EZO Links Main Oken3d.com Links by Category: !!Eni's Announcements 3D CG Tutorials 3D Computer Graphics 3D Free Textures 3D Texture & UV Tutorials Art Matters Books Competitions & Contests Crafts Facts Digital Painting Tutorials Drawing & Painting Tutorials Fantasy & Scifi Fantasy Artists Fantasy-related Tutorials Games: textures, screenshots Historic Reference Incredible Artists sites Jewelry Other Oddities Archives by date: Previous 01 Sep 200301 Aug 200301 Jul 200301 Jun 200301 May 200301 Apr 2003 Next Comments? Send email to EZO. To be notified of new tips on this page, enter your Email Address below and hit "Track me!". Powered by NexLabs' TrackEngine Copyright text and design Oken Computer Graphics. All ideas, designs and proposals are copyright of their authors.
Wed, Apr 30 2003 Vintage Artist's Sketchbooks Hundreds of artist's sketchbooks are available in the Archives of American Art: together they show ideas, sketches and inspirational imagery ranging from 1840s to 1970s. Some of the pages of these sketchbooks can be seen at the Archives of American Art site. It's always interesting to take a peek into another artist's creative processes! Archives of American Art Imaginary Alphabet online "The Alphabet Synthesis Machine is an interactive online artwork which allows one to create and evolve the possible writing systems of one's own imaginary civilizations. The abstract alphabets produced by the Machine can be downloaded as PC-format TrueType fonts, and are entered into a comprehensive archive of user creations."Excellent for those fantasy worlds... Alphabet Synthesis Machine Modern art torture This is a really disturbing story... "A Spanish art historian has uncovered what was alleged to be the first use of modern art as a deliberate form of torture, with the discovery that mind-bending prison cells were built by anarchist artists 65 years ago during the country's bloody civil war." Click here to read more about how modern art was used to torture prisoners, published by an Australian paper, the Sydney Morning Herald. Read more Tue, Apr 29 2003 Realtime skinning made easy Interested in doing some really cool realtime skinning (texturing)? Check out ChilliSkinner, an amazing free plugin for 3d Studio max which flattens out any kind of low poly model to make it easier to texture. I've tested it, it works great! The site offers good tutorials and a good gallery too. ChilliSkinner is available for Max 2, 3 and 4. Basic 3D Lighting Tutorial A basic tutorial on how a 3D Max scene was lit, by Chris Subagio. It's always interesting to see how artists light their scenes:Basic Lighting in Max. Bottle Cap Baroque Rick Ladd creates sculptural furniture using... bottle caps. The stuff he creates is truly whimsical and fantastical. Check out the Bottle Cap Baroque page. Mon, Apr 28 2003 Classical masters painting technique Learning how to create realistic paintings is always interesting for all artists: check out this free tutorial on the web, by Alexei Antonov: although the subject is simple, the tutorial contains a good amount of detail and lots of pictures. How to paint an apple in classical masters technique. Organic Ornament and Overlap Elke Imhof is a painter using traditional mixed media techniques. Talk about organic ornament and overlap! Her site is simple and direct, but the absolutely overwhelming images speak for themselves. Weibsbilder Art, Design and Visual Thinking website Excellent free basic design course on the web: Art, Design and Visual Thinking. Explains the basics of design and of art, written in clear manner by Charlotte Jirousek. The site is supposed to be an interactive textbook for the course of the same name taught at Cornell University. Art, Design and Visual Thinking. Sun, Apr 27 2003 3D Lighting tips 3D Lighting tips: A few years ago I attended a lecture at a convention (I forget which one and who was the speaker, unfortunately) and wrote some notes on how to do good lighting. I recently found those notes, and discovered that they still hold true in many ways. Here they are, in random order:* Avoid lights that are too high: they don't allow control over the overall lighting of the subject. * Avoid lights that are too low: they cause demoniac effects. * Try to always use a backlight, which produces a line of light on the subject's outline and separates it from the background.* Use three-light setting around each subject: Key light very strong, slightly to the front and side of the subject; Fill light, slightly cooler, one third of the key light, to the front and other side of the subject; Back light, above and behind the subject, very strong and forming rim on outline. * If the subject is animated, duplicate the three-light setting several times in the path of the animation. * Use "kicker" lights wherever necessary: small lights that just boost the general lighting up, without having to use ambient light (which is so ugly and unnatural). * When trying to achieve realism, use spotlights with almost no hotspot at all. * When creating sunlight, think of it as a directional light. The distance of sun to the Earth is so great, that it's rays can almost be considered parallel.* Delete all ambient lights (or turn down to zero), when starting to light a scene. * To simulate a tubular or neon light, just add a series of point lights in a row.* To create softer, more natural shadows, add two or three identical lights (either spot or point) coming from almost the same direction. Each one will cast a slightly different shadow, making the image look more realistic. * Don't let the audience see everything: it stimulates their imagination and creates dramatic lighting situations. * A gobo light (projector map) increases the sense of detail and distress in a scene. Fantasy Painter Josephine Wall Josephine Wall is an UK fantasy painter, who paints amazing surrealistic sceneries. Her imagery is full of archetypes, with goddesses and elements of nature. I was familiar with her work through gift cards and through the web, but today had the opportunity to inspect some originals at an art show... Just stunning. Josephine Wall's site. Thu, Apr 24 2003 Online workshops in Open Schedule Due to numerous requests, online workshops are now available in OPEN SCHEDULE: take any class, start at any time, lasting up to 12 weeks. These are self-paced classes! Click here for a list of classes available. Tue, Apr 15 2003 Free French Textures An interesting site containing free textures for 3D computer graphics, available in medium quality: Lemog Graphics and 3D Textures . Mon, Apr 14 2003 Fantasy and Scifi For Fantasy and Sci-fi art lovers, check out the really cool Epilogue.net for tons of cool illustrations. Check out the Editor's pick in the Art section, some really stunning visuals! Epilogue.net Wed, Apr 09 2003 Beksinski At Gamasutra.com this month the featured student in the Student Gallery is Eric Kozlowsky. One of his 3D images that caught my attention is Master copy of a Beksinski, where he manages to capture really beautifully the style of this contemporary fantasy artist. And if you are not familiar with Beksinki's work, then you are missing out! Check out: Master Copy of a Beksinski andhttp://www.lassoft.com/bek.htm or even http://www.bidonart.com/paintings/index.htm . Amazing and inspiring work! Comments? Send email to EZO. Posted by E. Oken at:Mon, Sep 15 2003 03:48:10 PM
Hundreds of artist's sketchbooks are available in the Archives of American Art: together they show ideas, sketches and inspirational imagery ranging from 1840s to 1970s. Some of the pages of these sketchbooks can be seen at the Archives of American Art site. It's always interesting to take a peek into another artist's creative processes! Archives of American Art
"The Alphabet Synthesis Machine is an interactive online artwork which allows one to create and evolve the possible writing systems of one's own imaginary civilizations. The abstract alphabets produced by the Machine can be downloaded as PC-format TrueType fonts, and are entered into a comprehensive archive of user creations."
