deviantArt rocks. I'm kicking myself for not using it sooner.

For my fans I present you this ever changing preview of my most popular "deviations"

And for those who'd like to follow my deviations, here's the RSS Feed.

Aesthetics | Art | e-on Vue | Graphics | Photography

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

Aesthetic by *nukeation on deviantART

I've finally found a nice corner on the Internet for my artwork (3D, 2D, traditional) and photography (my flickr is still active though). I'll be posting a lot of art and photo related stuff, as well as keeping an art blog of sorts. Prints of my works are available on deviantArt as well.

Aesthetics | Art | e-on Vue | Graphics | Photography

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

This image (see link at the end for the full image) is part of the Troll Twins series I have been creating the past few days (and will continue working on for a few more weeks). I have been posting these images to www.Cornucopia3D.com.

These images were created in e-onsoftware's Vue 6 Infinite (www.e-onsoftware.com). Here's the information on the SSS shader I used for the troll - which IMHO gives a much better result than the standard Poser imported material.

Take a look at the above image - especially the marked areas and you can see the difference in the normal and SSS skin shaders.

And in low-light/backlit scenes, SSS can be much more powerful. However you don't get native support for the "Troll" model in SkinVue. So how do you create it? Simple. First you need SkinVue 6 (http://www.skinvue.net) - an excellent skin shader utility by Dave Burdick.

Here's how I did it. I loaded Victoria 4 from Daz into Vue and swapped materials using SkinVue. I saved the Torso material provided by SkinVue to my personal folder.

I deleted the V4 model and loaded the Troll. I replaced the BODY material (default Poser material) with the V4 Torso material. I opened that material in the Material Editor.

I edited the Color Production function in the Function Editor. While the function (see below) is scary at first, it is quite simple to manipulate. I selected the bitmap source node (highlighted in the capture below) and replaced it with the Troll Body texture that comes with the Troll package.

Hit OK, save the material, and you're done. Almost. You will have to repeat this process for the Head and other materials as needed. Most of the time head and body will be more than enough. But you may wish to edit the other shaders for extra realism.

You can see the full sized render here: TrollHuntBig.jpg (445.51 KB)

Aesthetics | Graphics | e-on Vue

Comments [6]  |  Trackback

I am an avid user of e-on software's Vue 6 Infinite. This image entitled "Solace" made it as Picture of the Day on Vue's official site.

You can check out my Vue gallery at Cornucopia3D - Vue's official community.

Art | Graphics

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

This thing started catching attention before it was even announced.

It's hot and it's coming soon.

The ultimate WPF resource. The only hint I can give you so far is - it's powered by Pwop.

.NET | Aesthetics | Geek Stuff | Graphics | WPF | WPFE | revolUXions

Comments [1]  |  Trackback

My original professional roots are in 3D animation. It's been a long time since I've done any 3D work. Recently I couldn't help but get Vue 6 Infinite (even though it's still pre-release!). It is perhaps the best 3D nature design software I've worked with. I intend to write a detailed review/experience of Vue 6. For now I just wanted to share some initial renders I did with SkinVue and the new Spectral Atmosphere model. As you can clearly see, the results are amazing.

"Bareback"

"The Last Dragon"

MetaClouds + Spectral Atmosphere Render 1

Spectral Atmosphere + MetaClouds - Render 2

Spectral Atmosphere Render 3

Art | Graphics | Perplex

Comments [5]  |  Trackback

From left to right:

Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman of Microsoft India; Tarun Gulati, MD of Microsoft India; Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corp.; Dax Pandhi (Me), CEO of Nukeation Studios.

This week has been amazing! I don't do much public speaking but the guys at Microsoft got me to be a speaker at IndiMIX'06. The central focus of the event was Expression and Live. Designer and developer. Cricket and Bollywood.

The event (my first big event) was fantastic. It started with a keynote from Steve Ballmer. Following that the application MatchCast, a high-end cricket statistic and analysis application, was showcased by Anil Kumble. Nukeation was the UX consultant on the application.

There was more stuff after that (from 1100 to 1300) but I missed it for two reasons. First, as the winner of Microsoft Blogstar, I had to go backstage and meet Steve himself!

>> This blog has been interrupted to announce that you are reading the blog of a Blogstar. We now return to the regularly scheduled post. <<

I got my photo taken with him, but they haven't sent it to me yet. :/ And secondly, after Steve left, my team had to prepare for our session.

