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Performance UX is a perfect solution for those of you who work on websites that are already live. The aim of this article is to provide an introduction to performance UX and help you understand its three core pillars. I’ll delve into a bit of history and let you know where the need for performance UX initially came from and how it can get clients bought into (and understanding) UX. Lastly, I’ll show you how to produce three performance UX tactical deliverables to help map your ongoing strategy.
UX (within service delivery) has been at the heart of the most successful customer-centric businesses for many years. A decade or so ago the market started taking UX seriously and the results have been exceptional, with new web design tools popping up all over the place to help measure and implement UX strategies. A study from pointsource.com found that for every $2 spent on UX-related activities, $2 to $100 was yielded in return.
Right here, right now, it really doesn’t feel like those of us with a UX cap need to be backwards in coming forwards with new thinking and innovative ways of improving the experience of our clients and our clients’ customers. The digital market figures support UX as a viable solution to achieve ROI. UX has become a bread and butter service offering for agencies..
So being a UX practitioner is brilliant and all of our clients think we’re some kind of digital Dalai Lama, right? No. It certainly wasn’t this way for me, not for a long time.
What is performance UX?
UX, for me, isn’t something that ever finishes. It is an ongoing process, not a one-off project that has a start and end date. Within an agency, this thinking fits very nicely into a recurring (month-on-month) services model. I had long been an advocate of lean UX – it’s really the most appropriate means of delivery in a fast-paced, multi-client agency environment.
My whole digital product approach was already based on iterative cycles using agile sprints, which helps to keep progress moving forward. Lastly, the part of me obsessed with clean code and optimising for search marketing needed to minimise bloat, keep things nice and streamlined as well as being future ready. Blending all these aspects together with UX tactics and strategy, it felt like I was on to something.
I put together an initial program of ongoing delivery that I called ‘User Experience Optimisation’. It flopped. The results were good but prospects (more often than not) simply didn’t understand it and didn’t take it on. A month or so passed with slow progress until a wise Texan took me to one side and suggested I changed the name to ‘Performance UX’. He theorised that businesses understood performance and already wanted help in making performance better.
He wasn’t wrong. The delivery program didn’t change at all. Just the name. Service growth immediately surged. So how can performance UX build on the already solid foundations established in the UX marketplace? To put it in simple terms, it just requires a slight tweak to the perspective.
The three pillars of performance UX
When talking about UX, we can sometimes shy away from talking about cold hard cash. In my experience, the client wants to know what UX means in terms of ROI or how long the UX project will take before they see results on their bottom line. Sometimes this can be impossible to quantify until the actual work starts.
We need to move the conversation away from money and instead focus on performance, namely: technical, experiential and commercial performance. The three pillars of performance UX. These are tangible areas with the ability to benchmark and demonstrate progress.
Technical performance
This is all about clearing impediments and enabling your digital product to be the best it can be. You could have the best looking website on the market but if it’s slow or not utilising the latest technologies, it wouldn’t take much for it to be quickly left behind.Experiential performance
This means understanding who your users are, what you want them to do on your site and being able to diagnose what they are actually doing.Commercial performance
The final pillar requires you to become your client and understand their needs and the needs of the business. Knowing what each conversion, sale or interaction means to your client will help you prioritise your work and ensure you’re reporting on what’s important to themBy separating the process into three core areas, you are helping the client understand that improving digital experience can be tangible – but these areas must work together to achieve the best results.
Who can do performance UX?
I’ve found that the best UX professionals I’ve met have a varied skillset – it’s almost a given if you’ve worked in UX for any length of time. The majority started in different areas and moved into user experience later in life. This varied experience makes an ideal performance UX campaign delivery manager.
Performance UX works best when you can cover – by yourself or with a team – design, strategy, data analysis, code, project management and most importantly, excellent communication.
How to run a performance UX sprint
Your first performance UX sprint is about understanding and benchmarking. Understanding your client should be the first step with every new digital campaign – but that doesn’t mean it should be underrated.
Hold a kick-off meeting with your client and conduct a stakeholder interview. You’ll need to interview whoever will be evaluating your work and, if you can, whoever evaluates their work. You need to learn about their business, what’s important to them and what they expect from you (this works whether you’re in-house or from an agency). These interviews are integral when it comes time to plan your strategic UX roadmap later.
For those unaware, a sprint is a measure of time, and a key part of the Agile development methodology (read more about Sprints here). You set a list of tasks you believe you can achieve in your sprint and then report to your client at the end. In this example, my client has four days a month of performance UX. In this first sprint, I’ll spread two days’ worth of time over two weeks.
As a recurring service this means we have at least three client touch points each month. One at the start of the first sprint, one at the end of the first (and start of the second) and one at the end of the second sprint.
In this sprint we’ll deliver a technical diagnostics audit, experiential journey analysis and commercial goal review to our client. These documents will form the backlog for ongoing performance UX work.
The technical diagnostics audit
Technical performance essentially boils down to speed. How quickly can the user find the site (in search)? How fast is your digital product in giving the user what they want? And how accessible is it? Although speed has been used in search ranking for some time, it was focused on desktop searches. This year, Google announced page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches. This now makes technical website performance more important than ever.
In order to diagnose the current state of technical performance, we need to gather benchmark data. We’ll use three sources of data that are all free. You’ll want to run your client’s site through: PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix and Lighthouse. For the latter you’ll want to run all reports except the Progressive Web App one.
Lighthouse runs in the browser (or in node/command line) and gives an insight into any technical performance issues
To compile your findings, you should provide an executive summary of why you are conducting the audit (benchmarking) and show the scores from the three sources up front. You should ideally explain to the client what each source looks at and why you chose it.
For the rest of the audit, compile the recommendations from the three tools into chapters with numbered lists of recommendations. Your chapters should be: basic site setup, speed and performance, accessibility and SEO. The chapters form themes you can use in the coming months and the numbers will enable you and the client to refer to line items during discussions. All of these elements directly affect the user and being able to talk about them is absolutely essential to being a user advocate to your client.
Experiential journey analysis
In order to show how we’ve improved the experience for the user, we record how users are currently using the site. We’ll do this using two industry-standard UX testing tools: Hotjar and Google Analytics. Sign up for Hotjar and get the tracking on your client’s site as soon as possible, ideally before this sprint starts. Once the code is installed, log in to Hotjar and activate Recordings – on the free plan you’ll get 100 sessions, which is more than enough. Make sure you select sessions that include clicking and scrolling and that you ensure it’s only recording sessions of over 30 seconds.
Hotjar has a number of tools to help with user behaviour insight
Once you’ve amassed a good few sessions, sort by the #pages column (high to low) and review what’s been recorded. You should take notes about the way users navigate through the site and the sequence of pages they take. 10 to 20 videos of three or more pages should give you a good feel of how users are moving through their journey. You should document these journeys, pulling out any information of note (users ignoring CTAs, not using the menu you thought they would, using the site search, etc).
Next, within your client’s Google Analytics, navigate to the Behaviour > Site content > All pages table. Set the date range for the last three months and make sure you’re sorting by page views. What we’re going to do now is show our client how users move through the site most of the time.
Take the top 10 pages for page views. For each of these click on their URL in the table. This takes you to the page level screen and the graph will only show visits for that one page. Click on the tab that says Navigation Summary, found above the graph in the top-left corner – it’s next to the one already selected that says Explorer.
This navigation summary screen shows you which page users were on before the page you selected and usefully, where it was that they went afterwards. You should record this data for each of your client’s top-performing pages (10 is a good number to start with).
Collate these findings in a document for your client and be sure to include a section where you note down anything of interest. You will refer to this document a lot in the coming months when justifying hypotheses or demonstrating journey improvements, for example ‘this page used to account for four per cent of visits to the demo sign up; my work on improving messaging/layout has increased this to 8 per cent’.
Commercial goal review
This task is exactly what it sounds like and can be somewhat painful for some less technical clients. The point of this exercise is to establish trust and to also let the client know you understand what is important to them.
Review your stakeholder interviews and distil what is important for your client to measure success. Is it product sales? Brochure downloads? Phone calls? Armed with this information, you should log into your client’s Google Analytics and review their goal tracking (Admin > Goals). Note down which goals relate to what and, more importantly, note any missing goals you will need to add. Next arrange a call or meeting with your client (this is important – an email won’t do) and run through each goal. Once you’ve established what each goal does and if any need replacing or amending, suggest any new goals you need to add.
For ease you should document what each goal is recording (in simple terms) for your client and then record the goals you mean to add on their behalf. It’s at this point I’d recommend learning how to deal with regular expressions (RegEx), which will help no end in dealing with complex goal tracking; regular expressions 101 is an excellent debugging tool once you’re up to speed.
How to review your progress
With your first sprint at an end, you now have three valuable documents ready to present to your client. It’s important to get these right, because these documents will form the basis of how you plan your next three, six or 12 months. Ideally, the whole of the second sprint will be used to produce your performance UX strategy. After the work you’ve already put in, the client will understand the importance of getting this right.
Within your strategy document you should record what is important to the client in terms of key metrics. You should then detail, month-on-month, how you will work towards measurable progress. Always justify your tactics using technical, experiential or commercial performance reasoning.
Performance UX is unique in that you get to be an advocate for the user and for your client
For example, instead of saying ‘I need to do some card sorting to make the navigation easier to understand’, try ‘our experiential user journey research showed a disconnect in the labelling used on the current navigation – card sorting would allow us to find a better solution’. Ideally you should have a way of showing how your work is influencing the benchmarks you have recorded. I’d recommend a tool like Power BI or Google’s Data Studio to make an dashboard with all the metrics updating in real time.
