Creative Fail

The Cutting Room Floor

8-Bit Chris — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:50:49 +0000

DRIVE (2011)

What can i say about this film but WOW. Not since Moon have i seen a film that left me wanting more and immedietly want to watch it again.
A mysterious man who has multiple jobs as a garage mechanic, a Hollywood stuntman and a getaway driver seems to be trying to escape his shady past as he falls for his neighbor – who’s husband is in prison and looking after her child alone. Meanwhile, his garage mechanic boss is trying to setup a race team using gangland money, which implicates our driver as he is to be used as the race team’s main driver. Our hero gets more than he bargained for when he meets the man who is married to the woman he loves. Ryan Gosling plays the lead character and plays a tour de force performance investing you in the character he’s playing. If your up for seeing this then be warned this is not an Action film (though there is action in it ), this is not a “Car” movie (though there are a couple of chase scenes in it) – Its main feature is that it’s a character-driven, slow-burn thriller that borrows good points like character depth and progression from a writer like Quentin Tarantino and a visual style from Directors like Martin Scorsese and Michael Mann. my only gripe was after the opening, 15-30 mins did seem abit slow, but after that it picks up in true roller coaster style
Drive is one of those rare films that after seeing it, it will stick in your mind for days after. Its a damn near perfect film that invests your time in the characters and the story within the film. Its my favorite film of 2011 and will even probably make it on to my all time list. See this film as its a 5 star film.

watch the trailer to drive here.

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Adobe Touch Apps Review: Adobe Ideas

Wehtam — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:16:54 +0000

Adobe have recently released the Touch Apps family, a compilation of six, tablet optimised apps which allow creatives to produce work on the go and share via the Adobe Creative Cloud. I had my eye on these apps long before their recent release, the pricing seemed fair and the products were looking very tasty, especially Ideas and Proto.
When release day came I immediately made my first purchase. Adobe Ideas, a vector drawing program on-the-go from the creators of the great Illustrator package.

First and foremost the interface seemed non-intrusive and very tidy, this was a big plus for me, the actual drawing was fluid too, regardless of whether I was using a stylus or a finger.

Disappointment soon raised its ugly head when I started with my first “idea”. Typically with illustration I would do a rough outline on a top layer and fill/shade on the subsequent layers below, it makes sense right? Unfortunately Adobe didn’t foresee this and only provided us with one layer. One layer for a commercial drawing application? Seriously? With Adobe Ideas you get one active layer to draw on and one bottom layer to place an image and trace around. Personaly I would swap the photo layer for another active, drawing layer. If I had to trace around an image I would surely do it in the studio instead of on the move. The layers panel is designed perfectly for adding multiple layers so it’s possible it will make an appearance in a future update. Honestly though, why cripple a solid app by leaving out such a fundamental function?

Speaking of leaving out fundamental features, so I finished my first drawing and I wanted to send it to my colleague. Where is the share button? Where is the export button? Where is the ability to save my work in a universally recognised file format? Nope, not with Adobe Ideas, it’s either upload your work to the Adobe Creative Cloud or nothing. Surely this goes against the notion of producing “ideas” on the fly and actioning them. I uploaded my artwork to the Cloud and found the download link, brilliant, soon I’ll be able to forward my friend an SVG, or so I hoped.

What on earth is a “.idea” file format? no idea, but that’s the only option I have. So what do I do with this pointless, locked-in file format? I need to download the Adobe Ideas plugin for Adobe Illustrator of course, does it work with CS3… Nope, does it work with CS4… Nope. Kill me!
Seriously Adobe why make it so unbelievably difficult, I can’t share my work and I cant edit or re-save it.

Let’s return to the drawing aspect of Adobe Ideas. What brushes are on offer I hear you ask, is there a nice variety of predefined brush types similar to Autodesk’s SketchBook? Nope. With Adobe Ideas you get the ability to scale the width and opacity of the default circular brush, there are no paint or pencil effects.
A feature I do like however is the ability to import colour palettes from the Adobe Creative Cloud, you can create these colour palettes with the Touch App Adobe Kuler and they work very well in Adobe Ideas.

In conclusion I’m seriously disappointed with Adobe Ideas, it can’t compete with what’s already on the Android Market as its limited functionality, non existent sharing options and minimal toolset leave it a crippled commercial product. Had it included a few extra drawing layers, a small brush selection and an export button, this review would be entirely different.

For the record, I am currently testing Adobe Proto and I’m finding it to be instantly usable and great fun.

