Viricide

Viricide
Starts out slow, and the writing is cheesy, but it gets addictive fast as the difficulty speeds up.
The low reward of killing makes it actually more addicting, as you die, then replay again and again earning enough for the next power-up. A bit of a grinder, but entertaining nonetheless.

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Mario Crossover

Super Mario Crossover
This thing is going viral, but what the hell. It's cool. Some of the characters are quite tough to use, but I'm sure old school masters of such characters will rule with them, especially if configuring the buttons better than I had them. Nice work with the implementation of power-ups as far as I saw (which wasn't mush)
I hope this can be kept up, although looks like something Nintendo will haul down and quick.
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Time Travel Game

Time Paradox
A well done time travel puzzle game.

I haven't had a lot of time to play it, but it's well executed and even though it's in Japanese, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out.
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Javascript reference etc

Need some reference for javascript, as I was doing a quick bit of
editing of a photoshop script.
This was useful for some basic reference
http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp read more...

Gimp and python

So I was wanting to automate some stuff with some already compressed
.png image files, and turns out gimp can salvage them while Photoshop
can't.
There's some nice tutorials on how to do this but here's some notes I
hit along the way.


1- setting this up on windows is hard. OSX was easy and zi'm assuming
unix is too. Installing all the python extensions for this is a pain
and I didn't really ever get this going.

2-you need a good way to 'chmod' your file to make it executable. I got
'muCommander' for OSX which is free and awesome. A good stand in for Totalcommander for windows (previously windowsCommander)

3- documentation of commands in the reference for gimp shows '-' where
in python you use '_' instead. Also I didn't get named parameters
working, so you need to include a lot of inputs to many of the
commands.

4- I ended up setting up a output debug text file to output what I'd
normally put 'print' statements in for.

5-lots of restarting gimp as I worked on my code. Doing more rough
work in the gimp python-Fu dialog may have been a smarter way wo get
things working.

6- setting up a workplace in eclipse in the folder Gimp looks for
these scripts is a nice way to manage them. On OSX I think it's
Users//Library/Aplication Support/Gimp/plugins/

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Tiny Castle

Tiny Castle
A cute little platformer with really well done layout use and design.
Arrow keys and spacebar for moving and sword swinging.


I found it a bit hard to attack things, but that's a little bi the
point in this.

Reminds me a bit of the eyezmaze stuff.
Doesn't take too long to play, so check it out.
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Flash Game

Synopsis Quest
This is a short but sweet puzzle game that 'highlights' a bunch of classic type puzzles from old style JRPG's.

GluFO 3
Is a bit ugly, but the upgrades make it fun, and it had me playing it for a while. Simple 'break apart asteroids to create more ammo, and collect cash.


I like some of the little twists in this and it doesn't take a lot of time to go through.
Been meaning to post more on flash games I like, but there's been a bit of a drought on ones I actually like.
I should hunt down my back list of games I had bookmarked at Radical.
One day...
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Fonts

I'm not really a font nerd, but I know there's a bunch out there who are. Might be better sites somewhere, but here's a really easy to use and quite verbose one:
http://www.fontspace.com/
Trying to get the wedding invitations all done, so looking around for a nice font for it. Ended up using Arabella I think. Fancy, but not too fancy. Now I need to find a nice Japanese font. All the ones on that site look too menacing! read more...

Python tutorial wiki

I found this nice tutorial wiki page for intro to python stuff.
Looks about right for the inquiring artist. Still have to read through it a bit more, but seems better than most of the 'for programmer' documents relating to python.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Non-Programmer%27s_Tutorial_for_Python_2.0

So now, consider basic stuff skipped, and I can just rant about what I'm doing directly without building up to it. read more...

Wiki with info about using mental ray materials in Maya

I'm using a lot more pre-rendered features in maya, so I'm going to have to study up.
Here's a link my friend Javier sent me.
http://wiki.bk.tudelft.nl/toi-pedia/MIA_Material_-_Basics
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Shopping trip

Shopping trip
Originally uploaded by mrlinds

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Python Image Library

Want to work on Images of any sort in python? The python image library is where it's at. You have to go and install it though.
I found out a couple less than straightforward things in doing this.
First, Python 3 and up don't have a version made for it yet. Yeah, one of those newer not being better things.

Second, if you plan on using it on the mac, like OsX I mean, you have to compile it yourself, which is quite intimidating for someone like me. Especially if yo have to dig around everywhere to find that OsX likes to run python in 64bit mode by default, even when you're on a 32 bit machine. So super fun. I had the same problem running an applescript from python.
Thirdly, and here's something I haven't figured out, is that it seems like on the mac, or in some configurations I have to either 'import PIL.Image' or 'import Image'.
to handle switching this easily, right now I'm doing 'import PIL.Image as Image' which is easiest to fix.

anyways, the documentation is quite easy to figure out, and then getting the size or data from the image is quite straightforward. Using composite with images that already have transparency saved me a billion hours now that I don't have to sit and watch Photoshop do it.