How you produce your strategy is ultimately down to you but I would strongly advise a varied strategy. Cover all three pillars whenever possible. Commercial is where users end up, experiential is how they get there and technical is what’s stopping them on their journey. Too much technical work and you will lose your client’s interest, too much experiential work and they might start to question value and too much commercial work just becomes conversion rate optimisation.
Performance UX is unique in that you get to be an advocate for the user and for your client. You job is to be an old-fashioned ‘middle man (or woman)’ and make it as easy as possible for both parties to get what they want. So get out there and start greasing those wheels.
Performance UX resources
The elements that make up performance UX are nothing new and there are already some fantastic books out there that make excellent reading for anyone wanting to start working with performance in mind.
Here are some useful resources that will sharpen up your skillset
Sprint
Jake Knapp's book is all about solving problems and testing ideas in a five-day sprint. I found this book especially useful for moving ideas through a team setting.Designing for Performance
If there was a book on web design I wish I’d written, it would be this one by Lara Callender Hogan. The knowledge contained will help you understand and dominate technical website performance.Product Design
A neat little field guide from David Pasztor on the product design process. Touching on things like; journey flows, A/B testing and onboarding, it’s a good tool to brush up on some more general skills if you’re missing them.Lean UX
The experiential performance element of performance UX owes a lot to lean UX processes. Rather than focusing on deliverables, this book by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seidenwill show you how to directly affect the experience itself.Design is a Job
Working in a recurring model means you need to manage your client properly. Make sure you understand what they need from you and be confident in leading them. This book by Mike Monteiro may just straighten your spine.This article was originally published in net, the world's best-selling magazine for web designers and developers. Buy issue 313 or subscribe.
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In days gone by, if you missed the start of a film on TV then that was it, you just had to sit through the rest and figure it out as you went along. It was a confusing way to watch films, and could often change the meaning of the story. To highlight the importance of catching films from the beginning, Sky has launched a new set of typography-based ads, in a campaign called 'Miss the Start. Miss the Story’.
Created for Sky by Serviceplan Campaign X to promote how users can now restart films on linear TV with Sky, these clever poster designs target the German market, where viewers still predominantly watch films when they're on, as opposed to through On Demand services.
To point out why it's important to catch all of a film, including the beginning, these ads delete the first letters from familiar titles that rely on eye-catching and recognisable typography. Take the martial arts classic Kill Bill, which becomes the slightly less impressive Ill Bill when you chop off the K (see above).
It's a simple but effective trick that plays with viewer's expectations and invites them to engage with the ads. The posters also underline how effective the right combination of typography and colour can be. Check out the rest of the campaign ads below.
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Want to download Adobe Photoshop CC? You’re in the right place. Whether you’re looking to download Photoshop for free, or intending to buy Photoshop through Creative Cloud – but you’re not sure how – we’ve got you covered.
Here’s everything you need to know to get hold of Adobe’s advanced image editor quickly and easily, from how to easily download Photoshop CC for PC or Mac, to how to get a free trial of Adobe Photoshop, and the best Photoshop tutorials to follow once you've got the software…
Can I download Photoshop for free?
The short answer is: yes – in a way. Photoshop is a paid-for image-editing program, but you can download a free trial of Photoshop for both Windows and macOS from Adobe. You’ll get seven days to use the full version of the software, which gives you access to all the latest features and updates.
Downloading Photoshop for free in any other way is illegal and definitely not recommended. Not only is it software piracy, it’s also unsafe – you’ll put your machine at risk of viruses and malware.
How do I buy Photoshop CC?
You have to buy Photoshop as part of a Creative Cloud membership. There are a number of different options: you can choose a single app plan, which will give you just Photoshop CC; or a plan that includes more of Adobe’s creative apps.
The Photography Plan, for example, gives you access to Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic; whereas an All Apps plan gives you access to all of Adobe’s apps – plus a range of other benefits too (but is more expensive). There are options for individuals and businesses, and if you’re a student or teacher you can save up to 65% if you buy Photoshop as part of the All Apps plan.
What’s the price of Photoshop CC?
CS Light Bulbs: Packaging created by Angelina Pischikova
The cheapest way to buy Photoshop CC is as part of the Photography plan, which costs $9.99/£9.98 per month and gives you access to Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic, plus 20GB cloud storage.
Alternatively, you can choose a Creative Cloud Single App plan, which costs $20.99/£19.97 per month, and will give you just Photoshop, plus 100GB cloud storage, Adobe portfolio, Adobe Fonts and Adobe Spark.
On the same page of the Adobe website, there's also an All Apps option, which gives you access to Photoshop as well as Adobe’s entire collection of creative desktop and mobile apps – plus the same additional benefits as the Single App Plan – for $52.9/£49.94 per month. And finally, you can buy Photoshop through an All Apps + Adobe Stock option for £73/month, which (clue’s in the name) gives you Adobe Stock on top of the All Apps benefits.
Photoshop discounts for teachers and students
Bear in mind that if you’re a student or teacher, you can buy Photoshop as part of a discounted All Apps plan at a much lower rate – so you’ll get the entire collection of creative desktop and mobile apps, plus 100GB cloud storage, Adobe Portfolio and more – for just £16.24/month.
The only non-subscription version of Photoshop you can buy is Photoshop Elements, which is an entry-level iteration of the image-editing software. It contains most of Photoshop’s pro features, but has fewer options. You can download Photoshop Elements 2019 for a one-off cost of $99 / £69.96
How can I get started with Photoshop?
Once you've downloaded Photoshop, head over to our collection of the best Photoshop tutorials to sharpen your skills. Whether you're a beginner, intermediate-level or a pro, you'll find a wide range of new tips and tricks to work smarter and more creatively in Photoshop.
And don't worry if you're pressed for time: we've also got a selection of handy Photoshop Two-Minute Tool School videos that walk through the essential tools in less time than it takes to make a cup of tea.
Also, if you need some free Photoshop brushes, we've searched around and found the best ones the internet has to offer. Get involved.
Photoshop CC: key info you need to know
Photoshop CC is Adobe’s flagship image-editing app. The industry-standard software is the best photo-editing software in the world for a reason: it’s slick, quick and boasts a powerful, extensive tool set to bring your ideas to life.
For layered image editing – including typography, 3D modelling, and drawing – it remains the first choice for professional creatives across the planet. And with new AI-powered updates streamlining workflow even further, graphic designers, artists and photographers are becoming increasingly freed from the tyranny of tedious processes, and more able to focus on the fun part of creating.
As part of your CC subscription plan, you’ll receive all Photoshop updates free. The 2019 version offers improvements to existing features like Content Aware Fill and Home Screen, as well as new tools like the Frame Tool and dynamic Blend Mode previews.
That said, if you’re a beginner, you might not want to be tied into a Creative Cloud subscription plan immediately. We’d recommend testing the water with a free Photoshop trial; investing in Photoshop Elements; or looking to one of the many non-subscription Photoshop alternatives, such as Affinity Photo.
Photoshop is available for desktop, smartphone or tablet, and supports every file format available. If you’re ready to get started, hit the links above to buy Photoshop or trial the software for free.
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Adobe Creative Cloud is jam-packed with helpful software that any content creator should know how to use. You don't need to spend lots of money on classes though, you can just get the The Complete Adobe CC Training Bundle.
This $29 bundle will get you up to speed on everything from video editor Premiere Pro to photo editor Photoshop. You'll also learn how to create magazines and newsletters with InDesign, and how to add special effects to your videos with After Effects. Don't have Adobe's software yet? Buy Adobe Creative Cloud here.
Get these skills under your belt with The Complete Adobe CC Training Bundle for only $29.
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Learn how to create surreal character designs with the latest issue of ImagineFX magazine, which goes on sale in the UK today. In the pages of issue 171, you'll discover how to paint character concepts with bright hues and expressive lines that are sure to get noticed. So if your character designs have been feeling a little flat recently, or you just want to try some new creative techniques, this issue is perfect for you!
Buy issue 171 of ImagineFX here
Elsewhere in issue 171, Patrick J Jones continues his figure drawing masterclass series to teach you how to create depth by using values. With the help of his techniques, you'll be able to create the illusion of the third dimension and really make you art stand out.
On top of that, Eeva Nikunen is on hand to show you how to paint a fantasy portrait with oils, and Gina Nelson shares how to work with ink and gold. There's also all the latest news, reviews and reader art that you've come to know and love from ImagineFX. Don't miss out, grab yours today!
Never miss an issue: Subscribe to ImagineFX here
Explore what's on offer by taking a peek at the lead features, below.
Protect yourself from artistic burnout
Learn when to whip out the big guns
From over-working to not looking after yourself properly, there are plenty of ways artists can find themselves heading towards a creative crash. To protect yourself from burnout, and to hear how to bounce back from it, we spoke to several industry-leading artists who have dealt with a creative crash in various ways.
Visit the VR world of Goro Fujita
Let us introduce you to Goro Fujita
Despite being repeatedly touted as the future of digital art, the potential of VR is still questioned by some creatives. Not Goro Fujita though. We caught up with the Japanese artist to discuss his career so far and hear why he has been fascinated by the unique creative opportunities that VR offers.
