Jason van Gumster

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Atlanta, GA

Jason van Gumster mostly makes stuff up. He writes, animates, and occasionally teaches, all using open source tools. He's run a small, independent animation studio, wrote Blender For Dummies and GIMP Bible, and continues to blurt out his experiences during a [sometimes] weekly podcast, the Open Source Creative Podcast. Adventures (and lies) at @monsterjavaguns.

Authored Comments

When discussing conversion tools, it would probably worth it to include the `convert` command that comes with the ImageMagick suite of tools. :) I find myself using that one pretty regularly.

I understand your point and I'd certainly considered that while writing this article. However, this was meant to serve as a ground-level entry into the world of scripting. As much as I like bash, it's not [yet] as cross-platform as Python is... nor is it as prevalently used in creative tools as much as Python.

So *if* you happen to be on the right platform and you're only interested in solving this very specific problem, then yes... bash is the better tool for the job. However, if you're not on a system with a proper bash shell or your interest is in getting started with Python as a means of using it more in the programs you use every day as an artist, then hopefully this [series of] article(s) gives the start you're looking for.