2.5. Graphic design software.

Section quotes:

• "A man paints with his brains and not with his hands."
      -- found on 'fortune-mod'
• "consider the great artists and artisans of medieval times, who didn't even sign their names to their work. To them, the name of the artist was not important. What mattered was that the work was done--and the purpose it would serve."
      -- Richard M. Stallman.
• "I hold open source people to higher standards. They are supposed to be the people who do programming because it's an art-form, not because it's their job."
      -- Linus Torvalds, talking about different type of arts.

Section contents:

• 2.5.1. Viewing and converting images.
• 2.5.2. Types of graphics related programs.
• 2.5.3. Sodipodi program.
• 2.5.4. GIMP program.
• 2.5.5. Animations with GIMP.
• 2.5.6. Flash related.
• 2.5.7. Kpovmodeler.
• 2.5.8. Blender 3D.
• 2.5.9. Font designing.
• 2.5.10. Other programs.

2.5.1. Viewing and converting images.

The most powerful (yet fast) image viewing program is ImageMagick, it could view and convert between what ever image types (that you know and that you don't), it could combine images to create (save) animation, it could handle some video formats, it could take screenshots, it could mannpulate images in many ways, resizing and filtering, most of all it's used from the command line, for example to take a screenshot use 'import'. Another viewers are Eye of GNOME 'eog','electric eyes' they do the same but not as ImageMagick powerful, another one is 'xv' is not as free as GNU (if you are a company you have to pay), in all those programs right click and select 'save as' and give it the type you want, if your file manager is not enough and you want more easy nice-looking program then you are looking for 'gqview', it's a very fast program that view images in lists in many ways with nice GUI, it looks like ACDsee, they have the same hot keys. We have also KDE programs like 'kuickview' and 'kview'.

If you are designing a web page or collect your family picture, then you are looking for the best format to save your images, the following table contain common types and their best usage:

Image format	Usage	Features
BMP	MS Windows default	no (good) compression, no transparency
TGA	game designing	no (good) compression, transparency is allowed (alpha channel)
GIF	first used in 'compuserve' network, text and small icons	loseless compressions (text will not be blured), allow transparent background, allow animation, only 256 colors, with patent license.
PNG	every thing, best for text and computer generated images.	loseless compressions, allow transparency (alpha channel), true colors! replaces GIF
JPEG	Natural pictures	lossy compressions, true colors images, no transparency.
TIFF	Fax and scanned images	loseless row format with true colors, no transparency.

usually web browsers you only could use PNG,GIF and JPEG, you should not use BMP in web pages. The best two types are PNG and JPEG, PNG is used for sharp images like scanned or computer generated text pages, JPEG is best used in real world pictures, it uses a compression method lost small details (that you can notice) and some feathers (text get blured), when you save or convert images, you can control how much details to preserve (the higher quality, the larger the file size), on the other hand PNG images preseve every and each pixel, and support true colors, transparency aplha channel (partially transparent colors) all that in a very small file.

Tip

This mean you have to change all GIF files to PNG files, but it does not mean to convert JPEG to PNG, JPEG files (with quality less than 100%) have dotted feathers (blur) and when you convert them to PNG format will preserve this noise with additional size, you should convert to PNG from loseless compression or row (uncompressed) formats.

2.5.2. Types of graphics related programs.

2D graphics prgorams are of two types, vector graphics and bitmap graphics, vector graphics programs (like Corel Draw and Adobe Illustrator) it save and other wise manipulate drawings in a descriptive manner (a circle here and a rectangle there), so that you could change each element (rotate, resize,... etc), you also could scale it to what ever large size with out losing quality, it is best used to create logos and for cartoon drawings but not pictures, how could a picture be repesented as circles and rectangles, bitmap graphics the picture is divided into small squares (very small that it appeared to be points) and save the color of each, just zoom in any picture and you will see those annoying squares, if you draw any thing (a point) it will overwrite what behind it, it is suitable for photographs and high qulity drawings.

On of the famous vector graphics programs is Sodipodi, it's so small but effective, it could save/open SVG file (a standard format based on XML) and export bitmaps in PNG form, there are some programs mentioned at '2.3. Office software.' section like the heavy weight 'OpenOffice draw', and 'kontour' and 'karbon' for KDE desktop, there is another advanced KDE program called KIllustrator, light weight programs like Gill, Sketch and Inkscape the last is very similar to Sodipodi. There is a (non-free) version of Corel Draw for Linux.

