About
Beautiful Dorena
Beautiful Dorena is an experiment. More accurately, it is
a bunch of experiments. I wanted to create a framework that would
allow me to try out ideas as they occurred to me. A “paint program”
seemed to offer the most flexible option. This was especially viable
because I have had experience doing this, having created the original
Kid Pix program. I felt that this was also a good approach because
it would let the user walk away with either an image file or a printout.
To be clear, it is not intended to be, a full-service, full-featured
program. It is quite quirky and basically does what I found interesting
to make it do.
Ideally I would like people to see what Beautiful Dorena does by exploring
and having fun with it.
A Few of the things Beautiful Dorena does...
Fiction
Productivity software (graphics programs, word processors, etc.) don’t
have much personality or tell a story. The idea is to let you get
something useful done. Games, on the other hand have lots of personality
and often tell a story but don’t generally let you create anything.
I wanted to give my program a personality and a fictional back-story.
A computer club at a small Oregon high school (Hazelnut Springs High)
hypothetically created it. All of the names of the characters come
from Willamette Valley, Oregon place names.
Tools
Most of the tools in Beautiful Dorena are more interesting than useful.
Many are algorithmically driven (done with simple math) and hopefully
are somewhat captivating. Some of the tool options are likewise not
too useful. For example the line tool can respond to gravity and fall
off the page.
Sound
In addition to the user-interface sounds, Beautiful Dorena contains
a soundscape. The ideas being that you are using the program in your
house in the fictional rural town of Hazelnut Springs, Oregon and
you are hearing the ambient sounds. Ambient sounds are random and
time sensitive. For instance, more cars pass by during “rush
hour” and crickets and cats are heard at night.
Video
Beautiful Dorena has two tools that let you place live video into
your picture. One lets you stamp video images into your picture and
the other used motion detection to only show what is currently moving.
Beautiful Dorena has a multitude of features. Please explore and send
some of your pictures to me at craighickman@mac.com.
Craig Hickman
September 2005
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FREE!
FREE!
FREE!
FREE!
FREE!
FREE!
Download a beta version of Beautiful Dorena by clicking
on the button below.
If
you have problems using Beautiful Dorena also email
me. I can't fix bugs if I don't know about them!
While
we're on the subject of emailing me, please email
me any interesting pictures you make with Beautiful Dorena. I will
put them on the web site. If you email from within Beautiful
Dorena please remember to include your return email address,
otherwise your picture won't get through.
You
are welcome to use this program. While I am confident that it won’t
cause any problems with your computer, this is a “use at your
own risk” proposition. You also should not sell it or distribute
it in a commercial way without the author’s permission
Only a Macintosh OSX version is available. Currently
it is unlikely that there will be a Windows version, but who knows?
System
Requirements:
• Macintosh OSX
• A display with at least 1024 X 768 resolution
• The faster the machine the better. It should be faster than
500 mhz.
Recommended
• A FireWire or USB video camera or web cam.
•
Color printer
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