TechCrunch reports that a project called Aviary has an ambitious goal of providing graphical online application to create multimedia artwork.

The online application range from Photoshop and Illustrator resembling applications 2d and vector graphics as well as a 3d application for editing and rendering. Some of their creative applications are code-named Phoenix, Raven and Hummingbird.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The complete list of their birds/tools here. Information will most likely be updated on their website: creationonthefly.com.

This short film, viewable at VMIX, includes some impressive Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) created by Andrew Huang. In December I mentioned The Making of Walkers Android,  Walker’s commercial also including some CGI.

Screenshot from the short film.

(Via Gizmodo)

Adobe just released their Creative Suite 3 production line dubbed cunningly Creative License. And before even looking under the hood, I was swept away by their flash eyecandy on their Creative License homepage.

The upgrade prices are actually more pleasant than I had expected. For pricing information check out the US or Norwegian prices.

“Not to be outdone by Microsoft’s Windows Vista, Adobe has created six configurations of Creative Suite 3” –The Apple Blog. And these configurations took a couple minutes to digest. Now the next challenge would be to budget which package suits you best.

Nevertheless before the first reviews come and the products are eventually shipped in April, this does look exciting.

Just a nice littl online tool, which may just help you out when you are busy designing some graphics and need some color assistance. Sphere over at ColorJack gives you several nice features regarding choosing colors for various uses. I don’t think I am going say much more, because it is really about you being able to explore the world of color and color theory.

ColorJack Sphere Normal Sixtone Screenshot

ColorJack Sphere Deuteranopy Screenshot

(Via Digg)

In the absence of free and proper vector based graphical material on the internet. Vectorportal.com now exists to provide a portal for finding vector graphics. There are several categories of vector graphics and most of the art is in the EPS fileformat. The portal also contains tutorials and a couple of links.

When it comes to copyrighted material on the internet this can also be a complicated path to travel, when you want to use or publish something yourself. Although Vectorportal.com attempts to be open about both the artists as well as trademark holder, it is still your responsibility to acquire permission to use material from respective trademark holders.
Nevertheless there is a large amount of nice vector art available. Clip art, flags, etc. which can’t all be said to be copyrighted as strictly. Vectorportal.com should definitely give you an opportunity to download and blow up (enlarge) signs for many of your everyday needs: No smoking, biohazard, heavy etc.

(Via Del.icio.us)

I have always been fascinated by ASCII Art since my first days using a UNIX terminal. Spending hours making faces out of the character only console. One of the top bookmarks at Del.icio.us today was Glass Giant’s ASCII Art.
During last summer they even had live Telnet ASCII coverage of the World Cup, some quite impressive conversions and almost all live. Check out ASCII-WM.net for more info.

Firstly as seen above I converted one of the POTW 08 pictures. Then since I had not touched ascii converters for some years I did a quick search and found some even better converts. (Again this is only for still pictures, for video I still want to find something a little more user friendly than the ascii-wm setup).
Below you can see the conversion done at DaGraeve.com. Which I think is a tad bit better than what GlassGiant offered.

The best conversion and enhancements I found at ASCIIConvert, below:

My comparison is just a quick and dirty one, so I might be mistaken of each engines’ conversion qualities.

After my post “Starting to Use Photoshop Brushes?” I was reminded of other features I have barely touched for years. Displacement Maps is another feature that I often forget and I know many others seldomly use. This tutorial gives a nice example of Displacement Maps in use: Use The Displace Filter & Displacement Maps To Make A Realistic flag.

This guide is written for use in Adobe Photoshop Elements, but should work just as well in the full version of Photoshop. The website PhotoshopSupport also seems like quite a good resource regarding Photoshop, but I have just briefly glanced though the site.

Computer Aided Drawing (Design?) technical drawings etc. but using guidelines in Adobe Illustrator… I have been using Illustrator a bit more often lately because of its wonderful vector capabilities. And I came across some rather interesting tutorials and lessons for Illustrator and Photoshop this morning. Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop Tutorials & Lessons. (These are a lot more technical than your average eye-candy “tuts” of the fancy tutorial sites.)

I am probably not going to run off and try to draw that car, but it was fascinating seeing the process. And you never know if some of the techniques can be used in other connections. I think a real CAD application or 3D program would be better than “freehand” in Illustrator but nevertheless interesting.

Brushes in Photoshop can be used for many different kinds of effects. Recently I just found out about Brusheezy. If you are like me, and seldomly use custom brushes, maybe it’s time to give them a try. And perhaps this big library with custom brushes may just make it a little easier to use.

For some tutorials on how to create or use brushes check out some of the following links (beware possible pop-ups or rogue ads): Star brush tutorial, Painting & Brushes, Creating grunge brushes , Tutorialized.Via etc.

Firstly about a week ago I came across some nice Handwriting Types (fonts) at NoEnemies during my daily Digg surfing. Although none of them are anything close to my own handwriting, you may consider one of them, rather than using the standard fonts that come with your computer… Especially since those “standard” handwriting fonts are really overused.

Then today I came across “Five Free Fonts You Shouldn’t Have Missed” over at Smashing Magazine.

If you continue to surf a little on Smashing Magazine’s pages there are a lot of nice posts to be found.
However in both cases with these types don’t forget: Choosing Better Fonts…