Experimenting with CG Bokeh

Now, I don't have the money for lenses with good bokeh - especially since I don't use them, so I started experimenting with other cheaper ways to simulate the effect - like generating the effect in Photoshop - no, not with Gaussian blur or lens blur. Something a little more convincing.

(Don't worry about the white line in the original, that's part of my selection work going a little awry.)

After a little selecting work, some third party filters, and the result is this:

If you think it looks fake - look carefully at the table - and compared the two photos. You'll realise that only a very specific portion (or distance) from the Coke can has been blurred!

Seemingly Unending Hiatus

I've been studying and thinking about a lot of other things - and those tend to lead to writer's block. I've been thinking about filling in with 4koma (like I did for a while), photography (which I also did for a while), writing a story (which I did a long while back). And then I suddenly thought about making a viable version of an application for table top card games. I thought, why not make a table top card game version with fully scriptable cards? Of course, if I did make one, the first target would be Magic, and Wizards would probably come after me - but hey, unlike the makers of Magic Workstation, I have no intention of selling it.

Magic Card: Sensei's Divining Top

I promised 3 years ago to write an article about the Sensei's Divining Top. I never did. Not until now, that I've realised that it has gotten banned in Extended that I realised that I should really say something about this great card.

It took me a while to collect a playset of these - and when I did, it went into every combo deck I made after that. Why was that?

Sensei's Divining Top was great for finding combo pieces - and it had incredible synergy with shuffle effects - another thing common in combo decks. Why was shuffling good? Every time you shuffled, you'd get to look at fresh cards after a Sensei's Divining Top activation.

What shuffle effects am I talking about? Cards called tutors often end with a shuffle. Tutors are cards which allow the player to search their deck for a card - following that, a shuffling of the deck to prevent people from knowing what your next few draws contain - something the Top does handily.

What makes this worse? Extra Tops turn into cheap ways to draw - and combined with shuffle effects, you don't have to pay the cost of drawing the Top next turn.

Unfortunately, this is exactly why it got banned. It got everywhere and started slowing down everything. Tops and shuffling effects were everywhere - slowing down gameplay and disrupting the smooth flow of the game. They concluded that it was something that was damaging to both the game and the metagame - resulting in a seemingly innocuous card getting banned.

I'm unconcerned - it's not an overpowered card, and I only use it in combo decks. No one I play with is really gonna complain. After all, if I do use an Extended-legal tournament deck, it'd probably be a whole can of whoopass they won't want to play against anyway.

(No, I haven't begun playing Magic again. There was little appeal to me past the Planar Chaos set - which only appealed to me because of the colourshifted cards.)

Why a D90 over a D60

Like just about every crazy purchase, you must have your excuses. (I won't say reasons, since they are indeed excuses.) There is are quite a few reasons why I bought this particular model, and I am quite sure many people, even Canon users can come up with them too.

1. Access to more lenses - the D90 comes with the AF motor needed to drive many older design lenses - using them could save you a fair bit of money over the equivalent newer ones. If you buy plenty of lenses, this pays for itself bloody fast.

2. Wireless flash system - the D90 comes with the ability to use wireless slave flashes - no need to lug around an extra flash like on the D60 to do the same commanding. (the extra flash can now be a wireless slave too!)

3. The ability to keep ADR on Auto at all times - this might not matter to most people, but this is a lifesaver on many occasions for a newbie like me. The overhead of ADR on the D60 is just way too high to bother.

4. Live view - no need to go blind when taking those high angle shots - you can now see what you're doing.

5. More buttons - the nikon D90 has plenty of buttons so you can change just about about setting that matters to you. No more weighing pros and cons of assigning the Fn button - instead you'll be busy looking for something to assign to the Fn button instead.

6. The screen - the 3 inch screen gives dSLRs what would probably be the biggest gripe of upgraders from p+s a big kick out the door. The screen is brilliant, sharp and shows you so much more. It's less a matter size than it is resolution.

7. Faster autofocus - it ain't the D300, but the AF system is faster than the D60, it is however more confusing to use. Coupled with a fast focusing lens - the camera feels crazy fast compared to the D60's occasional hiccup. (Of course, while it is indeed more confusing - it's faster - and actually means you can just point and shoot  - less recomposing required. )

8. Movie mode - not really a reason for me, but it does mean i don't have to bring a p+s around to take the occasional video - i can just go all over the place with merely my D90 and 18-200 VR.

9. Better battery life - unlike the D60, the D90 does have an official battery grip for it, in addition to having a longer battery life to begin with.

10. Sensor - the sensor is ISO 200 to 3200, more sensitive than the D60. This essentially means better lowlight performance, not to mention this sensor should be highly similar to the D300 - giving us plenty of bang for our buck.

Scheduling Problem

Apparently, my site had a problem with whatever new scheduling implementation is in Wordpress 2.7. I didn't notice until today when I realised the post I wrote for 2 days ago didn't show up. Grrrr...