The January 2012 Tutorial Discussion

[Big Frank]

I really, really like the style of the tutorial, it's not too fast, not too slow, you have an easy-to-listen-to voice and, above all, you make it interesting. I did a mini-tut a little while ago for a guy who wanted to know how to put images on the faces of a cube (http://xaradesigner.co.uk/3d-cube/) and, although superficially similar, what you have done here is greatly expand on that line of thought whilst explaining many neat tips and tricks (like creating bitmap copies of live effects to save resources) that are difficult to explain in a 2D tutorial without completely losing the thread. I like the style and am looking forward to seeing more of them. I've not been tempted to do video tutorials myself but I like watching them more and more and your latest one simply confirms this




EDIT: One thing I do when I create a bitmap copy of a live effect is, I make a live copy of the live effect, enlarge it substantially, then make the bitmap copy, then reduce the bitmap copy to the size of the original live effect. In this way, if I need to enlarge the drawing for a poster or for print, I have some leeway before the pixels show up.

[Albacore]

I liked the tut and the great way it was delivered, thanks Gary. Would it be rude of me to make comments about the look of the site? please say so as I will wait for a reply before I do anything.

[Gare]

Well, I guess you have some negative comments, or you wouldn't be asking if it would be rude to post them, right?

Fire away, by all means, Albacore: I know of one technical error so far, that my wife Barbara and I will take a whack at today. I'm anxious, as any real artist is, to learn from a difference of opinion, so yes, please post your critiqué right here.

Caveat: No part of this forum is a democracy, so if I disagree with your criticisms, I win.

My Best,

Gary

[Big Frank]

No part of this forum is a democracy, so if I disagree with your criticisms, I win.

Careful when you say things like that - some people will take you at your word

[Gare]

Sorry! That was my ham-handed way of saying, "I don't want negative criticism, and I believe it's my position as Moderator not to listen to any of it."

Which is of course utter rubbish, when viewed from the perspective of an adult.

But on the other hand, don't most of us retreat into a child-like mode when we are criticized?

Seriously, this is something to consider. We all realize we learn from mistakes, and at the same time we blush when we realize we've committed one in public. Some use denial as a defense, some apologize, but an inordinately small number of us do what we're supposed to do when critized: we learn, we get better by analyzing and correcting our foibles in the future.

That is why it's so very important to me to clarify some terms we all use daily, and to re-define their use on the forum:

•Criticism-The accurate appraisal of a body of work. That's the classical definition and it works much better for me than, "to knock someone, or their work." There's really no such this as 'negative criticism', except for the critic to fail to accurately appraise something. Movie critics, by and large, are not that: they're insecure, failed movie directors that get their jollies by bashing real directors.

I'm open to criticism in the classical sense.

•Opinion-Noun, classically defined as a personal pronouncement backed by some sort of facts, although mostly a statement delivered with passion. How many times do people begin a post with, "In my opinion..."? When it is instead a feeling, an emotional response backed by total fiction, or just an uneducated impression. I'm not singling anyone out on the forum, nor in New York, nor on Earth. It's just a personal bug; I'd like to see opinions put forth as opinions, and emotionally-charged impressions called "feelings", and not "opinions".

My two cents,

Gary

[Gare]

I really, really like the style of the tutorial, it's not too fast, not too slow

I'm inclined to keep doing tutorials as videos, because 1.) Someone like you tells me you like them, and I have a lot of respect for you as a fellow artist 2.) They're not all that hard to produce, not when I have the software and use cameras and stuff professionally almost every day, and 3.) this one took 2 days on and off, from concept to finished video, while a written one can take much longer, and I'm not always as focused when I write!

As far as bitmap copying goes, I caution you and all members. The Deal is: bitmaps are resolution-dependent. Okay WTH (what the heck) does this mean? It means that bitmaps can become distorted and lose their focus if you resample them by enlargeing them. When you create a bitmap from vector artwork, you've declared a finite number of pixels that make up the bitmap and the information presented to you visually is fixed, you can't add or subtract pixels to the design itself without resampling (blurring) it.

This is a hard concept to explain and if there's interest, I might feature a video on the prinicple because I devoted several (like 20) pages to this in a Photoshop book I wrote ages ago, and it's still a relevant topic.

Mathematically, you can resize a vector object with no loss to detail because vector artwork has no fixed resolution.
A small bitmap photo might be 300 by 300 pixels by 96 pixels/inch. And if you resample it to 600 by 600 pixels by 96 pixels/inch, you've distorted original bitmap features and details in the picture, and unless you do a Ctrl+Z, you've permanently messed up the bitmap.

Proof for Xaraists: import a bitmap and look at the resoluition in the lower left of the UI when it's selected. Now scale it. As dimensions increase, resolution decreases.

This means Xara does not by default resample imported bitmaps. You haven't changed the number of pixels in it.

And generally, you shouldn't try to up-sample bitmaps, because aside from one or two expensive software programs that partially produce this impossible feat, there's no mathematically sound way to increase size or detail in bitmap graphics. Adobe is doing some experimental stuff on smart filters that refocus data and there's the Lytro camera that doesn't take focus data so there's nothing to blur the original image, but other than that, for us mortals with Xara today, upscaling bitmaps degrades your work, end of line.

Does this make sense for you in your work?

My Best,

Gary

[zaphodeist]

I'm not too fond of video tutorials as a rule, but this one is so well produced, thought out, presented etc that I like it! Refreshing. Mind you, that's the kind of thing I expected of you Gary

[Gare]

Hi John—

Although I have indeed learned in the past from video tutorials, I think as The Bard of Avon said, "The play's the thing." It's really the content, and less so these days the delivery method. I'm comfortable doing video, I've been producing video both analog and digital since 1978, and hopefully I don't get so tone deaf I lose "the play" to interesting, pop culture technology.

I'm expecting next month's tutorial to be delivered in video as well, because there's an issue about it that demands video. But I don't know; as the months pass, I might defer to the printed word—I also have some experience writing tutorial-littered books.

My Best,

—Gary

[angelize]

I did learn a trick or two from your tutorial Gary, and I will be playing around later with some of the other shapes. Using the diffuse on the shadow was something I hadn't thought of before and something I will be experimenting with more. I have to say too that your tutorial has inspired me to keep on working to improve my own video tutorials. I find that I wind up doing a few takes for each section of my tutorials as it's often hard for me to find a quiet time to do the screencasting. I often get interrupted by the dog, the phone, etc. and have to edit things out and splice clips together. luckily I have found a video editor I like and am finding it easy to learn.

[Gare]

I wish you luck with the video, Frances. It's daunting, but rewarding.

Me, I'd have had serious reservations about mounting an HD video were it not for the hardware that's either been donated to me or I've popped for like a good mic, and then there's the software. Camtasia is only the beginning: I also used audio and video sweetening (some MAGIX and some Adobe products) to make the thing tight.

There's "content" and there's "presentation", two things to worry about, you know?

But I love what you did with the dodecahedron.

My Best,

—g