something in the way

This is the fifth rule of Jim Jarmusch, an independent film director, his golden rules:

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.”

found at swissmiss

Fractal4D is a really interesting AIR application that is different to the usual run of the mill AIR apps that we see.

This AIR app enables you to draw really cool detailed fractal swirls that can then be exported as a vector for use in Adobe Illustrator or as a plain PNG. There are a whole load of options that allow you to tweak the colours, blending, easing and blurring.

Built by developer Matt Kenefick it’s currently in beta release and he is encouraging active feedback as he develops the apps feature set.

The resulting import into Illustrator makes this app a valuable asset for any graphic developers toolbox. How many times have you wanted a few background swirls in a graphic or montage?

There are a few usability issues especially with the options menu system but those refinements will hopefully come with time. Export to Illustrator can be a little clunky but follow the steps in the video and over at Matt’s blog and you should have a result.

I have done a brief video review and Matt has a few videos that show more specifics:

“Video Review”

Fractal4D Adobe AIR application from RefreshingApps on Vimeo.

A few videos from the developer Matt:

F4D: Record to Illustrator from mattkenefick on Vimeo.

F4D: General Options from mattkenefick on Vimeo.

Color Shifting F4D from mattkenefick on Vimeo.

Design eye

Clean design but with a complicated menu and options panel. The results are superb both inside Illustrator and as a PNG.

A file save dialogue box would be nice instead of defaulting to saving directly to your desktop.

Technical eye

It is built using Adobe Flash with ActionScript 3“.

In Summary

A good addition to a designers array of Adobe AIR applications, something a little different. Some clunky usability quirks and the documentation / instructions could do with being expanded. Matt has a huge amount of features he wants to include in future versions of Fractal4D. Always remember to feedback to the developer about any bugs you find or feature requests.

So download it today and I guarantee you will be hooked on creating swirls!

Tagged with: designer, fun

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Random Attractors – Found using Lyapunov Exponents

[Reposted from bashford]

Mr Christopher Hewitt updates his site for 2009.

Ace of Mace is a really nice and a good-fun-game, which is build by the students Max Brandl, Jürgen Brunner and Hannes Moser, University of Applied Sciences, Salzburg/Austria.

Get it here: www.aceofmace.com

The place where simple math collides with color and shape is a wonderful place…

via Michael Lebowitz…