Bitmap graphics programs are silly grid and pencile icon editors like 'kiconedit', a bit more advanced drawing programs like 'kpaint', and real advanced prgorams like 'krita', but non of theme dreamed to have a chance to compete with GIPM which could create photographic quality drawings and manipulate scanned images, there is a Linux version of Corel PhotoPaint.

2.5.3. Sodipodi program.

This little program could be downloaded from 'www.sodipodi.com' as a source tarball or ready package, if not included with your distribution. It has a very simple small interface, click on the white page to create a new file, the main tools window is composed of many sections that you hide/unhide each with mouse clicks on arrow above it, each option is attached to right click (on the white page) menu, you can show other dialog boxes with 'dialogs' submenu from that menu, or click icons from 'object' section of the main tools box.

Let's start drawing, click on the rectangle icon from 'draw' section on the tools box, move the mouse to the white page and drag it, to draw another thing click and hold on the rectangle icon on the tools box, drag the mouse you will get other shapes like ellipses,starts,...etc, this will change the tool, now click on the new tool, and use it, you could do that with 'draw mode' in the right click menu, most other tools the same way.

Draw some shapes then choose the selecting tool from draw section at tools box, it's icon is like the mouse cursor, click on any shape to select it, or drag to draw a rectangle to select shapes completely inside (shapes partially inside the selection area is not selected), you could select shapes one by one, by holding SHIFT when you click on each shape, you could scale selected shape(s) by draging it's corners, you could change it's color (eg. click on the painging bucket icon, the select color gradient, then new, then edit), it's line thickness for dialogs, or you could change it's position just drag it from any non transparent point, you could rotate it just click to tuggle from scale more to rotate mode, then drag the four corners to rotate, you could make shapes act as one shape using 'group' from 'selection' section of the tools box, this oparation could be reversed, the objective of this operation is for example that you draw a face with a nose on it, and you want it to move with the face.

Click on text tool then type any text, then click on the letter(s) icon in the object section of tools box to show text property, change the font, the size,...etc, then click 'apply', after that you could scale it as any other shape, do not forget to convert it to curve so that it could be viewed where the font is not installed, to do that click select the text then from right click menu select 'convert to curve' or 'combine' from 'selection menu'.

Bezier curves (a pen and a curve) is one of the basic tools in vector graphics, this is a very flexible tools, you could copy pictures by hand, click to add points and it will connect them by lines, but if you click then drag the mouse to a second point then click on third point then it will connect the first with the last(third) witth a curve that bends in the direction of the second, you could use this technique to draw outlines over a photographic image, the first and third points are call nodes where two Bezier curves could connect, the direction point of bending is called hint.

If you have a curve you could edit it, points (nodes and hints) selecting tool (sharp mouse cursor and curve icon), as the shapes selecting tool you could click,SHIFT click or draw a selection area, to select points, to move them move on of the selected points, to remove them click on '-' at 'nodes' section of tools box, to add a node in between click '+', to convert the curve type (straight line,free curve,...) click on the related icon on the 'nodes' section. You could convert any shape to curve, you could convert more than one curve to one curve (and remove intersection area) this is done using 'combine' operation, but the reverse operation is not thatt easy.

At last you could save it as an SVG file, or export it as a PNG file, (export dialog box asks you what you are exporting the selection, all shapes or all the page), type the filename then click 'export', notice that this dialog box won't disappear so that you could move it a bit then export it again, to combine those images with ImageMagick or other tool to create animation.

2.5.4. GIMP program.

GNU Image Manpulator (GIMP) is one of the most Linux applications perfection, it is a piece of art, it looks abit like Adobe Photoshop, I think it's more powerful visit 'www.gimp.org'.

Run 'gimp' and you see some windows the main is the tools box, it has tools and three menus 'file', extensions 'xtns' and 'help'. There are other sub-windows like 'Brush', 'Tool options', 'Layers' and more.

