The Ink Spot

12:22 AM

@HostileFork Thanks for that! Great suggestions, all. I haven't had time to go back to this, but I will this evening and I'll post what I end up with (I want to finish it tonight so I can upload it soon), thanks again! :)

Bakabaka

10:07 AM

4

Q: How to make complex gradient images like these

Just like the title says, how can I create these type of gradient images? I have access to all the Adobe products, but am not sure what app would be best. All I see is linear gradient and radial gradient options. Any help and guidance is much appreciated!

there was a very similar question just a couple months ago. The solution ended up being to use a photograph and blur it heavily. I'm trying to find the original question, but no luck so far. Anyone know what question I'm talking about?

Yisela

nice answer, eh?

yes, it was about iOS I think

hmm maybe I'm thinking of this one: graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/18892/…, but you mean a different one, right?

Bakabaka

yeah, these bgs tend te be described as 'iOs like bg'

the question I'm thinking of used a beach picture as the base for the bg

nope, that's not the one, unfo.

got it

16

A: How to produce a blurred abstract (frosted glass) background like this?

I created a similar effect with the Gaussian Blur tool in Photoshop set to a 60 px radius. Of course, you can do this with any photo where you like the color shifts, your sample reminded me of a beach, so I found a beach photo on Wikimedia. Another way you can do it is by creating the shapes...

Yisela

ahhh yes

I remember the ball things

HostileFork

I call them plasma, because the effect was used with palette shifting to create funny fancy looking effects on early computers. No pixels were being pushed; the computers weren't fast enough. It was a fixed bitmap in which the color lookup tables were being cycled in a way to make it look like various kinds of smoke and such.

►

These days something like that may be pushing pixels around, the graphics cards are good enough

Bakabaka

...I'm in doubt: is this a duplicate?

ah, hi 'Fork

I remember making palette shifting things like these on my old MSX2 indeed

Yisela

10:15 AM

@Bakabaka Hmmm

HostileFork

Hello. Just stayed up all night shifting about 7 websites from one virtual host to DigitalOcean. So far, I have to say DigitalOcean seems...quite nice, speedy. You can get a lot for $5.

Yisela

If it didn't have any answers, yes, maybe. I'd definitely add the second one in a comment, but not sure if closing/merging would be good

maybe wait and see if it gets any different answers?

HostileFork

Much, much faster than my AWS EC2 tests, and $5/mo for a very serviceable instance.

Bakabaka

@Yisela yeah, I really like Illax's answer

Yisela

@HostileFork Reminds me of the super short code competitions, like "8kb" and such

@Bakabaka We can always merge, then one question will have all answers

demoscene :D

(a friend was really into it back in the day, showed some of the craziest stuff)

HostileFork

10:18 AM

@Yisela We are playing such games today on CodeGolf...

8

A: Code Golf: Hourglass

Rebmu: 188 chars rJ N 0% rN Wad1mpJ2 S{ \x/ }D0 Hc&[u[Z=~wA Qs^RTkW[isEL0c[skQdvK2][eEV?kQ[tlQ]]pcSeg--B0[eZ1 5]3]prRJ[si^DspSCsQfhS]eZ1[s+DcA+wMPc2no]]]Va|[mpAj**2]prSI^w{_}Ls+W2 h1tiVsb1n -1 chRVs{_}hLceVn1 It's competitive with the shorter solutions here, though it's actually solving the pro...

Bakabaka

@Yisela I dunno yet. Seems like they're rather different in the pixel vs. vector department. I'd vote for waiting for a bit, esp. now that they're linked.

HostileFork

I don't see them as being that similar.

Bakabaka

ah! I was coding 255-character (single-line) graphics programs in my day!

Yisela

the techniques might be shared, the question is perhaps not so similar

Bakabaka

true

HostileFork

10:20 AM

@Bakabaka If you want to geek out with ex-Amiga people living in a parallel universe where we still use zero-install half-megabyte and very advanced systems, stop by Rebol and Red chat sometime.

Yisela

@HostileFork Absolutely out of reach for me, but looks cooooool!

HostileFork

►

Bakabaka

Amiga? Amiga and MSX used to have a death feud :P

Yisela

@Bakabaka (unrelated, came acorss a Gaarder quote today: "How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.")

@HostileFork watching

Bakabaka

@Yisela Ah, wow. That's along the lines of the adage that 'A healty person wants all kinds of things. A sick person only wants one.'

