Computer Arts (July 2004)

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EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL 01225 442 244

GILLIAN CARSON EDITOR [email protected] RODDY LLEWELLYN ART EDITOR [email protected] VICKY MITCHARD DESIGNER [email protected] SOPHIE EMBLEY PRODUCTION EDITOR [email protected] JOSEPH RUSS NEW MEDIA CONTENT EDITOR [email protected] MATT GALLIMORE SENIOR CD EDITOR [email protected] JON ALONGI CD EDITOR [email protected] JEN WAGNER ONLINE EDITOR [email protected] CD PROBLEMS 01225 822 743 [email protected]

HELLO!

Welcome to the latest issue of Computer Arts. This month our cover tutorial comes from France courtesy of 123Klan. And what a fantastic cover it is. We just love the detail and the vibrant colours of the character – designed exclusively for Computer Arts. Find out how it was done by reading the tutorial starting on page 22 which was lovingly translated with help from our friends at Computer Arts France. Thanks guys! Also thanks to everyone who took the time to send in feedback on our new look. As predicted, some of you loved it and some of you hated it. The cover tutorial was extremely popular and the new navigation icons, by twelve:ten, were praised by all for making it quick and easy to get to the content. Of course, we still want to know what you think, so please keep those comments coming!

CONTRIBUTIONS FROM

123Klan, I Love Dust, Jason Arber, Graeme Aymer, Mat Broomfield, Dylan Channon, Simon Danaher, Christian Darkin, Robert Firebaugh, Craig Grannell, Scott Hansen, Jacey, Chris Kenworthy, Andy Potts, Chris Randall, Ed Ricketts, Chris Schmidt, Andy Wyatt, James Wilson

GILLIAN CARSON EDITOR [email protected]

PHOTOGRAPHY Katherine Lane-Simms PRINT BGP REPRO Radstock Reproductions Ltd

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Computer Arts magazine, Future Publishing, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW 01225 442 244 ISDN 01225 789 293 SUBSCRIPTION QUERIES 0870 444 8455 OVERSEAS SUBSCRIPTIONS +44 870 444 8455 or EMAIL [email protected]

ILLUSTRATION IN THE MAG

ADVERTISING 01225 442 244

ANDREW BRAIN advertising manager [email protected] GEORGE LUCAS senior sales executive [email protected] MELISSA WATKINS classified sales executive [email protected]

123KLAN

Our funky animé-style cover was created by French graffiti and digital design experts123Klan using Illustrator. Although it looks simple, reproducing the shapes, lines and colours of the animé style may be harder than you’d think. INFO: www.123klan.com

DIGITAL DIVISION

JOHN WEIR publishing director JAMES BINNS publisher FIONA TULLY marketing manager CLARE TOVEY production manager PAUL MCINTYRE group art editor SARAH WILLIAMS software copyright co-ordinator

PRODUCTION

CIRCULATION & LICENSING

RICHARD JEFFERIES circulation manager PETE STOTHARD head of international licensing SIMON WEAR overseas licensing director Computer Arts has licences in China, France, Italy, Poland, and Spain Marketforce Ltd 020 7633 3300 Kings Reach Tower, Stamford Street, London SE1 9LS

THE FUTURE NETWORK

ROGER PARRY non-executive chairman GREG INGHAM chief executive ROB PRICE chief operating officer & managing director UK JOHN BOWMAN group finance director T: +44 1225 442 244 URL: www.thefuturenetwork.plc.uk Computer Arts is a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations Jan-Dec 2003: 22,888 Computer Arts is the registered trademark of Future Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks and copyrights in this issue are recognised, and are acknowledged where possible. If we have failed to credit your copyright please contact us – we’re happy to correct any oversight. Material submitted is accepted on the basis of a worldwide right to publish in printed or electronic form. All contents © Future Publishing 2004.

The Future Network PLC is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FNET).

Dylan Channon

Jason Arber

Jacey

Andy Potts

Preloaded

Photoshop’s Lens Blur filter an effective way to give great photos new focus. INFO: www.pixelsurgeon.com

UK DISTRIBUTION

Future Publishing is part of The Future Network PLC. The Future Network produces carefully targeted specialist magazines for people who share a passion. We aim to satisfy that passion by creating titles offering value for money, reliable information, smart buying advice, and which are a pleasure to read. Today we publish more than 90 magazines in the UK, US, France and Italy. Over 80 international editions of our magazines are also published in 28 other countries across the world.

I Love Dust

Ben Beach made full use of Photoshop Brushes to produce this print effect. INFO: www.ilovedust.com

DAVID MATHEWS ad design point of contact KATTY PIGOTT production co-ordinator MIKE THORNE commercial print buyer

Jason Cook shows how sticking to the colour theory rules can produce amazing effects. INFO: www.jacey.com

A fab photo transformed into a fantastic illustration using Photoshop and Illustrator. INFO: www.andy-potts.com

Chris used Fireworks to build this cool mp3 interface layer by layer. The rest is up to you... INFO: www.preloaded.com

Electrotank

Scott Hansen

Robert Firebaugh created this intricate illustration using just Flash. INFO: www.electrotank.com

Ë

Dylan’s InDesign tutorial focuses on these original type effects. EMAIL: dylan. [email protected]

Another instantlyrecognisable illo using Photoshop and Illustrator. INFO: www.iso50.com

CONTACT Computer Arts, Future Publishing, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW PHONE: 01225 442 244 EMAIL: ca.mail.futurenet.co.uk SUBSCRIPTIONS: 0870 444 8455 OVERSEAS: +44 (0) 870 444 8455

July 2004

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CONTENTS

JULY ISSUE 98

CA INTERVIEW

REVIEWS

P88 GROUP TEST With fewer models to choose from and the technology seemingly at its zenith, finding the perfect scanner is now easier than ever. But what should you look out for?

HP8200

Canon 9900f

Astrix 1100

P78 ZBRUSH 2 This 3D package should be on your wish list

RECOMMEN DED

P80 FINAL CUT PRO HD Apple’s revered video editor comes of age

P30 JOEL VEITCH

Computer Arts meets the brains behind those mental singing kittens

TUTORIALS RECOMMEN DED

P82 FIRE GL X2

Great if you’re a powerobsessed 3D designer with a bulge in your wallet

P68 ILLUSTRATION

Start with a photo and create this funky illo in Illustrator and Photoshop

P66 FIREWORKS

Designing contemporary online interfaces can be tricky, but ultimately rewarding

P83 OPUS PRO 4

Although it’s not Director, for occasional use, this multimedia tool does the job

P84 TOONBOOM STUDIO 2.5

Mac version of the celebrated 2D animation software

P85 VEGAS 5

Audio gets the most attention with Sony’s powerful audiovisual editing software

TUTORIALS FOR 99P

Buy Computer Arts tutorials online for just 99p at www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials

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P50 PHOTOSHOP

Give photos new focus with Photoshop’s Lens Blur filter

ON THE COVER

ON THE CD

P22 ANIMÉ MAGIC

Get creative with WireFusion 3.2 to create your own game selection screen. Plus: 175 After Effects plugins and an exclusive colour correction application.

P36 WOODBLOCK EFFECT

WIREFUSION 3.2

Use bold colours, strong line work and clever shading to recreate this funky cover image, all with a little help from French designers 123Klan.

Use this full multimedia app worth £208 to create great interactive presentations – like this 3D spaceship selection screen.

Make a statement with print effects in Photoshop

P58 VECTOR FANTASTIC Get photo realistic with Flash

SAPPHIRE PLUG-INS

P66 INTERFACE DESIGN Construct a Flash-compatible mp3 player in Fireworks

P50 PRO TRICKS Create original illos in Photoshop using photos, sketches and textures

FEATURES P44 ICON

The little-known photographer behind Guerrillero Heroico – the image that has inspired millions of people the world over

P62 LAYOUT

See how InDesign’s type tricks help it stay one step ahead of the rest

P36 WOOD BLOCK

I Love Dust shows you how to give digital illustrations and fonts an original hand-printed effect

Expand your tool set and get creative with 175 trial plugins for Adobe After Effects, fully working for 21 days.

VEGAS VIDEO 5 (DEMO) Sony’s all-in-one professional audio-visual editing package has a reputation for flawless broadcast video and highfidelity audio output. Try it out.

ICORRECT ENTRÉE Resolve common problems with your digital images, remove unwanted colour cast and fix contrast without the hassle of Photoshop’s sliders.

SUBSCRIBE! TURN TO PAGE 42

P114 CV P58 FLASH

This incredible photo-realistic image really can be created in Flash

Graphic Designer and Illustrator, Rukkit Kuanhawate, shows off his work

Subscribe today and make sure you get an exclusive cover linefree issue delivered straight to your door. Call our subscription hotline: 0870 444 8455 or visit www.computerarts.co.uk

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EXPOSURE

EXPOSURE Send your work to Computer Arts and be seen by thousands! 1 TODD LAWSON JOB Self-employed Illustrator/Designer CONTACT www.toddlawson.com SOFTWARE Photoshop, Illustrator, traditional media and various 3D freeware 1. Rank “My personal play on the word rank.” 2. Uniforms ”I believe that like society, private schools force students into faceless clones and that uniforms limit individuality.” 3. 100 Classic Flex “This piece was inspired by old circus posters and Russian wrestlers.”

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NEWS

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EXPOSURE

To find out more about this section, please go to www.computerarts.co.uk/gallery/ About Todd Lawson After years of slaving over his computer, workaholic and insomniac Todd Lawson realised he missed painting. He wanted the opportunity to show his work in galleries and sell originals in an effort to expand his

illustration skills. But unable to let go of his ten-year digital love affair, he decided he’d try combining them. The result? Lawson’s mixed media paintings originate from various 3D and 2D applications, but are now collaged onto any paintable surface he can find. In his words, his

work has, “Found a voice of its own in a physical reality”. Lawson is also founder of Toy Twuk Studios, a small virtual creative firm, but still finds time for personal projects, searching for vinyl records, toy collecting and comic books.

4. The Rules of Trash Talking “This is a recent piece about the long-held testosterone-fuelled skill of professional sportsmen who talk trash, and can back up their words.”

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5. Pain ‘n’ Glory “Dedicated to the nameless light-weight who fights his way up from the streets.” 6. Thinkin’ Lincoln “A Presidential portrait.”

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The Website Todd Lawson claims to have been “Destroying young minds since 1978”. But his Website illustrates a shift towards a more personal, low-brow, comic, pop art style. URL: www.toddlawson.com

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EXPOSURE

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FINGER INDUSTRIES

JOB Designers, Animators and Illustrators CONTACT www.fingerindustries.com SOFTWARE Plasma, Flash, Photoshop and pencils 1. Lyons Review “This cover for New Start referred to a report suggesting the relocation of public-sector workers to the north of England.”

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2. Disko Joseph “We do the odd album cover. This was a reaction against the usual serious b-boy style. It’s basically the tracksuit/headband combo you wanted when you were twelve.” 3. Fingaworld “The 3D city that forms the basis of our current Website – an alternate reality with its own kind of visual logic.”

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EXPOSURE

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NOLAN SACRIZ JOB Graphic Designer and Digital Illustrator CONTACT www.sacriz.com SOFTWARE CorelDraw and Corel Painter 1. Seaflower “A dream-like fantasy scene with unusual underwater characters and creatures.” 2. Seekers “With this image, I wanted to show the beauty of reaching the end of a journey in pursuit of a dream.” 3. Water Nymph “This digital illustration of a mystical water nymph using a controlled palette of purples, blues and oranges.”

GET EXPOSED 2

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Send your work to us, along with an explanation of your techniques and software, the titles of each piece, your Website details and email. Images should be sent as PC or Mac TIFF or JPEG files, on CD-ROM or Zip disks. A hard copy is a great help. We will endeavour to return all entries that provide an SAE. All contributions are submitted on the basis of a non-exclusive worldwide licence to publish, both in print and electronically. Post hi-res files for print to: Exposure, Computer Arts, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW.

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LETTERS…

Write to us at ca.mail@futurenet, or join us online at forum.computerarts.co.uk

STAR LETTER: LIKES AND DISLIKES I hope you’re enjoying editing Computer Arts. I certainly enjoy reading it. As you asked your readers to let you know our thoughts about the new look mag and the revised content and structure, here we go... Firstly the stuff I do like. Exposure has been promoted to within the first few pages. Good decision. I like the icons, they do work when flicking through. And lastly, the mag is crammed full of great content. But here’s the stuff I’m not keen on. The new design; it’s all very cluttered and messy. I liked the more minimalist approach. The dark blue background used for Exposure is a good example – if this were less cluttered and on a white background it would

make the work stand out. Some pages use Times New Roman for body text, others use different fonts. And as for the Buyer’s Guide, I’m not sure why it’s necessary to include only recently reviewed and/or poor products, why don’t you just detail the best gear? So the jury’s out on the new look, but I certainly enjoyed the content (except the Buyer’s Guide). And the next issue sounds great. Lee Bown

We do hope you enjoy this month’s Computer Arts as much as you anticipated Lee, it is indeed a great issue. And as a big thank you for taking the time to deconstruct our redesign, please accept our Star Letter prize, a day’s training of your choice at Space.

In answer to your questions, we now use two fonts to improve clarity and to separate the steps from the main text throughout the tutorials. Times New Roman is used for the main text and Din (in various forms) for the captions.

As the Star Letter winner, you can choose a day’s training at Space. Co-founded by Bridget Riley, Space is one of the largest visual arts resources in the capital, and offers a variety of courses ranging from Photoshop and Final Cut Pro, to how to sell your work, tax and self employment and marketing strategies for designers. Space also has a large range of high-end equipment including video-editing facilities, technical support staff and exhibition spaces. For more information go to: www.spacestudios.org.uk

PRIZE: free training at Space, London

THE NEW LOOK DEBATE I’ve just been to sneak a peek at the new look Computer Arts down at my local WH Smiths and have to say I LOVE IT! Well done again Roddy on another sweet design. Keep up the good work. I’ve been seeing more and more designers in the mag that I’ve always wanted to see, so I reckon you guys must be the only mag with enough love in the community to get those kind of names in. That says a lot! Rob Chiu, The Ronin Thanks Rob. The fiver’s in the post. I am a long-time reader of the magazine and have always considered it to be the only source of the latest in digital art. While the editorial content in Issue 97 is right on target, just what have you done to the layout? It has become chaotic and confusing to read, and includes some very odd design elements. The strap lines are huge, the solid colour 12

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felt that a lack of navigation tools made it difficult for readers to find content easily. So we introduced colour-coding for the sections and icons for the page headers. We think, from a reader’s perspective, this makes the magazine much easier to read.

backgrounds kill the colour of the showcased work and as for the crosshatched elements, aagghh yuk! The crispness has been lost (why have you started to use a serif font for text?). I really do wish to be more complementary. Peter Ward Thanks for your comments Peter. For an answer to your text question, see our Star Letter. Although you liked the clean white pages of the magazine, pre redesign, we

I was quietly awaiting the arrival of Computer Arts last month when “Thud!” through the letterbox comes this explosion of colour. I must say I was bloody surprised to see it and at first wasn’t sure it was the same mag (you don’t believe in warning us do you!). It took a bit of getting used to but I love it! Exposure has had an upgrade to the front of the mag (where it should be) and having the tutorials in one area is a great idea, as are the intro sections that work like mini-contents pages. All-in-all I think it’s a fantastic improvement to an already fantastic mag! Ben Anders

LETTERS

WHICH 3D PACKAGE? I am currently trying to improve my knowledge and skill in Photoshop and Illustrator. CA Projects has pushed me into making my own fonts, too. However, I have recently become interested in adding some 3D to my work. I currently have Cinema 4D and Maya learning edition which your great magazine gave away a few months back, but I was wondering which 3D package is the best to learn from, with not too steep a learning curve, and if you know of any books that will help me get up and running. James Nash, TMP Worldwide Almost all 3D software can handle the basic aspects of 3D content creation (modelling, animation, rendering etc), but recommending a particular package without knowing exactly what you need it for is really difficult, if not impossible. If, for example, you wanted a quick and userfriendly way to add human figures to your projects, you might plump for Poser from Curious Labs, which you’ll be comfortable with after an afternoon’s experimentation. It will give reasonable results, and also won’t cost the earth. On the other hand, you could opt for learning to model and animate realistic-looking people using something like Alias’s Maya or Softimage|XSI, both of which are regularly used to wow cinema goers – but this could take years of full-time work to truly master. Then there’s the hefty price-tag... Perhaps your best bet would be to look out for cover CD demos and full products like the ones on Computer Arts and 3D World, which, although feature limited, still offer a hands-on opportunity for you to play around and make up your own mind. Watch out for the “Getting Started in 3D” feature in the next issue, too!

NEXT ISSUE IN DON’T MISS ISSUE 99

PHOTOSHOP

TRICKS WITH LIGHT & SHADE Create dramatic imagery using professional highlights and shadows

AFTER EFFECTS

ANIMATING AN ILLUSTRATION

Andy Potts creates a moving image from a static illustration

FLASH

ANIMATING CHARACTERS Jon Burgerman shows you how to create animated cartoons in Flash

ON THE CD... EXCLUSIVE FULL SOFTWARE

STITCHER 3.1 Computer Arts Grab next month’s we’ll give you a full, free copy of Stitcher 3.1 from RealViz

and

WHERE’S VICKI? G’day from Australia. Great mag – the best there is and it gets better every issue. Out here in Australia it’s the only read there is for a digital creative like me. But I do have one question, what have you done with Vicki Atkinson? Mike Jarvis Computer Arts’ former editor, Vicki, has gone on to become editor of Broadband Now! magazine. To find out more about what she’s doing, go to www.futurenet.com/broadbandnow/

TUTORIAL

CREATIVE PANORAMAS

Watch as our experts show you how to get creative with panoramas using Photoshop and your free copy of Stitcher

FULL SOFTWARE worth £281

| ON SALE THURSDAY 8 JULY June 2004

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NEWS

NEWS

L BA EG TT AL LE

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

P14 ILLEGAL JPEGs?

SO F FT RE W E AR E

Forgent, the developers responsible for the compression algorithm in the ubiquitous JPEG, is demanding payment for lost earnings. But if it wins the case, will JPEG go the way of the GIF?

FIND OUT MORE AT www.computerarts.co.uk IN-DEPTH

ILLEGAL JPEGS?

P15 SUITE NEWS

P16 DUAL MONITOR

Discover what innovative sites tickled our collective fancy this month: Paul and Paul, Identikal Shop, Crown Dozen, Jon Burgerman, New Designers 04 and Another Girl At Play.

AN IM AT IO N

Can’t afford an expensive dual-monitor display? Then have a gander at DoubleSight’s ambitious solution: two smaller LCDs sensitively combined to create one giant monitor.

P17 GONE TO SEED

You’ve got just five weeks to deliver a high quality 30-second commercial – what would you do? Aardman get animated about seeds, Ryvita and having a playful jibe at the advertising industry.

OP IN IO N

P18 OPINION

InDesign and the PDF may well be revolutionising the print industry, but don’t assume everyone is ready to embrace the new technology, warns Pixelsurgeon’s Jason Arber.

TO P

SI TE

P18 WEB HIGHLIGHT

Magnetic North’s Head Designer Suzie Webb reveals the thinking behind Kutopia, a unique site designed to promote Special K. Expect origami, a George Michael song – and plenty of visitor stories.

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JPEG co-creator Forgent launches patent suit that may result in serious price hikes for key industry software and hardware Apple, Adobe and Macromedia are just some of the 31 companies cited in a lawsuit brought by Forgent for patent infringement. Through its subsidiary Compression Labs, Forgent is suing for loss of royalties relating to the ubiquitous JPEG format, which all the named companies use. Forgent owns US Patent #4,698,672, which covers part of JPEG – specifically, the mathematical algorithm that carries out the compression. The company says it has tried to reach agreements with the aforementioned companies since July 2002, but none have officially licensed the patent. However, 30 other companies have complied with Forgent’s request, generating $90 million in revenue for the company. If the suit is successful, this could well mean indirectly higher prices for many products and applications. The actual originators of the JPEG standard, the eponymous Joint Photographic Experts Group, has always taken a dim view of patent licensing. In a statement issued at the time of Forgent’s original patent, it stated that “the committee would like to

record their disappointment that some organisations appear to be working in conflict” with the goal of free licensing. Because Forgent’s patent technically covers digital image compression, the suit applies as much to hardware manufacturers as software developers. Indeed, several major companies such as IBM, Dell, Kodak and JVC are also cited. In short, any company that uses JPEG, whether it’s a multi-million dollar concern or a one-man operation, would be liable to pay up. However, even if the suit is successful – which many industry insiders doubt – there may be alternatives for smaller developers who can’t afford the licensing fee. This was the case with the GIF format, once dominant on Web pages in the ’90s. At the beginning of 1995, CompuServe and Unisys decided to enforce its patent on the format, demanding licence fees from users. Almost as a direct result, the opensource (and free) PNG format, offering superior capabilities, was developed and adopted by many smaller companies. INFO www.forgent.com, www.jpeg.org, www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html.

© Walcot Studios

ON LI NE

P16 TOP WEBSITES

HA RD W AR E

After Effects plug-in suite eLin is now in the public domain. Find out why visual effects house The Orphanage has unleashed its pro-level set of tools for noncommercial use – for free.

NEWS

SOFTWARE

AWARDS

D&AD 2004 winners Aardman, AKQA and Apple scoop yellow pencils at the UK’s biggest design awards Aardman grabbed the silver award (yellow pencil) for its design of the BBC3 Blobs. While AKQA also took a yellow pencil in the Digital Crafts category for its art direction of the Presto (www.nikepresto.tv) campaign. Apple seemed content with the yellow pencil it received for its PowerBook range even though its iPod TV advert missed out on an award in the Art Direction category. Predictably, Honda’s ‘Cog’ advert, where the parts of an engine interact to create a chain

reaction of events, won four awards overall. In true D&AD fashion it was as difficult as ever to snag one of the coverted black pencils (gold award). Only two lucky entrants managed it (two more than last year). They went to the Fruit and Veg Stamps, created for the Royal Mail by Johnson Banks, and Ship of Ideas by Atelier Markgraph, in the Environmental Design & Architecture category. This year the awards were part of a new, three week long conference organised by D&AD. INFO www.dandad.org

PLUG-IN

Free film effects

highlights and other effects appear more “cinematic”, no matter what the quality of the source material. The full version of eLin is available for download via www.redgiantsoftware.com/elin.html and is free for non-commercial use only. Commercial licences cost $499 (£283). INFO www.theorphanage.com

STOP PRESS! MS OFFICE 2004 FOR THE MAC

Microsoft updates its office suite for the mac with new features Microsoft has updated its MS Office for Mac. New in the Mac version of Office 2004 is the Project Center, enabling you to organise projects by keeping email, files, contacts and

UTILITY LIBERATE YOUR JPEG URL www.unjpeg.com Aggressive Imaging claims its UnJpeg can “recover” up to 98 per cent of the original image from compressed JPEG data, and can work with heavily compressed and recompressed JPEGs. The powerful utility is compatible with both drawings and photos, and uses file-based and heuristic methods to analyse each image. It costs $150 (£85). FILM ROYALTY-FREE COLLECTION URL www.artbeats.com Artbeats’ impressive Ultra digital film stock collection features slow-motion imagery of fire, water and natural motion such as hummingbirds in flight. The footage was shot using a NAC digital high-speed camera, which can capture up to 2000 frames per second. As usual, the Ultra collection is royalty-free.

Visual effects studio gives away key fx suite for non-profit use Effects house The Orphanage has released one of its proprietary visual effects tools into the public domain. eLin, a suite of dedicated plug-ins for After Effects 6.5, will now enable home compositors to better exploit the expanded photographic colour space of film. The software, originally created for effects work on the films Hellboy and The Day After Tomorrow, uses a unified High Dynamic Range (HDR) colour space that mimics the physical properties of light, and effectively gives After Effects the kind of HDR tools present in more expensive packages such as Shake. The Orphanage, best known for its Magic Bullet range of software, claims that eLin works even with basic compositions in standard resolutions –

VIDEO VIDEOSTUDIO 8 URL www.ulead.com Aimed squarely at the home and new user market, Ulead’s VideoStudio 8 claims to make video editing and CD/DVD creation simpler than ever. It features a MovieWizard that creates “just the right mix” of graphics, transitions, text and music, and comes with an introductory book, Digital Video Basics. Yours for £50.

schedules all in one place. You can also store often used project elements, such as text, logos and pictures in a convenient scrapbook. The new compatibility report function keeps track of

what is and isn’t compatible with previous PC and Mac versions of Office. A free 30-day trial version is available to download now. INFO http://www.microsoft.com/ uk/mac

3D MAX POSING URL www.digimation.com Exporting figures from Poser to 3ds max is now a lot easier thanks to Digimation’s GestureMAX. The plug-in also enables you to set up a figure’s bones and skin in 3ds max itself or with the help of Character Studio’s Biped and Physique tools. Textures and morphs are automatically applied. GestureMAX costs $295 (around £167). TRAINING COLOUR CODING URL www.lynda.com Fancy spending three hours at lynda.com? Because that’s the length of the company’s latest Working with Colour training video, presented by Bruce Heavin. Following a lecture on the basic principles of colour relationships, the video goes on to explain digital colour mixing and much more, using Photoshop as an example. Working with Colour is available as part of the standard $25(£14)-per-month subscription.

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COMPUTER ARTS WEBSITE

NEWS

Visit our massive Website for weekly news updates and much more. To contact our news team, email

[email protected] WEBSITES

HARDWARE PAUL AND PAUL

URL: www.paulandpaul.co.uk Bath's dynamic photographic duo get a new Website all their own. Mostly digital-based, the team of ideas man and photographer have worked for the likes of Paul Smith, Diesel and Ted Baker – and Computer Arts.

IDENTIKAL SHOP

URL: www.identikalshop.com After months of wrestling with their descenders, Identikal's new Webshop is now open for business. It offers every single Identikal font for sale, along with a preview area for testing out your selections, new releases, font news and more.

CROWN DOZEN

URL: crowndozen.com In the site's own words, this is “where a bunch of opinionated people… tell you what is great, what is worth buying, and what you should be straight-up backhanded across your pretty face for not owning.” So there.

JON BURGERMAN

OF W TH EB E SIT M E ON TH

URL: www.jonburgerman.com Recently updated with downloads, stuff to buy and drawings, all in Burgerman’s silly-but-slightlydisturbing style. “Goatygoatgoat, hope you’re goat” goes the caption to one of his many sketches.

NEW DESIGNERS 04

URL: www.newdesigners.com Described as “the most exciting and stimulating graduate design event in the UK,” this site is both a resource for employers and a chance for new designers to show off. Covers both traditional and digital design.

ANOTHER GIRL AT PLAY

URL: another.girlatplay.com Female writers, artists, designers and musicians reveal what inspires them, their working habits, and more. Although aimed primarily at women, anyone can be inspired by the stories and links featured here.

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DOUBLE VISION Two displays for the price of one? Well, nearly Having a dual-monitor display is undeniably useful, but can be prohibitively expensive. DoubleSight believes it’s come up with a solution: the DS-1500, which effectively consists of two 15-inch LCD monitors joined at the hip. The monitor sits on a single base stand, while a motherboard at the rear deals with the image signals. DoubleSight reckons the DS-1500 provides the equivalent viewing area of a 20-inch LCD monitor (608x228mm), but offers improved clarity, as smaller LCD screens are often more legible than larger ones. Maximum resolution is 2048x768 pixels, with a relatively high response time of 25ms. However, ports are analog only – there’s no DVI input. Currently only available via DoubleSight's Website, the DS-1500 costs $899 (around £500), considerably less than the total cost of two separate displays. INFO: www.doublesight.com

LEARNING CURVE Corps Business London

Net Resources Edinburgh

Parity Training Leeds

The West London facility covers a wide selection of 2D and 3D applications, teaching in classes of no more than five, and providing after-course support by phone or email. 3ds max: fundamentals 24-25 May, £550 Flash MX 2004: rich media design 8-9 July, £450 URL: www.corps.co.uk

Courses delivered by a team of pro trainers with extensive experience of Internet and Web design, including Flash, Dreamweaver and CSS. Specially tailored training days are also available. Dreamweaver MX 18 June, £239 CSS 9 July, £239 URL: www.netresources. co.uk

Parity has some 30 offices in the UK, Europe and the USA. The creative courses featured here are scheduled for the Leeds office, although many other dates in other locations are available. InDesign 5-6 July, £595 Fast track to Fireworks MX 2004 1-2 July, £595 URL: www.parity.net

Design Computer Training Birmingham and Midlands

Clear Thinking Southampton

Metro New Media London

One-to-one and small group computer training, specialising in professional design software such as Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Quark XPress. One-day course £370 (one person) £385 (2-4 people) Two-day course £730 (one person) £760 (2-4 people) URL: www.combined.f9.co. uk/computer

With courses for software by Autodesk, Macromedia, Maxon, Discreet and Adobe, Clear Thinking caters for both novices and experts in 2D/3D. Cinema 4D 14-15 June, £495 Flash MX 17-18 June, £495 URL: www.goclearthinking. co.uk

Metro provides adaptable courses with cost-effective training delivered by industry professionals. All courses boast ‘hands-on’ workshops. 3ds max 6 (Intermediate) 22-24 June, £675 Photoshop CS (Intermediate to Advanced) 16-17 June, £475 URL: www.metronewmedia. com

NEWS Turn to page 88 for our in-depth round up of the five best scanners for under £1000

HARDWARE

HARDWARE

NO GRAIN, NO PAIN Canon scanner eliminates glitches on the fly Canon claims its latest flatbed A4 scanner, the CanoScan 5200F, automatically detects and removes scratches and hairs as it scans. The film and document scanner features optical resolution of 2400x4800dpi, with 48-bit colour depth, and comes with a film adaptor unit. With this, you can scan up to six unmounted or four mounted 35mm negatives simultaneously. USB 2 and an improved scan engine ensure the 5200F delivers excellent scan speeds, too. Along with a diamond-pixel CCD sensor (claimed to be more accurate than standard rectangular pixels), the 5200F boasts FARE Level 2 technology. This is an additional

infra-red scan which detects imperfections in the film surface and automatically fills them in. Colour ageing and excessive grain can also be dealt with on the fly. The CanoScan 5200F comes with ArcSoft’s PhotoStudio 5.5 and OmniPage SE OCR 2.0 character recognition software, for a recommended price of £129. Expect a full review soon. INFO: www.canon.co.uk

TV ANIMATION

Gone to seed What, no Gromit?