Let's start with a new image ('file -> new') select the size and other options, you will have a white (or other color) workpace window, you desktop is crowded with windows, one solution is to sort windows around the workspace window, this need a large resolution and the new GIMP version that integrate most windows in tabs inside the main window, another solution is to maximize the workspace window then send it below all other windows just above the desktop, for example right click titlebar then from Layer submenu(in IceWM) or Window position (in sawfish), another usufull tip is that you could double click a window titlebar to hide the window except it's titlebar, this is called 'shade' or 'roll'.

you don't have to be a real artist to create a piece of art, or if you like to save time, you could use items from 'script_fu' submenu from 'Xtns' menu, for example select 'logo' submenu then select the logo type like 'Chrome' a metal logo, a dialog box to pass arguments like the text, color,... of the logo, make sure you set the font, with GIMP 1.x, click on font button then select the font 'helvetica adobe' and select attribute like 'bold narrow' and font size like 72 point, notice that if there is no large sizes then you are using a low resolution bitmap font, they could have the same as the high quality font, move between them in the attribute list, click OK, then you will get your piece of art on the fly. There are many of those, some could make art from nothing, and other need a layer or image to apply it on, some could create animation, for example open any flat (single layer) image then then right click on it then select 'script_fu > animation -> spinning globe' then right click on the created new image add select 'filters -> animation -> playback', and some are stationary, for example you could convert any image to look like a sheet of cloth, right click it tthen select 'script_fu > alchem -> weave'.

Chrome(p), Glossy(down)

Each and every action is attached some where on the right click menu, for example to save an image, you don't have to drag the mouse to the main window menu, just right click on it then select 'file -> save', give it a full name like 'foo.png' and type will specified automatically, or just type the name then select the type from the combobox, it could as you for more options like compression, quality, ..., etc, agree and we are done. GIMP could open and save what ever you could think of, it even could deal with Photoshop files, but GIMP native format if XCF, it keep all layer, paths,...,etc like the nagative in photographing context.

Most important tool on the tools box window: Rectangular selection. Ellips selection. Free selection. Magic selection. Bezier pen. Zoom in/out. Scale, rotate, sheer and perspective. Text. Bucket fill. Gradient. Pencile,brush and eraser. Air brush (spray). Stamp. below tools you see the foreground and background color click on any to change it, the bidirectional arrow to swap/flip them, on the other corner a small black and white button to get back to those default color, to the right we have brush pattern,texture and custom gradient.

Select the normal pencile and set a good brush size, drag the mouse over the white area to draw a line, to draw a straight line click on the starting point then hold CTRL and click on the ending point, this apply to many other tools.

To draw only inside a specific area, select it with selection tools, holding CTRL or SHIFT while selecting will add or remove (respectively) then new to/from the prevois selection, to move the selected image drag it, to move the selection leaving the selected image hold ALT while you are draging (you should hold CTRL+ALT if it's taken by the window manager) to release selection click once any where.

To draw a color gradient select it from gradients dialog, if not shown click on the gradient you see beside color in tools box, or right click the workspace then select 'dialogs -> gradients', select the custom gradient yo like, then make sure that you select 'custom gradient' from the tool options window, unless you want to draw gradient between forground to backround color.

To fill area with a color, select the area then click on bucket tool and click the on the selected area, to fill with a pattern (also called texture), select a pattern (wood,water,...etc) and set 'fill pattern' not color on tool options window.

Stamp tool is one of the most powerful tools, it works in two modes, pattern and image, you may specify it from tool options window, the first mode draw a texture and the other copy what is in a place to another, for example if you have a stary black sky with small words on it and you want to remove the words, you could use the eraser or a black brush but it will leave 100% black cavity, when you look to this image you know something were here and it have been erased, there should be some stars some paper texture, to erase the words whith the stamp on this mode, hold CTRL and click on a please near (release CTRL) move the mouse to the where you want to erase and drag as if it's a brush and you are painting, it will copy parts from there over the writings you want to erase, to make more proficient use less 'opacity'.

You could use the magnifier to zoom in and out, select this tool then click on image, when the image is larger that the window, you could use scrollers or better you see that small box with arrows on the right buttom corner, click and hold, you will see a thumbnail of the image, with visible red box, drag it. To zoom out, hold CTRL and click (before you click make sure the window is active, if not click on it's title bar), or from tool options window select between 'zoom in' and 'zoom out'.

Tip

When you try some hot keys (like CTRL+Z to undo) and it did not work, then look what is the current active window, then click on it's title bar.