Yisela

10:25 AM

"Brevity should not make things unclear, that is obfuscation". Nice

Bakabaka

:)

Yisela

I guess we get used to the beautiful as well as the horrific, so it goes both ways

@HostileFork "And it's still completely legible"

ooooh awesome when he shows the hourglass

more links! procrastination!

HostileFork

►

also known as "Why I can't stand Illustrator."

Yisela

why?

had never seen solidworks in action

HostileFork

And at a starting cost of over $4k for a basic license, and USB hardware dongles to prevent piracy, that's not too surprising.

Yisela

10:37 AM

I've seen worse

this is pretty powerful

HostileFork

I have an open source project doing projectional editing that I need to get back to, it's along similar lines. Basically the idea that what you're always working on is a kind of "equation" representing the "intent" behind your composition. The tool is designed to capture the process, and not the product, and to try and be efficient about using parallelism to let you edit the projection.

Yisela

(completely unrelated but also beautiful: youtube.com/…)

what's projectional editing?

HostileFork

My sample apps are much simpler, of course, than something like SolidWorks...which is not just the basic engine, but also a wide library of parts/standards and that whole making-blueprints thing.

Well, it's a spectrum. If you draw a circle in MS paint, and it's not vector, you wind up with a bunch of dots representing a circle... but changing the radius gets harder, and it just compounds in getting harder as you layer things on top of it.

So if your intention was "circle" you might have picked that circle based on the idea that the circle would be centered on point P and that it had radius R.

Yisela

ahh nice

HostileFork

Then again, your intention might have been "whatever elliptical shape would fill this bounding rectangle"

The question is, can the tool capture what you meant in a sort of "programming-ish" way, as an intention vs. a "flattening" or discard of the initial idea which drove the decision.

Yisela

10:43 AM

projectional, predicting... do you have anything documented? hard to imagine what your apps are like

HostileFork

Unfortunately, the better a tool is at capturing what you meant... the harder it becomes to really edit it as the "projection"

Imagine for instance a description of a suspension bridge, where there is a logic of where to put the pylons, how heavy it should be... there are parameters and the design is an algorithmic consequence of your desire.

Yisela

yes

HostileFork

If your desire changes, and you grab a bit of the bridge and try to make it longer or taller... should that change the number of pylons, or pick a new material for better stress properties... or... what?

"You don't mean what you meant before, so how can grabbing at some bit of the projection and pulling on it translate back into a meaningful adaptation of the capture of your intent?"

Yisela

so how do you solve that?

("with programming")

@Bakabaka remember our conversation about my incapacity for abstract thinking? Fork really challenges it.

HostileFork

There's no silver bullet, to be sure. But I like this quote: (looking for it)

Can't find it, will improvise. It's something like:

"The essence of architecture is the suppression of details not relevant to the task at hand. And so it is only fitting that is how architecture itself reveals itself to us, one aspect at a time."

So basically, it's just about giving people the spectrum of options... if you must go in and really think of your design as an equation, you might have to edit it as an equation.

Yisela

10:50 AM

I see

I think

Bakabaka

@Yisela lol, I can see :)

HostileFork

But if it turns out that there is a pattern such that a tool can help you adjust the equation in a way that is somewhat less than total freedom... you work with that.

I came up with something called a SPINE for instance

Yisela

(reading out loud helps)

HostileFork

I think of it sort of how we have integers for counting. We don't have to invent new numbers each time we want to count different things.

Yisela

yep, I see your point

now... question:

HostileFork

10:52 AM

A spine is simply an ordered set of coordinate points. I then provide means for moving points, adding points, splicing new points into the sequence, adding points onto the end.

I generalize this and make it work very well and simply.

Then I say "okay, now I'm going to define shape generators that you can apply" (like styles in illustrator) to spines.

Yisela

to be able to come up with a prediction, you need previous data, right? The more data you have, the 'easier' the predicting. How do you get that data?

HostileFork

I don't try to predict anything. I'll finish the spine story quickly just to give you an idea.

So let us say I have a spine of length two, and I put a "radial generator on it". The radial generator interprets the first point of the spine as the center, and the second as establishing the length away from that center.

So you can get a circle with two points. Center, radius as defined by distance from center

But what if you decided to add a third point? If your spine is length three, a radial generator could use that third point to specify the arc-cut. You'd get a piece of pie drawn across, as specified by the triangle.

