pyjo

That's strange... can you reproduce the error? Which are the canvas size and the plugin settings that lead to the error? Thanks Pyjo.

Her mouth says: "kiss me!" (No stocks). Bye, Pyjo.

While waiting for contest results, I'd like to briefly explain some "hidden" meanings of my entry. The picture represents a genetic mutation. The main meaning of the entry is that evolution is due to transcipt errors in genetic information. However a creationist may interpret the sentence as "the evolution theory is wrong". The sentence in the picture contains an error: the word "mistake" is misspelled as "mistgke". The "g" letter is similar to a reversed "a" letter. The genetic code is made up of four "letters", the bases: adenine (abbreviated A), cytosine ©, guanine (G) and thymine (T). The error in the sentence is like a mutation in which an adenine is replace by a guanine. Bye Pyjo.

EDIT: sorry, perhaps this wasn't the right place in which to post.

Thanks. I don't think my entry was the most beautiful, but perhaps it was preferred because it was one of the most realistic, despite its simplicity. When I saw the last entries (topezia and cjmcguinness), I thought that I had little chances to win. Topezia's work is colorful and funny, as usual, and cjmcguinness's idea is quite original. So I whish to congratulate with other participants, too. A suggestion for future contests: two photos depicting the same kind of subject (two men, two women, animals, buildings, cars...) with very different styles (for example two portraits belonging to different centuries) are proposed, and the challenge is to modify the first one to match the sytle of the second one (without using parts of the second picture) Bye Pyjo.

100%PdN, no stock images. Have a nice mutation. Pyjo.

My new home. Come in, the door is open! Pyjo.

Honestly... I can't say I understand everything in your post. You perhaps refer to your PointWarp plugin. I think these two plugins are very different. PointWarp is a "strange" effect and is useful mainly for abstract pictures, mine is perhaps better for more concrete drawings and photo editing (as in my examples), since its effect is simpler and more predictable. The math used here was developed by me. It is quite simple. It is based on calculating straight lines and circumferences equations and intersections. Some problem with a division by zero is avoided by producing the "random" pixels. Will be fixed. Bye Pyjo.

May I say that I love you? These are great news! You are lucky, also, since after Madjik post I was going to ask you for all the rest. I'd be especially interested in the automatic bug fixing ferature, but if you give me unlimited sliders I'll never ask you anything else. Thanks Pyjo.

I think Codelab is the better plugin ever, since it has the power of 1000 plugins and more. Thanks to Tom, Rick, BoltBait and anyone that contributed to it. There is room for improvement, of course. I don't ask for a better text editor. I don't ask for automatic formatting or syntax coloring. I don't ask for auto-completion of variable or function names. I don't ask for direct linking to msdn for syntax reference. I don't ask for automatic bugs correction. I only ask for some more sliders in the user interface. Two or three more only. Please. I don't think it is a complex work to do. Is it possible? If it is not possible, no matter. I thank you anyway. Thanks Pyjo.

Thanks for the "excellent" rating. The beta period just started. Now I want only to collect some comment while working on refining the code. I'd like to improve performance and rendering quality by myself; I also want to add a feature that will require some work, then the code will be released. In the meantime you can use the plugin as is: even if it is not easy to use, you can do some good things with it. You can also try to guess how it works . Bye Pyjo.

Thanks for the comments. Here the replies: @Fisherman's friend & D.C. (Conviction. I'm using Codelab since it is free and easy to use: in other words the best for non-professional developers. It has some limitation in the interface, but it is so useful that nobody can blame it for having these limitations. "Another thing than codelab" could be perhaps visual studio. I don't have Visual studio, I don't want to install it on my PC and don't want to learn how to use it. At least not at the moment. When I'll release the source code maybe some kind PdN developer will want to add a good user interface to it. (btw, until PdN3.20 was released, effects like Bulge or twist didn't give the ability of choosing where to apply distorsion: you had to move objects as with Power Stretch.) @Ego Eram Reputo. Sorry for this hideous bug. The fix will come soon. EDIT: fixed. A little change in numeric values of the sliders, also. @Topezia: thanks for the examples. @autodafe: Thanks to you, too. Nice work. Now try to stretch the object in foreground without affecting the background, as in my sparrow picture. EDIT: here my example. Bye Pyjo.

This time it is difficult to foresee contest result, since there is a lot of good entries. Some of them are very funny. Mine is not. It is very simple, since this week I was mainly working on a new plugin (just published, click to learn more). I used a very restricted toolset. My dinosaur is made at 99% of line/curve and paint bucket. No gradients. Bye Pyjo.

Thanks to the new Codelab plugin, the Beta version of PowerStretch 2.0 is available. Now BoltBait will get his kids smiling in few seconds. The previous version of PowerStretch is still available (see below). Download >> Power Stretch 1.0 -Improved performance (good even with large photos) -Improved rendering quality -Random pixels bug fixed (perhaps not completely, but they are now very unlikely to appear) Have fun. Pyjo. Let's see some example of this distort plugin. With PowerStretch you can make an egg without being a hen (Shape3D+PowerStretch) And you can shape Eve's body without being God: (Gradients+PowerStretch). These two were 100%PdN examples. You can also use PowerStretch for photo editing. For example you can change a cat or a sparrow into something other: (PowerStretch only). (Magic Wand, Basic Antialias, PowerStretch). PowerStretch is also very funny, since it makes Mona Lisa smile even more than usual: (PowerStretch only) And now the bad news. PowerStretch isn't an easy-to-use effect. Here you can see how to use its controls: Due to limitations of Codelab user interface, you cannot choose where to apply distorsion: the stretched area is always set in the center of the picture. You therefore often have to move the objects to be stretched. The pictures I posted contain some suggestions for using this plugin. Please post comments and possibily some picture obtained with the plugin with other use suggestions. Bye Pyjo.

