Mike Milo's Journal

Boy this iPhone thing just gets bigger and bigger! Now there’s even an app to let me blog from my phone. I use a sevice called WordPress which allows me to host the blogs contents on my own server (well, technically its my brother’s server) which is easier in the long run.
Now if they could just allow the damn thing to rotate sideways so my sausage fingers can type decently I’d be in business! It’s supposed to work but I can’t as of yet get it to rotate. It’s pretty neat though and as you can see, you can even add photos.

Well after a long year of development SketchBook Pro 2010 has finally been announced and I am released from Non-Disclosure so I am allowed to talk about it! I was lucky enough to be included on the beta team and I have to say it’s an amazing update! There’s quite a few great updates to this iteration and I’m sure you’ll agree it’s with the upgrade!

Pencils, paper, markers, white-out, sharpeners, erasers, rulers, ellipses, I’m not kidding when I say you’d need a backpack to carry all the stuff that comes with Sketchbook Pro 2010 in one elegant and easy-to-use package. And yet, it’s simple layout will have you up and running in less than 10 minutes. I dare you not to fall in love with it’s streamlined interface!

For me the best part of SBP is that it has a pencil that feels and looks like a real pencil, something that no other graphics program is capable of doing out of the box and even then SBP does it better. I’ve seen even grouchy old school artists smile when they begin to draw with it, it’s that good.

But there’s more than meets the eye with this simple tool because with SBP’s new Custom brushes, the simple lowly pencil becomes a 900 lb. gorilla which can create tools that look like feathers, or skin or hair which you can then sketch with! The Custom Brush’s easy-to-use interface makes it simple to capture either specific pen strokes or areas from a texture that you can then paint with. Let me see you do that with a #2 pencil! You can also load and save out the new custom brushes as well as trade them with others which is a great addition to SBP’s already sweet lil’ arsenal. Plus in this new addition, there’s a long awaited Ellipse tool and a Ruler tool as well!

All in all, you’d be crazy not to use Sketchbook Pro for the simple reason that it makes your job as an artist/designer/draftsman easier and who doesn’t want that these days in this hectic world?

I’ve been told by the fellas at Autodesk that they are in need of more Beta testers for the new version of Sketchbook Pro due out early next year. If you’re interested, sign up by shooting a mail to Chris Cheung below…

In a few months, we’ll need help from artists-at-large for the testing of future SketchBook Pro features.  I want to start recruiting new candidates now.  If you are interested and think you would be able to spend the time to check out beta cuts and provide valuable feedback, I’m interested in hearing from you.

Mail chris.cheung@autodesk.com
To download the latest version or trial of SBP: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=11895121 (more…)

Photoshop was the first program I used on a computer. I loved it. It worked so well.

Times change.

Adobe has turned into a retarded behomoth with no common sense at all.

There are many, many, many reasons why I hate Adobe… Flash is buggy and more bloated than ever. They made an update which really gives you nothing much except some crappy filters that look like a dog threw up on the screen….Acrobat STILL takes ridiculously long to open… Premiere is a joke compared to Final Cut Pro… Dreamweaver was better before Adobe messed with it… ( and it wasn’t that great then either)… Illustrator? Eh. Integration? Suuuuure. try opening an Illustrator file in Flash. HAH! Did I mention that Acrobat STILL takes ridiculously long to open???????

How about this one? (more…)

My daughter recently graduated from 5th grade and will be moving into Middle School. Here in CA. that’s a big deal and they have a graduation for it and everything.

As a present we gave my daughter an iPod Nano which as most know will play video. She loves it and of course now wants to watch everything on it. That said, she of course came to her dad wanted to digitize video to do it.

But how to do it? (more…)

As I’ve said before I was on the beta team for SBP earlier this year and my frequent posting and keyboard diarrhea on the forums there got the attention of the guys over at Autodesk I guess.
Anyway, they asked me to write an article on Digital Storyboarding and I have to say I had so much fun doing it, I want to do more! Article writing is fun! I only wish I had learned that writing could be fun back in school. I might have turned out better!

Anyway, you can read the article here.

Well it’s finally arrived!

The Autodesk e-store has been updated and SBP is available on the Autodesk website store

If you can’t find it you can get it here.

Some reasons to Buy:

Sketch. Annotate. Communicate. Designed for use with tablet PCs or digitized pen tablets, Autodesk® SketchBook® Pro software is your digital sketchpad. Use it in any creative process where pen and paper would traditionally be use.

• Sketch Naturally Free up the sketching process with ultra-responsive digital pencils, pens, markers, and airbrushes that look and feel just like the real thing.
• Annotate Instantly Quickly take snapshots of your current application, and load and view images or digital photographs. Use SketchBook Pro’s brushes to mark up and add comments. Annotations can be emailed directly to colleagues and clients.
• Communicate Ideas Anywhere Communicate more efficiently by emailing sketches and annotations instantly to colleagues and clients.

Look Andy! I’m not the only fanboy after all!

I got no art I can show right now so how about a list of amazing free apps that you too can use!

IrFanView- Arguably the best renamer tool out there. It does so much else as well. You can edit pictures with it, create a Cd slideshow with music, resize, rename and renumber files all with the click of one or two buttons. Invaluable tool!

MultiMon- Allows you to have two Start bars on a multi-monitor setup. It also installs a little widget on each window that let’s you switch that window from one monitor to another.