The Designer Session Team

This was my first real, big speaking event and I was nervous as hell at first. The main reason I was able to give a good presentation was because of three incredibly cool people - Leon Brown, Pandurang Nayak, and Deepak Gulati. Our session was 75 minutes and covered the three Expression products. We also launched www.1expression.net (more on that later) and the WebRockstars contest at http://www.webrockstars.in/

I couldn't have asked for a better team! These guys are amazing. Thanks so much, guys! We spent two days in a conference room in Microsoft Mumbai preparing for our stuff. It was a first-of-it's-kind experience for me. Of course, the traditional "pizza while debugging" was a familiar entity.

Our session went excellently. It opened up with Leon (who was our session host) and cricket player Murali Kartik (a name Leon still probably can't pronounce - man, he got a lot of torture from me about that - and lots of other stuff!), followed by a walkthrough of Expression Web by Pandurang.

Pandu explains the session to Murali Kartik

I followed that with a brief intro of Expression Graphic Designer and Expression Interactive Designer. After that Deepak and I did a Developer-Designer workflow integration demo. He made a strict "developer looking" application (aka, functional but crappy looking) in Visual Studio 2005 with "Orcas" tools. I opened the solution in ExprID and enhanced it with styles and animations. We got a really great response from the audience. Deepak and I immediately developed this chemistry which allowed us to create a funny little style of working together on-stage. And I think the people really loved it.

We ended our session with three important things: an announcement that great things will be revealed about Expression in the first week of December; the launch of www.1expression.net; and a Q&A session. My fun moment there was representing my fellow designers worldwide - the most audible form of that was during the closing when someone asked "What are the debugging capabilities of Expression Interactive?". Deepak, Leon, and Pandu gave good, real answers. I, of course, said "Designers don't debug". :)

Mandira Bedi, TV personality and the host of the live webcast

I again missed the next session (Developer) as I was asked to be interviewed on the live webcast (75k viewers - made my knees shake!) by Mandira Bedi. I was able to catch Bob Muglia's closing remarks and Q&A. After the event, Leon and I also did a short interview for CNBC.

Bob Muglia answers a question. The four guys in the background are Deepak Gulati, Janakiram MSV, Kevin D'Souza, and Rohit Kapoor.

Praveen Srivatsa, Microsoft Regional Director for Bangalore, takes software construction seriously

Over the past 5 days, I got to meet some really great people - Microsfties, MVPs, RDs, simple civilianss, business execs, Cricket stars, movie stars, and who can forget Steve Ballmer! I also got to learn so many cool things that I can't tell without violating a dozen NDAs. That's the price you pay for being close to Microsoft.

All I can say is: hang on - the ride has just begun!

PS. Leon, yes, still MEKNB.

.NET | Code | Downloads | Graphics | Microsoft | My Insignificant Life | Photography | Web | Windows Vista | WPF | WPFE

Comments [9]  |  Trackback

If you don't already know, MIX'06 is coming to India in the form of IndiMIX'06 (http://www.indimix06.com). The keynote will be given by Steve Ballmer.

I've been given the honor of being on the same stage as Steve B. I'm going to be doing a piece on .NET Framework 3.0 - essentially about Windows Presentation Foundation and the Designer / Developer work process. I'll be co-presenting the demo with some really cool people.

IndiMIX'06 will be held at the National Center for Performing Arts (NCPA), Nariman Point, Mumbai. It's a free public event and you can register for it at the official website. If you're not able to come to Mumbai, or if the event is sold out you can watch the live webcast. Register for either at the official site.

My presentation will be from 2:00pm to 3:15pm (local time, +5:30GMT).

For more info, visit http://www.indimix06.com

.NET | Aesthetics | Avalon | Code | Geek Stuff | Graphics | Microsoft | My Insignificant Life | Web | Windows Vista | WPF

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

My article has finally been published on MSDN. Thanks to the nice people at MS for letting me write this!

.NET | Articles | Graphics | Microsoft | Windows Vista | WPF

Comments [4]  |  Trackback

www.pwopcatcher.com, the official site for Pwop Production's PWOPCATCHER podcast downloader is now live. A barebone alpha is also available.

The look of the site was done by yours truly. It was modelled after the "BORG" skin that will be the default look of PwopCatcher.

.NET | Geek Stuff | Graphics

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

I just read Andrew Lucking's blog post about my first video on EID, and it kinda inspired me to give my perspective on Flash vs EID.