Explore Loish's sketchbooks
Loish has been drawing her whole life, so there's a lot to explore
Digital art superstar Lois Van Baarle has opened up her sketchbooks for you to flip through this issue. Here you'll find a variety of sketches that show off her range of artistic talents, as well as notes from the artist herself about how they came to be and how they informed her style.
Direct your viewer's attention
Grab attention with these composition tips
Chances are you'll have heard of the Golden Ratio, the pleasing proportion of details that can harmonise a piece of art. There are plenty of other ways to create a powerful composition with a sense of direction, as comic artist Steve Ellis reveals with these striking suggestions that will draw your viewer's eye.
Create an artistic base with VR
Discover how VR and other digital art tools can work together
VR tools such as Quill can radically speed up the creative process for digital artists. Here, freelance illustrator Martin Nebelong walks us through how he managed to quickly mock up a base for a book cover illustration with virtual reality, before finishing up in Photoshop.
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Most artists will be aware of the array of écorché sculptures that are available these days, mostly male and female human anatomy and in a range of styles from full écorché to planar.
Firstly, what is écorché? It simply means ‘skinned’ in French and in this context it refers to an anatomical model or sculpture that has had its skin removed to help an artist understand what’s going on underneath.
3DTotal has a large range of figures available and they have been very popular for some time now. This new range adds to that growing collection with a dog, a horse and a large cat, covering three of the more popular large mammalian families.
Any creature artist whether 2D or 3D will surely tell you how important real-world anatomy is to their workflow. Simply put, if you are designing creatures you will be learning muscle insertion and origins (where they start and end on the skeleton) and how they interact with each other as they flex and extend. These models are done with half of the body flayed and half with their skin on, which makes them perfect for seeing how a muscle group affects the surface form.
If you are used to using photographs/videos or references from Google when it comes to modelling creatures for 3D art, you will quickly appreciate how much you can learn by being able to hold a creature in your hands to study it, and having the different mammals (two carnivores and a hoofed mammal) side by side allows you to compare the different families.
The models are finished in a flat, grey resin that matches all the other models in the 3DTotal line-up and the detailing is amazing, even showing some of the larger veins.
The models come supplied with a rectangular base that is signed by the designer and it’s simply a case of slotting the feet of each animal into the holes. The horse and the dog have their tails attached but the cat comes with a magnetic tail. The scale for the creatures differs between them and that does mean the horse seems a little out of scale.
I assume this is simply because to create a horse to match the cat and dog would have made it prohibitively expensive/large, but this really is only a tiny issue. Overall, this is a must-have set of figures for creature designers of all types.
An amazing addition to the 3DTotal écorché line-up and one that will almost certainly leave artists asking for more diverse animal families in the future. Great as an individual piece but even better as a set.
This article was originally published in 3D World magazine. Read more: How to master creature anatomy.
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Design Indaba is Cape Town's premier conference for the creative industries. Kicking off on the 27 Feb, the three-day event will focus on how creativity can create a better world and bring to the stage top creators who are doing just that.
Among this year's impressive line up is founder of New York City-based global advertising agency Droga5, David Droga, The Handmaid's Tale costume designer Ane Crabtree and award-winning design critic and author Alice Rawsthorn. And that's not all. Sitting alongside them you'll also find the founder of clothing line movement Orange Culture Adebayo Oke-Lawal, the Principal of Selldorf Architects Annabelle Selldorf and Vice President and Chief Design Officer at 3M Company Eric Quint.
The Handmaid's Tale costume designer Ane Crabtree join the impressive Design Indaba 2019 lineup [Image: Nathan Cyprys]
Book your ticket to Design Indaba 2019
As well as a plethora of stellar speakers, the Design Indaba programme includes a curated lineup of music – including international acts and a foray into the best of African music right now.
There's also the annual Emerging Creatives programme, which puts the spotlight on the up-and-coming design talents to watch, and we'll discover which design will earn the title of Most Beautiful Object in South Africa this year. And if that wasn't enough to keep attendees occupied, there are also various seminars and workshops, including the highly acclaimed Trend Forecast by design doyenne Li Edelkoort.
For those in and around South Africa who can't make the event in person, the Design Indaba Simulcast will provide a live screening of the main conference to various venues across the country. This is part of an initiative by Design Indaba to distribute the knowledge shared at the conference with a younger audience and those unable to attend. Tickets for the Simulcast will be available from mid February.
If you're outside of South Africa and don't fancy hopping on a plane to Design Indaba, Creative Bloq will be reporting live from the event, bringing you the latest news and views from the world's creative elite. If this all sounds fantastically full on, that’s because it is. And we can't wait to bring you all the action direct from Cape Town.
Until then, check out this video round-up from last year's Design Indaba for some insight to this epic event:
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After producing post-apocalyptic horror comedy Zombieland and crime drama Gangster Squad, filmmaker Ruben Fleischer entered into the realm of superheroes with Venom.
The Marvel film tells the story of Venom, a volatile parasitic alien symbiote that inhabits other beings, as it finds a host in investigative journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy). This relationship comes to the boil as Brock uncovers the nefarious plans of a survivalist corporation known as the Life Foundation run by Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed).
"They’re two sides of a coin," states Fleischer. "Venom is an adulterated Id of Eddie Brock and is an alien that you have to learn how to train and have behave appropriately in our civilisation. It’s a buddy movie in a weird way."
Overcoming VFX challenges
Spider-Man fans will already be familiar with Venom through previous films and comics, but bringing the villain to life this time round posed unique challenges for the film's visual effects supervisor, Paul Franklin.
"We realised quite early on that things like camera motion capture, which have been used on other 3D movies to create digital characters, wasn’t going to work for us because one of the key things about Venom is while he’s humanoid in shape, he’s able to move at incredible speeds and can do extraordinary moves."
A concept study exploring the tendrils coming off of Venom
"He never moves like a human being. The most important thing was to have some sort of positional reference so you could frame up for the shot. We got a tall stunt performer who is 6’10”, and because Venom is actually 7’6” we built him up even higher with a Wiffle ball on a stick sticking out of the top of his helmet."
"Then through the suit we had motion-capture reference markers all over it so we could at least track his body movements and get a proper idea of where he was. After that it was down to the character animators to come in there and take the thing over."
Bringing the comics to life
Whereas comic books have the advantage of being able to draw whatever they want on a frame-by-frame basis, Franklin didn't have the same amount of creative freedom.
"Venom distorts quite heavily in the comics depending on what he’s doing," notes Franklin. "We don’t have that luxury in visual effects because we need to make it consistent across all of the shots, so that the audience feels like they’re watching the same character and not completely different versions from shot to shot."
"Underneath all of that is what you would usually expect to do for a creature animation, like muscles and skin simulations, plus the stuff that combines it to the skeleton to preserve the volume and give him physical mass and presence."
"Venom has this incredibly strong, densely built muscular physique. Working in tandem with that is this extra layer of effects animation that gives him gelatinous gooey qualities, which is what the character is supposed to be from the comic books."
A concept study that explores the character’s oily form
Venom is one of the most instantly recognisable Spider-Man villains thanks to his distinctive character design, but fans will know that he has two different forms. "The symbiote looks like an oily, gelatinous, slug-like amorphous creature that has no skeleton and is constantly changing shape and swashing around before bonding with the host," explains Franklin.
"Then when the bonding takes place, Venom produces this thick rubbery exoskeleton that surrounds the human host who is inside. This stuff emerges out of the skin of Eddie Brock, completely envelops him and transforms him into Venom, which is a large, physically muscular character. Depending on whether Venom is in the fully humanoid form or in the raw symbiotic state, you get various stages of gelatinousness.”
Every shot of Venom involved effects animation to create all of the goo, in particular how it moves on his face. "We didn’t want Venom to feel like a guy in a suit. You wanted to always believe that this character could morph into slimy tendrils. We had this constant effect animation pass that created the movement of the edges of the eye and the way that the strains of goo stretch between the jaws as he opens his mouth, which is a characteristic of the comics."
Lighting Venom
There were many challenges involved with lighting Venom in a night-time environment. “It’s black on black a lot of the time,” observes Franklin. What defines a black-painted metal object is not the direct illumination but the reflections of the environment around it.
Venom had to be lighted indirectly to avoid the character reflecting every single element
"What we needed to do was to dress the reflections into the surface in order to give us a read on the shape. Initially we were driving it from the HDRI maps that we captured on the locations on set, but Venom came out looking like a highly polished 1950s car driving down the strip in Vegas. He was a glittering galaxy of lights, which didn’t make him appear particularly threatening because he ended up looking like a Christmas tree sometimes!"
Franklin continues: "We ended up lighting him in much the same way you would light a car for a commercial, where you’re using big reflection cards and bounce panels to carefully create reflections that sculpt to the shape of the body. Then we added a separate set of low-light reflections from the environment; this gives us the definition on the surface so we’ll be able to see his physique and all of the intricate organic patterning that moves over his surface."
Creating expressions with eyes
Giant white eyes are a signature of Venom and need to look alive rather than static. "We had to dress the reflections carefully into Venom’s eyes," states Franklin. "He looked best in a complex lighting environment such as the street where he first appears; that gave us a subtle low light and highlight in the eyes."
"We also did things like subtle vignetting which we controlled on a shot-by-shot basis to give us some shape so they didn’t look completely flat. Even some subtle surface relief which is quite organic."
Venom's eyes aren't quite as smooth as you may think
The human eyeball isn’t completely smooth. "It has veining and all sorts of things going on in it that give it a subtle relief," remarks Franklin. "You don't necessarily notice it when you’re looking at a person's face but you notice it when it's not there. You sell the emotion through the shape of the eyes.
