Thursday, July 1, 2004

Dashboard in Mac OS X 10.4..

When I first heard of Dashboard in upcoming Tiger Mac OS X, my initial thought was meh, not another javascript gadgetry tools with steep learning curve.. but the more I learned about it, the less empty drool buckets I have left! It's amazing that any web designers / developers can easily develop a widget using just XHTML / CSS for interface. No Javascript or XML bullshits.

Look at the source code of Stickies widget for an example of how it's done. Here's a compressed version of the whole things including plists. (Thanks to Erik Veland for posting them)

I think comparing Dashboard to Konfabulator is a little ridiculous.. Instead of repeating what everyone is saying, I'll point you to this extremely well-written article by John Gruber

If you're a developer looking to build some decent, full-featured widgets such as Dictionary, etc., send me an email! I'm so itching to contribute some graphics.

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Movies of Apple Motion in motion

Up now at Apple Motion - Quick Tour

Jaw-dropping simplicity! The attention to details is truly amazing.

Third-Party PS Plug-Ins..

While I don't use any third-party Photoshop Plug-Ins such as Eye Candy, Xerofex, etc, they do have a bad name for "cheating" the graphics. To me, this is not exactly true because Plug-Ins are created to assist you completing the graphics, not becoming the center of attention like many thought. There's no such thing like one click = finished piece.

If you want to use third-party Plug-Ins, go ahead! But.. make sure that applied plug-ins only steal less than 10% of attention in finished piece. The more attention it steals, the more amateur it looks. If you don't want it to look too generic, customize the applied graphic separately by smudging, lowering contrast/saturation, etc until to a point where they doesn't look too "plugins-ish".

Monday, May 3, 2004

Sneak Preview of Adiumy Smiley Set

Since some fathers (Adium users) of Adiumy Duck Icon demanded to see their long lost son, I thought I should send in a pic of their sons to hold them for a while. Once the Extreme Make-Up™ is done, they will be sent to home in airplane (remember, they don't have wings).

Something like this may seem like simple to make but it ain't. You only have so few pixels to work on and adding one pixel can really affect the overall look. What's even more challenging are deforming the beak and making facial expression to look as clear as possible even from a distant.

Any suggestion/feedback will be appreciated. I'm debating about doing smileys for 4 other colors (yellow, purple, blue and red) but I'm not sure if it will be worth my time.

Monday, April 5, 2004

Trophy Graphics for MacThemes.net

I ordered several trophies and plaques yesterday and got them in today via UPS (United Pixel Shipping). The total weight of the package is around 100MB.

The models were made in Cinema 4D then brought to Photoshop for some touching up (Cinema 4D isn't that great at rendering vibrant colors, IMO). All of the texts were done in Photoshop because I want to put some emphasis on them. They'll look crappy if used with real shadowing.

Thursday, April 1, 2004

Shuttle in NYC

Four years ago when I was an amateur at Photoshop, I've wanted to make something cool for April Fool Day and came up with Shuttle launching in New York City. It's purely experimental and have no hidden meaning.

I used Lens Flare and Burn Tool to achieve the look.

Monday, December 29, 2003

Strateges Map Graphic

A complex image I made for Strateges board map.

Photoshop file is 150 MB and contain over 300 layers.

I plan to do a tutorial on how I did the realistic water effect sometime in a few months.