The January 2012 Tutorial Discussion

[Gare]

You did good, Harry, especially if you didn't use the template I offered.

I enjoy it when readers/viewers/user-artists riff on a principle. Admittedly, I'm not sure how many different situations building a twelve-sided objects would be called for, but that wasn't the entire point of the "assignment". I wanted to show what makes 3D: the geometry is the simple stuff; lighting, perspective, texture...these elements make or break any composition that wants to be photorealisitic in execution.

People tend not to feel indifferent about video tutorials: we love them or hate them, and I've been delivering tutes both ways for years, with inconclusive general preferences.

I have been reprimanded for the pace, and promise to slow it down in future video tutorials! Part of it was deliberate and the rest problematic, because I had to synch the audio to the video—I don't use a lavalier while I'm cursoring, everything is post production.

I do appreciate your input, because at the opposite extreme, I've seen tutorials that were delivered like Vermont maple syrup in December. We do live at an accelerated pace these days, particularly on the web, and I was honestly afraid of boring people.

I'd like to hear from entry level users, too, Harry. I'm a little ham-strung (here I go apologizing again) with respect to level of experience and anything I might teach. Consider this: On one hand, Gary Priester has been providing tutorials on The Xara Xone for a staggering 15 years. One might expect that there's nothing left to teach! I don't have the time to pore through every single tutorial posted in 15 years, or I'd be a much older, wiser man, and that's not my charge. So I've taken what I feel is a safe route and I'm simply teaching what interests me, myself.

If it's over too many heads, I'd ask that these heads let me know right here.

Also, I'm going to try to write a featurette each month in the "Tips and Tricks" area. Not a continuation of the single paragraph Tips Gary P. has been writing, because I think he's covered all of the short ones! Expect these monthlies to be longer and geared toward the less skilled artist/user.

Appreciate your comments, Harry,
—Gary

[Gare]

Here's my attempt.

Rik, you did a totally commendable job!

If I didn't already realize your talents, I'd suspect you copied MY finished dodecahedron from the file I offer for download!

Well done, indeed! What did you learn, what do you think was missing from the tutorial?

-g-

[stygg2003]

Here's my attempt, although just followed the vid. and not anything fancy so to speak, the power and "blast" of your vid. sort a made you learn and I did learn a few things. I enjoyed the tut. very much. Will try some of the other shapes later.

Cheers, Stygg

[Gare]

In many respects, your finished dodecahedron looks a lot better than mine, stygg!

I'm happy to hear that you learned a few things, to boot. It's always refreshing to see someone use a unique texture or approach or just riff on the tutorial per se. Yeah, you can learn from duplicating the work of others, but you can have fun, and really call it your own work when you understand and then improvise.

Em, is there anything specific you'd like to cite that you learned in principal by doing? I'd like to repeat anything that's positively received in the future!

My Best,

Gary

[stygg2003]

If one thing stands out I learned from then It was using Bitmap fills. By that I meam the way you applied it for the shadow, I would never have thought of that coupled with the diffuse live effect. Come to think of it, I don't use many Bitmap fills at all but I can see now they could be put to many uses with being able to change the texture, colour and shade with live effects without my computer going into egg timer oblivion! and then lose all the work I have done, another

Cheers, look forward to more of the same, Stygg

[MarcT]

Nice tutorial Gary, you make it entertaining as a bonus!
When do we get your guitar solos in the tutorials?

The video format is nice as you can navigate easily back to the parts you haven't understand.

I never took the time to play with it the emboss effect, I realized it's a well executed function.

I tend to use shape intersection more often than clipview, just because I find it easier to have the final shape on top.

Thanks for the hard work!!

Marc

[Gare]

Nice tutorial Gary...When do we get your guitar solos in the tutorials?

Hey, Marc! What's been shakin' except snow up there?

I finally got the parts I needed to build a dedicated recording studio PC in one of our spare rooms, so I expect I'll have a tutorial on how to shred through "Canon Rock" with the Shape Editor Tool (in F#, the shortcut is F4) real soon.

Everyone is a rock star with Xara, aren't we?



The only reservation I have about intersecting bitmaps is that I usually have the Show Fill Edit handles turned on, don't bother going up and turning them off, and after intersection, the handles get in my ways moving and editing. There are more subtle advantages to clipping over intersecting, but happily we have oodles of creative options, eh?

My Best,

Gary

[Gare]

...without my computer going into egg timer oblivion! and then lose all the work I have done, another

I learned and used the "trick" of making a bitmap copy of largish bitmaps that have any Live Effect attached when I did a candy cane illustration two years ago for Gary Priester's end-of-year Show. I had a really nice, diffuse snow field the canes were sticking into, and even with a Quad Core at the time, my machine was melting down because of the processing overhead involved in holding the effect as a dynamic one. My personal lesson was/is: when you're certain you have an effect the way you want it, it doesn't have to be dynamic (editable, reversible) any longer.

If you or anyone else is interested in a collection I've made of seamless tiling fills (not precisely suitable for Emboss, but still interesting, I put some up on TalkGraphics about a year ago:some of Bouton's seamless tiles.

I encourage experimentation.
I encourage taking artistic risks.
I encourage large, non-sequentially numbered bills in an unmarked bag at my doorstep.

My Best,
Gary

[David O'Neil]

I learned and used the "trick" of making a bitmap copy of largish bitmaps that have any Live Effect attached when...

If you think you may play more in the future, you can always keep the original objects on a hidden layer, only showing the bitmap copy, and the same processor free-up is achieved. May also be useful for star fields and other traditional-drawing like uses which have lots of brush work on them - when processor starts crunching create a high-resolution transparent bitmap copy of that portion, hide or delete the originals, and continue on.

Best wishes,
David

PS - your changes are fantastic! Nice WordPress work!

[stygg2003]

Just playing around with this shape but I liked this particular stage, complete with lines so I hope you don't mind me posting it.

Stygg