"Venom has expressive eye shapes. We had to borrow from a cartoon approach to the character where you overdrive those eye shapes in order to get a read on them. Then to finally stop it from feeling static and dead, effects animation added this constantly moving, rippling edge to the eyes so that there's always something going on with them."
Giving Venom's teeth some bite
Over the years, every kind of tooth shape has been incorporated into the Venom comics. "When he goes into his more extreme emotional poses the teeth can become massive," states Franklin. "You'll never be able to close his mouth. We needed to be able to subtly control the length and shape of his teeth on a shot-by-shot basis.
"The teeth were given a slightly unclean texture, because if we made them bright, shiny white he looked like he had just been to the dentist and had veneers put on." No mean feat when you consider that the teeth are always glistening. "There was also a separate layer of goo, slime and saliva that played stronger in some shots than others. We found that if he was constantly drooling it became distracting. We used it as an emphasis."
The hanging tongue is a signature characteristic of Venom but had to be used judicially
The same approach was taken with the tongue. "We have his tongue coming out but used it judicially," remarks Franklin. "Venom is relishing a moment where he's about to bite someone’s head off or is enjoying himself. Venom delivers quite a lot of dialogue in the film so we eventually had to pull that tongue back in.
"We looked at Clint Eastwood and Jack Palance when they’re delivering lines through their teeth in films like Dirty Harry or Shane. If we tried to close his mouth completely over his teeth it looked odd because they’re huge."
The challenge has been satisfying the fans' expectations
Ruben FleischerHowever all of these VFX obstacles pale in comparison to how readers have imagined the character over the years. "For me the challenge has been satisfying the fans' expectations and wanting to deliver a movie that people felt was the Venom they were hoping to see," says Fleischer.
"Primarily that was in the look of the character, the way he acts in these action sequences and the way he’s true to the comics. My proudest thing will be if people feel that the Venom on the screen is the one they’ve been wanting to come to the theatres for a long time."
This article was originally published in 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 241 here, or subscribe here.
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You're reading 7 Websites to Find Free Creative Commons Music and Sounds, originally posted on Designmodo. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, Google+!
One of the most significant mistakes many creatives make is the failure to promote their work. You can have the best product in the world, the greatest app ever, or the most beautiful WordPress theme, but if you don’t showcase …
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WordPress is an incredibly popular CMS – and with good reason. You might think that to get the best out of WordPress, you need to need to spend thousands of dollars on coding classes. But with WordPress Build & Host Bundle: Lifetime Subscription, you'll quickly learn how to navigate the platform and build custom WordPress websites without ever having to write a single line of code.
Plus, with this bundle, you'll also enjoy hosting for life with cPanel support, email, and a lot of other useful features you'll need if you run your own websites.
This bundle can be yours for the low price of just $49.99 – that's a massive 94 per cent off the regular price.
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Want to live stream the Super Bowl 2019 for free? Follow our easy step-by-step guide below.
If you're a fan of the American football, then we hardly need tell you that the Super Bowl 2019 takes place on Sunday, 3 February at the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. Neither will you need reminding that Super Bowl LIII is going to be an epic battle between AFC champions, the New England Patriots, and NFC champions, The Los Angeles Rams, in their first Super Bowl appearance in 17 years.
But even if you're not down with American football, from a creative perspective Super Bowl LIII is still a date to put in your diary. As one of the planet's biggest sporting events it's the perfect opportunity for top brands to roll out their most impressive adverts, while the Super Bowl halftime show – this year featuring Maroon 5 as well as Travis Scott and Big Boi from Outkast – is likely to be an impressive display of costume and set design.
There are certainly creative lessons to be learned on 3 February, outside the sporting action. So how do you get to watch Super Bowl LIII, especially if you don't live in the US and can't simply tune into CBS?
Read on for our tips on how to live stream the 2019 Super Bowl for free, wherever you are in the world.
How to watch Super Bowl 2019 online
There's an easy way to watch the Super Bowl online from absolutely anywhere in the world; just follow these steps:
01. Download and install a VPN
If you can't easily watch the Super Bowl online in your country, then the best way to see it for free is with a VPN service. Our favourite VPN right now is ExpressVPN – it's compatible with practically every device you can think of, supports most streaming services and it's one of the fastest VPN services around.
ExpressVPN is also running a 49% discount right now – and there's a handy no-questions-asked 30-day money-back guarantee if you want to give it a test drive.
02. Select your VPN location
Once you've set up your VPN, you'll need to connect to a server location. The UK is the best place to find Super Bowl LIII being streamed for free; whereas the US is the best place to catch the commercials. It doesn't matter which area in the country you choose.
03. Choose a stream
For no ads: Set your VPN to UK, and go to TVPlayer.com, an online streaming service with hundreds of channels on offer for free, and no need to sign up.
Select BBC One if you're not bothered about seeing the sporting event's unofficial competition – the commercials – play out. The channel will be showing the entire Super Bowl live and uninterrupted by ad breaks.
Alternatively, if you want to record the Super Bowl to watch later, you can do that too. You'll need to sign up for a paid TVPlayer Premium account, but the site offers a free 14-day trial.
For ads: Set your VPN to the US and choose a US stream.
Super bowl LIII: Which countries can I watch the Super Bowl 2019 from using a VPN?
With a VPN, you can watch the Super Bowl from absolutely anywhere – as long as you have an internet connection. As you'd expect, that includes: US, UK, Israel, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Denmark, India, Netherlands, Spain, Brazil, Belgium, Romania, Mexico, France, Sweden, Italy, Portugal, Czech Republic, Ireland, Poland, Kenya, Hungary, South Africa, Indonesia, China, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Japan, Egypt and a lot more.
US: How to watch Super Bowl 2019 online for free
For US viewers with internet access, watching Super Bowl LIII couldn't be simpler. As well as broadcasting the big game on cable, CBS will be streaming it live through its Sports website and mobile apps, and it's even letting users stream the Super Bowl without signing in.
If you'd rather watch on your TV rather than your computer or phone, CBS has you covered as well. It'll be streaming Super Bowl 2019 on top platforms including Chromecast, Fire TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TVs, Xbox One, Apple TV and Android TV. Verizon subscribers will also be able to stream the game on their mobile devices through carrier-independent sites such as AOI, Complex and Yahoo.
Remember: if you want to watch the Super Bowl in the US without commercials, you'll need to follow the steps above.
Besides CBS, there are other streaming options available in the US, such as YouTube TV, Playstation Vue and Sling TV. You can easily pick up a free trial from any of them, and as well as the Super Bowl you'll find that they all have plenty of channels and content to enjoy as a subscriber.
Remember, you'll need to be in the US with an American IP address to use these services. If you're not, follow our VPN steps above, log in with a VPN and choose a US server location.
UK: How to watch Super Bowl 2019 online for free
In the UK, watching the 2019 Super Bowl should be a piece of cake. Providing you have a TV licence, you'll be able to see it on BBC One for free. It'll be showing from 11PM GMT – and if you'd prefer not stay up half the night it'll be repeated the next day. If you'd rather watch the American coverage, you can watch on Sky Sports, although you'll need a subscription for that.
If you want to stream Super Bowl LIII for free instead, that's almost as easy. All you need is BBC iPlayer either on desktop or mobile; you'll probably have to register for free to use it, but it's a pretty painless process, and you'll be able to watch anywhere on practically every platform you can think of.
Super Bowl 2019: global coverage
This year's Super Bowl is available live in seven languages, and 170 countries and territories. Here are the territories and Super Bowl broadcasters you need to know: Canada (Dazn, CTV 2, TSN 1, RDS), Africa (Super Sports, Zuku), Australia (ESPN, 7 Network), France (W9, BeIN Sport), India (Sony Ten, Sony Six), China ( Fox Sports, BesTV ). You'll find a handy guide to the main broadcasters on NFL's website.
Super Bowl LIII: essential information
When is Super Bowl LIII?
Traditionally the Super Bowl takes place on the first Sunday in February. As a result, this year's Super Bowl will happen on Sunday, 3 February.
What's the Super Bowl 2019 start time?
It hasn't been officially announced yet, but last year's Super Bowl kicked off at 6.30PM ET (3:30pm PT, 11:30pm GMT), and we'd expect the action to start about the same time this year.
What's the halftime show going to be?
It's taken a while to get sorted, but the Pepsi-sponsored Super Bowl 2019 halftime show is going to be headlined by Maroon 5, with guest appearances from Travis Scott and Outkast's Big Boi as well.
Where is Super Bowl LIII taking place?
The 2019 Super Bowl is kicking off at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. This is the third Super Bowl to take place in Atlanta, but the first to grace the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which opened in 2017, can hold 71,000 fans and is located right in the heart of downtown Atlanta. Super Bowl XXVIII and Super Bowl XXXIV both took place at the Georgia Dome; don't go looking for it, it been demolished.
Can I still get a Super Bowl 2019 ticket?
Want to attend the big game and see the ads and halftime show in person, rather than watching the Super Bowl 2019 on TV or online? You can, but you're going to need deep pockets: the very cheapest Super Bowl LIII ticket available now, right at the very back of the stadium, is going to set you back a cool $3,600.
And if you'd like to be closer to the action, it's going to cost even more. Seats in the 100 level –(complete with access to the three-hour all-inclusive Premier Party, meet and greet opportunities with NFL stars and Hall of Famers, pre-game hospitality and a post-game celebration) cost $15,075 each.