What about a fourth point? Well, then you could get some kind of sector cut... it would trim your piece of pie if you pulled in or outward.

But this is just one way of acting upon those points... you could also consider those first two points to be the rectangle bounding region of an ellipse.

Which would be particularly useful, let's say, if you want to apply more than one of these "shapers" to your "spine"

And you have a matching rectangle shaper that uses those first two spine points to draw a rectangle.

Then one spine can be used to draw an ellipse and a bounding rectangle, no repetition of your intent.

Anyway, that's one of the keys of the drawing program

Yisela

ok, I will re-read that a couple of times :)

HostileFork

I'm very skeptical of anything that might be called a DWIM ("do what I mean") technology.

Guessing what people mean is hard. Giving them ways to say what they meant is better, in my book.

Now that I've migrated the website(s), finished the stupid copylight thing, I might be able to actually get back to the editors, drawing program included

It would be fun to have some users of it. I should at least ship a little usable demo

But got to get some sleep. One more design-y procrastinatey link for those who never saw it...

Yisela

Ok, I got back to the top

HostileFork

11:04 AM

►

Yisela

and "is a kind of "equation" representing the "intent" behind your composition. The tool is designed to capture the process, and not the product" seems to sum it up (plus all the rest of the info)

would love to see the demo

I have to go soon, I'll be around later

thanks for explaining so much and well

HostileFork

@Yisela Yes, though writing a program to generate what you want to see is the most complete "active math" we currently have for turning specification into graphic/machine/whatever... so it's all about trying to give people a large swath of the power of programming, while being able to work more closely at the level they are thinking on.

Yisela

yes

HostileFork

Well, I don't know about all that. But 'nite!

Yisela

the power of code, in a shippable container

nitenite!

Yisela

11:23 AM

@HostileFork Holy s! I just rewatched the rebol video

and heard the last part xD

until now I had thought it was a "oh here's a nice video", not a "oh this is what I've created" one

Bakabaka

12:06 PM

oh my. I've got one of those clients again who think they can add a picture banner on top of my flyer design. And print it, while the picture they add is 120 dpi, tops

time to ready the smiles and patience :)

Random O'Reilly

lol

you seen that video with the seven red parallel lines?

errr... no?

it is hilarious

you call that hilarious? I call it cringe-worthy, but thats probably because I've had to deal with people like these for too long.

;)

Ryan

12:46 PM

Hi all

Bakabaka

g'day @Ryan

what's up?

Ryan

just going through some photos i took last night to see if any are useful

and you?

Bakabaka

finishing up a poster / flyer combo

placing sponsor logos, you know the dril...

Ryan

oh ya did that for years and years

Bakabaka

1:02 PM

irony: the only logo I got in *.eps I can't open, coz it's Ai CC and I have CS6

Ryan

want me to resave it for you? I've got cc

Bakabaka

Thanks, but that's ok. I can place it in InDesign no problem and I don't need to change anything

fortunately

thanks for offering :)

Ryan

think I need to go back to the site when its a little lighter out, some of these are good and interesting but can only see headlights --- no car at all

Bakabaka

ah, you're doing long-exposure again?

Ryan

I do marketing for a company that makes an access control system. I'm trying to get some night footage that I can use in ads and promotional materials because we don't have any

Bakabaka

1:11 PM

Ah, I see. Acces Control System? As, in car keys? ;)

night shooting is... hard.

Ryan

we make a vehicle identification system. main client is gated communities but we're on all sorts of properties

thats probably one of the more interesting shots I got, but can't see the car at all

Bakabaka

It is a nice shot, but you're right

maybe if you'd have someone drive a little slower?

Ryan

as far as usefulness goes this is probably the best, its actually two shots cause of how slow this neighborhoods gate is

one the car passing the reader, and one with the car stopped waiting for the gate to open (thing is really, really slow, they should've put the reader much further back)

Bakabaka

bit of a pity that the bottom one has the car driving RtL

Ryan

RtL?

Bakabaka

1:19 PM

Right to Left

I tend to prefer Left to Right for promotional images, 'coz it has a subconscious 'progress' association in the viewer

Yisela

@Ryan nice pic

Bakabaka

but it is nice and illustrative

I really like the colours

atmosphere

Yisela

the colors are perfect in both

Ryan

ill end up having to go back about an hour earlier then i did last night so I can try to get the cars with less exaggerated blurs

the video footage i took is also way too grainy, its hard for me to tell until I get it on a computer. ISO will need to be adjusted

Yisela

Random just finished an awesome piece of work, check it out: visualsquirrel.wordpress.com

Bakabaka

1:25 PM

picks up jaw from floor

that's amazing, @RandomO'Reilly!

Yisela

incredible

Gramps

2:05 PM

morning

Bakabaka

morning, @Gramps

Gramps

glad its finally Friday!

Bakabaka

is it Friday already? These weeks, they fly a-by

Gramps

and payday is always good.

so Bakabaka dont think ive ever asked but where you from and what you do?

Bakabaka

ah, of course. I'm from the Netherlands and I design print and WordPress themes. I'm self-employed, so I'll have payday whenever I want to have one :)

how about you?

shakes hands

Gramps

2:14 PM

Im from the US and work as a we developer but love web designing at night and learning wordpress themeing right now

Bakabaka

...'at night'?

ah, I get it

sry

WP themeing rocks, imho. What're you making at the moment?

Gramps

ya I have a full time in the day and usually at night after I put my kid to bed I work on designing in Illustrator between 10pm - 3am

I do it in batches to stay frequent.. I will do 5 designs (mockups), then 5 HTML and CSS code outs, then work on theming.. battling right now in learning how to do user input on wordress

Bakabaka

don't you people ever sleep?

Ah, I get it, GDSE is secretly also an insomniac board :)

Gramps

I have hopes and dreams... plus promised ;)

Bakabaka

what kind of user input? Mebbe I can help

Gramps

2:21 PM

well Im looking into getting custom user inputs from a form, such as an image, that will also run some JS in the background and then take that image and the custom script and enter it into a post scheduled in author which would be a draft

that will result in the post having title, image, thumbnail and 5 custom-post-meta boxes

Bakabaka

wowh

that sounds sophisticated

Gramps

ya its been a challenge.. that why I havent been here a lot recently because Ive been reading on wordpress stack

Bakabaka

I don't really follow. I upload a picture and the site makes a draft post for me with that pic?

Gramps

ya thats the easy part.. learning how to make a custom function that will take data pulled from the photo and enter in the database and show in the custom-post-meta

Bakabaka

ah, now I get it

that's... over my head :)

Gramps

2:26 PM

ya.. Ive been talking to a couple of guys locally around here and hopefully going to finalize something at wordcamp next month

Bakabaka

gotta love SE for that :D

how's the election campaign going?

Gramps

oh yes... good luck forgot to say that since I saw you put in

Bakabaka

you, as well, and thanks!

Ryan

morning matt

Gramps

ya I dont really have any issues but I do think we need more than three since I have seen in the past some are at different time zones and sometimes moderation wont happen when it should

Ryan

2:30 PM

you watch any NBA? Memphis is looking like they might get the upset

Gramps

@Ryan morning! happy friday

Bakabaka

yeah, I noticed that I'm the only European running

Ryan

happy Friday indeed!

Bakabaka

I can bridge the gap between Yisela and you guys :P

Gramps

Yisela is over there..

Bakabaka

2:31 PM

uh? She's from New Zealand, iirc

Gramps

I guess alan isnt going up for this one

oh... sorry, lol

Ryan

typical American geography whiz

:D

Bakabaka

Alan? I dunno haven't read much from him lately

@Ryan yeah you guys have a reputation to fight there :P

Gramps

im debating on asking a question in regards to a contract between the designer and the client

Bakabaka

what's the question?

Gramps

2:34 PM

Is it un-ethical or bad idea to request in the contract that if there are any legal issues that the client and the designer agree to go to arbitration

Bakabaka

whistles

Gramps

??

Bakabaka

as in 'that's a toughie'

Gramps

thought it might make a decent NON adobe question ;)

Bakabaka

'any' legal issues is quite broad, I s'pose you mean 'between the two of them'?

Gramps

2:38 PM

well yes.. instead of happy sue lawyers and high legal fees I kinda like the idea of arbitration but Im still looking into it

Ryan

I don't think it works that way @Gramps

Gramps

it may not but Im looking into it..

