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Free Software Downloads: Bryce, Daz Studio, and Hexagon

Monday, February 6th, 2012

Bryce, Hexagon, DAZ Studio Free Download

Saturday I learned that DAZ (Digital Art Zone) is making available the following software as free downloads until February 29:

Bryce 7 Pro 3D Landscape Software (retail price $249.95)
Hexagon 2.5 3D Modeling Software (retail price $149.95)
DAZ Studio 4 Pro 3D Software (Winner of 3D World’s 2011 Software Innovation of the Year Award) (retail price $429.95)
3D Photoshop Bridge (retail price $199.00)

In addition there are a number of free models and textures available as well. The total retail price of the basket of software, models, and textures that I downloaded was $1,350. The one requirement is that you subscribe to their newsletter – meaning you give them your email address.

Note that your order will show up in the Available Downloads link from your Account Dashboard and that you are allowed 4 downloads of each product you have ordered. The serial numbers for your software are retrieved separately via the Available Serial Numbers link. All downloads are in the form of executable files. The largest downloads are:

Bryce 7 Content – 670 meg
Daz Studio 4 32-bit – 441 meg
Daz Studio 4 64-bit – 439 meg
Bryce 7 Pro – 254 meg

I’ve never used Hexagon or DAZ Studio Pro but Bryce was the first 3D software I ever used – back when it was version 3. I haven’t used it in years but I still have a large collection of Bryce files and it would be nice to perhaps resurrect some of them. The name is taken from Bryce Canyon, which I had the pleasure of visiting a few years ago (there’s a photo of me at Bryce on the bottom of my home page). The first version of Bryce was released as a Mac only product in 1994. Version 3.1 of Bryce 3D was released in 1997 by MetaCreations Corporation – this was when I first purchased Bryce. Bryce was acquired by the Corel Corporation in 2000 who released version 5 of Bryce in 2001. Bryce was sold to DAZ in 2004 who has gone on to release versions 5.5 and 6.0 with Bryce 7 being released in 2010. Bryce 3D has always been looked down upon as a package for newbies with limited capabilities. While these criticisms are true, it’s important to remember that for many digital artists, Bryce was what opened the door for them to explore the world of 3D graphics software. It’s low price and easy-to-learn interface made it a perfect software solution for those digital artists looking to get their feet wet.

Hexagon is a tool for creating 3D models. According to the DAZ web site:

Hexagon delivers all the tools a graphic artist needs to create detailed 3D models ready for final render. Packed with features such as; DAZ Studio Bridge, sculpted primitives, freehand modeling brushes, micro-displacement modeling tools, comprehensive UV-mapping modules, advanced 3D paint, and instant ambient occlusion. Hexagon provides you with all the options of expensive competitor software, but at an affordable price.

I’m not sure what to make of 3D Photoshop Bridge. The DAZ web site describes it as a " DAZ Studio plug-in designed to connect the power of Photoshop with the unlimited content possibilities of DAZ Studio. It’s the next step to maximizing your creativity. It will also save you money by eliminating the need for costly photo shoots and stock imagery, save you time with quicker rendering, and save your brain by swiftly and easily integrating the best features of DAZ Studio and Photoshop…Easily pose characters and objects three-dimensionally with the 3D Photoshop Bridge while in DAZ Studio,"

Of course it would help if I knew more about Daz Studio. In this case, download first then investigate was my motto. According to DAZ:

DAZ Studio is a feature rich 3D figure customization, posing, and animation tool that enables anyone to create stunning digital illustrations and animations. DAZ Studio is the perfect tool to design unique digital art and animations using virtual people, animals, props, vehicles, accessories, environments and more. Simply select your subject and/or setting, arrange accessories, setup lighting, and begin creating beautiful artwork.

The free 3D software is available via download only from DAZ3D.com between now and February 29, 2012:

http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d/free-3d-software-overview

Product Links:

Note that there are a number of video tutorials available for Bryce, Hexagon, and DAZ Studio on YouTube.

