quartz-composer
Latest
Getting the iChat hologram effect back
When Leopard was released a lot of folks (well okay, just Star Wars geeks, but nonetheless) lamented the loss of the hologram style iChat AV effect demonstrated back at WWDC. Well for those folks, a little birdy told me that the Quartz Composer file for this effect can be downloaded here (download link). Just pop it into your /Library/Compositions folder, restart iChat and it should be available as one of the video effects. This file was apparently taken from one of the earlier developer builds of Leopard.If you want a different take on the same idea, there's also a fan made version over at Mac Rumors.
Quartz Composer Art / Screensavers
Quartz Composer was one of the coolest new technologies Apple added in Tiger. It allows designers to create some amazingly complex motion graphics with comparatively little work. (Core Animation is likely an analogous advance in Leopard). The Japanese designer Futurismo Zugakousaku has used Quartz Composer to generate some dazzling motion graphics, which can conveniently be used as screen savers in OS X (place the QTZ files in /Library/Screen Savers/). His Quartz Composer Samples page features 33 QTZ files for download, some of which are simply mesmerizing. The site is feeling the Digg effect right now, but I managed to grab several of them as well as watch his sample movie. I was quite impressed by what I saw, particularly considering the fact that he says he made each of them in less than an hour. Zugakousaku says of himself: "I want to make a work like a new surrealist of the new generation." I think he's already achieved a lot.[Via Digg]
Free screensaver: Hills
You may not have noticed, but our posts here at TUAW have had a bit of a theme over the past 24 hours. If you've reached "Boot Camp saturation," then drift away with the "Hills" screensaver. Glide over rolling, grassy hills on a sunny day, and just relax. You can choose from photo-realistic hills or a wireframe version, and determine the speed at which you "travel." It looks very nice on my 20" iMac. The download includes a desktop version and source code.There, now don't you feel better?[Via The Iconfactory]
Apple: Working with Quartz Composer
You might not know it, but tucked away on those OS X install discs of yours are some magical applications that are grouped together as 'Developer Tools.' The big ticket item is XCode, Apple's IDE, but there are also lost of other tools in there that let you program in other ways.One of the best examples of this is Quartz Composer, which allows you to manipulate OS X's Quartz graphic layer by dragging and dropping. Sound interesting? If so, then you really need to check out Working with Quartz Composer. This starter tutorial will get you up and running in no time.
