[Shape3D (2007-08-24) [Bug Fixed September 2023]]

Could MKT, or Rick, or someone, change the links from the origional post to use

http://mkt.t-cat.biz/pdn/dl.cgi?mode=dl ... hape3D.dll

for the dll link and

http://mkt.t-cat.biz/pdn/dl.cgi?mode=dl ... _2_6_0.zip

for the zip link.

The ones that are here are broken links.

BTW.

Fantastic plugin

[Fire Text transparent or white background?]

Thanks, I'll post the finished product in the pictorium, once we figure out what they really want to do with the H and the T... looks a little bland... May try to make the effect so that the ball is either coming out of the fire, or being thrown at it, sort making some sort of a displacement look... The problem is, it has to look good on a t-shirt, but, also on something small like a business card.

The second problem is my run on sentences,,,, LOL

[Fire Text transparent or white background?]

I might be slow?

I Tried this just with black and blue clouds, just to do a quick test of this method.

I go to curves+ and under alpha, I didn't understand all of that... just one curve to manipulate, then went to advanced insted.

there I have the option of In and out.

These provide dropdowns with Key/black being one of the options.

When I do the "in" as key black, it actually makes all the white stuff transparent.

If I do the "out" as key black, it turns the whole thing black

if I do both as key black, we get no change at all.?

What am I doing wrong with it?

Thanks for the help by the way

Sage

EDIT:::

never mind, I figured it out. I used Red in the "in" instead of doing something with the black, and this pulled trick off.

Here is the prototype of the image I am working on. It's for a tennis team called "Heart Of Texas 6" They go by HOT 6.

[Fire Text transparent or white background?]

I am stumped.

I am doing a logo for a local charity event to be put on t-shirts. The shirts are going to be white. Anyway, I guess that's not really relivant, but, I am trying to make realistic fire but on a transparent or even white background rather than black.

All the tutorials on fire require backgrounds of black, but, if you pull the background out of these, the image no longer seems "natural".

Does anyone have a way to make a decent, fire on either a transparent background or a white one?

Transparent might be best in this case, but, I'll settle for white.

Thanks a bunch.

Sage

[Tutorial request: Effect in Sprint Commecials]

Keep in mind, that you also have many options with the layer types, that might be able to help you out a bit.

step 1.) make sure that when you draw the lights you do it on it's own layer

2.) copy the layer.

3.) in the bottom version of the layer, gausian blur it and set the layer to something like "lighten", you may even need to play a little with brightness and contrast to get your desired effect.

This works best if the photo that you are working with is in full light and then you darken it on your own.

It may take several layers to get the perfect glow effect, depending on the photo you use.

Sage

[Should MKT/Shape3D Stay?]

I voted "Other" as well,

because, I really think that it's your choice.

We love S3D, I don't think that anyone would argue otherwise.

You can hang out on the board and chat as you wish. I think most of us are simpathetic to the fact that English is not your first language.

I enjoy having you here, and using the amazing tool in S3D that you have provided. It is amazing.

Many people will give their opinion of how to "fix it" or "make it better", but, ultimately, you need to go with your own vision of what you want it to be and do.

I have had this problem with my own art. "you should do this, you should do that", and believe me, I view coding as an art form all it's own.

I would say, giving out the source code would be a good idea, but, I fear that we would end up seeing 10 different versions of plugins which use S3D as it's base...

Perhaps, even a better route would be to release it as opensource on something like sourceforge.net so that those who want to work on it, can do so together, and add stuff as a team on the project itself. This way, only one plugin is made, and it encorporates the vision of several people all at once.

Just my thought.

Please know that it is your choice to do what you will as far as updates go and let no one pressure you in your progress.

Sage

[Can I Batch-Convert Numerous Images into Thumbnails?]

Funny,

When I first started with PDN, the only thing that made me keep an old bought software was that PDN couldn't batch process. I was getting tired of not being able to get updates for that particularly out dated software.

Someone turned me on to irfenview (spelling error maybe), which does all that for me now, so, I am all freeware here.

Sage

[Just Zoom?]

<--- is sometimes dumb...

this may be locked.... I've used that tool before, don't know why I forgot about it.

Temporary insanity.

Thanks Pyro

[Just Zoom?]

Is there a plugin (I can't seem to find one), that just does a basic zoom of one layer. Perhaps centered and just cutting off whatever leaves the workspace?

There are a couple of projects that I have done so far where this tool would be helpful. As it is now, I am copying the layer to a new image, resize the new image to be bigger, then crop down to the size of the origional image, then copy and paste to the layer in the origional image.

It's a lot of steps, not a lot of work, but, this type of tool could be useful if someone has it somewhere,

Thanks

Sage

[How to put a pic within a pic]

I can think of a couple of ways...

The easiest by far is to select the blue portion of the computer with the magic wand tool at about 54 tolerance, and select the blue inside the computer... Then, hit "delete".