MUSIC VIDEO

Steele-y determination

VFX trickery does wonders for the Sugababes The Sugababes’ latest video In The Middle features deadline-busting special effects from Steele VFX. The promo includes the ’babes trio performing in what appears to be a sparkling glass room, with diamondlike objects moving through the frame to spell out the girls’ names. Although the effects appear to be 3D renders, they are in fact 2D elements created on a Quantel Henry machine. Steele VFX used After Effects to emblazon singer Keisha

Buchanan’s face with rainbow sparkles and to enhance lighting. Even though every shot of the video features effects, the renowned effects house had less than a week to design and produce them. “In total, our artists logged more than 200 hours on the video,” said visual effects supervisor Jerry Steele. “We had everybody going full steam. But we got it done and it looks fabulous.” We couldn’t agree more. INFO: www.steelevfx.com

Aardman’s latest 30-second TV spot for Ryvita bucks its usual animation style while taking a sly jab at traditional ‘homely’ selling. The ad for Crispbreads shows painterly scenes of fields of rye and other ingredients, accompanied by a homely voiceover, rudely harvested and packaged in a Ryvita box. “The main difficulty was breaking up the image into thousands of individual seeds,” says animator Bram Thweam. To achieve this, Aardman used After Effects to generate tiny spinning layers of each seed and then layer-map them to particle generators. A few final elements, such as the honey, were added in Maya. INFO: www.aardman.com

OFFF2004

Industry event kicks off Spanish summer of design Between 1-3 July, Valencia, Spain is hosting the fourth International Audiovisual Creation Festival, where a great line-up of designers will be showing off their work. Speakers include Cuban Council,

WeWorkForThem, Future Farmers, Elixir Studio and Hi-Res. Also on offer are breakout sessions, where delegates can discuss design-related issues in a round-table situation, a market

for trading merchandise, and three open contests. A one-day ticket will set you back 9 Euros (£6) and a three-day pass costs 24 Euros (£16). INFO: www.offf.ws

GRAPHICS CARD TWICE AS GOOD According to PNY Technologies, its new NVIDIA Quadro FX 4000 card offers twice the performance hit of previous systems for geometry and fill rates. The 256MB card is aimed at workstation users who need prime performance in 3D, DCC and CAD applications. The price is £1399. URL: www.pny.com GRAPHICS CARD MODERN ARCHITECTURE Meanwhile, 3Dlabs has announced an entirely revamped architecture for its graphics cards range. Wildcat Realizm combines a Visual Processing Unit with a Vertex/Scalability Unit, presumably making for one fast board. There’s a range of products and prices in the Realizm line, with kit available by the middle of the year. URL: www.3dlabs.com PHOTO SERVICE IMAGE RESCUE FujiFilm's Digital Image Recovery Service aims to retrieve data from damaged or accidentally formatted camera media – much like a standard hard drive recovery service. It’s pretty pricey (£40 per medium, up to 1GB), but if the pictures can’t be recovered, you pay nothing. You can't say fairer than that. URL: www.fujifilm.co.uk/irs DVD BURNER BURN FASTER Amacom’s latest DiViD 8x DVD burner is being launched at the same price as its 4x predecessor: £199. The DiViD is an external drive with both USB 2 and FireWire interfaces, and can write DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW. It comes bundled with DVD X COPY XPRESS and Pinnacle’s Studio 8, for editing footage. URL: www.amacom-tech.com /index_uk.html GRAPHICS CARD CHIPS ON THE GO ATI has announced a new integrated chipset for use in laptops and other devices. The Radeon 9100 PRO IGP includes support for serial ATA, dual DDR400 memory, RAID and connections for multiple monitor displays. The chipset is likely to be available on motherboards and mobile PCs in the next few months. Price yet to be confirmed. URL: www.ati.com

July 2004

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NEWS

COMPUTER ARTS TUTORIALS Buy Computer Arts tutorials online for just 99p. Download files in pdf format

www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials

OPINION EVERYTHING CHANGES A CAUTIONARY TALE From print to Web, advances in software and technology have transformed the industry over the last ten years – but don’t assume everyone is up to speed with the latest developments. Jason Arber of Now Wash Your Hands advises you to keep those old apps somewhere handy... When I first decided to become a designer, the World Wide Web wasn’t even a twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye, so pretty much the only way forward was in the print industry. The weapon of choice at the time? QuarkXPress, which had usurped PageMaker a year or so earlier. Fast-forward to the present. The Internet is now an accepted part of everyday life and for the past six years or so I’ve been earning a crust as a Website designer. But in the meantime, print has evolved… Disgruntled designers are now abandoning Quark’s dated app XPress in favour of InDesign, Adobe’s more streamlined package. At the heart of this software lies the PDF format, which has taken so much of the guesswork out of the print process – with the latest version of Acrobat Professional designers can even check trapping, screens and spot colours. Printers and repro houses have also embraced PDF as a way of cutting costs and improving efficiency. As the senior designer at Now Wash Your Hands, a full service agency, I'm fortunate to be able to tackle both Web and print work. But a recent job to produce a 96-sheet poster really blew the cobwebs off my dormant print skills. Even artwork at 10 per cent (the standard way to produce such huge posters) was several hundred megabytes in size; quite a change from the easy-to-manage screen resolutions of 72dpi. The real challenge, however, lay in the fact that the repro company hadn’t quite moved into the 21st century and couldn't accept PDF as a valid file format. They actually wanted the poster as an Illustrator 9 file! Thanks to the change in the type-rendering engine, Adobe CS no longer directly saves backward-compatible files, although it can export files into older “legacy” formats, including Illustrator 9. Whether the size of the file caused Illustrator to flounder, or the planets were off kilter that day, I couldn’t get an Illustrator 9 file that worked. The moral of this story? First, swapping disciplines stops the old grey matter from going rusty. Second, avoid printers and repro houses unfamiliar with the PDF format – and, finally, never throw out your old software. It may come in very handy some day… Jason Arber is the co-founder of www.pixelsurgeon.com

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WEB HIGHLIGHT

KUTOPIA

Suzie Webb, head designer at Magnetic North, reveals the thinking behind Kutopia, a Flash site promoting Kellogg’s Special K cereal Kutopia is quite an abstract concept. What was your thinking behind it? “The idea was to make a place on the Web that was an interactive alternative to the usual magazine-based content sites offered to women. We wanted users to feel that half an hour spent on Kutopia was a retreat from their hectic lives, to soothe the eyes and entertain at the same time. You can read stories written by other women, comment on them and send in your own... It’s still in its infancy, but Kutopia is built to grow as more stories are added. In the future, it should be a rich tapestry of content reflective of its community of users and totally responsive to them.” What’s with the mad origami? Is one of your design team a closet paper-folder? “We worked with a guy called Joseph Wu, who can make paper do absolutely anything. He’s an unbelievably talented origami artist. He made the elements for the landscape in Toronto and shipped

them over to us, we photographed them and I collaged the landscape together with some pretend origami pieces made in Flash. The origami fits in with the idea of unfolding content and its beautiful and delicate. The mixture of traditional craft and technology seems more human and certainly more feminine to me.” Take us through the site’s key features “There are a lot of surprises. The ‘send a flower’ ecard generates randomly, dynamically and in 3D, and yet the flower always manages to look both weird and beautiful. We also have the Create section, where users get the chance to have their say and take part in shaping the site. George Michael will sing you Careless Whisper if you look in the right place, and there are many opportunities to get your own little piece of Kutopia... virtually, that is.” INFO: www.kelloggs.co.uk /specialk/flash.html

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July 2004

JONATHAN BARNBROOK

TOMAHAWK/ENOLA GAY Cruise missiles and the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb provide some explosive raw material

Warfare underscores Jonathan Barnbrook’s typographical labours of love. The words emblazoned on the Tomahawk Cruise Missile inspired the aptly named Tomahawk, while Enola Gay revisits the striking nose art of the

Ë

infamous plane that dropped the first atomic bomb. Barnbrook deliberately retained the hand-drawn shapes to give the font an unconventional look. The world-renowned typographer has produced an extraordinary range of

typefaces over the years, including Mason, Exocet and Priori. Elegant and beautifully presented, his Virus collection brings many of these unusual, often disturbing, fonts together for the first time. For further details, check out his Website…

TUTORIAL

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July 2004

TUTORIAL

Down the tutorial files here

ftp://ftp.futurenet.co.uk/pub/arts/zinio/arts98_t_anime.zip

ILLUSTRATOR

ANIM MAGIC

This month’s striking cover image is certainly an attention grabber. But although this animé illustration may look simple to imitate, capturing it’s unique style takes time and patience. Creators 123Klan show you how...

As graffiti writers, 123Klan has

Ë always been attracted to animé. This

TIME LENGTH

5 hours INFO

123Klan have been on the graffiti scene since 1989. Inspired by the work of Neville Brody, graphic art has become a logical extension of their graffiti writing. 123klan were the first to blend graffiti writing and graphic art on the Web, making it not just an exhibition tool but a new creative medium. To find out more, visit www.123klan.com

is mainly due to the style, which by using just a few shapes remains simple and effective, but also because the colours used for the characters are so powerful. But it’s worth bearing in mind that although it may look simple, like graffiti, this is a difficult technique to master! The similarities don’t end there. Graffiti makes great use of outlines, as does animé. You’ll see in this cover illustration that there are detailed outlines surrounding each shape. Graffiti uses the same technique, but with lettering, too. As shown in this tutorial, transferring a basic animé sketch to Adobe Illustrator is actually very simple as the package allows you to draw outlines, fill shapes and add colour. So even if you’re not that familiar with Illustrator, you’ll be able to create this image as it’s not necessary to use all of the Illustrator tools. You will actually find that you use the Pen tool more then any other. Once the sketch has been scanned and imported to Illustrator, you use the Pen to trace each shape over your original lines. You could create your original drawings in Illustrator, but this is complicated and takes much longer. Animé renders do appear simple, but don’t be fooled. The body parts, particularly the eyes, are tricky to reproduce and are the key to success, so it’s important to pay attention to detail and spend time recreating the style.

1

Scan the sketch supplied on the cover disc (anime.jpg) to 72 dpi, save it and open Illustrator. Create a new document by choosing File>New and insert the scanned document (File>Place). The sketch will now appear. In the Layers palette, lock this layer by clicking on the box next to the eye icon and create a new layer by clicking on the third icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.

2

Use the Pen tool to trace the closed character shapes – the hand, the hair and the face. When drawing the bracelet on the wrist, trace the entire shape, then bring the hand shape back to the front.

3

Now start to trace the smaller shapes inside the larger shapes (such as the fingers) without changing the stroke size.

4

Once all the closed shapes have been traced, select them all by holding down the Shift key and clicking on each one, but do not include the shapes created in Step 3.

This striking animé image can be reproduced with careful use of outlines, colours and shading. Illustration by 123Klan (www.123Klan.com)

July 2004

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TUTORIAL

ILLUSTRATOR cont’d

5

By filling your selection with white you can ensure you’ve traced everything.

8

Add spiky shapes at the end of every stroke to create the look of the end of a pen stroke. This way, you get away from the pixellated look of a traced drawing. Do the same on the fingers, elbows, ears, etc.

9

Again, fill all these shapes with colour to ensure that you haven’t missed anything.

6

Order your shapes by moving some of them to the front and others to the back by clicking Object>Arrange. You can, for example, click on the hair and eyebrows to move them in front of the face.

10

7

You can now work on the shadows and smaller details. Use the Pen tool, in Fill mode with no Stroke, and trace the groups of dark pixels that represent shadows.

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July 2004

It is really important that you pay close attention to the smaller details if you are to achieve the right effect. So now take a close look at the smaller shapes such as the eyes and the mouth. Using the Pen tool, start by outlining the outside of the eye and remember to include the eyelashes and the pupil.

TUTORIAL

SHADOWS

11

Now, trace the iris with a slightly lighter colour than the one used for the eyelashes (see “Outlines”, p26). But be sure not to use a stroke on the iris.

Shadows and lights are hugely important so it’s best to stick with funky, fresh colours. The rendering is simple. Keep colour flat but add depth and texture by creating shaded areas. You can add detail and areas of light to the eyes and hair by selecting a lighter colour in the same tone. Do the same thing for shadow, but select a darker tint (as a general rule add 15 per cent of black to your main colour).

14

Finish tracing the remaining details (mouth, belly button, etc.) and once again fill everything with white to make sure you haven’t missed anything. When you are happy with the image, unlock the background layer and delete it.

12

Place the pupil behind the eyelashes by selecting it with the Direct Selection tool and use Object>Arrange to bring it to the foreground. Do the same with the other eye, too.

16

13

Outline the white of the eyes by following the inside of the eyelash (white Fill, no Stroke) and move the shape to the background. Trace the highlights inside the eye with the Ellipse tool and bring them to the front. Then, select all the eye elements and group them (Ctrl+G).

Modify the colour of all the detail elements (eyelashes, mouth, shadows) by using the dark purple to colourise their fill and stroke. The illustration will now start to come alive.

15

Now you can start adding some colour. Go to Window>Colours and open the Swatches palette. Select all the strokes and pick a dark purple (double click on the Plum swatch then add some black).

July 2004

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TUTORIAL

ILLUSTRATOR cont’d

17

Select each shape and colourise it with bright colours with similar tones (see “Shadows”, p25). You can use the plum colour to create various shades and add Gradients, on the hair for example. It’s important to maintain visual coherence by using the same stroke colour throughout.

OUTLINES When creating outlines, make an original choice about colour. Most animé characters are outlined in black. But it is widely accepted to outline using the same tone, but in a darker shade, of the fill colour. This illustration, for example, uses pink and violet tones, so it would be fine to use a dark purple outline.

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July 2004

20

You’re almost done! Select all (Ctrl/Cmd+A) then Copy and go to Edit>Paste in Back. Group everything in the Pathfinder and add a large dark purple stroke, which will bring the image to life.

18

Use a slightly darker colour to trace the shadows on the face. Do not use a stroke on those shapes. You can use the same technique to create great effects on the hair, eyes and clothes.

19

Add extra texture by using a pattern for the clothes. Create the pattern inside a square shape, then drag it into the Color palette. Once it’s in the palette, select your object and fill it with the pattern.

REVIEW

April 2004

|A

COMPETITION

Prize worth over $26,000 USD, approx £14,200!

WIN A SCHOLARSHIP

TO VANCOUVER FILM SCHOOL! Deadline 30 June 2004!

Our most amazing competition to date! This is your last chance to win a year’s scholarship for the Interactive Media course at the prestigious Vancouver Film School. Flights to and from Canada are included. So enter now!

T

he Interactive Media course at Vancouver Film School has a staggering employment rate and a reputation that’s hard to beat. That’s why we’re so proud to offer you a chance to enrol, for free! This leading Canadian institution is offering one talented Computer Arts reader the chance to spend a full year experimenting with major graphics software, studying theory and gaining hands-on experience of the design industry, while living in one of the world’s most beautiful and exciting cities. If you’re passionate about a career in design, this truly is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Just download our application pack, send in a letter of intent and submit your portfolio on CD or provide a Web link – we’ll do the rest. Work can be submitted as print, Web, video or animation, or a mixture of each; it’s entirely up to you. But be quick! With the closing date looming, this will be our penultimate call for your entries. This ground-breaking course begins with intensive grounding in interactive software and disciplines, before you explore one of three streams. Choose the Examples of student work: stills from Bernard Kowalski and Karl Jensen’s Flash action game, Tiger Claw.

28

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July 2004

Programming stream for in-depth training in creating cutting-edge solutions and rich Internet applications. Logical thinking and technical flair are essential to providing the best solutions. Opt for Visual Design and you’ll be immersed in motion graphics, usability and interactive marketing. The course offers advanced instruction on typography, interface design, user experience, DV, 3D and the rigours of print production. Finally, there’s the Audio/Video stream, where you’ll generate original sound and visuals, with advanced instruction in digital audio production, digital video editing and interactive video deployment. Also in development is a Game Design stream that analyses the game-playing experience, working on prototypes and training in game theory, mechanics, story-telling and software skills. (Note that every stream has a close affiliation with an industry partner.) You’ll also be eligible for the Life Long Learning programme, keeping you up to speed for the rest of your career! So get to work on your portfolio and download all the information and admission forms you need from the following Website:

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LAST CHANC TO ENT E ER THE FACTS

Course duration 48 weeks Start date Every eight weeks from 25 October 2004 Age Must be 19 years or above Admission requirements Acceptance will be determined by the talent, creativity and commitment demonstrated by the candidate in the contents of their application package, as well as their potential to succeed in the programme. Work experience and/or education in the area of study is recommended, but not essential. Basic computer skills are required. The most suitable candidate for the course will be selected by the entries. The judges All entries received before the closing date of Wednesday 30 June 2004 will be carefully considered by a panel of expert judges, listed below. The winner will be announced in July. • Stephen Webster, Head of Interactive Media, Vancouver Film School • Gillian Carson, Editor, Computer Arts • Sarah Mowatt, European PR Manager, Macromedia • Amber Bezahler, Director of User Experience, Blast Radius Terms and conditions Full terms and conditions, including application requirements, are available to download at www.vfs.com/computerarts. The closing date for entries is 30 June 2004. Candidates must fulfil all entry requirements, submit the forms provided and hold a valid passport. Flights to and from Canada are included, but accommodation and transfer to and from airports is not. Entry and acceptance of the prize is at the winner’s own risk. Late or incomplete entries will not be accepted.

CA INTERVIEW

Joel Veitch: the unknown face behind an emerging global phenomenon. His madcap creations have been snapped up on both sides of the Atlantic 30

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July 2004

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES WILSON

CA INTERVIEW

JOEL VEITCH

RATHERGOOD

Joel Veitch’s work is a viral marketing dream, making waves on the Web and TV on both sides of the Atlantic. But how did this online animator make it so big in advertising? We went straight to the horse’s mouth.

The chances are, at some point over the last few years, someone will have emailed you an animation of a bunch of kittens playing in a band. The kitten bands come in various flavours: with wings and Viking helmets, performing surprising covers of Electric Six’s Gay Bar, or flatcapped and accordion-playing to Destiny’s Child. They are the work of Joel Veitch, creator of Rathergood.com, a Website featuring all manner of strangeness. If you didn’t see the kitten bands then you’ll have seen his work, more recently on TV. The bizarre ad campaign for Switch/Maestro where the penguins sing Chanson L’Amour. Or the more recent TV campaign for Crusha. But just how did Veitch leap from doing email funnies to working with broadcasters and ad agencies worldwide?

Ë

No Jakob Nielsen Back in 2000, Veitch was a lowly intranet creator at Reuters. But unsatisfied by his role, he left his job and enrolled on an MA in Electronic Media at Oxford Brookes University. By the end of that year, he’d created enough material to take

Switch/Maestro’s ad agency contacted Veitch as a result of the kitten spots on Rathergood. The brief: to create something like the kittens but featuring penguins... on holiday.

“When I was doing the MA, I picked up more from Rob and from T-sluts than I did from the teaching staff, who were very badly out of date,” laughs Veitch. “Rob was enormously helpful. I don’t have anything like Rob’s level of technical ability. Knowledge of how you actually make things work. It’s not just about writing code, but understanding what you’re trying Classic: Veitch’s Venetian masterpiece.

“My first attempt at interactivty was a head, my head, in a crash helmet. You run your mouse over it and it swears, a lot!” Rathergood forward. “That gave me a year to just make stuff without any corporate pressure,” he says. In the early days, Veitch collaborated with Rob Manuel, the driving force behind entertainment Website B3ta. They’d met while at university but had lost contact until ten years later. At the time, Rob was busy establishing B3ta’s precursor, T-sluts.

to do, how to make it work and the people you’re trying to get through to – the dynamics of how to do clean design without becoming Jakob Nielsen.” Rathergood grew from pretty humble roots: “I had a big pile of paper full of stupid gags, that I’d written while I was supposed to be working at boring jobs, and had nowhere to put them,”

COMPANY INFO Location: Hackney, London Email: [email protected] URL: www.rathergood.com or www.b3ta.com

July 2004

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CA INTERVIEW

JOEL VEITCH

Veitch’s first band: inspired by a John B track, caught the attention of the marketing bods at Switch/Maestro.

says Veitch. “So I thought, ‘If I’m going to do this Masters, I might as well have a decent domain’.” “It’s just cats playing music” So Veitch tried his hand at Flash. “It’s a surprisingly simple tool to use once you get your head around it,” he says. “I started fiddling with it for fun, and created a

The Switch/Maestro ad is in the same style as the kitten bands with basic animation, haphazard lip (or beak) syncing and quirky audio tracks.

Swear-o-Tron. The Swear-o-Tron was my first attempt at interactivity. It’s just a head, my head, in a crash helmet. You run your mouse over it and it swears, a lot!” From here, Veitch went on to create his first kitten band, inspired by a John B track he’d heard. “It’s just cats playing music,” he laughs. “It amused me, but I didn’t think it would take off. But people loved it.

Veitch keeps his Flash animations in sync with the sound track by ensuring sound is set to stream while minimising overall movement within each piece. 32

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July 2004

So I thought I’d develop the idea and the kitten band went from strength to strength.” A series of big hits were given the Veitch treatment. The most popular one being Destiny’s Child. “If Destiny’s Child were kittens from Northern England, this is what they’d sound like,” says Veitch. Veitch’s peculiar style was quickly snapped up by the ill-fated Channel 4 breakfast show RI:SE and he soon went on to produce the credit work for Born Sloppy and a television ad for Crusha. It was on the back of Born Sloppy that he received a call from an ad executive who’d seen his work. He wanted Veitch to work on an ad campaign for Switch/Maestro – something similar, but with Penguins... on holiday. Having crossed the Atlantic, Veitch’s work currently divides the United States thanks to a controversial commercial for sandwich chain Quiznos Subs. The campaign recreates one of Veitch’s original works, in which tiny primates dubbed the Spongmonkeys sing about their passionate love for the moon. “I got to spend lots of time in the studio screeching until my voice shredded,” says Veitch. “It was incredibly funny to make. But it split people straight down the middle; they either loved it or hated it.” But why the split? “The Net has a selfselecting audience,” says Veitch. “People forward things to people that they think they’ll like, as opposed to these screeching monkeys with bad teeth that arrive in people’s living rooms unannounced.

CA INTERVIEW

CASE STUDY 1: Quiznos Subs

The Spongmonkeys reappeared for Quiznos Subs after The Martin Agency saw Veitch’s original We like the Moon. The moral of the story: it pays to exploit the Web. Winning the Quiznos Subs pitch was by no means a done deal. But the ad agency had a trick up its sleeve. “Quiznos has a history of edgy marketing, but went a little bit too far on its last ad, which involved a man

I hadn’t really thought about it before, but just looking at that reaction made me think a little bit about the audience dynamics.” Design secrets Veitch’s working methods are pretty straightforward. Initially using Flash MX or MX 2004, he then publishes everything to Flash 5 for compatibility. There’s also Photoshop 7, of course, for the photographic images, and shareware

suckling from a wolf’s teat,” Veitch admits. “So they changed their agency. Our pitch was The Martin Agency’s first campaign. The guys had seen We Like the Moon and really liked it, so they took a bunch of students, who

were basically their core audience, and filmed them watching it. The agency showed the video to Quiznos and said: ‘What are these people laughing at? Your next campaign!’” It worked. Quiznos snapped it up

and there’s another ad coming soon “It’s a wonderful way to pitch. If we’d just gone to the execs with these screeching monkeys with bad teeth and said ‘Lets use this!’ they probably would have just said, ‘What?’”

them as PNGs, put them back together in Flash and away you go,” he explains. PNGs allow transparency, as do GIFs, but with quality more akin to jpegs. So Veitch takes relevant layers from Photoshop as 24-bit graphics with relevant transparency enabled. Then uses as many Flash layers as he needs to get his characters looking right. “You can have movie clips, within movie clips, within movie clips, until you wind up with a fully-animated character.”

“It’s just cats playing music. If Destiny’s Child were kittens from Northern England, this is what they’d sound like” product Goldwave for audio. But the animations themselves are pretty simple. “You start in Photoshop, get some pictures, chop them about until you’re happy with the characters, disassemble

But the television work is a little more complex. Veitch exports his animations from Flash as MOV files. “But that’s not true video; it’s a Flash file that plays through QuickTime Player,” he says.

The Spongmonkeys’ We Like the Moon now forms the basis of the Quiznos Subs US campaign. July 2004

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CA INTERVIEW

JOEL VEITCH

Buffy’s Swearing Keyboard: one of Veitch’s collaborations with B3ta boss Rob Manuel.

“So you bring that into Premiere and render it out to the broadcast standard you’re using.” By keeping animations simple and ensuring that audio is set to stream, Veitch’s animations remain in perfect sync. “If you just set the audio to stream, it will drop frames in order to keep the animation up with the audio,” he explains. “Things fall behind a lot of the time because people don’t pay enough attention to processor speed. If you keep your initial graphics small and don’t have too much happening on screen, you will drop less frames than if you make everything happen at once. Then it all starts to seize up and look jerky.” Veitch spends more and more time mixing video and animation. “You can start getting a bit more clever by doing things like publishing out on an alpha channel, and then going through QuickTime Pro, because Premiere doesn’t

CASE STUDY 2: Crusha Veitch’s work for the Web and entertainment TV was designed for simplicity and speed, so his first ad campaign for children’s milk drink Crusha was a whole new ball game – a labyrinthine process of storyboarding, script approval, sound and character design, not to mention the animation itself. Veitch’s opinion of this process? “Advertising is an exercise in making things more difficult than they would be normally.”

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understand the alpha channel,” he explains. “So go through QuickTime Pro to publish out a TIFF sequence with transparency and then you can bring that back into Premiere with video underneath it and sandwich up layers of video and animation. It takes longer, but you do get interesting effects.” Veitch admits that his ideas come not so much from traditional sources such as design books and museum trips, but rather from talking to friends, pub conversations and listening to music. And it seems to be working. “You know when someone says, ‘Okay, I need a good, funny thing 30seconds long by two o’clock this afternoon,’ and you’re sat in an office with a notepad; I find that extremely hard,” he confesses. “It’s much better to go to the pub and come back to it later, picking out the good ideas that still seem funny the next day. They’re usually the ones to go with!” So what of the future? For now, Veitch has plenty of TV work ahead and plans to update the Rathergood Website when possible. There’s another spot for Quiznos and for Switch/Maestro on the way and a possible DVD of the late night Rathergood Television in the works. If it happens, it should be ready for Christmas. And as for the secret of his success: “I guess the single most important thing is to make things that you find funny instead of trying to work out what you think other people will laugh at.” It’s simple. After all, they’re just kittens, that sing, to Beyoncé.

RATHERGOOD QUESTIONS Computer Arts: What would you say are your main influences? Joel Veitch: Kittens and rock and roll! CA: Who are your design heroes? JV: There’s a swathe of people throughout the B3ta community. We’ve kind of grown up together, stylistically. I have a huge respect for Denise Wilton and her pixelated stuff (www.styledeficit.com), and Rob Manuel has been very influential. From a tech point of view, Cal Henderson, the guy who coded B3ta is incredibly impressive, because I can’t do that sort of thing. I’m also very fond of Flip Flop Flyin’ (www.flipflopflyin.com) and Jonty Picking – his music, the Come to Kenya song and the Badgerbadgerbadger song – absolute genius. CA: Any Websites? Where do you visit? JV: My list of sites is pathetically small. I spend all my time on Yahoo Groups, Google, B3ta or Popbitch. They perform very specific tasks. CA: What practical advice would you offer aspiring animators? JV: It pays to think a little bit about optimising what you’re doing. Keep Flash files small; don’t do anything that’s going to be incredibly difficult for anyone to see. Drop back a couple of Player versions if you’re using MX 2004, and get involved with beta. It’s an extremely good way of getting stuff out there. With TV, there’s endless advice. All the gigs that any of us have picked up are from people seeing stuff on the Web. If you have your stuff seen by a lot of people, a couple of those might be the right people. One of the most depressing things is when people don’t like what they’re doing but they don’t have the time to do anything else because they’re so tied up. It is possible to make time. If you don’t make it, then nobody will ever see your work.

WIN AT

RIP TO LA! About Discreet Discreet empowers media professionals to realise the visual experience and transform their most evocative and ambitious visions into reality. Discreet’s solutions are designed for digital media creation, management and delivery from film and television visual effects, colour grading and editing to animation, game development, Web/interactive, and design visualisation. Discreet is based in Montreal, Canada and is a division of Autodesk, Inc, the world’s leading design and digital media creation, management and distribution company.

WIN A TRIP FOR TWO TO SIGGRAPH 2004 HOW TO ENTER

Computer Arts has teamed up with Discreet to offer you the fantastic opportunity to win two flights to LA and two full conference tickets for Siggraph 2004, worth over $1600! Discreet will be using Siggraph 2004 to reinforce its position as one of the leading 3D software providers and would like to give you the opportunity to experience its dedication to the 3D community by meeting its development team and experiencing first hand Siggraph 2004 – the 31st International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques on 8-12 August 2004.

This amazing prize will include two full conference tickets to Siggraph 2004, flights for two to LA and five nights’ accommodation (not including transfers to and from the airport or any additional costs incurred). Discreet’s 3ds max software has the largest installed base in the 3D industry and is the preferred 3D software in the core production environment for Ubisoft, Rockstar Games, Electronic Arts, HOK, Ellerbe Becket, Blur Studios, Frantic Films and Digital Dimensions. 3ds max continues its widespread popularity and one of the leading 3D production solutions for top artists and designers worldwide.

To enter, answer the following question: Where is the Discreet main office based?

To Enter: Log on to www.computerarts.co.uk/competition. Click on the Siggraph competition link. To enter the competition, click the link at the bottom of the page, fill in the form, including your answer and contact details. If you don’t have Web access you can still enter. Send the answer and your contact details on a postcard to: Siggraph Competition, Computer Arts, 30 Monmouth St, Bath, BA1 2BW. The Rules: The closing date for this competition is 8 July 2004. Employees of Discreet and Future Publishing, their agents and families are not permitted to enter. Multiple entries are not accepted. The editor’s decision is final and there are no cash alternatives. No other correspondence will be entered into. If you are entering by post and do not wish any of the companies involved in this competition to contact you with further offers, please indicate this on your entry. We will not pass your details on to third parties.

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TUTORIAL

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TUTORIAL

Download the tutorial files here ftp://ftp.futurenet.co.uk/pub/arts/zinio/arts98_t_woodblock.zip

Download the free brushes here ftp://ftp.futurenet.co.uk/pub/arts/zinio/arts98_t_brushes.zip

PHOTOSHOP CS

GET MESSY WITH PRINT EFFECTS Quickly create woodblock-style illustrations using Photoshop Brushes.

I often experiment with printing techniques such as screen printing, woodblock printing, lino cutting and letterpress to try and give digital illustrations and fonts a hand-printed texture. As many designers will know, it’s usually expensive and impractical to have your own printing facilities, so I have started to create paint effects and textures using Photoshop. Throughout this tutorial, I’ll demonstrate how, by using Photoshop Brushes, you can easily produce a printed effect. By creating brushes and applying them to types, graphics and images you can easily imitate a printed/distressed look as well as using simplified images to quickly create interesting, stylish and original collages. Mastering the use of brushes will not only help you to create new images with a printed texture, as demonstrated in this tutorial, but can then also be transferred to a variety of other styles to great effect. Why not try out your new techniques to create distressed T-shirt designs and stencil effects on clothing and other surfaces? Taking the time to build a library of brushes will help you to achieve a busy, layered, overprinted feel to your work, resulting in images that look worn or aged. Ultimately, once mastered, this is a technique that you can transfer across mediums, whether you’re designing for Web or print.

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(For your free photoshop Brushes)

TIME LENGTH

1.5 hours INFO Ben Beach is Creative Director and co-founder of I Love Dust, a south-coast design agency specialising in brand identity, illustration and Web design. Recent clients include Ash, Double Dragon Music, sneaker artist Dave White and M&S’s Per Una range. www.ilovedust.com

1

Firstly, decide on a concept for your illustration. This image is based on photographs I took in New York City. You may find it useful to grab a pen and paper and put together a quick sketch to decide exactly which parts of the images you will want to use and how the type will work within the final layout.

