Calyxa's Curios

• Fantasy Worlds - Build and Explore

  • Real World Bryce 2
    

    If you use Bryce, this book is a must-have. The book comes with a CD which includes hundreds of samples to inspire you, as well as the scene files used to render those samples, so you can disect scenes you like to find out more about how they work. I have a bookmark on the pages regarding units of measure in Bryce. A sense of scale is important to rendering believeable images. Even though Bryce 3D has been released and includes many new features, Real World Bryce 2 will still give you excellent information on how to work with the Bryce application and how to create spectactular images. For some samples of what the software described by this book can do, please visit my Bryce galleries.

  • Real World Bryce 4 is coming soon!
  • Texturing and Modeling, Ebert, Musgrave, et al.

  • Riven -- the game (dual CD)
    Not only is Riven a wonderful game, but playing Riven has been a source of inspiration for some new Bryce images. I missed Riven so much when I finished it that I've made several hand-drawn maps of most of the islands of Riven. If you enjoy beautiful scenery and a little detective work, you'll love playing Riven!

  • From Myst to Riven - The Creations and Inspirations
    I don't believe in hint books, so you'll see none listed here. Be warned, though, there are plenty of spoilers in the form of maps and development diagrams making this a book for those who have finished the game.

  • MYST -- the game (for Macintosh)
  • MYST -- the game (for Windows)
    You don't need to have played Myst to solve Riven, but if you've finished Riven and you've never played Myst, you're in luck. Though more primitive in animations and renderings, Myst is still a fantastic immersive game that will entertain anyone who enjoyed Riven.

  
   
  

• Calyxa's Picks

  • The Case for Mars
    For all my love of rendering and exploring fantasy worlds, there is a world nearby that could be ours someday. Reading this book moves "someday" up to "as soon as we get off our collective asses and go". The journey to Mars is possible and invaluable. Pathfinder was great, but we must send humans to Mars in order to unlock not only the secrets of the universe, but our potential as space-faring beings.

  • The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon
    I like this book for a number of reasons. One is that parts of the story take place in Craters of the Moon, a wilderness area of Idaho. The other main reason is the genderbending nature of the story. Set nearly 100 years ago, the story is told by Shed, a half-breed bisexual indian boy who lives "out in the shed" at the bright pink whorehouse of Excellent, Idaho. Full of outrageous characters and told in a voice that lulls you into the story, The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon is a great escape.

  
   
  

• Body Art

  • REsearch #12 : Modern Primatives
    Some of the biggest names in the body art community are interviewed in this book. I've had the pleasure of meeting more than a couple of them in person and one of them was the person who did my nipple piercings.

  
   
  

• Art and Ancient Egypt

  • Flight into Eygpt : Binding the Book
    This book ties three of my most intense fascinations together - ancient egypt, cartography and bookbinding. The story of the book is told in the introduction by Terrence McKenna. The author is Timothy C. Ely and the subject material is a hand-bound book created by Ely's grandfather who flipped out one day and disappeared into Egypt for 6 weeks in the early 1900s. The watercolor paintings, maps and sketches from the pages of that mysterious tome are reproduced for us all to enjoy.

  • Reading Egyptian Art
    I own the hardback version of this book but have only the paperback available for sale. If you've ever wondered what some of those shapes are supposed to be in Ancient Egyptian paintings or sculptures, this is the book to get. Plenty of examples highlight the top 100 symbols found in Egyptian art.

  • Fun with Hieroglyphs
    This is a set of 25 rubber stamps suitable for stamping out your own message in hieroglyphs. A booklet with the set explains the phonetic symbols and how they were used in Ancient Egypt. While the book is more for children, I've seen more than a few grown-ups have fun with hieroglyphs.

  • Budge's translation of the Papyrus of Ani
    An old favorite of mine. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, translated line by line in three rows. The first row are the glyphs themselves. The middle row is a phonetic version of the ancient language and the last row is english text.

    Many have derided Budge's translations now that the science of Egyptology has progressed beyond what was known in Budge's time, but it still makes for an interesting book to ponder.

  • The Orion Mystery
    The layout of the pyramids at Giza and the Great Sphinx has always been known to be quite precise, rivalling precision possible today. That precision has always referred to space, but in the Orion Mystery, it becomes clear that the Sphinx and pyramids of Giza point to a precise time as well.

  • Ancient Egyptian Calligraphy
    This book is currently out of print, but I'm keeping my eyes open. Geared towards students of Egyptology, this book presents a series of instructions for drawing most basic forms of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

  
   
  

Thank you for visiting Calyxa's Curios! If you have any titles you'd like to recommend to me, please drop me a note!