Syllabus

Open Source Graphic Design

Main focus: GIMP

Additional tools: Inkscape, Blender

Topics:

Introduction

1. Digital art and graphic design – introduction to the different aspects and jobs in the field.

2. Types of tools used: image manipulation, illustration / painting, 3D software.

3. What is open-source software, and why is open-source a good thing.

4. Vector vs. Raster graphics.
a. What is vector graphics? idea of curves in brief.
b. Introduction to the concepts of pixels, resolution, compression, image modes and color depth,
channels.

5. 2D vs 3D.

GIMP

6. Basics: overview of the program, tool-box and interface:
a. The canvas (canvas size vs. image size).
b. Tool groups: selection, transformation, navigation, color, drawing tools (brush concept).
keyboard shortcuts.
c. Layers concept in brief.

7. Basics: overview of the menus and windows in brief.

8. Resizing images, cropping, transforming (rotating, flipping).

9. The basics of color-theory:
a. Additive vs. subtractive color models.
b. RGB, CMYK models.
c. Hue, saturation and value/brightness.
d. The tone (value) and distribution graph (shadows, midtones and highlights).
f. Color wheel, complementary colors.

10. Improving image color:
a. Color balance.
b. Hue, saturation and brightness.
c. Curves and levels.
d. Colorizing.
e. Desaturating.
f. Inverting.

11. Selections:
a. Selection tools: rectangular, oval, free selection, magic wand, select by color, scissors select.
b. Adding and subtracting to/from selections.
c. Inverting selections.
d. Selection menu options: feather, sharpen, shrink, grow, border, distort, rounded rectangle.
e. Quick mask – drawing selections.
f. Using paths for selections.

12. Layers:
a. What are layers.
b. Idea of stacking and the importance of transparency (layer opacity).
c. Hiding and showing layers, moving layers, creating new layers and deleting layers.
Also: copying and pasting to and from layers (incl. from other files).
d. Layer anchoring and merging.
e. Locking layer movement and transparency.
f. Blending modes: color darkening modes, color brightening modes, color changing modes.

13. Drawing:
a. Foreground and background colors.
b. GIMP brush engine: brush types, spacing, size, color, dynamics, jitter.
c. The brush tool.
d. The eraser tool.
f. The pencil tool.
g. The path tool.
f. The paint bucket tool.
g. The gradient tool.
h. The smudge tool.
i. The dodge / burn tool.

14. Text:
a. Text tool and tool menu.
b. Font, size and alignment.
c. Text along a path.
d. Path from text.

15. Filters and effects:
a. What are filters and plug-ins.
b. The filters menu.
c. Blur filters.
d. Distorting filters.
e. Lighting and shadow filters.
f. Noise filters.
g. Artistic filters.

16. Photomanipulation techniques:
a. Removing backgrounds or specific elements (manually – cloning, resynthetizer).
b. Compositing montages (blending images, color correction, and creating perspective).
c. Smudging blemishes away.
d. Using the clone tool and the heal tool.
e. Lighting effects.
f. Combining drawing elements with image source.
g. Creating editable shadows from layer elements.
h. Enhancing contrast and starkness.
i. Text effects and typographic images.

17. Layer masks:
a. Layer masks as a non-destructive layer modification tool.
b. Adding a layer masks.
c. Editing layer masks with the brush, gradient and eraser tools.
d. Applying or removing the mask.

18. GIMP Advanced drawing:
a. Creating brushes.
b. Creating patterns.
c. Creating animated brushes.

Inkscape

19. Scalable Vector Graphics: short overview.

20. Inkscape's Interface, toolbox, menus.

21. navigation on the canvas (pan, zoom, scroll).

22. Basic drawing:
a. Path – drawing, manipulating handles and control points.
b. Creating Shapes.
c. Freehand lines.
d. Changing fill and stroke colors using the bottom pallette.

23. Transforming paths and objects.
a. Move, Scale, Rotate, Skew, Flip.
b. Editing paths and objects.
c. Transforming by keys (incrementaly).
d. Duplicating objects.
f. Changing object Z-order

24. Paint-bucket and Gradient.

25. Selections and groupings.
a. Alt + LMB for selecting stacked objects

26. The text tool.

27. Advanced path drawing:
a. Simplifying paths automatically.
b. Merging (Shift + J) and splitting paths (Shift + B).
c. Editing control points: restricting modifications with the arrow keys, Tab, [], < >.
d. Adding / removing control points with Ctrl + Alt + LMB
e. Inverting paths with Alt + !
f. Editing the behavior of node handles (deciding whether the handles will behave
symmetrically, smoothly, or create corners).
g. Retracting node handles with Ctrl + LMB.
h. Combining sub paths into compound paths.

28. Advanced techniques
a. Pasting styles with Shift + Ctrl + V
b. Boolean operations on shapes.
c. Insetting and outsetting paths and shapes with Ctrl + ( and Ctrl + ).

29. Using SVG images in GIMP:
a. Opening an SVG image.
b. Importing SVG images as paths.
c. Exporting from inkscape to rasterized types such as JPG / PNG.

Introduction to 3D graphics

30. What makes an image appear three dimensional? introduction to shading, perspective and depth.

31. How 3D programs work.

32. Basic overview of the 3D (animation) creative process: modeling, texturing, (rigging, animation,)
lighting, rendering, post-production.

Blender

33. Blender: background, versions, past and future.

34. General overview of Blender 2.5's interface. Viewport, toolbox, toolbars and menus, camera.

35. Introduction to modeling:
a. anatomy of a polygon.
b. primitives, changing initialization parameters.
c. transformation tools, snapping to axes, precise numerical changes.
d. Object vs. Edit mode
e. Selecting and manipulating vertices, edges, faces, loops and rings.
f. extruding, edge splitting.
g. Brief overview of NURBS and subdivision surfaces.

36. Introduction to texturing:
a. Materials and how they work (shaders and shading algorithms).
b. Object space vs. UV space.
c. Intro to Blender's materials and material attributes.
d. Intro to Blender's textures and texture attributes.
e. UVs: seams, shells and layouts on the object and in the UV editor.

37. Introduction to lighting:
a. Basic physics of light (spectrum, refraction, reflection, specularity, dropoff, occlusion).
b. Real-life light vs. lighting models in 3D programs (default, raytracing, global illumination).
c. Properties of shadows and how they define light.
d. Using Blender's Lamps and configuring their attributes.
e. Light setups and considerations (lighting arrays, key / fill ratio, etc).

38. Introduction to rendering:
a. Basic render settings in Blender (resolution, filetypes, camera, shadow types).
b. Advanced render settings (global illumination, ambient occlusion, sub-surface scattering).

39. Brief introduction to rigging and animation.

40. Importing Rendered images to GIMP and using them in 2D compositions.

41. Where to go from here: books, tutorials, courses, other programs.