Here’s to happy and creative computing. Jim

Tags: Bryce, DAZ, free software download, Hexagon, studio pro
Posted in computer art, Computing, Digital Art, Graphics Software | Comments Off

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New Algorithmic Art and a Processing Tutorial

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Aftermath Digital Painting, 32 x 16 inches

All in all this has been a very good day. It started too early when my alarm went off at 6:00am. While fixing my son’s lunch, I hit upon the following limerick, a testament to having gotten too little sleep (I didn’t go to bed till after 1:00am):

My alarm goes off at six o’clock
It always comes as quite a shock
There in bed I wish to lay
But I have to rise and face the day
Gee I hope I don’t get artist’s block

Seeing my son off to school and with coffee in hand I settled in at the computer. I began by putting the finishing touches on the web pages for my series of five works of algorithmic art titled Cubic Disarray. Fortunately most of the work was done for me by a program I wrote to fill in a skeleton art gallery web page with the relevant data from a control file. This program also produces the XML entries for my sitemap.xml and newsfeed.xml files. The five works in the Cubic Disarray series are:

Cubic Disarray: Division	Cubic Disarray: Bisection	Cubic Disarray: Impending Unity
Cubic Disarray: Point of Radiance	Cubic Disarray: Turbulence

When I decided yesterday that I was going to add these to my web site and make them available for purchase, I knew that I wanted to give credit to Georg Nees, whose work Schotter was the inspiration for my series. My idea quickly snowballed out of control. My first impulse was to just give a line of credit on each page. My next impulse was to create a web page dedicated to Schotter (German for gravel). I then decided to write a program using Processing that would recreate Schotter. Once I had the program written, it seemed only natural to turn it into a tutorial.

This morning I finished work on the tutorial and published it, along with the Cubic Disarray series to my web site. Included in the tutorial are a side by side comparison of Nees’ original Schotter and the Processing recreation. If you are a Processing user or are just curious to learn about algorithmic art, then check out my Georg Nees, Processing, and a Schotter Tutorial

In other good news I heard from an art gallery in Chicago today that is interested in my art. Hopefully we’ll be a good match for each other. Right now some of my space art is being exhibited and is available for purchase from Paper Crown Gallery located in Arlington Heights.

Lastly and best of all I completed two digital paintings today. Now one of these, titled City Lights, I started today and finished today. The other painting, titled Aftermath, I only finished today. Believe it or not I actually began this piece in April 2009 and last worked on it in April 2009. For almost three years this piece sat collecting electronic dust before I quite by accident rediscovered it earlier today. At 16 x 32 inches, Aftermath is one of my larger pieces and I have used it to illustrate this post.

So today was definitely a day without artist’s block. But who knows what tomorrow holds.

Tags: algorithmic art, Nees, Processing, Schotter, tutorial
Posted in Algorithmic Art, Art and Artists, computer art, Digital Art, Limericks | Comments Off

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Digital Art and Unintended Consequences

Monday, December 12th, 2011

An example of unintended consequences in digital art

Yesterday I was working on an image processing program to use as a part of my art creation workflow. I was writing a program to texturize an image so that I could incorporate the output as a layer in a Photoshop document.

As a part of the development process, I decided to use as the source image the painting Paris Street, Rainy Day by French artist Gustave Caillebotte. This is the same image that I used to serve as the "discovered" painting for my article and applet Particle Painting: Name That Painting.

To create the look I was after I needed to use the third dimension, aka the z axis. The addition of the z axis made it possible for me to use that axis as the source of distortion while keeping the correct color information in the x,y plane. Using 3D also allowed me to rotate the image relative to the "camera" thus introducing another level of distortion.

All was going well until I made one small change to the variable I was using to control the distortion along the z axis. This single change took what had been output that was recognizable as the source image and produced an image that was completely unrecognizable. I’ve used a cropped version of that output to illustrate this post. Below is a side by side comparison of the source image that my program used as input and the resulting output.

Caillebotte's Paris Street, Rainy Day before and after
Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day before and after.

This can not be called an algorithmic oops or a glitch. Rather it is a case of parametric discovery. It is this discovery opportunity, whether by design or by accident, that makes digital art such an interesting and revolutionary arena for artistic creation.

It remains to be seen whether or not I will ever make use of this program in a production environment. Even if I don’t, what I learned during the process will serve me well in the future. So remember the golden rule of digital art: never be afraid to experiment.

Ad Astra, Jim

Tags: 3D, Caillebotte, image processing
Posted in computer art, Computing, Digital Art | Comments Off

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The Art Exhibit, Art Gallery, Art Talk, and Algorithmic Art Tutorial

Friday, October 7th, 2011

Artist Mark Rothko and selected art works

It has been a busy week for me on the art front. The week began with my installation of nine of my art works at the Buehler YMCA in Palatine IL. Buehler YMCA is the second largest YMCA in Illinois with some 17,000 members. My art will be on display there through the end of the year. Art Exhibit at Buehler YMCA.

I delivered three of my space art works to the Paper Crown Gallery in Arlington Heights, IL. This soon to open gallery has a large exhibit space with a business plan that is not typical of other art galleries. Given the timing of the gallery’s opening – in the face of the threat of a double-dip recession – their novel business plan may be a recipe for success.