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In this article, we're going to help you pick the best mechanical pencil for you. We'll start by explaining exactly what a mechanical pencil is and what to look for when choosing one, before running through our picks for the best mechanical pencils for drawing and for writing.
If you're a traditional artist or a creative who loves nothing more than to take a screen break and spend an afternoon immersed in your sketchbook, then you'll know better than anyone that finding a pencil that's comfortable to use for long periods of time is essential.
Mechanical pencils have been around for years, and there are many models that cater specifically to artists and designers who will be holding them all day. For those of you not in the know, a mechanical pencil is one that you don’t have to sharpen. That's because the graphite (aka the 'lead') is not bonded to the outer casing, as in a traditional wooden pencil, but is mechanically extended as you write or draw.
Benefits of mechanical pencils
When the lead runs out on a mechanical pencil, you just insert a new one. This not only saves you a lot of hassle and mess, it also means mechanical pencils can provide more consistent lines, enabling you to create more precise drawings and neater handwriting. That makes them the obvious choice for technical draftsmanship, of course, but that’s not all they're good for.
Many artists prefer using a mechanical pencil even for more expressive and imaginative work, as the finer lines produced are usually easier to erase. They may also prefer them from an ergonomic standpoint, because a mechanical pencil's size and weight remains consistent, whereas a wood pencil gets finer the more you sharpen it.
Finally, whether you’re using a pencil for writing or drawing, mechanical pencils are cost-effective and convenient, because you only need to replace the lead once it has run out, not the whole pencil. But if you're really not feeling them and are more into wooden pencils, be sure to take a look at our list of the best pencils around right now.
How to choose a mechanical pencil
There is a wide range of mechanical pencils on the market, and so there are certain things to consider when choosing one.
The first is the diameter of the lead you wish to use. If you wish to draw very fine lines, you’ll want to go for a 0.3mm lead. For writing and most drawing, you’ll probably prefer a 0.5mm lead. A thicker, 0.7mm lead, meanwhile, may be better for sketching and non-detailed drawing. Other sizes are also available for specialist uses.
Another consideration is the hardness of the lead. A soft lead is darker and more prone to smudging, while a hard lead is better for leaving light, fine lines. Softness is represented by a number followed by ‘B’; the higher the number, the softer the lead. Hardness is represented by a number followed by ‘H’; the higher the number, the harder the lead. Finally, ‘F’ and ‘HB’ leads lie in the middle.
Also think about the mechanism you wish to use to advance your lead. The three most common mechanisms are a push-button, which may be on the side or the top; a twist operation, which is more often seen in older models; and a 'shake' advance.
Weight is also important, as is grip: some pencils have special features, such as a bumpy texture, to improve this.
The best mechanical pencils for drawing
Whether you use pencils for quick sketches, technical draftsmanship or completed artworks, mechanical pencils have a lot to offer. Here we present our pick of the best mechanical pencils for drawing purposes.
Our pick for the best mechanical pencil for drawing overall is the Uni Kurutoga Pipe Slide, which has a big point of difference over most of its rivals.
When you use a regular mechanical pencil, the lead wears down on one side, forming a slanted, wedge-shaped tip. This can potentially cause variations in line thickness as you draw. The Kura Toga avoids this through a clever lead rotation mechanism that continually rotates the pencil lead as you write.
A spring-loaded clutch twists the lead a tiny degree every time you lift the pencil from the paper, and this allows for a uniform wearing of the lead, and cleaner and more consistent lines as a result.
Cartoonist and designer Jason Li is among the Kurutoga's many fans. "It's been my mechanical pencil of choice for several years running, and most recently I got a Studio Ghibli skinned one," he enthuses.
"I use it for drawing, sketching things out, and taking notes. I love the mechanism that sharpens the lead as it turns, the (emergency) eraser hidden under its case, and really, the fact that it's chosen to be the model for official Studio Ghibli merch is also a feature in my book!"
You don't have to spend a lot of money to get a good mechanical pencil. There are some excellent models out there that are surprisingly cheap, and our favourite budget-friendly model has to be the Pentel 200.
"The Pentel P200 is a good, solid choice," agrees Simon Whittaker, who tends to use them for general sketching. "It's only a couple of quid, they last ages, and they're really nice to hold. They're like the Jotter of mechanical pencils; a good all-rounder.
"I remember first using them when I was at school," he adds. "Later, I picked one up again as a cheap spare, and then remembered how nice they are to draw with. Plus, because they’re pretty cheap, if you were to lose one, it’s not the end of the world."
Izzy Burton, art director and concept artist at animation studio Blue Zoo, is also a Pentel fan; she favours the 0.7mm version. The brand originally came to her attention, she recalls, because: "I saw a lot of artists on Instagram using Pentel for their drawings and they all recommended it in their FAQs. I use it for precise and finished work, or work that’s on a small scale."
We've established that you don't need to spend a fortune to get a decent mechanical pen for drawing. But what if you want to splash out, and buy something really special? In this case, we'd highly recommend the Rotring 800.
This top-of-the-range model is infused with high-quality engineering and aimed at the serious artist or draughtsman.
With a good weight (almost 91g), the metal body feels solid in the hand. And the non-slip metal grip 'twist and click' retractable mechanism means it's very easy and comfortable to use, even over lengthy sessions. Its hexagonal shape also makes it less like to slide off your desk, or even a slanted surface.
In short, if you're working on something special, working for long periods, looking for a gift, or just want a pencil that's super-nice to use, the Rotring 800 ticks our boxes.
Featuring a 4mm fixed sleeve for template work and technical drawings, the Pentel Graphgear 500 is the perfect pencil for technical drawing. With its metallic-mesh grip and a barrel weighted at your fingertips, it's designed to help you draw precisely and with a feeling of control.
It works with a variety of lead thicknesses, and there's also a built-in lead hardness indicator to help you identify your lead type quickly and easily. The weight feels good in the hand, but light enough to make it comfortable over long sessions.
In short, this is the best mechanical pencil for drafting and precision work on the market today, and all at a very affordable price.
The best mechanical pencils for writing
If you primarily want to use your mechanical pencil for writing, then among your main considerations will be comfort; no one wants an aching hand after a long stretch of writing. But as for drawing, you'll also want your writing to look nice, and that demands a pencil that can produce clean, consistent lines. Here are our four best mechanical pencils for writing.
If you want a mechanical pencil for writing, then we would recommend the LAMY 2000. Based on the well-known fountain pen of the same name, designed by Gerd A. Müller in 1996, this is nothing less than a modern classic.
It's light enough to be flexible, but solid enough to feel dependable. It's comfortable to hold and use, and produces smooth, consistent handwriting. And its build quality is also noticeably impressive; this is a pen that you can expect to last for years.
There's not a huge amount to say beyond that... because rather than use gimmicks, its makers instead focused on doing one thing, and doing it well.
The LAMY 2000 is, in short, a delightful pen to use for writing, as well as being supremely reliable and durable. And while it might cost a bit more than rivals, it's certainly a case of getting what you pay for.
The Uni Kurutoga Roulette comes in at a surprisingly low price given its high quality, making it the best value mechanical pencil we've found for writing.
For one, it's comfortable to hold, with a nicely balanced weight and a knurled metal fingerplate for better grip. And for two, its clever design, matching that of the Uni Kurutoga Pipe Slide (our number one mechanical pencil for drawing, above), means that it sharpens the lead as you write.
As with its sibling, that means you get a super-even stroke width that helps make your handwriting neat, polished and attractive.
This model from American Classic is a little pricey. But if you want a mechanical pencil for writing you can truly rely on, this has a lot to recommend it.
Popular for decades amongst the armed forces and public institutions of the US, the American has a strong reputation for its reliability, durability and clean lines. The thick 0.9mm lead is also super-tough and rarely breaks.
And overall, this should last a lifetime should you take care of it, which puts the slightly high cost into perspective.
Handcrafted using watchmakers' tools for precision, beauty and accuracy, this is another quite pricey, but very high-end mechanical pencil. The tip of the Pentel Sharp Kerry Mechanical Pencil 0.5mm is solid and well-made, which means that breakage of the lead is a rare occurrence. The removable cap makes it super-portable. But above all, this mechanical pencil has been in production for many years now, for one good reason: its impressive consistency and quality.
And that makes it an excellent choice for anyone wishing to produce professional looking writing that's likely to be viewed by customers, colleagues or superiors.
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The latest hashtag craze to sweep the internet is the 10 year challenge. If you're not familiar, allow us to enlighten you. Participants post a photo of themselves today, alongside a snap of them from a decade ago.
Designer Arun Venkatesan has given the trend a twist by gathering together some of the biggest websites around and comparing them to their 2009 selves. Let us tell you, if you were shocked to see how bad your friends' eyebrows were in the noughties, it's nothing to what you're about to feel when you see these homepage screengrabs side by side. It's like we'd never even heard of content hierarchy. Or white space.
Let's take a look the most impressive glow ups of our time: use the arrow icons to compare these 2019 website layouts to their 2009 equivalent.
For a closer look at how interfaces are changing, read our post on the key UI trends for 2019.
Take a look at the full set on Arun Venkatesan's 10 year challenge website to see how more of your favourite sites have evolved over the years.
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This is a hands-on review of the MSI PS63 Modern to give you the chance to see what the new notebook is all about as soon as possible. We'll be expanding and upgrading this review shortly with more information and a score.
