Art by definition
I’ve observed a rising debate over the last few years between the merits of digital art vs. conventional art (i.e., art created with long-established mediums). Predictably, there is a rift developing between the two camps, one that grows wider and wider with each passing year.
I have, and still do, exist in both camps. I “cut my teeth” on traditional mediums, but as the technology became accessible, I embraced it. I have a digital tablet for drawing and painting, and I have a special room in my house replete with easel, paints, brushes, etc, along with several drawing pads. I often trade back and forth between mediums depending on the project in question and where my inclination draws me.
Nevertheless, I see too many artists who scorn the other for making such choices. Traditional artists disdain the digital medium, calling it cheating, while digital artist disparage the traditional camp, calling it dated. The loudest of the vitriol being hurled about is from traditional artists. Some go even as far as to claim that work done with digital tools really isn’t art at all.
Now that is about the dumbest, most egotistical thing I’ve ever heard.
By making that claim, by saying that using a computer and software to create art excludes you from the category of artist and your work as art, you are in fact changing the definition of art from the end result to the process which created it. If the tools you use and the process you take are the defining factors of what constitutes a piece of art, then even most traditional artists of today should be excluded from that category as well.
Why? Show me a traditional artist that:
a. grinds his own pigments and makes his own paints,
b. stretches his own canvas and sizes it,
c. makes or privately commissions their own brushes.
From there, you can’t use a photograph for any kind of reference, and very few mediums.
I don’t know of any artist who can claim to follow those guidelines above. Yet, if what they claim is true, should Leonardo or Michelangelo be whisked from the past into the present they would laugh at anyone who called themselves artist.
Sometimes I draw freehand, sometimes I use a reference. Sometimes I paint with real paints; sometimes I use my digital tablet. When I use software, sometimes I take a more conventional approach, and sometimes I use the shortcuts to speed up the process. In the end it shouldn’t matter what I do. If the end result reflects my vision, then I have achieved the real definition of art. The mechanics that went into creating it should not mean a damn.
You would think that this would not be an issue at all, since artists are widely a pretty accepting bunch of people. We will call art that a lot of people would merely scratch their heads at. The reasons boil down to this: ego and fear. Traditional artist work hard, very hard, at mastering their craft. If they make a living at it, then how good they are is very important to how much they get paid. They resent someone making money in their profession if they are not working as hard as they are. Shortcuts are met with scorn and digital tools as a whole with disdain. It’s fear of their own shrinking livelihood and their own ego that leads them to make claims like “that isn’t real art” or “he isn’t a real artist”.
For me, artwork has never been about how it was created, but how well it conveys my meaning. Artwork is a window to the soul, a way of expressing your innermost opinions and desires without necessarily using words. If it captivates or makes a person think, then the mission has been accomplished.
I doubt anyone who has stared at the Mona Lisa for more than a few moments has ever really cared what kind of brushes Leonardo used to paint it with.
Gaming Goodness
My consoles have collected a rather nice coating of dust over the last couple of months. It’s not that I’ve lost interest in them, I just dont have the time anymore. Between a new job, my upcoming cert exam, a full roster of art projects and a precocious two year old, there just doesnt seem to be enough hours in the day to devote to a game for as long as I would like to.
However, I do make it a point to at least turn the consoles on every few weeks and check out the updates, the new demo’s etc. Last night on Live I pulled down a few demo’s: Guitar Hero 3, Crash of the Titans, HL2 Orange Box, PGR4, & Raw vs Smackdown 2008. I’ll give my thoughts on these:
Crash of the Titans – Ordinarily I dont go in for platformers, but I was looking for something somewhat mindless that doesn’t need a lot of investment from me, either with regards to time or brain cycles. Crash seemed to fit the bill nicely. Graphics were what I expected from a simple platformer, even with regards to a “next-gen” console. Although, for some reason it just lacked the Crash Bandicoot charm from early iterations of the game. Perhaps it can be found deeper in the game, beyond what the demo exposed. For my verdict, it’s a rent.
HL2 Orange Box – I seem to be the odd man in this regard, but Half-Life never wowed me like it did so many others. Granted it did more to marry story and action into a single game, but I think it was the story that just didnt appeal. Perhaps this has poisoned my opinion of the franchise, but I just didnt find myself all that interested in this game. While I am sure it is good on it’s technical merits, I just dont care. For me, I wont rent it much less buy it.
PGR4 – I like racing games. Unfortunately, I suck at them. PGR4 illustrates both of those points rather vividly. It’s a beautiful game and the machanics of the driving are better at making it an immersive experience. However, my in-game character and his car seemed to have a love-affair with the wall. It’s a game I would love to be a master at, but I don’t have the time. I already have PGR3 and I think I will stick with that.