Let's recount the basic stuff:

What's EID and WPF potential over Flash? Well, can't say much about WPF/E until I actually use it, but taking WPF as a basic example, here are my thoughts:

NOTE: For the purpose of this post, EID and WPF (or at least the features) are the same. If it is in one, its in the other.

• It all comes back to the timeline. In Flash Timeline is God. In EID, Timeline is just another aspect of an object, and there are more than one timelines and each can be ran parallel to other timelines - even of the same object!! In other words, with Flash we're looking at "time" from a normal layman's perspective; with WPF, it's like looking at "time" from Einstein's perspective.
• In Flash, you have to stop the timeline in order to have a static frame, which makes creating a multi-section Flash website quite difficult. It's not difficult per-se, but difficult when you consider the trigger-only-timelines that EID presents. That would make this much easier.
• Creating 3D content in Flash has always been terribly difficult. Shockwave does add 3D support, but its more like VRML on steroids. If you don't know about VRML, it was a 3D web standard pushed in the late 90s. It was terrible!! With inherent and DirectX support for 3D with shaders and crap is actually fantastic! That alone will land a good blow to Flash.
• There's good DOCUMENT support in WPF. This gives you a document-data presentation component that Flash just can't do! This is one of the chief reasons why the Adobe people are gung-ho on integrating PDF and SWF.
• EID comes from a "component and controls, animate it all" point-of-view, while Flash is "all animation, some component... animate components? uhh, ok, you can try...". The WRAP PANEL and other such controls can seriously kick Flash's ass.

You might say: "Whoa! Hold on. WPF/E does not have all this! It's very puny and limited!"

If you're a Flash or non-Microsoft-stuff user, I'll let you go. If you're a Microsoft-user and you said that give yourself a big kick. Without going into the intricacies of numerology, we all know that this is just version 1. All we have to do is wait 2 more versions. Let me explain:

So I've said all the nice things about WPF and put down Flash. Well, that's not the whole story. WPF is severely limited in many ways that Flash isn't. The user base being not the least of it, of course. Right now, WPF is more close to Macromedia FLEX than Flash.

Branden Hall writes in his post titled "The Flash Killer Cometh":

Well, I can't say I disagree with the first part. For the "mythical Interactive Developer" (I might have to adopt that as my title) comment, well, I disagree there.

Mythical Interactive Developers are not, in fact, mythical. I am one myself, and in the last 7 years have trained 4 such people (10 years and 16 people if you want to count VRML in this). We (ahem) are rare, but not nonexistent. And more shall rise. The gates of Oblivion have opened!! Uhh... sorry, wrong topic.

Anyways, let me get back to my point.

If you are not a Microsofter or are very new to the Microsoft world - the REAL Microsoft World that only devs see - you don't know the power of number 3. As I said, again ignoring numerology, that this WPF 1.0. Microsoft ALWAYS strikes gold with Version 3.

Windows 3(.1) was the most popular in the first generation. Windows 98SE was WAY better than 95 or 98. Windows ME was a fluke, so let's forget that. In the third generation we had Windows 2000 and then XP, now we have Vista which will undoubtedly hit the mark.

Visual Studio 6.0 (#3 of II generation) was way better than anything else. Visual Studio 2005 (#3 of the III generation) is already doing great things!

So step back a bit. Look from a larger perspective. Microsoft is only laying the foundation. Bill Buxton said:

There is a new revolution coming. It will come in THREE waves. Here's my prediction for it:

• First Big Wave: We shift from WinForms to a more Web+Vector like platform. We learn the ropes for the upcoming waves. The Mythical Interactive Developer is born and many Flashers flock to the Microsoft banner - mostly because working with WPF will pay a LOT more than Flash does. Microsoft silently keeps working on the final stuff.
• Second Bigger Wave: After a year or more of having WPF out there, Microsoft will have perfect grasp on what's needed, what the public wants, what the designers+developers need. A 2.0 release gives you more power. More people flock under the Microsoft flag. More users keep adopting this technology - even just as runtime. Microsoft silently keeps working on the final stuff.
• Tsunami: The work is done. Microsoft has the perfect blend ready. Flash is either killed or is kept limping behind.