That should get rid of most of the screen.

Add the photo of the cardinal on a layer below it, and then resize the cardinal image so that it fits the view that you want.

That's it.

Sage

[C# Basics please help.]

Good, I don't feel as dumb as I did when I wrote this then... :-) Woot woot. :-)

Can't find the C# book I bought a while back, I probably loaned it to someone, trip to Barnes and Nobles coming soon I bet... LOL..

Thanks again Bolt for all your help.

Sage

[C# Basics please help.]

OK, So, BoltBait and Drakaan talked me into trying to learn C# http://paintdotnet.12.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=2618 Read that link if you are interested in reading the arguments as to why I should learn it.

I am having some trouble. For instance, looking at some people's code snippets and trying to decypher what they do. I figure, having some understanding of C, C++ and VB (not a pro at either, but, I know enough to figure out what code is supposed to do what), that I should be alright with the C# stuff.

Blow my mind away. Looking at some code samples found around the web, I had noticed a couple of people claiming that something was C# that clearly is not... for instance I started seeing some include statements for stdio.h and windows.h

Ok, so, from what I understand anything .h is a header file (I'm used to working with them to an extent), used only in C and C++ NOT C# right?

C# uses a different syntax... for this to begin with...

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Windows.Forms;

So, now, you are wondering what I need help with... lol..

I need to understand if the above code "using system", is the logical equivilant to useing the include headers in C and C++ and if so, where do I find these "headers", for C#, and how would I find more.

I don't expect anyone to sit and type out a long answer to this question, (unless you want to), but, even a link that would be a good place to look this up would be great.

I have googled, I have found some tutorials which were supposed to be beginner tutorials on C#, however, they are all just "here's some code, test it out, see what it does" type things, and I really would prefer to know what I am doing rather than just know what they are doing.

The biggest reason for this questioning is because, I used to always import my .h to my projects with vc++ to make sure that they were in the same location, and here, I don't know if I need to do a similar step with C# or where to begin with finding those files or whatever.

Any help at all, would be great.

My biggest reason as of now, for wanting to learn C# is for plugin building for PDN...

Thanks.

Sage

[Windows 7 wants to include PdN]

I could have sworn that the creator of PDN (Rick?) worked for Microsoft (or what you call "the beast")...

and had already mentioned that "anti anything" posts shouldn't take place on the board.

Rick would actually have to give Microsoft permission to use his program, which, I don't think he will. Plus, if Microsoft wants a different Paint program than the one that they have, they can always um, build one... I mean, come on, they built an entire operating system, one paint program isn't going to be that difficult.

Sage

[How do you work water effects?]

Rapsquatch,

I have had this issue before, on smaller image files, or low res files...

Try first upsampling to at least 100 (I would even go to 200) dpi, and then doing the water effect.

If your not sure how to upsample, go to "image" > "resize".

make sure that "resampling" is set to "best quality" or bicubic, they are the same thing (I think).

Make sure that "Maintain aspect ratio" is checked.

Then under "Resolution" bump it up to the desired amount.... and click ok.

Just an idea

Sage

[plugin locations and filing]

Just a quick question/suggestion...

A lot of times on the "plugin" page, I see someone saying "wouldn't this plugin be better in a different folder"...

How hard would it be for the next release to make it so that the USER can file their plugins rather than the designer of the plugin.

Perhaps by simply putting subfolders of their own within the "effects" folder?

This way, if I don't like the placement of a plugin, I can simply move it myself.

Just a suggestion.

Sage

[web safe color palettes?]

CMD,

Well, yeah, Firefox would be better... actually, it looks like people are really waking up to firefox...

On one my sites with quite a bit of traffic, about 27 percent of the users use firefox... Still, something like 60 percent of my users use IE. Of IE users almost half of them are using older versions of IE (IE6)... Gladly none are still useing IE4.. LOL..

I like FF. I should download it again since my OS reinstall.

Sage

[web safe color palettes?]

BB,

funny...

seriously, I don't know, I don't mess around with hacks on websites, only because, I shouldn't have to. If it doesn't work without a workaround, I generally don't do it, simply because, I can always go at it another way.

Why have the option of 2 images to get the same look when one can make the 1 image LOOK the same....

My only reasoning for wanting transparencies to begin with is, JIC, I decide to change the background color of the site at a later date.

I set up templates for my sites, with heavy CSS work so that it only takes a few changes here and there to change the look and feel of a site. Especially with my customers... They never know what they want.

I get through a project and all their changes never look the same as what they first described.... it's just silly... but, CSS is the lifesaver there... and GIF transparency is supported on the major browsers.

I do, however, dream of the day when people wake up and start using IE7 so that I can use PNG totally, it's far superior (IMHO) to GIF...

