On 29/11/2011 05:05 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 11/29/2011 7:46, Invisible wrote:
>> - Many designs have photographs of cinematic locations, exotic flora and
>> fauna, historic artefacts or beautiful female models. Normal people
>> cannot
>> obtain such things.
>
> Google for creative commons images, or stock photography. Pay someone to
> take a specific photo if you want. Some people do this for a living.

Sure. But it's damned expensive. Would you really do that just to enter 
a little competition for fun?

>> - Lots of designs have astonishingly elaborate calligraphy. Again, not
>> something that normal humans can do.
>
> It takes a lot of practice.

Indeed. It's a skill few people have.

>> - Some designs feature hand-drawn artwork. Almost nobody can draw as
>> nicely as this.
>
> "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is said to be a very good book.

I own it. It didn't really help.

>> How on Earth can you take a photograph of some
>> grass and then loop it seamlessly?
>
> It's not hard. I have a bunch of things like that. Look up "seamless
> texture tutorial." I have a script that does the mechanical parts, if
> you like.

I can't figure out how it's even possible in theory.

> http://darren.s3.amazonaws.com/Seamless/album/index.html

Seemless?

>> How can you make tea stains or splintered
>> edges using just computer software?
>
> Oh come now.

I gather this is called a "handwaving argument".

>> How do you fake the texture of wet paper? It all seems so impossible...
>
> Oh *really* come now. :-) This is povray.off-topic, you know. ;-)

And presumably most people here have spent enough time failing to fake 
it to realise that it's Really Hard.

>> I suppose we can sum all this up as "I really suck at graphic design".
>> :-(
>
> That's possible too. It takes practice, is all. Not that I'm any good at
> it, but I'm a lot better than I used to be.

There must be some kind of trick to it. It's like trying to write a 
compiler in BBC BASIC. It seems so impossible, you wonder how anybody 
can write a compiler. And they can, and that's because they don't use 
BBC BASIC. :-P

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

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