The MSI PS63 Modern is the latest high-end laptop aimed at pro creatives from celebrated Taiwanese gaming company MSI. Part of the company’s Prestige series, the 15.6-inch notebook has been built with designers and content creators in mind, and promises to pack a serious performance punch.
Headline features include Intel's latest Whiskey Lake processor and GTX 1050 Max-Q graphics card, 32GB RAM and dual SSDs. Meanwhile, near-perfect sRGB colour reproduction and a super-svelte 1.65kg weight place the new MSI PS63 Modern firmly in line with leading ultrabooks like the MacBook Pro and Dell XPS 15.
So will the new MSI PS63 Modern be a MacBook Pro killer? We were able to have a very brief look at the MSI PS63 Modern at CES 2019: we’ll be publishing a full review of the laptop very shortly, but here are our first impressions.
MSI PS63 Modern: price and availability
Pricing and availability for the MSI PS63 Modern haven’t been announced yet, but the company says the laptop will ship sometime this year.
MSI PS63 Modern: Design and display
The PS63 Modern is an attractive laptop, with a slick carbon grey chassis and diamond-cut edges. Designed with portability in mind – it’s 16mm thick and weighs 1.6kg – we liked how lightweight the machine felt in our hands.
The 15.6-inch 1080p IPS display has thin 5.6mm bezels and a drop-down hinge design for more screen real estate. MSI says that it produces near perfect sRGB colour reproduction (99.6%), which we’ll test in our full review. Certainly images appeared vibrant, vivid and sharp in the short time we had with the MSI PS63 Modern.
MSI PS63 Modern: Performance
It’s tough to meaningfully discuss the performance of a laptop in a hands-on review, but the hardware options certainly look promising.
Boasting up to the latest eight-generation Core i7 processor, 32GB of RAM and the potential for dual SSDs – plus optional discrete Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q graphics with 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM – the MSI PS63 Modern should be able to make light work of demanding video-editing and graphic design tasks.
MSI's Creator Center software aims to further optimise performance by adapting to whichever program you're using. If you’re editing images in Photoshop, for instance, it’ll ramp up CPU usage; if you’re gaming it’ll increase GPU output.
Another headline feature is MSI’s impressive “all-day” 16-hour battery life claim. If it’s true, this would make the PS63 Modern a tempting choice for creatives who need to work on the go. We’ll be testing how long the laptop can last with one charge in our full review.
The MSI PS63 Modern has a backlit keyboard and feels snappy under your fingers
There’s also a larger trackpad with integrated fingerprint reader and multi-finger gesture support, making navigation easier and reducing the need for a mouse on the go. We really liked the silky smooth glass texture, and found it to be responsive and accurate in our brief time with the MSI PS63 Modern. We also liked the backlit keyboard, which felt snappy under our fingers.
As you’d expect, the MSI PS63 Modern comes with a slew of ports, including a Type-C USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, two Type-A USB 3.1 ports, an HDMI, microSD card reader and a headphone/mic combo jack.
The MSI PS63 Modern laptop has a good selection of ports
It comes with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 technology too, so you can charge your camera phone faster when you’re out and about. And the MSI PS63 Modern is Quiet Mark certified, too, so it shouldn’t distract you when you’re working.
The final standout feature worth mentioning is the compact power adaptor. MSI has worked hard to significantly reduce its size. The company says its almost 40 per cent smaller than regular power bricks, making it easier to carry around the world.
Early verdict
Is the MSI PS63 Modern a MacBook Pro killer? We'll let you know in our full review
The MSI PS63 Modern looks and feels like a premium laptop. It’s sleek, lightweight and promises to pack a real punch in the performance stakes.
The 16:9 screen is also fantastic: colour and detail looked stunning in the CES 2019 showroom. We do wish it was 4K, but unless you’re a video editor or photographer who works with 4K content, 4K on a 15-inch display isn't that useful. (You can hook it up to a 4K monitor, anyway, if you need to.) For many creatives, a great 1080p laptop will more than suffice at this size – and should save you cash too.
All-in-all, the MSI PS63 Modern looked impressive at CES. If you’re a designer or content-creator looking for an Apple laptop-alternative, we think it'll be a strong contender this year. A full MSI PS63 Modern review will be coming very shortly.
- Also read: Dell XPS 13 (2019) review
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Here are six tips to put threat hunters in the driver's seat so they can outsmart their adversaries.
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The attack makes use of previously disclosed critical vulnerabilities in the Apple Safari web browser and iOS.
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Allegorithmic, the creator of Substance and the leader in 3D editing and authoring for gaming, entertainment and post-production, has been acquired by Adobe today. The move means that Creative Cloud will now be home to the 3D design tools that made Substance the industry standard for 3D textures and material creation.
Adobe hopes that by combining Allegorithmic's tools with its own, it will empower video game creators and VFX artists working across film and television to create amazing 3D art. The decision is also a huge step for Adobe in terms of expanding the reach of Creative Cloud's 3D and immersive workflows.
"We are seeing an increasing appetite from customers to leverage 3D technology across media, entertainment, retail and marketing to design and deliver fully immersive experiences," said Scott Belsky, chief product officer and executive vice president at Creative Cloud.
"Creative Cloud is the creativity platform for all and Substance products are a natural complement to existing Creative Cloud apps that are used in the creation of immersive content, including Photoshop, Dimension, After Effects and Project Aero."
Users will be in good company. Allegorithmic's previous customer base includes huge brands such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, BMW and Ikea to name but a few.
"Allegorithmic and Adobe share the same passion for bringing inspiring technologies to creators," says Sebastien Deguy, CEO and founder, Allegorithmic. "We are excited to join the team, bring together the strength of Allegorithmic's industry-leading tools with the Creative Cloud platform and transform the way businesses create powerful, interactive content and experiences."
Currently Allegorithmic tools are already offered as a subscription service. In the future, Adobe is expected to expand the availability of these tools via a subscription, as well as providing new offerings that will bring it closer together with Creative Cloud.
This is where the headaches could set in for 3D artists who are not fans of the subscription model. While Substance could stay as it is for the short term, it's inevitable that it is going to get more closely absorbed by Adobe, a decision that will be cause for concern for 3D artists who are already paying a fortune a month for tools such as Maya.
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Maya is undoubtedly an industry leader in the world of 3D. It has a vast array of uses and applications, and is utilised across the creation of characters, animation, VR and environments. Such is the all-encompassing nature of the software, that getting the most out of its tools and features can be a daunting prospect for any artist.
We have assembled a diverse group of artists to share their top tips for mastering Maya. These tips come from Pat Imrie, Reza Shams, Stephen Studyvin and Tsubasa Nakai. Our experts cover a range of disciplines from university lecturers, to CG supervisors and freelancers.
Whether you’re looking to enhance your character building, speed up your workflow, or you’re entirely new to Maya, you are sure to find some helpful words of wisdom in this handy feature. For more advice to help improve your 3D art, take a look at our roundup of more Maya tutorials.
01. Unload plugins for faster load times
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
Maya provides a vast number of features for its users, but the more are added, the longer it can take to boot, and when on a deadline every minute counts. Go to Windows > Settings & Preferences > Plug-in Manager to find a number of roll-out menus where you can Load, Unload or Auto load various plugins.
Unloading anything you don’t need will speed up Maya’s boot time as it can just skip any of the heftier features. For example, I primarily work as a modeller so I’ll unload any advanced rigging options (see image) as well as FX-heavy plugins such as Bifrost.
02. Use Soft selection options
Soft Selection is a well-known modelling feature accessed via the ‘B’ hotkey. By default it’s a great tool, but it’s worth diving into the Tool Options to gain more control. Changing the Falloff mode from Volume to Surface for instance will allow better accuracy when adjusting areas such as eyes and lips (see image).
If your model is in separate parts, setting the Falloff mode to Global will expand the falloff to the whole model. You can also adjust the Radius and the Curve Falloff to fine-tune your selection, which I find invaluable when creating facial shapes.
03. Try the Relax Brush
In recent versions of Maya, sculpting tools from Mudbox have been incorporated into the toolset. For me, however, they still don’t have the immediacy or performance of using them natively in Mudbox. This is where the Sculpt Geometry Tool comes in handy.
Found in Surfaces > Sculpt Geometry Tool, this tool has a set of basic but practical brushes. The most useful of these is the Relax Brush, which is an excellent way to keep faces uniform while modelling, and for removing detail without losing much of the form, which is likely to happen when using the Smooth option.
04. Improve viewport speed with backface culling
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
The ability to work smoothly with large data sets in Maya has improved with every new release, however, you will find that the viewport will still lag from time to time. One way around this is to enable the Backface Culling option from Shading > Backface Culling – this will stop the viewport from drawing faces that are not currently facing the scene camera.
You can see how this improves viewport speed by going to Display > Heads Up Display and enabling Frame Rate, then toggle Backface Culling on and off to see how much your viewport speed improves.
05. Edit Edge Flow
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
The Edit Edge Flow feature was a welcome addition to the Maya modelling toolset. Essentially it enables you to intelligently and quickly average out an inserted edge loop so that it conforms to the form of an existing model, negating the need to edit manually and allowing you to model quicker and more accurately.
This is perfect for creating clean and accurate meshes, and is accessed by going to Edit Mesh > Edit Edge Flow. Or, when you have an edge loop selected, hold Shift and press the right mouse button to bring up a marking menu with the command available at the bottom of the menu.