Adobe Ideas: 4.5 / 10

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Cheap-ass Gaming

8-Bit Chris — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 09:47:34 +0000

Rage is the latest offering from id software (the guys that brought us Doom & Quake) & is the game that I’ve been waiting to play for over a year.
Firstly I’m gonna point out that there’s a MASSIVE 8gb install which takes like 20mins to install! But getting that out of the way, the story is your typical post apocalyptic romp where just before an asteroid hits earth selected people, including yourself have been put into stasis in chambers called Arcs. You awaken some time after the asteroid hits to find the world has been destroyed but humans have survived. The graphics are quite amazing, but the down side is that the textures pop in which is often distracting and pulls you out of the overall atmosphere. The enemy AI is good taking cover in a fire fight and rushing you when needed and joined with fluid movement animation makes it look more realistic. Aside from the first person element you get to ride certain vehicles in getting from point A to B and in addition there are races you can enter in the cities to earn cash and upgrades for your vehicles. It very much an arcade experience, but it has that element of Mad Max which is fun. Doing the story combined with all the side missions will easily rack you up at least 11 hours of play time on medium but can be extended more if you wanna collect upgrades, search the areas for hidden objects, race or complete trophies.
Overall Rage is a great game to play, getting into the atmosphere of a Mad Max post apocalyptic world. The only downside is that even though its a lengthy game it just feels short and leaves you wanting more. Another point I would give credit for is that the colour pallet used is quite vibrant , whereas other ‘post apocalypse’ style games are ridden with dull lifeless colours (Fallout & Gears of War are prime examples). This game might not be on everyone’s wish list, but everyone should experience it.

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The Cutting Room Floor

8-Bit Chris — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:51:00 +0000

Thor

Ohhhh dear. I mean I’m biting my lip right now. There are 2 comic book heros that I have NEVER wanted to see on the big screen. They are , the green lanturn & Thor & by god this was a shIt year 4 me ! So how was Thor u ask! ? Well it was well below average, but above shit. The acting was meh, even though Portman had just done the BRILLIANT Black Swan. & a BIG RUMOR goes that during filming Antony Hopkins thought that Chris Hemsworth was a shit actor & didn’t deserve the role so never shot a scene with him, that’s why there never in the same shot.
The effects are good & the Asgar bits are the best in the film, making you feel cheapened when we ‘warp’ back to earth. Overall THOR is disapointing , it takes the campiest of superheros & gives some good action but unfortunatly a pplot that I worked out in the FIRST 5 MINUTES of the God damn fIlm.

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Cheap-ass Gaming

8-Bit Chris — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:16:37 +0000

Dead Island

Dead Island is the newest Zombie game out on the market, but is it a game worth getting? The first thing that should be noted is that this game is geared up for multi-player, online or lan, but NO split screen. This unfortunatly is a double-edged sword as its more fun playing with a friend or a team, but who wants to play a 20+ hour story game online? If your familure to the Fallout series then this game has the same features from the wearing down of the desopsable/upgrade-able weaponry to the numerous side quest that you will have to endure over a huge map (a note to game creators: your game is not 20+ hours if 80% of the game is just side quests that haven’t got jack to do with the overall story!).
The graphics are average at best with dull and lifeless character models. Textures, usually after respawning will take forever to load in & there’s a ton of glitches to be found.

an 8-bit home appliance

The story centres around 4 people who are trying to get off a tropical island that has just succumb to a zombie out-break, not exactly a great story. The game play is fun & killing zombies never gets old. My final thought is that Dead Island is nothing special, average graphics combined with game play that gets boring quickly (constantly back tracking & doing stupid side missions that are boring and time waisting). If your slightly interested in this one you might try renting this or waiting till its reduced.

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The Cutting Room Floor

8-Bit Chris — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 06:26:15 +0000

X-men: First Class
All I can say about this film is that it is first class (no pun intended). It does what the Last two crappy x-men films didn’t and produces a film where we see the birth of the X-men. Its a story of how the X-men came to be & more importantly how Magneto turned to the dark side while Xavier didn’t. Great performances especially from Kevin Bacon & a great cameo from Hugh Jackman make this a must see film.

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The Cutting Room Floor

8-Bit Chris — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:26:47 +0000

PotC: On Stranger Tides
Once upon a time Disney made a Clasic film from a ride attraction. Obviously the sequals followed , but each one progressivly getting worse. The latest trys to change it, but does it? This is what happens when u give the comic relief character his own movie; NOTHING! Jack Sparrow does nothing in this movie appart from look & act drunk. The plot is way too complex for a family movie & the action scenes far from impress. My over all conclusion, just stick to the original because its a great family film that everyone can watch.

