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Gradient Effect Plug-In


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Well its not spectacular but it gets the job done. This plug-in produces a gradient fill between your current primary and secondary colors. It uses the overall selected rectangle as the distance for the gradient fills. It supports 5 basic types of gradient fills: Vertical, Horizontal, Radial (from center of rect out), Diagonal and Reverse-Diagonal. If you want the fill to go the other way you reverse the colors.

Also it has a special ability to use a mask color. This color will be the only area where the gradient fill will occur within the selected region. I did this after running into lots of math problems with weird regions, if you want to see the weird region problems create a very irregular selection and try some of the fills.

Attached is the link to a zip file. Unzip it and put the single DLL that is inside this zip file in your Effects folder and then launch the paint.net app. It should appear on your effects menu as a new effect.

btw. This was built with paint.net v2.63 and if you want source let me know here.

Thanks,
Paul

 

MODERATORS NOTE:  This effect is incompatible with Paint.NET 4.0x

http://www.sapphireonline.com/Downloads/GradientPlugIn.zip

Edited by toe_head2001
Fixed broken link
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Nice! Works well from what I've been able to tell so far. I did notice the odd behavior you mentioned with strange selection shapes, but the result was actually rather interesting.

Thanks!

Dan

I am not a mechanism, I am part of the resistance;

I am an organism, an animal, a creature, I am a beast.

~ Becoming the Archetype

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This is a very good plug-in.

It is somewhat similar to the gradients that can be produced by the Gimp.

I concur that the "OK" and "Cancel" dialog boxes should be moved.

5 stars.

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At the end of the last line of his post:

btw. This was built with paint.net v2.63 and if you want source let me know here.

Since two persons have expressed an intrest in the source, he'll probably provide the information next time he's on. :)

I am not a mechanism, I am part of the resistance;

I am an organism, an animal, a creature, I am a beast.

~ Becoming the Archetype

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Yeah crosswalker, I believe that by that he meant it was built to work under the PDN 2.63 structure.

And just so you know, pleska, your gradient effect plug in will be featured in an upcoming video tutorial I'll be making to supplement my existing glass orbs tutorial! :D

I am not a mechanism, I am part of the resistance;

I am an organism, an animal, a creature, I am a beast.

~ Becoming the Archetype

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I'm really not sure what the deal is with Radial. I guess I'd expect the center of the gradient to be in the center of the selection, but it never seems to end up in the same place...

I am not a mechanism, I am part of the resistance;

I am an organism, an animal, a creature, I am a beast.

~ Becoming the Archetype

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It depends on where the selection is, I think.

I did a small rectangle in the upper-left of the image, and I got a radial gradient, but the center was down low in the selection, cutting of the bottom part of the fade. Then I did a large rectangular selection more in the middle of the image, and the center of the gradient was somewhere off the right side of the canvas, as the fade only caught a bit of the lower right corner.

I don't know. It'd be a plus to figure out what's going on, but I just love the plug-in so much for vertical gradients, I can't fault it. :)

One thing I did notice though, pleska:

You have Diagonal and Reverse Diagonal fades in your drop-down. The Diagonal fades from Foreground to Background from the top-left to the bottom-right [\]. Reverse Diagonal fades from Background to Foreground along the same line.

Since this effect can be achieved by switching the Foreground and Background colors around, would it be possible to make the Reverse Diagonal option make the fade from lower-left to upper-right [/]? Right now there is no way to do this other than reversing the layer.

Anyway, that's enough of my nit-picking for one day. :D

I am not a mechanism, I am part of the resistance;

I am an organism, an animal, a creature, I am a beast.

~ Becoming the Archetype

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Hi all,

Glad you like the gradient plug in. When I get back from vacation in a week I will look at adding the up-slope gradients in addition to the two that currently are in there. I really just ran out of time. Also, yes, I did mean to indicate that I built it against that version of Paint.Net. Wasn't sure how backwards compatible the plug-in model was so I thought I would mention it.

Regarding gradients, the plug-in basically looks at the rectangle that encloses the selection, or the entire image if no selection is available. It then uses that rectangle for the basis (i.e. the start, end and increment of color to use across that rectangle). In the case of the radial gradient, which I might have messed up, I divide that rectangle by 2 and start going out from there, going from the primary color to the secondary color. If you have masking turned on make sure your selection rectangle is centered over the general area you want to make your gradient in. Either way, I will look to see if I messed up something in that fill when i add the other two fills in the plug-in in a week or so.

Btw. I love this Paint.NET program, I keep thinking of new ideas to add to it.

Thanks,

:) Paul Leska

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Hi all quick note. I just updated the Zip file on the server and fixed the radial gradient, it was way messed up. In a week I will get back and hopefully can add the other directions. Just get the new zip and replace the DLL in the zip with the bad one already in your effects directory and relaunch PDN.

http://www.sapphireonline.com/Downloads/GradientPlugIn.zip

Thanks for finding the bug.

Paul

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What do you mean by transparency gradient?

I use the plug-in to do the shine on my orbs, and it works just fine. I set the Primary color to white with alpha of 255, and the Secondary color to white with an alpha of 100. The gradient fades from white to translucent white just like it should.

Unless I'm not understanding what you're looking for, that should solve your problem! :)

I am not a mechanism, I am part of the resistance;

I am an organism, an animal, a creature, I am a beast.

~ Becoming the Archetype

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