On of GIMP best features is that it offer layers, it's like you draw pictures on stacked transparent slides, if you move or other wise edit the top slide, itt won't leave a cavity behind. The buttom most layer usually is a background layer, it could not have transparency points, or layers could, and transparent area looks as a gray checkerboard, Layers window has: The file/image those layers for. paths tab. this layer mode. this layer opacity. layers list. move layer up/down. duplicate a layer. remove a layer. new layer. layer name.

To create a new layer click on white paper icon on layers window, then a dialog will show, to set it's name and select it's color or make it transparent, to duplicate a layer click on two papers icon, to remove a layer click on waste basket icon, to change layers order drag it's preview, or use up and down arrow buttons, to hide a layer click on the eye to the left of it, to make a layer partially transparent, select it and change opacity value (0% will be transparent), to make a restriction on a layer drawing area so you only draw over non transparent area, check 'keep' box. The mode of a layer cold be changed from 'normal' to 'difference', 'overlay', 'screen' or 'divide'.

The best GIMP feature is that it has many filters, most used is blur filters, things will look out focused, blur filters are : Blur, Gaussian blur and motion blur (it look as if the picture is taken while it's moving). To get a metal shine, applay Gaussian Blur on a gray cloud or noise (you get it from 'filters->render->cloud->plasma' over a white paper to have a colored noise, then 'image->color->desaturate' to become gray, also you could use 'filters->render->cloud-> solid noise' or 'filters->noise->noisify' on a gray gradient paper) with 'filters->Blur->Gaussian Blur', click on chain to break it and split horizontal and vertical values, give a large value for horizontal and smaller for vertical, for example 20 and 5 (respecitvely), you will get a silver texture.

Blur could be used to create shadow, open a new white image, add a transparent layer and draw or type something on it, duplicate this layer, select the top layer and blur it with 'gaussian blur' with 10 value, use selection tool and move it tto the right and top a bit, and send it below the original layer, this is how to drop shadow, but it's not practical, a more useful methodany time you want to drop shadow, select the layer then right click and choose 'fu_scripts -> selection -> drop shadow' and you are done, this script uses blur internally. Motion blur effect to let object seems to be moving, 'zoom' blur type, the objects appear as if it's coming out from the screen, with 'radial' blur objects appear as if it's rotating, apply it on gears and they look rotating, while with 'linear' blur objects appear as if they are moving in some direction. If you don't know how much blur value to use, blur it with small value then repeate it (to repeate last filter press 'CTRL+L'), having the origninal layer over the blured layer will be very nice.

There are many filters that could be used to create backgrounds, wallpapers, texture or row image to apply filters on it, like what we did with plasma and coulds before, another filter that can plot 'Chaos and Fractals' for example 'filters -> render -> pattern -> Fractals Explorer' then click on fractals tab, then double click on any fractal name, you could change it's color from Colors tab. There are many distort filters like 'Whirl & Pinch', river 'Ripple', 'Wave' like when you through a strone in a lake and 'Wind' effect.

This is an example using distort filters, draw a vertical 'Deep Ocean' gradient, then apply 'filter->distorts->whirl', then apply wave filter, add a new layer and write 'Linux' on it, add a new white layer and select 'divide' mode from layer window, then it will be transparent (white is 1, and any thing divided by one remain the same), use the pencile tool, select a big brush, color black, and from tool options set fade to 320 pixel, draw a line under Linux, blur it if you need.

A layer could apper to be pushed by anothor using 'bumpmap' filter, or similariliy 'lighting' filter.

Get a white layer and fill it with a pattern (ice or what ever), add a new layer and write on in a big word, duplicate this layer, and blur it with 8, put the pattern layer above all other layers then apply 'filters->map->bumpmap' on it using the blured layer.

Many effects could be done using bumpmap, it's better to blur a shrinked version of the text, form layers window select the text layer and right click it then select 'Alpha to selection' then right click the selection and from 'select' menu choose 'shrink' and set value of 3 or 2, add a new layer and fill it with other color, now blur both and merge them, and apply bump map using them.