3

You may need to change the brightness contrast to bring out the grain. Using the menu bar, choose Image>Adjustments> Brightness/Contrast, experiment until the grain of the paper becomes clear and bright.

4 2

Scan some paper for the background texture. This will add depth to the illustration and produce a realistic, printed feel. A piece of uncoated brown card was used for this illustration.

Next, prepare the images so that they are ready to be changed into brushes. Your images should not exceed 2500x2500pixels. Convert them to grayscale by choosing Image>Mode>Grayscale.

MAIN ILLUSTRATION BY BEN BEACH [email protected]

July 2004

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TUTORIAL

PHOTOSHOP

5

Increase the brightness contrast once more, adding a lot of contrast and upping the brightness slightly. This will simplify the image enough to create a good brush (see Creating Brushes, left).

CREATING BRUSHES Creating your own brushes is simple and can add great effects. Turn an image or graphic into a greyscale image and try to keep the graphic on a white background no bigger than 2500x2500pixels. Use the Rectangle Marque to select your image then when selected choose the Edit>Define brush. This will ask you to name and save the brush. The messy brushes in this tutorial created a printed texture in type and a woodblock look was easily achieved by using brushes made from images.

6

Once you have made enough brushes, create a new layer and experiment with a first layout. You'll notice that by using the brush pallet you can decrease the size of the brushes, which may improve your layout. Choose black as a base colour to start the illustration, as bright contrasting colours will be introduced next.

To create an overprinted feel, create a new layer underneath one of the black layers. Choose a brighter contrasting colour, in this case pink, and stamp the same brush as the first layer once more, slightly offsetting the position.

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July 2004

Now build up layers by adding extra colours and experiment with the order of the layers until you are happy with how the illustration looks. It is a good idea to start naming your layers at this point and to create a layer set for this section.

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When you are happy with how the images look, choose a font to complement the woodblock style. You can search the Web for letterpress-style fonts (some Westerninspired fonts create a similar look). Bold sans serif fonts also work well.

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When you’ve chosen a font and decided how the copy will read, create a new layer. Using a large point size, add enough text to almost entirely fill the canvas.

TUTORIAL

USING PAPER TEXTURE

11

Hide the layer set with the background collage. You’ll now need to rasterize the large type by selecting the layer and choosing Layer>Rasterize>Type.

12

To create a distressed look to the rasterized type, create some messy brushes. There are plenty of free downloads on brush resource Websites (or see Creating Brushes, left).

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Once you’ve created or downloaded a selection of messy brushes, click on the Type layer rather than the Brush tool. Using the Erase tool, make sure the Mode is set to Brush in the Erase menu. This will give you access to your messy brushes and you can begin deleting parts of the type.

Scanned paper texture can be used not only to create backgrounds, but also to improve the texture of any images or graphics. Try overlaying paper texture on images and experiment using the Screen and Overlay modes within the Layer pallet.

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Search books and the Internet for examples of woodblock/letterpress prints to use as a guide. It’s always best to use detailed messy brushes along side larger cracked/abstract brushes as these will help to create a distressed effect.

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When you are happy with your woodblock type, bring back the background images and merge the type within the layout. My experiments with woodblock and letterpress have suggested that angled text has much more impact.

16

Now that you’ve positioned the large type within the illustration, copy the layer and use Transform (Apple+T) to decrease the size by roughly a third. Hold down Shift and drag a corner point to maintain the proportions.

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PHOTOSHOP

19

Once the illustration contains enough elements and the type works well with the images, add paint splats and smudges using brushes. Now is not the time to be precious!

17

Copy the smaller type layer to a new canvas. As the original text colour was white, invert the type by choosing Image>Adjustments>Invert to quickly change the colour to black. Now create a brush by Selecting All (Apple+A) and choosing Edit>Define Brush.

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You can now experiment with the type layout and overlay colours by adding one or two extra layers.

GETTING MESSY Once you've created brushes from photographs and graphics to give a dirty look to an illustration, scan random things such as ink splats, pencil illustrations or even food stains and photographs of old, torn posters on walls. All of these, when converted to brushes, can help you achieve the look you are looking for.

20

The final textured image should display a good selection of brushes. Now experiment with a new illustration and layout using the same brushes as before. Alternatively, reduce the number of different colours or use type only.

NEXT ISSUE 40

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April2004 July 2004

NEON GLOW EFFECTS Studio Output shows you how to create a realistic florescent glow using a photograph, Photopshop and Freehand.

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ICON

Main image: Cuban printmaker Frémez created the original of this famous poster as Che Guevara's death was confirmed to the Cuban people. Only red paper was available hence the colour. It wasn’t originally a revolutionary statement.

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ICON

ALBERTO KORDA

CHE GUEVARA POSTER In 1960 Alberto Korda took a photograph of Che Guevara, the ultimate revolutionary. Who’d have known that the resulting image would go on not only to embody the spirit of the man, but also the universal spirit of revolution? Cuban president Fidel Castro is, without doubt, enduring. He has survived invasion and assassination attempts and acted as caretaker of Ground Zero when the world was at the brink of nuclear world war. Yet it is not his face that symbolises revolution. That honour goes to his right-hand man and one-time head of the Bank of Cuba, Che Guevara. One picture in particular will go down in

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dropped his medical bag and fired back. Castro, Che and his guerrilla gang overthrew Batista on New Year’s Day 1959. It was then that they hired Korda, a littleknown Havana-based photographer, to document their revolution. Korda had a fashion background, but had shot a photo of a poverty-stricken child playing with a straw doll just before the revolution. It was perhaps this image that led Castro and Che

Korda, aiming his camera at the parapet, took a photo he could never have known would inspire so many history, Guerrillero Heroico – the Heroic Guerrilla – taken by photographer Alberto “Korda” Diaz Gutierrez. Back in the 1950s, Cuba existed under the questionable rule of Fulgencio Batista, the US-friendly dictator who ran the country with little regard for its poor masses. Castro, a sworn enemy, took issue both with the President and the military coup that marked his seizure of power. Having unsuccessfully taken the dictator to court, Castro tried his hand at armed insurrection. His first attempts in 1953 proved fruitless and he soon found himself in exile. It was during this period that Castro and his gang acquired a medic, an Argentine named Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna. Legend has it that in 1958, when Castro and his band of guerrillas, dubbed the 26th of July Movement, returned to Cuba on The Granma, they were fired upon. The medic, now nicknamed “Che” (Argentine for “mate”),

to believe Korda was right for the cause. The following year, a Belgian arms shipment exploded in the harbour, killing over 100 crew members. As Castro addressed the memorial crowd, accusing counter-revolutionary saboteurs, Che stepped forward. Korda, aiming his camera at the parapet on which the officials were speaking, took a photo he could never have known would inspire so many. Korda later told the Guardian: “I saw him step forward with this absolute look of steely defiance as Fidel Castro spoke. It was only a brief moment that I had. I shot two frames and then he was gone.” Delayed fame But it was not until Che was killed in the Bolivian jungle in 1967 that the picture found fame. Korda gave two prints to Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli as a gift when he visited Cuba just a few months before Che’s death. Feltrinelli

ESSENTIAL READING This book is the companion piece to a UCLA Fowler Museum exhibition of the same name. But it has more than a volume documenting the hundreds of murals and posters based on Korda’s famous image. It also discusses Guevara himself, providing insight into his personality, as well as touching on the culture of the Latin American revolution. Essays not only describe the exact circumstances of the picture being taken, but they also discuss how Che is viewed, for instance, by Latin communities in the United States, as well as the “Christification” of the revolutionary hero. As a book of images, this is totally captivating, showing the power of the image as it takes on the form of everything from Cuban government statues to ”flower-power”-style European art. The book’s greatest power is its contextual essays, however, which serve as both art history lessons and cultural critique. For anyone interested in the Che story, we urge you to start here.

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READ THIS: June 2004 47 Che Guevara: Icon, Myth and Message David Kenzie (University of California Press, 1997) ISBN 0-930-741-59-5) £25.95

July 2004

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ICON

EMAIL WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! If you have any design icons you’d like to appear, send your ideas to [email protected], with the subject line “icon”.

later published Che’s diaries, and created a poster using the Guerrillero Heroico image. In the late 1960s, as student movements and anti-Vietnam war sentiment peaked, the image found an eager market, appearing on all manner of merchandise. Che’s face now appears worldwide on everything from Cuban currency to murals, stamps, posters and maracas. But Korda himself received no financial reward, despite the photograph’s popularity, until he was approached by international advertising agency Lowe Lintas. The agency tried to use Che’s image to sell Smirnoff. Korda objected, believing that Smirnoff’s use of the picture ran counter to Che’s ideals. Korda was awarded substantial damages, which he donated to the Cuban healthcare system. He died, in Paris, in 2001 and was later buried in Havana.

“Ever onward to victory,” reads the poster. Korda’s image has been appropriated by a number of causes, including John Lennon on the cover of a recent issue of Mojo.

So why the success? According to London-based photographer, Phillip Simpson: “The received wisdom we carry about the genius of the image is that it embodies the spirit of rebellion, sex, self-knowledge and freedom,” he says.

like him,” adds Danish photographer Michael Harder. “There are a lot of pictures of Che Guevara and he doesn’t look like that. And then, I can’t help thinking that he has a resemblance to Jesus.”

“The genius of the image is that it embodies the spirit of rebellion, sex, self-knowledge and freedom” “These are qualities that Che did in fact possess and that the photographer captured perfectly. Che was obviously a charismatic character, but he was also a photographer himself and so knew how to present himself to a camera for maximum effect.” “It’s funny, I don’t think it really looks

LEARN MORE ONLINE www.th3m.com www.phillipsimpson.com www.pix.dk

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The picture is powerful for several reasons, says Alasdair Scott, founder of interactive agency Th3m. “It has been reproduced at various levels of quality across a wide range of media, from clothing to magazines and from placards to brick walls. It’s become an embedded element of late-20th century shared visual consciousness,” he says. “You can photocopy this image a zillion times and it still retains the essence of the original photograph. In fact, it’s more powerful the more it degrades.” “That’s where it wins,” agrees author and photographer Tom Ang. “It’s perfect

for T-shirts and posters printed with rubber stamps, unchanging at any size from postage stamp to 16-sheet billboard.” Perhaps the image’s biggest credit is that it allows the spirit of Che to live on. “It’s an image of revolution. It’s theoretically still in copyright and yet has been claimed by the public and reproduced in most places imaginable, which fits in with Che’s ethic,” Scott adds. So is the image still as inspirational in the 21st century? “It has an iconic quality which has parallels with Soviet realist propaganda art. I find it inspiring for this reason,” says Simpson. It seems that, in a time where the utopian ideals of the Sixties have given way to the idea of freedom as something associated with selling brands, the spirit of Che is trapped by an image in a world of cliché and irony. Perhaps we are hanging on to the spirit in which it was created as some sort of romantic ideal.

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Time to get real – photo-real! Flash MX’s artistic vector drawing tools and colour panel can help you create amazing images for Web and print use… TURN TO PAGE 58

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INDESIGN CS 1 HOUR

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In the closing part of our two-part tutorial, we look at the Glyphs palette, explore OpenType fonts and reveal some more choice InDesign shortcuts. TURN TO PAGE 62

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... and get back to basics with colour theory

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TUTORIAL

Download the tutorial files here

ftp://ftp.futurenet.co.uk/pub/arts/zinio/arts98_t_photoshop.zip

PHOTOSHOP CS

WORKING WITH THE LENS BLUR FILTER

Photoshop CS has provided digital photographers and re-touchers with something they’ve long been craving: true photographic blurs that allow for complete control over changing focus and perspective

For years, digital artists have used Photoshop’s Gaussian Blur filter to replicate the effects of out of focus photography. It does a good job. But Gaussian Blur can’t behave like the optics of a camera lens. Photoshop CS, however, has introduced a new, fully-featured optical blurring environment, the Lens Blur filter, that is more than up to the challenge. Gaussian Blur looks for significant colour transitions within an image then creates intermediary colours to soften the edges. Lens Blur, on the other hand, tries to replicate the imperfections of a camera lens. Helpfully, the Lens Blur filter also includes a noise filter that can be used to replicate the effect of film grain on blurred sections of an image. The Lens Blur filter is ideal for creating a narrower depth of field to give focus to either the foreground or background. But sadly, the technology doesn’t exist to expand the depth of field of a photograph taken with a wide aperture. Although simple blurs can be achieved using objects on different layers, to get the most from the Lens Blur filter, you must create a depth mask – an alpha channel used by the filter to decide which objects should be in focus. Black areas lay in front of the focus plane and white areas behind, with the user deciding which shade of grey should be the “in focus” value. Doing this by hand requires patience, experimentation and imagination. But if you’re up for a challenge, read on.

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TIME LENGTH

4 hours INFO Jason Arber is co-founder of online arts magazine, Pixelsurgeon, and senior designer at Now Wash Your Hands. He has a morbid fear of fish. Visit his Websites, www.pixelsurgeon. com and www. nowwashyourhands. com, or email jason@ pixelsurgeon.com

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Open the image “guitarvader_rgb.tif” in Photoshop CS. The photograph of Japanese band Guitar Vader was taken on a bright day in Tokyo. It has a large depth of field and plenty of interesting objects in sharp focus in both the fore and background.

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Focus exists as a series of imaginary planes perpendicular to the lens axis. So first you must define where you want the focus to be. In Photoshop, use the Pencil Tool in a bright, contrasting colour on a new layer to define the focus.

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Duplicate the background layer by dragging it onto New Document icon in the Layers palette. You can now create a new layer between the background and the duplicate and fill it with a contrasting colour.

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With the duplicate background layer selected, click Add Layer Mask in the Layers palette and, with a soft-edged brush, paint away the background around the figures so that the bright green starts to show through.

Photography of Guitar Vader by Akiko Konno

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PHOTOSHOP

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Cutting out dark items on a dark background can be tricky, so temporarily lighten the background by creating a new levels adjustment layer. Go to Layer>New AdjustmentLayer>Levels and use the top layer as a clipping mask. Drag the middle grey triangle to the left to lighten the image.

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This photograph has a very clear perspective origin, so create a radial fill from the centre of the image out to the edges, using the converging edges of the buildings as a guide.

Later on, 100 will be established as the in-focus value, but for now determine the foreground blur by using the large soft-edged brush to paint on both sides where the buildings would lose focus.

NOT JUST FOR PHOTOS Although designed with the digital photographer and re-toucher in mind, you may want to experiment with the Lens Blur filter on other types of image. Many 3D applications generate depth masks to control the blurring of a scene without having to wait for an image to re-render. Even traditional illustration benefits from the filter’s unusual effects.

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Now drag the adjustment layer to the Trash icon in the Levels palette. Put each character on a new layer by drawing a marquee around them with the Lasso tool, going to Cut and selecting Layer>New> Layer. Clearly label your layers.

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Delete or hide the green layer and the characters will appear composited on the background. Select the Channels palette and click on New Document. You can now create a depth mask alpha channel (see p51).

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By turning the RGB channels on and off, start to isolate features such as the signs and lanterns in different shades of grey using a soft-edged brush. The lighter the grey you use, the more blurring those pixels will eventually show.

Now you can establish background and foreground blurring. Open the Levels dialogue box by choosing Image>Adjustments>Levels and move the black Output Levels slider to 100. This will turn the black areas of the channel, grey.

Open the Lens Blur filter using Filter>Blur>LensBlur. The image will be placed in a new window with options to the right hand side. The image will blur immediately due to the default Iris Radius.

Change the Iris Radius to 50, select Depth Mask as the Depth Map Source and move the Blur Focal Distance to 100 to set that shade of grey as the in-focus value.

TUTORIAL

SPECULAR HIGHLIGHTS

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Clicking OK will reveal one of the filter’s shortcomings: the blurring causes coloured halos around the figures because the filter can’t see around them. Click Undo to remove the blurring effect.

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On a duplicate of the background layer use the Clone tool to carefully eat away at the characters by cloning the background over their edges. Although most of your cloning will end up out of focus, do try to be accurate.

Photoshop’s Lens Blur filter has settings for Specular Highlights – areas of intense light that occur in blurred areas of photographs. The two settings create and control the highlights, one for the highlight brightness and another for the appearance threshold. By keeping the threshold at 255, you will prevent any specular highlights from appearing.

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Make duplicates of each figure and use the Gaussian Blur filter to apply individual blurring to match the background. Make another duplicate from the in-focus original and use a Lens Blur filter that has a smaller Iris Radius than the background.

Although this figure is mostly in focus, he’s at a 45-degree angle to the focus plane. Use the Blur Tool on a duplicate layer to smudge the edges and create the impression of a narrower field depth.

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Having used layer masks to mix the Gaussian and Lens Blurred versions, it’s time to evaluate. The image is heading in the right direction, but the depth mask still needs more work to be convincing.

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Repeat the Lens Blur filter on the new background and you’ll see the coloured halos disappear. You can now turn your attention to blurring the figures.

NEXT ISSUE

It may take a few attempts to get the depth mask right, but you’ll get a better feel for how the shades of grey blur the pixels and how soft gradients and high contrast provide completely different results.

The plane of focus can be seen stretching across the ground, so ensure that the focus of the feet matches the floor. Otherwise, the characters will sit awkwardly on the wrong plane of focus and any retouches will become obvious.

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The finished result looks convincing, especially after some additional retouching, such as the light bleed above the heads that seeps in from the blown-out building in the background.

DRAMATIC LIGHT & SHADE Our resident expert Jacey, shows you how to make the best of highlights and shadow in Photoshop.

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TUTORIAL

Download the tutorial files here ftp://ftp.futurenet.co.uk/pub/arts/zinio/arts98_t_illustration.zip

PART ONE

ILLUSTRATOR & PHOTOSHOP

TURN A PHOTOGRAPH INTO A SKETCH

Successfully transforming pixels into an effective vector illustration needn’t be difficult. In the first of our two-part tutorial, you’ll discover how Photoshop and Illustrator can help you create this street-savvy illo from scratch

Using photography in illustration is nothing new, but transforming the imagery into something you could have drawn yourself and disguising its digital origins is an altogether different proposition. It’s all too easy to scan in a photograph and rely on filters and other digital trickery. But with a little effort and vision, you can craft an interesting and original illustration that transcends its source and takes on a life of its own. This tutorial will take you through the process of creating an exciting and dynamic image from a selection of photographs, sketches and textures using the digital prowess of Photoshop and Illustrator CS. The process switches back and forth between the two applications, making good use of their strengths to get the most effective results. Techniques include photographic manipulation and collaging, subtle filter enhancement, effective use of textures and masking, gradient mapping and layer transparency effects. The tutorial also shows you how to dress an image down, removing the digital gloss and roughening the edges a little to give a sense of spontaneity and vibrancy. Adding hand-drawn elements, even the most minimal marks or sketches, can breathe life into flat digital work. So if you’ve ever wanted to make creative use of a good photograph, or simply want to add a little edge to your illustration, read on.

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TIME LENGTH

2 hours INFO Andy Potts is a freelance illustrator and animator for advertising, publishing and editorial clients such as TBWA-GTT, Random House and The Guardian. He is also Lead Designer for Abbey Road Interactive creating DVD menus, designing interfaces in Photoshop and animating them in After Effects for acts such as Coldplay, Radiohead, U2 and David Bowie. Visit his portfolio Website at www.andy-potts. com or Abbey Road Studios at www. abbeyroad.com.

Use Photoshop, Illustrator and the resources on our cover CD to create this vibrant illustration.

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First off, import the “car.jpg” image into Illustrator. This New York car was used to display sculptures on the roof and bonnet; we’ll need to remove these to give our illo a sense of movement and dynamism.

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Once you’ve completed the path, fill it, copy it to the clipboard and paste it into Photoshop. This is a good way to select a complicated shape and remove it from the background if Colour Range, Magic Wand or the Lasso aren’t accurate enough.

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Reduce the opacity of the image to 50 per cent and select the Pen tool. Using an outline only, draw a path around the car. Don’t worry if it’s not exact. You can return to any badly drawn areas and adjust the path afterwards using the anchor point handles.

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Use this outline to create brushstroke effects such as this Chalk Scribble by selecting the path and clicking on the desired effect in the Brush library. Try out multiple looks and paste them into Photoshop until you’re satisfied. The brush effects can look artificial at this early stage, but they will end up completely transformed.

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Create an RGB document in Photoshop (300dpi, 240mmx290mm) – it offers more colours and is easier to convert to CMYK. Use the filled car shape to separate the car from the background onto another layer, then apply the Illustrator brush outline behind to create rougher edges. Now add a subtle Paint Daub effect (Brush size 7, Sharpness 4).

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Add a subtle arrow shape to the bonnet to increase movement and further disguise the sculptures. Draw a path in Photoshop on the image to ensure it will work, then export the paths to Illustrator and apply a Paintbrush-Wide effect. Copy to the clipboard and paste back into Photoshop.

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Open “car_linework.psd”. Cut out the front portions of the sketch using the Lasso tool, remove the top section of the grille and invert the colours. To enhance the hub cab, cut out the rough shape and copy it to a new layer with Screen applied to the layer transparency.

GRADIENT MAPPING Gradient Maps take the luminosity of an image and apply two colours to it to create a two-tone screen print effect. It’s a great method for getting quick, creative results from photographs. First, choose two interesting colours for your foreground/ background boxes. Now go to Image> Adjustment> Gradient Map, select the default gradient and see the results. Try reversing the colours to invert the image for unusual effects. Enhance the luminosity of an image with levels before applying stronger colour contrasts.

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Double up the Paint Daub layer and darken the image by switching the layer transparency to Multiply at 60 per cent. Apply a mask and paint black over the areas you want the underlying layer to show. Open “texture.psd”, paste it into the car shape, to obscure the sculptures. Add a paint texture.

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Double up the Paint Daub layer once more and apply a Gradient Map using two contrasting colours. This gives a two-tone screen-print feel to the car. By switching the Layer transparency to Soft Light, you can also add subtle colouring to the layers beneath.

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Now work on the windscreen and side windows in Illustrator CS. Create the shapes using paths, which are far more manageable than the Photoshop equivalent. We will copy these back into Photoshop.

Open “car_shadow.psd” and paste it onto a layer beneath the body of the car to add a shadow. Apply a block of colour to the registration plate with the Lasso tool. Create the CA plate using Helvetica Neue, rasterise the layer and use Transform> Distort to add perspective. Remove the bonnet part of the Illustrator chalk scribble.

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Return to Photoshop and open “car_windows.psd” – an old sketch, inverted and desaturated to create texture. Even a bad sketch can be recycled to great effect if used in the right way. Copy the texture and paste it into the window shapes you’ve already created in Illustrator.

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Scale the image down and move it to the left to create an appropriate space. Now to block in the basic shapes and composition… For the sky, use the Gradient Tool to create a subtle dark-to-light red circular gradient. Work from the centre of the orange sun shape using the circular marquee tool. Leave the road an off-white colour.

TUTORIAL

DYNAMIC DOODLING

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Turn off the car layer and open the “paint_texture.jpg” and “clouds.jpg”. Copy “paint_texture” and paste it onto the upper horizon. Switch layer transparency to Overlay and Opacity to 70 per cent. Combine that with a real photograph by pasting “clouds.psd” under the “paint_ texture” and sun shape and switch the layer transparency to Hard Light at 40 per cent.

Any texture or sketch can be a useful addition to your illustration. By selecting the area you wish to manipulate and pasting a texture or drawing into that selection, you can move the texture around within a mask, but only see the result over your chosen image. By experimenting with the texture’s layer transparencies, it’s quite possible to transform your work completely. Try out even the most unpromising doodle or texture and you’ll be surprised by the effects you can achieve.

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Use Illustrator to separate the building from its background and apply a Gradient Map. Paste it onto the background and flip it horizontally to improve the perspective. Open “timesquare.jpg“ and apply the same Gradient Map, using the Lasso tool to lift it from the background. Paste this to the right of the previous building.

Open “ny.jpg” and apply Levels to distinguish between sky and building. Use Colour Range to select black. Restore the lighter sides of the buildings using the Lasso tools – select the basic rectangular shapes and merge them with the buildings using Colour Range. Apply the same Gradient Map and paste it into the background.

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Open “buildings.psd”, a desaturated black and white photo. Paste it onto the background and select the shape. Create a new layer and fill it with the off-white colour to ensure a pure colour throughout. Create a new layer, fill the building shape with the red sky and offset that to create mid-ground buildings and more detail.

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Next, create the roadside markings in Illustrator. Create a row of arrows by drawing a straight line and selecting one of the Arrows_Standard from the Brush Library. Paste the arrows onto the background.

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In Illustrator, place “flatiron.jpg” into a new document. The building has quite a complex shape and needs to be cut out accurately. Draw a path around the main building and its smaller neighbours. Copy the filled shape to the clipboard.

NEXT ISSUE

ANIMATING IN AFTER EFFECTS In the second part of our tutorial, Andy Potts explains how you can use After Effects to breathe life into your illustrations.

Use Transform>Perspective to reshape the arrows so they recede into the background and create an off-white area for them to sit on. Make two white lines for the road using Photoshop paths. Open “lampost_ sketch.psd”, paste it into the background and fill the black sketch with off-white on a new layer. Use the rest of the sketch for texture.

For the markings on the left, create a diagonal solid using the Lasso tool at a 45-degree angle. Copy this and move it down to create a chevron. Now merge the layers. Add perspective with Transform>Perspective and colour them yellow on a new layer.

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Paste “texture.psd” into the white lines and chevrons. Turn the car layer back on and add a shadow to the front of the car using the Lasso tool. Fill with dark grey or off-white and switch the layer transparency to Multiply. Re-open “paint_texture.jpg”, invert the colours and paste that into your new shadow area. Finally, switch to a Soft Light transparency of 60 per cent.

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TUTORIAL Download the tutorial files here

ftp://ftp.futurenet.co.uk/pub/arts/zinio/arts98_t_flash.zip

FLASH ILLUSTRATION

TIME LENGTH

6 hours INFO This tutorial has been provided by Robert Firebaugh, Co-founder of Electrotank, a US online game development firm, and Founder of Vectorkid. com, a Flash graphics resource site. Contact Robert at [email protected] or visit www.vectorkid.com or www.electrotank.com

FLASH MX

GET PHOTOREALISTIC WITH FLASH

Producing photorealistic vector graphics in Flash is now an accessible but challenging reality. Here, we reveal how to make best use of its artistic vector drawing tools and colour panel to create amazing images for Web and print

Flash’s creative development environment is like no other. Its artistic drawing tools allow you to paint with vectors, include alpha colour options for more dynamic shapes and optimise features that give you control down to the last vector point. Robert first started using Flash 3 to create online cartoon animations. But with the release of Flash 4, he began to incorporate his artistic talent. He now

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continues to push the program’s limits, incorporating Flash into Web designs, digital images, demos and online games. It is important that you make several different approaches if you are to achieve the highest quality. So from the original pencil sketch to the final vector rendering, illustrating our toucan using Flash will demonstrate how to achieve intricate optimised vector lines, layered gradient fills and exceptional vector textures, the

key techniques you need to create this impressive illustration. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or an advanced artist when it comes to creating graphics, this step-by-step tutorial uncovers rare techniques that can be incorporated into almost any project. Whether you’re creating a user interface, designing a Website, or creating graphics for an animation or game, there is something here for you.

TUTORIAL

SNAP TO OBJECTS

1

Before you start drawing in Flash, find yourself some inspiration. We sketched this Toucan at a zoo with pencil and paper. Taking photos of your object is always useful, especially to ensure the best colours and size proportion. Once you are satisfied with your image, scan it, import it into Flash and store it on its own locked layer.

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Once the sketch is traced, the image can be removed. This sketch did not provide the detail needed, but this can easily be added later using the Line tool.

When creating and connecting new lines, Snap to Objects snaps a newly created graphic to another for precise positioning. This comes in handy when you create a new line and want it to start where the last line ended, if you wish to position a graphic at an exact point, or if you need the flexibility to place a graphic in a tight position.

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Using the Transform Fill tool, manipulate the scale, rotation and centre of the fill with the three modifiers. These modifiers are shaped as circles and will change the look of your cursor depending on which function you are currently using.

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With the Line tool, trace your sketch to create straight outlines where fills will be applied later. This will give you complete control over the number of vector points you use, resulting in highly-optimised graphics. Set your lines to hairline width and use a bright colour that can be traced easily.

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Now create a curved line by using your quick key command to switch to the Selection tool. Click and drag the middle of the line to select a curve and then release. The Selection tool cursor will change its appearance. When editing a vector point, the cursor will display a right-angle line. A curved line display shows you are editing a line curve.

Before adding colour within the outlines, create gradients using the Color Mixer panel. Access this by choosing Window> DesignPanels>ColorMixer. Familiarise yourself with how to use the Fill Style drop-down and creating a gradient using the gradient line and colour swatches.

More detail can now be added on top of a new layer. This extra layer of fills will give the beak definition and texture. Use the Line tool to create new outlines and illustrate this extra detail.

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Focusing on the tip of the beak, review how linear and radial gradients can be connected together to create a more advanced gradient fade. Apply a fill using the Paint Bucket. Next use the Transform Fill tool to modify the gradient position.

Create the gradients used to colour these outlines using the Color Mixer. Notice how similar shades are used to provide slight differences in colour. This makes the texture much more believable. Now add the last layer of detail using white and orange gradients to show light reflecting on the beak.

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Use the Pencil tool to create a feathered line shape. With the Pencil tool set at Smooth or Ink you can create un-optimised vector lines. These are then optimised by choosing Modify>Shape>Optimize. When the dialog box opens, set it to Smoothing None. July 2004

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FLASH ILLUSTRATION cont’d

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Next, the feathers. Create shapes using the Line or Pencil tool to define where each layer will start and stop. When creating these outlines, try to visualize how the feathers would lay naturally and how this can be recreated with gradient fills.

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By repeating the techniques used in previous steps, colour the Toucan’s chin and chest. Divide the chest area in half and use a brighter fill on one side to create the shadows cast by the bird’s beak.

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CREATING SHADOWS By blending more than one gradient together you can create a drop-shadow effect similar to those in Photoshop. Imagine you have a bevelled square (with four round corners and four straight sides) and would like to give it a drop shadow. You'll need four radial gradient fills to provide shadows on the corner of the square and four linear gradient fills to connect the four corners and form drop shadows for the sides.

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Using the Color Mixer, create a radial gradient to define the layered feathers. Notice how the lighter side of one gradient meets the darker side of another, creating a shadow effect under each layer.

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You can now colour and highlight the remaining back feathers. Use similar gradients to ensure that the fills blend together seamlessly.

Break up the hard edge using a couple of thin vector fills to blend the light and dark shadows. Then use the same technique to blend the light fur with the dark feathers. Achieve a perfect transition by applying a colour half way between the two colours you are blending. Then add a layer of radial gradients where the beak meets the head to enhance the shadow.

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A final layer of feathers will now be needed to give more depth to the Toucan’s body. Use the Line or Pencil tool to outline these new areas. Then use Flash’s Optimize feature to ensure your new vectors are fully optimised.

