First step is to make a cube with 3 segments for Height, Width and, Length.

When making a box, theres a radio button to check to make it a cube instead.

Then click and drag in any of the viewports to create the cube.

Now right click on the box and convert it to an editable poly. I always use Epoly over Editable Mesh for the simple reason of using meshtools.
Even though we wont be using meshtools, its a habit.

Epoly has many features editable mesh doesnt,
try making changes to a mesh and an editable poly to compare.

Open the modifier tab and go into sub object mode VERTEX.

Now in the TOP viewport select the middle 4 vertices and Non uniformly scale them in the X and Y planes. This will enlarge the centre face without stretching it off the cube.

To select the vertices, drag a selection box around them. This will also select the opposite, back face of the cube

Do the same for the front and left viewports and do your best to line them up. Just do it slowly and you’ll be fine.

Now you can go into subobject mode POLYGON and select the polygon in the centre of each side.

Rotate the perspective view to select all of the faces that will be seen in the final shot.

Now extrude those negatively. Not too far. keep an eye on the front or top view port and make sure the extruded faces dont ntersect.

TIP : By holding down the control key while selecting items you can select multiple items at once.

Create your text object and scale it to the right size. Use your own judgement, it doesnt need to be perfect.

Then select the letter you created, click the align tool in the top menu and select all 3 axis. Then simply use the move tool to move the text up or across so it’s outside the cube and not inside it.

Were going to use shapemerge to apply the shape of the “A” to the cube.

Select the cube. Now under “Compound Objects” select shapemerge. Now Click on SELECT SHAPE and click the “A”. The A will now be marked on the face of the cube.

Almost done.

Convert the cube to an editable poly again.

In subobject mode select polygon and select the entire cube. Change the material ID for all of them to 1.

Now select the faces of the letters and extrude them all at the same time.

Lastly. Select the outside faces of the cube, the ones not extruded inwards and the faces of the letters and apply a material id of 2.

Now if you apply a multi-subobject material with different colours you can make a simple building block in no time at all.

Redesigning for Garth Male Grooming wasn’t the case.

The original spec was to add back end functionality. Pricing and specials were hard coded and required hours and dollars to update. Which simply isn’t acceptable. You need to be able to move and adapt with the times.
While looking over the content to see what could be database driven I noticed an appaling colour scheme.
Primarily a lack of. The entire site was in one shade of brown. Which while inspired by wood, didn’t match the rich colours of being inside the studio.

It just didnt work well.

A new design and colour scheme was in order. But we needed to keep the design in the same landscape style for consistency and because it worked well. After a trip to the studio to see how it felt up close and personal, a new look site was developed.

The bland brown was replaced with a rich burgundy and moved to the border. Olive green like a high back leather chair formed the menu bar and to add that final polish and bring it forward into the modern age, a glossy orange “Book Now” button was literally slapped on top of the site.
The end result?

We have something fresh and new.
Retaining the style and feel of the original site but brought well forward into the modern age and updated.

Features:

• Cross browser tableless design
• database driven site core
• Simple admin interface
• Natural colour scheme

The other major feature added as a part of the redevelopment was a contact form. Interactively built into each page.

Javascript calls the frame into visibility and allows visitors to refer the site to a friend. Captured name and email addresses are inserted into an email body.
This gives the personalisation of a friends email and the business side Garth needed.
To avoid sounding cliche or like SPAM, the email clearly indicates it has come from a business, but at your friends request.

Between multiple types of content, more or less screen real estate needed to be used. This is covered seamlessly by moving and fading the background image. The face in the background slides to the left and fades in opacity when viewing the treatments and other pages with a lot of text. This is unnoticed by the viewer as we keep the vertical stripes in full colour.

Visual elements remain constant and the user continues on.

The final element was to add an element of change to an otherwise static page. This was pushed with a random loading image.
The right pane of the site is an oversize thumbnail loaded at random.
Statistically speaking, the average site visitor will view 5 pages on Garth before making a booking or knowing what they want. With 13 images to choose from, this should give over 90% of visitors a unique image on each page load.