Branden Hall also writes:

I recommend reading the posts in this category in old-to-new order. But let explain in short:

Microsoft is right. WPF is not being primed (solely) as a Flash-killer. It will definetely be a Mac-killer tho. But my point is this: If you think WPF is only for making things pretty you are WAAAAAAAY off.

WPF is about getting the presentation layer of a software done quickly and flexibly. Things that required superior subclassing skills and knowledge can be done by an amateur now. The declarative model makes things much easier. WPF will be a boon for developers. It will solve a LOT of problems.

For record let me make it clear:

Windows Presentation Foundation or Expression Interactive Designer will not make anything extra-graphical or extra-interactive unless designer/developer goes to some lengths to actually make it so! When you DON'T skin a control, it will look just like a normal Windows control does. WPF will solve problems such as creating composite controls, creating resolution-independent applications, allowing better and economical usage of graphics hardware and vector to lower CPU usage that GDI+ does not, and more. This is not an animation package (yet).

No. WinFX/WPF/EID is the next generation of development platform. Of course, it won't take long for it become what ASP.net is for the web. But it will be like ASP.net in many ways. WPF/E will co-exist with Flash, just as ASP.net does with PHP and JSP. Of course, it goes without saying that ASP.net is better than PHP or JSP, and so will be WPF/e (eventually).

With that, and the sun shining in my face at 7:20 in the morning, I bid thee good night.

.NET | Art | Avalon | Geek Stuff | Graphics | Microsoft | Windows Vista | WPF | WPFE

Comments [8]  |  Trackback

Here's a first look at NukeControls. This is just a small piece of the whole thing - only 3 controls.

nPanel - a special "header" control
nProgress - a super cool Vista-style progressbar for .NET 2.0 with animation!
nNavigator - bi-directional navigation control

All these controls have 6 or more themes, and some like the nPanel, can be customized.

Click the image above to download a ZIP (175kb) with a VB.NET 2005 project. If you don't have VB.NET 2005, you can just run the EXE in the BIN folder.

This is an alpha build only. Expect a public beta in the coming week or two. If you run this in the IDE, do note that only a handful of events and properties have been exposed for this demo. Some themes will not function as well.

Comments are appreciated. We are also looking for people to beta test the controls suite. Beta testers get a free copy of this product! Contact us at beta [at] nukeation [dot] com.

.NET | Downloads | Graphics | Toys | Windows Vista

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

I had an extensive argument with a pro-DotNetNuke (DNN) person, and the only reason we didn't end up giving each other a black eye is that Messenger does not support such actions. He said I didn't mix well with DNN because it was also "nuke" and, I quote, "and you believe that this industry is not big enough for the both of you". That is not the case. After calming him (and myself) down, I promised him a good, lucid explanation instead of just badmouthing his favorite CMS (Content Management System).

I've tried every version of DotNetNuke ever since it was first released. Everytime I install it, I end up uninstalling it in a few days and hope the next version is better.

Carl Franklin had suggested that the .NET ROCKS! site be DNN. But I had such a bad experience with DNN at that time that I ended up creating my own CMS based on Carl's tools he had already created.

For the past few weeks, I've been knee-deep in DNN 4 for a client (will post URL when done). This time there is no other choice than DNN since this site has to be easily editable. And DNN is much better than any other .NET based CMS system I've tried so far. Reminds me of the horrible time I had when creating www.idesign.net for Juval Lowy. I ended up replacing 30% to 50% of the ASP.net Portal Starter Kit (1.1) code with my own, including altering the database structure and sprocs. I half-joked Juval that the code was haunted. So when comparing to that, DNN is quite good.

So what am I ranting about? Well, no offense to Shaun Walker and the others who've worked on DNN - really, I do admire this huge and complex app they've built - but at best, DNN is Kaminoan. That is, it's turning out website clones.

I had told Carl during the aforementioned situation that DNN did NOT give pixel-precision. Carl asked Shaun that same question during the DNR episode about DNN just before 4.0's release. Shaun denied that and said that it is in fact possible. I'm sorry, but I beg to differ. Y'see it's "technically" or "theoretically" possible only. Whether you create your own skin or modify the samples, there will always be that 4-block pattern you won't be able to break. There also spacing and positioning issues that happen when you deal in the "edit" stuff that the modules come with.

I'm not so thick that I'm totally unaware that a lot of times such a solution is more than good enough and is quite helpful for many people. I do appreciate that. Heck, if I hated DNN so much, I'd have said no to the aforementioned client.