06. Create a custom UI
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
Make a custom marking menu and custom hotkeys – it’ll speed up your work and you’ll have easy access to the tools. Arrange the Maya Shelves according to your taste and add any tools you’re going to need to them. This method enables you to quickly access the commands in the menus on the shelves. You can even create new icons for tools, changing Maya to suit your taste.
07. Make use of the camera rig
Use the camera rig for animation and motion in your scenes. This is the best way to control the camera in 3D scenes. You can rig any type of camera, with so many options for controlling it available.
08. Use low-poly for speedy retopology
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
Try this tip for speedy Retopology. Import your high-poly model then create a low-poly primitive object that resembles the high poly. Edit and resize the low-poly object UVs to make them like the high-poly model, then delete the history and freeze transform the low-poly object.
Select the high-poly then low-poly mesh and go to: Mesh > Transfer Attributes. Finally, edit Transfer Attributes as seen in the screenshot.
09. Create a low-poly tree
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
Create a circle and some curves, then extrude the circle on the curves and deform it. Create a UV for the trunk. Create a low-poly plan and assign some branch texture with alphas set to transparency. Make the tree trunk live and add branches.
10. Tackle complex shapes
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
Create a plan and 10 subdivisions in width and height, then select the inner edge and go to Create > Sets > Quick Select Set. Select all of the faces and go to Edit Mesh > Poke. Go to Select > Quick Select Set > Set, and delete the edges. Finally, delete the selected face.
11. Organise your files properly
Maya uses a folder structure to organise project files, keeping all the files associated with the project in one directory. When opening a scene associated with a Maya project, and especially when switching between projects, set the project folder first before opening the scene file.
Simplify setting projects by opening Maya first, then choose File > Open Scene. In the Open window, click Set Project to open the Set Project window. Choose the project directory, click the Set button, then open the scene file from the Open window after the Set Project window closes.
12. Set up a Maya project directory
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
Maya keeps track of all files associated with a scene in a project directory. In some cases, working with a single file without a project directory will work, but any associated files with the scene should be kept in a Maya project directory. If the project directory is set, Maya will look for all scene files, Maya ASCII or Maya Binary files, in the scene's directory.
Image files used as textures placed in the sourceimages folder will be automatically located when the scene file opens. Rendered images, or maps generated, will be stored and saved in the images directory.
13. Use resolution gate to compose final render
Turn on the Resolution Gate to display a guide in the main viewport that represents the final rendered area. The Resolution Gate is displayed as a framed area in the main viewport which will be the same camera framing as the final rendered image. The rendering resolution height and width are displayed in the masked area above the Resolution Gate in the viewport when the resolution gate is active. The name of the camera is also displayed in the masked portion below the gate mask. The resolution settings are set in the Image Size section of the Render Settings window.
14. Use hotkeys to set Animation Keyframes
You can set a keyframe on an object, camera or light by selecting it and pressing S on the keyboard. This sets a keyframe on the selection at the frame indicated on the timeline, for the attributes displayed in the Channel Box. Usually the current position, rotation, scale and visibility are available in the Channel Box. You can set keys on specific attributes by selecting the channels to key, right-clicking on any of the selected labels in the Channel Box, and then choosing Key Selected from the menu.
15. Create a shot camera for animation
When Maya opens a new scene several default cameras are created. One camera is the default perspective view that is used to look around the scene, named persp. While this camera can be used for final rendering, it is not best when animating with camera movement that requires keyframes on the camera. Using keyframed cameras to look around the scene will pop back to the keyframes locations when scrubbing on the timeline. Add a new camera for rendering and keyframing by going to Create > Cameras > Camera.
16. Make ornaments with Flow Path Object
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
When making something repeatable like an ornament or stitch pattern, use Attach to Motion Path and Flow Path Object in Maya. These are very useful for scattering many detailed objects across a complex surface.
17. Create natural Hair with XGen
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
You can make beautiful hair with few guide curves if you can use XGen modifiers. Start by making hair from guide curves with XGen. Create a clumping modifier to clump a big bundle of hair, then create a second clumping modifier to clump a medium bundle of hair, followed by a third to clump a small bundle of hair. Making a cut modifier will help you achieve natural tips of hairs. Lastly, create a noise modifier to obtain a natural hair stream and frizz.
18. Use procedural nodes for face texture
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
Make face textures with only procedural nodes because they're easy to make and reuse, plus gradation is beautiful. First, construct the shader tree before blending the textures with the layered texture node. You can find the best look by adjusting the Alpha amount. Connect the layered texture to SubSurface Color, and adjust the skin shader to look like the image.
19. Use guide curves for stylised hair
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
This tip is useful for creating guide curves for a stylised character’s hair. Create the base hair, but be sure to make holes on both ends to extract the curve from the mesh. Next, create some joints and use a spline IK handle to deform easily, then skin using them. Scatter hair objects on the head with a spline IK handle. Next, extract curves from the mesh.
Finally, you have to arrange the directions, select the opposite direction’s curve, and select Curves > Reverse Direction. With this method, you can make guide curves as you design.
20. Try Cryptomatte for look development
Click the icon in the top right to enlarge the image
Cryptomatte is an ID matte creation tool created by Psyop, it creates ID mattes to do look development or final adjustments automatically. After installing, create the Cryptomatte AOVs in Render Settings. Select an AOV and view it in the Attribute editor. It should be visible in the Shader under Custom AOV. You can export three ID mattes to follow demand object, material, asset. You may find it useful to make big changes in Photoshop or Nuke using the ID mattes, this will help find a new look when you're stuck with an image. This tip is especially useful when you're on tight deadlines and need something new quickly.
This article was originally published in 3D World, the world's best-selling magazine for CG artists. Buy issue 241 or subscribe.
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Design budgets are under pressure. The economic outlook seems unclear. So it pays to be prudent with your pennies... right? Well, yes, to a degree. But when it comes to kitting out your workspace, going for cheap and cruddy options are a false economy if they only make you miserable and unproductive.
A happy designer is a more creative and successful designer, so as long as you don’t literally bankrupt yourself, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with aspiring to the finer things in life.
In this post, we’ve picked out some alluring items to take your workspace to the next level. You might not be able to afford all of them, right now at least, but hey, it’s great to have something to aim for...
01. iMac Pro
The iMac Pro is the ultimate upgrade for your work computer
Still spending half of your day swearing at your ageing Mac, as it struggles along, crashing and freezing whenever you’re in the midst of your creative flow? Then maybe it’s time to upgrade to the newest and greatest iMac, the aptly-named Pro.
Apple’s most powerful machine to date, and specifically designed for creative professionals, the iMac Pro comes with a beautiful 5K display and works at ridiculously fast speeds. It is, in short, the best desktop computer a designer could wish for.
Okay, we’ll admit it: as we note in our iMac Pro review, it’s not exactly cheap and most designers don’t actually need all that power. But hey, just because you can’t legally drive a Ferrari at its top speed of 217mph, doesn’t mean you don’t want one, right?
02. Apple Magic Mouse 2
The Magic Mouse 2 is ultra-lightweight and super-ergonomic
Most designers dream of upgrading their Mac, but what about your mouse? Apple’s been so slow to improve on its classic mouse design, you might not even have heard of the Magic Mouse 2, especially as it was initially only available with the purchase of a Mac Pro. But now it’s on sale separately, and it’s well worth checking out.
Beautifully designed in silver finish or space grey, it has no batteries or moving parts, so it’s super-lightweight at just 0.099 kg. In use, it’s incredibly sensitive and can take a bit of getting used to, but it’s specifically designed to minimise the amount of arch in your wrist while your working.
And when you consider how many hours a day you spend using a mouse, and how many years you’re likely to work as a designer, we reckon anything that can reduce the wear and tear on your body is worth investing in.
03. Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Wireless Speaker
These speakers provide a true audiophile music experience for your studio
Every now and again, you need to get that blood pumping and those creative juices flowing with some banging music. But you don’t want those sweet sounds to be mangled by a tinny speaker.
So investing in some decent sound reproduction for your studio or home office can be a wise investment. And in our roundup of best wireless speakers for 2018, the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin came out the clear winner.
With an eye-catching retro design (in walnut or soft grey) that’s perfect for a design studio, these little beauties offer the closest thing to a true audiophile experience in a set of Bluetooth speakers. They also come with a wide range of inputs and a portable power supply that makes them fully wireless, which means you can move them around your studio at will. So why not treat yourself? Your ears will thank you.
04. Sage by Heston Blumenthal Smart Kettle
Heston Blumenthal's kettle really is a big improvement on the standard model
Few designers can function without their morning tea or coffee, so every studio needs a kettle. But why put up with a boring, standard model when there are so many more creative design solutions on the market right now?
When it comes to creativity in the kitchen, innovative celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal is a name that always comes to mind. And so it’s not surprising that his smart kettle truly pushes the envelope.
Not only is its sleek, steel look aesthetically delightful, it also offers some genuinely useful features. These include five different temperature settings (for green, white, oolong and black tea, as well as coffee), a rapid boil setting, a soft opening lid to prevent hot water splatter, and a keep warm function.
Apart from anything, it’s a great talking point for those awkward ‘meet at the kettle’ moments with colleagues you don’t really know that well.
05. Wilfa Precision coffee maker
This Norwegian gadget helps you make coffee precisely, for the perfect caffeine hit
Instant coffee just not cutting it? Then you need a decent coffee machine. And if you’re serious about the quality of your brew, we’d highly recommend the Wilfa Precision from Norwegian barista Tim Wendelboe.
