February 2013 Guest Tips and Tricks - Making Surreal Backgrounds with Xara Fractals

[Gare]

@Dave—

Just make sure you don't get your butt kicked out of Best Buy (otherwise known as the Showroom for Newegg.com) by recommending Xara when they have MyFirstDrawingProgram on sale there for $29!

It's not so much "commercialism" as it is "evangelism", which every company puts out for these days, especially Adobe Systems.

In a tough economy (and I suppose this is preaching, sorry!) folks like us who use graphics software take a hit just like everyone else does in other segments of the economy when a "Little Guy" fails, disappears. I'm not ashamed in the least to say that when I need something for around the house, I'll go to K-Mart first. Why? Because if K-Mart tanks (and it looks as though Sears might go first), it cuts down on the selection one has to comparison shop. ultimately, we help create a monopolistic atmosphere in the market place when we spend in a casual fashion, when in reality, value and savings are more important than ever.

To bring it home, I think Xara has to survive as a software vendor if we are to enjoy diversity in tools in the years to come. Oh, yeah, it's a terrific product, too (!), but it's a pretty well-marked path between action and reaction when we patronize and support by recommendation a product we need and use.

To get this thread back on track and to let me to put my public address system back in the box, I'm attaching a Xara file with four bitmap textures inside, and they seamlessly tile, so there is no reason why you can't treat them in a composition just like a fractal fill. The only real difference is that fractal patterns generated inside of Xara Designer result in a saved Xara file that is very small.



Look at the last page in this document and see how in stages I distorted and bumped on texture, then saved as a bitmap copy so I could continue the fun, and the result I think is an interesting rough sidewalk sort of look.

My Best,

Gary