Pdf Readers
Posted by: t6en on: February 8, 2009
The PDF Format is a great format not only for print but for any kind of documents and that for any platform. Adobe has its own reader which is bloated but rich with features and supports the newest features. There are many other readers and most of them are free or open source and they are faster but they tend not to have the newest features and some have problems with displaying transparencies and other things. A good resource for PDF readers is pdfreaders.org (@).
The reader I like to use is sumatra PDF reader (@), it’s fast and it’s small and can display every PDF and most of the newer features.
Jahshaka
Posted by: t6en on: February 1, 2009
Jahshaka(@) is a video,animation,effects,paint etc. software with a “morphing interface allows you to work as a editor when you are editing, to work as a compositor when you are creating effects, as a audio engineer when you are mixing, and as a animator when you are doing 3d. It will even allow you to create your own hybrid interfaces to match your workflow.” Jahshaka(@)
Sounds good doesn’t it? Well it does but the software especially its usability is the worst I have ever experienced. There is no right click menu(besides load/save/play …) where you could select properties or copy or paste etc.
The UI design isn’t that bad but its total mess you cant find anything and there is no logical explanation for most of the icon or menu positioning. Basic things as loading clips and combining them and then rendering them is just a nightmare to get it done. Positive is you can import videos and they actually work and you can play them in more or less fluid playback.
Overall it’s a nice try but why create such a complex and not comprehensible with it’s all UI design software when you can’t do basic things on it without reading wiki’s or watching tutorials and still having hard time to get it done.
p.s. I have worked in Avid, A. After Effects, A.Premiere Pro
Video editing
Posted by: t6en on: January 24, 2009
Video editing under linux is a bit problematic as there is no comparable software available for it as for the other OS systems like avid(@) or premiere(@).
There are few non linear editing software available for Linux but most of them have unusable and ugly user interface and are hard to use. There is (one) that looks good and appears that it has a decent user interface and usability, called Kdenlive(@)
There is a second one but its interface doesn’t look as well, called Vivia(@).
There are other ones too but they don’t have many features and aren’t well useable, there is jahshaka(@) for example its interface and usability is not very good.
Online Tv for deaf
Posted by: t6en on: January 12, 2009
deafVision (@) a rather strange name for online deaf tv but the idea is great and it’s well done and interesting.
They have used the flash player in a very good and interesting way, you can activate the subtitles which you can change in the size and position and you can even add a sign language person which you can position and change in size and transparency.
There is a good documentary row on the 30 year war in german. Hopefully there will be more and in different languages documentaries and other shows available for the public.
Linux Gaming
Posted by: t6en on: January 3, 2009
Yet another Linux gaming article(@) on the Internet, telling how important and good it would be to get games on linux.
The author points out a few games like Enemy territory, Tremulous(which is fun game for a while, nothing too deep though) and tells how nice it would be to have some good new and shiny titles on the linux.
I ask myself why, oh why do you need them why do you need games on linux like that? Why would we want another windows box with games that are crap, sorry but most new games are crap (and yes I didn’t like Fallout3, I enjoyed Fallout1 and 2). I’m not talking about the visual experience that you could enjoy(?) while playing those titles.
What Linux needs is something different, good games.
Games that are different that are fun to play and make sense and have a story to tell. They should be creative, educational games for Children, or for elderly people, language learning games and so on. You don’t need big teams or big cash sponsors for the development for those games, all you need is linux and internet.
Get geany and pygtk and you can start to make nice games or get into SDL and OpenGL. Children love games even small ones, there are few Flash portals like UpToTen(@) or Poisson Rouge(@) on the Internet which children like a lot, it would be great to get those on Linux(native and offline), these games are small and color-full, multi language, fun and educational. What about some Gameplay and Story oriented games for linux like Lone Wolf for the DS (@).
The game is very nicely done and is fun to play, simple and enjoyable and replayable, plus you will read text and enjoy the nice drawings.
The next part is “Meanwhile, most of the free games on the market, built by volunteer developers in their spare time, have graphics that remind some of the original NES or are playing catchup to games created five years ago.”
It’s not about the graphics its about gameplay and I would rather play “NES graphic” games that are fun, innovative and creative. A good source for some of those games is TIG Source(@).
Good games is what Linux needs.
Toys
Posted by: t6en on: January 1, 2009
Many of you know the “normal” toys you can buy in your favourite toy store, there are some bears, penguins maybe a bat but the creativity is pretty much limited. But there are more toys and different toys there are some really creative and good looking toys around.
The blog called Toys are Evil(@) is a good starting place where you can read about toy development and of course about some evil toys.
If you like to see the images only, head over to their flickr account(@).
More into moving images and audio then here is a Trailer of “Vinyl & Co. documentary film on the Culture of Toy design”(@)
Volumetrics in Blender
Posted by: t6en on: December 29, 2008
Developer Banter
Posted by: t6en on: December 28, 2008
Developer Banter is Moddb Podcast with some of the mod dev teams currently around.
Until now only 2 podcasts but they are great especially Black Mesa (@), lots of laughing but also interesting insights in the mod development all together. Good information on how they got together, how they organize and how the whole development process looks like.
So go ahead and listen to those two, will get you motivated maybe to make your own mod. (@)
Dust Theme
Posted by: t6en on: December 27, 2008
Even today people will look (if at all) at linux as one ugly unusable piece of Operating system with no real chances against Mac or Windows. As for the ugly part it’s not true as you can switch themes; yes the whole os, there are some good themes around and there are some which try to copy other os like the mac(@).
Some go the other way and create some good looking themes, like the Dust theme(@)
I have modified the theme a bit I added lovely yellow colours (#F7EAA1,#D09A3A) to it and changed the icons to elementary(@) .
To install Gtk themes, open up Appearance under System then Preferences and click on install and select your *.tar.gz and its done!
Gogh + Wacom = Happy
Posted by: t6en on: December 26, 2008
Well as you can guess I got my Wacom graphic tablet working on my Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and I found a Painting Software which is Pressure sensitive and looks fabilous!
The software is called Gogh! It has custom brushes a nice and clean look and it works. You will have to change some lines of code but thats easy, as Gogh is written in Python. The reason for the few code changes is that Gogh is 2007 program and python has cut some of its functions in the newer versions.
First download Gogh from the website (@)
Secound extract the folder and open the file named “settingmanager.py” and edit these lines from to:
import xml.dom.ext
to
#import xml.dom.ext
if os.path.exists(custom_path):
return xml.dom.minidom.parse(custom_path)
return None
to
#if os.path.exists(custom_path):
# return xml.dom.minidom.parse(custom_path)
#return None
Thats it then just open up your terminal and get to the directory and write ./gogh it will spit out few errors and stuff but Gogh should run. The only thing is you cant save custom brushes but you can add them yourself in the XML doc named “brushlist.xml”.
»Gogh is a GNU/Linux bitmap graphics editor. It is designed to work with pressure-sensitive input devices, like a Wacom tablet.« – Gogh
Code help from these Threads(@),(@)
Ah yes the wacom tablet, i installed the packages “wacom-tools” and “xserver-xorg-input-wacom” with Synaptic Package Manager (its under System menu then Administration)
I really wish somebody will continue to develop this great software! Nevertheless, thanks for the software Aleksey Y. Nelipa!
Enjoy!