I attended the lecture Seeing Red: The Art and Life of Mark Rothko presented by art historian Jeff Mishur. The lecture title fragment "Red" is from the title of the Tony Award-winning play Red currently showing at the Goodman Theater. With respect to the lecture, while it provided biographical background on Rothko, the emphasis was on the development of Rothko’s signature painting style. So yes I spent the evening looking at lots of paintings of colored rectangles (see the image illustrating this post above). Frankly Rothko’s style has never appealed to my sense of aesthetics. The play Red at the Goodman Theater.

I also added a tutorial on using recursion to create algorithmic art to my web site. I used the Processing platform for the tutorial and provide the source code. This tutorial is an expanded version of a tutorial I wrote earlier this year which was published in CMD Journal. Tutorial: Recursion and Algorithmic Art Using Processing

Tags: algorithmic art, art, recursion, rothko
Posted in Art and Artists, computer art | Comments Off

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Tutorial on Recursion Published in CMD Journal

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

CMD Journal cover
CMD (Computational Media Design) Journal cover

This spring it occurred to me to write an article about recursion for my Artsnova web site. I must confess that I really haven’t put any of my recursively created algorithmic art on my web site or made it available for sell but as a programming artist, I find the concept of recursion fascinating. The principal interest for me is in the creation of the program that creates the art. In other words, what excites and interests me most is the act of creating the recursive algorithm. The article/tutorial was to be one in a three part serious about the three "R’s" of algorithmic art: Random Numbers, Recursion, and Repetition. The tutorials were to be written using the Processing platform rather than C++ as Processing seems to have broader appeal to programming artists and is simpler to learn for people new to the field.

Shortly after completing the recursion tutorial I learned of a new magazine being published: CMD (Computational Media Design) Journal. From the CMD Journal website comes the following description of the publication:

THIS IS WHY WE’RE HERE
We are interested in the exploration of the intersections of art, design and computer science to encourage new ways of seeing, thinking and creating in order to empower and inspire inventive, innovative and creative research, artistic and design practices.

THIS IS WHO WE ARE
CMD Journal is an educational magazine about computational media design. The magazine was started by Marjan Eggermont and Laurel Johannesson in 2010 both to learn more about and to become a forum for this relatively new field.

Rather than publishing the article/tutorial on my web site, I decided to submit it to CMD Journal. I’m pleased to say that my submission was accepted and appears in issue 2 of the magazine, which is now available online.

Click here to access the current issue of CMD Journal

I did have to do some trimming of the tutorial in order to have it fit within the submission word limit. Now on my long list of to-do items is an entry to create an expanded version of the tutorial to use for my three "R’s" of algorithmic art set of tutorials.

Tags: CMD Journal, Processing, recursion, tutorial
Posted in Algorithmic Art, computer art, Computing | Comments Off

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Capricon Science Fiction Convention 2011 Debriefing

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

Capricon Live Art Sound Art Landscape
Capricon Live Art Program – Sound Art Landscape

The Capricon Science Fiction Convention was held at the Wheeling Westin Feb. 10 thru Feb 13. I arrived Thursday evening for my first panel – Requiem for the Space Shuttle. Along with fellow panelists Bill Higgins, Tracy Lunquist, and Henry Spencer, we discussed the history of the space shuttle program and its impact on space exploration. We also spent some time talking about the future of human access to space and the commercial revolution that will make it possible for private citizens to buy tickets for trips to space, i.e. space tourism. Our discussion lasted for over 90 minutes with lots of input from an enthusiastic audience.

Live Art

For me, the highlight of my participation in Capricon was my Friday morning Live Art presentation. My presentation opened with a demonstration of one of my programs for taking sound input from a microphone and processing that sound in order to create visual imagery. This was followed by my presentation which explored the subjects of algorithmic art, conceptual art, the question of is computer art art, and an explanation of my methodologies and the programming tools that I used to create the various programs. In fact a reasonable part of my presentation could be considered as a sales pitch for the field of computer art. My presentation was followed by the "show" – which involved running a number of different programs I had written to convert sound into art and letting the audience have their way with the microphone. Several of the artworks we created can be seen at A Gallery of Live Art Created at the Capricon Science Fiction Convention. The point that I sought to drive home was that while the sounds being generated by the audience were largely the same, the way in which they were interpreted visually varied tremendously based on the algorithm being used to translate the sound waves into visual imagery. For information about Live Art and my other presentations, see my Art Lectures page.