As the last two examples just before you apply 'filters->map->bumpmap' we can lighting it, if you are using the new GIMP just 'filters-> light effects->lighting' and from 'bumpmap' tab select 'enable' and set it to the blured layer, it's more complicated with GIMP 1.x, make the blured layer the only visible layer (click on the eyes) then right click and from 'edit' menu select 'copy visible', and paste (CTRL+V) it in a new image 'file->new', change it's mode to gray scale with 'image->mode->gray scale' back to our original image, and select the pattern layer and apply 'filters-> light effects ->lighting' then from 'bumpmap' tab select 'enable' and select the blured gray image.

in both cases you will get a texture (metal/ice/gold), you could remove the background of the 3D text using a mask, from layer window right click the text layer and select 'alpha to selection' then right click the image and 'select -> grow' with value of 2, add a new black layer and fill selection with white, release selection and copy this layer, back to the bumped layer and right click and select 'add layer mask', then click on the mask preview (next to layer preview in layers window), paste it there and release selection. This way the bumpmap layer could be in what ever background.

iWarp filter ('filter->distort->iwarp') is very impressing, open any picture (a face photo) then apply this filter, a dialog box will appear, select 'move' and drag any part of the image, for example to make a smile, it that a big nose, select 'shrink' and click many times on it, to make him a monster give him a larger eyes, select 'grow' and click many times on them, we are not finished his eyelashes, use CCW on one and CW on the other, options like radius of change. This filter could be used to create animation from one picture, from 'animate' tab set number of frames.

You could adjust colors very easy, for example to make our silver lighting text before to golden, select golden gradient then apply 'filters->map->color-map->grediant'.

GIMP offer a very powerful tool called 'color curves' (from 'image -> colors -> color curves') then a dialog box with color curve (you could work on a specific basic color by changing 'value' to 'blue' for example), the curve you having the horizontal (x) axis represents values before, and vertical (y) axis represents values after, to see them look at the boxes below tthe curve the top one is for 'after' and 'buttom' is for 'before', when we start it will be an identity curve (do nothing curve), it's a curve from the left buttom corner to top right corner (like '/'). to make the image darker drag the top right corner a bit down so values won't reach the maximum white value 'after' the transformation (y axis), also we could drag the other corner (left buttom) to the right so more gray colors become black, in other words if the curve goes down it become darker, if the curve is more vetical it has large deviation. you could add points and move them, the curve could be non linear, for example drag the middle of the curve down to make it draker.

A program like GIMP needs it's own book, see Grokking the GIMP book (you can download it from (http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/TarDist/Grokking-the-GIMP-v1.0.tar.gz), if you need some examples and tutorial see http://gug.sunsite'dk, and since GIMP is very similar to Photoshop you could see it's related tutorials like www.photoshop-cafe.ccm and www.planetphotoshop.com.

2.5.5. Animations with GIMP.

This super program can open animated files like GIF and PNM, and video files like AVI and MPEG.

To create an animation open a new file, draw something then add a new layer (or use duplicate) then draw it with some change each layer is a frame (like when you use paper over paper and draw and draw motion step by step) you could use 'iwarp' filter, to test our movie rightt click then select 'filters -> animation -> playback' then click on 'play'. You could set time between frames rename layers to be this 'MyLayer-XXX (100 ms)'.

You could open two files, one you keep layers to produce each frame and the other where you paste ready frames on new layers. You could use vector graphics like 'sodipodi' to draw each frame and export them to GIMP.

Before you save the file (as GIF, AVI, ...etc) right click and select 'filters -> animtion -> optimize' so it save on each layer the difference between the preceding layer, this will save disk space. When you open an optimized file and you want to see frames as is use 'filters -> animtion -> unoptimize'. You could view animated GIF use 'animate' program which a part of ImageMagick.

There is a 'video' menu which has many related options like moving from frame to another, remove some frames, duplicate frames, shift frames on timescale, but for real studio use specialized software like 'Cinelerra' and 'Kine - The Linux Video Studio', and just use GIMP to do special effects.