I thought I was having trouble with it today, but I was stupidly running my script with recursive directory image searching, so ended up saving over the output I was putting in a subfolder with a cropped copy of what I'd already put there. It got ugly and took forever to figure out.
So in respect to the last post talking about recursion:
recursion is a powerful ally, but also a dangerous enemy. Beware!
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Delete the hell out of a folder

This is my breakdown of a python function I'm using to delete a folder.
What I want of course is a no muss, no fuss deletion of a folder, all it's contents including all it's sub-folders and the same so on and on.
That's called 'recursion'. When I first heard about it, it took a bit to get my head around. Basically it's a function which calls itself.
WIERD! I know.

so in plain form we want:
function run on filepath =>
See what's in that filepath =>
if it has a folder, run this same function on that folders filepath (go back to step one until you don't have any sub-folders, in which case that call of the function ends, and you slingshot out of that and back up until you're out of the matrix completely) =>
if you find a file, delete it. =>
once the folder has everything deleted out of it, delete that folder, then end the function!

In my working script, I have some extra catches and conditions to avoid errors. I'll over comment this
comments are whatever is after a '#' in a line. Python is all about indenting, as I'm jumping ahead quite a bit and haven't covered any of that basic stuff yet. But you could play with that yourself or find that info elsewhere or later if you want.

import os #add a module we will need to use. Find what ones you need in the help file.
def delete_folder(path): #Define the function, what the variable it's recieving will be called in brackets, then colon.
   if( os.path.exists(path) ): #indent then run an 'if' condition (similar syntax to the function def. colons!) Make sure the path exists.
       files = os.listdir(path) #find everything in the folder
       for fil in files: #this is a loop. This will iterate over a list making 'fil' the variable I chose in this case, one item in the list at a time.
           pth = os.path.join(path, fil) #Handy function for joining paths and filenames.
           if( os.path.isfile(pth) ): #check if it's a file, if it is, then delete it.
               os.remove( pth )
           elif ( os.path.isdir(pth) ): #elif runs if the preceding condition is False only. If not a file, a folder?
               delete_folder(pth) # here we're having this function run itself. Crazy, no? but it works!
       files = os.listdir(path) #this isn't strictly needed, but lets double check.
       if(len(files)>0): #check for one or more entries?
           pass #pass doesn't do anything, but since python needs something here, this is what is used. indentation and all that.
       else: #if the first case isn't true, then do what's here
           os.rmdir( path ) # delete the directory fed into the function at the start! nice,eh?

So, in a nutshell, that's what I'm using right now. now I can call this later in code and clean up a directory etc. But be careful, as with great power comes great responsibility, and don't blame me if you delete all the files on your computer with this! That would be a neat safety to have in this I guess. homework? Likely need to know a bunch about finding system directories etc. Try looking in the help file os. os.getenv("HOME") maybe? something like that....

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Reboot

OK, so I started this blog to post drawings up and and write stories about them. I may still do that, but I need to post about other things too, or I will drop off and ignore it again. My interests vary a lot, so I'll try and tag things so they are cohesive. But in the end, this may only end up making sense to me. My bullet-point initial mission statement after the break.
* Link to one cool free browser game every week (maybe twice if possible)
* Post one scanned drawing every week, or if need be, an old drawing from flicker but with text.
* Some note in regards to my jogging status.
* A review/ breakdown of a simple chunk of python code, intermittently, but hopefully quite often as long as I'm doing such tasks at work.
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Get python

So the first thing you'll need to follow this is Python.
http://www.python.org/download/
Why? because it's powerful, popular and easy to use.

What am i doing here? Well, trying to get more active on the web in my varied interests. One thing that comes up now and then is technical art, and involved in that is taking control of your computer. usually this can involve moving files around, or doing some relatively simple tasks that a programmer wouldn't lower themselves to doing. Enter you and python.
All the posts will be tagged with tech art.

--------- #Setup
I use eclipse with pydev installed, but it lets you see the results in a view window and lets you run scripts directly there, so I like it.
You cold use Notepad++ for speed and editing highlighting, then run that in Maya or something, but that's a bit of a pain.

http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-3.5.2-201002111343/eclipse-SDK-3.5.2-win32.zip

Once you install eclipse, run it, and setup a folder for where to work (workspace)
You need to add pydev for running python by going to 'help/Install New Software,
then click add, name it python or pydev or something then paste in the url:
http://pydev.org/updates which should then install that all nicely.
When you start a new 'project' then you need to select pydev, you'll need to point it to where you installed python, then you can just make a new blank 'module' which you don't really need one of the special templates for. Main could work too, but gets a bit more intimidating.
--------- #End Setup

There. Now if you're setup, you can run

print("hey there world!")

and that should work as your first little script.
Stinks don't it? but for some reason programmers like 'hello world' as a first most simple test to make sure the darn thing works.
That's all for now.
I didn't think to write this up, but if you find problems, let me know. I didn't think to start to write this until well after I've set this up.
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