Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Having got over just how amazing his hardware and software is, several 
> other facts strike me:
> 
> 1. This is speeded up 600 times? And it still takes, like, 20 minutes 
> for him to draw the whole thing? Wow, that's a long time! (And the 
> finished image looks so easy...)

200 hours? That doesn't seem right. 60x speed-up would be 20 hours worth...

> [I was actually toying with the idea of making a web comic of my own. 
> Now I see what an absurd idea that is.]
> 
> 2. He can do stuff with pencil and paper that I couldn't do in my 
> wildest daydreams. I mean, if you left me in a room with a pad of paper 
> for 20 years, I still couldn't produce anything approaching this level 
> of sophistication.
> 
> 3. He seems to draw and re-draw and constantly tweak everything way more 
> than I would have imagined. I assumed he was one of these people who can 
> just draw a line and do it perfectly every time. But no, actually he 
> seems to spend quite a lot of time adjusting each part to get it just 
> so. No wonder the final image looks so damn fine!
> 
> 4. Woah, that's A LOT of levels of shading!
> 
> 5. There are quite a few parts where he's not *drawing* anything, just 
> pressing buttons on the UI. It's hard to see what he's doing. But the 
> software seems to have some impressive area colouring capabilities!
> 
> 6. This guy clearly has more talent in his left toenail than I have in 
> my entire body. Even if I somehow purchased the hardware and software 
> that he has, I wouldn't know what to do with it. Just... wow. I should 
> go away and be quiet now...
>

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

>> [I was actually toying with the idea of making a web comic of my own. 
>> Now I see what an absurd idea that is.]
> 
> Oh cmon, you don't need to have CAD's artistic quality. Can you draw 
> comics as good as xkcd?

You laugh, but take a closer look for a moment.

XKCD is a comic featuring only stick figures. With NO FREAKIN' FACES! 
And yet, they manage to convey emotion. All using nothing but body 
language. From bodies make out of black lines on a white background.

If you stop and think about all that for a moment, you'll realise that 
actually, XKCD is *way* harder than it looks!

> Well, that was another comment he got often.
> "You're a damned perfectionist you know that...?"

LOL! Well, the final results *do* look pretty damn good, no? ;-)

[Actually, it's quite interesting to compare, say, today's comic to 
comic #1. There's quite a bit difference in art style. It changed over 
the years, really gradually, but if you compare the two endpoints it's 
quite striking. Oh yeah, and Lilah in particular looks a lot less geeky 
than she used to...]

>> 4. Woah, that's A LOT of levels of shading!
> 
> Lots of people noticed details while watching the video that they had 
> never noticed on the comics themselves.

I had noticed 2 levels of shading. Apparently there's actually 3 - 
there's a really thin line of light as well as the more obvious dark 
patches. And the shading on the tree is just... wow.

>> 6. This guy clearly has more talent in his left toenail than I have in 
>> my entire body. Even if I somehow purchased the hardware and software 
>> that he has, I wouldn't know what to do with it. Just... wow. I should 
>> go away and be quiet now...
> 
> Challenge him in Haskell programming?
> 
> Different people have *different* skills.

Hmm... I suspect I might get 0wned at that too. :-S

Never challenge anybody to anything. You end up loosing. And then you 
look very stupid.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> 1. This is speeded up 600 times? And it still takes, like, 20 minutes 
>> for him to draw the whole thing? Wow, that's a long time! (And the 
>> finished image looks so easy...)
> 
> 200 hours? That doesn't seem right. 60x speed-up would be 20 hours worth...

Yeah, I think you might be right. 600x would be a freakin' BLUR... I 
must be mis-remembering this stuff. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> OK, I just watched this:
> 
> http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/index.php/xmas2006
> 
> Two rather obvious questions immediately throw themselves at me.
> 
> 1. Where the hell did he get a computer screen you can draw on??

That's a Wacom Cintiq.  ( http://www.wacom.com )

I was going to get one but they were just starting to put out consumer 
TabletPCs at the time, so I went with the portability.

-- 
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.digitalartsuk.com

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PGP-(--) t* 5++>+++++ X+ R* tv+ b++(+++) DI
D++(---) G(++) e*>++ h+ !r--- !y--
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47c861a5$1@news.povray.org...

