imageSynth and GamerPoints

One of the basic skills in any game artist's arsenal is the ability to create tiling textures. Not long after mastering that task comes the slightly more advanced graphical kung fu - the high-pass filter. Terrain/Environment artists in particular use these two techniques day in and day out. Luxology has made these tasks even easier, and thrown in some other useful related features to boot, with their imageSynth plugin for Photoshop. It's available for $99 and we at BHG give it the game art seal of approval. Watch their tutorial video one here (two, three, and four available post purchase).
Next, allow me send out major kudos to whoever over at Microsoft devised the 360's brilliant gamerpoints achievement system. I'm finding myself frequently comparing my relatively low score to that of my friends and colleagues (guys look out behind you, I'm on a mission). At the moment I'm playing through Tomb Raider Legend, hitting pause in order to refer to http://www.achieve360points.com/ to maximize point gain on each level. I went so far as to purchase Galaga on XBLA a few days ago with no other purpose beyond picking up a few easy achievements. I'm considering an XBLA UNO purchase as I hear it has a number of points that are ripe for the taking. Yep, you heard me... UNO, simply for points. I know it sounds weird, especially if you're a non-gamer. However according to the Hollywood Reporter I'm not the only geek looking for an easy score these days .