TUTORIAL

MANAGING YOUR LAYERS Layering alpha coloured graphics is an excellent way to create complicated images, but you must give extra thought to planning your final shape. By organising the shape layers you can make your timeline less cluttered. Collect a group of layers and put them in a symbol. That way they will not interfere with other graphics within the main timeline.

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Using the Paint Bucket, apply a similar dark feather radial gradient and position it with the Fill Transform tool. Experiment with applying lighter coloured gradients where the light source is stronger.

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Now onto the most difficult part, colouring the Toucan's head. Here, the textures are more detailed due to the small area and increased light. Using the Fill Transform tool, blend together two radial gradients to highlight the head.

BOOK CLUB For further tips, Illustrating with Macromedia Flash MX 2004 by Robert Firebaugh (Charles River Media, 2004, ISBN 1584503157) provides users with complete step-by-step tutorials for creating vector illustrations in Flash and is available for £28.25.

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Use solid fills to create the harder, bumpy look needed for the Toucan’s feet. Since some of the highlighted areas are very small, try using lighter colours, even white, to make them stand out.

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Next, add an extra layer of lighter solid fills to produce a more gradual transition and add definition to the feet. If you are concerned that you are creating too many layers, try grouping these layers or making them symbols (see Layers Insight, above). Select the graphics you wish to separate and execute the short-cut key to group or convert to symbol.

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Create more depth and make the Toucan look more realistic by building a final layer of highlights on its head and back. With a white radial gradient, use the alpha settings of the colour swatches to make the shapes partially transparent.

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With the Line tool, create a background using outlines to define where fills will be applied. Once you have the shapes you are looking for, use the Color Mixer and Paint Bucket to create colour fills and apply them within your outlines. Remember to delete your outlines once you have finished.

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Add another layer of detail using the techniques used in steps 16 and 17. Due to the small area size, the shapes will need to be smaller and much closer together.

Now apply some colour. Create new gradients in Color Mixer, use the short-cut key command to switch to the Paint Bucket tool, and apply the new gradients. Use lighter radial gradients for the larger shapes at the top of the head, keeping darker solid fills at the bottom.

NEXT ISSUE

Illustrating a photorealistic Toucan in Flash is an advanced-level graphic and an ambitious task. But after plotting guidelines, applying gradients and layering alpha gradients you should have produced an excellent photorealistic rendering of a Toucan, optimized for both Web and print.

ANIMATING CHARACTERS Jon Burgerman shows you how he animated characters in Flash for his online portfolio

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TUTORIAL Download the tutorial files here ftp://ftp.futurenet.co.uk/pub/arts/zinio/arts98_t_indesign.zip

INDESIGN CS

TIME LENGTH

1 hour INFO Dylan Channon has been a magazine designer for over ten years. He is currently part of a small team managing Future Publishing’s migration from QuarkXPress to InDesign CS. Email him at dylan.channon@ futurenet.co.uk.

INDESIGN CS

CREATE STUNNING TYPE OVERLAYS

Original and innovative use of typography really will make your work stand out. Part two of our InDesign tutorial takes a close look at some of the program’s more advanced features that have left QuarkXPress in the shadows Typography in desktop publishing has come a long way over the last decade. Gone are the frustrating early days when all you could do was place text on the page, change its size and colour and possibly rotate it too. If, like me, you have been using QuarkXPress for some time, you could be forgiven for thinking you were still on version one. Forgetting the clunky interface and unreliability in Mac OS X that has stressed many a designer, Quark just isn’t a slick enough tool for today’s

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design and publishing industry. A common question: “If I can add transparency and shadows in my drawing and image manipulation package, why can’t I do it directly on the page?” It’s a valid point. So when it came to creating InDesign, Adobe’s job was pretty easy. The company fundamentally copied what Quark did and then added-in all of the time-saving features that Quark lacked. However, it’s true to say that, just like when desktop publishing was made easily available to the masses years ago, some

horrors still appear. Beware! Some of the new InDesign features should be used with caution. Just because you can add a drop shadow to something, doesn’t necessarily mean you should. The new features available should be used to streamline original layouts and enhance brands, rather than to destroy them. So this tutorial takes a look out how some of the new InDesign features can be used to enhance your typography and ultimately help you create better-looking, original layouts in a fraction of the time.

TUTORIAL

1

Start with a blank spread with only the original image in place. This is a stunning image with great eye contact that leads you straight into the page. But you can still enhance the overall design by adding some strong typographical elements.

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Choosing the Eyedropper tool from the main Tool palette, click once on the styled-up text. The icon will change from an empty to a loaded dropper. Drag the loaded dropper over the text you want to change and it will automatically apply the loaded style.

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It’s interesting to compare the two kerning methods. The standard metric kerning (top) looks good, but there's too much space between the L and the O. Below, InDesign has taken over and even with our tightly tracked style, has evened up the letter spacing beautifully.

GLYPHS PALETTE

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Create a white polygon on which to sit the main body copy and draw a text frame over the top. Now fill that text frame with dummy copy by choosing Type>Fill and using placeholder text from the main menu.

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Each paragraph should start with three bold words. This can be done quickly using the Eye Dropper tool. First of all, style some text manually to set a starting point. In this case, use Hamburg Bold.

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Now add your headline. Here we have used Clarendon with metric Kerning at almost 240 point. The kerning information would have been built into the typeface when it was designed. Some faces kern better than others, and this one isn't bad, but InDesign can improve it further.

Select the text and choose Optical Kerning from the Character tool palette. InDesign will now ignore the built-in metric values and kern the text based on how it appears visually (kerning values are applied to characters depending on the shape of the character either side).

Now line up the headline with the original white text box and rotate it by the same amount. This can be done manually using the Rotate tool, or in this case by double-clicking the Rotate tool and keying the two-degree angle for more accuracy.

The Glyphs palette can be found under the Type menu and at first glance looks a bit like the old-fashioned Key Caps. But it’s much better than that. From the Glyph palette pull-down menu choose Create Glyph Set to create your own custom-made palette of frequently used characters, perfect for people like me who can never remember the key stroke for the copyright symbol!

Now for the strapline. To create this fan shape, split the lines into three separate text boxes. This will allow you to rotate each line individually.

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TUTORIAL

INDESIGN CS

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Select each line individually and give them a different rotation figure. Start with a value of three degrees for the bottom line, and increase it by two degrees for each line above (ie three, five and seven degrees).

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The white type becomes hard to read when placed over the lighter areas of the image. Combat this by using the Drop Shadow tool. Select all three text boxes and click Object>DropShadow in the main menu.

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Now add the chapter number. Create the 01 using Clarendon as your font, then rather than just using a solid white Fill, try adding a transparent Fill to allow the background image to show though the text.

Select the text and, using the Swatches palette, set the Fill to none and the Stroke to paper. The beauty of InDesign is that this text will still be editable, unlike QuarkXPress where you would have had to convert the text to Paths.

To finish the layout, you’ll need to add the tracing paper effect that runs across the spread. First duplicate the headline by Option dragging it to create a copy. Next, use the Scale tool to enlarge the text across the spread.

To achieve the tracing paper overlay effect, open the Transparency palette and set the opacity to 15 per cent and the blending mode to Screen. Again, the text can be edited throughout.

OPEN TYPE FONTS Open Type fonts are a new cross-platform font format jointly developed by Adobe and Microsoft. The entire Adobe library has now been converted to this standard. Open Type offers true cross compatibility between Mac and PC and a hugely extended Glyph set that includes extended ligatures and swash characters. For more information visit http://www.adobe. com/type/opentype/ main.html

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In Part 1, Drop Shadow was used to create traditional offset shadows. Here, it’s used purely to enhance text. By turning both the shadow offsets to 0, you’ll place the shadow directly behind the text, creating a dark glow, rather than a shadow. This will be enough to darken the image.

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Now you have a final version of the spread. The effects are subtle, but the real benefit is speed. There’s no need to transfer to Photoshop to create shadows or transparency effects and no additional files to worry about.

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TUTORIAL Download the tutorial files here ftp://ftp.futurenet.co.uk/pub/arts/zinio/arts98_t_fireworks.zip

WEB IMAGES

TIME LENGTH

5 hours INFO Chris Randall has been an Interactive Designer for four years. He graduated from an MA in Industrial Design in 1999 and now works for London-based digital media consultancy, Preloaded. For more information visit www. preloaded.com, www. halfcab.net or email [email protected]

FIREWORKS MX

BUILD AND SKIN AN MP3 INTERFACE

It’s never been easier to create a total design solution using Fireworks. So give it a go. Use this tutorial to create an impressive and modern Flash compatible mp3 interface There are no hard-and-fast solutions for successful interface design, the intricate detailing often required can make it a very time consuming, but ultimately rewarding process. But one thing’s is for sure, creating a design that needs user interaction requires at least a little basic planning. So try to keep graphical devices clear and consistent, the content accessible and ensure the layout is approachable. The goal of this tutorial is to create a

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simple yet effective mp3 player that can be integrated smoothly into Flash. Our weapon of choice? Well there’s no better all-round solution than Macromedia Fireworks. Now a well-established industry application, Fireworks encompasses many features of more powerful photographic and illustrative applications, tailoring itself towards on-screen design solutions. For the purposes of this tutorial, it’s the illustrative capabilities that we’re

particularly interested in. The drawing functionality of Flash can be somewhat limiting when involving bitmap manipulation. So step-by-step, you’ll be shown how Fireworks’ pixel-perfect approach, if used correctly, can become a highly-effective way of creating a detailed, fun interface, that’s ready to transfer straight into Flash. As for coding and animating a fullyworkable solution, we’ll leave that for another time.

TUTORIAL

IMPORTING INTO FLASH

1

This tutorial will show how to create a custom mp3 interface consisting of four main elements: the volume wheel, digital display, control bar and play-head.

2

But first you’ll need to create the player casing. The basic structure is provided on the CD as starter file Interface_casing.png. This object is an amalgamation of basic shapes moulded together using the Union function: Modify>CombinePaths>Union.

4

Ensuring the Gradient object is still highlighted; change its position and direction. Click and drag the circle of the gradient (position) to the top left-hand corner, then change the direction of the gradient by selecting the square and dragging it towards the bottom right.

5

Now change the gradient strength and colour by selecting the Colour Palette from the Properties dialog. You should see four small boxes. The top two will control Opacity and the bottom two, Colour. Ensure that both colour boxes are set to Black, the top-left Opacity is set to 35 per cent and the top-right is set to 0 per cent.

Integration between Macromedia Fireworks and Flash has become considerably easier. Converting a Fireworks file is now as simple as opening it in Flash. A small dialog box will present you with options for the file, object and text structures. Alternatively you can paste single or multiple objects from the clipboard, however, although transparency and gradients are supported, many textured or filtered objects will be converted into transparent bitmaps.

7

Copy and Paste the rectangle and apply a 15-degree rotation by choosing Modify> Transform>NumericTransform>Rotate. Repeat this step 12 times and then select all rectangles and the circle. Fuse the objects together (Modify>CombinePaths> Union) and add inner circles for detail.

8

The mp3 player’s digital display will have three settings: time, volume and graphic equaliser. Either create your own or use the graphics that have been supplied on our cover CD called Interface_icons.png.

3

Applying a subtle Gradient Fill can prove very effective for giving a 3D feel to an interface. Copy the existing casing and Paste it onto a new layer (directly above). From the Properties dialog, change the default Solid option to Gradients>Linear.

6

Now for the volume wheel. Create a new layer (below the casing) and draw a circle 120px in diameter. Then, make the grooves using the Rectangle tool. Draw a rounded box (10x126px), and apply a Rectangle Roundness of around 40. Align the rectangle centrally with the circle by clicking Modify> Align>CenterVertical/Horizontal.

9

To create the display background, build a new layer and draw a round rectangle (270x220px) with a radius of about 25px. At the top of the rectangle, use the Ellipse tool, drawing from the edges of the radius with a height of around 14px, duplicate this for the bottom and Union the three objects.

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TUTORIAL

WEB IMAGES cont’d

10

Draw a black rectangle (210x140px) with a radius of 10px and align it evenly with the existing display box. This will form the screen. Next, Copy and Paste the same rectangle and apply a diagonal white gradient (fading to nothing), this will create the impression of a reflective surface.

13

As with the numbers, you can create the volume display on a new layer by using “hard” filled rectangles (Properties>Edge>Hard). As Fireworks works on whole pixels only, your design will retain this pixelated appearance within Flash (see Pixel Perfect, opposite).

11

TEXTURES Repetitive patterns can be effectively handled in Fireworks using the Texture property. There are some basic, if somewhat tasteless, textures supplied with the program, but it’s very simple to create your own. Open a new file, create a small section of pattern (it must tile) and save it as a .png, .jpg or .gif. In your design document, firstly select a shape tool, draw an area you want filled and in the properties dialogue select Texture, scroll down to Other and select your tiled image. Your shape will now have your custom texture applied to it.

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The digital number display (new layer) has been constructed using filled rectangles (no stroke). It follows any basic digital display, with the shapes at 100 per cent Opacity. These numbers are available on the cover CD (Interface_numbers_large.png).

14

Now create a layer for the graphic equaliser. Each rectangle is made from the same colour block, with the Opacity determining whether it appears illuminated. As with all the digital items, this allows the colour to be altered in one selection.

12

A second set of smaller numbers is also available (interface_numbers_ small.png). But perhaps you could try adapting these LED shapes to cater for letters as well as numbers.

15

Frames (Window>Frames) are particularly useful for swapping between appearance states. Drag the default Frame layer onto the “+” icon to duplicate it. This will copy the entire layer structure, allowing you to switch the different digital displays on or off.

TUTORIAL

PIXEL PERFECT When importing non anti-aliased objects from Fireworks to Flash, they are often converted to “soft” anti-aliased versions, particularly rounded corners and strokes. Avoid this by converting the object to a transparent .png file. Right click on the desired object and select Flatten Selection. The object, although no longer vector, can now be pasted into Flash.

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The interface contains a play-head and five duplicate control buttons: rewind, play, pause, stop and fast-forward.

Now create a layer for the buttons and another underneath for their highlights. Draw a rounded square (44x44px) with a radius of 40 and place it in the first indent, 5px from the edge. Duplicate this on the highlight layer, too.

18

Next, select the button square and apply a Gradient of 70 per cent to 50 per cent black. Copy the square and paste it on top, changing its setting to a 15 per cent black stroke, 6px in diameter (Soft, no Fill).

Using the rectangle tool, create Fill Only icons for each control button. Place a 2px, 20 per cent Opacity border around the edge to give the icon more depth. You can also recess the icon with a shadow.

Draw a white rectangle (30x10px) with a fading gradient of 12-0 per cent and place it at the top of the button to create a light spot. Duplicate each button and change its icon. Altering the highlight rectangle beneath will affect the button’s colour and brightness.

21

The play-head and drag bar, although different in dimension, are identical in construction to the control bar buttons. Match the colour to the digital display to give the interface a better balance.

To give the interface a little more depth, try placing subtle shadows, gradients and borders around some of the major objects. You can then enhance the control panel and volume wheel by hand, using the Pen tool.

The advantage of creating transparent shadows and gradients is that you can quickly and easily change the appearance of your design. For example, by changing the object colour in the original casing layer and the display icons, the mp3 player takes on a whole new look!

24

It’s done! The final design should be ready to open straight into Flash. There’s plenty of room for expansion in this design, so why not try adding a play-list functionality, artist information, or even additional icons (eg, shuffle, quality, stereo, mono, or repeat)?

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FEATURE Illustration by Jacey

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FEATURE

GET STARTED WITH...

COLOUR The human eye can distinguish millions of colours, but as a designer, how can you know you’ve picked the right one? We go back to the basics of colour to make sure you get it right, every time

ON THE CD To accompany this feature, you can find an exclusive full version of iCorrect Entrée and a demo of iCorrect Editlab on this month’s disc.

Working with colour can prove a minefield for the uninitiated. Long-held perceptions and customs have a powerful effect on how you see and interpret them. Fashion and science have an important part to play, too – after all, everyone has an opinion on how trends should be used to best effect. So don’t underestimate the power of colour. Combine your design instincts with trends and theories, past and present, sit back, and see what colour can do for you.

Ë

Inventing the wheel Blame Newton. He first developed the circular colour diagram, commonly referred to as a colour wheel, and debate has raged ever since. The most common starting point, the circular wheel based on the spectrum, sets the primary colours (hues that can’t be mixed from others, such as red, yellow

and blue), secondary colours (orange, green and purple) and tertiary, or intermediate colours (a mix of primaries and secondaries). But deal with modern-day images on screen, and pigments become irrelevant. Computer monitors use additive primaries; you start with a dark space, and then add up. So by mixing additive primaries – red, green and blue (hence the RGB gamut) – in various values, millions of colours can be produced. In an additive system light, not pigment, is used. Mix equal amounts of red, green and blue light and you create white light. When there are no levels, black is seen. But by mixing two primaries in equal amounts, the secondary colours of RGB are produced: magenta, yellow and cyan. The beauty of RGB is that it relates closely to how colour is perceived, July 2004

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FEATURE

COLOUR cont’d THE BASIC TOOLS The Colour Wheel: Newton's early experiments resulted in the most common, circular colour wheel, alternating the primary colours (red, green, blue) with secondary colours (yellow, cyan, magenta).

Goethe's Colour Triangle: This can be divided to create arrangements of colour that provoke psychological and emotional reactions. Goethe's triangle provides a fascinating alternative to the traditional colour wheel. Here, primaries are positioned at each corner. Between corners are secondary colours, and the final spaces are filled with tertiary colours – a mix of the adjacent primary and opposing secondary. Goethe believed colours had psychological effects. He thought red was suggestive of imagination, and blue of understanding. Therefore, by design, the five colours to the left of this triangle (from blue to red) create an expressive palette. Taking the colours at each point, those towards blue are said to be forceful, towards red, serene and towards yellow, melancholy.

Digital Colour Wheel: Software-based colour wheels, such as Color Consultant Pro, provide the greatest degree of flexibility. This wheel can be set to subtractive (depicted) or additive, depending on the intended output. Here, a light red/orange has been selected as the hue, and a palette developed by combining two schemes. The first is complementary, adding the colour directly opposite the hue on the colour wheel. This provides the palette with a contrasting colour.

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but print production employs yet another method – subtractive colour. The subtractive system, how colour works in the natural world, is the opposite to additive. It’s pretty simple. If an object reflects light, it appears white; if it absorbs light, it appears black. For this reason, print presses use transparent inks that act as filters, enabling light to pass through, reflect off the paper base, and produce unabsorbed light. Typically, the print process uses cyan, magenta and yellow (CMY) as primaries. In

The simplest palettes involve saturation variations of a single hue. These monochromatic schemes produce a soothing effect, particularly in greens or blues. The analogous scheme, which is similar, but richer, uses adjacent wheel colours. Some argue that these are the only schemes pleasing to the eye, but more radical schemes can also be extremely effective. The impact of opposing colours: red/green, orange/blue or yellow/ purple is often impressive, but overuse of such combinations can

“Stare at a plane of flat colour, close your eyes, and you’ll see its complementary colour” theory, an overprint of all three colours absorbs all light, producing black. In practice though, the result is muddy, hence the addition of black (K) to the subtractive primaries (CMYK). As the CMYK gamut is far smaller than RGB, it’s important to know which medium you’re outputting for, as this will affect your potential colour palette. OPPOSITES ATTRACT As computer monitors use additive colours, designers begin with a subtractive palette, using the red, yellow and blue primaries. If working for print output, the palette is restricted to CMYK and tweaked accordingly. Colour palettes can be created by eye, raw instinct, or experience, but if you’re starting from scratch it’s helpful to have a colour wheel handy. It’s definitely worth investing in a digital wheel, which enables you to export schemes to PICT or PDF.

appear garish. Pointillist painters were masters of this art, carefully working orange dots into areas of blue to provide depth. Such radical combinations work surprisingly well, largely due to the subconscious desire for visual harmony. Mixing complementary colours in equal quantity results in neutral grey. Psychological effects in our colour vision work in a similar fashion. Try it. Stare at a plane of flat colour and then close your eyes and you’ll see its complementary. The eye, by default, restores the equilibrium. Despite this, such schemes are high contrast, and are therefore great attention grabbers. A more subtle variation is the split-complementary theme, which uses a hue and the two colours adjacent to its complementary. This provides contrast, but with less tension than the complementary scheme, thereby offering a more harmonious result.

FEATURE

6 STEPS TO COLOUR HARMONY

1 2

Follow your gut reaction – it’s usually right.

Artists often favour colours that are equally spaced around the wheel – the triadic colour scheme. This provides strong visual contrast and appears balanced and harmonious. The triadic scheme is frequently used for bold typography and illustration work, where the colours need to grab attention. In fact, a good level of contrast is essential in most text-based work. Too little, and text becomes unreadable. Too much, and the text will jar. GUT REACTIONS ARE GOOD Theory is all very well, but how colour is used and perceived has much to do with feelings. We often talk of “warm” and “cool” colours. Traditionally, warm and cheerful colours are said to attract attention, while cool, passive colours melt easily into the background. In reality, it’s more complex: intensity of colour has much to do with whether something advances (a strong blue, for instance, appears more prominent than a pale orange). Temperature is also relative (green is perceived as warm if surrounded by blue and purple). Ultimately, the perception of a colour is effected by surroundings. Every colour affects another: yellow on white is warm, yet mild,

In addition, lighting affects how colours are perceived. Natural light is fairly neutral, but fluorescent light is bluer, and emphasises cool colours. In contrast, incandescent lighting is more yellow, and enhances warm colours. However, colours can shift in natural light: blue and green objects in low light appear brighter than red ones (the Purkinje Shift), and in bright light, colours appear more blue or yellow than green or red (the Bezold-Brucke effect). Outside the realms of scientific colour theory, psychology relating to the emotions associated with colour plays an important role. Kandinsky truly believed colours could influence the entire human body, once stating: “Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another to cause vibrations in the soul.” But even if you don’t subscribe to his spiritual leanings, you must be aware of the connotations of the colours you use. Colour is subjective, of that there is no doubt. Psychology and personal preference play an important part in the colours you use and those that your clients demand and accept. By taking into

“Theory is all very well, but how colour is used and perceived has much to do with feelings” but on black it has an aggressive brilliance. But replace the yellow with blue, and the white seems to brighten, as does the black. A mid blue seems fairly dark on white, but luminescent on black.

account these tried and tested rules and mixing them with a little of your own experimentation and intuition, you should be able to recreate those “vibrations in the soul” to which Kandinsky alluded.

Use varied tints and shades of a hue but never alone, such monochromatic schemes can appear bland.

3

Adjacent colours enrich a monochromatic scheme, producing a palette with a little more interest.

4

Adding a complementary colour – from the opposite side of the wheel, provides colour that contrasts.

5

Keeping saturation and value levels similar throughout ensures a palette’s success.

6

Limit the number of colours to avoid garish results.

DESIGNER TIPS “To create dynamic colour work, you MUST understand how the colour wheel works” JON BURGERMAN “Find inspiration in everything from album sleeves and 1970s knitting patterns through to badly-processed photos and discarded litter” AIRSIDE

BOOK CLUB Far from the cheapest of books, and somewhat difficult to find, Johannes Itten's The Art of Color (ISBN: 0471289280) nonetheless remains one of the most recommended and respected colour theory titles. Touching on all elements of colour theory, from personal preference, through psychological ideas, both scientific and artistic, all bases are covered and backed up by colour reproductions.

“Use books as your inspiration. My copy of Film Posters of the Russian Avant-Garde has been under the scanner on more than one occasion” RICHARD MAY July 2004

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FEATURE

GLOSSARY OF TERMS O Additive A colour system that begins with a dark space and mixes light. O Chroma: A colour’s chroma (often referred to as “intensity” or “saturation”) is its strength or weakness. O Complementary colours: Colours that sit opposite each other on the colour wheel. Mixing produces grey. O Gamut: The range of colours in a system. O Hue: The purest form of any colour. O Intensity: See “Chroma”. O Luminance: The amount of light reflected from a hue. O Primary colours: Colours within a system that cannot be mixed from others. O Saturation: See “Chroma”. O Secondary colour: The result of an equal mix of two primary colours. O Shade: The result of adding black to any colour. (See “Tint”.) O Subtractive: A colour system that starts with white light and absorbs parts of the spectrum. O Tertiary colours: Colours mixed from primary and secondary colours. O Tint: The result of adding white to any colour. (See “Shade”. ) O Tone: A colour produced by mixing a hue with grey of an equivalent value to the colour’s complement. O Value: The closer a colour is to white, the higher its value, and vice versa.

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USING COLOURS ONLINE Graphics card limitations once meant colour on the Web was a tricky business. Many machines were restricted to 8-bit (256 colour) displays, and even those at the cutting edge were restricted to 16-bit. Furthermore, Macs and Windows PCs had their own default palettes, which resulted in the arrival of

DO THIS ✔ Q

the Web-safe palette, comprising just 216 colours from combinations of RGB. It was once advised to stick rigidly to this palette, especially when working with flat colour, but usage is now in steady decline. Cheaper graphics cards mean most new PCs display millions of colours, and global browser statistics suggest about two-thirds of people are using such systems, with the bulk of the remainder on 16-bit. Most Web designers stick with sRGB – considered the default colour space for the Web. However, with the rise of PDAs, many of which have 8-bit displays, the Web-safe palette may well make a come back. To find out more, read Death of the Websafe Color Palette? at http:// hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/00/37/ index2a.html

DON’T DO THIS ✖ Q

Web-safe palettes like David Lehn and Hadley Stern’s Reallysafe Palette could well make a comeback with the rise of 8-bit displays on most PDAs.

If you’re really paranoid about the colours on your site, run them through Photoshop’s Color Picker, which can be forced to display only Web-safe colours.

COLOURS AND BRAND RECOGNITION The Society of Chemical Industry may not strike you as the most likely place for colour theory research, but a recent experiment into the behaviour of consumers focused on brand awareness and their subconscious response to colour. Volunteers located coloured targets hidden within “distractors”. Those targets in basic colours – red, blue and green – were easiest to spot (notably green). Targets in nonbasic colours – turquoise, beige and peach, were found more slowly. Consumers took the longest time locating peach targets and found it

difficult to identify turquoise targets. A second experiment recorded reactions to Twix (beige wrapping) and KitKat (red wrapping) in turquoise, green, and red stands. Twix was found the quickest in the green stand and KitKat in the red, probably due to brand familiarity. So if you’re working on a new piece that must demand attention, basic colours are best. To read more, visit www.soci.org.

NEXT ISSUE

GET STARTED WITH 3D From start to finish! Everything you need to build a simple scene in Maya PLE

REVIEWS

REVIEWED IN THIS ISSUE...

MAIN REVIEW

P78 ZBRUSH 2

RECOMMEN DED

ZBrush 2

The stunning 3D modelling package that should be on every designer’s wish list.

Without doubt, the single best organic 3D modelling system yet invented

P80 FINAL CUT PRO HD Apple’s revered video-editing tool comes of age with this HD-friendly iteration.

Version 2 of this stunning 3D app introduces yet more tools to Pixologic’s innovative Pixolsbased 3D painting system. New features include multi-level Subdivision Surface editing, refined architecture and support for ultra-high resolution meshes. The downside? You’ll need a standard 3D modeller when extending polygons.

P82 FIREGL X2 256T

Only power-obsessed engineers, architects and 3D designers with capacious wallets need apply.

GROUP TEST: SCANNERS UNDER £1000 Scanner technology is now so refined that most modern models offer exceptional resolution, colour fidelity and film-scanning capabilities as standard. So how do you distinguish between the best of the best? Our Group Test ensures you get change from a grand…

P90 CANON CANOSCAN 8000F A most capable scanner at a budget-friendly price.

P90 HP SCANJET 8200 Poorly conceived drivers interrupt work flow, despite some top specifications.

P91 CANON CANOSCAN 9900F Superb performance and fast film-scanning.

P92 EPSON PERFECTION 4870 PHOTO

With its plethora of film and transparency holders, great performance and superb bundled software, Epson’s model delivers professional results time after time.

RECOMMEN DED

P91 MICROTEK ARTIXSCAN 1100

P83 OPUS PRO 04

For occasional access to multimedia tools, this does the job. Just don’t expect Director.

P84 TOON BOOM STUDIO 2.5

Astonishing Mac version of the celebrated 2D animation software.

P85 VEGAS 5

Audio gets the lion’s share of attention with Sony’s powerful audio-visual editing software.

P86 SAPPHIRE PLUG-INS

Over 175 professional filters and effects come at a price…

P87 BOOKS

• Mono Number One :phunk Studio • Digital Photography: Expert Techniques • Photoshop CS A-Z

Beats its rivals in terms of pure colour fidelity.

FIND OUT MORE AT www.computerarts.co.uk

VERDICT OUR RATING SYSTEM EXPLAINED: All our products go through rigorous testing to get a rating in our verdict and only truly outstanding and essential pieces of kit receive 5/5.

TURN TO PAGE 93

★★★★★

To find the full conclusions of the Group Test...

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REVIEW

MAC Q ✘

3D SOFTWARE

✔ PC Q

(Mac version soon)

PRICE: $489/£277 CONTACT:

Pixologic +1 888 748 5967 www.pixologic.com

ZBrush 2

RECOMME NDED

Is the world’s oddest 2.5D paint program worth your time? Absolutely. We delve into its new features Main image: A typical ZSphere model. This jointed object can be converted into a polygonal cage, then edited as a 3D-mesh object.

FEATURES Innovative depth-based painting application ● 3D modelling and deformation ● Subdivision Surfaces ● Edit on any Subdivision level ● Impressive symmetry tools ● Fast, responsive interface ● Supports massive mesh resolutions ● Import and export polygon meshes ● Texture, light and render Pixols and meshes ● Hi-res displacement maps ●

Inset: Both mechanical and organic objects can be modelled, but in some circumstances, it can be trickier in ZBrush than in other apps.

SYSTEM

PC PII 200MHz, 128MB of RAM • Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP

FOR Multi-level Subdivision Surface editing ● Hi-res mesh support ● Very fast ●

AGAINST The core polygon-creation tools could be better ● Some operations are convoluted ●

VERDICT ZBrush 2 is a stunning 3D modelling package, and should be on every character artist’s list of products to buy. It’s not designed as an all-purpose 3D app, so it’s best used in tandem with a more conventional 3D program. However, it sets a new standard for high-detail polygon modelling.

