M.A.I.L. :: View topic

Gnomeofdoom · Posted on Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:13 am

I posted this article a week or two ago and I was wondering what people thought of the idea of using an animated .gif instead of a series of pictures to show how something is to be done. It's a small one detailing 1 way to make an orbital ring. I've had some positive feedback from people on deviantart so I thought I'd pass it by the rest of you here to see what you all thought.

http://www.mailleartisans.org/articles/articledisplay.cgi?key=18057

AmadeusMaxwell · Posted on Tue Jun 26, 2007 1:19 pm

Oooooh, that's how you're suppose to make an orbital. I've been doing them the hard way, via threading an open ring through the closed and orbital-to-be. Seems like you can use a tighter AR with your method.

So yes, I'm for animated tuts. Coif LoL

I've been doing a lot of abstract painting lately, extremely abstract. No brush, no paint, no canvas. I just think about it.

Gnomeofdoom · Posted on Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:08 am

glad you like it. That's how I assumed orbitals were supposed to be made after I tried for quite some time weaving a ring either around a connection, or through the orbital ring. Actually trying to weave through the orbital ring led to my figuring out how to do it this way, because I'd frequently not be able to hold the ring in place while weaving the non-orbital through it, so both the orbital and the closed ring wound up on the open one.. That's when I found out you could just kinda push it over and pull the end of the open ring through the orbital to close it. Shortly thereafter I saw some talk on here about making an orbital and it sounded like people were saying that was the way to do it.

anon · Joined: June 17, 2007 Posts: 526 Submissions: 21

Very nice, I think animated tuts would be great, but please also leave the step by step ones too instead of replacing them, some find step by step easier to understand, and it's more print friendly.

Did the tut take long to make?

Gnomeofdoom · Posted on Thu Jun 28, 2007 1:29 am

I don't remember now... I did that about a year ago when I discovered POV-Ray. all I know is I had to render each image, do the math to figure out where the rings should go so they didn't intersect and such for the next image, and then throw them into a gif editor to make it.

Perhaps I'll come up with a way to use an animated tut, along with a step by step so people could see both

Articles Assistant · Posted on Sun Jul 01, 2007 1:51 am

I thought the animated tutorial was very useful in this case, where motion made a difference. In a lot of other tutorials, it's not really vital.

I'm not sure where I'd make the cutoff, but also it would seem that an animated tutorial would be less useful beyond 5 or 6 steps (i.e. too long all for one thing... better to have it broken up).

But again, for the orbital formation, I think it worked quite well. Could probably do something similar for captured ring stuff...

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.--Bertrand Russell

Maille Code V2.0 T6.4 R5.4 E=o.o Fj6.2 MAl.a W$m C$b G0.5-2.6 I1.6-9.5 N20.26 Pn Dacjs Xa25g13w5 S00 CCu

Gnomeofdoom · Posted on Sun Jul 01, 2007 1:07 pm

yeah that's kind of what I had thought as well. I actually thought about taking a go at some of the weaves people (especially new people) are always having problems figuring out. The only weave I've had a problem with so far has been Half Persian. I had only been mailling for about a month when I found this site and started to go weave crazy, but that one took me about 4 different tutorials to finally understand how to start it without going insane.

Little animated tidbits for something like byzantine showing the 'flopping' rings might help clear up still frame confusion for some people.

Also, like you said, captive ring weaves, like CIR or Captive Turkish Round might benefit from brief animated things.