The Art of Space Exploration

Saturday morning I gave my The Art of Space Exploration presentation which provides an overview of the history of space art – beginning with early astronomical art and concluding with a discussion of space art from an artist’s business perspective. I included a couple of my own works in the presentation, including Shattered Dreams, a piece that I created as political commentary on the cancellation of NASA’s planned return of humans to the Moon and which was the cover art for the 2010 International Space Development Conference Program Book.

Capricon Odds and Ends

The rest of the weekend was spent either in conversation in the halls or over food, or attending panels on a variety of subjects. Unfortunately for me, the three programs I most wanted to see at the convention were scheduled in the same time slots as when I was speaking. My surprise meet-up of the convention was with fellow space artist John Kaufmann. This was the first time I had met John face to face – our previous meetings were of the virtual variety. John had some great astronomical art in the convention’s art show. We had a wonderful time talking shop and otherwise. Dinner Saturday consisted of an outing to a local mexican restaurant with Tullio Proni, maker of ray guns and other fine energy weapons; Bill Higgins, a beam jockey at Fermi Lab; and Nora. The other convention highlight was attending the Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog which indeed lived up to its name. In short, I had a fine, fun time at the con.

The Illustration

To illustrate this blog post, I combined two of the artworks created during the Live Art program in Photoshop and performed some additional image manipulation on them to create an abstract landscape. I also use this piece to illustrate A Gallery of Live Art Created at the Capricon Science Fiction Convention.

Referenced Links

Tags: Capricon, computer art, live art, science fiction convention, Space Art
Posted in Algorithmic Art, computer art, Digital Art, Presentations, SF Cons, Space Art | Comments Off

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Tweet A Processing Sketch

Thursday, December 9th, 2010

A Processing sketch to illustrate this post

If you check out my Twitter account (http://twitter.com/digitalart), you will note that in the past I created a limerick that fit within the 140 character limit Twitter imposes.

A while back there was a Processing Tiny Sketch Competition in which the Processing community was challenged to create a complete Processing sketch with a 200 character limit for the Processing program. That contest was hosted by Rhizome (you can visit my Rhizome account).

This got me to thinking: what about creating a Processing sketch that could be tweeted. If you haven’t heard of Processing, it is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create images, animations, and interactions. Processing is built on Java and the Java programming language is available to Processing users. It’s a wonderful programming environment for artists and programmers alike. You can see what many folks have done with Processing at the OpenProcessing web site.

So my challenge to myself was to write an entire Processing program using less than 140 characters and I wanted the resulting image to be dynamic rather than a static. Fortunately Processing is quite flexible and there are a number of ways to shrink a program. Before explaining my methodology, here is the full unshortened version of the Processing program source code:

// declare integer variables
int x;    // x for horizontal pixel coordinate
int y;    // y for vertical pixel coordinate
int r=100;// r holds default screen size
 
// Setup() function is executed once at program start
void setup() {
  size(100,100); // Set the screen size
  background(0); // Set background color to black
}
 
// The draw() function executes continuously
void draw() {
  // Cycle through every value of x
  for(x=0;x<r;x++) {
   // For each x, cycle through every value of y
   for(y=0;y<r;y++) {
     // Set the pixel at x,y to the specified color
     set(x,y,color(frameCount*r*sin(frameCount*x),
             20*r*cos(frameCount*y),
             r*frameCount*cos(x))); 
   }
 }
}

And here is the Twitter optimized version:

int x,y,r=100,t=1;void draw(){for(x=0;x<r;x++)for(y=0;y<r;y++)set(x,y,color(t*r*sin(t*x),20*r*cos(t*y), r*t*cos(x)));t++;}

The program is just 121 characters long. I’ve named this program Scottish Tartan as the output resembles a tartan. There’s a nice tie in as I am part-Scottish via the Campbell clan. Other than omitting the comments and crlfs (carriage return line feeds), there are functionally only two differences in the two programs.

I deleted the setup() function because it is optional. It is used to initialize various parameters and options and is executed just once. By removing it:
* the canvas will default to a size that is 100 pixels wide (the x dimension) by 100 pixels tall (the y dimension).
* the background color will default to gray.
* the colorMode will default to RGB with 256 possible values for each color.
I replaced the system variable frameCount with my own variable t. The frameCount variable is incremented each time the draw() function is executed. Substituting my own variable t saves characters.

Other strategies to shorten the program were to:

Keep variable names to one character (x,y,r,t)
Use the increment operator t++; instead of t=t+1;
Eliminate unnecessary for statement brackets

See the Processing program as a Twitter tweet

If you want to see what the program actually does you will need to download and install Processing. Installation is straight forward and best of all it’s free. Why not give it a try. Visit http://processing.org/ for more information and to download Processing.

