Fake Model Photography

I just found a great tutorial that shows you how to manipulate ordinary scenery in Photoshop to make it look as though it were a photo of an architectural model, or landscape of miniatures. I followed the tutorial to adjust this photograph I took atop a tower at Mt Auburn Cemetery. The principles underlying the tutorial's photomanipulations are those of tilt-shift photography. You can click on the photo to view it full size, and if you want to see more images created using this technique, see this flickr pool dedicated to the subject (I swear, there's a flickr pool for everything).

UPDATE: I've given three more of my photos the "fake miniature" treatment. You can see them all in my tilt-shift miniature fakes photoset at flickr.

Tags: tilt-shift photography | photoshop tutorials

A Babe in the Hand...

Camille Allen's miniatures are so convincing that I can almost hear them gurgling, gooing, or whatever that sound is that babies make. This woman is the queen of polymer clay as far as I'm concerned. You can see more of her amazing offspring here and here.

Tags: camille allen | miniatures | amazing art

I Found Found!

I just stumbled upon Found Magazine, an interesting 'zine that collects and publishes found photos, notes, love letters, cards, or any other detritus revealing a slice of life. Apparently, the initial inspriation for the project came when found-er Davy Rothbart discovered an angry note, intended for someone else, on the windshield of his car. You can see some of the great "finds" online at the magazine's website. This 'zine is somewhat reminiscent of the also popular PostSecret.

Tags: zines | creative recycling

The Green Dudes Walk!

I've taken my first ever walk cycle, turned it into a sprite, and using Maya dynamics and a few simple expressions, now have multiple green dudes walking across a hilly nurbscape. Too much fun.

Tags: 3d animation | london ontario

Flickr Color Browsers by Krazydad

This morning I saw a cool image pop up in my Flickr zeitgeist chicklet which led me to the flickr squared circle pool. Curious about this class of images, I did a quick google for "squared circle", which turned up Krazydad's Squared Circle Colr Pickr. Krazydad has also created several other interesting color pickrs: Color Fields, Flowers, Crayon Box, Graffiti, Flickr Central, Doors and Windows, Macro, Textures, Urban Decay, Catchy Colors, Stock Repository, and JPG Magazine.

Tags: flickr apps

Pixie Dust!

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I've been experimenting with Maya dynamics, specifically hardware rendering. In an act of saccharin sentimentality, I've applied pixie dust to my beloved siamese cat's kitten photo. Well, he's magical, isn't he?

Tags: particle systems | 3d animation | london ontario

Proce55ing 1.08 Beta Released

I recently got an e-mail alert that processing 1.08 has been released. It's nice to be reminded about the vibrant community of processing geeks who enjoy doodling with code. I also see that Tom Carden and Karsten Schmidt have started a processing hacks wiki. I'll be keeping an eye on that.

Tags: proce55ing | digital art | computer generated art

Demonic Tots & Disturbing Cuisine

Plan59's stylish gallery turns the viewer away from both food and reproduction in one masterful stroke -- a cure for obesity and overpopulation at last! Just force overweight or brooding members of the population to feast their eyes on this and they'll think twice about acting on their impulses.

Tags: vintage ads

Bento Madness

Now, why didn't my mother ever pack me a lunch like this? (be sure to check out all ten bento-rific pages). Truly, an artform.



Tags: bento | food art

Colliding Galaxies

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Wow, highend3d.com has some really great mel scripts. I recently created this video by merging a couple of scripts I found there. I also added a couple of my own simple shading networks to the galaxy clouds (consisting of a particle cloud volumetric material fed by a couple of circular ramps to define color and transparency). The starfield isn't too visible in the reduced size video, but if you look really hard you can make it out in the background :-)

Tags: 3d animation | london ontario

Fur Real?

So, I'm watching Totally Spies over my McDonald's breakfast this morning, fast forwarding through the ads, and... WTF?! Stop. Must take closer look. It's the Fur Real Friends Cuddle Chimp! Some toy designer at Hasbro is having way too much fun.