If you're a designer who knows how to easily achieve pixel-precision in DNN, not only do I bow to your experise, but I would seriously like to learn how. I can't discount the possibility that maybe it's me who had gotten this all wrong.

I can promise you this: if there's one thing I've learnt in my 8+ years of web design and public-reponse studies, it's that a uniquely designed website will always produce better results than a clone site built on a CMS (not neccessarily DNN - could be any other CMS).

A custom solution also doesn't mean you lose all the editablity and managability you get in a CMS. Check out www.tedneward.com - a good 50% of this site is custom CMS-managed stuff. Ted wanted the site to be editable - but only the stuff that he would update frequently - events, articles, news, etc. I custom designed this CMS in less than 5 hours. Using one of the CMS like DNN would have been overkill, and not to mention I'd have lost control over the design.

And different situations need different CMS solutions (I'm going to punch the person who says "But you can make your own modules in DotNetNuke!"). Back in late December 2004, I took the brilliant SQL back-end that Carl had created for DNR, and I created a special CMS for this particular solution (podcast website). Carl had his own management tool to manipulate the back-end. By mid-January 2005, that site was totally objectified and practically became a Content Engine in its own right. The following sites use the same (or partially modified) version of the engine:

www.dotnetrocks.com, http://mondays.pwop.com, www.hanselminutes.com, www.dnrtv.com ... and others I'm not supposed to mention.

This CMS is so highly specialized for this specific purpose, that to create a new site, all you need to do is script a new copy of the database, copy the .NET 2.0 site, and replace the MasterPage with your new design. DnrTV - the latest offering from this engine, was built in less than 3 hours - including testing and recurring revisions to the design.

Bottom line: after many tries, and the currently ongoing adventure in DNN, I don't consider it practical nor do I think I will soon accept another DNN (or any other prefab CMS) project.

DISCLAIMER: Nukeation Studios consists of more than one person, and any comments I've made here reflect only on me and not on my company. That being said, I still won't personally handle a DNN project ever. I'll just hand it to one of the boys or outsource it completely!

.NET | Graphics

Comments [1]  |  Trackback

IMO, in my recent experiences, a large number of people still think of a skinned app as something like Windows Media Player, WinAMP, PowerDVD, the OEM apps that come with digital cameras, Bryce or even PwopCatcher. Skinning CAN be like that, and no doubt MANY people will want that (and need it too). However, skinning can also (and in a more widely needed as well as realistic pov) mean enhancing the existing structures of your WPF application controls.

In certain situations "skinning around the control" rather than "skinning the control" also helps. And if you allow me a moment to be painstakingly irritating, with WPF's super flexible design model, skinning is too narrow a term to really describe what can be done. But back to skinning around the control, let me clarify what I mean by building upon an example I (will) present in The Human UX:

Say we have a button that triggers a purge of a nuclear reactor (if you don't know yet, this is a hypothetical situation). From a typical skinning point of view (STC - Skinnin the control) we might have an urge to paint the control red, put a biohazard or radioactive symbol on it, and add those yellow-black warning stripes around it. Now that's all nice and good, but just PAINTING the control is not really helpful aside from making an idiot go "ooooooh, what does THIS button do?".

Let's build a USABILITY ENHANCEMENT on top of this. For a seriously dangerous function trigger like this button, a good accident deterrent is needed. Let's use a reversed version of the "Your computer will restart in 15 seconds" dialog. We make the button nicely big (say 100px wide and 50px tall). When idle, it says "Purge Reactor" and has an exclamation on either side. When clicked, the text says "Confirm?" and the button starts to pulsate its color. A small 95px wide, center-aligned, progressbar appears ON the button, and instead of the exclamation icon, a countdown is shown - which is also reflected in the "emptying" progressbar. If the action is not confirmed within 15 seconds, then it is automaticaly cancelled. To be safe from accidental double-clicks, the countdown starts 3 seconds AFTER the first click.

On cancellation, the button fades back to the normal "idle" mode.

Now this is something I just dreamt up right now. With proper planning and some usability experts (<cough> Nukeation </cough>) these types of "little things" can seriously enhance the usability of any application.

What we just did here was NOT your typical skinning. We actually edited the base template of an existing button, added various timelines to respond to different events, and added sub-controls hosted on its surface. This kind of work was not possible (at least in terms of practicality and ease) unless you knew some heavy C++. We are messing with new "sub-controls" and timelines rather than just slapping on sweet graphics, so this isn't really skinning. While the official terms for this are (as far as I know) "Editing a control template". I call it Avalonizing or Avalonization, of WPFing (pronounced "wip'fing").