2.5.6. Flash related.

You could run Macromedia Flash 5 or MX under Linux using WINE see "2.9. Running 'Windows' programs." section, I test it with Windows98 and normal WINE shipped with Mandrake 9.2. There is an independent Flash for Linux visit 'http://f4l.sf.net', but it's still under development, it's not ready only developers should use it now (when I wrote this), you can down load an alpha source tarball. Those are some related sites: www.macromedia.com
http://macromedia.mplug.org
http://drawswf.sf.net/index.html
http://f4l.sf.net
www.openswf.org
www.actionscripts.org
www.moock.org
www.virual-fx.net
www.webmonkey.com
www.webmonkey.com/multimedia/shockwave_flash
www.shockwave.com
www.flashkit.com

2.5.7. Kpovmodeler.

A very easy yet powerful 3D modeler with nice GUI for KDE desktop, and it's now offical part of KDE see 'www.kpovmodeler.org', you could use it to design but to render you need 'www.povray.org' or 'www.yafray.org'.

2.5.8. Blender 3D.

This very small (as small as 2.5MB) but powerful 3D graphics program, it could create 3D modeles, games, animations and very high quality video clips, this is a professional program, it's very difficult to use, like VIM is has modes, you can't just drag and click.

You could get it from 'www.blender.org/' as source or a binary tarball (static that needs no libraries, and the other need some libraries that are not avialable with too old distributions), there is a Windows version but it's a bit slower and has less features since importing and exporting depends on Python which is not shipped with Windows, if you are lucky to have Debian, blender is shipped with it. You could find help and tutorials on 'www.blender3D.org', 'www.linuxgraphic.org', 'www.blender-cafe.org' and 'www.linuxfocus.org' starting from July 2003, an maybe 'www.elysiun.com' blender community, blender could be used along with 'www.wings3D.com' modeler.

This program follows the right hand rule, XY plane is the horizontal plane, X is width, Y is depth and Z is height, those axis are colored with red, green and blue (respectively). When you run it you will see many buttons below and above it an almost empty window! The empty window is working space on it's buttom a line of menus and buttons (as part of it), above all that you see the conventional main menu (file,edit,...etc). The workingspace shows the top view, we can tell this from the button on which there is 3 boxes one highlighted (orange) with T (for top), on the new version this is moved to 'view' menu below the workspace window there you could check 'top view', to change tthe view click on the button/menu and select front,side or camera, also you could press numpad keys as hot keys, but they all look the same since it's empty. The designer usually want to see the scene for all directions at the same time, so we have split our window middle/right click on the splitter line at tthe top or buttom of the window then select 'split', move the mouse to locate the vetical line in the middle of the window, now right click on it to split it again with horizontal line, if it split in the wron direction press ESC or right click, split the other side, now we have 4 top view windows (some people like to split it to 3 windows, one large and 2 small) now specify different scene for each, click 'view' and select 'front view' for the left buttom window, the above (top left window) kept on 'top view', 'side view' for the right buttom window and the last is set to 'camera', and for camera window change the viewing method to be textured, click on the cube and select the colored textured cube (first from top). In CAD programs the three views (top, front and side) uses Orthogonal projection (no depth is seen) this is the default in Blender, you may like the perspective projection (farther things appear smaller) you could choose which do you like from view menu for each view window.

When you split views, windows get smaller, fewer buttons/menus appear below each, to see the rest drag with middle button or click the arrow (triangle) button on the left of the bar in recent version. Recent belnder versions does not start with an empty workspace instead it starts with a box (and a camera of course), it's very far and small, press '+' (while the mouse is pointing over the view) to zoom in (we use far view to draw large objects like the ground of our scene or to move the camera, but the neer view is used to desgin objects), to have far zoomed out view press '-', if you have a wheel mouse roll it to move forward and backward, drag with the middle button to rotate the view.

After splitting screen into views, screen become crowded and need high resolution to have enough space left for designing but text and menus are so fine, Blender designers prefer single big view just like the way the program starts with, then you could navagate in that single view window with draging with middle mouse button (wheel) aftter you select the nearest view from the three views or the camera, this selection is done on the fly with numpad keys where each view is put in a corner the same order we split them, number '1' for front view, '7' for top view and '3' for side view, zero is for the camera and +/- for zoon in and out and . is to focus the selected object in the middle of the view.

each view window's menu and options, like 'view' menu and projection method. viewing method (wireframe/colored/textured). rottating center for multiple objects. te current scene is ZX plane ie. side view, Z in blue and X in red. enable rendering of shadows. quality rendering. cursor, where new objects added. rendering tools (F10). elements options (F9) like smoothing. object options (F5) like color and texture. click to show out invisible side. type of this window.

