On crafting Universes

http://www.solarvoyager.com/tutorials.asp

(…)it is useful for beginners and pros alike to see how other artists achieve certain results. These tutorials are only intended to be guides as you work through new processes and challenges. Upon these building blocks, you must add experimentation and a great deal of practice(…)

Solar Voyager hosts what in my opinion is the net’s best collection of tutorials on crafting realistic space scenes by means of 2D techniques. Most of them are focused on different approaches to rendering planets of all sorts, but fortunately there are several other articles which cover a broad field of subjects, from nebulae to asteroids to truly impressive star fields. As you’ll soon realize, following the articles will be a lot easier if you have Photoshop, since that´s the tool of choice in most of them; however, I’m sure that there’s no effect that you can’t achieve by using other programs, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

Besides from the tutorials, you should pay some to time to visit the rest of Solar Voyager, which covers all branches of space art: you´ll surely be surprised by the quantity and quality of many of the works shown!

The Ufo detectors

http://www.imagesco.com/ufo/index.html

Over the years many UFO sightings have reported magnetic and electromagnetic disturbances. The UFO Detector is designed to sense these disturbances and will signal their presence by flashing an LED and beeping.

I don’t dare to say that there’s people out there who would actually buy these UFO detectors for the sake of… well, detecting UFOs, but you never know. Anyway, from a nerdologist point of view I think they could be classified as gadgets, as they are small, expensive and, unless you live near Roswell, you don’t really need them (but still want to try them, eh…).

By the way, don’t miss the explanation of how they work. Since asking a local ET to fly nearby to try the device seems a little bit unpractical (lots of bureaucracy, mainly), at least they give several alternative ways to see that it works (whatever that means).

All in all, these UFO detectors, though expensive, are probably the best gift for those who want to believe (sing the soundtrack with me: nanananán-nanán-nan-nin-nin-nin-nin).

The sci-fi Home

http://www.24thcid.com/24th_century_design.swf

Tony Alleyne has done what many others only dream of doing. Being a science fiction movies lover, he has modded his flat so that it looks as if it were taken from Star Trek TNG (The Next Generation). Coincidentally that’s my favourite incarnation of the series, so I agree with his choice -though I think that his resemblance to Captain Picard has also had something to do with it-. 😉 Continue reading The sci-fi Home

The Universe fits in a glass

http://www.bathsheba.com/crystal/largescale/

The cosmological model for this piece is tuned to match the Sloan Survey, an investigation of all galaxies we can see in one quadrant of the sky. It takes us out to within 1000 megaparsecs of Earth. The survey isn’t finished yet, so you are looking at current research.

Bathsheba Grossman is an artist at ease with the convergence between sculpture and science. The subjects of her work, whether mathematical shapes, proteins or galaxies, are by their complex nature impossible to render by means of traditional techniques, which has led her to Continue reading The Universe fits in a glass

Astounding shapes in Earth’s geography

The human brain is specialized in finding patterns and shapes; that’s why we recognize the faces of people we know, organize time in regular cycles, and also why it is so difficult to make a convincing seamless loop of ambient sound from a short recording. A side effect of this ability is that we often find patterns where there are not, like when we look at the clouds and see dragons, lambs or synthesizers.

However, while nobody would say that a cloud is actually a dragon, other things are more controversial. Is it really a face what the Viking orbiter photographed over the surface of Mars? I guess that the safe answer is that it looks like a face, though some people have taken the issue much further.

This said, I would like to share two findings that quite surprised me a few days ago. These are satellite images of two spots on Earth, as found in google maps and windows live local. I have asked some people for their opinion, and while some of them stared at the images the same way I did, others didn’t see anything at all, so I won’t bias you (or your imagination) by telling what you’re supposed to find. I´m most impressed about the first one, since the surroundings of the “feature” are very interesting too (I’ll just say that you may find it better by tilting your head to the right).

Here are the links:

First Shape:

http://maps.google.com/

http://local.live.com/

Second Shape:

http://maps.google.com/

http://local.live.com/ (Unfortunately the zoom doesn’t go further, but it is still possible to see the “feature” around the center of the image).

Update: If you don´t see anything, try comparing the images with the ones shown here.

Pulsars, Planets, Poms

Pulsars

http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/~pulsar/Education/Sounds/sounds.html

A pulsar is a highly magnetised neutron star, with a radius of 10-15 km, having somewhat greater mass than the Sun which has a radius of approximately 1 million km. Radiation is beamed out along the magnetic poles and pulses of radiation are received as the beam crosses the Earth, in the same manner as the beam from a lighthouse causes flashes.

Listen to the sound of a Pulsar

Planets

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07966.html

Saturn is a source of intense radio emissions, which have been monitored by the Cassini spacecraft. The radio waves are closely related to the auroras near the poles of the planet. These auroras are similar to Earth’s northern and southern lights. This is an audio file of radio emissions from Saturn.

Listen to the eerie Sounds of Saturn’s Radio Emissions

Poms

http://www.envelooponline.com/main.htm

POM is the short for Petit Objet Musical, that is, a Little Musical Object (…)They are offered as landscapes or “living sculptures”(…)I record typically two to three minutes as to get a detailed image of all the nuances in the sound, but these are only windows into conceptually infinite pieces.

Listen to Pom n.17 (which I also call “Forbidden Planet”, after the soundtrack of the classic movie).

Source: musicthing

A Parallel Universe: Noctis

http://anywherebb.com/noctis.html

For most people, the thought of going into space and exploring such sights is an impossible dream. But no longer; Noctis allows you to do just that.

Warning(1): if you only like games with luscious graphics, surround sound and the like, this game is not for you.

Noctis is a space exploration game which relies much more on your imagination than on your computer’s graphics card. This fact, and also that the controls are difficult to understand in the beginning, will discourage many from trying it. However, those adventurous people who aren’t afraid to put something of their own in the game will embark on an amazing journey into the realms of the unknown. There’s a peculiar sensation which accompanies the traveller when finding a planet to which no one has ever been before, releasing the pod and landing, to be finally confronted with a surreal landscape of vivid, silent colors, spattered with odd trees and animals; when walking along the shores of vast seas, along the walls of vast ruins; when drifting among endless words of endless stars…

I personally don’t mind that this game looks as though it is from another era. It is, literally, another universe. And even though I wish there was some investor out there that could help it develop to its full potential, and I dream on how a crossbreed between Noctis and Mojoworld or Bryce would look like, I just love it the way it is.

Warning(2): if you plan on trying the game, be sure to update your imagination’s drivers 😉

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