But enough of terminology. My main point here is that we now have an affordable, easy to implement, and flexible model for doing such things. And this power should not be wasted on just skinning an application, but rather to create superior usability enhancements to your apps.

Coming soon

Next Part: Using various contains like Grid, Canvas, and Flow to seamlessly present both controls and textual content in a single form.

Tutorial: Simple Template Editing for the Button and Progressbar.

Geek Stuff | Graphics | Windows Vista | WPF

Comments [2]  |  Trackback

Now that Windows Presentation Foundation is much more stable, and all it's tools are appearing in usable condition, I've started moving some of our projects to WPF.

The first of which is PixelSpread.

PixelSpread is a more-or-less ANTI-ORGANIZER. Don't let the name fool you though, it has superb auto-organization facilities. PixelSpread is made especially for designers (web and graphic). Photographers have recently gotten tools that let them organize their photos on a digital light table and work like they do in the physical world. Now that's all nice and good, but a much more simple (yet complex) solution is required for graphics designers who have literally thousands of small images (icons, graphical widgets, etc.). The thing is, designers often work with pieces of a single image. For example, take a button for example - it is (in web design especially) comprised of three different images: left side, right side, and the middle that can be stretched as wide as need be. You have to be painfully specific to organize these images so that you can see them in order in your image viewer or Windows Explorer. And organizing multiple such things is a pain. Trust me. I manage over 651k+ such images.

So, in comes PixelSpread. NOTE: This screenshot is from the WinForms .NET 2.0 prototype. This has 60% less features.

So, PixelSpread lets designers randomly drop images to keep here in a "spread". You can have more than one spread and share a single image across multiple spreads - like the new Virtual Folders in Vista. You can store a more than one format for each image. You can instantly copy from PixelSpread to your favorite web design or graphic design software.

PixelSpread maintains 32-bit transparency and supports Vector objects as well. You can zoom in/out an entire spread. Featuring state-of-the-art image compression (storage only), the PixelSpread data storage layer compressed a 291MB Corel PhotoPaint (CPT) file to 10.3MB, and a 325MB PhotoShop (PSD) file to 19MB.

With the move to WPF, the UI is more more flexible and customizable. The memory footprint is smaller, and the application is now seriously much more fun to use! Even with the move to WPF, PixelSpread still uses the Nukeation XCOPY™ Engine written entirely in Visual Basic 8.0 and sporting a custom back-end.

For more information about PixelSpread, subscribe to the RSS feed at http://labs.nukeation.net or see the PixelSpread page there.

PixelSpread is intended for a Q3 2006 release. There will be a free "Express" version of it as well. Expect a beta in the coming months.

.NET | Graphics | WPF

Comments [3]  |  Trackback

http://labs.nukeation.net is now active. Do note, this is a pretty bare bones version. I will beef it up over the next couple of weeks. I have about a dozen downloads to add - as soon as I get time to debug them

Many new projects we are making for our retail division (for developers and graphics designers) are now shown on Nukeation Labs.

.NET | Downloads | Geek Stuff | Graphics | NukeBall | WPF

Comments [2]  |  Trackback

I've had plans for a long time to create a special bridge website where me and the boys (and girl) at Nukeation Studios get to show off code, tools, and other cool stuff to our peers (and give it away for free). I started doing that on a miniscule level on this blog, but I'm not your traditional blogger. I can't keep my normal slapstick out of this blog, nor do I have time to manage two blogs (and frankly, I don't think anyone would read my slapstick-only blog anymore).

Eventually, the idea of Nukeation Labs (did you know Nukeation Studios was known as Nukeation Labs before it was legally made into a business entity?) became a bit more. Nukeation will be soon be making a new full fledged dive into Professional Tools development. We will be focusing on two audiences: graphics designers and software developers. With our new tools being planned for WinFX, both these will overlap at some point.

So, my goals (yes, I'll be managing the site singlehandedly at the moment) with Nukeation Labs are:

• Provide technical insight into tools and other projects we are doing
• Provide free source code samples for .NET, Web developement, and Windows Presentation Foundation (and WPF/E whenever that gets here)
• Provide free (and commercial) tools for software and graphics professionals
• Publicly discuss alpha projects that often never see the light of day, but might make for fun discussions.
• And more ... once I find someone to start managing the site. :)

Nukeation Labs will be available in a couple of weeks as soon as I move this blog to a new server. Nukeation Labs will be available at http://labs.nukeation.net/ - that is, once I move this on to a new server.

