Every weekend Create Digital Motion will (try to) feature some small doses of inspirational material - things we find compelling enough to get our creative juices flowing - and hopefully yours as well.

First up: videos.antville.org - Users submit new and old music video links. Updated many times during the day, videos.antville.org contains a metric <expletive ton> of videos. Browse it, you are sure to find something cool, fun, different, weird, and never before heard of. At least you won’t be bored.

Ffffound - Image bookmarking with a brain - Ffffound’s image engine not only shows you images, but recommends them to you based on other users’ tastes and bookmarks. Ffffound is in beta, and registration is closed, but people are posting some pretty quality stuff. I’ve fffffound (ahem) quite a few inspirational images, and check it at least once a day. Good stuff.

Video would be nowhere without music - so if you haven’t already, be sure to check out NIN’s fan remix site. For those who aren’t NIN fans, its not all moody and dark, there are some inspirational soundtracks that cant help but invoke some imagery.

Please feel free to share any inspirational material - we’d love to feature it here at CDMotion. Thanks!

Some sketches from the first day of Ben Fry’s Processing class here at Anderson Ranch. What was striking to me is that you really can cover the essence of setup and coding syntax in a day, even for people not familiar with programming/Java. You’re instantly translating code into visuals, so there’s immediate feedback — not a big slog through how the environment works before something actually happens.

Since I have spent some time with Processing, I took the opportunity to try to push some of the examples in a different direction. Speed is not necessarily my forte (with anything, really), but it was fun to try to throw together a sketch as quickly as possible. I didn’t even worry about checking for errors; I actually decided that if the compiler was regularly throwing errors because I accidentally left out a parenthesis, that meant I was moving fast enough. Even though we’re starting at the beginning, though, I’m rapidly filling up holes in my knowledge about Processing and picking up endless tips — it’s really extraordinary to get the chance to work directly with Ben Fry himself! And not only is it an opportunity to get close to the source, but, as I expected, he’s a fantastic teacher, as well.

I’m also trying a new way of working, which is to regularly keep a visual log of what I’m doing. Plaqs’s Skitch, a hot new Mac app currently in beta, takes care of that nicely. It allows me to quickly take screen grabs and post them either to my Skitch page or (as here) Flickr, so I have a record of various iterations — some successful, some less so. More on that and how TextMate makes life easier with Processing coding on Mac soon.

Stay tuned for more…

Lately, I’ve been looking for ways to embrace creative and technological restrictions, to dial back all the high-tech choices possible in making motion. When a DV cam died, it seemed the perfect opportunity to examine a still camera as a means of generating footage. I picked up my Sony DSC-W1, a basic but decent 5 megapixel point-and-shoot. The DSC-W1 has a multi-burst mode that takes a stream of pictures at high speed. I loved this retro, flip-book approach. But I hadn’t used it in so long that I forgot why I had abandoned multi-burst in the first place.

In camera, multi-burst shoots a nice, 16-frame movie. But load the image off your camera, and you get all 16 pictures pasted together into a single, 1280 x 960-pixel image. Looks interesting, but no motion. A quick search revealed other digicam users (and apparently Sony owners aren’t alone) had the same problem. Solutions: 1) manually select each image (uh, no), 2) use a GIMP script programmed in Perl (two were readily-available, but not quite what I needed, and mucking with GIMP and someone else’s Perl is not my idea of a good time), or 3) write a script for Photoshop CS. The point here was to engage the creative process, not create meaningless work for myself.

Sometimes the best solution to a problem isn’t a black box: it’s attacking a problem head-on in the simplest, most elegant way possible. And that’s why Processing is such a joy. (See previous CDMotion coverage.) The solution is so simple, in fact, that it could be a good exercise for people learning image manipulation in the tool, even if they’ve never coded before.

It’s a huge disappointment: the best eye candy on earth causes blindness. And it’s a little hard to see, even as our closest star. Enter NASA, with the solution: the first-ever stereo three-dimensional images of the sun.

STEREO: First 3-D Images of the Sun

NASA’s Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) satellites have provided the first three-dimensional images of the sun. For the first time, scientists will be able to see structures in the sun’s atmosphere in three dimensions. The new view will greatly aid scientists’ ability to understand solar physics and there by improve space weather forecasting.

STEREO, baby!

You’ll need red-and-cyan glasses, which you can buy or make. (See NASA’s great guide to how this works and where to buy / how to make.) The good news: in addition to still images, there’s video, too. I dare you to make an all 3D set. And, clearly, if you do, you’ll need some NASA sun imagery in there. I mean, come on.

Has anyone tried the red-and-cyan approach with tools like Jitter and Processing? I’m working now with a system that doesn’t require the dual image, instead using 3D color mapping, which should be easier to apply to shaders. More soon. For now, enjoy the great hyrogen-helium fusion reactor that is the engine that gives us life.

Let’s cut through the marketing. Adobe has a new, giant box of software. It’s a giant box of software you’re probably going to get if you do visual work. It’s finally a box of software that runs on Intel Macs at speeds that don’t make you feel like your Mac Pro is a blue&white G3. And it does a bunch of stuff that you’ll have to, well, learn.

We’ve got enough of a preview, though, to see that there’s a lot to be truly excited about. Most importantly, Photoshop finally understands time and animation, enabling all kinds of artistic effects working directly with animations and video and painting on frames. And After Effects finally eases some animation tasks, opening up some unique effects with vectors and 2D. For visualists wanting to build better materials for live and interactive production by creating more original footage, all of this opens up some interesting new possibilities. (Disclaimer: what looks great on paper means nothing until you’ve tested this. So consider this a preview until we get out review copy.)

So, getting straight to it, what’s cool for visualists in CS3? We’ll be answering that question over the coming months, but here’s the shortened version, plus the arcane and bizarre ways CDMotioners intend to warp Adobe’s tools beyond their PR firm’s wildest expectations:

Flash, All Integrated Up

1. Native Photoshop and Illustrator import. Finally, you’ll be able to work with full-fidelity, seamlessly-imported files from other tools. Some people love Flash’s own vector tools, of course, but no one won’t love the ability to link up with Photoshop and import, complete with layers. CDMo is excited about: insane, multi-layered graphics for VJing in Flash.


2. Edit audio cues easily. Part of why I’m excited about Soundbooth CS3, Adobe’s new audio app, is that it’s perfectly-suited for editing audio for Flash (and, other marketing ideas beside, I’m fairly certain that’s how the tool came about in the first place). More on Soundbooth over at Create Digital Music.

After Effects, Now Better at Animation

1. Shape Layers. Draw and animate vector shapes in After Effects, without leaving the program. CDMo angle: I could see doing a whole gig’s footage with this feature alone.
2. Puppet. Manipulates and warps 2D images for animation. CDMo angle: Your challenge is to use this without looking like all the other motion graphics artists who are about to overuse it. I’m sure it can be done; I love the impact of manipulating 2D and quasi-3D After Effects.
3. Brainstorm. Generate and preview “animation variations.” Again, AE goes to better animation.

Last week, we saw how Flash and Processing code can create custom VJ and visualization tools. Custom code means custom results, and all sorts of dynamic new possibilities for visuals. Jan Kremlacek writes from the Czech Republic to share his own projects. He’s been using Processing to create interactive visuals for clubs, based on everything from sound to motion detection to heartbeat inputs.

Jan writes: