© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.
Yup, fall is already on us! This graphic was inspired by Rose Madder, one of my favourite books by Stephen King, where at some point in the story, the main character (a battered wife who ran away from her psycho husband who also happens to be a renegade cop) encounters a vixen in the woods which somehow turns out to be a projection of her own inner rage — don't ask me to explain it would be too complicated and definitely a plot spoiler. Read the book instead!
© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.
See the sound
It crashes in
All around
It gets in
Now take your hands
And raise them up
Into to the air
That's all around ya
Now bring them down
Like a clock at two
Shake your head
You know what to do
They want to put
Guns in the sky
Someone out there
Ain't gonna like it
But it could be good
Make us love each other
Have to realize
I own the future
Guns in the sky
Guns in the sky
Guns in the sky
Guns in the sky
Guns in the sky
Child grows up to see
Guns in the sky
Used to be on TV
Want to change
Forgot the joke
It's great to see you
I'm running late, da da da
Love your hair, da da da
Lend me a ten, da da da
I love your big house, da da da
Could you spare a dime
Well I'm sick of it, it's a load of shit
We could stop the world and let of all the fools
And let them go live with their guns in the sky
Guns in the sky
Guns in the sky
Guns in the sky
Guns in the sky
Guns in the sky
Original text by MICHAEL HUTCHENCE
© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.
You can trip smug smiling in your worn-out shoes,
Cast away the rhythm of eternity's fugue,
Grapple with the tongue of hope till it abandons you
But you can't deny a gift.
Falter at the well, making heroes out of ghosts,
Stuffing yourself on thankless boasts,
But I have faith in your withering soul
'Cause you can't deny a gift.
Oh, no, you can't deny a gift.
A gift of one and a gift to all,
The wings to soar and not to fall.
A gift of light in the abyss
Higher ground above the pit.
The choice to live that is a gift.
That is a gift, that is a gift, that is a gift.
Though this gift lacks frivolous flair,
It doesn't sparkle in the sun and requires little care,
It's one of volume enough to spare,
Throw down defense and we will share.
Throw down defense and we will share.
A gift of one and a gift to all,
The wings to soar and not to fall.
A gift of light in the abyss
Higher ground above the pit.
The choice to live that is a gift.
That is a gift, that is a gift, that is a gift.
A gift of one and a gift to all,
The wings to soar and not to fall.
A gift of light in the abyss
Higher ground above the pit.
The choice to live that is a gift.
That is a gift, that is a gift, that is a gift.
Original text by MARIA MCKEE
No, it's not Bob Morane as famous French band Indochine sings. For me, the archetypal adventurer is Indiana Jones. That said, I don't like — I do hate — the vermin he has to deal with in all his movies. Tigers, lions, tarantulas, dragons I wouldn't mind, but all those creepy crawlies and snakes... yuk! No way!
© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.
There are many more or less satisfying techniques to animate pictures with waves, snow or rain, but in most cases it requires much skill and experience according to the tools used and the result is not always up to our expectations. Newbies rejoice: this tutorial should be easy for you to use provided you're both curious and willing to experiment. The free not-CPU intensive program I used runs only on Windows (XP/Vista/7/8?), but it also works fine on Wine for Linux users. Thanks for letting me know. To install, unzip the archive then double-click on the extracted file (you may need to be in Administrator Mode).
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1. Launch Sqirlz Water Reflections and open a copy of the image you wish to manipulate (green folder icon on the top toolbar or File - Open menu). In order to reduce the size of the animation, I advise you start with resized pictures according to the what you intend to do with the output.
2. Magnify if necessary (CTRL++) and click on the Outline tool (red circle on the left toolbar) to start outlining the area you wish to animate. For the above picture, I selected the lake and some parts of the jetty for the output was ugly otherwise. Selecting them will simply make them disappear and the result is far more natural. To close the outline shaped when you're over, just right-click on the last point (this tool is quite similar to the Freehand tool featured in most image editing software).
3. I chose Basic Ripples so I had to set the parameters right to get what I want (Wave button on the top toolbar or Reflect Options - Customize Basic Ripples menu):
Motion Type = A
Wave Strength = 50
Wave Separation = 14
Underwater Scene Rippling = 50
Perspective = 81
Blur = 0
Texture (Speckle) = 0
Transparency = 8
Wave Contrast = 50
To preview the output without closing the dialog box, you may click on the yellow arrow (Run Basic Ripples Only) then click again to stop. You may also change the water colour, add extra waves, add flow or/and smooth the effect using the additional buttons, but some may slow down processing and produce a large file. However, you need to experiment to find out how this software works so be bold.
4. Now let's save the animation as an animated GIF (you may also chose to save it as an AVI or Flash file or to save frame individually to use with another image editing program. Click on the GIF icon on the top toolbar (or Animate - Make GIF File menu). A dialog box will open requesting to select your desired type of animation. I chose Basic Ripples Only. Click OK and enter the name and output filepath. Then you'll need to specify your desired framerate (Enter Frame Rate). This is the number of frames per second of your animation. The size of the output file will be proportional to that number. I chose 15, which is a good compromise between smooth motion and reasonable filesize.
NOTE: the default speed value (how long each frame will stay onscreen) is usually the best one but you may change it before making the GIF using the Animate - Period menu and increase or lower this value as you wish (with practice it'll be easier to guess the proper value to enter).
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For the above snow effect, it was much easier. No need to outline anything. Just customise the Rain/Snow effect (rain button on the top toolbar) and then select Snow in the setting dialog. However you still have the possibility to outline a zone (e.g. select the inside of a window so that it is only snowing outside) and select Within Outline Only. Or you may wish to preserve the outlined zone (Avoid Outline). To export, check Rain/Snow only.
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The above rain and ripples effect is a bit more difficult to obtain as it combines two effects and therefore a great deal of customisation. I started by outlining the rectangular water piece at the bottom of the picture and adjusted the settings for the rain effect as previously explained but didn't chose Snow nor the selection options. Then I used the Ring Ripples tool. To preview the combination of effects, I clicked on the yellow arrow on the top toolbar. Upon saving, I ticked Ring Ripples AND Rain/Snow.
Voilà. I hope you have fun and don't hesitate to experiment out of the box by animating not just landscapes but unusual items or letters. Since your imagination is the only limit, you won't run dry.
© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.
It's almost Halloween. On this occasion, I intended to repost an article by Alanna Ketler about what black cats actually symbolise and ...
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