What follows here is only my standpoint, not a rule. 1) You cannot load a photo or a pre-existent picture in a layer of your canvas. You can look at a 2d picture of a dinosaur, but it would be better if you look at a real 3d dinosaur, since in this way you can demonstrate you ability in transposing a 3d model into a 2d picture. Unfortunately there is a dinosaurs shortage in our epoch; however when I drew my picture for the previous contest I didn't copy form any kind of model. In fact I haven't seen a car like that in the last 2 or 3 months. 2) You can use grids or perspective lines (I used perspective lines in my car picture), but you cannot use a plugin to draw them. However great artists of the past didn't copy their masterworks from another artist's picture or from a photo by using a grid. 3) Blur is not allowed since no effect is allowed. I think that some effect could be allowed, but it would be too difficult to decide which ones, so it is better to say no effects at all. You can use gradients, even in trasparency mode, to produce a blur-like effect. Layers blending modes are also allowed (everything that is not prohibited is implicitly allowed) Bye Pyjo.

This is the picture: This can be useful to stress that you cannot use photo or plugins, even if the layer in which they were used is removed in the final picture. Bye Pyjo.

I think that "The Jurassic Age - Dinosaurs and stuff" is specific enough. Think at something like Jurassic Park or Peter Jackson's King Kong. @k.digennaro, about contest rules: I have yet said almost every my ideas on this topic. The 4 main points are: 100%PdN (no preexisting materials), no plugins, no effects, no Curves. It is important to stress that those rules apply to every step of the drawing process, even to layers that are not included in the final picture. For example you cannot use the gridmaker plugin in the upper layer and remove that layer when you are finished, or put a photo in the background and draw over it. You may want to include the picture of the car that shows a not allowed process I posted here in the final version of your rules, or create other examples of what can or cannot be done. Bye Pyjo

Thanks for votes and congratulations. I supported this contest because I think it can aid increasing the skills of the PdN users community. I hope that my picture and the intermediate steps of the "work in progress" I published in the contest thread will be useful to other PdN users for improving their ability. The car that won the contest in now exposed in the Pictorium. Now I have to choose the topic for the next contest. Well, what about the Jurassic age? If the deadline will be in one week, it is likely that I'll not participate because I'm working on a new plugin and I have little time for drawing. I have however some other ideas for new contests. 1) An effects-only contest in which you can use only the features that are not allowed in the free-handing contest (no toolbox, of course, but also no CodeLab!). 2) A five-minutes contest in which you have only five minutes to post your picture after the topic is published. (10 minutes is perhaps more realistic.) 3) A blind contest in which you have to draw with the screen turned off 4) A free-footing contest in which you move the mouse with your foots. Other ideas? Bye and thanks again. Pyjo.

I'm proud to publish a picture of the car that won the first free-handing PdN grand prix, just after the race. I designed it to be fast and reliable; some of the people who voted in the contest judged it beautiful, too. Thanks, Pyjo.

A new frame for and old photo. (Both 100%PdN) Bye Pyjo.

@Ash: The vertical and horizontal lines are affected by Basic Antialias, which introduces some trasparency, even if they are part of squares and rectangles. There is no need of applying this effect to those types of shape, of course. This picture helps explain how horizontal lines are affected: @autodafe: mica ti sarai registrato solo per far sapere a tutti che mi conosci? Ora pubblica qualche tua opera! (Sorry for not having written this in english... What he says is true, however. It is due to autodafe if I spent so much time developing a plugin for PdN). @david.atwell: Every choice has its drawbacks. By adding the version number to the dll you can always know which version you are using, but you have to manually delete old versions every time a new version is released. Starting with version 1.2 however the name of the dll will be simply "BasicAntialias.dll". Thanks for the comment. Pyjo.

The main reason for which I choosed to participate in this contest was to have the chance of better explain what I meant with the rules I proposed. I stated that participants shouldn't use any kind of pre-existent model. This means that you can use a model, as long as the model is made in PdN by yourself (without using plugins or effects, of course). This picture explains the technique I used for the contest. I first drew some perspective lines (black). Then I drew a sketch of the car shape with the paintbrush based on the perspective lines (green). When I was satisfied with it I added the final shape over the sketch by using the line/curve tool and filled it with the paint bucket (red). The shadows were done with scaled and rotated gradients (move selected pixel tool). The background is a hand-made effect similar to what you can do with noise+motion blur. It was obtained with gradients, paintbrush, scale of a selection, and rotate/zoom. Bye Pyjo

The "World Champion" is here. No plugins, no effects, no copy from a model. Line/Curve, ellipse, Paint Bucket, Scale Pixel, Rotate/Zoom, a lot of gradients, and many layers. Bye Pyjo.

Sorry, it was to be intended as almost vertical and almost horizontal. Bye Pyjo.

Thanks for your comments and input for future development. I was aware that my plugin isn't the ultimate solution against aliasing. This is why it is called "Basic Antialias" and not "Ultimate Antialias". However, I think it isn't true that lines at 45° are not antialiased at all: try to set the zoom at 800% or something and you will see that there is some (little) improvement. By the way: I just fixed another minor bug that affected angles of about 30°. Stay connected to download the new dll when I'll publish it. In future releases I'll try also to extend the antialiasing method used for vertical and horizontal lines to 45° lines also. Bye, Pyjo.