Music

My old music page is online again

Leave a comment

As I said on my twitter, you probably never saw that page anywhere, because it was very poorly advertised. Back in the day not only did I do wallpapers but I also used to compose MOD music from time to time, using Fast Tracker II. Not the best tunes ever but still nice anyway. Before I reupload some of them to my Youtube channel and make a proper presentation or review of said selected songs, here’s my old music page, in plain HTML, that I started in 2002-2003:

http://dioxaz.free.fr/dioxazmusic_old/

Beware! It is really plain and dull and is in French! Because I never bothered setting a proper page to reach an international audience (I though it wasn’t worth at the time). I originally began making MOD music in 2000 (I just graduated high school and was entering university at that time*) with rather rudimentary Fast Tracker 1.00, then quickly migrated to Fast Tracker II. Making music in both Protracker 4-channel and XM 32-channel (max) formats was really fun and I enjoyed it, my only gripe was my lack of patience and the trouble I had to timing my notes properly. I’m still proud of some of the tunes I did (SILENEM5, BSTHEM9A and DXDREAM2 come to mind), even today.

Note: I updated the page with later revisions of the song I originally posted (better quality samples or better used polyphony in most cases). I hope you’ll enjoy… or smile while listening to them. 😉

And, something I forgot. VLC plays those tunes natively, in case you wonder.

*university didn’t last long and wasn’t for me, I preferred preparing a IT 2-year degree instead

MMD, Wallpaper

Magic Non Stop – Dioxaz’s wallpapers

Leave a comment

What the hell is this will some of you ask? I’ll answer this is what happens when you mix 80s, Kraftwerk and Touhou together.

Obviously, it takes its inspiration from the music video for one of Kraftwerk’s hit singles, Musique Non Stop, released in 1986. The video was directed by Rebecca Allen (work originally started in 1983 but due to how slowly work on the album was progressing at the time, the video was only ready for 1986!). However, this is not a mere copycat or a screenshot of one of the video frames. What I did is recreating some of elements that struck me the most when watching the video, by memory. And I came up with this…

To my knowledge, no normally constituted MMDer would use wireframes in his works… yet I’m doing it, to great effect I think. Types I used are NimbusSanP, NimbusSanT (both URW’s take on Neue Haas Grotesk, respectively “poster”/”display” and “text” variants) and a Japanese font called NKD02 14-segment Hematitic. My only gripe is that it looks pretty busy, possibly making your icons a bit drown out if you plan to actually use it as a wallpaper. Also, I did the composition with widescreen-only in mind, so I had to improvise a bit for older squared aspect ratios.

Anyway, here’s the beast (click on thumbnails for original size):

– 2K format (2560×1600)
wallpaper_magicnonstop_2560

– FHD format (1920×1200)
wallpaper_magicnonstop_1920

– SXGA and WXGA+ formats (1440×1024)
wallpaper_magicnonstop_1440

– HD format (1366×800)
wallpaper_magicnonstop_1366

– SVGA format (1024×600)
wallpaper_magicnonstop_sd

– VGA format (720×512)
wallpaper_magicnonstop_sd

Note: there’s an odd one out in this picture, will you be able to find it?

MMD, Wallpaper

Alice Manufacture – Dioxaz’s wallpapers

Leave a comment

I told you I’d use an argyle pattern for this one (and self-made, in totally vector form). Again, an idea I had for a little while. Now here it is materialized.

The particularity of this wallpaper is how it gets away only very basic elements. All models (by nya) were rendered using MMD stock settings with no effects whatsoever. The processing you see is made with Photoshop. Some inexperienced viewer might think I used an MME effect where in fact it’s not the case. I also reintroduced my usual play with typography (Univers Condensed and Ultra Condensed are used here). I think it’s a tiny little more inspired than the previous one with Reimu. Anyway, you’ll be the only judge. Even if people end up not interested in them, my wallpapers remain a hobby, and I like making them. So I’ll keep on anyway.

Now here’s the beast (click on thumbnails for original size):

– 2K format (2560×1600)
wallpaper_alice_manufacture_2560

The 2K one is actually 2650×1600 in size instead of 2560×1600! I only typed a wrong number when beginning the project. It’s my mistake. Anyway, it shouldn’t make any difference when cropping.

– FHD format (1920×1200)
wallpaper_alice_manufacture_1920

– SXGA and WXGA+ formats (1440×1024)
wallpaper_alice_manufacture_1440

– HD format (1366×800)
wallpaper_alice_manufacture_1366

– SVGA and VGA format (1024×640)
wallpaper_alice_manufacture_sd

Not offering a VGA variant this time because the contents of the SVGA one fit the entire VGA resolution when cropped, without suffering too much… in case any retrogamer and old 14′ CRT PC monitor user might stumble across this page. 😛

Someone on Reddit suggested the idea of a mobile resolution, too. Definitely something to think about for later attempts (which would require producing in portrait, too).