[Edu-sig] programming for artists

[Jason Cunliffe]

Sounds like you have some lucky students :-)


Among the multimedia Python goodies I recommend:

-Blender
-LightFlow
-PyGame
-Snack
-Poser4ProPack

The first four are free.

-Blender has lots of nice Python API. And some good tutorials. Even if you
dont directly do much with it, it would be worth 1 class well spent to just
see what you can do and discuss the Python aspects.
http://www.blender.nl
http://www.janw.gothere.uk.com/documentation.html
http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/blender/tutor/english/index_prog_python.h
tm
http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/blender/tutor/english/python_script00.htm
http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/blender/tutor/english/python_script05.htm
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~mein/blender/plugins/python.cgi
http://honk.physik.uni-konstanz.de/~strubi/3d/python/



-Lightflow is an incredibly beautiful radiosity toolkit. This is directly
modelling light in an object-oriented fashion. A few lines of python are
enough to nake some breathtaking magic. See the examples and tutorial.
http://www.lightflowtech.com/


-PyGame lets you talk to the and do all sort of othre direcit soudn and
sprite stuff. Probably not enough time but again may good for one class
http://pygame.seul.org/
http://pygame.seul.org/docs/index.html
|| CD || Channel || Font || Joystick || Rect || Sound || Surface ||
|| pygame || UserRect || cdrom || constants || cursors || display || draw ||
|| event || font || image || joystick || key || mixer || mixer_music ||
|| mouse || surfarray || time || transform ||


-Snack lets you do for Sound what Lightflow does for Light+Space
http://www.speech.kth.se/snack/
http://www.speech.kth.se/snack/websnack.html
<quote>
The Snack Sound Toolkit is designed to be used with a scripting language
such as Tcl/Tk or Python. Using Snack you can create powerful multi-platform
audio applications with just a few lines of code. Snack has commands for
basic sound handling, e.g. sound card and disk I/O. Snack also has
primitives for sound visualization, e.g. waveforms and spectrograms. It was
developed mainly to handle digital recordings of speech, but is just as
useful for general audio. Snack has also successfully been applied to other
one-dimensional signals.
The combination of Snack and a scripting language makes it possible to
create sound tools and applications with a minimum of effort. This is due to
the rapid development nature of scripting languages. As a bonus you get an
application that is cross-platform from start. It is also easy to integrate
Snack based applications with existing sound analysis software.
<quote>




-Poser4ProPack is alas not free. But the good news is the new python API.
Your class would probably really enjoy this - Full pyhon control of
choreography puppets, human motion files, props, poses, lights camera
action..
http://www.curiouslabs.com/products/proPack/
http://www.curiouslabs.com/products/proPack/python/index.html
http://techweb.techreviews.com/printableArticle?doc_id=TT20010118S0023
http://poseworks.8m.com/
<quote>

                 The Poser® Pro Pack is an essential extension to Poser® 4,
                 the Premier 3D-Character Animation Tool. The Pro Pack
                    offers a combination of robust plug-ins that enable the
                      hosting of Poser scene files inside of 3DstudioMax®
                         and LightWave®, exporters to generate 2D Flash
                         animation, and web deployable 3D characters via
                         Viewpoint output, and delivers added core
                          functionality such as Motion Blur, Multi-pane
Views,
                          and fully scriptable application control through a
                         Python Interface. New Figure Set-Up tools make it
                        easy to create new characters from any geometry.
                      From creating 2D Flash and streaming 3D for the web,
                  or integrating Poser scenes into powerful 3D tools, the
              Pro Pack transforms Poser 4 into a character animation
          powerhouse. To see a tour of the Pro Pack, click here.


           The Pro Pack is available as a Hybrid CD with both Macintosh and
Windows
           versions on the same CD. It includes a full-color Introduction
Guide and
             an electronic User's Guide in PDF and HTML formats.

</quote>

I have more detailed urls for all the above, but not on hand. Thse are
quicke\ies from my IE favorites.
See my previous posts to edu-sig and/or ask me for more.

Other artist/programmers using Python:
Disney Imagineering

Larry Cuba
http://www.well.com/user/cuba/
Why Does an Artist Need Python?
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/w/python_presentations.html


Also - could be useful to scan the growing Python Job postings:
http://www.python.org/Jobs.html
{Disney job posted last September }


good luck
./JASON