.NET | Geek Stuff | Graphics | NukeBall | WPF

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

For the past few days, I have been battling a mega-crisis on my main production PC. I still don't know the cause, but at the end, my beautiful 80GB SATA harddrive will be sent for replacement by Seagate. I bought a new 200GB one, transferred all the data without problem (for a change) and am now reinstalling everything to get back to work-ready status.

While I was off staring at a blank blue chkdsk screen for 12 hours in a row, two companies on which my livelihood depends on - Microsoft and Corel - pulled a fast one on me. Microsoft released Expression Interactive Designer (EID or MEID or "Sparkle"). If you don't know, Sparkle will be the heart of WPF based applications.

First of all, I must congratulate Microsoft for pulling off one hell of a job on this app! It seriously kicks Flash's ass. And its 6.8MB if you can believe it. Yup. Amazing!! The completely non-Microsoft-like UI (Black!!!) looks so sweet! The different work panels are a cross between Flash and Visual Studio - very cool.

I have a lot of work pending due to the hardware problems and all, but I will surely post a bigger review (from a dev and designer pov) over the weekend.

Corel Graphics Suite X3 (v13) is downloading as I write this. I blindly bought the upgrade, of course. PhotoPaint is a million times better than Photoshop. At least for me. I create all my websites in it. I can't wait to see what they've put in this release!! Again, more on that this weekend.

Lastly, this blog seems too confining to share snippets of code and .net (and xaml) stuff I want to give away freely. Some of my cohorts at Nukeation agree. So we're starting up (or rather, RE-starting) NUKEATION LABS. It will be 100% free, 100% managed, and on a seperate domain, of course. I'm almost finished with Nukeation Mapee 1.0, nukeControls 1.0, and more. All will be put up for public download very soon. The site will be up by the end of the week. The url is yet to be decided.

Geek Stuff | Graphics | My Insignificant Life | WPF

Comments [1]  |  Trackback

It is entirely possible to get lost at the Microsoft site. If you know how to find information, you can see how truly immense the site is. It could surely use a better navigation system, because often some great resources are hidden from plain sight and just might miss the mark.

I accidentally stumbled on this page that I had visited long ago. It's the Microsoft Design Resource site. At first glance you can see how the design is atypical of Microsofts normal trends (barring the 30th anniversary, Research, and Innovation presentations in the Corporate site).

This site is an excellent read and has some really nice, chic even, designs. The PEOPLE section is very interesting to people who are interested in design.

Here's an example of a cool thing - the "Office of the Future" design that won Microsoft an IDEA (Industrial Design Excellence Award).

This is a UI targeted at a very wide (and curved) prototype computer Microsoft has made. It's like have three monitors, but without the breaks in between.

How developers will embrace WPF and the new vector design methods is yet to be seen. If the reactions I've seen so far are a sign of the future, I think it might take some time. While developers love the cold logic of code, computers are merging more and more into human life, and as such will need to be approached with a psychological view as well. Right now, only few software companies (most of which are giants) do such research and apply it to their products.

The role of the designer in the software industry will be a very powerful catalyst for the entire industry and how we work. The factors of psychology in relation to human-computer interaction (psychophysics I believe applies here) are very important as I've started to learn in the last few months. I only had shallow knowledge of such, but after reading a few essays and the book Emotional Design by Dr. Don Norman (www.jnd.org) I started developing a much deeper interest. My personal ideas and views conflict a bit with Dr. Norman's, but I have come to greatly appreciate his insight.

Usability might seem like a trivial thing - especially when worrying about the code you still have to write - but it is far more important than it seems. When dealing with a non-technical (or even technical) software product - a good aesthetic+psycholical influence can help you increase sales, make the product more usable, FUN, and increase productivity at the same time.

My thoughts will be continued in "The Human UX" and some other posts. I had hoped to have it published on MSDN sooner, but I will post a preview copy here as the MSDN schedule seems a bit delayed.

Art | Geek Stuff | Graphics | Microsoft | Windows Vista | WPF

Comments [0]  |  Trackback

This week is gonna be great. We ha