Point on the top view and press SPACE to open menu, select 'add->mesh->plane' to add a square on the cursor position (cursor the red and white thing you move with right click), well you can't see where it is! (use '+' to zoom in), it's the yellow points over there, this color indicates that we are on editing mode (point by point), the yello point are selected points, press tab to tuggle object mode, points disappear and you see the object in pink (here we deal with the object not it's points), press 's' (scale) to start resizing the object, move the mouse and then click to accept the new size, this process preserves proportion, in our example it will remain sqaure, if you want to make it a rectangle press s and drag with middle button, if you are not satisfied at any process undo it with right click before you accept. The scene you start with is not empty, at least it has a camera, if you remove it by mistake you could add a new one, just 'SPCAE -> add -& camera' camera is used in rendering, you could find a plane or a cube and maybe a light source, if you can't see them use zoom in('+') and out('-'), you could add more objects (if you are at 'edit mode' it's added to the current object) just press SPACE then select 'add' then 'mesh' then 'UVsphere' for example to add a ball (as connected rings), a cube or even a text in this case press Backspace many times to remove the sample text and type yours then press TAB and deal with as an object (scale it with 's' for example), press TAB again and you can edit it as a text. To select an object (eg. camera,lamp,cube,...etc) right click on it, we have a cube and we have added a plane and a sphere, right click any then you could move it with 'g', rotate it with 'r', scale it with 's' or remove it with 'x', if it's not a camera or a light you could set it's material click on the red ball icon down there (or press F5), click 'ADD NEW', now many buttons appear, there is a white box and some bars beside for red, green and blue, they are on larg value (almost 1), to make it red, let greed and blue have less value, the white box becomes red, but nothing happen on the selected object on desgining views (to see color and texture click on the button below the view with a cube and ball and select the ball with colored spots on it) to render the scene press F10 to show rendering options, if you don't want to change any press F12 and enjoy your work. Rendering options are enable 'Shadow', smooth and high quality 'OSA', rendering width and height.

Wait, what is this ? you are not satisfied with that dark gray thing! simply add more light, press SPACE then 'add' then 'lamp', it will a create a lamp that generate no shadow just make the picture brighter, put one behind the camera and another behind the object (move the cursor or use g), to have nice shadow add a spot light, press SPACE then 'add->lamp' then press F5, and click on button with lamp icon on, then select it's type to be 'spot light', now move it, rotate it to make light coming from the top of the object now press F10,F12

Let's make something real, a table. While your are pointing on top view, add a 6x6 grid with 'SPACE->add->grid' and then change 'xres' and 'yres' from default 32 to 6, press '<' button 26 times or drag the number to the left then press OK. We are now on edit mode, right click on the second point on the second row (inside top left corner), it comes yellow and others are pink, on the top view press 'b' and draw a box around the 4 points on that corner (as seen in the next figure), let's make table's first leg with extrude, point to front view, press 'e' (while in edit mode) then move the mouse down then click, and so we create first leg, repeate that for the left three corners (colored gray in next figure), to have equal legs use 'n' (after 'e') instead draging the mouse. Try it with (F10,F12), what do you say ? it needs colors, press TAB then F5, click material ball then click 'ADD NEW', set the color, click on texture icon and select 'wood'. Point in the top view and add a plane (to be a ground) then make it too large and move it (use side and front view) below the table and give it nice color, add spot light then move it to be just above the camera and rotate it to be directed from the side and top to the table, press F10 F12 and see, make it smooth with F9 and setsmooth try again. now save it as 'table.blend'. This table with those four holes seems to be from Mars to make it from Earth, start from scratch: add a 6x6 grid but instead of creating legs, let's first select the four edges(20 points) and extrude it in the front view upward then add legs as we did before.

To create a chair modele use the table we just made, jump to edit mode and at the top view, right click the point on top right corner to select it and unselect other points, now press 'b' and select the top two rows and press 'e' to extrude and create the back of the chair. Press TAB and scale the chair to be resonable compared with the table.

Let's make a vase, start with an empty workspace, then 'SPACE->add>mesh>UVsphere', accept 32x32, now from selection menu choose deselect all (also, you could use right click to deselect),while you are pointing to front view, press b and select first "some" top rows (rings) and press 'x' to remove them, again select first some rows and use 'g' to move them upward, deselect them and select new next first rows, and move them a bit above with 'g' then press 's' and move it inside to make them smaller as the neck, see next screenshot and previous first blender screenshots.