With a sleek minimalist design, this machine is dedicated to providing you with the perfect coffee by ensuring the precise ratio between coffee and water.
That means, admittedly that it’s a little effort to use. But that effort will certainly pay off in terms of the quality of your caffeine hit, helping you get fired up for that morning meeting or late-afternoon deadline.
(If, however, you’re looking for a coffee maker that's super-quick and easy to use, we’d recommend the Delonghi Distinta ICMI 211).
06. Humanscale Diffrient Smart office chair
Be kind to your back and joints with this smart-looking, ergonomic chair
Most designers spend a great deal of their lives sitting. And doing so in a cheap and uncomfortable chair that’s bad for your back is the very definition of a false economy. So why not invest in something ergonomic that’s going to be good for your body over the long term (and looks pretty darned great too)?
Included in our roundup of the best office chairs for home working, the Humanscale Diffrient Smart office chair (yes, that is how they spell it) impressed us by the way it adjusts automatically to your size, shape and movements, providing great lumbar support.
This wonderfully minimal mesh chair is available in a variety of styles and fabrics. Plus it comes with a 15-year guarantee, which helps put the fairly substantial price into perspective.
07. Opendesk Studio Desk
This standing studio desk is compact, keeps your cables tidy, and will make you fitter and more productive
When it comes to suffering the kind of back pain that typically plagues designers, the first thought is to update your chair. But over time, the kind of desk you use can also have a big impact on the effect design work has on you. A standing desk is better for your body, plus it can make you more productive and creative too.
In our round-up of desks, our top pick was the Opendesk Studio Desk, not least because it’s been created ‘by designers, for designers’. With its minimal design and discreet cable management, it’s made from sustainably grown FSC-certified baltic plywood and is a great compact desk for either home working or a design studio.
What’s more the design is ‘open’, in the sense that you can either get a quote from a local maker, who will put it together and deliver it to you, or download the design and make it yourself.
08. HTC Vive Pro
The HTC Vive Pro is the best VR headset on the market, bar none
Maybe your studio is working on VR projects. Maybe you want to pitch VR projects to visiting clients and stakeholders. Or maybe you just want to play VR games in the office because it’s, you know, cool and fun?
Either way, when it comes to having a fulfilling experience in virtual reality, you really do get what you pay for. And the HTC Hive Pro is hands-down the best on the market.
With intuitive controls, a wide area of movement and a smooth, immersive and high-resolution experience when connected to a a powerful desktop computer, you simply can’t get better than this right now, whether you want to use VR drawing software like Tilt Brush , start exploring the VR web or learn how to create VR games.
No, it’s not cheap. But if you’re doing any work in VR as a studio, it’s the kind of business expense you’ll probably find surprisingly easy to justify to your boss. As long as they can have a go too, of course...
09. ‘Work hard and be nice to people’ print
These wise words will inspire you every time you glance at them
We all need a jolt of inspiration every now and again, but most inspirational posters are more likely to anger than inspire, based as they are on bland and empty messaging.
This gorgeous letterpress print by designer Anthony Burrill avoids that trap, using wise words he overheard spoken by an elderly woman, who was sharing the secret of a happy life in a checkout queue.
Sized at 51 x 76 cm (20 x 30 inches), and with each print signed by the author, this would be a great addition to any design office or home studio. To see more prints to decorate your studio, check out our roundup of inspirational quotes to make you more productive.
10. Design magazine subscription
If you're a professional, you should be reading your profession's house magazine
When clients and stakeholders come to visit, there’s nothing that says ‘professional environment’ more than a few copies of your profession’s leading magazine liberally spread about the place.
For graphics designers, that of course means our sister title Computer Arts, while web designers will want net or Web Designer; 3D artists and animators will opt for 3D World or 3D Artist; and for digital artists, the obvious choice will be ImagineFX.
Of course, these magazines are not just for show. Well-written and beautifully designed, they all offer a great way to keep up with the latest developments and personalities in your profession too.
Taking out a subscription means you’ll never miss an issue, and also save a ton on the cover price. So if you don’t have one, make sure you do something about it.
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In this tutorial, I'll be guiding you through my process for creating a captivating fantasy portrait of an elven maiden. Her story is that she's a woman of wealth and sophistication who, by some happenstance, is travelling the mountainside. I created her for the cover of ImagineFX magazine.
In this Photoshop tutorial, starting with my initial sketch, I’ll show you a variety of techniques that you can use in your own art process – from concise line work through to adding depth and colour to create a compelling fantasy portrait. You can watch this video to see my exact process, as well as following the steps below.
For more art tips and tutorials, see our post on art techniques.
01. Collate ideas and sketch
Create a rough sketch once you've got your main idea, and don't worry about the details at this point
My first step is to brainstorm some ideas. Most of the time this involves me taking photographs or looking through atmospheric images online. Once I’ve formulated more of a narrative in my head, it’s time to start sketching! I open my canvas and draw up a striking lady, clad in fur.
02. Plan and work on lines
Careful planning at this stage can save you time later on
After receiving some feedback from the mag team and making a few adjustments to my sketch, I draw up my lines. I plan these out as thoroughly as I can so I don’t have to make up too many details when rendering later on. Planning these structural components save me time in the long run.
03. Establish layer masks
Blocking in areas enables you to work in sections
Here’s where I prepare my painting for the rendering ahead. I reduce the opacity of my lines at the top of my canvas. Underneath, I block in different areas of the artwork with a Hard brush so I can tackle it in pieces. I organise each of these blocked areas into separate layers, so I can click and select an area when I need to.
04. Work on values
Before you add colour, think about the light and shadows you want to achieve
I always begin rendering with a Soft brush. I won’t be adding colour just yet, because this stage is primarily about lighting and shadows. I start by working over large areas to establish my basic lighting, and as my values build up, I converge over smaller areas with a finer brush.
05. Add fur to the cloak
Keep in mind the direction of the fur as you draw
This is where my handy custom fur brush comes in and saves me extra time. I paint in segments of fur while keeping in mind the direction (or nap) of the hair. This will serve as a base texture for when I render and define the fur during the colouring stage.
06. Organise layers
Organisation of layers is key when working in Photoshop
Now that I’ve laid down my basic values for the piece, I’m almost ready to start adding colour. Before I do that, I get those layers in order by merging them down. I organise all of my block selections in a folder at the top of the Layers panel.
07. Add colour
Airbrush your elven maiden in sections
I begin by creating a new layer and setting it to Color mode in the Layers panel. I lightly airbrush over my character, working over one segment at a time. Once this is done, I bump up the contrast and intensity of my colours by painting on a new layer that’s set to Overlay.
08. Reshape facial features
The next step is to make the character more 'elven'
I want to enhance her elven attributes so I merge all of my character's layers together and open up the Liquify tool (in the Filter menu). Here I begin reshaping and emphasising parts of my character’s distinctive features. I lift her brows and cheekbones, and increase the size of her eyes for that classic delicate elven appearance.
09. Define and blend
The best way to finish the hair is to use a streaky brush
I keep working over her face until I’m happy with her features, and then move on to the hair (this part is best achieved with a streaky brush). I lightly paint following the direction of each segment of hair, keeping in mind the point where the light reflects. I also use a Soft brush to mask out the harsh edges of my character against the background.
10. Add texture
Use your lines layer as a guide when building up texture
From this point, I work with normal layers to gradually build up colour, occasionally turning my lines layer on as a guide. I use an assortment of textured brushes to add dimension to my work. Some of my favourites are from Kyle T Webster’s Megapack (these come free with Photoshop CC). I slowly work over my painting and sculpt various features as I go.
11. Define the background
Keep your brushstrokes loose if you don't want your background to be in focus
I’m envisioning vibrant hills, distant mountains and a late afternoon sun in this outdoor scene. I roughly paint ridges into the landscape, introducing softly lit hills and clusters of distant trees. I keep my brushstrokes loose during this stage because I don’t intend for my background to be in focus.
12. Work on details
Features such as freckles can add an extra dimension to your work
I want my character to stand out a bit more, so I decide to change her hair colour. Using the selective Color Adjustment layer, I settle on a nice auburn colour. To complement her new vibrant hair, I’ve decided freckles would be a perfect addition. These add a lovely texture and dimension to her skin.
13. Introduce extra embellishments
The addition of jewellery tells us more about the character
I want to enhance my character’s appearance with some more jewellery, so I paint a diadem to match her assorted trinkets. Because the sun is sitting behind my subject, I introduce some rim light to the edges of the fur around her. This also works to lift her from the background.
14. Apply final touches
Boosting the colours and blurring the background helps to bring the picture together
I copy and paste my own grain texture over the artwork and set this to Overlay at seven per cent. Now I’m ready for my final colour adjustments. I boost the reds and yellows in the artwork using the selective Color Adjustment layer. I also use a photo filter to warm the artwork a touch. Finally, I blur my background (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) for an out-of-focus look. And I’m finished – I hope you enjoyed the journey!
This article was originally published in issue 166 of ImagineFX, the world's leading digital art magazine. Buy issue 166 or Subscribe here.
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0patch released the fix for the remote code execution vulnerability in Windows, which has a CVSS score of 7.8.
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Researchers show how rogue web applications can be used to attack vulnerable browser extensions in a hack that gives adversaries access to private user data.
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Threatpost: LabKey Vulnerabilities Threaten Medical Research Data
in Ειδήσεις από τον χώρο του Design και Hosting
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LabKey Server version 18.3.0-61806.763, released on January 16, patches all three issues, so users should update as soon as possible.
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