Ryan

for one thing if you're contract says, "For all legal issues all parties agree to go to arbitration" then if client doesn't go to arbitration then what... its a legal matter so again try to get them to go to arbitration?

your*

Gramps

lol yep

oh snap... 2.95 godaddy domains!! must resist must resist

Ryan

ewww I'd never use GoDaddy

Gramps

2:44 PM

I have all my domains from godaddy but my hosting is at hostgator right now

Ryan

I use A Small Orange, they're terrific

Gramps

I think Ive heard of them.

I used to use inmotion but their sql server went down, if I recall, like 15 times in 8 weeks

Ryan

A Small Orange is really great customer service, all American.

Love that I can message them and get a response nearly immediately instead of bouncing around a bunch of script readers to get anything resolved

Plus GoDaddy supported SOPA

Gramps

ya Ive always been at an east coast hosting company

ya.. I understand SOPA from both sides so its hard..

Random O'Reilly

@Bakabaka thanks :) it was a pretty big, fiddly and frustrating thing. But, thanks to the International commission on Stratigraphy, it has a lot of pretty colours :)

Gramps

2:48 PM

so @Bakabaka got any wordpress demos?

Bakabaka

@RandomO'Reilly welcome

Ryan

@Gramps A Small Orange is based out of Durham, NC in the research triangle

Bakabaka

@Gramps as in, stuff I made?

Gramps

@Bakabaka ya! love to see

Bakabaka

I usually do custom themes. And most is in Dutch, but: heartlife.nl, dysthymie.nl and 2directit.nl

Gramps

2:50 PM

nice.. I like the colors in 2direct

Bakabaka

that last one reminds me of something... I'm busy building and desiging a new site for myself, but I run into a problem with the language selection

is there a good icon language selection?

@Gramps thanks! It was my attempt at a muted blue / yellow / brown palette

Gramps

dont know of one

Bakabaka

I really don't want to use flags, and all other solutions (text, globe, speech bubble) are subpar imho. Might turn this into a question, either here or at UX

Gramps

ive noticed we've gotten a lot of UX questions lately.. Do we have any guidelines yet on how to decide which is in scope and not?

2

Bakabaka

dunno. Lots of those 'icon' questions fit on both sites, I guess

Ryan

2:56 PM

im so happy i joined instagram, except how big of a distraction it is from life lol

any of you on here?

Gramps

@Scott speaking of movies.. last night watched 47 ronin and I dont think keanu reeves said more than 20 words.. but the graphics were good

@Ryan never used it.. doesnt facebook own it?

Bakabaka

@Ryan If it's another distraction from life... I got plenty of those already.

Ryan

@Gramps ya FB owns it. But its really terrific in my opinion. Basically no ads or stupid "Which X are you, take our quiz to find out" crap

Gramps

dont they have filters you can add to images

Ryan

yep

Gramps

3:00 PM

wonder how they made it

Bakabaka

@Gramps mind if I turn this into a meta question? Might be worth the discussion.

Gramps

I dont mind throwing it up there..

Bakabaka

that's fine with me as well

Gramps

0

Q: We've been getting more UX questions... what are our procedures on handling?

Lately I've noticed we have been getting more UX questions but I didn't know what we should consider as GD or UX. I do know we committed with UX to migrate all icon questions over but lately I've seen a few app questions come through. So do we have any guidelines yet on how to decide which is i...

discussion

Stack Exchange

1

Q: We've been getting more UX questions... what are our procedures on handling?

Lately I've noticed we have been getting more UX questions but I didn't know what we should consider as GD or UX. I do know we committed with UX to migrate all icon questions over but lately I've seen a few app questions come through. So do we have any guidelines yet on how to decide which is i...

discussion

Bakabaka

3:09 PM

+1'd

Gramps

blasted.. forgot stack did that in chat

Bakabaka

@Ryan I keep on seeing a hooded guy in your avatar. the white bar his eyes. Maybe I saw too much bad SF.

Ryan

no hood, sorry to disappoint

Bakabaka

I know, I saw

it's just at smaller resolutions

and loads of pareidolia

Ryan

ah alright

parei...what?

Bakabaka

3:21 PM

Pareidolia

Pareidolia ( ) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant, a form of apophenia. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records when played in reverse. The word comes from the Greek words ' (παρά, "beside, alongside, instead") in this context meaning something faulty, wrong, instead of; and the noun (εἴδωλον "image, form, shape") the diminutive of eidos. Pareidolia is a type of apophenia, seeing patterns i...

Ryan

uh huh