Goonfella

New image called Nebulous. I found this great website called Neonflames which lets you create your own nebulae. The results are amazing so I created this image just to give a rough idea of what you can do. It has been worked on in PDN afterwards. I desaturated it and added my own colouring and stars but the actual nebula was made using this website. I think I will be using it for my spacescapes in future .

Thanks Sasha.

Great work Pixey. Happy Easter to you too.

No,I don't mind at all. Please go ahead and use it.

Well many many thanks to racerx . He has added We Are The Champions by Queen as a soundtrack to the amplifier. It`s just a shame I can`t share it with you all due to copyright issues. Once again, thanks racerx for adding the finishing touch to a great project. :music:

Thanks for the offer racerx, much appreciated. How about We Are The Champions? After having another look at the graphic equalizer it does seem a bit jumpy. I think I just need to refine the alignment of the layers a bit. Also if I can I want to slow it down a little. I was just so pleased that it was all working that I just saved and posted it straight away. It might be worth waiting for the final version before adding music. No need to waste your time on this one. I want it to look as good as I can get it for Queen. Refinements completed. Slowed it down to 200ms and sorted out the layers. At first I thought slowing it down meant reducing the ms so I made it 60. Boy was that fast music!

After much experimenting I have managed to animate my amplifier. Many thanks to Midora,Racerx and Pixey for her tut. Could not have done it without you guys. Made a few adjustments and slowed down the needles a bit. All ready for some Queen. :music:

Well I decided to try my method of adjusting the position of both the VU`s and the equalizer and it worked! Took a bit of time to add a needle and adjust it on every layer ( 15 in all) but I think it was worth it. What do you think? Only thing missing is music but that`s a whole new level I have no idea about.

I have my own graphic equalizer as well for the amplifier. I also tried adding the VU animation but the plugin just scrolls through the different layers so first the VU moves and then the equalizer but not both at the same time - which is fine as it is just how the plugin is supposed to work. I thought maybe instead I could have layers containing the movements of both the equalizer and the VU needle so as the plugin scrolls through the layers both should move giving the result I am after. More work but its the only way I can see to get both working at the same time.

Great tutorial Pixey. Helped me make this - Now to work out how to add it to the Amplifier image.

Thanks. I`ll have a look at Pixey`s tut. Progress at last! Midora with your help and Pixey`s tut I made this - Not sure how to add it to my Amplifier though.

I have been playing around with these plugins all afternoon but just can`t get the hang of it. I know they have readme files and examples but there is no substitute for a detailed tutorial - especially for a numpty like me. Any chance of one?

I really must try out this plugin. Animations made with it are awesome!

Not forgetting racerx's animations. Thanks Drew

For a quick hack that is pretty impressive racerx! Thanks for taking the time.

Downloaded the updated one and it is much faster. Thanks. As far as the Diffusion Factor is concerned, I assume that is just the opacity setting. Does not really alter the fuzziness of the shadow.

Dryda that is outstanding! I love the colours and all the detail, especially the nebula. Putting the little character in the picture was a stroke of genius. It gives the image real depth and gives it a nice sense of scale. Great work.

Thanks Dryda. racerx that`s awesome. Thanks for animating it. I did not expect that when I logged on this evening. What a nice surprise. Queen is always a good choice no matter which song you prefer. I`m kicking myself now though because I did have all the layers I used for the VU monitors saved separately, so it would have been possible to animate the needles as well bouncing back and forth to the music. But once I had sorted them out and flattened them to make it easier to adjust their size & position I deleted the separate layers as there were so many and I did not think I would need them again! That`s taught me a lesson (even after all these years using PDN) . You never know if you might need all the layers at some point, so save them ! After seeing what is possible now I might go back and remake them anyway.

I have an Acer Aspire V with a Core i7 CPU . The version of the plugin is 1.2.0.32625.

Thanks for all the great comments. Much appreciated. racerx - I also used old stuff in new images when I think it could save time. With this one there was nothing I already had so it had to be made from scratch. JD - good suggestion, Forgot about that one. Sorry Helen I can`t hear what you are saying - music is too loud! - Party time! Skullbonz, I have to admit it would be awesome to animate the graphic equalizer. We Are the Champions or Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen would be a good choice for some music.

I think it must depend on your PC , as I find the rendering quite slow. I make a small adjustment and have to wait for the plugin to do its stuff before moving on. But I only have integrated graphics and not a dedicated graphics card which I am sure would be faster..

Oh yes Red, lots of patience! It`s just a case of plodding through step by step. The trickiest part is trying to work out how to replicate PS effects in PDN. A classic example is the knobs. JD , funny you should mention the vinyl record. That is the method I used. Getting the radial brushed metal effect was straightforward enough and adding the highlights as well. Trying to get it looking like realistic metal is where the problem was for me. I tried the Metallize plugin, Curves , adjusting the Levels and the blend modes but could only get what I would consider as an adequate , but not really realistic, finish.

Jumping jehosafats! Thats great animating Seerose. I love the way the rose changes colour as it moves. Very clever.

Thanks Seerose. Always nice to hear from you. Glad you liked it JD (hope you don`t mind being called JD - it`s easier on my fingers & thumbs! ) The reason I made this image was simply that I had not done it before. I always enjoyed making various kinds of gadgets as well as spacescapes and this was one I had never attempted before. You can see my others on Fans if you are interested.

Thanks FotoFactory. Sorry I took so long replying. New image posted of a Music Amplifier. Based on this PS tut but as usual all created with PDN instead. Could not get my wheel adjusters looking quite as nice as the ones in the tut though. Needs to have a more metallic texture. Guess that`s the advantage of having layer styles in PS although I am sure there must be a method to replicate it better in PDN, I just havn`t found it yet.