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Cheap-ass Gaming

8-Bit Chris — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 09:05:41 +0000

Deus Ex-Human Revolution : The Deus Ex franchise is back with a new title, but is it a walk down nostalgic lane or should this horse be flogged? Well first off the ‘Blade Runner’ esque vision of the future is still as brilliant as ever, and the visuals are stunning. The game emerses you in a highly detailed world with only a few draw backs being some of the character models being a bit poor & the lip sinking well off. That aside the story draws you in,always wanting to find out the next part. The only draw back is the difficulty. As a purist, I want to go in as stealthy as possable, but even on normal its as hard as hell. Being seen will result in a fire-fight which, believe me you will lose 90% of the time, so stealth is mandatory rather than guns blazing & rewards you for doing so. All in all Deus Ex has to be up for game of the year, so empty that piggy bank cos you’ll need this in your collection. I’m 8-bit Chris signing off

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Why I prefer Textpattern CMS to WordPress

Wehtam — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 06:25:14 +0000

They say your should select a suitable CMS for each individual project. The reality is, who on earth would want to explore every CMS ? Most people are satisfied with selecting one or two and becoming proficient in them. It makes sense.

There are so many fantastic products out there, but as this site will no doubt present, my first love came in the form of WordPress. It is what I nominated to build CreativeFail and it has done me well with other projects too.

Then I was introduced to Textpattern, now you only need to look at my previous posts to discover the impact Textpattern had with my web design. Suddenly I could combine and embed a CMS system with my Dreamweaver websites, fantastic.

This revelation obviously promoted a few comparisons to WordPress, Could I achieve the same freedom that Textpattern grants, and use WordPress to power my own HTML website? The world would shout a resounding YES in my face, but as you can gather from the tone of this paragraph, things haven’t quite worked out for me yet.

To give myself the best start, I bought myself “Smashing WordPress Themes” by Thord Daniel Hedengren. A fantastic, in-depth book I must say, but so far it’s had the opposite effect on me. I was gutted to find that “WordPress tags” aren’t the powerful, shorthand and easy to follow snippets that Textpattern boasts, WordPress tags so far appear to be chunks of PHP.

So your first thought is “What’s the problem? Why learn a proprietary language when you can learn an open and widely used language like PHP?”. Two things, firstly I’m not a developer and have no aspirations to become one, I know a little PHP to create web forms and such but I draw the line there. Secondly, I wouldn’t want to rely on donated code snippets from third parties to help expand the functionality of my website everytime. PHP is a dangerous beast in the wrong hands. This is where the charm of Textpattern’s tag system comes into play. You’re presented with a complete directory of available tags, they’re short, easy to read and easy to implement. I can learn EVERYTHING about Textpattern tags and sling them about with confidence. In comparison to “the loop” in WordPress, I can replicate the same functionality with one or two Textpattern tags, better yet, I can actually follow and alter the functionality.

If you’re more confident in PHP than myself (and that wouldn’t take a lot), then WordPress is definitely your bag, chances are you’ll be able to beat WordPress to a pulp and make it beg and roll over. If you’re a visual designer through and through, then Textpattern is for you.

I often hear remarks of WordPress having an amazing, user friendly interface. I agree, I love it too. No arguments here. But it’s worth knowing that Textpattern supports admin themes and these can easily be switched in the admin area. You can select the perfect theme for your client. So the next time a blog reports on the “boring” default GUI of Textpattern’s back-end (despite it being lightweight, minimal and quick to load) you know that at any time, you can add bling to your admin screen.

No I’m not affiliated with Textpattern in any way, the truth is I seriously don’t understand why this product isn’t used as frequently as WordPress. It has an army of plugins and beautiful themes, and each Textpattern site looks so unique and independent. None of the right-hand sidebar/massive footer nonsense here. Just good content, your content, well organised and powered by a CMS that works for you.

Still intrigued? Then allow me to point you in my direction of choice -> Textpattern CMS

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By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes

8-Bit Chris — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 18:16:34 +0000

After a year-off trecking around Tibet soulsearching I’ve finally returned. Gone are the video reviews, because they take far too long to animate & in are two brand new articles. So get excited cos they’ll be rolling out soon .

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