To draw a flag, press SPACE at top view and select 'add->curve->Bezier curve', sounds familiar we have discussed it at 'sodipodi' subsection (2.5.3), a wave like curve, some points (end points and hints) right click one and press 'g' to move to get the wanted shape, yes we are going to extrude it, but that won't work because it's not a mesh, press tab to be in object mode, then from object menu select 'convert' then 'mesh', or press ALT+C, press TAB and select points with 'b', then in front view press 'e' then move it upward. Open GIMP and draw the flag on a an image with powers of 2 dimensions (width and height) like 64,128,256,...etc, and save it as JPEG or TGA, then use it in Blender as texture, press TAB and add material then texture then specify it's type as image then click 'load image', specify 'xrepeat' and 'yrepeat'. If you are designing a metal roof or pantile it needs thickness, just extrude it on top view.

Let's make a nice 3D LINUX logo, at the front view press SPACE then select add a text, delete sample text and type LINUX then press TAB, move it,scale it and rotate it then press ALT+C to convert it to (no, you did not guess, not to mesh) curve then press ALT+C to convert it to mesh, now press TAB, select all point with 'b', at top view press 'e' and move the mouse upward, the new extruded points are selected you could scale it, press s at the front view, to have a cone like text, give it a texture and light.

Other useful shapes is NURBS it's like Bezier curve (end points and hints), there are NURBS plane and NURBS sphere, you could move hint points to create what ever smooth surface, if you want more hint points use Sub division (maybe from Object menu).

Did you notice 'i' icon to the left of 'File', the grid icon on each view, click on the one on camera view (we don't nee for a while), a long menu that show items like 'timescale', 'scripting', ...etc. they could be used to create movies, games, ...etc.

We are going to create an animation, look at the right of the main menu bar you could see a drop down menu (combo box) having 'SCR:2-Model' selected which mean that we are creating 3D model, to create animation click on the arrow and select New Animation, first insert a key frame that is a point on the time scale in which we control what and how will change, in between non-key frames will be concluded, we specify the frames rate in 'fps' (frame per second) just press F10 and you see it in Frs/Sec box, just below the rendered file format (you could set it to be AVI and set the enoding). What we have now is a selected 3D object that we want to animate (it could be the camera), point to the view and press SPACE and select 'Object' then 'Insert Key Frame' (or just press 'i') a menu shown to select what property of it to trace between next key frame, Location or Rotation or both Location and Rotation ...etc select Location and Rotation (ie. 'LocRot'), now move in the time scale by changing frame number box found on button panels below design window, by pressing arrows in that box or by draging it (the box look like < 1 >) to set what is going to happen in the 3rd second move to frame 75 (assuming you have 25 fps), now move that object and rotate it and insert another LocRot key frame, repeate those steps, and we are done just Render Animation by pressing F10 then click on Animation button or select render animation from Render menu (notice frame number and press ESC when done) to play rendered animation click on Play button (after you pree F10) or using your favorite player. Make sure you set quality options like OSA, shadows, resolutions,...etc when you do the final rendering.

Blender could do much more than that (eg. complete interactive 3D games) but yet those are not covered by this book, refere to Blender Guide.

2.5.9. Font designing.

There are many font designing tools like pfaedit (http://pfaedit.sf.net), xmbdfed, and GNU Font Editor (www.gnu.org/software/gfe), to convert between font types use ttf2bdf, ttf2pt1 and pcf2bdf.

2.5.10. Other programs.

There are many related tools are not covered on this book, I'll mention their names only, if you want more use google. Linux Video studios like 'kino', 'cinelerra', 'xmovie', 'cinepaint', 'LiVES' and 'avidemux'. Advanced Linux 3D designing like povlinux, www.povray.org, k3studio (http://k3studio.sf.net), k3d, moonlight (http://moonlight3d.org), megapov (megapov.inetart.net) waldosworld (www.waldosworld.org)

There are verions of commercial well known advanced 3D graphics programs like Maya, Softimage XSI and many other.

Simple 3D modelers like '3DOM' (http://threedom.sf.net), giram (www.giram.org), equinox (www.equinox3d.com) and innovation3d (http://innovation3d.sf.net).