Birds resting on the arches over the water fountain in front of Toronto's city hall.

N-Sided - Quidam 3D character software

07.31.07

N-Sided - Home

Nice software, but not quite there yet.  I downloaded the demo and played with it.  Nice beginning.  The interface has some nice features I would like to see in Poser.  Especially the view angle selector on the bottom right corner of the interface.

To get started, you select a character gender and then a specific look.  There is an option for a female face generator and male body building.  Both look to be more comprehensive on creating something from scratch.  Unfortunately, neither is active in the demo.

Quidam character selection

The interface has some nice features.  It doesn’t go as deep as Poser’s numeric range (no eyebrows to super-bushy for example) but it does give a wide variety of various body parts.   Eye shape, head shape, neck length and shape.  If you can name the body part it seems to a few options for customizing the body.  You can see the side angle view controller in the bottom right of the picture below.  Click on it and it gives you 6 angle selections from which to view the character.
Quidam interface

The body bending methods aren’t as nice as Poser, but it is has some nice features.  One of the better features is the small dice in the left pane.  Clicking the dice randomizes the character features and clothing.  You can see what this feature created in the render below.

Finally,  the render is okay.  Not extremely great, but nice enough.  Though I am using the demo version, so the full version might be a bit better.  And I’ve never been a huge fan of Poser’s rendering either.  Quidam does include the ability to purchase some plug-ins for exporting to 3DS Max and a few other programs.

Guidam character render

Not a Poser replacement yet, but for people new to 3D character creation, or who only want to create quick and simple figures, this seems to be a nice program.  Comparing Quidam to Poser is like comparing Paint Shop Pro to Photoshop.  Both nice programs, but one is limited while the other is comprehensive.  The learning curve, however, would reflect the complexity as well.

DVC Learning Style Survey for College

07.23.07

DVC Learning Style Survey for College

If you like to know your strengths and weaknesses, this could be a useful tool.  Personally, I have a pretty good idea of who I am at this point in life, but it can always be valuable to get some objective information.  Especially since we do tend to change over time.  None of us stay the same throughout life.

I took the test and it came back balanced.  I can expect that type of response since I try to push myself into uncomfortable situations on a regular basis.  Try to locate weaknesses and build up those areas instead of constantly focusing on strengths and attempting to let that effort carry you through more trying methods (or refusing to try them at all).

Take the test, get some info and think a bit.  Always worth a few minutes of your time.

Turning Portrait Into Stone Statue with Photoshop

01.21.07

Turning Portrait Into Stone Statue with Photoshop

This tutorial caught my eye.  I was at my Mac, so I popped open Photobooth and snagged  a shot of my sickly self (under the weather, but back to back football games makes it a bit easier to cope with) and turned my head into a stone version.

Daryl's stoneface tutorial resultStone face

Spime - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

01.21.07

Spime - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I seem to remember seeing this in Wired and wondering exactly what it meant.  Probably wanted to look it up and forgot.  Leave it to Sterling to create a term that sounds like something gooey kids would work into the carpet, but has a much deeper and richer meaning.