upgrade ALL of my applications to OSX compatible. I'm talking thousands of dollars. Illustrator. Quark. Photoshop. Dreamweaver. Flash. All of them. Do you have Steve Jobs' address? I'd like to pay him a visit and shake him.... what the fuck was he THINKING?

I'm dying to have the time to learn Flash. I think Flash is a fabulous application. I learned the basics at one point but I haven't touched it in so long, it will be like starting over but it's a very powerful application. I want to do Spoken Word films.... add my own music and effects.... have vocal tracks, music tracks, visual tracks and words dancing on the page. It will be fun once I find the time to fit it in. I also want to get Final Cut Pro.

One thing I do NOT want to learn is programming. I hate it when I have to go into the code and fix a frigging html page. Hate it with a passion. I'm pissed that in order to be an artist these days, you have to be a techie.

Maybe I should pick up my watercolors and pastels and pen & ink and pencils and give all this computer shit up. Sometimes I want to throw the damn thing out the window.

[perezoso]

I haven't used the Macs much except for an IMAC (which will run MS apps.) and an old Apple, which caused my dislike of Apple/Mac. I have heard of OSX and know a few UNIX commands (lot like DOS) and I guess the Mac guys are the hip "techies" but I just go with Win. since I've been using Win 98 to XP Pro, though I do feel guilty, especially around norteños. But Macs/Powerbooks/IMACs are sooo expensive. For the price of a standard mac (what $2000?) I could build a monster box.

Yes its exhausting and the code is tedious and not sexy but its interesting when you see how the classes, objects, and variables work. Or at least i think it is. I am a reluctant techie, but I still believe the Net and computing can be used for benevolent and creative purposes, but it's overwhelming. And call me a bit of post-modernist, but so much "art" and "great" literature is dull and overrated. I look at great paintings and think man if that was just animated.....they just sit there. I d rather watch Bugs Bunny or read PK Dick than look at Van Gogh or read the Wasteland. I gotta go for a while-- nice chatting with you.