★★★★★ 78

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ZBrush from Pixologic has been around for a few years now, but it remains a remarkable graphics program that really has no equal – or even poor copy, for that matter. Version 2 introduces more 3D tools and features to the already impressive set, making the tool evenly split between a 2.5D painting program and full 3D modelling application. In working practice though, it’s both, because many of the workflows in ZBrush make use of the 2.5D canvas and the polygon models. ZBrush uses a unique deep-pixel technology called Pixols, which can be painted at depth as well as on the 2D plane. Pixols can mount up on top of existing Pixols, enabling you to almost ‘pour’ them on the screen. Alternatively, they can be applied negatively to cut into an existing image. You can add primitive (and not so primitive) 3D objects to the image, rotate and move them, and

Ë

RESOURCE To help you master the app, Pixologic has created the ZBrush 2 Practical Guide – a free 500-page collection of stepby-step tutorials and projects. Head to www. pixolator.com, then click on ‘Get Z2 Guide PDF’ (beneath ‘Buy ZBrush’) at the top-right to download this useful resource.

they will interact smoothly with the Z-depth of the canvas, with the Pixols intersecting the canvas at different depths. This technique means that you can build up an image of fixed perspective by placing 3D objects into the scene, by painting on it, or both. ZBrush also has a large set of deforming and sculpting tools for smudging Pixols and deforming 3D objects. Version 2 takes the whole 3D modelling aspect of the program to the next level, and it’s here that this release of ZBrush becomes seriously interesting. ZSpheres were available in previous versions of the program, and these are spherical objects that can be added to a scene and moved around. The clever part? You can add a new ZSphere to an existing one, where it can move away from its partner, stringing out a strand of intermediate spheres to create a sort of limb. This is exactly what the

system is trying to emulate, since you can easily create multi-limbed characters using ZSpheres in this way. However, the ZSpheres are placeholders for a polygon mesh; they’re a lot like the jointed skeletons you find in 3D animations programs – except for the fact that these are used to create the model, rather than animate it. With a flick of the wrist to a menu command, the ZSphere skeleton is converted to a lo-res polygon cage. This cage can be edited by moving the points or deforming it, just like any other polygon object in ZBrush. However, this brings us to another interesting new development, because version 2 adds Subdivision Surface modelling tools to the equation – the like of which have not been seen before. As all 3D modellers know, Subdivision Surfaces and all the other smoothing technologies hold great promise, but they fall short on

REVIEW

FIND YOUR WAY AROUND THE ZBRUSH INTERFACE AND MAIN TOOLS 1. Main document area This is much larger in ZBrush 2, and pressing the Tab key hides all the palettes for an unobstructed view. 2. Pop-up palettes Accessed by rightclicking in the main document area. This is the Tools pop-up palette. 3. Menu palettes These are accessed from the main menu at the top of the interface. You don’t need to click – just pass your mouse over them and they unfurl. They can also be docked like this Rendering palette.

4. Lights Because ZBrush is depth-based and preview rendering is interactive, you can change the scene lighting at any time from this panel.

5

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5. Editing options These are displayed beneath the main menu by default, though the entire ZBrush interface is highly customisable.

4 2

one factor: generally speaking, you can’t edit the lo-res cage and the smoothed surface simultaneously. Maya’s true Subdivision Surfaces enable you to do this, but they introduce other complexities into the process and are generally quite inelegant to use. It seems that ZBrush 2 has solved the problem of smooth proxy modelling. And we mean really solved it. You can smooth a poly cage many times to get finer and finer Subdivisions, which is nothing new; however, at each Subdivision level you can edit the subdivided surface directly. You can also backtrack, reduce the Subdivision levels and edit the lower-resolution cage. Meanwhile, you don’t lose the hi-res edits; they are re-interpolated as the changes cascade. Using keystrokes, you can move through the levels while editing, enabling you to model broad changes one moment and ultra-fine details the next. It’s quite a revelation. You can achieve stupendous detail, too. ZBrush supports massive, multimillion-polygon resolutions,

and it does so extremely efficiently. You can forget about bump maps for skin creases; just paint them in on the hi-res mesh. Again, ZBrush does something incredible here. You can paint displacements onto a hi-res mesh using the normal painting tools, create lines and even 3D objects

PROJECTION MASTER ZBrush enables you to paint onto 3D surfaces to sculpt or deform, but there is another method: Projection Master. Painting details to a hi-res mesh can be slow, so instead, convert the 3D object into Pixols, creating a displacement version of the 3D object. Paint using Pixols to scatter strokes, apply decals, text or any other 2.5D stroke over the model as relief. Choose the Pick Up option in the Projection Master dialog to convert the Pixols into a displacement of the model that was dropped, adding detail directly to the mesh surface.

you’ve built – then create regular arrays of shapes using its symmetry features. The program forges these strokes into the mesh. Polygon detailing has never been so easy. There always has to be a slight downside, and unfortunately ZBrush is weaker in its actual polygon extending tools. You can extend polygons using the Edge Loop tool, but you have to go through a rather complex procedure of hiding all but the edge you want to extend, because the program doesn’t have a Polygon Selection tool as such. Because of its character-modelling orientation, you’re better off supplementing the app with a standard 3D modeller, too. ZBrush 2 also has a redesigned interface, which is infinitely easier on the eye. The new tools are so impressive that it could look and feel like Bryce and still be a zillion times quicker modelling complex 3D organic forms than any other 3D app out there. ZBrush is the single best organic 3D modelling system yet invented, and for this alone it deserves five stars.

NEXT ISSUE IN On test: After Effects 6.5

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REVIEW

MAC ✔ Q

PC ✘ Q

PRICE: Free to Final Cut Pro 4.0 users Upgrade £279 Full Version £699

CONTACT:

VIDEO EDITING

Final Cut Pro HD A must-have upgrade for professional editors, especially when it’s free

Apple Store 0800 039 1010 www.apple.com/uk

RECOMME NDED

FEATURES Capture DV, SD and HD over FireWire ● Filter, transitions and effects previews in real time, even with HD ● Integrate workflow using Final Cut Pro HD’s XML data format ● Watch DV, SD and HD over DVI using an Apple monitor ● Emmy Award-winning interface ● Customise most aspects of the keyboard and interface ● Correct colour in real time ● Add motion graphics to Final Cut Pro HD projects ● Create custom soundtracks and audio to score your project ● Render final output to virtually all professional formats ●

MAC: 350MHz or faster PowerPC, 384MB RAM, AGP graphics card, Mac OS X 10.3.2 or later (for DVCPRO HD: 1GHz or faster, 1GB RAM, DVD drive)

FOR Free to some; low price for all Fully pro editing, from DV to HD ● Easy to use, fast and stable ● ●

AGAINST HD not required by everyone Not all effects are real-time ● HD FireWire cameras are rare ● ●

VERDICT If you’re new to video editing but want professional capabilities, you can’t do better than Final Cut Pro HD. For Final Cut Pro 4.0 users the upgrade is free. Final Cut Pro 3.0 users, however, might not feel the need to upgrade if projects are simple and free of HD.

★★★★★ 80

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Edit, grade, mix and output your HD project at full, high-definition resolution without the need for compression. You can quickly customise Final Cut Pro HD’s Emmy Award-winning interface via this floating keyboard.

SYSTEM ●

FCPro HD gives you real-time colour correction and effects, whether you’re using DV, SD or HD footage.

July 2004

Final Cut Pro is hailed as a revolutionary video-editing tool with the power to bring proquality editing technology to the home-enthusiast. This latest release is more professional than ever, and brings excellent capabilities to the desktop. With HD capture over FireWire, it can offer new possibilities for video editors. Since the first release, Final Cut Pro fans have claimed you can edit a feature film on your desktop – but the reality has always been a little different… While it’s true that you can edit everything from DV to 35mm with Final Cut Pro, users have been waiting for the day you can plug in an HD camera, edit your film, and output again over FireWire. Final Cut Pro HD makes it all possible. You can now keep your project entirely in-house, mastering an uncompressed HD tape without ever having to go to a lab. This release will no doubt trigger an explosion of exciting features, documentaries and high-quality short films shot on the DVCPRO HD

Ë

RESOURCE Apple hosts an excellent online forum dedicated to users of Final Cut Pro, where you can swap tips, ask for advice or peruse the extensive Q&A section. For more information, visit http://discussions. info.apple.com/ finalcutpro/

cameras over the next few years. So, whether you’re importing DV, SD or HD, the process is no different to earlier versions of Final Cut Pro. Importing and editing HD outside of well-equipped production houses is considered as difficult as editing film, so it’s good to see that HD is handled in exactly the same way as DV. Amateur film-makers will not need new skills to master the HD. It’s simply a case of applying the same skills to a different medium. The interface, which is almost identical to previous releases, allows for quick and easy editing via a familiar timeline. And for those users coming from an Avid background, the keyboard is fully customisable, so you needn’t worry about having to relearn any vital shortcuts – from a pop-up keyboard diagram, you can easily assign commands by eye. Dragging tools to the button bar above the timeline is just as easy, enabling you to set up a variety of different toolsets for a range of editing operations. This will save you

considerable time throughout the editing process. As with Final Cut Pro 4, RT Extreme enables you to preview effects in real time, but now you can do it with HD. Most users will be happy to use the Apple Cinema Display, too, thanks to its fullresolution HD playback, but if you’re a serious user performing your own grading, you’ll need to upgrade your monitor for accurate colour correction. Included in the package are Soundtrack (to create underscores), Compressor (to handle output), Cinema Tools (to keep track of film logs) and LiveType (for creating animated titles). These tools alone justify the price. There are no new filters or effects in Final Cut Pro HD, and if you’re working in DV you won’t notice much difference between this release and Final Cut Pro 4.0. Fortunately, Final Cut Pro HD isn’t considered a totally new iteration (it’s classed as Final Cut Pro 4.5), so version 4.0 users can upgrade for free.

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REVIEW

MAC ✘ Q

PC ✔ Q

PRICE: $899 (approx £550) CONTACT:

ATI +1 905 882 2600 www.ati.com

3D GRAPHICS CARD

FireGL X2 256t

ATI’s top-end workstation card can certainly pack a punch, but is it worth the cash?

FEATURES FGL 9800 Visual Processing Unit 4 parallel geometry engines ● 8 pixel pipelines ● 128-bit full floating point precision ● Full scene anti-aliasing ● 256MB DDR memory ● 256-bit memory interface ● Dual DVI-I connectors ● AGP 4x/8x support ● Optimised drivers certified for leading applications ● Maximum resolution 2048x1536 ● ●

SYSTEM ●

PC: Pentium 4/Xeon or Athlon XP/64/Opteron • 128MB RAM • 300-Watt power supply

FOR ●

Superb OpenGL acceleration and image quality

Don’t be put off by the enormous fan – it’s not as noisy as it looks!

AGAINST ●

Pricey, even compared to other offerings gap in power between Ë The traditional workstation-level

VERDICT In some ways, ATI (and other manufacturers) have destroyed their own market for high-end cards with the trickle-down of amazing power to the desktop. The 256t offers great performance for anyone who truly needs it, but the sizeable price means it’s out of the reach of all but the most demanding designer.

★★★★★ 82

|

July 2004

graphic cards and their consumerorientated counterparts is closing. So it’s hard to justify spending more than £500 on this single component. Indeed, for 2D and un-demanding 3D work, a £150 card is usually more than enough, as long as it’s coupled with a decent CPU. But for those that need real processing oomph, even the best consumer cards don’t quite cut it. Sitting at the top of ATI’s workstation range, the FireGL X2 256t is aimed squarely at power users: architects, professional engineers, 3D content creation folks, and anyone who needs maximum graphical power in both DirectX and OpenGL. The card is powered by an FGL 9800 chip, a modified version of the processor used on consumer Radeon 9800 cards. Since it runs at a nippy 412MHz, the chip is heavily cooled by a massive copper heatsink

RESOURCE Want to see how your current graphics card measures up? Then visit www. specbench.org. SPEC (Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation) is a non-profit organisation that rates all manner of computer systems and components using industry-standard benchmarks.

and fan. But despite its size, this isn’t much noisier than those of a standard card, and it still only needs one expansion slot in your PC. As with most modern cards, though, the 256t does require an additional power input, so a high-quality power supply is a must. ATI’s drivers have improved massively over the past couple of years – and the 256t’s is certainly there at the top end. Eminently stable, it includes a more robust OpenGL implementation than consumer-level Catalyst drivers, although it doesn’t appear to offer quite as much control over individual settings as we’d have liked. However, a Configuration tab lists just about every professional workstation app with appropriate default settings, and you can add your own if necessary. While the driver can, and does, accelerate Direct3D very well, it’s largely designed for OpenGL apps,

particularly with regard to consistency of image quality. On our Athlon 64-based machine, the 256t ran both benchmarks such as SPEC Viewperf and 3D apps including 3ds max flawlessly. Using the custom driver supplied by ATI for 3ds max, we clocked a noticeable speed increase over the standard drivers. But like any graphics card, the 256t does depend to some extent on the speed of the system CPU, so putting it in any less than, say, an Athlon 64 or a 3GHz Pentium 4 machine might be a waste of time – and, more importantly, money. Ultimately, of course, whether you’re actually prepared to pay for such power is down to your own requirements. While the 256t is undoubtedly fast, it’s debatable whether it’s worth shelling out for, particularly with NVIDIA’s new Quadro models and the next generation of consumer cards about to arrive.

REVIEW

MAC Q ✘

PC ✔ Q

PRICE: £299.95 CONTACT:

Digital Workshop 0870 120 2186 www.digitalworkshop.com

MULTIMEDIA

Opus Pro 04

If you’re tempted by multimedia, but daunted by Director’s complexity, Opus Pro 04 could be the answer

FEATURES New QuickBuild function Overhauled graphics engine ● Improved script editing ● Automated Wizards and templates ● Full screen DirectX publication ● CD-R Wizard ● Clone drag ● New script functions ● Ogg Vorbis Sound format support ● Adobe Type 1 font support ● ●

The interface remains clean: icons and tabs provide access to tools without wasting precious screen space.

SYSTEM Pentium II 450 MHz 64MB of RAM ● Windows 98 or later ● ●

FOR Feature-packed upgrade Great value for money ● Uncluttered interface ● ●

AGAINST Weak when compared to Macromedia’s Director ●

A range of Wizards and templates are available to help novice users get started, and the help pages remain clear and easy to understand.

Revised scripting engine, Script Editor, has many similarities to JavaScript but is much easier for experienced coders.

It is difficult to review any multimedia application these days without making direct comparisons to Macromedia’s Director, which has dominated the market for the last 20 years. But this would be grossly unfair to Opus Pro. Director has undergone numerous upgrades, moulded the media and firmly established itself as the designer’s tool of choice. In contrast, Opus Pro may not appear a contender. But the title emerged from Illuminatus Opus, which in turn developed into Illuminatus 4.5, so there’s certainly some pedigree. In terms of performance, however, Opus Pro is no threat to Director. But then the title is aimed more towards the newbie multimedia author, Web and graphic designer – those people who are

animation, there are improved colour and luminance ranges and more powerful features such as Script Editor and QuickBuild. If you’re from a design background, you’ll love the overhauled graphics engine, which now handles DirectX support for full screen presentations. But if coding’s more your thing, Script Editor proves similar to the ubiquitous JavaScript code. Again, some fairly fundamental improvements to the contextual tool-tips, custom syntax highlighting and additional script functions will without doubt improve your work flow. As a rival to Director this software has a long way to go but for those wanting to edge into multimedia without any hefty financial commitment, Opus Pro 04 is well worth a look.

Ë

VERDICT Comparing Opus Pro to Director is like owning a Formula 1 racing car as well as a Vauxhall Astra. But which would you choose for your weekly trip to Tesco? For those needing access to occasional multimedia tools, the Opus range is well up to scratch.

★★★★★

attracted, but would rather not invest too heavily. Put in context though, Opus Pro 04 sits in the middle of the Opus range, which includes the simplified Presenter and fullyfeatured Opus Pro XE, so it shows real long-term potential. This latest version of Opus concentrates on improved quality and productivity with a greatly improved interface and more options for customisation. Sound, graphics, movies, video, text and Flash can be mixed with animation, customised transitions and special effects to create versatile and spectacular interactive multimedia publications. The software boasts an impressive features list of over 100 entries, developed in response to existing-user suggestions. You can now revert your work and pause

RESOURCE If you fancy stealing some tips from the Opus 4 experts, Digital Workshop runs a series of training days for designers of all levels. For more information, prices and course dates email training@digital workshop.com.

July 2004

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REVIEW

MAC Q ✔

2D ANIMATION SOFTWARE

✘ PC Q

PRICE: $374 (approx £208) $199 (upgrade (approx £110)

CONTACT:

Toon Boom +1 514 278 8666 www.toonboom.com

Toon Boom Studio 2.5 A professional 2D animation package for only 200 quid? Surely not...

Main image: Traditional animators will warm to the familiar interface, which features TV field guides and a vertical exposure sheet. Navigation is simple.

FEATURES Pressure sensitivity for variable width lines ● Bitmap vectorization ● Drawing in 3D Sceneplanning ● Erase with graphic tablet and digital pen ● 3D layout and motion paths for animation elements ● Automatic lip chart generation ● Automatic mapping of lip charts to lip drawings ● Sketching and cleaning tools ● Standard drawing and shape tools ● Onion skinning ● Rotary light table ● Standard field chart for cartoon animation ●

Automatic lip sync is a neat time-saving device, but if the lip sync looks too automated, you can tweak it by hand.

SYSTEM ●

MAC Some G3s, G4 or G5 • 100MB HD space • 512MB of RAM • Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther)

FOR Aimed at pro 2D animators Excellent range of features ● Surprisingly well priced ● ●

AGAINST ●

No PC version yet

VERDICT Although it’s primarily aimed at studios and professional animators, and offers a range of tools to suit them, Toon Boom is a fantastic all-round package for anyone interested in 2D animation. With very few competing products in the price range, it looks set to clean up in this popular area.

★★★★★ 84

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July 2004

Toon Boom Studio comes from a high-pedigree family of 2D animation software. Essentially a spin-off of US Animation, a higher end animation tool aimed at industry professionals, it has been used on productions such as Family Guy, the Have I Got News For You titles, The Powerpuff Girls and the Oscar-nominated Belleville Rendezvous. It’s already earned its developers a lifetime achievement award from the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry. Version 2.5 has been developed over a decade of research, and it’s this that distinguishes it from other packages. Toon Boom’s interface is designed for animation production and uses terms familiar to animators, such as lip sync, field charts, light tables, exposure charts, pegging, and perhaps most refreshingly of all, camera. You can create artwork in a number of ways. Drawing directly into Toon Boom using a Wacom tablet, with full pressure-sensitive lines, a rotary light table (you can

Ë

RESOURCE It’s not just TV and the big screen that’s benefitting from Toon Boom. For an online taster of what the app can do online, visit www. toonboom.com/ showcase/ and check out Snake Soup, Purple Avenger and Feel, among others. Web games, student work and ecards are also available.

rotate your canvas as you draw) and very logical onion-skinning, or importing from any device with TWAIN support. When painting, bitmap textures can be imported and used as fills, and the automated update of painted zones is one of the best new features available. V2.5 also boasts automatic mapping of lip charts to lip drawings, as well as automatic lip sync generation from voice tracks. Although this may be a bit hit and miss from a purist’s point of view, it completely cuts out the laborious task of lip-syncing by hand. The interface displays progress logically, and for a less than technical operator (most animators, then), it’s pretty straightforward. Perhaps the most intriguing feature of Toon Boom is its unique 3D layout and camera planning, which give you an overhead view of the stage. Planning how cameras move makes tasks like pans and tracks in multi-plane very simple

and with real-time playback, scenes can be tested with ease. This ability to scale and rotate images in a 3D space will be a huge relief to animators fed up with having to tween scales to simulate distance in Flash. Because you get a perspective, top and side views, you can control the movement of your characters and objects more easily. Toon Boom outputs to many formats, including Shockwave, Flash and QuickTime, but new to V2.5 are DV Stream and Image sequences, which are handy for broadcast animation. Overall, Toon Boom Studio 2.5 is an attractive and user-friendly package for personal and professional animators, developed with traditional 2D animators in mind, and a delight to use. The price is competitive, and the assurance of a world-renowned 2D animation software company, which has a clear a passion for animation, is a real bonus.

*Toon Boom Studio has not been fully tested on the Mac OS X Jaguar operating system.

REVIEW

MAC Q ✘

EDITING SOFTWARE

PC ✔ Q

PRICE: $699 (approx £400) CONTACT:

Sony 08705 111 999 www.sony.com

Vegas 5

Finally, an editing app that treats audio as seriously as video – but no provision for DVD in the basic package BÉZIER MASKS

FEATURES Full video editor Real-time effects rendering ● Audio mixer ● Audio and video effects ● 3D clip animation ● ●

SYSTEM PC P500 • 60MB HD space • 128MB RAM • Windows 2000/XP

FOR Great audio tools Real-time effects ● Animatable masks for effects work ● ●

AGAINST No built-in DVD authoring Effects can be hard to control ● Sometimes focuses more on audio than video ● ●

Main image: You can re-arrange the layout of windows pretty much as you like. The initial set-up is pretty good, but the monitor’s a tad on the small side. Inset: Audio tools are Vegas’ key feature, providing a massive range of effects, as well as live mixing and surround sound.

Vegas was originally written and produced by Sonic Foundry, the company that gave rise to Sound Forge and ACID – both powerful audio tools. But last year, the company sold all its desktop software, including Vegas, to media giant Sony. Vegas 5, the latest iteration (yet the first under Sony), still prides itself on exceptional audio features – you only need to look at the list of audio effects filters to see that. Whereas many editors are content to include a basic graphic equaliser and an echo tool, Vegas offers parametric equalisers, noise reduction tools, and the ability to change the speed of a sound without altering its pitch. Most impressive. There’s also a full live audio mixer, surround sound

Ë

VERDICT Vegas hasn’t exactly leapt forward for version 5, but it’s still the most powerful audio editor on the market. The new compositing tools give the package a boost, making it viable as an effects compositor as well as an editor. But poor keyframing control will definitely limit its use.

★★★★★

capability, and even a metronome if you’re cutting to a rhythm. In fact, Vegas is the only video editor on the market that describes itself as “a solution for editing video and audio.” It’s even dropped the word “video” from its title to underline the fact. You can add video and audio effects to a track or a particular clip, and place keyframes to animate the function of any effect. However, they’re fiddly to work with; the floating panel gets in the way if you’re trying to watch the results while you tweak your effects. But only basic tools are available to control how effects change between keyframes – an oversight since most editors of this calibre offer Bézier curves for each animatable function. New to Vegas 5 is the option to animate your video tracks in 3D. You

RESOURCE Need some help? Then check out Sony’s online forums, packed with information provided by fellow users. The Vegas forums are divided into three sections for convenience: Audio, Scripting and Video. Visit mediasoftware. sonypictures. com/forums/ for further details.

New in v5 is the powerful Bézier Masks tool. If you’re working on effects, you can now use drawing tools to mask off a portion of the clip, and apply your effects filters to that area. Masks are animatable, so you can change their shape to follow the outline of a person as they move through the shot. You can also control the feathering, so masks blend seamlessly. Masks are the primary tool that separates video editors from compositing packages. Its inclusion means you can create effects in Vegas that you could normally only do in a package like After Effects. This simple addition extends the range of the package and should endear it to a new set of users.

can then preview this real 3D live on a FireWire-connected external monitor. It’s also now possible to import Macromedia Flash files. In addition, MPEG2 output has been improved. However, on balance V5 isn’t a huge upgrade to the package, and it misses out on this year’s most fashionable video editor add-on. Nowadays, an editor isn’t complete unless it’s got DVD authoring, and since the massive increase in the sale of DVD players last year, and the current availability of DVD recorders, it seems that everybody wants to chuck away their VHS and start burning discs. DVD is available as a separate package from Sony and DVD Architect can be bought with Vegas as a bundle for $799 (approximately £452) .

July 2004

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REVIEW

MAC Q ✔

PLUG-IN

✔ PC Q

PRICE: $1699 (or $599 for one of four boxes)

CONTACT:

GenArts +44 (0) 1617 492 2888 www.genarts.com

Sapphire Plug-ins The ultimate professional suite of visual effects plug-ins arrives on your desktop

FEATURES Powerful plug-ins for synthesis, effects and transitions ● Fully integrated with the host program’s interface ● Intuitive and easy to use. ● Dual-processor support ● Free network rendering on After Effects and combustion ● Multiple options and parameters for an unlimited range of effects ● Resolution independent, antialiased, high-quality images ● Online hyper-linked documentation for all plug-ins ● On-screen interface widgets for visual control of parameters in After Effects and Premiere Pro ● Supports 8- and 16-bit formats ●

A mercury-like Distort filter makes the background ripple, as though deformed by the text itself.

SYSTEM

PC or MAC running: After Effects, Premiere & Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, combustion, Digital Fusion, Quantel generationQ with Synapse, Media 100 844/x

FOR Superb quality and range of effects Surprisingly quick to render ● Easy to use and adjust ● ●

AGAINST Expensive Poor documentation ● Some features already available in After Effects ● ●

VERDICT The best plug-ins money can buy, although it’s worth trying the demo beforehand to ensure they’re going to create the looks you’re after. If you’re a professional considering a plug-in package, you really couldn’t ask for more. Their cost will put them out of reach of the non-professional, though.

★★★★★ 86

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July 2004

The Auto-Track lens flare fixes a light to motion, while distorts and blurs add extra effects.

You can make lens artefacts as subtle as a soft glow or as bold as a rainbow halo. The choice is yours.

Sapphire Plug-ins have been used in film and TV for years, but are now available for desktop applications. Until recently, they were found only on specialist systems, and were about five times more expensive, helping to create indelible imagery for such bigscreen flicks as Spider-Man, The Lord Of The Rings, The Matrix trilogy, Terminator 3, X-Men II and the two Star Wars prequels. With such an effects-rich (and acclaimed) track record, it’s no wonder Sapphire’s reputation remains second to none. Apply a filter and it renders surprisingly quickly. With many less professional (and, to be fair, cheaper) plug-ins, you get the feeling that all you’ve done is degrade the image, but with Sapphire everything is always sharp, clear and bright. And although these plug-ins look great immediately, you can adjust so many parameters that you’re never stuck with a standard look. This is always where plug-in

and embossing. The actual Emboss filters, which can leave your footage looking like a grey mess if you’re not careful, can still enable you to generate gorgeous, glossy textures when used appropriately. The Composite filters are quite specialist, but useful for those who need advanced tools. Perhaps the greatest disappointment, however, are the Transitions, because they aren’t any more impressive than a typical cut or dissolve. Sapphire’s Time Filters manipulate, stutter, blend or flash through your clips, while Random Edits enables you to apply a popvideo rush of images in an instant, saving lots of cutting and pasting. Other Time filters add slurs and blurs, but their usefulness only becomes apparent after a great deal of experimentation. A few minor gripes aside, GenArts’ costly plug-in bundle could add a real pro sheen to your work. But it isn’t cheap, so check out the trial version before you buy.

Ë

RESOURCE A three-week trial of GenArts’ acclaimed plug-in suite is available to download from http://web. genarts.com. Once the trial period has expired, the plug-ins will generate a watermark. A full breakdown of the 175+ effects, complete with images, is also available here.

packages reveal their true colours, and Sapphire rarely disappoints. The Adjust filters provide unique ways of changing colour, with the Gamma filter giving great depth of control. Many of these filters doubleup on standard After Effects filters, such as HueSatBrightness, but there is something about Sapphire that oozes quality; the colour shifts are smooth, filmic and always feel like you’ve put in more effort than you have. In other words, they’re leagues ahead of the competition. The Distort filters liquefy and shape your footage, with the Shake filter simulating handheld footage. The Lighting filters add the kind of rings, glows, rainbows and sparkles you’ll recognise from many recent feature films. And while the AutoTrack Lens Flare doesn’t track as well as it could, for some shots it could be exactly the time-saver you’re looking for. Render and Style filters enable you to generate anything from etchings and printing to film effects

BOOKS

BOOKS The best reads this month on Computer Arts

MONO NUMBER ONE :PHUNK STUDIO Author :phunk Studio Price $38 Publisher Rebel One ISBN 981-05-0730-5 “The fusion of cultural backgrounds and complementary aesthetic styles initiated a dialogue that reinforced the importance of limitless expression as propagated by subversive street culture.” That’s how :phunk Studio describe themselves. But thankfully, this book is packed with pictures, too. For four people that just “wanted to be cool”, :phunk take themselves terribly seriously in this ten-year retrospective of their work to date. The Singaporean studio started off designing their own fonts, because they couldn’t afford their own, and went on to become international

design stars in their own right. This slim but extremely attractive book, in the format of a traditional annual no less, documents and celebrates a decade’s worth of accidents and experimentation from the“fresh graduate Guerillas” that have gone on to become a highly sought-after design agency. Ignore the (mercifully brief) pseud text and drink in the dazzling array of magazine covers, posters, exhibitions, typography, illos and idents tackled by the selfproclaimed “wankers”. It’s a coffee table book and a perfect inspiration – we just wish there was more of it.

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY: EXPERT TECHNIQUES Author Ken Milburn Price £31.95 Publisher O’Reilly UK ISBN 0-596-00547-4 When a book uses words such as “definitive”, “expert” and “professional” on the cover, you expect something pretty hardcore. But sadly, much of Digital Photography’s content belies the author’s assertion that it’s for “serious digital photographers”. While “Converting photos to paintings” gets a chapter all of its own, the real nitty-gritty of colour correction, levels and so on is covered in a scant few pages. Secondly, for a title ostensibly about Photoshop, there’s a lot of discussion of third-party plug-ins to produce effects you could create within the program itself. And it’s topped and tailed by a wodge of vaguely filler-ish material covering basic topics such as tripods and portfolios – again, something a pro

PHOTOSHOP CS A-Z Price £16.99 Author Peter Bargh Publisher Focal Press ISBN 0-240-51957-4

photographer should already know. This is not a bad book; it’s just too diffused for its intended market. With less fluff and more discussion of actual Photoshop techniques, it could well be ideal. And a CD would be useful, too.

Did you know that TWAIN (as in scanners and digicams) isn’t technically an acronym at all, but is taken to mean Technology Without an Interesting Name? That’s just one of the odd facts revealed in this modestly-sized tome. Rather ambitiously perhaps, this “essential visual reference guide” attempts to cover every Photoshop topic from A to Z in a reference format, down to every last menu command and dialog box. That means a triumph of function over form – each spread is densely packed with words and pictures – but the end result is surprisingly useful. Bargh points out salient features with minimum waffle and the odd mini-walkthrough for some of the more complex tools. With similarly brisk trots through

preferences, shortcuts and the main toolbar, it’s rather like a Schott’s Miscellany of Photoshop. Photoshop CS A-Z is definitely a reference tool rather than a tutorial guide, but even fairly advanced users should keep it handy.

