OBF, Monday, 10:00am

As decided here, we will meet at 10:00am at the OBF this Monday, December 29th to work on Goose Dad, probably for the last time! (Hopefully!) I’ll be bringing laptops and hopefully a scanner, so I might need to make a couple of trips.

(I was mixed up and didn’t realize I have a prior appointment for the 29th; I might be able to change that appointment, but I doubt it, so we’ll probably be working until 6pm. But anyway, that’s probably enough work for one day, and who knows: we might even get it done!)

For those who don’t know, the OBF is across from the Post Office on the first floor of Nichols Gwan, just around the corner from the bank machines.

See you all there!

Meeting Dec. 22nd

Hi folks! Well, it looks like we’ll be meeting December 22nd. I said I was going to book a room, but I forgot, and anyway, I think most of the classrooms on campus will be empty. I’ll try find out if something in Dasol Gwan is available — it’ll be more likely to be heated — but anyway, let’s meet at the regular place. The time was… what time was it supposed to be? 3pm? If someone remembers better than I do, please post on the discussion board — it’s still open and operating!

Thanks!

Next Semester’s Courses

For those interested, I’ve posted a list of courses I’ll be teaching next semester, along with a brief description of each course. It’s available on the front page of this website.

Working with Gimp Image Editor

Hi everyone.

I thought I’d make up formy somewhat useless tutorial on using Gimp today by sketching things out for you here.

We talked about the noise issue. The problem is that when we scan images in color, some small differences in coloring on the page become “noise” when we start trying to manipulate them in Gimp.

The solution is either to scan the image in Black & White — my computer calls it “line art” when I connect my scanner — or to use Gimp to convert the image this way. This won’t totally eliminate noise, but it will reduce it a lot.

For all the images I’m providing step by step, click on the image to see it enlarged.

Let’s assume you have an image already scanned in color:

Color scanned image

You can change the image by adjusting the “mode” in Gimp. Go to the Image menu and look in the Mode submenu. (The Mode menu, inside the Image menu.) You should choose Indexed…. A popup box will appear, and in the popup box, select “Use black and white (1-bit) palette.”

This will convert the picture to a black-and-white image, ie. a picture containing no color, and not much of the color variance information. So not many of those nasty little spots that bugged us today:

Converted to Black & White

Next, you’ll want to go to save the image (under a new name). You will be asked to export the image after this conversion. You can export it as a grayscale image.

After that, you may need to close the image and reopen it in Gimp. The next thing you should do is go to the Filters menu and find the Artistic submenu. The first filter you will use is the Cartoon… filter. This will help the image by sharpening or thickening some of the lines in the image. You’ll want to experiment with the settings, using the preview window, but since there’s not much grayscale, you can probably get away with high settings and still not have much noise.

After using the Cartoon… filter, the picture I’m working with looks like this:

Cartoonified

The next step is to apply the Oilify… filter, which is also located in the Artistic submenu (under the Filters menu). You don’t want to set these settings too high — the effect is a very subtle one. For the picture I’m working with, I used settings very low on the scale — approximate 4 or 6 in the Mask Size and Exponent settings. You may want to experiment to see what gets the best results. After this step, my file looks like this:

Olified

Next, it’s a good idea to use the Eraser tool on the Gimp main tool palette to erase any noise-spots. I get this:

Tidied Up Finally, if you find some of the lines in the picture are still a little weird, you can use the Bump Map filter to thicken them up a little. Under Filters, find the Map submenu and click the Bump Map option. The settings I used were pretty high on the first three settings, with Azimuth at 320.5, Elevation 90.0, and Depth at 11. My result is this:

Finally

After you have your file done, save it. We can come back later to add text and so on.

Those are the basics. If you have any questions, let me know! Once I’ve proofread the script and the trailer is finished, I’ll put up a new tutorial about typesetting!

MOSAIC!!!

It’s that time of year again!

Mosaic is a variety show put on by students, involving dances, songs, acting, speeches, and more. This year’s Mosaic evening will be held on this Friday, November 21st, at 5pm. It’s happening in the auditorium in the Student’s Center building. (Check in front of the English Language & Culture Department office for more details.)