The client is incredibly happy with the makeover and apart from some domain hiccups Garth is now hosted and live. For all you tech monkeys I’ll have another article up in a week or so around the CSS used and how I’ve accomodated an IE6 rendering bug.
For the rest of you www.garthmalegrooming.com.au and tell them Timps sent you.

As a webmaster(and in many cases) a web designer, you have a responsibility to your site users. In regards to their privacy and information.
The 3 main areas of this are Disclosure, Security, Legality.

Disclosure
Simply put, tell people what you are doing with their information. Simply, this can be done with a privacy policy. Any business that collects personal information has an obligation to disclose what information they maintain or gather and how it is stored and shared with who.
This applies to many web designers using systems such as pre-built shopping carts and blogging or cms systems.
Many shopping carts automatically store a users details when a purchase is made.
For many people this would include shipping details, contact numbers. My personal address.
A single purchased book or painting, or swimsuit does not give you the automatic right to store someone’s details indefinitely. Or to use them to sell to others or to contact them again.

A sample privacy policy is written below, this is one I have written for a client previously. It covers some basic points including the capture of their information and that some of this information may be personally identifying. It also references web traffic, which will for many of you reside on a server outside of Australia. On a cheap hosting package overseas, is your customers’ data secure?

Privacy Policy
<BUSINESS NAME>, like other companies operating in Australia, is bound by the National Privacy Principles as set out in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 Our collection, use and disclosure of personal information is set out below:

What Information does <BUSINESS NAME> Collect:

<BUSINESS NAME> collects two types of information from you.

Personally identifiable information supplied by you during a purchase, this includes but is not limited to your name, address, telephone number, email address, size purchased, gender etc.
This information is never sold, offered or shared with any third parties. <BUSINESS NAME> uses this information in order to provide a sales service to you. It may also use this information to contact you in regards to limited offers, promotions and specials, you may contact us to opt out of receiving further contact regarding these promotions.

Non Personally Identifiable information gathered from our website, this includes but is not limited to pages visited, duration of stay, search terms and URI referalls and destinations.
This information is gathered and collected in order to maintain the website. This information is never given out, shared or sold to any third parties and remains the property of <BUSINESS NAME> and it’s partners.

Your information will be used by us in order to provide you with the service. It will also be used by us in any method which you would reasonably expect us to use your information, including but not limited to contacting you regarding your purchase, authorising returns, future purchases or discounts.

We will not use your information for any purpose other than the above unless we have your prior permission to do so or there are specified reasons relating to law and order or public safety.

We will take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of all information collected, ensuring limited access to our data and servers.
At any time you may contact us to request a copy of the information we have regarding you, sufficient proof of your identity will be required.

Contact Us
You may contact us via this website at any time, <BUSINESS NAME> is an Australian Business and only available during normal Australian business hours.

There is an obvious need to edit out and replace the <BUSINESS NAME>. Again, this is not provided by a lawyer, but it is a cursory Privacy Policy and is a reasonable starting point.

Security
Security is very important. This is your customers’ personal data and you have responsibilities to protect it.
This extends beyond the obvious. https security for payment details, secure password requirements, captcha based logins, traffic monitoring, password expiry.
Physical limited access to your server and data.
Have you considered the consequences of having your personal computer stolen? Do you save your passwords and logins for websites, including your webhost?
Could these saved logins be used to copy your entire customer database in minutes?
Conscious security steps you can and should take with your website. And this goes for clients as well as designers.

1. Check for updates to any pre-built systems you use.
   You need to ensure security patches and fixes are applied as often as possible.
2. Only store relevant data. If you are offering a postal service, consider only keeping details until dispatches are done.
3. Secure your own passwords. Do not save passwords in your browser and use strong passwords (combinations of letters, numbers and punctuation)
4. Implement a Captcha based login to prevent automated dictionary attacks to enter your system.
5. Change passwords and limit access only to those who need it. Has your designer finished building your website? Change the password.
6. Check your webhosts control panel. Disable any excess user accounts, disable features such as “Remote mySQL”, do not create files with the CHMOD 777.
7. Ask your web designer/developer questions about SQL injection, input cleaning, .htaccess and https security, mod_rewrite, Register_Globals.
   Specifically if your website uses any PHP your designer should be able to answer these and explain how they are being used or prevented to protect your and your customers’ data.