July 2004

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GROUP TEST

88

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July 2004

GROUP TEST

CANON CANOSCAN 8000F P90

HP SCANJET 8200 P90

CANON CANOSCAN 9900F P91

GROUP TEST

SCANNERS With fewer models to choose from and the technology seemingly at its zenith, finding the perfect scanner is now easier than ever. But what should you look out for? We desktop-test five sub-£1000 models to find out Five years ago, the scanner market was in a vibrant state, with manufacturers falling all over themselves to release innovative new kit; now it’s been reduced to just a few key players and the pace of evolution has slowed to a crawl, much to the consumer’s benefit. The market has only shrunk because the hardware, even at the low end, has matured and become so sophisticated that there’s little room for improvement. Resolution is higher than anyone practically needs, all models can capture in excess of 42-bit colour, and most now incorporate film scanning as standard. However, image enhancement (dust and scratch removal facilities, unsharp masking, etc) and scanning speed remain key issues. Manufacturers make bold claims about preview speeds of under five seconds, but then disingenuously fail to mention lengthy lamp warm-up times – and speed is important when it comes to scanning film/transparencies or materials at high resolutions. In our quest to find five suitable scanners, we were forced to select a broad price range, from £150 through to £940, with interesting results. See how they fared overleaf…

MICROTEK ARTIXSCAN 1100 P91

Ë

Illustration by Scott Hansen. www.iso50.com

EPSON PERFECTION 4870 PHOTO P92

July 2004

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GROUP TEST

Canon CanoScan 8000F This budget scanner turns out to be a versatile performer MAC ✔ Q PC ✔ Q

PRICE: £175 STREET PRICE: £149 CONTACT: Canon 08705 143723 www.canon.co.uk

At just £149, the 8000F is the cheapest model in our Group Test. It provides both reflective and transparency scanning, can cope with photos or material up to A4 size, and provides a convenient lip against which to align documents. It also scans right up to the edge of the bed. Transparency handling, however – restricted to 35mm film – is less versatile. The scanner comes with mounts that can hold either two six-frame filmstrips or four mounted slides. These mounts are positioned into a special holder that rests on the main bed. However, for the software to auto-detect the individual frames, it’s critical the filmstrips are aligned perfectly. We found the process a little twitchy, with the software detecting the frames at 72dpi, but not always at higher resolutions. The scanner comes with a wide range of software, covering OCR,

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VERDICT

graphics editing, even business card management. However, the key application is ScanGear CS. This is the TWAIN driver, which you can use to scan images or text into any TWAIN-compliant host. It has two modes: Simple, which automatically applies all manner of enhancement options and automatically selects its idea of an appropriate resolution, and Advanced, which gives you full control over all available options, including the level of dust and scratch removal. Although the 8000F blurb posits a preview time of just five seconds, Canon disgracefully omits to mention that the lamp can take as much as 40 seconds to warm up. Image-processing time, primarily for film strips or multiple slides, can easily add another minute or so. Still, for your money, actual scanning time is quick.

★★★★★

The 8000F provides good capabilities at a very good price. None of its features are market-leading or state of the art, but for just £149 you can still scan a range of media without having to wait too long.

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July 2004

HP ScanJet 8200

According to the ScanJet, image quality isn’t that important

MAC ✔ Q PC ✔ Q

PRICE: £449 STREET PRICE: £375 CONTACT: HP 08705 474747 www.hp.com/uk

Top image quality must surely be the primary objective of any scanner, with speed and easeof-use not far behind. Someone better tell HP’s design team, then; the ScanJet 8200 seems to have been designed with a different set of priorities in mind… It’s an A4 scanner with a top resolution of 4800x4800dpi, giving it the second-highest resolution in our Group Test after the Epson model, and 48-bit colour sensitivity. Look more closely, though, and worrying deficiencies emerge… The TWAIN driver, while simple to look at and elegant to use, is functionally limited. You can perform basic imageenhancement operations, but it lacks the advanced adjustments you find in rival drivers. There are no advanced hardware or software repair functions, either – our test scans revealed the magnified

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RESOURCE Canon’s CanoScan 8000F makes full use of FARE (Film Automatic Retouching Enhancement) Level 1, a versatile hardware-based repair process that aims to provide better results than softwareonly solutions.

VERDICT

presence of hairs and dust, which we had to remove using software. To make matters worse, despite a group-winning preview time of under four seconds for reflective media, the 8200 takes over a minute to warm up. Even more frustrating, the driver resets all parameters, including selection area, resolution, enhancement, etc., every time you re-open the driver. The 8200 can handle negatives, but can only manage filmstrips and mounted 35mm slides. In fact, with just three slides or four film frames, it has the lowest capacity of all the scanners on test here. On the plus side, the device does offer lightning-fast scanning of reflective media, and its negative handling is impressive. It also comes with an optional document feeder for automated OCR conversion of text documents.

★★★★★

On paper, the 8200 looks perfect – fast, with good colour depth and high resolution – but the poorly conceived drivers seriously impair workflow. There’s a limited range of transparent media holders, too.

GROUP TEST

Canon CanoScan 9900F At last, high- quality performance at an affordable price MAC ✔ Q PC ✔ Q

PRICE: £299 STREET PRICE: £269 CONTACT: Canon 08705 143723 www.canon.co.uk

Although Epson nabs the top honours with its Perfection 4870, the Canon 9900F comes a close second. This may seem surprising, given that its optical resolution of 2400x4800 is half that of the Perfection. However, this only matters if you plan to scan a lot of negatives. For reflective media, even fine-grain photos, the Canon is more than up to the task. The 9900F also boasts a more advanced version of the imagecorrection technology used in the 8000F: FARE 2. This attempts to correct and smooth the effects caused by high-grain film. Just like the Epson, the 9900F is bundled with lots of transparency and film holders: it can cope with 35mm filmstrips, mounted slides and 5x4-inch transparencies. The ScanGear CS TWAIN driver is almost as versatile as the Epson

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VERDICT

driver, and the fact that it gives you individual control over components of the FARE image enhancement process is a big advantage over its rival’s Digital ICE system. However, the Epson’s versatility when it comes to batch-scanning is a big plus for anyone who scans a lot of film. Like its stablemate, the 8000F, the 9900F has a long warm-up time, but relatively fast full scans. It also produces transparency previews extremely quickly. The 9900F’s programmable buttons may also have a practical benefit. These enable you to configure the device to scan, perform OCR or email at the press of a button, without the need to open an application. The importance of this depends on your personal work flow; of course, if you want to scan work while within an app, it won’t be so useful.

★★★★★

The 9900F is a competent performer at a great price. It can scan all media types and is easy to operate with its programmable buttons. It also offers particularly fast film scanning at a reasonable resolution.

Microtek ArtixScan 1100

The ideal choice if colour fidelity is your overriding objective MAC ✔ Q PC ✔ Q

PRICE: £938 STREET PRICE: £901 CONTACT: UMAX 0870 906 3303 www.microtek.co.uk

The ArtixScan 1100 may be a little old-fashioned – heavy, slow and with an inconvenient SCSI interface – but at least it delivers something its peers cannot: absolute colour fidelity. It comes with IT8 colour targets and for optimum use needs to be extensively calibrated upon installation. Choose both input and output colour profiles, select the type of film and paper that’s being used, and the 1100 recalibrates itself for optimal accuracy every time. The major penalty for this level of fidelity is speed. Although scanning times compare favourably with the 1100’s rivals, expect a 3.5-minute warm-up every time you perform a film scan. You can skip this process, but obviously at the expense of best colour reproduction. Like the Epson model, the ArtixScan comes with the well-

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RESOURCE The ArtixScan 1100’s Emulsion Direct Imaging Technology (EDIT) enables you to scan film and transparencies directly, not through glass.This minimises distortion and ensures greater sharpness and colour fidelity.

VERDICT

respected SilverFast 6 software, which provides extensive adjustment and restoration options, although in this case it’s the full package worth $424 (£300), not the SE version. To a certain extent, though, it’s redundant; the native TWAIN drivers are already so good. Of all the scanners in this Group Test, the ArtixScan 1100 is the best for transparent media. It’s also the only scanner that provides glassless scanning – simply clip the film or transparency into the special mounts that slide directly into the scanner body. This eliminates Newton ring distortion that may show up as interference patterns when scanning through glass. If the ArtixScan has one major shortfall, it’s the low 1000x2000 resolution. Still, this won’t stop you creating a good 10-inch image at 300dpi from a 35mm transparency.

★★★★★

Although its speed and resolution look lacklustre, the ArtixScan 1100 does more to ensure accurate colour than any other scanner. Valuable as part of a colour-critical environment.

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GROUP TEST

MAC ✔ Q

PC ✔ Q

PRICE: £349 STREET PRICE: £314 CONTACT: Epson

08702 416900 www.epson.co.uk

SYSTEM

PC: Pentium 233, 128MB RAM, 220MB hard disk space, USB 1.1 or higher or FireWire, Windows 98 MAC: G3 or higher, 128MB RAM, USB 1.1 or FireWire, OS 9

FEATURES • 48-bit colour • 4800x9600dpi • 10x8 transparency scanning area • 4 different film holders • USB 2 and FireWire • Includes SilverFast SE software • Digital ICE enhancement technology

FOR • Versatile transparency scanning • High resolution • Fast

AGAINST • Lengthy warm-up time • Weak image correction

VERDICT Although its image-cleaning technology isn’t as good as we’d hoped, the huge number of transparency and negative holders, coupled with great performance, ensures that the 4870 Photo will work just as well in a professional environment as the home studio or small office.

★★★★★ 92

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July 2004

RECOMME NDED

Epson Perfection 4870 Photo In a busy graphics department or photography studio, this scanner will save you time and money

Both Canon and Epson incorporate intriguing imageenhancement technologies in their scanners, designed to remove dust, scratches, cracks, folds and more besides. Epson’s goes by the name of Digital ICE and uses two slightly offset lights to build up a defects map derived from the shadows cast by surface imperfections. This map enables the scanner to subtract said defects from the image as it scans. At least, that’s the theory. In reality, even at just 300dpi, with the finest of scratches and the lightest of dust, Digital ICE doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. In fact, imperfections in reflective media seemed more noticeable, not less. Part of that may be due to superior colour detection and tonal sensitivity, but the bottom line is still the same: more work in post-production. For some reason, though, Epson is reticent about revealing this model’s colour depth in its online brochures or via its Website. At first, we thought this was because the

Ë

RESOURCE In addition to Digital ICE, the 4870 Photo’s image-enhancing facilities include grain reduction, colour restoration, dust removal, optimised autoexposure, unsharp mask with noise reduction and the ability to adjust tone via a histogram.

figure would compare unfavourably. In fact, it offers 48-bit input and output just like the best of them. Perhaps Epson is the first to realise that bit-depth is no longer a selling point, so it’s trying to redirect your attention to the areas where the scanner can really distinguish itself. Bundled with the Perfection is the excellent SilverFast 6 SE, a package that provides a vast range of expert pre-scanning colour adjustment and restoration tools. Its inclusion is bizarre, though, because Epson’s own TWAIN driver is the best and easiest-to-use in the industry. The software offers three modes of operation – Automatic, Home and Professional. Naturally, you’ll want to use Professional, which provides manual control over every setting, from the outset. At seven seconds for an A4 reflective preview and 14 seconds to complete our 5x7-inch test scan at 300dpi in 24-bit colour, the 4870 Photo is plenty fast enough – although warm-up is every bit as

slow as its rivals’. However, if you switch Digital ICE on, then scan times increase by around 500 per cent, with the same image taking some 83 seconds to complete. It’s also daft that ICE (with its associated time penalty) is activated during a preview scan; the driver should automatically deactivate it. As to negative and film templates, this scanner boasts the biggest batch of the entire Group Test. Better still, it can scan negatives over a large area of the bed. In addition to intelligent automatic frame detection and smart batch-scanning, this scanner will save you tons of time if you have lots of filmstrips to digitise. You can scan up to 24 35mm transparencies in a single operation, although you can assign each frame its own parameters as required. With both USB 2 and FireWire interfaces, the 4870 is easy to connect to any computer, and hot-swappable, making it the perfect choice for the busy home office or studio.

GROUP TEST

CONCLUSION When every scanner in a group test is capable of good speeds and much higher resolution than is ever required for reflective image scanning, you have to look at the finer details to distinguish individual models. They all incorporate various levels of image optimisation, including dust and scratch removal. Technically, the Epson model looks the most advanced on paper, but we weren’t over-impressed by it, preferring the Canon 9900F’s system instead. When it comes to handling transparent media, subtlety is all. The 9900F incorporates what is

Ë

MODEL

essentially a minute photography-grade telescopic lens, and the quality is great. However, the Epson and Microtek capture highlight and shadow details more effectively. The ArtixScan also offers glassless scanning and a higher grade engine. This explains why the scanner can still cut it, despite being several years old. In terms of usability, you can’t underestimate the significance of good driver software. All the other onebutton modes and bundled packages are mere window dressing; it’s the TWAIN drivers you’ll spend the most time with. This is the main thing that let the HP scanner

CANON CANOSCAN 8000F

HP SCANJET 8200

CANON CANOSCAN 9900F

down. We prefer Epson’s drivers, but those included with the Microtek have more features. The Microtek and Epson models also come with SilverFast, one of the industry’s most respected pieces of scanning software. This enables you to make many adjustments to the image as you scan it. We’ve always wondered about the wisdom of this, especially now that there’s a strong trend to take unprocessed CCD data in the form of RAW files and software-edit instead... Ultimately, the Epson’s all-round versatility and high specs won us over, just pipping the 9900F to the post.

MICROTEK ARTIXSCAN 1100

EPSON PERFECTION 4870 PHOTO RECOMMEN DED

Platform

Mac & PC

Mac & PC

Mac & PC

Mac & PC

Mac & PC

Specifications

PC PII 233, 64MB RAM, USB 1.1 or higher, Windows 98 MAC G3 or higher, 64MB RAM, USB 1.1 or FireWire, OS 9

PC PII, 64MB RAM, 225MB HD space, USB 1.1, Windows 98 MAC 233MHz PowerPC, 128MB RAM, 240MB HD space, USB 1.1 or FireWire, OS 9.1

PC PII 233, 128MB RAM, USB 1.1 or higher, Windows 98 MAC G3 or higher, 128MB RAM, USB 1.1 or FireWire, OS 9

PC Pentium, Windows 95 or higher, SCSI interface or PCI slot MAC Power PC, SCSI interface or PCI slot, Mac OS 8.1

PC: Pentium 233, 128MB RAM, 220MB hard disk space, USB 1.1 or higher or FireWire, Windows 98 MAC: G3 or higher, 128MB RAM, USB 1.1 or FireWire, OS 9

Max resolution (reflective and transparency)

2400x4800

4800x4800

3200x6400

1000x2000

4800x9600

Glassless

No

No

No

Yes

No

Warm-up time (seconds)

31-41

69

50

17-210

65+

Preview speed (seconds): Pos/Neg

7/40

4/71

20/18

7/67

7/87

Scanning speed (seconds): 7x5-inch (24-bit)

19

9

13

76

14-83

Scanning speed (seconds): 7x5-inch positive

40

37

37

44

35

Templates/film holders

12-frame 35mm filmstrip; 1x 4-slide holder

4-frame 35mm filmstrip; 3x 35mm slides

24-frame 35mm filmstrip; 8x 35mm slides; 2x 4x5-inch plates; 120 roll

12-frame 35mm filmstrip; 12x 35mm slides; 2x 4x5-inch plated; 6x 9cm plates; 1x universal film holder (8x10 inches)

2x 24-frame 35mm filmstrip; 2x 5x4-inch plates; 8x 35mm slides; 3x 120 rolls

Interface

USB2

USB2

USB2 & FireWire (Mac)

SCSI2

USB2 & FireWire

Software

Photoshop Elements, OmniPage, Photostudio, Photobase, BizCard, Page Manager

Photoshop Elements, Read IRIS Pro, Presto BizCard

Photoshop Elements, OmniPage, Photostudio, Photobase, BizCard, Page Manager

SilverFast AI Pro 6

SilverFast SE, Photoshop Elements, Abbyy FineReader Sprint 5

TWAIN

Yes – ScanGear CS

Yes

Yes – ScanGear CS

Yes

Yes – Epson Scan

Extras

FARE 1

Optional document feeder; optional SCSI kit

FARE 2

SCSI card

Digital ICE

Weight (kg)

4.6

8.6

5.2

20.4

6.7

Price (RRP)

£149

£449

£299

£938

£349

Score

++

++

++++

+++

++++

@300dpi (24-bit); 35mm slide @600dpi (24-bit)

July 2004

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July 2004

BUYER’S GUIDE INCLUDES:

WELCOME

Welcome to the Computer Arts Buyer’s Guide – an indispensable resource that summarises popular products we’ve tried and tested in previous issues. It saves you flicking through your back copies to find out how we scored a particular product on your shopping list; here you can simply see at a glance what we thought of it. Every month, we update the section to feature the latest products we’ve tested, ensuring that you’re always up to date when it comes to making that vital buying decision. It’s also worth remembering that the price we print is the

RRP suggested by the manufacturer, and in many cases the price you pay will be less. Indeed, when it comes to locating the best bargains, the Internet should always be your first port of call. Whether you buy directly via an e-tailer, or use a dedicated Website’s search facilities to snap up a brilliant deal, there’s no better way to make your money go further. RECOMMENDED URLS: www.ebay.co.uk, www.dabs.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.kelkoo.com

GRAPHICS AND LAYOUT SOFTWARE 3D SOFTWARE SCANNERS AND PRINTERS DIGITAL VIDEO WEB, ANIMATION, CD/DVD PLUG-INS MOBILE HARD DRIVES

CHOICE SOFTWARE

RECOMMEN DED

P96 FREEHAND MX

Macromedia’s slickly-featured graphics tool is a must for pro artists, illustrators and designers

P96 COREL PAINTER 8 More powerful and intuitive than ever, Corel’s masterly virtual paintbox is an artist’s must-have

P97 SHAKE 3

This high-end compositor delivers state-of-the-art special effects into the hands of OS X users

P98 FINAL CUT PRO 4 Fast becoming a broadcasting standard, FCP 4 gives you superb editing control over your footage

P99 NIK COLOR EFEX

Optimise and enhance your imagery using these superb Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro filters

P99 DVD STUDIO PRO 2 Multi-faceted DVD authoring app that’s easy enough for beginners yet powerful enough for pros, too

VERDICT We assess all tools from the viewpoint of the professional designer. Does the product do what it’s meant to do? Is it quick, reliable and useful? Is the interface clean? And is it good value? Our five-star rating reflects these criteria…

★★★★★

TURN TO PAGE 88

This month, we put five scanners under £1000 head-to-head for our Group Test. They’re all proficient models, but which one is the best? Find out here!

July 2004

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BUYER’S GUIDE

GRAPHICS AND LAYOUT SOFTWARE NAME

SHORT DESCRIPTION

MANUFACTURER

PRICE

WEBSITE

MAC & PC?

PROS

CONS

VERDICT

ISSUE

STUDIO ARTIST 3

Image processing and real-time video effects in this, the latest edition of the world’s only “graphics synthesiser”.

Synthetik Software

$379

www. synthetik. com

Mac

Huge range of presets, excellent video tools.

Difficult to learn.

★★★★

95

Industry standard vector graphics software – an essential tool for anyone who needs to design for print or the Web.

Adobe

www. adobe. co.uk

Yes

Powerful new 3D features, advanced typographical controls, and smooth PDF integration.

Not a massive upgrade.

★★★★

The design daddy, the creative king, and the industry standard professional image editor.

Adobe

www. adobe. co.uk

Yes

An impressive number of new tools and filters.

None.

★★★★

www. macro media. com/ software/ freehand/

Yes

Lots of new tools, a reshuffled interface, and improved Flash integration.

None.

http:// euro. quark. com/en/ products/ xpress/

Yes

www. adobe. co.uk/ products/ indesign

Yes

www. corel. co.uk/ painter8

Yes

www. corel. co.uk

Yes

www. macro media. com/ software/ fireworks

Yes

www. adobe. co.uk

Yes

ILLUSTRATOR CS

PHOTOSHOP CS

£511

£605 DED RECOMMEN

FREEHAND MX

QUARKXPRESS 6

INDESIGN CS

COREL PAINTER 8

A pleasingly streamlined and easyto-learn graphics environment for designing illustrations and organising your digital information for print, Web or Flash.

Macromedia

The tried-and-tested publishing tool of yesteryear plods into the present with this latest version, as Quark tries to fight off competition from Adobe’s InDesign.

Quark

Adobe’s desktop publishing upstart comes of age as QuarkXPresskiller InDesign rapidly approaches industry standard status.

Adobe

The ultimate digital sketching and painting application for both Mac and PC, with over 400 brushes and over 30 mediums to paint with.

Corel

£299

£1095

£716

£367

96

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Education-tailored vector graphics package with sketching capabilities, intelligent drawing tools and motion graphics capabilities.

Corel

FIREWORKS MX 2004

Create, optimise and integrate great-looking Web graphics. Make everything from simple buttons to sophisticated rollover animations.

Macromedia

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 2.0

Share your photos as prints, by email, or on the Web. Stick snaps into panoramas, fix red eye, and straighten and crop photographs with ease.

Adobe

July 2004

£422

£249

£77

89

Offers smaller improvements across the board.

89

Something for everyone – improvements across the board make this a more versatile tool than ever.

DED RECOMMEN

★★★★★

82

FreeHand MX is a fantastic application. The final release is rock-solid and has a plethora of great tools that will be invaluable to the professional illustrator, artist or Web designer.

Familiar interface, multiple undos, and OS X compatibility.

Outmoded typography and design tools, unsophisticated features.

★★★

Ultra-tight, time-saving integration with the rest of the Creative Suite.

Can feel sluggish on lower-spec machines. Clumsier texthandling than XPress. Grass roots support needs to grow.

★★★★

Fun enough for beginners, powerful enough for professionals.

Sluggish when upping the brush size and detail. Strokes don’t so much flow with the tablet as follow it around five seconds after applying the paint.

★★★★★

Good all-in-one graphics bundle with intelligent drawing tools.

Not as powerful as the Adobe Creative Suite.

★★★

Impressive all-in-one toolset. Excellent workflow and integration.

Not ideal for photos. Reduced text features and SWF export still a bit ropey.

★★★★

Great interface, low price.

Maybe too limited for pro users

★★★★

DED RECOMMEN

COREL DRAW GRAPHICS SUITE 12

Not the easiest graphics package to get to grips with, but persevere and it really comes into its own.

87

If you’re upgrading, it feels comfortable and familiar from the start. But if typography and graphic design are important to you, this isn’t the application to go for: InDesign still has the edge. 67

InDesign 2.0 now just amazes you, full stop – and the battle we all expected between InDesign and Quark XPress never properly materialised.

84

A stunning tool that’s more powerful and more intuitive than ever. Tight integration with Photoshop and a huge range of natural media brushes make it an absolute must-buy for anyone involved in digital art. 94

A good combination of bitmap, vector, and animation tools at a price that will appeal to many business users. 71

Rather than pack this ideal design application with crass effects and gizmos, the company has focused on making changes that simplify and improve your experience of using Fireworks. Don’t dismiss Elements as a cutdown version of its big brother – many creatives won’t ever plumb the depths it has to offer.

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BUYER’S GUIDE

3D SOFTWARE NAME

SHORT DESCRIPTION

MANUFACTURER

PRICE

WEBSITE

MAC & PC?

PROS

CONS

VERDICT

ISSUE

POSER 5

The leading 3D character design and animation tool for artists and animators. Create 3D figures from a diverse collection of ready-to-use models.

Curious Labs

289 euros

www. curious labs.com

Yes

Easier to navigate and control and enables greater realism and variety of characters.

Pro Pack’s third-party program integration not implemented. Many bugs and design flaws.

★★★

76

High-end compositor brings state-ofthe-art special effects to OS X.

New Media Research

£3799

www.nmr. com

Yes

Sophisticated features, incredibly powerful.

Steep learning curve, not exactly cheap.

★★★★★

Modelling, animation and rendering solution used by 3D artists worldwide.

Discreet

www. discreet. com

Yes

Improved workflow, great interface.

Expensive.

★★★★

Academy Award®-winning 3D animation and effects software that’s become the film industry’s favourite tool.

Alias

www.alias. com

Yes

Fur, hair and fluids in Mental Ray, great value for money.

Features limited by program architecture.

★★★★

VUE 4 PROFESSIONAL

Natural 3D scenery rendering package that enables you to generate lush landscapes at the click of a button.

E-On Software

www.e-on software. com

Yes

Unparalleled rendering quality, extensive import and export options.

Depth of field and soft shadows can look grainy.

★★★★

CINEMA 4D

Powerful but accessible 3D modelling and animation application, widely used in film, animation and broadcast.

Maxon

www. maxon.net

Yes

Great price, flexible module system.

Some features need refining, interface and workflow could still be improved.

★★★★

Create ultra-realistic 3D landscapes and animations. Boasts network rendering, and new light and tree tabs.

Corel

www.corel. com

Yes

Can import from almost any common 3D file format on the market.

Doesn’t include any conventional modelling tools.

★★★★

Popular and powerful 3D animation and rendering package. Features an enhanced particle system.

Caligari

www. caligari. com

Yes

Broad selection of modelling tools, dynamics and interactive rendering.

Poor workflow, bad interface.

★★★

Affordable new 3D program that aims to be cheap and powerful.

Nevercenter

www.never center.com

PC

Easy to learn, intuitive modelling style, great interface.

Occasional instability, selection not part of the undo list.

★★★★

Sophisticated 3D modelling app.

Maxon

www. maxon.net

Yes

Excellent new shaders, enhanced rendering.

Lack of advanced modelling features.

★★★★

www. pandro meda.com

Yes

Great range of planets.

Most content already available online.

★★★

SHAKE 3

DED RECOMMEN

3DS MAX 6

MAYA 6

BRYCE 5

TRUESPACE 6.6

SILO

CINEMA 4D 8.5

MOJOPACK

A compendium of planets, plant objects, plug-ins, terrain maps and tutorials for planet/landscape-generator MojoWorld.

Pandromeda

£2814

£1645

£419

£499

$80

$595

$109

£499

$99

Despite many shortfalls, Poser still proves handy for scene visualisation and quick character set-ups. 90

If you can afford it, and you’ll be doing plenty of special effects work, don’t hesitate to buy this. 92

Vertex Painting should keep 3ds max popular in the games industry. 97

Alias has made major improvements to workflow with version six, although the app remains as tricky to master. 91

A cut above other 3D packages – and soon-to-be leader in its field. 77

The interface needs an overhaul, but Maxon appears to have set a new standard in the mid-range. 61

Great for creating lush-looking landscapes, interiors and architecture. 85

A worthy 3D program, rich in features, but its scatter-brain interface and poor workflow make using it a chore. 93

Pro-level modelling tools for a fraction of the cost. Great value for money. 97

Create realistic images with ease. 97

An interesting collection, but hardly a substitute for a MojoWorld update.

SCANNERS AND PRINTERS NAME

SHORT DESCRIPTION

MANUFACTURER

PRICE

WEBSITE

MAC & PC?

PROS

CONS

VERDICT

ISSUE

HP SCANJET 4600

Wallet-friendly USB 2 scanner that lacks a lid, so you can see exactly what you’re scanning.

HP

£149

www. hp.com/uk

Yes

Great concept.

No calibration routine, and annoying lines on output that are impossible to remove.

★★

93

CANON I990 BUBBLE JET

Colour photo printing with the world’s first six-colour printer.

Canon

www. canon. co.uk

Yes

Microfine 2-picolitre droplets, prints A4 photos in 37 seconds.

Large footprint, fussy colour setup.

★★★★

CANON I965 BUBBLE JET

Fast and economical printer with borderless photo printing.

Canon

www. canon. co.uk

Yes

Fast printhead and USB 2 interface.

Large footprint, fussy colour setup.

★★★★

HP DESKJET 9670

An attractive if A3 device – and at a decent price, too.

HP

www.hp/ com/uk

Yes

Great quality printouts and relatively speedy.

The swappable cartridge system.

★★★★

£299

£255

£399

Take a look in a year or so, when HP has ironed out the teething problems. 95

This superb printer will earn its place in any graphic or photo studio. 96

Superfast photo printer that simply trounces the competition. 93

Not as fast as a Canon, but it holds its own when it comes to print quality.

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BUYER’S GUIDE

DIGITAL VIDEO NAME

SHORT DESCRIPTION

MANUFACTURER

PRICE

WEBSITE

MAC & PC?

PROS

CONS

VERDICT

ISSUE

VIDEOTOASTER 3

A complete post-production and video mixing suite, offering everything you need to capture, edit, caption, and add 2D and 3D effects to your video in real time.

Computers Unlimited

£2500

www. newtekeurope. com

PC

Cost-effective, uncompressed video suite.

Lack of sound tools, tough hardware requirements.

★★★★

95

Emmy Award-winning tool for editing and finishing in SD and HD formats. Used to produce many TV shows, it’s fast becoming an industry standard in broadcasting.

Apple

£699

www.apple. com/uk/ finalcutpro/

Mac

Lots of exciting additions and brilliant bundled applications.

None.

Sophisticated video editing tool aimed at the higher end of the mid-range market.

AVID

www.avid. com/ xpresspro

Yes

Good real-time playback and capture compression.

Tool windows can be fiddly, limited file import formats.

★★★★

ENCORE DVD

Windows-only DVD authoring package. Create and edit menus in Adobe Photoshop format using a flexible interface and a powerful set of menu design tools, then output your project to all recordable DVD formats.

Adobe

£399

www. adobe.com/ products/ encore/

PC

Powerful, intuitive, and easy to use.

None.

N/A: Encore DVD is a fine addition to Adobe’s digital video range. If you’re used to Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects, it’s a breeze to pick up.

87

AUDITION 1.5

Professional audio-editing and mixing environment that delivers advanced audio mixing, editing, mastering, and effects-processing capabilities. Used to produce music, radio broadcasts or video audio.

Adobe

£246

www. adobe. co.uk/ products/ audition

PC

Highly configurable interface, and destructive and non-destructive editing.

None.

N/A: An excellent tool for home users serious about audio.

N/A

FINAL CUT EXPRESS 2.0

Apple strikes a careful balance between features and affordability in its flagship consumer videoediting program. Make sophisticated home movies with complex transitions, or professional videos for your creative business ventures.

Apple

£199

www.apple. com/uk/ finalcut express

Mac

Near-pro editing, with real time effects and complex animated composites.

No keyframing of effects.

★★★★

94

AFTER EFFECTS

Adobe’s industry standard tool for adding visual effects and motion graphics to film footage. Integrates closely with Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere Pro.

Adobe

www. adobe. co.uk/ products/ aftereffects

PC

New vector paint engine enables you to paint straight onto footage.

Not as powerful as shake 3 or combustion.

★★★★

Consumer-friendly DVD authoring software with prolevel features, including realtime preview, AC-3 sound as standard, multiple subtitles and audio tracks, plus optional recompression on a clip-by-clip basis.

Ulead

www.ulead. co.uk

PC

Very easy to use, supports multiple audio tracks, preview saves time.

Can’t use standard Photoshop images as video frames, dreadful alignment tools, no button routing options.

★★★

A sophisticated yet simpleto-operate solution that will meet your all cameratracking requirements. Copes with multiple motions, sequences and cameras, as well as 3D models.

RealViz

www. realviz.com

PC

Excellent automated tracking, plenty of manual control.

Prohibitive price puts it in the pro bracket.

★★★★

FINAL CUT PRO 4

AVID XPRESS PRO

DVD WORKSHOP 2

MATCHMOVER PRO 3.0

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DED RECOMMEN

£1527

£664

£259

11,280 euros

Budget studios will find VideoToaster an ideal set-up.

★★★★★

86

Final Cut Pro 4 is nothing short of superb. The bundled applications truly excel, as does Final Cut Pro itself.

91

Package is twice as expensive as Premiere – but a stark comparison of features doesn’t reveal a huge gulf between the two.

Undoubtedly the best low-cost editing solution for DV.

95

Well-designed visual effects program with many features not available in other programs of the same price.

97

This may feel half-finished, but it’s very easy to use, thanks to a logical and linear workflow. Sadly, much of the (cheaper) competition has caught up since the release of version one.

Ideal for any heavy-duty tracking jobs, RealViz’s incredibly flexible app delivers accurate results time after time. If the company could bring the price down by a few grand, everyone would be using it.