> Advanced. So, like, it's as expensive as a high-end tablet *and* a 
> high-end monitor? Must cost a fortune! o_O

About 2500-3500 $.
Actually I was "using" one a couple of hours ago. It's not mine 
unfortunately, and the guy who has it (a professional graphic designer) uses 
it in combination with a regular screen. What happened was that I was 
showing him some modelling tricks with C4D (on the regular screen) and I 
somehow lost track of the mouse pointer... which was now on the tablet. This 
is really impressive tech.

> Yes. [Although obviously I've never seen it, only heard that it exists. It 
> seems more like a legend than a real commercial product...]

Like Mike said, just download the trial version. If you've never seen a 
killer app (apart Excel) that's the one. Also, if you can convince your 
bosses to buy you a license, Adobe allows you to have a second installation 
on your own computer.

G.

-- 
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer art
- Posters

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>> Advanced. So, like, it's as expensive as a high-end tablet *and* a 
>> high-end monitor? Must cost a fortune! o_O
> 
> About 2500-3500 $.

*whimpers quietly*

At least this time I can tell myself that I wouldn't know what to do 
with one anyway...

> This is really impressive tech.

No kidding.

>> Yes. [Although obviously I've never seen it, only heard that it exists. It 
>> seems more like a legend than a real commercial product...]
> 
> Like Mike said, just download the trial version. If you've never seen a 
> killer app (apart Excel) that's the one.

Heh. I might like it too much. ;-)

> Also, if you can convince your 
> bosses to buy you a license, Adobe allows you to have a second installation 
> on your own computer.

Ooo, cool. Cos our lab could really do with a high-end image editor... 
uh... hmm... maybe I could make it more enterprisy?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:55:04 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:

> Never challenge anybody to anything. You end up loosing. And then you
> look very stupid.

Nonsense.  I used to play chess competitively (ie, I played tournament 
chess).  I wasn't very good, and I lost a lot.  Didn't make me look 
stupid in the least, just less skilled than other people.

Hint:  There's always someone who knows more.  Anyone who says they know 
it all is either lying or stupid - or frequently both.

Jim

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47c875a8$1@news.povray.org...

> Ooo, cool. Cos our lab could really do with a high-end image editor... 
> uh... hmm... maybe I could make it more enterprisy?

That's more or less what I did. There was some small budget allocated for 
software and I was stuck using either Micrografx Publisher (completely 
outdated) or the Gimp (the horror, the horror) anytime I had to edit images 
at work. So I asked for Photoshop...

G.


-- 
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer art
- Posters

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>>> Advanced. So, like, it's as expensive as a high-end tablet *and* a 
>>> high-end monitor? Must cost a fortune! o_O
>>
>> About 2500-3500 $.
> 
> *whimpers quietly*
> 
> At least this time I can tell myself that I wouldn't know what to do 
> with one anyway...

That's for the high-end one.  Myself, I want one of THESE puppies:

http://www.tabletpc2.com/Major_WOW_Factor-Fujitsu_Lifebook_T2010_Tablet_PC-Article700230807.html

Current list price around $1600.

-- 
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.digitalartsuk.com

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
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PGP-(--) t* 5++>+++++ X+ R* tv+ b++(+++) DI
D++(---) G(++) e*>++ h+ !r--- !y--
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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>> Never challenge anybody to anything. You end up loosing. And then you
>> look very stupid.
> 
> Nonsense.  I used to play chess competitively (ie, I played tournament 
> chess).  I wasn't very good, and I lost a lot.  Didn't make me look 
> stupid in the least, just less skilled than other people.

Question: Have you ever, at any time, won a chess match?

I haven't. Even against a computer. I'm that bad at it.

And you know what? One time somebody "challenged" me about the chemical 
symbol for Tin. Well *obviously* that can't even change. How could I 
*possibly* loose? But loose I did. (Sb isn't Tin. It's the one right 
next to it. Only 1 letter and one proton different. Damn it!)

> Hint:  There's always someone who knows more.  Anyone who says they know 
> it all is either lying or stupid - or frequently both.

Like So Greats said, "The greatest knowledge is in knowing that you know 
nothing."

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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