These are not complete, but these tips will help keep you from doing anything completely dangerous and potentially stupid with yours or your clients data. Keeping in mind, that privacy breaches in Australia can result in fines, jail time or litigation.

Legality
You have legal obligations to protect and preserve peoples information. This includes supplying all information upon request and acknowledging requests to be removed from mailing lists etc.
Some points to consider that you may need to prepare for.

1. Are you able to supply a privacy profile? This is a detailed account of all information you hold on someone. Invoices, web logs, user accounts and other information.
2. Are you able to respond to requests for no further contact? If your business does not require an ongoing relationship you could be breaking the law by contacting someone who no longer wishes to hear from you. Selling a book to someone 12 years ago does not mean you may contact them monthly about your new book.
3. Do you use opt in conditions for mailing lists? Are people able to unsubscribe?

There is a lot more that needs to be read and I strongly advise discussing this with your lawyer, business mentor or other informed representative.

Links
Federal Privacy Act
Commonwealth Privacy Act (direct link)
Australian Privacy Foundation

Photorealism : ( Fo-to-reel-isum)
the art of making an image look like a photograph. That should be all the definition we need, and it’s how we’re going to work with the term.
It’s entirely possible to render surreal items or bizarre angles and make them look very real.
For example, the kitchen scenes in fight club, or the opening sequence of Panic Room.
But the problem is unless people can easily see what has been done is real, it makes them think about it. This leads to looking for faults. A photo-realistic 3d piece will simply be taken as a photo.

Because you’re using a computer, and not paint, there is a more complicated element to the painting of your scene. The lighting, materials and models all need to be designed with your final shot in mind.
Do you need to model a section completely flat to fake a hard spotlight?
do you need to model an unusual shape to simulate bright light blurring an object?

Remember this when starting out :
A photograph is a captured moment in time. You should begin by planning the answers to two questions:
1. What will the viewer see?
2. What will they feel?

Your lighting and camera angle can have an enormous impact on emotional response.
An empty bedroom for example :
Interior Design magazine - Warm, inviting and cosy
Cinema shot after someone has passed away - cold, empty and lonely.

These could be the same room, identical in every way, but how its shown and where its seen from will change the viewers perception.

The main factors we will cover are:
Modelling Lighting Texture Rendering/post processing

And the order you should approach it.
Plan, Model, Light, Texture, Render, Process

This tutorial covers the basics of each of these points, and information essential to producing a photorealistic image.

Modelling

One of the most overlooked things in 3d modelling is construction. By construction I mean how an item/object is constructed.

It’s far too easy to make things out of a single object and to forget that in the real world, things have seams, edges, cuts, marks and other indicators of how it’s made.

Our example item for modelling is a microwave.
Simple enough, it’s shaped like a box, how complex could it be.

This is where your goal of photorealism starts to come into play.
A microwave is made of panels, there are vents, inside those vents you can see the inner workings, there are joins, hinges, rounded edges, thick edges, thin edges, layers.
The door for instance could be modelled as a single flat piece. But the edges have thickness, rounding, the window in the door is layers thick, with mesh, Perspex, seams.
The clock is a backlit LCD; there are layers of the LCD, a shell to contain it, a space between the clock and the front panel.

When modelling your object, think about how it was assembled, is it one piece, are there seams, panels, screws, bolts, nails etc.
Do not leave 90 degree edges, as far as normality is concerned they do not appear
I am aware there are straight edges in reality, and they do look unusual when you see them.
Chamfer edges, place imperfections on your edges, consider the age of your object when modelling.
The older an item is the more wear and tear will need to be physically modelled in. Bent edges, dents and broken pieces all form a part of the modelling process.
NB The displacement possible in some rendering systems can all but eliminate the need to model surface detail, but remember displacement is done along the normal of the polygon, so edges still need to be chamfered.

Lighting

Lighting is one of the most difficult aspects of photorealistic rendering.

Lighting in your scene serves two purposes. To tell the story of what is happening and to simulate reality.
The reality part we’ll cover in a moment.

