I'm Marius, the guy who does everything with pixels. This is
my blog in which you may read my artistic writings - in Romanian,
find Work In Progress [WIPs]
images and opinions about different aspects of today's trends. Have
fun readin' it.
The entire site is chock-full of texts and images. If you do not
enjoy reading, you may miss the purpose of these pages.
31 August 2010, 22:25
Salut!
It's autumn already, and I've been doing quite a few things during
the summer. I learned CSS and HTML, yay! It was a piece of cake. I
learned, because I already started work on my new site. I hope it
will be finished by the end of the year. Coding of CSS/HTML and the
design is finished already, but I am waiting for my twin brother to
code the required functionality in JS and PHP, but he is
really busy with the Mozilla internship.
Other than that, I made two new images. Actually the first is quite
old, since summer 2009, but only now I completed it. It's called
Love
routine. I hope you like it.
The second image is a bit more weird. The creative process was more
elaborate. I used Sketch and Toon for the initial image, then I
post-processed it in Photoshop using various shadings rendered
within Cinema 4D and even Vray. Then, I used the image as a texture
map on a plane in a 3D virtual scene, in which I made the dark,
muddy water as a photo-realistic rendition and I also placed a neon
light behind the plane which had paper-like shading properties, so
light could scatter through it. Afterwards, I got the
photorealistic rendition of the paper and water back in Photoshop
for more post-processing. Here's an illustration of what I am
talking about:
Now, the final image is here: Failed
sunset. The meaning of the image is for you to figure out.
I hope you enjoy these works. 'Till next time, all the best!
Published in:
2d,
3d,
illustrations,
images.
1 June 2010, 20:32
Hello, friends!
I am a happy Windows 7 x64 user since 1st of January 2010.
Although, since day one I wasn't happy about the default Aero
theme, because it is too transparent and the titlebars texts are
not visible on dark wallpapers and such. So, last week I thought of
doing something different.
Here's a Windows accessible Aero theme done by me, based on the
default Aero theme. I just changed what I thought it lacks
contrast. I've searched online for such themes, but I liked none of
them. As such, I publish this theme for others who might need such
a theme.
For easeness, I prepared several screenshots portraying the
difference between my theme (Accessible
Aero) and the default Aero theme. These screenshots are a
mashup of different Windows elements, in Basic and Aero modes.
If you like what you see,
download the Accessible Aero theme here.
Here is a round-up of what this theme features:
-
considerably less transparent glass, dark glass
-
white text title bars with black glows, so they are
readable irrespective of the background of the window
- increased contrast in the title bars for the Basic
mode, when not using Aero and I also adjusted the caption
buttons accordingly by enhancing the contrast between the glyphs
and the buttons
-
a much darker taskbar in Basic mode, making the
clock and popup titles of the applications running much more
readable
-
a darker Start menu in Basic mode
- increased contrast for the Alt-Tab application switcher in
Basic mode
- added a strong white glow to Alt-Tab app switcher to make the
the title visible
- made text fields slightly more visible
-
defined a clear difference between active and inactive text
fields, making the borders thicker
- a more visible highlighting color for menus, popups menus,
while trying to maintain the default look
- file column headers in Explorer or other applications, are
enhanced as well; more visible and a more clear border between them
-
changed the gray text color of tooltips to black for
increased readability
- added dark glow to application titles in task bar and in the
thumbnails to avoid situations when the titles are unreadable
-
made the address bar, search field and the whole breadcrumb
much more readable; brighter background and darker texts
- more visible separator in unlocked taskbar and other types of
separators or window resize grippers
- bigger close button in taskbar pop-up thumbnails
-
made the taskbar icons less wide, more ergonomic, both in
Basic and Aero modes
- made more visible the MDI window buttons: close, minimize and
restore/maximize
-
restyled the whole taskbar to my personal taste
By now, it is clear what is my main purpose with this theme:
readability, accessibility, hence the title. So, it is not about
eye-candy, fancy designs, or not even originality. I also published
this theme on deviantart.com,
for those using dA.
Feel free to send me comments to improve this theme.
Published in:
aero,
interfaces,
themes,
windows.
12 May 2010, 16:25
Hello!
I finished two new images. In December 2009, I bought a Wacom
Bamboo tablet to start painting. These two images are the first
ones I did with the tablet. Both are just some exercises I did in
order to learn to paint.
The latest painting exercise is "Remote village".
This painting is done after a photograph I had from the village
where my grandmother currently lives. The photograph was
considerably much more different. After I finished manually
repainting the whole photograph, I began improvising. I added two
trees, a horse and another peasant. I also changed the weather and
time of year. It was a clear sunny mid-summer day.
The first painting exercise I did was to repaint and to add details
to a previous sketchy image I did in 2008. The original image is
"Love
is a burden" and it is still available on the site.
There's more to come. I still plan to do more types of exercises. I
hope you guys like them. :)
Published in:
2d paintings images.
9 February 2010, 13:29
Hallöchen!
It's been a long time since I posted anything new. But, here I am
with a new set of images.
Since November 2009, I've been working on something new. The
initial idea was to do a landscape image using a new technique
developed by me to achieve a final image. The 3D scene is rendered
in customized layers, without using the usual built-in
functionality of rendering multi-pass images. As such, I do not
have a layer for each shading aspect, like specularities,
reflections, shadows, GI, etc. My layers are obtained by having
multiple instances of the 3D scene with different light setups or
different textures, thus, in the end, I only separate the lights by
type and the color/texture maps. And, of course, for easing the
post-processing, I use depth maps and masks for specific objects or
class of objects. All the layers are then composited in Photoshop.
The actual rendering, if I may say so, is done in composition,
where I can control each aspect, much more accurately than in 3D,
and it also contributes to getting closer to painting. Due to the
endless possibilities, I made three versions of the image.
I used Vray Proxies for the first time. I was amazed by the amount
of polygons I am able to render. The scene has approximately 30-40
millions of polygons.
The church is a 3D reproduction done by me after a real church
which was built in 1725 by the austro-hungarian empire. The
architectural style is late baroque, with simple ornaments. The
real church is located across the street, where I live.
I hope you guys will enjoy the images as much as I enjoyed doing
them ;).
Published in:
3d,
church,
evening,
landscape,
winter.
8 November 2009, 13:14
This project was an exercise to do a 3D interior as fast as
possible. My last projects took about 1 to 2 years to finish, so I
really wanted to prove myself I can do one fast. This one took me
only 3 weeks to finish at a slow pace. So, it's a real improvement.
Done with C4D and Vray. It's a reproduction of a photo I found on
the Internet.
The quality is not top notch. The major culprit is the plant
and, of course, other minor details, such as the books on the
shelf, the curtains and others. Despite these minor flaws, I really
like the overall mood which is a positive one, very intense light;
it has a certain sense of freshness. Here's the image:
I hope you guys like my new image ;).
Published in:
3d,
images,
interior,
room.