Raw vs Smackdown 2008 – this was purely for giggles. While I will admit to being a WWF viewer for a short time, it just doesnt have it anymore and they lost me as a viewer. The games however never seemed to have it, and I occasionally look to see if they have managed it finally. They havent. Gameplay mechanics are still cloogy at best, and the characters still seem very wooden. In a fast paced environment like a wrestling ring, there should be no excuse for a computer generated opponent to stand stock still, inviting a punch. Like so many other versions before it, this one is neither a rent or a buy.
Guitar Hero 3 – I think I am one of nine people left on the planet who had not played any version of Guitar Hero. My thinking was Why should I? I’m not interested in a game that centers around music, and I am really not interested in buying a game that ideally needs a special peripheral (can anyone say light-gun?). But, I hear too often the buzz surrounding this game and it’s forebears, so I downloaded a demo and gave it a shot.
My first experience was painful to say the least. With what I did to Pearl Jam’s Evenflow, I would not be at all surprised if Eddie Vedder tracked me down to kick my ass. However, once I figured out what buttons to push (note: I don’t read tutorials), I tried again on Scorpions Rock you like a Hurricane and Pat Benetar’s Hit Me With Your Best Shot.
I did better, and better again. And, I was starting to have a LOT of fun.
I think I see the appeal of this game. It doesnt require a lot of investment of time, you play for as many songs as you want. There are no stats to keep track of, no characters to develop, no storyline to follow. Pick up your “axe” and rock out. It’s the perfect game implementation to anyone who played Air Guitar as a kid.
Face it, who didnt?
When I was done and exiting the demo, I caught a glimpse of a list of tracks that come with the full game. Smashing Pumpkins Cherub Rock caught my attention, and now I think I am doomed. That is one of the songs from my youth that entranced me with it’s guitar work. Now my mind is reeling with the possibilities. Tracks like Motly Crue’s Home Sweet Home, Metallica’s Unforgiven, or anything from Pearl Jam’s Ten album will make this a hard game to resist. If Lynard Skynard’s Freebird is anywhere on the track list, then I am buying it.
The fact this game is available for the Wii is also a plus. I see more potential with the Wii’s motion sense controller for this game than the other two platforms. Also, my Wii library is a little sparse, and this would be a good shot in the arm towards justifying my purchase of the console all those months ago.
All in all, I think it’s a forgone conclusion that I will eventualyl get this game. The demo was not deleted immediately (like most of the others) and here it is the next morning and I am still thinking about this game and the potential it has to eat up even more of my spare time.
Do’s and Don’ts..
Do this:
if (a == b) {
doSomething();
} else {
doSomethingElse();
}
Do NOT do this:
if (a == b)
{
doSomething();
}
else
{
doSomethingElse();
}
or for the LOVE OF GOD, do NOT do this:
if (a == b)
doSomething();
else
doSomethingElse();
Got it? Good. Failure to comply may result in personal loss of limb.
Don’t curse the darkness, o blind one..
It isn’t very often that something worthy of my ridicule presents itself so brazenly to me. However, when it does I’m compelled to take advantage of it in every way possible. I can’t help it, it’s just my nature.
Oh yes, I am speaking of Netbeans 6…
Again…
This time it is their much touted additions to the Form Builder that has grabbed my attention. Specifically, the wizard that will “automatically generate the code” for a master/detail view of two related database tables. It’s something that is fairly common and can be found in most project specs, be it either web based or client side.
Now, any time I hear the words “automatically” and “generate” in the same sentence of any programming language, I feel a chill go down my frontal lobe. In every case I’ve seen it didn’t turn out well, and I’ve had to resist the urge to break something when I see things like this being released in new development products. Naturally, when I saw it being presented as a feature in the new version of Netbeans, my scorn-o-meter began ticking into the triple digits.
However, I’ve taken a step back and re-analyzed that position. Now, I am all for it.
Here’s why: These automatic generators only take things so far before throwing up it’s hands and saying that’s it. In each of these cases, the point in where they stop are VERY far from the finish line. After that, it’s left to those of us who actually can and choose to use our brains to take the code the rest of the way in.
Automatic generators are created for those who want to think of themselves as programmers but cant be bothered with the trouble of actually learning the language. I understand why companies like Netbeans create things like this. It’s a way of illustrating value without actually providing it. No one who understands Java thinks that any of the drivel that Netbeans’ generator churns out will be even remotely production worthy. Yet, to the wannabes it makes the IDE look good, and it generates a small measure of buzz. This is how Netbeans weighs into the IDE war, and it’s also why serious developers use IDE’s like Eclipse or IntelliJ.
In a way, it’s almost guaranteeing that serious developers will always be needed, and that the wannabes get weeded out.
The moment someone creates a generator that will take a development project from idea to production release with a few clicks is when I will start to get nervous. Until then, the wannabe’s can have their toys, and leave the hard stuff to the rest of us.