Every light in your scene MUST serve a purpose.
Changing the position and brightness of a light will affect the mood of a scene.
Dark lighting from behind or smooth even lighting from in front will help to portray your scene.

Think of how lighting is used in an interrogation scene from your favourite movie. The bright light on the subject and the detectives moving in the darkness brings more emotion into the scene. This is more than just simulating what happens in real life, it’s about emoting the scene.

The subject in bright light shows them as the focus, the centre. While the others moving in the dark seem mysterious, powerful, evil.

Use lighting in your scene to bring emotion to objects and places.

Simulating reality:
Light bounces. All light, all the time will be reflected off a surface.
Light is not unidirectional. There are very few circumstances where a scene or an object is lit from a single direction. More often than not there are multiple light sources as well as indirect light.
Light is coloured. Light bulbs, the sun, the sky, a candle, none of these produce pure white light.

The basics of lighting will require you to use an advanced lighting system. Light needs to bounce realistically. You simply cannot fake this by hand. You can use a skylight script for soft shadows, but an intricate shape, scene etc will not look real with a skylight, absorption, colour bleeding, bouncing light etc all occur and need to be simulated or faked.

The important step is not to let the computer do the work for you, it won’t look real. Set parameters correctly, move lights into the correct position.

Lighting includes shadow work. Shadows indicate the 3 dimensional nature of an object. Shadow density also indicates the relative reflective properties of a surface and its geometric position in relation to a light source.

Key tips:
Tint your lights or use blurry images as projection maps.
Turn shadows off on your lights except one “main” light source.
Use falloff on your lights. Even a lighthouse fades at a distance.
Use omnis to simulate bounced light in some areas. Your rendering system will bounce light equally off all surfaces. Instead of attempting to modify material properties, throw some light in where it should be.

This lighting example is a very quick demonstration of coloured light, shadows and variety can add depth to an image. Examples 3 and 4 use either noise or a photograph as the source of light. These subtle variances from one point to another can help bring another level of realism into your image.

Materials

The downfall of many otherwise brilliant renders.
Textures and/or materials form the surface and depth of your scene. They indicate how a surface looks, feels and even what’s happening under its surface.
You need to consider how a surface looks. The problem is that 3d software is not arranged the same way as your mind. You know what fabric looks like, and by looking you can tell velvet from satin, but WHY does velvet look different than satin?
There’s its colouring first, the pattern on your lounge suite, the orange of an orange.
Then things get complicated.
Texture, is it rough, smooth, made of millions of tiny lines, or scratched and buffed. This will normally be your bump map.
How does light bounce, reflect or play across the surface? Is it absorbed like skin or wax, or does it reflect bluntly like steel.
Ideally work with every feature of a material except colour.
Set the diffuse channel/colour to medium grey. (128,128,128)
Cloth should look like cloth, wood look like wood, if it doesn’t look the part grey, then you’re modelling or lighting isn’t completed.

Texturing notes: Imperfection is king, reality is seldom perfect, edges don’t always match up, patterns don’t flow seamlessly, paint doesn’t go on evenly. Consider the texture/colour/glossiness etc while working on each of the others.
Has colour faded where it’s exposed to the sun? Was the object painted a different colour at one stage?

You can also double back into your modelling at this point. Model a fleck of paint peeling off and texture in the colour underneath to help with the impression of age.

Rendering

This is where it starts to shine through, the step where you get to correct for and make use of the other steps along the way.
NB: This section of rendering technically comes before everything else, as your final render angle dictates modelling detail, texture, etc

Firstly choose a camera angle and lens size, what are you trying to show, how should the shot line up. Use the same ideas you would for a normal photograph. Is an object half into the scene, can you see emptiness where another room should be etc.

Rendering and post processing will vary greatly between 3d applications; however some features will remain the same.

Blur/Depth of field: not everything in your image will be in focus, you simply cannot have everything from here to infinity in focus at the same time, and you can cheat and place a wall behind your shot, so everything from here to there is in focus. Each shot will decide if blurring is minimal in the background or extreme DOF to show off a product render.

Bloom: The spreading of light, the effect of how your retinas or a film reacts to a bright area. The lightness “bleeds” and expands, giving a soft haze or halo over a larger area. This is one of the easier touches to bring the rendered image closer to a photograph.