LogmeIn- So useful you’ll spit when you can’t use it! this lil’ gem allows you to login to your computer remotely and do whatever is needed; from anywhere you have an internet connection. it works with PC and Mac and also cross platform. All you need to do is download a little piece of software create a user account and go to logmein.com each time. it’ll give you a list of available computers you own that have Logmein installed. Amazing app!

PowerISO- Great lil tool to mount ISO files you have. Will also create ISOs out of CDs and DVDs.

ArtRage- An incredible painting tool that kicks the crap out of anything else out there. It’s also free if you can live without layers. (which I can’t)

Belarc Advisor- A cool application that will give you stats about your PC like for instance what the motherboard is in case you have more than one PC and don’t remember which MB is in what case..

Driver Grabber- Copies all your installed drivers and make a nice package of them for backup! Cool!

OpenOffice- An absolute must replacement for Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It does just about everything they do and it’s free!

Inkscape- A great replacement for Adobe Illustrator

Artweaver- A great replacement for Painter. So close in interface it’s hard to believe they haven’t been sued. What’s more… why would anyone want to mimic Painter’s terrible interface?!?

Gimp- A decent Photoshop replacement. It has a kinda weird interface for some things but mostly it’s the same thing as Photoshop.

Joycur- this lill app lets you map key commands Macros to things like joysticks or game controllers

Photobie- A little app that does simple resize stuff when Photoshop is acting up or in use for something else.

Flash Sideshow Maker- Does what it says.

PAP- A free animation program which has, a light table layers and a decent set of tools to draw with. very weird interface but works well once you know it.

Dogwaffle- A powerful free Photoshop/Painter replacement. It does so much more than Photoshop too. Many plugins and fractal editing tools as well. Pretty deep app.

Google Apps- While my brother will call me a Google fanboy ( of which I am rightly so) the search giant has a lot of free and very useful applications all accessible from your Gmail account too! the thing I most like about Google is that they update their applications frequently so you can fire it up one day and see some really cool new function they’ve implemented.  I love that!

Below are some Google Apps I use regularly.

GoogleDocs ( which as of yesterday is about to be available offline as well as online) which is a Word replacement

Picasa- which is a Photo retoucher and also makes some nice slideshows and html presentations for the web. Also it will create Flash presentations. you can also upload photos ( read- portfolio) to their site and get 2 gigs of strorage to store your art. Then you can export to an imbeddable Flash slideshow like this.

Gmail- I don’t care what anyone says Gmail rocks, and now anyone can get an account. Plus, if you use Gmail Drive you can store files on their servers.

Google Earth- Come on, who doesn’t want to see their house from air?

Google Sketchup- A free 3d program you can actually build stuff with.

I have a confession to make…

I am addicted to digital painting. Yes it’s true…and I am not even a good painter (yet)!

I have ArtRage to thank for it too.

I find myself looking at the world through my tired old animator eyes with some brand new artist eyes which is really cool. I used to look at the world from an animator’s perspective, checking out how long it takes for a person to walk from point A to Point B and how long it takes to pick something up, the way something overlaps or anticipates but lately
that has changed.

Now I am constantly looking at the light and how dark the shadows are… where the highlights fall and ways to make colors pop by using contrasting colors.

Very odd.

Anyway, back to Artrage. What a fantastic application! It’s only $19.95 and it’s better at true painting than Photoshop, Painter, Paint Shop Pro and just about any other grpahics app I’ve come across. the reason? Well, it’s just… simple.

For instance, there’s no cludgy pallets or windows that clutter up the screen. Instead there are elegant shelves that slide in and out when you need them. they also auto slide in when you get too close to one so it doesn’t get in your way while you paint. Pianting a stroke that looks and feels like real paint is as simple as grabbing the paint brush and sliding your hand across the screen. Amazing! No setting up brushes to behave like paint (hello Photoshop) no sifting through endless technical boxes of endless technical settings and knobs and sliders ( hello Painter). Nope, you just pick and paint! Want to mix some color? Just select the pallet knife and smear to your hearts content. Colors blend right over eachother mixing as your stroke. Don’t want that/ Simple! You make your brush an Instant Dry Brush via the elegant wheel that is invoked when you select the tool.

Tools to choose from range from a Paint Roller when you want to color mass areas, a Crayon for that waxy feel (which works great for those John K type paintings), Chalk for a bit of grain (very similar to Crayon BTW), there’s a Pencil to sketch with (which ain’t as good as SketchBook Pro’s but you can’t have everything) and you can even add glitter or tubes to your painting (although I have no clue what the heck I’d do with that), the aformentioned pallet knife (which I find invaluable when painting), an Eye Dropper tool for sampling colors and of course the invaluable Paint Brush which works great right out of the “tool box”.

You can save your own mixed swatches, and you can set a “tooth” for your paper or load your own texture to paint over as well. One of the best features is the Load Tracing Image function which allows you to set a drawing onto your canvas and paint over it, so you can see what you want when you want it. It’s easily hideable as well making in a great asset when you paint.

There are so many things I like about ArtRage that I can’t even list them all.

Suffice it to say, I am hooked and as far as my tablet Pc is concerned, Autodesk’s SketchBook Pro and Ambient Design’s ArtRage are my two most used applications. I find myself using Photoshop less and less except to export the images I am creating to post to this blog.

Download this program. Both the free and USD$20 full versions are curiously tiny installers at just over 4 MB. Get ArtRage 2.0 here.

The free program is wonderful, but the commercial version was something I wanted for the layers, PSD capabilities and extra tools and canvas options. Honestly though? The free one is pretty awesome itself!