Processing Books

There are a number of books that have been written about how to use Processing to create images, animations, etc. Following are books that I recommend – based on the fact that I’ve bought and used them.

In addition to the books listed above, there is a new book out on Processing that was released in August 2010. I do not have this book so can not comment on it. You may want to investigate for yourself. The book is Processing for Visual Artists: How to Create Expressive Images and Interactive Art

Merry Christmas everyone, Jim

Tags: Processing, twitter
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BLUECANVAS Art Contest and New Art

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

With A Flourish

The folks over at BLUECANVAS Magazine are having an art contest with the winners to be published in the next issue of their magazine, that being issue five. The deadline for submitting art for the contest is April 16, 2010 and there will be 4 to 6 winners chosen. The theme of this contest, BLUECANVAS Magazine’s second such contest, is solace and artists are asked for their interpretation on this theme. From the contest web site, There is no right or wrong interpretation, we just want to see what you come up with.

There is no fee to enter the contest. Instead the magazine requires that those wanting to participate in the contest create an account with BLUECANVAS, which is free; put your art in the art gallery associated with your account, and then contact the magazine and inform them which item(s) in your gallery you wish to submit to the contest. You can see the profile that I created for myself at http://www.bluecanvas.com/jimplaxco/

The stated judging criteria for submissions are originality, technique, and title/description. There is a limit of 3 submissions per artist. For complete contest details, see http://www.bluecanvas.com/contest.php

The theme of solace is an interesting choice. I don’t have anything in my existing body of work that would be appropriate for this theme and at the moment I’m drawing a blank on what I could create that would be appropriate.

The New Art

To illustrate this post I’m using digital art that I just added to my web site titled With A Flourish. For complete details, see the With A Flourish gallery page.

Tags: art contest, bluecanvas
Posted in Art and Artists, Art Contests, computer art | Comments Off

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New Art, a Poem, and Digital Art Reflections

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

Impression of Water Lily

I just added new art to my Nature Gallery. Impression of Water Lily is a digital semi-abstract impression of a water lily. This is what I hope to be the first in a series of evolving impressions of similar botanic pieces. My objective is to experiment with different digital techniques of representing various flower-like structures found in nature.

Regarding computer art, here’s a poem I’ve just written that in part reflects the intellectual challenges faced by the digital artist.

I really like computer art
Painting with pixels is sweet
But reading all those manuals
Is anything but a treat.

One advantage traditional artists have over their digital artist counterparts is that after all these years paintbrushes are still paintbrushes and pencils are still pencils. Given the static nature of their tools, traditional artists can focus on refining their mastery of their tools. The same is not so for the digital artist. It frequently happens that even before one can master a particular digital tool, or explore its full range of potentialities, a new version of that tool or another tool comes along to replace it and the learning process begins anew.

The tools I learned how to use when I was first exposed to digital art (computer art as it was then known) in the early 1980′s are extinct today. In fact, today I’m only using one of the tools that I learned and was using in the 1990′s. It is the one graphics software that I have used the longest. I started with Adobe Photoshop 5 circa 1999 but today’s Photoshop CS4 bears little resemblance to that first version.

I fully expect this rate of change to continue. As operating systems progress and change; as old hardware dies; as graphics software packages cease to be supported and their owning companies go out of business; and as new graphics software offerings supercede in functionality capabilities of older software; we digital artists will remain on the upgrade treadmill with our noses buried in the manual of our newest digital tool.

Tags: computer art, Digital Art, water lily
Posted in Art and Artists, computer art, Digital Art, Photoshop | Comments Off

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Quotes, Quotes, and more Quotes

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Beach Sky Study digital painting
Beach Sky Study digital painting

I just added two new collections of quotes to the web site. The first is Computer Art and Artist Quotes which is a small collection of quotes about computer art. The second is Space Art and Astronomical Art Quotes and covers the fields of space art and astronomical art. Unfortunately this collection is a little on the skimpy side. Lastly I added a number of new quotes to the A Small Collection of Art Quotes page.

Hope you enjoy these resources.

The Illustration

To illustrate this post I used my digital painting Beach Sky Study.

Tags: quotations, quotes
Posted in Astronomical Art, computer art, Space Art | Comments Off

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Archive for the ‘computer art’ Category

Free Software Downloads: Bryce, Daz Studio, and Hexagon

New Algorithmic Art and a Processing Tutorial

Digital Art and Unintended Consequences

The Art Exhibit, Art Gallery, Art Talk, and Algorithmic Art Tutorial

Tutorial on Recursion Published in CMD Journal