WHAT: This program is a free online drawing and photo editing program for open use.

PRO: The fact that it’s free and lets you doodle online will more abilities than the basic okeki board is nice and it’s very simple to use.

CON: no pressure sensitivity, rather limited for editing but still fun. Not as flashy as Aviary’s photo editor but you don’t need to register to use this one.

Company: Kern Computing

Follow your train on your celphone

What went right: The logo turned out cute, easy to see and easy to understand as it is the universal sign for “railway transport”. It brands the program and makes it easy for the user to find it and its general cuteness is friendly and helpful. Creating the logo in Inkscape lowered overhead and kept with the “open aps” feel as Inkscape is a free program. A free open source program to make a logo for another open source program is a win win.  A simple icon stands out among the collection of extra fancy 3d icons usually cluttering up the phone screen and it loads quickly.

Touch the icon, follow your train, never miss it again

What went wrong: Building the logo in Inkscape was difficult and more slow than doing it in a more powerful (And more expensive) program such as Adobe Illustrator. The inability for Inkscape to export gradients well at such a tiny size made creating a web 2.0 style icon difficult. Old fashioned pixel art techniques were used instead of vector gradients for the shine. Alphas in Inkscape are harder to edit than in Illustrator which also slowed the pipeline.

Pipeline: The project was completed entirely online through Gmail and Google chat between myself and my Uncle (John Kern of Kern Computing).  Altering the icon, sending it to California, waiting for a test and having it sent back was slow at times but it worked out well in the end.  Running a family business project across the country through the internet; mix your old school with the new school.

For a free open source devolpement program it sure costs a lot…

To model: use the pyramid primative and champher all the edges slightly. Clone one side and rotate into the center for your logo plate which is done with alpha maps.

Make a glass texture:
Or apply the GLASS physics material with the mental ray renderer running. Architectural glass material is also good for quick and dirty renders.

THINGS TO REMEMBER:
–You must use Mental ray

–The item must be thickened/two sided.
—EXAMPLE: I cloned the ADDY and made it just a little smaller to make the inside, this gives a feeling of thickness.

–For good reflects all edges need a light champher on them, just a tiny bit. You won’t be able to see it but it makes the reflections better and gives the item a more solid feel.

Your item will respond to what is around it, so you need something for it to reflect. This one is only reflecting an environment map and the inside of a white sphere.

Really it’s not all that different from the infamous joan of arc tutorial but the results are quite a bit better. Still worth a look anyway

Finally a cheap (ie free) program to mod games with! Not only does it have modeling and animation abilities but also team management tools as well. It’s only compatible with certain games but it’s still worth a look.