I think I will just fake the backgrounds right now and go with JPG (also, better than GIF)...

you all rock so much with this discussion

Sage

[Visual Studio 2005 - Effect Plugin Template]

drakaan,

you are an amazing individual to take the time to sit and give that explination. I suspect most would have just wrote "dumb @$$" and left it at that.

And Bolbait is probably sitting there thinking "Sage is such an ignoramous"... LOL..

And seriously, my "says YOU" wasn't really an attack, but you can imagine, when I first started out, and explained that I was trying to learn programming, everyone gave an opinion and everyone's different based on what they know best. One could get frustrated, and frustrated I got.

Finally I went to Barnes and Nobles, and just browsed the section. on programming.

Found a book on C, beginners guide, which only explained how to write programs in dos. Not what I was looking for at all, but, I got the basics. Would have been nice if the book had something on the back that said "this doesn't show you gui implimentation".

Back at the store. Found one on C#, again, same deal, no GUI... pretty much the same programs built as well "hello world" and "simple calculator"...

Finally, after several books on C, C# and C++ and even a couple on Visual basic, I found a book "3d game engine programming"... All in C++ even though it didn't tell you that up front...

I'm getting fairly decent with C++, but yeah, maybe I need to take another look at my C# books, and get online and check it out.

I just totally got frustrated at the miriads of opinions out there and decided on just going with what was readily available with my interest.

And now, I just made a long post, about my own ignorance, LOL... But, thanks for all the help... I'll dl 2005 express and try messing with this plugin template.

Thanks

Sage

[web safe color palettes?]

I have one website that gets quite a few hits on a monthly basis, and this month.

44.26 percent of hits made by IE users were with IE6, which does not support transparency of PNG files.

That's a HUGE percentage of people to loose due to unprofessional looking website... LOL.

For now, I can just deal with matching the background to the website's background.

I redid this logo, and uploaded it to http://www.venteglobal.com/vglogo.jpg

I changed it up a little bit so that the shadowing wasn't so much. The first one was a great effect, but, to use as a logo might prove difficult for any black and white print that might happen for newpaper adds and so forth.

Thanks again

Sage

[web safe color palettes?]

yeah, I COULD, however, this is for a business website. Under other cercumstances, I would have no problem doing it.

This is a web project for a new company, and I don't really have a lot of creative input as far as what text apears on the site, of course, I am doing the graphics ALL in PDN.

Thanks again

Sage

[web safe color palettes?]

ok, that makes sense, it is probably just the confines of the gif format.

I will try to work around it then, I may just have to do JPG, and match the background color to whatever website we are putting it on... ooooor, try to save first as a larger gif and then shrink it down then blur, and see what that does.

Thanks for the quick reply

Sage

[web safe color palettes?]

Hi guys,

I was just wondering, is there possibly a way, or a plugin that someone might be able to create, that will allow for a websafe color pallet, or something.

I am doing an image that pretty much requires a transparent background, so, gif is the only way to go (as PNG isn't supported by every browser)...

my gradient (well actually lighting effect), causes the image to not be so smooth as I would like it to be.

sample image

Any help?

Thanks

Sage

[The Pictorium! Post your created or edited images here!]

Ha, I like the proverb too, and the construction of the sig itself.

one bit of "advice", the color of the texts, perhaps should be white, or, have a more defined outline so as to make it easier for some with not perfect eye sight to read it.

Again, good work though.

Oma, I am loving your bots.

I like a lot of the images that you guys are putting out here, very good work, one day, I will be just as good... LOL.

Sage

[The Pictorium! Post your created or edited images here!]

I know, this isn't the greatest, nor hardest image to do, however, I thought the effect itself was nice.

My friend Julia, asked me to do some playing around with her name in egyptian hyrogliphics, so, this is what I cam up with.

I couldn't find a font with the correct images, so, I added the images one by one which were just black drawings and then did several layers (from top to bottom) white, black white black.

The top layer gaussian blur 1, next I f blurred the second black layer at 1, selected then refilled black, and g blurred again, and so on and so forth, to get the layered effect.

Once I did that, I then merged all layers except for the white background and the top white layer, and did a g blur at 1, one last time to get a nice blend.

It was fun, and easy, and could work well as a background type image on a website, or just a filler image on a website for eye candy.

Sage

[Visual Studio 2005 - Effect Plugin Template]

BoltBait,

actually, cause C++ is what I know (somewhat)...

Actually, my druthers would be Visual Basic 6, since I happen to have enterprise edition of it, and I am sort of kind of ok with programming in it.

C# Better? Says YOU. And, not that I don't trust you, however, so many people have so many different opinions on which language to use that I ended up deciding to learn C++ based on the fact that printed (book) literature on C++ dealing with the subjects that I am most interested in far out number that of C# books of the same topics. Namely game programming, and 3d game engine, rendering and shaders.

One of these days, I might learn C#, but for now, I need to stick with what I started with, otherwise, I won't learn as much.

Thanks for the help

Sage