97

BUYER’S GUIDE

WEB, ANIMATION, CD/DVD NAME

SHORT DESCRIPTION

MANUFACTURER

PRICE

WEBSITE

MAC & PC?

PROS

CONS

DIRECTOR

Build rich content featuring video, interactive audio, bitmaps, vectors, text, fonts, and more.

Macromedia

£959

www. macromedia. com

Yes

Superb accessibility tools, great control over Flash movies.

Expensive for both platforms.

Quickly create DVD interfaces by customising templates, or build your own from the ground up.

Apple

www.apple. com/uk/ dvdstudiopro

Mac

Drag-and-drop functionality, great value.

High system requirements.

★★★★★

Adobe’s Website design application – sometimes hailed as the Pepsi to Dreamweaver’s’ Coke.

Adobe

www.adobe. com

Yes

Now integrates with GoLive CS in a much more logical way.

Only better than Dreamweaver as part of the CS.

★★★★

DREAMWEAVER MX 2004

Build and maintain Websites and applications, with this exceptionally powerful suite of tools.

Macromedia

www. macromedia. co.uk

Yes

All-round Web authoring tool.

Performance issues reported on some Macs.

★★★★

TOON BOOM STUDIO

Complete 2D animation software. Features powerful drawing tools and time-saving lip sync tools.

Toon Boom

www. toonboom studio.com

Yes

Great value for money.

Can only handle up to 1000 frames of animation.

★★★★

STITCHER 4

Create high quality panoramas from your photographs.

RealViz

499 euros

www.realviz. com

Yes

Excellent quality, control over output.

Relatively expensive.

★★★★

Builds standalone applications that deliver interactive Flash content with a professional look and feel.

3rd Eye Solutions

$249

www. flashjester. com

PC

Packed with features, supports Flash MX 2004.

Standard version lacks many useful features.

★★★★

DVD STUDIO PRO

GO LIVE CS

JUGGLOR V2

£349 DED RECOMMEN

£394

£339

$144

VERDICT

ISSUE

★★★★

80

Director now has the power to deliver many different types of content on and offline. 90

High-end tools complemented by easy-to-use features. 89

Great integration with Illustrator and Photoshop will save you time. 91

Good integration with Contribute. 92

Great introduction to the world of 2D animation. Capable of fantastic results. 95

It may not be cheap, but it’s the best. 97

A great step forwards. Better offline flexibility will impress Flash users.

PLUG-INS NAME

SHORT DESCRIPTION

MANUFACTURER

PRICE

WEBSITE

MAC & PC?

PROS

CONS

VERDICT

ISSUE

NIK COLOR EFEX

Fantastic set of digital photographic filters for Photoshop and Paintshop Pro. Offers the ability to perform professional darkroom effects.

Nik Multimedia

£280

www.nik multimedia .com

PC

55 superb Photoshop filters that have a vast range of uses.

None.

★★★★★

94

Lets you add one of thousands of 3D models to your Photoshop document, then scale and rotate them.

Digital Element

www.digielement.com

Yes

Easy to use, neat interface.

No rendering options, supports only three formats.

★★★★

LUNARCELL

Instantly create planets in Photoshop. They can be fractal, reality-based or just plain odd – all yours in a few seconds!

Flaming Pear

$40

www. flamingpear. com

Yes

Download live cloud images from weather satellites!

Bit limited.

N/A: Excellent plug-in with wonderful integration – and some fantastic effects.

N/A

XENOFEX

Lots of effects to trigger within Photoshop, Elements or Fireworks.

Alien Skin Software

$129

www. alienskin.com

Yes

Fun filter that gives you 14 effects.

Takes a while to apply a preview.

★★★

84

SYMMETRY WORKS

Adobe Illustrator plug-in for creating surface pattern designs in seconds.

Artlandia

$241

www. artlandia.com

Yes

Drag and drop your patterns into Flash.

Very habit forming!

N/A: Fast and effective way to create patterns.

N/A

PRIMATTE 2.0

Photoshop plug-in dedicated to ultra-clean, blue-screen compositing.

Digital Anarchy

$299

www. digitalanarchy. com

Yes

Powerful chromamasking, many subtle tools.

No quantifiable way of making adjustments.

★★★

97

MODELSHOP

$149

DED RECOMMEN

Some wonderful filters are presented in this package for tweaking colours. 92

Plenty of potential as a tool for compositing 3D elements in 2D scenes in Photoshop.

A little clichéd, but useful.

More powerful than Cinematte and cheaper than Multimatte.

MOBILE HARD DRIVES NAME

SHORT DESCRIPTION

MANUFACTURER

PRICE

WEBSITE

MAC & PC?

PROS

CONS

VERDICT

ISSUE

LACIE BIG DISK EXTREME 500

500GB FireWire hard drive

LaCie

£420

www.lacie. com

Yes

FireWire 800 compatible, fast.

Two-year warranty is far too short.

★★

97

MOBILE HARD DRIVE

20GB, 40GB, 80GB hard drive

www.lacie. com

Yes

Affordable, fast, very portable.

Not so good for large data transfer tasks.

★★★★★

LaCie DED RECOMMEN

£85, £115, £200

A stylish, powerful and versatile drive. 97

Swift auto-installation on both PC and Mac, top transfer rates, and a great low price!

July 2004

| 99

BACK ISSUES Missed an issue of your favourite mag? Call now and order old issues!

SEE AN ISSUE YOU WANT? THEN CALL THE HOTLINE AS SOON AS YOU CAN, BECAUSE BACK ISSUES ARE SELLING OUT FAST

HOW TO ORDER BACK ISSUES CALL THE HOTLINE ON 0870 444 8455 OR EMAIL [email protected]

ISSUE 97 – Code C0A97 Photoshop graffiti special! Plus free copy of Font Creator, TypeTool 1.3, 1565 fonts and Cinema 4D 8.5 demo.

OUT D L O S

ISSUE 96 – Code C0A96 10 tutorials for Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver and After Effects – plus a copy of ACDSEE 3.1.

OUT D L O S

Did you know you can get Computer Arts in electronic format? Turn to page 94.

ISSUE 95 – Code C0A95 Great design on a low budget – essential techniques! Four full products worth £240 on the CD.

UT O D L SO

Please quote relevant code

ADD OUR WEBSITE TO YOUR BOOKMARKS OR FAVOURITES: www.computerarts.co.uk SUBSCRIBE TO COMPUTER ARTS: www.computerarts.co.uk/magazine

ISSUE 94 – SOLD OUT Canvas 7 full app, plus hands-on tutorial, 101 top Photoshop tips, create a giant poster, and more!

ISSUE 93 – SOLD OUT Photoshop CS demo, InDesign and Flash tutorials; reviews include LightWave 3D 8 and Boris FX 7.

ISSUE 92 – SOLD OUT Expert techniques, Creative Suite review, full apps and official Adobe Photoshop CS video training!

EACH ISSUE, COMPUTER ARTS PROJECTS GOES INDEPTH ON A DIFFERENT AREA OF DIGITAL DESIGN – WITH TIPS, TRICKS AND EXPERT TECHNIQUES... ILLUSTRATION Special – COSB0059

Vector, 3D and Photoshop illustration: create professional work with ease.

100

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CARTOON/ANIMATION Special – COSB0058

Creating stunning animation for Web, TV and film on your Mac or PC.

TYPOGRAPHY Special – COSB0057

How to design great fonts and icons – and make money from them!

Adobe

Photoshop FocusGuide From the makers of Computer Arts

132 INFORMATION-PACKED PAGES PLUS FREE CD-ROM

ON SALE 3 JUNE

ON SALE 1 JULY

The world’s best image editing program isn’t just for the pros! We’ll help you master Photoshop’s essential tools and features

GET YOUR COPY NOW Available from

and other retailers CONTENTS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

THE CREATIVE DIRECTORY CD DUPLICATION DB Masters

• Short and long runs • Competitive prices • Fast turnaround • A-Grade CDR • Thermal or screen print Tel: 01795 597 755 Fax: 01795 597 766 Email: [email protected] Website: www.dbmasters. co.uk

ILLUSTRATION, 3D ANIMATION & VISUALISATION Arcana Digital

Animation, imaging and post production for broadcasting, interactive and print. Folio available online or call for a CD sampler. Studio 15 minutes from Victoria. Clients include: Bray Leino, Citigate.A.F, DDB, Grey, JWT, Lowe, Masius, Ogilvy, OWN&P, Proximity, Publicis, RKCRY&R, Saatchi, TBWA, WTCS, WWAV. Tel: 0208 466 0655 Email: [email protected] Website: www.arcanadigital. com Contact: John Fox

PRINTING SERVICES

ist Printing Services ist Printing Services specialises in quality stationery using the foil blocking method of printing. If you need an unusual business card or letterhead, we can also incorporate die-cutting and embossing to make your stationery stand out from the crowd, using only the best

paper and boards from all over the world. We also supply presentation folders, invitations, plastic cards and acetate report covers. Visit our Website for more details and information about foil blocking. Tel: 01655 331196 Fax: 01655 331515 Email: info@istprintingservices. co.uk Website: www. istprintingservices.co.uk Contact: Ian Stopford

Wellington Press The Wellington Press Group has been established for over 70 years, offering a complete design, printing and finishing service encompassing all forms of printed and electronic communication. The Group has expanded and kept pace with the rapid developments in graphic communication and printing technology, and now leads the industry in many new techniques. From conventional to digital offset to large format printing and finishing, through pre-press, design and studio work, to electronic media and the internet, the Wellington Press Group are your complete solution providers. Tel: 0800 7833241 Fax: 0208 5583722 Website: www.wpdigital.co.uk

LARGE FORMAT PRINTING Display Print Services Ltd (dps)

It’s a big world out there and competition is fierce, so how do you create super-strong

visual impact and really get noticed? By thinking big. Big graphics, big messages –and big pictures. As a specialist in large-format print and display, dps has all the know-how to transform your ideas into high quality reality. We can produce anything from point-of-sale items up to posters, banners, exhibition stands or even wrap up whole buildings. Call us for more details of how we can help you to make a big impression. Tel: 01373 225555 Email: [email protected] Web: www.dps.eu.com Contact: David Wooster

RECRUITMENT Corps Business

Corps Business is the most established and professional recruitment agency in the design, advertising and media industries. Since 1989, we have been recruiting the top freelance and permanent creatives and developers. Our strict testing and screening procedure ensures that the people we supply can do what you want, when you want. Tel: 020 7222 8484 Email: [email protected] Website: www.corps.co.uk

TRAINING SERVICE Corps Business

Corps Business is the leading UK authorised training centre for the top software houses, including Adobe, Macromedia, Apple, Maxon, Media 100, Extensis and Quark Systems. You can choose either a group

or a tailored course, depending on your needs and abilities. Our consultants are all very knowledgeable in the software and can advise you on which course would suit you best. Tel: 020 7222 8484 Email: [email protected] Website: www.corps.co.uk

Falmouth College of Arts Are you passionate about the future of digital interactivity? The MA in Interactive Art & Design at Falmouth College of Arts, taught by renowned net artist Kate Southworth (www. gloriousninth.com), offers radical new ways of working in Web design, digital sound art, net art and interactive installation art and design. Tel: 01362 211077 Fax: 01362 213880 Email: admissions@falmouth. ac.uk

Metro New Media London’s leading training centre for Web design, 3D, animation, multimedia, project management and programming • All trainers are professionals in their field • State-of-the-art studios • All levels from beginner to advanced • Specialists in customised training • Discreet accredited

WEB HOSTING Dedicated Servers

The UK’s leading hosting company provides: • FREE and UNLIMITED phone & email support (24/7/365) • Service level agreement • State-of-the-art data centres • Dedicated Control Panel • Partner Programme • Windows, Linux, Sun, Cobalt and Co-location available • Host up to 200 Websites per server from £74.99 per month Tel: 0870 3339738 Fax: 0115 9195514 Email: [email protected] Website: www.dedicatedservers.co.uk

Netcetera Formed in 1996, Netcetera is one of Europe’s leading Web hosting service providers. Our services are biased towards Microsoft-based Internet Technologies – Microsoft Certified Partner since 1999. Netcetera provides complete solutions for Web hosting, Domain Name registration, ecommerce, e-mail, dedicated server hosting, server-based applications hosting (ASP) and .NETppliance.

Tel: 01624 612948 Fax: 01624 623385 Email: [email protected] Website: www.inetc.net

Tel: 0207 729 9992 Email: training@metronew media.com Website: www. metronewmedia.com

TO FEATURE IN THE CREATIVE DIRECTORY, EMAIL [email protected]

ON O N THE CD WELCOME This month’s CD leads with a full version of WireFusion 3.2, a Java-authoring application that enables you to create multimedia presentations and 3D visualisations that will run in a browser without the need for a plug-in. To accompany our ‘Getting Started with Colour’ feature, on page 70, we also have an exclusive version of iCorrect Entrée. This will help you fix your pictures for print. Enjoy!

SEE PAGE 70 D

Joe Russ [email protected] NEW MEDIA CONTENT EDITOR

EXCLUSIVE FULL PROGRAM PC ONLY

iscover h digital co ow lour works!

Reveal your true colours ICORRECT ENTRÉE Bring your drab photos to life with this colour-sensitive software Correcting an image’s colour balance is often a frustrating affair. Traditional tools – tweaking levels and contrast sliders, for instance – can be haphazard for amateurs, and rely too much on trial and error for experienced users. Refreshingly, iCorrect Entrée takes the mystery out of the process, enabling you to solve everything with a series of ‘one-click fixes‘. Without complicated interface elements, iCorrect Entrée

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enables you to improve highlights and shadows by simply choosing a new white point and black point. With iCorrect Entrée, you can also remove unwanted colour casts and automatically resolve contrast and brightness, so your pictures really do stand out. HOW TO OBTAIN YOUR SERIAL NUMBER

Visit www.colourconfidence.com/entree/ca.html

ON THE CD

BONUS DISC MAC +PC ● ● ● ●

CINEMA 4D 8.5 DEMO 6 VIDEO TUTORIALS ARTIST GALLERY SAMPLE ANIMATIONS

FULL LISTING

21-DAY TRIAL MAC & PC

WIREFUSION 3.2 (PC)

175 After Effects plug-ins

FULL PRODUCT WORTH £208 Create interactive 3D presentations with Java-based WireFusion 3.2.

FULLY WORKING TRIAL Superb movie-quality AE plug-ins on your desktop

EXCLUSIVE FULL PRODUCT Correct faults in your photographs with a single click – it really is that easy.

If After Effects’ built-in plug-ins just aren’t enough for you, GenArts’ Sapphire set will add 175 impressive effects to your toolkit. With testimonials from WETA Digital and the makers of Terminator 3, these are professional plug-ins that have impressed some serious movers and shakers in the movie industry. The plug-ins are divided into four themed sets or ‘boxes’. Lighting contains a range of glow effects and lighting styles to brighten up your

ICORRECT EDITLAB (PC )

scene. Stylize includes a range of abstract creative effects, while Adjust, Blur+Sharpen, Composite & Distort enables you to warp your animation. Finally, Render, Time & Transitions composites a range of additional elements such as lightning and clouds. As a complete collection, these plug-ins add a huge arsenal of extra features to the already well specced After Effects.

175

plug-ins pa – see pag ckage e8 the full re 6 for view

ICORRECT ENTRÉE (PC )

TRIAL iCorrect EditLab 4.0 plug-in is a Photoshop plug-in for colour correction and colour editing.

SAPPHIRE PLUG-INS (PC + MAC) 21-DAY TRIAL Add more visual trickery to Adobe After Effects with these fully working trial plug-ins.

VEGAS 5 (PC)

TRIAL Try out Sony’s alternative to Final Cut Pro and Premiere (full review on page 85).

OPUS PRO 04 (PC + MAC)

TRIAL Opus Pro 04 provides a fast-track development pipe for the widest range of applications, from simple interactive business cards, to full-blown audio-visual database applications.

GRADUATE SHOWCASE (PC + MAC) BEST OF 2004 Check out the work – still images, animation, video and multimedia – created by this year’s most exciting design graduates. TUTORIAL FILES (PC + MAC) You’ll find all the relevant supporting files for this month's tutorials here. Navigate the interface to the ‘In The Mag’ section and select Tutorials.

FULL PROGRAM PC ONLY

Create 3D Web graphics WIREFUSION 3.2 WORTH £208 Java-fuelled creativity awaits! Shockwave may dominate the Web, but Java can create equally rich interactive content – as WireFusion demonstrates. No previous knowledge of Java is required to get started. The WF3D plug-in is also included. HOW TO OBTAIN YOUR SERIAL NUMBER

To use WireFusion without any restrictions, you’ll need to obtain a serial number by visiting www.demicron.com/future. The first time you run WireFusion, a dialog will appear asking you to register; enter your serial code and WireFusion will run unrestricted.

SEE PAGE 11 0 W

anna m this? Full ake tuto over the p rial age!

July 2004

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TUTORIAL

CD TUTORIAL

WIREFUSION

ON THE CD You’ll find your free copy of WireFusion in the folder marked Software\WireFusion on the cover CD, along with all the images used in this tutorial.

EASY 3D GRAPHICS

Creating 3D models that work for the Web may seem a daunting task. But you can get started with the free, easyto-use WireFusion software on this month’s cover disc and create this simple but impressive 3D Web presentation WireFusion and WF-3D are fantastic creative tools for producing interactive and dynamic presentations and animations. In the form of Java applets or Java applications, WireFusion uses a process of drag and drop to link simple objects together, therefore creating the source code for you. The advantage? You need little programming experience to generate an impressive interactive page. The opening image produced in this tutorial provides a clear idea of a typical real-world 3D project. Based on a selection screen for a video game, working through this tutorial, you will produce a presentation that allows users to select different texture options for the 3D spaceship body by clicking on a selection of icons. No WireFusion experience is needed for this tutorial. And initially, Photoshop is used alongside a 3D application to create a basic spaceship, adding a few simple textures and a background. So once you have installed the free full version of WireFusion from this month’s disc, install the WF-3D plug-in, and if you’re connected to the Internet, check for any updates that might be available. All files, models, textures and the free WireFusion software are included on the cover CD.

Ë

TIME LENGTH

3 hours INFO Jason Cook has been a digital illustrator and pixel pusher for six years. Originally from a photographic background, he made a natural progression into digital arts, delving into music design, animation and social documentary photography. He then began art directing Websites for a new media company which allowed him to feed his real passion – combining photography and illustration with computers. www.jasoncook.co.uk

This impressive Web page user interface is deceptively easy to create using your free WireFusion demo and our expert tips.

1

First create a simple spaceship from primitives using a 3D application (or use the ship.wrl file). Whatever software you use, keep the polygon count down by keeping it simple. Don’t worry about the finer details at this point as you can always fine-tune later.

2

Now put the spaceship together and apply a simple texture to the main body. Create the texture in Photoshop (300x300pixels) and apply simple shaders to the other objects. Ensure your model is at the world center of your modelling environment.

3

Use the Export feature of your 3D application to make sure your textures are in the same folder as the model. VRML exports vary from program to program, so some experimentation may be required to ensure the right type of VRML object will open in WireFusion (See VRML Insight, page 112).

4

Now create a simple texture on a new RGB document in Photoshop (300x300pixels/72dpi) using any of the Photoshop filters. This pattern was created using the Gradient tool, applying a small amount of motion blur. Save the image as colour1.jpg.

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TUTORIAL

WIREFUSION

5

Repeat the previous step five times to create different patterns and textures, saving each one as colour2.jpg through to colour6.jpg. Now save them in the same folder as your VRML object.

8

Now tick the Show Property In-ports option and set the Smoothing Crease Angle to 86 and the Default Crease Angle to about 58. This smoothes-out the model. Click the Target Area tab at the top of the window and set X and Y to 0. Then adjust the width to 240, the height to 180 and click Apply and OK.

6

You can now create a dynamic image to serve as a background for your WireFusion presentation. Again make it 300x300pixels/RGB and save the background as a jpeg. The spaceship image will be highlighted in WireFusion when placed in the transparent box.

VRML Virtual Reality Modeling Language is a standard export from most 3D applications. But the export dialog box and its features tend to vary between applications. So experiment with ways to export your 3D models and open them in WireFusion. You might also find a suitable application or utility on the Internet that will convert them for you.

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Insert a Texture Array object by clicking Objects>3D. Now choose Add Image and multi-select the images named colour1.jpg to colour6.jpg. The loaded images are now stored in an Array. Note that each image has a unique Index number, found to the left. Click OK to close the dialog box.

12

9

Rename the 3D object “Spaceship”. Now press ctrl-F9 on your keyboard and you will be able to preview your work in a Web browser. Use the cursor to move the spaceship – the left mouse button to rotate and the right mouse button to zoom.

7

Insert the 3DScene object that you’ll find in Objects>3D. Drop it, and a file dialog will open. Press Open and load the VRML file ship3.wrl from the cover disc. The 3DScene dialog will now open with the VRML file loaded. Select the top Object “Unnamed” in the Appearance window.

11

10

By right clicking on the spaceship object, you will see a new set of In Ports in the 3Dscene object. These will be used later to link other objects and to change the colour of the main spaceship body.

Replace the default texture (for the unnamed object) with the texture images stored in the Texture Array object by left clicking on the Object icons. Connect TextureArray1>OutPorts>TexturePushed Texture to 3Dscene1>InPorts>Objects> Unnamed>Texture>Texture.

13

Now create a set of colour icons to select/change the texture. Create an icon by choosing Objects>Multimedia> Image and insert an Image object. Load the image colour1.jpg, or your own texture. Click the Target Area tab and make X:26 and Y:150. Next, set the width and height to 20 and, in the General section, rename the image colour1.

TUTORIAL

TEXTURE ARRAY

14

Repeat the previous step five times using your own textures or those from the CD. Rename each colour and set the following X and Y co-ordinates for each colour (colour2.jpg X:57,Y:150, colour3.jpg X:89,Y:150, colour4.jpg X:121,Y:150, colour5.jpg X:156,Y:150 and colour6.jpg X:190,Y:150).

15

Each image in the Array will have a unique Index number. To send an image from the Texture Array object, you must send a number to it (the index number for the image you want to send). Insert a Number object for each image (found in Objects>Data) and place it next to the Image object named colour1.

16

When its dialog opens, make sure its Value is set to 0. Click the General tab and Rename the object from Number1 to Index0. Click the OK button to close the dialog. This will send out an image from the TextureArray object. But first send in a number to it (the index number for the image you want to send).

The WireFusion object featured in this tutorial stores a range of Texture Array images. These can be easily displayed in the target area when requested, using JPEG, Gif (transparent) and PNG (transparent) files. This is a common feature when working with Web3D and creating configurators for user interactivity.

17

Insert a second Number object and set its Value to 1. Rename the object Index1. Insert a third Number object and set its Value to 2. Rename the object Index2. Insert a fourth Number object and set its Value to 3. Rename the object Index3. Insert a fifth Number object and set its Value to 4. Rename the object Index4. Finally, insert a fifth Number object and set its Value to 5. Rename the object Index5.

18

In order to send out the stored values in the Number objects, you must first push them. This is done with the Image Object’s built-in Mouse Event system. Connect colour1>OutPorts>MouseEvents >MousePress [2D Number] to Index0> InPorts>PushValue.

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Now send the index numbers, sent out from the Number objects in Step Six, into the TextureArray object. Connect Index0>OutPorts>ValuePushed [Number] to TextureArray1>InPorts>PushTexture [Number].

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Connect Index1>OutPorts>Value Pushed [Number] to TextureArray1> InPorts>PushTexture [Number] and repeat, as before, until you have connected Index4 to TextureArray1.

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Repeat the last step five times. Connect colour2>OutPorts>Mouse Events>MousePress [2D Number] to Index1 >InPorts>PushValue. Connect colour3> OutPorts>MouseEvents>MousePress [2D Number] to Index2>InPorts>PushValue and so on until you connect colour6 to index5.

Double click the TextureArray object and set the Fade time value to five seconds. Click OK, then place an Image Object in the work space. Load your background image, or the CD image, click Apply then OK. Now move the background layer down to the bottom of the layers window below the spaceship layer and resize the background image to fit the white area.

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CV

CURRICULUM VITAE

RUKKIT KUANHAWATE LOCATION: Bangkok, Thailand JOB TITLE: Graphic Designer and Illustrator DATE OF BIRTH: 15 October 1979 TRAINING: Self taught

EMAIL

SOFTWARE: Adobe Illustrator CS and Adobe Photoshop 7 HARDWARE: Apple PowerBook G4, Mac OSX

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Send us your CV, in the format shown, to ca.mail@futurenet. co.uk, with the subject line ‘CV’.

INFLUENCES: “I’m really into graphic design and typography. It’s what really makes me tick. I love illustration, too, and specifically magazine and graphic design within the music industry. The objects that surround me inspire my work.” STYLE: “I’d describe my style as vector illustration. I create portraits of people in a vector style, which is quite European. I love European design; the styles and layouts are clean, stylish and modern. Fashion, photos and printed media have all influenced my recent projects. My main interests are graphic design, illustration and typography. These three fields combined produce the perfect piece of work for me.” CONTACT: To view further examples of Rukkit’s work, visit www.boreddesign.com. Or you could email him at [email protected].

“365 magazine was created to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Bakery Music. This illustration was created for Joey Boy, an artist who released his debut album with Bakery in its first year.”

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“I’m the Art Director and Illustrator for Ten Metres Over, a free lifestyle, news, fashion and update magazine for Bangkok’s BTS Sky Train. We use illustration on the cover to ensure it stands out from the rest. These covers [from right to left] investigated teen culture, love on Valentine’s Day, and the Oscars.”

“This boreddesign.com illustration was used for the group’s promotion and Website. The interesting combinations of illustration style and Thai graphic design reflect freshness of design and Thai tradition.”

GRADUATE SHOWCASE

2004

OUR TOP TEN UK COLLEGES FOR ART, DESIGN AND MULTIMEDIA

CONTENTS Editorial Associate Editor Vicki Atkinson vicki.atkinson @futurenet.co.uk Art Editor Roddy Llewellyn richard.llewellyn @futurenet.co.uk Classified Executive Melissa Watkins melissa.watkins @futurenet.co.uk Cover Photography Roddy Llewellyn Production Editor Rachel Elliott

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Design isn't just album covers and T-shirts, as Blackpool's successful courses show

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BOURNEMOUTH Life's more than just a beach on this specialist new-media design course

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BRADFORD This dynamic course is up north – and up at the top of the animation tree

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GLAMORGAN This Centre is meeting industry needs with dynamic and vocational courses

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KINGSTON Narrative is as important to print as it is to moving image on this combined course

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PLYMOUTH What can this trans-disciplinary BSc offer the ambitious new designer?

Acknowledgement All contributions are submitted on the basis of a non-exclusive worldwide license to publish, unless otherwise agreed in writing. Computer Arts recognises all trademarks and copyrights. Where possible, we have acknowledged the copyright holder. Please contact us if we haven't credited your copyright, and we will correct any oversights.

BLACKPOOL AND THE FYLDE

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SALFORD Good ideas and strong concepts are at the heart of this cross-media degree

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SUNDERLAND Strong regional links and a flexible programme lead to a high employment rate

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SURREY This specialist college is producing some of the industry's most innovative thinkers

ON THE CD See samples of featured animation and new media work on your coverdisc!

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WOLVERHAMPTON This Midlands University wants to help you develop your own original style

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THE BEST OF THE REST More of the best student work from all the entries – catch the latest design talent here

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HOW TO HANDLE CLIENTS Whatever your chosen design path, we show you how to build client relationships

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EXCLUSIVE OFFER! Student and graduate-only subscription offer – don’t miss out

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COMPETITION Win yourself a copy of Adobe’s Creative Suite Premium!

WELCOME

INTRODUCTION

This exclusive Graduate Showcase brings together the best up-and-coming talent

Welcome to Computer Arts magazine's eighth annual collection of the best student work to come out of UK institutions in 2004. The range and quality of submissions this year was staggering. We received a wealth of professional-level animations, Websites, graphic designs and illustrations, and are proud to include them in this year's Showcase. With Britain's manufacturing industry now a shadow of its former self, the government is placing a huge emphasis on the creative industries, and these graduates are at the forefront of this revolution. There are more opportunities than ever for new designers or illustrators to receive start-up grants, business training courses and work placements. Government agency NESTA (www.nesta.org.uk) has launched a Graduate Pioneer Program for new creatives with bold business ideas. If you're graduating this year, make sure you look into what's available to help you on the way. If you're coming up to your final year, then look out for our calls for entries in February 2005. Getting your work in print in an international magazine is an enviable platform, and it will look great in your portfolio. Everyone else, just browse, read and enjoy the work on display. If you want to contact any of the students featured, use the email addresses provided or contact the course leaders directly. Until next year…

A word from Adobe Adobe is proud to be supporting the Computer Arts Graduate Showcase. Producing industry-leading software that enables creatives to inspire others is only part of the picture; Adobe believes in the importance of the talent behind the tools. Nurturing the creative minds of the future is equally significant, and it is for this reason that Adobe offers its industry-standard software to students at affordable prices, to enable them to enter the job market as highly skilled, in-demand employees.

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BA (HONS) INFORMATION ILLUSTRATION BA (HONS) SCIENTIFIC AND NATURAL HISTORY ILLUSTRATION

BLACKPOOL AND THE FYLDE COLLEGE Design isn't just about album covers and T-shirts, as Blackpool's successful courses show

Blackpool and The Fylde College hosts six degree courses to meet a range of needs in the creative and design industries. Courses include Information Illustration, Scientific and Natural History Illustration, Graphic Design, Fine Art and Photography. The College’s School of Art and Design is an impressive building, and the town itself has a great deal to offer undergraduates – a vibrant Pleasure Beach and a varied nightlife for a start, but more importantly, a growing network of design agencies! Featured in this year's Graduate Showcase are final-year students from the Information Illustration and Scientific and Natural History Illustration degree programmes. These specialised vocational courses teach 3D modelling

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Effective promotion Promote yourself in an unusual way without being too gimmicky. While your work is more important than presentation, your email, call or postcard mailshot will need to stand out from the crowd.

skills, technical visualisation and animation – all with an emphasis on exceptional accuracy. The results are highly impressive models of anatomies, mechanics and products, as shown here. By the end of the three-year programmes, each student will have produced an animated showreel that demonstrates the range of their expertise to potential employers, equipping them for self-promotion. Students on these courses can expect tight industry links with organisations such as British Aerospace and Maclaren Cars. Many graduates will go on to explore career opportunities in a range of industries, from engineering and pharmacology to advertising and marketing. Employment rates are high, and the courses provide good foundations for further study.

INFO To find out more about courses available at Blackpool and The Fylde College, visit www.blackpool.ac.uk. For more in-depth queries about the courses, contact Programme Leader Mike Tully on [email protected]. See more student work from these courses, plus Graphic Design and Wildlife Photography, on 29 to 30 June 2004 at The D&AD Show, Billingsgate Market, Lower Thames St, London. 4

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1 Ritchie Moore modelled these stunning jellyfish in LightWave 3D while on the Scientific Illustration degree course at Blackpool. 2 Stills from Michael Chapman’s animated submarine and naval sequences, and part of his Information Illustration degree coursework.