...and in other animatronic weirdness, bask in the not-so-subtle-symbolism as Japanese performance artist Momoyo Torimitsu's businessman robot takes a crawl through downtown Sydney:



I think Momoyo Torimitsu should creatively juxtapose Cuddle Chimps and businessmen in her next piece :-)

Tags: crack smoking toy designers | toys | crazy toys | hasbro | animatronics | performance art

HDR Video

Since the release of Photoshop CS2's new "Merge to HDR" feature, there has been a lot of buzz about HDR photography. So, naturally, I've gotten curious and have been tinkering with HDRShop, Photoshop CS2's HDR, and PhotoMatix, all of which do the job of merging and tonemapping multiple exposures to extend dynamic range. Playing with HDR photography got me thinking about how great it would be to apply this technique to digital video, a medium that also suffers from reduced dynamic range. Why not shoot your N frames per second of video at N/(2 or 3) fps bracketing each exposure, then merge and tonemap the bracketed shots? Or, shoot at 2 or 3 times the frame rate bracketing each shot? Voilà! HDR video! Such an obvious idea that someone's already done it, right? Right. So I went looking for who has. My search led to one group at Microsoft Research who've written this article, and published this interesting proof of concept video. I also found this article describing a prototype split aperture camera designed for acquiring sequences of bracketed images. This seems like a better approach than trying to vary the shutter speed of an OTS camera frame-by-frame as described in this paper by Simon Hoffmann. Hoffmann put together such a system using a JAI CV-S3300 that suffered such slow control over camera shutter speed that it output a poor one frame per second HDR video stream! Not exactly a prototype I'm dying to reproduce!

Tags: hdr video | hdr photography | hdri

HAL: Hydrogen Alpha Filter?!

I just had an epiphany while browsing the flickr astronomy pool. Let me preface what I'm about to say with the admission that I only saw 2001: A Space Odyssey once in the theatre when I was around ten or eleven years old. I should really see it again, because my primary memory of it is that it is long and ponderous (which it probably was for a ten year old!), but I digress. The pictures that caught my eye at flickr were these solar eclipse photos taken by mosmi and Coffee Lover:








Now, I'm sure some SF geek will say, "duh" to the following observation, but it strikes me that these images are strikingly similar to our friend HAL from 2001:








Moreover, these flickr images are taken with a special Hydrogen ALpha filter. A HAL? Coincidence? I think not. Additionally deep, is the fact that this hydrogen alpha filter allows us to stare into the sun without harming our vision. Perhaps with a false sense of security? If I could remember more of the film, I'm sure I could ramble on about the significance of the solar eclipse as well ;-)

I think Kubrick, or whoever was responsible for the visual design of HAL for the film, was a genius. I don't dispute any initial intended definition of the acronym that Arthur C Clarke may have had (his apparently being Heuristically programmed Algorithmic computer), just saying that the special effects on this film were cleverly chosen.

Tags: kubrick | 2001 a space odyssey | flickr | flickr pools

Cool Photography Hacks

Just wanted to make a note of a couple of interesting photography sites. The first, is Scott Haefner's 360° panorama howto. He uses a kite rig and fisheye lens to create some incredible bubble panoramas, some of which can be seen here. The second site is Adrian Hanft's Found Photography Blog where he describes constructing 35mm and medium format lego pinhole cameras (among other cool things). Hanft's gallery of beautiful pinhole images can be seen here.

Tags: 360 panorama | lego pinhole | pinhole photography

Quest for Jade

After modelling this frog, I got the crazy idea it'd be nice to throw a jade shader on it. Consequently, I've been experimenting with subsurface scattering for a couple of days. It's really time to let go now, or I might tweak myself into a coma. Here are some results:



Biggest lesson learned? Check your normals. It's my new mantra.

Tags: 3d modelling | london ontario

Flickr Pools

In between renders today, I've been amusing myself finding interesting flickr pools. Here are some I've been browsing: macro, camera toss, pinhole, high speed, polaroid transfers, longexposure, hdr, fisheye, lensbaby, night lights, big things, waterdrops, bubbles, flames, glass, reflections, moleskinerie, industrial decay, graffiti, and pop art.

Tags: flickr | flickr pools

LED Throwies

You've gotta love guerrilla art. Well, you don't, but I do. Graffiti Research Lab has invented the LED throwie, a creative way to "add color to ferromagnetic surfaces in your neighborhood". If you want to hurl throwies around your world, Instructables has a howto that'll get you started.

Tags: guerilla art | led throwies | graffiti research lab

San Francisco Panorama, 1878

This morning, I've been looking at an interesting history of animation timeline, and came across Eadweard Muybridge, inventor of the zoopraxiscope . While looking for more information about this photographer, inventor, and strangest speller of the name "Edward" I've ever seen, I discovered that Muybridge took a panoramic photograph of San Francisco (atop a mansion in Nob Hill) -- click the thumbnail above to see what San Francisco looked like in 1878...

Tags: history of animation | historic photographs