Colour correction: RGB monitors and film do not display colour in the same way, to get closer to a final print style, I normally desaturate the image with a gradient. Left to right, or angle it to match dark and light areas. Not a lot, 3-10% maximum from one extreme to the other, but it looks more natural than a direct render from a lighting plug-in.

Noise: If the image wasn’t created on the computer, and it arrived via a camera or scanner, each of these will bring micro errors, tiny bits of noise imperfections etc. Apply noiseor scratches on another layer in your image editing application; adjust the blending mode and opacity to give a subtle break-up of pixels.

Well you do, but you don’t need to say “INNER JOIN”

MySQL uses a dot syntax which makes our code so much easier.

Our example uses 3 tables with several columns each. A table of users, a table of DVD’s and a table showing who has borrowed what and when.

Users: id,Name
DVD: id, Title, genre
loans: id,owner,Title,Date

So we have entries in all of these tables. And we want to retrieve a list of all of the loans.
We use the name of the table a DOT and the name of the column.
eg Users.Name will give us the Name value from the Users table.

The full query is

Select table.column from tables where table.column = table.column

Select (all the fields we want) from ( list the tables here) where (list what equals what)

Select Users.Name, DVD.Title, loans.Date from Users,DVD,Loans where loans.owner=Users.id, loans.Title=DVD.id

The great part about this is, we only “select” the fields we want and can specify the criteria any other way we like. As long as you include all the tables involved, it will just work.
These can get LONG and detailed, but without having to worry about “Inner Join THIS on THAT” we can use it easily. Here’s a real world example for a business who tracks internal device loans for quality testing.
4 tables and 10 columns.
You should be able to piece together their original table structure without too much trouble.

SELECT PSTT_trans.notes as out_notes, PSTT_users.name as username, PSTT_users.id as staff_number, PSTT_equip.id as equipment, PSTT_equip.name, PSTT_trans.id as transid, PSTT_trans.trackid as trackid, PSTT_trans.timestamp as out_time, PSTT_trans.owner_id as the_owner, PSTT_track.open as opentime
from
PSTT_trans,PSTT_track,PSTT_equip,PSTT_users
WHERE
PSTT_trans.equip_id = PSTT_equip.id AND PSTT_trans.owner_id = PSTT_users.id AND PSTT_trans.trackid = PSTT_track.id and PSTT_track.close is null and PSTT_trans.returned is null and PSTT_trans.direction = ‘out’

What are the basics you need to know.

I think there’s 5 things you need to know.

1. Shutter Speed
2. Aperture
3. Iso
4. Depth of Field
5. Framing

1. Shutter Speed: Pretty self explanatory here. Shutter speed is about how long the shutter stays open for. The longer it is open the more light comes in. Most photos are taken with a shutter speed measured in tenths or hundredths of a second. The shutters are inside your camera, directly in front of the sensor.
Shutter speed controls how much of the action is frozen. At 1/200th of a second human motion is generally frozen, at shutter speeds slower than 1/60th of a second the human heartbeat can introduce camera shake.

2. Aperture: How wide the iris of the lens is. This is important. The Aperture is controlled by the lens, so the available apertures will change with your lens. The wider your iris is open, the more light can get in. Aperture also controls the depth of field. This is due to the alignment of light rays.
In simple terms a focused lens will align parallel light rays.
A wide aperture means many non parallel light rays enter the lens and show as out of focus objects.
A narrow aperture prevents these non parallel rays from entering the camera. They collide with the iris. This means more parallel light rays reach your sensor, which makes more of your image in focus.
But obviously a narrow aperture lets in less light.
Aperture is measured in F-Stops. Each F-stop lets in half the light of the previous f-stop.
Wait……… bigger numbers means less light? Yes. Aperture is a measure of how much you “restrict” the iris. So a higher number means you restrict it more.

3. ISO: This is a setting relating to how sensitive your sensor is to light. Like most aspects of photography, ISO settings are doubled. from 25-3200.
The common range is from ISO 100 to 1600.
As ISO increases, so does “noise” or random coloured pixels in your image. A higher ISO means the sensor “reacts” more to less light.
ISO can be controlled digitally. However on a film camera, ISO is controlled by the film. So if you choose a 200 ISO film, you need to adjust when shooting. Your film is twice as sensitive to light as an ISO 100 film.