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3 Ian Peters’ detailed 3D render and diagram of a Swiss Army knife – also produced for the Information Illustration programme. 4 David Fleet modelled and rendered a number of 3D vehicles using form•Z and LightWave 3D for one of his Information Illustration course projects. 5 Stephen Guy animated a complex scene of the movement of blood cells while on the Scientific Illustration degree at Blackpool. 6 These models of the Sopwith Camel, Nokia phones and the Subaru were all done by Peter McMullan on the Information Illustration course.

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BA (HONS) INTERACTIVE MEDIA PRODUCTION

UNIVERSITY OF BOURNEMOUTH

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Life's more than just a beach for the students on this specialist new-media design course Three year’s studying on the Interactive Media Production course at Bournemouth will leave you with refined software skills, real-life experience of a career in design and opportunities for further study. This seaside town hosts one of the best-known Media Schools in the country, with a reputation for producing great talent via its new media, graphic design, animation and advertising courses. It also has a strong portfolio of postgraduate courses to offer, including Interactive Media, Sound Design, Consumer Marketing and 3D Animation. Work featured here is from the Interactive Media Production course, which welcomes over 60 students each year. Undergraduates are encouraged to participate in a range of disciplines, both individually and on collaborative courses. As well

as Web and CD-ROM projects, students here have developed skills in TV production, graphic design, music, scriptwriting and cross-media projects. Assessment is varied on the Interactive Media Production course, with students producing essays, diaries, presentations, brief-based projects, a challenging 48-hour take-away examination, major dissertation and ongoing production work. Students also spend six weeks on industry placements with one of the many agencies and studios that have links with the course. Visiting tutors on the programme have included interactive guru Brendan Dawes and BBC's Head of New Media, Ashley Highfield. Such professional industry input has ensured an 89 per cent employment rate within six months from the school.

INFO Find out more about studying at Bournemouth by going to www.bournemouth.ac.uk, or contacting Course Leader Mik Parsons on [email protected]. Catch the end-of-year show for the Interactive Media Production course from 12 to 16 June 2004.

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First client Before you graduate, make sure you’ve worked with at least one client who is representative of the kind of work you’ll be looking for in the future – even if this is tied in with your studies or a ‘professional practice’ project. 6

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1 Graduating from the Interactive Media Production degree course this year, Jacob Ozga-Lawn designed this beautiful illustrative piece called Baby. 2 A scene from Julian Whitehorn’s engaging animation, Little Boy Lost. 3 Music Video Games is a concept for marketing music artists on the Web by Dominic Turner (www.liquiduk.co.uk). By combining music videos with interactive games, users can have an immersive experiences and click to buy the track directly.

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4 Victoria Avery’s Animate Website at www.victoriaavery. co.uk enables users to create and share animations. 5 Naomi Scott created this narrative Flash movie called Everything I Could Never Say, inspired by a quote from Brighton Rock by Graham Greene: “Man is made by the places in which he lives.” 6 The Symbiotic Relationship of Man – Vol 1 is a fully interactive 3D environment produced by Chris Leckie. July 2004

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BSC COMPUTER ANIMATION

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UNIVERSITY OF BRADFORD We take a look at a dynamic degree course. This one is up north – and at the top of the animation tree A quick browse through the pages of Bradford's site provides three main facts: the city is large and lively, it's been described as the least expensive student city in the UK, and the University takes equal opportunities seriously. Take a good look at Bradford's 2004 entry to the Computer Arts Graduate Showcase, and you’ll also find out that it attracts some of the best new animation talent in Britain. Graduate work featured across these pages is from the BSc Computer Animation and Special Effects degree, from the University of Bradford's Electronic Imaging and Media Communication department. One of five specialist media courses, this increasingly popular degree provides students with up-to-the-

minute experience of animation and compositing. Students will gain in-depth experience of 2D and 3D, as well as video and special effects techniques. Facilities include two dedicated multimedia labs, in addition to two general-purpose computer rooms. Students are encouraged to work individually and on collaborative projects. By the end of three years, they will have produced a range of animations, contributing to a strong showreel to send to potential employers. Visiting lecturers include Ben Smith – Bradford alumnus and ex-Framestore animator, now head of his own studio, Stormfront Digital Pictures. Other successful graduates have worked on animations for television series, advertisements and music promos.

INFO Contact Course Leader Mark Goodliff on m.l.goodliff@bradford. ac.uk for more information, or find out more about the range of media courses online at www.eimc.brad.ac.uk.

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Memorable Website When producing your own Website to promote your work, buy a decent URL that’s easy to remember and spell. It’s also important that your site is optimised for search engines such as www.google.com. 8

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5 1 Adam Gill designed the branding for the Deadbeat record label and also illustrated this self-portrait. 2 Nick Kernis’ range of designs for 23 A1 posters, which were displayed throughout West Yorkshire for people to find. These weapons were shown together at a WMD Exhibition. 3 Hans Merkle animated a series of fast action Flash sequences of a vector aircraft. 4 Stills from a short animation by Steve Molyneux featuring a highly realistic 3D figure. 5 James Curran created this superb animated music video, called Meatshake, as part of the Animation course.

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BA (HONS) COMPUTER ANIMATION

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GLAMORGAN CENTRE FOR ART, DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY This Centre is meeting industry needs by offering dynamic and vocational courses Wales is investing enormous amounts in its new media and technology industries, and Glamorgan Centre for Art, Design and Technology is ensuring that it stays ahead of developments by producing a wealth of talented graduates. Courses available at the Centre in South Wales include Digital Design and Multimedia, Computer Animation, Digital Video and Photography. Each course is available as a two-year HND, with one additional year for the BA (Hons). Some of the work showcased here is by students on the Computer Animation course. This is an extension of the existing Animation programme, demonstrating the Centre's commitment to keeping up with new technologies and trends. Students will get a thorough grounding in traditional animation principles, before

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Portfolio importance Build your portfolio carefully, and make its format relevant to the subject matter you are showcasing. This means producing hi-res, full-colour printouts of editorial illustration work, or a CD-ROM to show off examples of Website design.

moving on to the world of digital animation. This phase of the course involves hands-on training in programs such as 3ds max, Maya and Softimage|XSI. In addition to comprehensive training in professional software and hardware, course leaders put a huge emphasis on industry links and real-life experience via placements. The course itself was developed in collaboration with representatives in the film, special effects and games production industries. Most impressive though, especially for students looking to get a foot in the industry door and make contacts, is the climax of the Animation course: an awards event known as the ‘Glammies’. Professional animators, 3D artists and leading CG experts are invited to see the year's crop of short films and animations, and even recruit there and then.

INFO To find out more about GCADT, see www.gcadt.ac.uk or contact Course Leader Gareth Hutchinson on [email protected]. The Glamfest New Media Show 2004 will be at the Coal Exchange, Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff Bay on 18 June. Head to www.glamfest.co.uk. 10

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1 Paul Edwards on the Computer Animation degree course used 3ds max and Photoshop to animate this cowboys and Indians-style story, called My Hero. 2 2D Animation student Ewen Stenhouse started with an idea for a story with a kid dressed up in a devil costume. 3 Chris Davies created this urban image in Photoshop and Illustrator as part of his Multimedia course. 4 Matt Gibbs on the Digital Video course worked on this experimental piece, based on a photo of the inside of a VCR. 5 These are scenes from two pieces by Matt Morgan. Hope (above) follows the isolated and lonely life that people have when they believe that they don’t fit in. Fox Tail (below) is an engaging story of a fox with a taste for eggs, who finally meets his match.

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BA (HONS) ILLUSTRATION AND ANIMATION

UNIVERSITY OF KINGSTON On this South London degree course, narrative is as important to print as it is to the moving image While many design courses offer a wide range of media platforms and disciplines, Kingston's Illustration and Animation degree combines two very desirable skills. Plenty of professional illustrators are looking to animate their work via retraining or collaboration, but these graduates will know how it's done before they begin… It’s useful to have drawing skills if you’re thinking of joining this course, but the emphasis is most certainly on understanding narrative. Much of the degree is devoted to exploring the relationship between text, image and sequence, and you can see a selection of work from this year’s graduates over these two pages. Illustration and animation styles range from vector and 3D to stop-motion and cut-outs.

Students are encouraged to experiment with different styles, methods and software in order to establish their own direction. Studio space is available for working extensively on projects involving photography, printmaking, construction and pattern-cutting. The final year is spent on self-initiated projects, working towards finishing a slick animation showreel for the end-of-year show. The Illustration and Animation course is based at the smaller Knight's Park campus – alongside the BA in Graphic Design at the University’s Faculty of Art, Design and Music. Kingston University is just South of London and spread across four campuses, with the main activity on Pendryn Road in the centre of Kingston.

INFO For more information about courses at the University of Kingston, visit www.kingston.ac.uk. The end-of-year show for Illustration and Animation will take place from 7 to 12 July at the Conningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham St, London.

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Contact details

Make postcards or some other promotional material for your end-of-year degree show, so that people can pick up your contact details and get in touch at a later date. 12

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1 This short animation by Aaron Lampert (aaronboom [email protected]) features objects and creatures being plucked from a runway by a monster. He created this as part of a course-wide project, commissioned by financial company Bloomberg to be showcased in its offices.

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Image and animation © Bloomberg.

2 Hannah Truran (hannah [email protected]) animated this immersive 3D cityscape. Image and animation © Bloomberg.

3 Another animated short for Bloomberg, this time by Pei Chin Hsu (page0890@hotmail. com). This features animated stationery in an office scene. Image and animation © Bloomberg.

4 George Gendi’s endearing story of a friendly rabbit has a simple but effective narrative ([email protected]).

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5 This Lucky Cat animation was created with a traditional feel, and is the result of a collaborative project by Thomas Hicks (tehicks45 @hotmail.com), Mark James ([email protected]) and Paddy Molloy (imtalking [email protected]). Image and animation © Bloomberg.

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BSC (HONS) MEDIALAB ARTS

UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH What can this trans-disciplinary BSc offer the ambitious new designer? We head to Plymouth to find out Digital arts courses are evolving at a stupendous pace, becoming more vocational and ground-breaking each year. MediaLab Arts at the University of Plymouth is a prime example of how thinking clearly about the needs of the creative industry can develop a unique course – in this case combining computer science with visual art and music. This next-generation new media course takes on students who have the technical ability to manipulate software, as well as the creative insight to generate innovative solutions. Across four years of study, MediaLab students will gain an in-depth knowledge of interactive media production – including software and hardware knowledge, presentation skills, approaching briefs, collaborative work and human-computer interaction.

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Work experience Undertake work placements and get some work experience with design studios, or for clients who you think will help further your career. Doing work for nothing could lead to paid work with the same client in the future – either way, you’ll create impressive work for your portfolio.

The third year of the BSc is spent on placement, working in a design agency, and the final year can be tailored according to the student's specialised areas – these include Web, digital video, databases, e-learning, gaming and audio, to name a few. Four multimedia labs equipped with iMacs, PCs and DV suites running Photoshop, Flash, Director, 3ds max and more are available to course attendees. On graduation, many students find employment fast within the industry. However, the course also boasts a number of start-up successes, including Special Moves (www.specialmoves.co.uk) and Stickee (www.stickee.co.uk). Plymouth itself is a vibrant University. It’s by the sea, has a busy city centre and hosts events and festivals all year round. What more do you need?

INFO Head to www.medialabarts.net for featured projects from current students, or www.plymouth.ac.uk for course requirements. For more information, email Course Leader Chris Speed on [email protected].

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1 Branding and Web identity for fictional games design company, Bo-shing, by Kim Hughes (kimmhughes@ yahoo.com), Farai Madzima ([email protected]), Kjetil Mongstad, Neil Pymer (notion@sidebysidemusic. co.uk) and Lee Richards ([email protected]). As part of the project they also developed Minyuns, a Bluetooth-enabled game design and Website. 2 The above group also worked together on the course Website for Plymouth’s MediaLab Arts degree programme. 3 Lee Richards and Neil Pymer designed an album cover for drum and bass artist Alaska, inspired by the artist’s love of old BBC screen graphics. 4 Kim Hughes , Farai Madzima, Kjetil Mongstad, Neil Pymer and Lee Richards designed a DVD to document the Hybrid Discourse conference held at the University of Plymouth.

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BA (HONS) GRAPHIC DESIGN

UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD Good ideas and strong concepts are at the heart of Salford’s cross-media Graphic Design degree The School of Art and Design at Salford caters for over a 1000 students, following a rich and varied mix of courses in Fashion, Multimedia, Graphic, Interior and Product Design. The University of Salford sits just a mile from the centre of Manchester, and the School has an excellent range of facilities to meet a number of interests, including 3D, animation, Web design and print work. The work featured here in this year’s Graduate Showcase is from the Graphic Design course, which provides students with an in-depth design education in typography, layout, illustration and multimedia. Generating and working out good ideas is at the core of this course, and students gain experience through a range of individual, group and industry-linked projects. A strong

emphasis is placed on young designers structuring their own education, by choosing from modules across a variety of print and interactive media with a range of experienced tutors and industry professionals. Year two of the degree also includes an industry placement. Students can expect a variety of excursions around the UK and abroad during the Graphic Design course, visiting galleries and gaining inspiration from new environments. More opportunities are also available for further study. The MA in Design Management at Salford is a recent addition to the School of Art and Design’s portfolio, and it hopes to produce the agency managers of the future – showing students how to manage projects, develop strategies and carry out promotional work.

INFO For further information, see www.artdes.salford.ac.uk or contact Programme Leader Chris Morris on [email protected]. The end-of-year show will take place from 14 to 15 June at The Bridgewater Hall Foyers, Manchester.

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Do your homework It never hurts to prepare yourself by doing some research. For example, ask the client to supply some existing artwork so that you can complement the colour schemes it uses, while also offering something new and eye-catching. Be thorough. 16

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1 Typographic work and stills from a Karmakops Website, designed by Mark Higginson. 2 Matthew Davis animated his own take on a music video for The Darkness. 3 Storyboard for a Levi’s jeans ad campaign, by Gavin Boulton. 4 Website stills from Nostos Fashion Catalogue designs and brand identity for fictional outfit, Worried Mothers. Both pieces are by Matt Lynn.

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5 Stills from David Nickson’s animated advert, promoting travel in Australia.

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BA (HONS) ELECTRONIC MEDIA DESIGN

UNIVERSITY OF SUNDERLAND Strong regional links and a flexible programme are a successful recipe for high employment Graduates from the University of Sunderland are in the enviable position of being at the only institution to be featured in every Computer Arts Graduate Showcase since 1998. Why? Seven years of wellpresented, high-quality work in digital design stands testament to the courses' high standards. There are five design-related degree programmes available at the School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture in Sunderland – offering tuition in Illustration, Graphic Design, 3D Modelling, Multimedia and Animation. Students featured on these two pages are set to graduate from the Electronic Media Design course this summer. The range of disciplines available on this course is huge. Students can experience image editing, 2D and 3D design, graphics and layout, animation, video and audio editing, typography, Web design and

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Stand up for yourself Don’t allow yourself to be exploited just because you’re starting out in the business. Working at a reduced rate may help to keep you busy during the early days and build up a useful portfolio, but you still have to make a living and shouldn’t undervalue your skills.

much more – all in leading software. The first year is spent exploring these areas in depth, before specialising and developing individual styles and strengths in the second and final years. Staff at Sunderland are constantly on the lookout for portfolios that demonstrate outstanding abilities in drawing, design and problem solving. Mature students with appropriate experience or qualifications can be accepted on the course in year two. There are also opportunities within the School to progress to postgraduate study in Electronic Media Design or Illustration and Design, among others. The employment rate from Sunderland's design courses is up to 90 per cent within six months – impressive indeed. Tight links with regional design agencies and a strong emphasis on live briefs ensure that its students get seen.

INFO Head over to www.sunderland.ac.uk for the full lowdown and course requirements, or contact Programme Leader Gurpreet Singh on [email protected]. The end-of-year show will take place on 25 June 2004 at the campus on Ryhope Road, Sunderland.

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1 Darin Smith (darin. [email protected]) designed this environment-themed diary, featuring experimental type and photography.

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2 These conceptual and innovative designs for Harrods pet-boxes were conceived by Gemma Farrow (gemma@farrow7100. fsnet.co.uk). 3 Johan Berg (johan@ malakdesign.com) wrote and illustrated this highly visual storybook about a disabled child, for whom the disability becomes a source of strength. 4 Anti-consumerism was the theme behind Steinar Kvam’s series of campaign posters ([email protected]). 5 Lawrence Canning (www. ldc-design.com) redesigned the packaging for Fender guitar strings by creating a well-composed range of cool, monochrome illustrations.

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1 BA (HONS) GRAPHIC DESIGN BA (HONS) GRAPHIC DESIGN: NEW MEDIA

SURREY INSTITUTE OF ART AND DESIGN This specialist college is producing some of the industry's most innovative thinkers Surrey Institute of Art and Design is known across Europe for its standards, and it hosts 30 art, design, media and fashion-related courses. Based across two campuses, it has been propelling high-quality graduates into the creative and craft industries for over 100 years. Surrey's two heavily soughtafter Graphic Design courses are based in Epsom in South-West London, and a selection of work is featured here. The Graphic Design degree gives students a thorough grounding in design for the Web, editorial layout, typography, illustration and animation during the first year. In the second year, undergraduates develop core skills, work to briefs and study business and marketing practice. The third year is spent on industry-linked team projects, an individual dissertation, a five-week placement and final-year show.

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Collaborate with others Work with larger companies or designers if it will help to promote your own work. In other words, get your name and URL known by the people who matter. Network at your final show and send invitations to those in the industry – publishers of design books, potential clients you’ve talked to, magazine editors, design contemporaries and relevant Websites.

A more recent addition to the Centre's portfolio is Graphic Design: New Media. Developed to meet an industry need for technically-savvy creatives, the course explores cross-platform technologies, motion graphics and video, Web and interface design, advertising, illustration and more. As they're located just a stone's throw from London, students can expect a lot of industry links in the form of visiting lecturers, placements, brief-based projects and further career opportunities. Big names include Johnson Banks, Identikal, Lateral and Mother. And as we went to press, news broke that Surrey is set to merge with Kent Institute of Art and Design. This exciting combination of two leading art and design institutions will signal wider study opportunities for any future creatives.

INFO More information on both of these courses can be found at www.surrart.ac.uk. Graphic Design: New Media's own Website is www.gdnm.co.uk, and you can contact Programme Leader Aidan Rowe on [email protected]. See this course's end-of-year show from 11 to 15 June at the Truman Gallery, Brick Lane, London. 20

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1 Jonathan Hyer (imagine @untitled-1.uk.com) created the design and type in this intricate New Omnes Media Crest, as part of the Graphic Design: New Media degree. 2 Kevin Speck (kev@beards withbeef.co.uk) designed a fictional campaign entitled Back the Younger Generation. It promotes a Swedish political movement, and plays cleverly on youth-orientated words. 3 Krister Schwenn ([email protected]) composed this highly detailed scene, called Ideas City, which experiments with different perspectives. 4 Surrey student Ka Key Ng ([email protected]) has developed MOOD, a virtual world that combines chatrooms, games and e-commerce. Designed in Flash with a pixel style. 5 Cheryl Wong’s (www. mouldytoe.co.uk) card set portrays her friends’ personalities as playing cards. This Poker card represents someone who is playful and into all things punk. 6 Come Fly With Me is an inspiring and educational booklet designed by Jordan Atkinson (www.jordanatkinson. co.uk) to illustrate the process of flying by commercial airline.

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1 BA (HONS) ANIMATION BA (HONS) ILLUSTRATION

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UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON This University wants to help you develop your own style – and it’s spent five million pounds on the cause The busy School of Art and Design at Wolverhampton plays host to 2000 students on a range of BA and MA programmes. Courses available for the digital artist include 3D design, Animation, Design for Multimedia, Illustration and Graphic Communication. There’s good news for anyone joining the University this year. As part of a five million pound refurbishment, the digital design courses now have brand-new workstations, video-editing suites and audio equipment – as well as all the major software. But those graduating this year will have gained enormous amounts, not just from equipment, but also from dedicated lecturers with industry experience. Work featured here is from two courses at the School of Art and Design, Illustration and Animation. The three-year

TOP TIP

Exhibit your work Why not take the traditional artistic route, and try to get some exposure by exhibiting your work in a gallery? Take a look at these Websites: www.aec.at www.deluxe-arts.org.uk www.coningsbygallery.com www.thedigitalartist.com moca.virtual.museum www.deluxe-arts.org.uk www.hammondgallery.co.uk.

Illustration course sets students up for a range of careers, including illustrating for children, advertising and editorial use. Throughout the course, students work on developing their own style, a critical eye and an understanding of narrative. The Animation course places an emphasis on audio as well as visual talent, and past students have produced an impressive range of animation styles. Computer animation is taught alongside traditional approaches, and drawing is seen as highly important in understanding movement. Towards the end of the three years, students are given insight into post-production work, professional practice and how to present themselves. The flexibility of both courses on offer ensures a wide range of career opportunities within the digital design industry.

INFO See www.wlv.ac.uk/sad for the full rundown of design courses at Wolverhampton. Contact Illustration Course Leader Gill Sampson ([email protected]), or Animation Course Leader Sam Moore ([email protected]). The Animation end-of-year show will take place on 24 June at De Lane Lea, Soho, London, WC1. Illustration’s will run from 14 to 17 June at the School of Art and Design, Wolverhampton.

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GRADUATE SHOWCASE

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1 This sketchy, traditional style is from Owain Wadkin’s portfolio. Owain is currently studying on Wolverhampton’s Illustration degree course. 2 Illustration student James Depper also exhibits a strong and eye-catching sketchy style. 3 Savas Lampoudis’ cartoon storyboard shows a grasp of colouring and narrative. 4 Animation student David Fullick’s work features an engaging story of a robot who falls from a tall building, and describes the emotions he passes through on the way. 5 Chris Whittle, also on the Animation course at Wolverhampton, submitted a series of atmospheric pieces that focus on angles, detail and nature rather than narrative.

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New Maya Learning Days This summer, Escape Studios in London are launching a new series of one-day Maya workshops to help new users explore the possibilities of the Oscar-winning 3D modelling and animation package from Alias. Priced at only £50 (inc. VAT) these Learning Days will provide students with a practical hands on introduction to Maya’s modelling, rigging and animation tools. Escape Studios are the only authorised training centre for the Maya for the Entertainment Industry in the UK.

www.escapestudios.co.uk

the evolution of 3D User requests have led to improvements in character animation, integration with industry standard tools used on every job and the scaleability to meet next generation production challenges. Add to this significant advances in modeling, continued refinement of rendering technologies and tools that allow the creation of unparalleled effects and you get the evolution of 3D. Experience the power of the artist and application coming together. © Copyright 2004 Alias Systems, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited. All rights reserved. Alias and Can You Imagine are registered trademarks and the swirl logo and the Maya logo are trademarks of Alias Systems, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. Maya is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries worldwide, exclusively used by Alias Systems, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited. Image created by Kenneth A. Huff (www.itgoesboing.com). © Alias Systems, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited.

For more information: www.alias.com/maya

GRADUATE SHOWCASE 1

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TALENT-SPOTTING

THE BEST OF THE REST

So much talent, so little space. Here are even more talented graduates, coming your way soon

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Name Neil Burton Image Yellow Peril Institution Leeds College of Art and Design Course HND Multimedia Website www.leeds-art.ac.uk

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Name John Cranshaw Image Winter 3 Institution Leeds College of Art and Design Course HND Multimedia Website www.leeds-art.ac.uk

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Name Eddie Cain Image Eddie Web Institution Leeds College of Art and Design Course HND Multimedia Website www.leeds-art.ac.uk

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Name Anne Durand Image Rain Institution University of Teesside Course BA (Hons) Graphic Design Website www.tees.ac.uk

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Name Ross Hall Image Untitled Institution Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen Course BDes (Hons) Design for Digital Media Website www.rgu.ac.uk/subj/ats

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Name Craig Sharpe Image Untitled Institution Cumbria College

of Art and Design Course BA (Hons) Multimedia Design and Digital Animation Website www.cumbria.ac.uk

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Name Jo Hay Image Typographic Overload Institution North Wales School of Art Course BA (Hons) Design and Communication Website www.newi.ac.uk/nwsad

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Name Steven McCombe Image Sea View Institution Cumbria College of Art and Design Course BA (Hons) Multimedia Design and Digital Animation Website www.cumbria.ac.uk

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Name Emily Katsikerou Image Old Man Institution Cumbria College of Art and Design Course BA (Hons) Multimedia Design and Digital Animation Website www.cumbria.ac.uk

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Name Coleen Mckeown Image One Street, One Day Institution Liverpool John Moores University Course BA (Hons) Multimedia Arts Website www.livjm.ac.uk

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GRADUATE SHOWCASE

GRADUATE FEATURE

HOW TO HANDLE CLIENTS Whether you want to work freelance or join a major creative studio, half the job will always involve dealing with clients. Which is why we’ve provided you with some essential advice for building up client relationships – from pitching to communication Digital design may revolve around the computer, but don't be fooled into believing that design work is self-contained. Design is part of a much broader process, or should be if the brief

their logo and Website. If you're looking to work with a local design studio, you can use the same technique. Of course, just identifying a possible design job isn't enough.

Never fear the competition posed by other designers – make the most of the added pressure to push your work

PROMOTIONAL FRUIT Think innovatively: give out emblazoned bananas at your end-of-year show! 26

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is to be thoroughly satisfied. And while top-notch Photoshop or Dreamweaver skills are welcome, you also need to consider your relationship with the other defining figure in your life: the client. The all-important question when starting out in design, particularly freelance, is how to establish a good base of clients. Here's the good news: unless you live in a desert, there are hundreds of companies in your locality. Use a Web directory such as www.yell.com to find lists of relevant companies – publishers or record companies, for example – then find their sites. This will give you an idea of the kind of creative they might need. Check out their design, use of illustration, and the state of

Don't assume that companies have the desire or budget to re-think their site, logo or brochure layouts. The key to success is to look at it from the client's perspective. They may have been generating profit using the same company brand for years, without considering that the redesign you envisage could double it. So what can you do to convince them?

Pitch it Make an informed judgement on their need for your skills, how to present it and who you want to pitch to. Concept sketches based on thorough research of the client's performance and their market will help demonstrate that you know what you are talking about.

If a company knows that it needs a job done, it will often throw it open to application. You'll find out about these jobs as your contact list grows, but Websites such as www.k10k.net or www. noagenciesplease.co.uk are a good place to scout. Never fear the competition posed by other designers – make the most of the added pressure to push your work further. Remember that it's the client you're trying to impress, so give them only what they're looking for in the job application. If they want a one-paragraph description of your ideas, making an interactive Flash movie will only suggest that you can't communicate succinctly.

Get out and about One of the main issues that clients have in working with new designers is unfamiliar territory. They need to feel confident that you understand the company strategy, so that any design work you do will be 100 per cent in tune with their way of thinking. Human contact overcomes this. Make a call at an early stage, even if it's just to check an address. If you can get past the receptionist and straight to the relevant person, that's even better. Leave your name, too, so that next time they hear from you they'll make the connection.

Once you've got the client and their project, don't hide behind emails. Use the phone and get out to meet the client. Find out about how the company works and run through initial ideas on paper. Where appropriate, photos or video are a great way to take 'notes' of the company's visual identity. This helps to consolidate the project in your mind and instil confidence in the client.

Communication etiquette Of course, you won't always be able to meet the client in person – it depends on how they prefer to communicate. Be open and ask about this at an early stage. Some clients prefer to email so they can keep a record of communication; others will be really bad at responding to emails. Remember that the client may be busy, but there's no harm in chasing emails with a call; they will probably be happy to know you're on the case. If you have queries that need answers, ask the client as soon as you can and give them a few days to respond. If you're concerned about badgering them, ask if there’s anyone else in the company you can ask. At various stages, you'll want to show your clients where you are in the process. Again, it's not clear-cut; do they prefer email attachments, printouts, Web

GRADUATE SHOWCASE

Promote yourself It’s vital to get noticed, but do you know the best way to do it? Follow the advice of our PR experts and you'll be off to a flying start in the design industry

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"Get one or two good case studies written up and approved by your clients. They are really useful for pitching to the media, either as a response to direct case study requests or as examples of the kind of work you do." Paul Wooding, MCC International

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"Attend networking events, many of which are free, and subscribe to email discussion groups where you can share ideas and get your name in front of other companies." Joanna Masson, Business Link for London

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"Find a small PR agency in your area (simply search for one online at www.ipr.org. uk), then try to strike a deal where you help them with their design needs in return for some help with your promotion." Reuben Milne, August.One

K10K Sites like www.k10k.net offer design opportunities to anyone visiting the Website. Before committing too much time, though, check how much (if any) money is involved – it may be more of a 'collaborative' project. links or presentations? Make all your communication easy and accessible for clients – they may not be as computer-savvy as you are.

To infinity and beyond! You've worked with a few clients and want to do more of the same, so use the experience wisely. Make sure all your current and past clients are pleased with your work. Happy clients will show off their new site or brochure to colleagues or other businesses. If you've developed a particularly strong relationship, ask for a testimonial for your Website – potential clients will be interested to hear how past work was received. Sometimes, clients will seem thin on the ground, so keep looking out for opportunities to get your work out there: local galleries, links from design portals (www.pixelsurgeon. com, www.bd4d.com or www. wellvetted.com) or the Computer Arts Exposure pages, for starters.

Make use of support networks where you can. Local councils usually encourage 'creative clustering'. Basically, this is putting local creative companies in touch with each other so they can exchange advice about marketing and promoting their work. There will be times when you feel that no one will pay you for your skills, but remember this: as much as you need clients to earn a living, companies need designers. We live in a visual, audio, interactive culture where letterheads, business cards, brochures, catalogues, Websites and CD-ROMs are necessities for any company. It's just a matter of putting yourself in the client's shoes and giving them what they want. Words by Jerome Turner, Web designer: www.jerometurner.co.uk. Meet up with other new designers on the Computer Arts discussion forums: head to the site forum.computerarts.co.uk

BE DIFFERENT Think carefully about how you package your portfolio, and don’t be afraid to try something different! This one is encased in wood with nuts and bolts.

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"Look out for stunts that have worked well for other firms, then copy them! There's little point in copying a close competitor, but ideas that companies in other sectors have used could be used as the catalyst for your own initiatives." Tim Prizeman, Kelso Consulting

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"Even when times are good and the money is coming in, never stop promoting yourself." Ben Terret, The Design Conspiracy

"Offer to speak at events. This will raise your profile and present you as an authority in your area of expertise, as well as provide an opportunity for networking and generating business leads." Joanna Masson, Business Link for London

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"Advertise for free: offer to design a programme in return for a one-page advert, put a banner advert on a client's Website, or scatter leaflets in a local pub." Ben Terret, The Design Conspiracy

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"It pays to think innovatively. A small cornerchip-shop in my area gets coverage by holding an 'open day', while a florist made the front page of my local paper by offering to deliver stinging nettle bouquets to customers' ex-partners on Valentine's Day…" Tim Prizeman, Kelso Consulting

NO AGENCIES www.noagenciesplease.co.uk prides itself on working directly with creative freelancers, rather than employment agencies. Every few days, new short- or long-term projects are added to the list.

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