Saturday, August 31, 2013

Blender's Quick Explode








This was an experiment with one of Blender's "quick effects" - Quick Explode

this can be found under Object/Quick Effects/Quick Explode.



It works out of the box.. you may just need to set the start and end times to integrate with your animation. here i've also modified the brownian motion value, and gravity. tweaking more of the random features would have reduced the number of parallel moving particles.. and made it more realistic .

I also left the propeller pods intact and just manually animated them spiralling away from the exploding mass. One can then make them explode separately at will



the aircraft is my own quick design.. click the image below to see it 



and here's a variation on that aircraft ..click the image below to see it 


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Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Refreshingly different Zombie game

Have played a few zombie games.. this one is brilliant in terms of gameplay.



get it here



If your a fan of fruit ninja and other rapid swiping games, you can adapt those skills to a new gameplay.. here instead of slashing stuff, you have to avoid this severed zombie hand(all in gruesome 3d)! while you avoid the hand your racing against time.. so do pick up the glowy things.. they add time to the clock so you can keep playing.



The gameplay is actually quite easy to pickup and fun to play again and again.

The intro sequence needs some polish, but the game makes up for it in spades.



My honest scores for this game:



Gameplay:✩✩✩✩✩

Game Graphics:✩✩✩✩✩ that severed hand is just awesome.

Sound:✩✩✩★★

Intro:✩✩★★★



Note: i played it on my ageing Acer Iconia A500, it ran pretty smoothly.



via Inaccessible is Accessible http://my.opera.com/chaitanyak/blog/show.dml/86227232

Finished 5 books of A Song Of Ice And Fire

Am finally all caught up on George R R Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire. ...HBO can no longer shock me with cliffhangers and random deaths anymore.



Had planned on reading it ever since i watched the first episode and learnt that the show leaves out a ton of stuff that happens in the book.



I also already had one of the issues of The Hedge Knight Graphic Novel.



The problem was the pricing.. even the paperbacks were so expensive. Then one day at a bookstore i saw people crowding around a pile of collector's sets that had all 4 books.. so i was also tempted to buy it.



A quick and prudent bit of research on my phone and wikipedia, told me that there were 3 more books as yet unreleased.. so some of these fans lining up to buy the "collector's edition" were basically in for a dreadful shock.



Eventually though i found it available as digital Kindle downloads(at a fraction of the price).. and when it went on sale in July i picked up the Kindle versions of the first 4 books.. got the 5th a few weeks back.. and just finished reading it earlier today.



And i did it all on my phone and tablet(kindle's handy android app) :) saving tons of cash in the process.





Managed to get the first 4 books

A Game of Thrones

A Clash of Kings

A Storm of Swords

A Feast for Crows




as a set for INR 274.71

(costs INR 2,313.47 in print. even the digital version now costs Rs. 1,576.84)



You can get it here.



Got the 5th book A Dance With Dragons

for INR 502.45

(price fluctuates, you may now get it for lower. but the print version is still expensive)



You can get it here.



Now waiting for The Winds Of Winter (tentatively planned for release in 2014.) & A Dream Of Spring to release.



So do i recommend reading the books?

YES!!

No offence to HBO or fans (who think the show is perfect), but i feel the creators of the show are more interested in shocking the viewer with graphic sex and violence than actually delivering enough of the actual story.. which is why its taken 3 seasons to get to the middle of the 3rd book! That said the series is pretty well made and i will keep watching. Its fun to see all the characters in the book come to life on screen.. especially with the stellar cast. And i'm a big fan of the vfx enhanced direwolves in the show












ok am generally a fan of creature vfx and cg work








however if you don't like waiting 7-9 months between seasons that end in jaw dropping cliffhangers, just read the book. GRRM's writing makes for swift reading.. and reading it in the kindle app(synced across multiple devices) was a joy.



Tips: on the small screen of the phone i found that scaling up the font to max made for easier and faster reading, with no strain on the eyes. Infact i then went to the tablet and made the font bigger there as well.



via Inaccessible is Accessible http://my.opera.com/chaitanyak/blog/show.dml/86222612

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Russian Doll Mod


Had picked up this set of russian doll(Matryoshka doll) knock offs from a trip to Channapatna a few years back..



The quality was not so great.. and the enamel was a bit chipped


So anyway i recently saw a cool image on facebook.. someone had painted their set..

It seemed like a simple and fun thing to do.

To here's my version of it:



I used automotive paint for the basecoat..

Painted the lighter shades first.. am using acrylic paints.

Drew the details with markers.. I used to paint this, but you get decent paint markers now.





Need to drop into the nearest Channapatna handy-crafts place and pick up more of these cheap knock-offs to mod.


via Inaccessible is Accessible http://my.opera.com/chaitanyak/blog/show.dml/82578202







Monday, August 5, 2013

Adobe Hates Android Artists

Adobe has withdrawn the Ideas app from the Android Play Store.



According to the official blog post(December 20, 2012), they will only be developing the IOS versions for now.



Sad news for us Android users yes. however don't lose hope.. You can still google and download the apk file(from alternate sources) and manually install it(should work on anything with Android 4.0 or newer).



For an alternative that is actually a lot better, check out my comparison of Ideas with Infinite Design here.



unlike Ideas, this one has a lot more features and a fairly decent tablet ui as well..a bit cluttered compared to Ideas, but more intuitive.

Key Features:

-Infinite canvas (pan, zoom, or rotate)

-Infinite layers and unique layer options: Split, Merge, Flip, Duplicate, and the ability to apply a perspective transformation to a layer.

-Carefully designed brushes to ensure optimal workflow on the go.

-Five types of symmetry: X-Axis, Y-Axis, Arbitrary Angle, Radial, and Kaleidoscopic.

-Infinite undo/redo system.

-Import images.

-Special Effects include four types of blurring, inner or outer shadowing, and embossing.

-A fluid interface designed for fluidity and fully optimized for touchscreen devices.

-Save as JPEG or PNG (with background or without background).

-Export to SVG for editing in your favorite graphics editor. Tested and works in Adobe Illustrator and Inkscape.





Note: now that Ideas is no longer available on Android, Infinite Design is now the best vector drawing tool on the platform. other alternatives worth a try are Scribmaster and Vector Artist


.. if your only looking to output hi rez art and not particularly looking for a vector solution,



Autodesk® SketchBook® Ink is pretty good. Its like Sketchbook pro, except that it uses a resolution independent engine. This allows you to export your raster artwork to 8000x12800pixels (102.4Mpx).



via Inaccessible is Accessible http://my.opera.com/chaitanyak/blog/show.dml/80694412