Now these three together form the “mechanics” of the camera. And they all work in “stops”.
F4 to F5.6 is one stop and lets in half as much light.
F4 to F8 is two stops and lets in one quarter as much light.

But how do I use a wide aperture for a smaller depth of field. Won’t this let in more light?
Yes it will, Aperture and Shutter speed both work in stops. The scale is simple. If you move aperture one stop down, move your shutter speed one stop up.
F11 at 1/60 second might be a crystal clear shot in your lighting setup. But you want less in focus. Every stop you move the Aperture wider, simply move the shutter speed one stop slower.
F4 is 3 stops wider. So shutter speed moves to 1/250 second.

This shot is lit the same as the first, however the shallower depth of field puts less in focus. Highlighting the “focus” of yor image.

This section has been rewritten due to an appalling example used by me. Thanks DSankt for pointing it out. Seems I know the science behind it all, but the actual f-number scale was a mystery. Curse me being taught using a camera supporting 1/3 stops.
4. Depth of Field: Depth of field is literally a measurement of focus. The “field” is defined as the range between the closest item in focus and the furthest. Depth of field is controlled by camera aperture.
At f2 depth of field is likely to be only a few inches.
At f22 depth of field is likely to be measured in feet.
The advantage of depth of field is focus. With a large depth of field (narrow aperture) large portions of your image will be in focus, this can be useful for landscapes.
A narrow depth of field will blur your background bringing your focus to precisely where you want it. This can be commonly used in portraiture for reclining shots. A focused face with the body blurred into the background.

5.Framing: Framing a nice photo isn’t going to be explained in 3 lines. But I can give you some key tips to improve your images.
Look into the rule of thirds. The focus of your image should be on a point.
Where are the points….. Imagine your image divide into thirds. horizontally and vertically.
Avoid the centre square. Yes there are times when it works, presume there isn’t.
Use depth of field to your advantage. Low aperture for a shot focused on one thing. Wide aperture for more in focus.
And the horizon. Three horizontal lines divide your image, like a piece of paper folder twice. ≡ like this.
You’re horizon will dictate the “scale” of your image.
Placed on the top line, most of your image is earth and a small part sky, this seems closed in and small.
Placed on the bottom lin, most of your image is sky and a small part earth, this feels wide and open.

It’s a quick cursory explanation, but it’s the basics of photography and it should be what you need to get started, or to be brave enough to flick to a new dial on your camera.

Google for a 301 redirect for non-www

First step in the project was to change the site away from it’s standard template style. The biggest change needed was the colour scheme. As much as the sunset image works perfectly for swimwear, the sites original designer had gotten a little heavy handed with shades of red and orange. I immediately switched the site to black and redesigned the header and footer to blend more.
A couple of changes to the template files suddenly had the site at a fixed width and displaying images in rows.
For some as yet unknown reason Cubecart displays images one per line, which leaves lots of room for descriptive text, but let’s face it. For most people products sell based on a look. Once you see something you like, a click is all it takes to get the full description happening.

The site also originally landed on a welcome page. In the interests of good service, this was removed via .htaccess redirect to push customers directly into the site. If you’re here to sell products, let’s push the products up front.

Next change into the site was to design a ’style’ for the front page and create the image seen. It is simply embedded directly into the code for the frontpage and can be changed easily. The weblink from the image is actually to a search results page which searches for a keyword.

This ingenius step was added because Cubecart does not allow for multiple categories per item and has no tagging system. IE once an item is classified as a ‘bikini’ there is no way to have subcategories or to place some of the items into groups for specific styles and seasons. Hiding keywords on the page in a background colour and then linking to a page that searches for them allowed a quick and simple change to allow categories and groups that span all of the existing categories.

Total changes and optimisations done to the site took a little over 2 weeks on and off, and apart from some ongoing maintenance and search engine optimisation, Totally Hot has been pushed higher in the search results and is a better experience for it’s clients.
Stop by to have a look and be sure to let them know how much you love the site.

Timps.