I will remind you that if you are enrolled in one of my classes, then your attendance at this event is required regardless of whether or not you are an English Language & Culture major. Your attendance will factor into your grade. But it’s the easiest grades you’ll ever earn: come and enjoy an evening of student entertainment for free.

Two more things:

  1. Remember to sign in — otherwise the free grade can’t be given to you.
  2. Judging by past Mosaic evenings, dress warmly. I am trying to make sure the room will be heated adequately, but in the past, thathas not worked well. Choose warmth over fashion, even if it means bringing extra warm socks in your school bag. Trust me, if the heater doesn’t work for some reason, you’ll be glad you did.

NEW! Guide to Formatting Your Written Work

I can’t seem to find my older formatting guides, so instead, I’ve written up a new one and added it to the Some Advice For Your Professor section of this site. You can see the link in the sidebar, on the text Formatting Your Written Work, but you can also just click the link here to see the page. This information applies to written work in all of my courses, not just in writing courses… and it may be helpful for courses taught by other professors as well, so make sure to check it out!

In Search of a Style

Hi there,

I mentioned Jeffrey Brown, who will be illustrating one of my stories in an upcoming anthology, as a possible example of a simpler style we could use in the art in our book. Here are some examples of his work, from books available online:

Have a look and see what you think. We may not have Brown’s talent for expression emotion in a specific moment, but we surely could use a simpler style like his to make our story more accessible!

Next Week’s Speech Contest

There’s some confusion about the Speech Contest and what students are expected to do. I explained it at the beginning of semester, but I’ll clear it up once more for you:

  1.  All students in English Language & Culture Department courses are expected to attend the two main Department events: Mosaic (in late November) and one day during the The Speech Contest event (which is on November 3rd, 4th, and 5th.)
  2. Attendance will be taken at these events and will affect your grade in English Language & Culture Department courses. Even if you are not a member of the English Language & Culture Department, if you are taking a course in our department, you are required to attend these events.
  3. You only need to attend ONE of the speech contest days: ie. Monday OR Tuesday OR Wednesday — it’s your choice. But you must attend at least one. The information about times and places (and who is speaking) is posted outside the Department Office, at 205 Dasol Gwan.
  4. Attendance at these events is in addition to, and not instead of, regular course meetings. It’s extra, and I’m not canceling classes for it. You’re expected to attend class as usual, in addition to attending these events.
  5. No, you cannot come for only one hour. You are required to attend for the full event if you want your grade to reflect attendance.
  6. Everyone is busy! (Even your professors!) So please don’t complain or feel frustrated, just try to have fun or learn something. I’m pretty sure you can do both if you try.

See you at the Speech Contest!

PDF Problems?

Some students have told me about problems opening PDF files. It seems that Adobe has upgraded to Adobe 9.0, and some older PDF files (especially made in non-Adobe software) isn’t displaying correctly anymore. If this happens to you, you can still access my PDF files using one of the following methods:

If these methods don’t work for you, then let me know and I’ll try find another way for you to access my PDFs, until I (maybe, someday) get a chance to ugrade them.

Slow on the Script, But Here’s a Progress Report Sample

Hi everyone,

Sorry,  but I’ve had to change our plans in terms of getting the script ready. I’ll be giving it a good hard look this weekend, and I’ll give you back the script, with my editing notes, on Monday. Week 9 (ie. starting Oct. 27th) we will need to get to work on the art, as well, so I’m going to split you into two groups: one to get the script in later sections finished while the others work on the art.

By the way, it looks like we might be having a few pages excerpted in a publication sometime soon, so we’ll really need to get going!

Also, I have an idea I’d like to suggest for the opening and closing pages of the book, as well — something that doesn’t necessarily need much scripting, but which will help us tell the story. We’ll talk about that on Monday, too.

So have a nice weekend, try to get some work done on your progress report if you have time, and gather your strength, because it’s going to be a busy seven weeks getting this book made!

By the way, speaking of your progress report, here’s a sample:

Midterm Progress Report (PDF)

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