Development News
A few new things have come across my desk relating to the development world. Some of them encouraging, some of them not.
Netbeans 6.0 is final. I am installing it as I type this, and wait to see if it is actually, I don’t know, worth a damn. It’s the IDE of choice where I work, and thus far working with version 5 has felt something akin to being flogged. IntelliJ released version 7 a few months ago, and as always it impresses me with how many nods it makes to developers in giving them not only the ability to do things, but do them quickly.
The only redeeming quality in my mind regarding Netbeans is it’s GUI editor. A lot of purists will call me down for using an editor to write Java GUI’s but I say to hell with them. Swing code can get complex in a hurry, and I would rather spend my time actually writing functionality rather then wrestling with positioning a damn button. The only problem is that Netbeans adopts a “hands off” approach to some of its generated code, and when an IDE generates code and doesn’t let me tweak it to my liking, I start getting crabby.
The other thing I read is a post on AListApart.com about the HTML 5 spec currently in the works. Reading this article made me happy, since it looks like the HTML 5 spec is going to address a lot of headaches I’ve had with semantic markup, or the lack thereof in HTML 4. HTML 4 reminds me a lot of a lump of coal that has been my job to make a diamond out of. Technically, it’s possible, but not without a LOT of effort.
The certification track for Java version 6 is out, much to my chagrin. While I cant claim to have been hitting it hard, Java 5 has been the material I have been studying in preparation for my own certification exam. Now it appears I will have to ditch that effort and start over on a new spec. Thus far, there are some new things about 6 that look good. Fortunately, it would appear that 7 wont be out until early 2009.
Ah, the life of a coder.. Why the hell did I choose this profession?
*UPDATE* After wasting two and half hours, my verdict is thus: Netbeans 6 is a piece of shit. Not useless insomuch that it does things quirky, but useless in that it doesn’t do anything at all. The IDE spends more time throwing it’s own internal exceptions so that it cant even begin to be useful for editing a file. Call me crazy, but an IDE that cant open a simple Java file for edit is pretty fucking useless.
What kills me is that it’s not even a problem with the code I am opening, it’s the code of the IDE that’s blowing up. I even went so far as to make sure my current JRE and SDK were the most up to date they could be, and still no dice.
For example:
SEVERE [global]
java.lang.ClassCastException: org.openide.filesystems.MultiFileObject$VoidValue cannot be cast to java.lang.String
at org.netbeans.modules.editor.settings.storage.EditorSettingsImpl.getCurrentFontColorProfile(EditorSettingsImpl.java:233)
at org.netbeans.modules.editor.settings.storage.SettingsProvider$MyLookup.(SettingsProvider.java:155)
at org.netbeans.modules.editor.settings.storage.SettingsProvider$MyLookup.(SettingsProvider.java:145)
at org.netbeans.modules.editor.settings.storage.SettingsProvider.getLookup(SettingsProvider.java:120)
at org.netbeans.modules.editor.mimelookup.MimePathLookup.rebuild(MimePathLookup.java:101)
at org.netbeans.modules.editor.mimelookup.MimePathLookup.(MimePathLookup.java:89)
at org.netbeans.api.editor.mimelookup.MimePath.getLookup(MimePath.java:509)
at org.netbeans.api.editor.mimelookup.MimeLookup.getLookup(MimeLookup.java:112)
at org.openide.text.CloneableEditorSupport.getEditorKit(CloneableEditorSupport.java:1561)
at org.netbeans.modules.web.core.JspEditorWarmUpTask.run(JspEditorWarmUpTask.java:177)
at java.awt.event.InvocationEvent.dispatch(InvocationEvent.java:209)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:597)[catch] at java. awt. EventDispatchThread. pumpOneEventForFilters (EventDispatchThread.java:273)
at java. awt. EventDispatchThread. pumpEventsForFilter (EventDispatchThread.java:183)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy (EventDispatchThread.java:173)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents (EventDispatchThread.java:168)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents (EventDispatchThread.java:160)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run (EventDispatchThread.java:121)
Sounds to me like crappy coding of the IDE to me…
I guess I should have known better…
* YET ANOTHER UPDATE * My curiosity wouldn’t let it go, so I started digging deeper into the IDE’s log file, and found several references to what suspiciously looked like was causing the problem. However, the area in question was so innocuous, that I could not bring myself to believe it. A few moments later, my suspicion was confirmed:
The culprit: Custom code formatting and coloring settings.
You read it right. Somehow, my custom settings for what frigging color my code gets displayed in caused Netbeans 6 to throw a wobbly. A simple case of deleting the settings and letting Netbeans recreate them, and everything is rosey again.
And to think: The people that developed this IDE in all probability get paid a lot more than me.
*sigh*
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