Excellent for those fantasy worlds... Alphabet Synthesis Machine
This is a really disturbing story... "A Spanish art historian has uncovered what was alleged to be the first use of modern art as a deliberate form of torture, with the discovery that mind-bending prison cells were built by anarchist artists 65 years ago during the country's bloody civil war."
Click here to read more about how modern art was used to torture prisoners, published by an Australian paper, the Sydney Morning Herald. Read more
Interested in doing some really cool realtime skinning (texturing)? Check out ChilliSkinner, an amazing free plugin for 3d Studio max which flattens out any kind of low poly model to make it easier to texture. I've tested it, it works great! The site offers good tutorials and a good gallery too. ChilliSkinner is available for Max 2, 3 and 4.
A basic tutorial on how a 3D Max scene was lit, by Chris Subagio. It's always interesting to see how artists light their scenes:
Basic Lighting in Max.
Rick Ladd creates sculptural furniture using... bottle caps. The stuff he creates is truly whimsical and fantastical. Check out the Bottle Cap Baroque page.
Learning how to create realistic paintings is always interesting for all artists: check out this free tutorial on the web, by Alexei Antonov: although the subject is simple, the tutorial contains a good amount of detail and lots of pictures. How to paint an apple in classical masters technique.
Elke Imhof is a painter using traditional mixed media techniques. Talk about organic ornament and overlap! Her site is simple and direct, but the absolutely overwhelming images speak for themselves. Weibsbilder
Excellent free basic design course on the web: Art, Design and Visual Thinking. Explains the basics of design and of art, written in clear manner by Charlotte Jirousek. The site is supposed to be an interactive textbook for the course of the same name taught at Cornell University. Art, Design and Visual Thinking.
3D Lighting tips: A few years ago I attended a lecture at a convention (I forget which one and who was the speaker, unfortunately) and wrote some notes on how to do good lighting. I recently found those notes, and discovered that they still hold true in many ways. Here they are, in random order:
* Avoid lights that are too high: they don't allow control over the overall lighting of the subject.
* Avoid lights that are too low: they cause demoniac effects.
* Try to always use a backlight, which produces a line of light on the subject's outline and separates it from the background.
* Use three-light setting around each subject: Key light very strong, slightly to the front and side of the subject; Fill light, slightly cooler, one third of the key light, to the front and other side of the subject; Back light, above and behind the subject, very strong and forming rim on outline.
* If the subject is animated, duplicate the three-light setting several times in the path of the animation.
* Use "kicker" lights wherever necessary: small lights that just boost the general lighting up, without having to use ambient light (which is so ugly and unnatural).
* When trying to achieve realism, use spotlights with almost no hotspot at all.
* When creating sunlight, think of it as a directional light. The distance of sun to the Earth is so great, that it's rays can almost be considered parallel.
* Delete all ambient lights (or turn down to zero), when starting to light a scene.
* To simulate a tubular or neon light, just add a series of point lights in a row.
* To create softer, more natural shadows, add two or three identical lights (either spot or point) coming from almost the same direction. Each one will cast a slightly different shadow, making the image look more realistic.
* Don't let the audience see everything: it stimulates their imagination and creates dramatic lighting situations.
* A gobo light (projector map) increases the sense of detail and distress in a scene.
Josephine Wall is an UK fantasy painter, who paints amazing surrealistic sceneries. Her imagery is full of archetypes, with goddesses and elements of nature. I was familiar with her work through gift cards and through the web, but today had the opportunity to inspect some originals at an art show... Just stunning. Josephine Wall's site.
Due to numerous requests, online workshops are now available in OPEN SCHEDULE: take any class, start at any time, lasting up to 12 weeks. These are self-paced classes! Click here for a list of classes available.
At Gamasutra.com this month the featured student in the Student Gallery is Eric Kozlowsky. One of his 3D images that caught my attention is Master copy of a Beksinski, where he manages to capture really beautifully the style of this contemporary fantasy artist. And if you are not familiar with Beksinki's work, then you are missing out! Check out: Master Copy of a Beksinski andhttp://www.lassoft.com/bek.htm or even http://www.bidonart.com/paintings/index.htm . Amazing and inspiring work!
