4ColorGrafix » the art and designs of Kofi Garbrah

… or The Ballad of Joe Blow & Joe CEO

Joe CEO made lots of bad bets.
Joe CEO ended up with bad debt.
Joe CEO says government is bad.
But Joe CEO doesn’t follow his own fad.

Hungry & Poor? Get out of line!
Joe CEO is running out of time.
You see, Joe CEO is TOO BIG TO FAIL !
As for Joe Blow… that’s another tale.

Joe CEO is now in the sunny Caribbean.
Sipping piña colada and watching the scene.
But Joe Blows of the world have a role to fill;
We are the ones stuck with the bill!

Copyright © 2008 by Kofi Garbrah

Honoré Daumier says it best… Tax-dollars go in, favours to friends of the king come out!

…Or 5 More Things I wish I knew before wasting many hours doing the wrong things modeling Poser Clothes!

1. Don’t use triangles in your mesh.
2. Keep your meshes as straight as possible.
3. Group your meshes as you model them.
4. Use Multiple Threads in Poser for your renders.
5. Be careful of exploding Morphs!

Continuing in the tradition of 10 tips for making poser clothes, here are 5 more helpful tips. There is some math involved but don’t worry, you won’t have to do any calculations!

“The Trash came back the very next day…”

Have you ever had the problem of trash that just won’t disappear?

You’ve tried empty trash. NO GO!
You’ve tried secure empty trash. STILL NO GO!
You’ve tried rm -rf. STILL HERE!
You’ve tried sudo rm -rf. FAILED AGAIN!

WHY WON’T THIS TRASH DISAPPEAR?

…Or 10 Things I wish I knew before wasting many hours doing the wrong things modeling Poser Clothes!

1. Back-up Everything you create.
2. There is an easy way to make MAT Poses.
3. Remove IK (Inverse Kinematics) Chains from your clothes.
4. Use Morph Manager.
5. The Hierarchy Editor is your friend.
6. Don’t fear the Set-Up Room.
7. Joint Parameters are important.
8. Make your model at actual size.
9. UV maps will save you time.
10. Learn to use Python.

Follow these tips and you will save yourself a great deal of time. Below is a more detailed breakdown of what each of these things mean.

The writing’s on the wall for old views…
…Or more precisely, what is Visual Art? My definition has changed considerably since high school. I once thought that only realistic painting was “true art”. Having studied graphic design, I now realize that the same principles of design that make paintings memorable are also what graphic designers, photographers, cinematographers, and digital sculptors use to make their work memorable. I have since expanded my definition of art to include many mediums and many forms (e.g. Abstract Expressionist paintings). This definition may be too broad for some critics but I will attempt to justify it.

Communication requires retention. When presenting new ideas to students, how much information is retained can often influence the success or failure of the idea. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point – How Little Things Can make a Big Difference, he points to 3 things that make for effective communications: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor (Retention), and the Power of Context. In both visual communication and education, the Stickiness Factor is probably the most important.

“Why support the mac anyway? There are so few mac users and the platform is dying… in a few years there won’t be any mac users at all.”

Question: When did I first hear the statement above?

The answer is 1991. That’s right, 16 years ago.

When I first started creating my own 3-D Models, I found the most popular online resources — Morph Manager, UV Mapper Pro, and Cr2Editor — are all PC-Only. With patience and perseverance I discovered some alternatives to these programs that work on the Mac!