delpart

Always curious, and of course, in the off chance that someone else runs into the same problem ... mind posting what may have resolved the issue?

That's what I saw at first. But not that somebody said Blue Elephant, that's all I can see ... Optical illusions are strange like that. Like that spinning girl that takes like 20 minutes to reverse for me ...

I was going to say like always but thats rather trite ... In this case the awe is overwhelming on that WIP you just posted. Truly amazing not only in form but conceptually. Hopefully you get a chance to finish that. Would be wonderful to see what else that goes with for sure. And I'm actually out of words on this one ...

Okay so what else have you done? Like, uninstall, reinstall? What operating system? Hardware relatively recent or are you running with limited resources? (PDN is flexible and all, but resource limitations with all the junk PC's have these days can be an issue.) Any intrusive and aggressive software like anti-virals, anti-malware or the like that may be interfering with .NET running? Or during its install? Checked to make sure your .NET updates are up to date via windows update? (This may or may not kick something lose. It resolved some plugin issues for me several months ago on an XP client ...) Do you have administrative rights on the machine? Is the account being used an administrator? ... I know I'm broaching the rule about this not being a tech support forum, but I figured I needed to at least illicit a bit more information that may or may not be helpful in just the asking.

Still trying to get it / mine done ... just mentioning it as the deadline approaches and to ensure I embarrass myself into sending it. Righto, back to word smithing ...

Argh I wish you hadn't pointed that out ... now all I can see is it off skew. It's an easy fix though if you want it to match up at least. Only problem I've had with that darn thing is I tend to have to clean up jaggies in my trials ...

Dont get me wrong at all, or rather I hope I didn't come off like a pompous ****. I should have used more smileys to convey my want to be constructive. Trust me on the idea about gallery worthy --- you've already surpassed more than you know, and its what makes you happy that counts. Plus, as I've mentioned somewhere and elsewhere, you'd be amazed at what people will cherish over other things. Share em out or otherwise that art may not inspire someone else as well. I hear you on dull too btw. One problem I'm still trying to rack my head around is little pieces of the puzzle at a time versus large sweeps with effects. Even my new avatar suffers more than I'd like in that respect but I had to publish it before I grew anymore frustrated with the attempt. And it looks better the more I dont think about it. Hopefully somebody else can explain crisp transparency. I'm still a little befuddled on why it works sometimes but not every time myself. Okay, back to voting people. Lets not have another 8 week competition here.

Nifty NN. Love the feeling of underwater observation platform like the aquariums have. Feeling nothing, thats what it looks like to me. Hope that was the idea.

That's the one I was trying for ... ooops. Wrong link grabbed with too many open tabs. See the one WB posted.

You may want to add some examples of what effect you're gunning for here. Even in the magna genre thats pretty wide open to interpretation. Layer blending selections with various textures and other coloration approaches can most certainly be used. Here's a tutorial that may even work to do more interesting conversions into colored pieces: PDN Digital Painting Tutorial

As a side note, if you want to avoid losing layers that you wish to revisit, be careful and consider saving multiple copies: one as the PDN with the layers, and the flattened versions in .jpg, .png, etc. I've lost a couple of things that I needed from getting careless when saving a "print" ... The same rules apply to most custom file format programs unless the auto-save the original works. Or when in doubt always try and use save-as to avoid data-loss and overwrite. Especially if you want to make version1, version2, version3 copies as separates vs having to come back to manipulating layers. Months later you'd likely forget the file had 6 versions inside of it ...

You may also wish to consider using something akin to edge detect with some slight, very so slight dents in a couple of different size passes etc to rid it of the perfectly symmetry to mimic the imperfections of hand drawing ... The other thing is to possibly do more pre-processing to rid the cutout of the background that may or may not show up using various tools. At least in my mind, I wouldn't expect a simple line drawing approach to include that sort of shading. (Just $.02 for the sake of sharing what came to mind when I read this topic.)

Jim you're right, I left a lot, and I do mean a lot, of descriptions/steps out. In the case of cutting the screen up, it would become semi transparent with layer manipulation or other tools. Like in the above pic there is clearly some coloring happening. I only mentioned using it as the base for proportions (Hollywood has everyone thinking things get bigger as they explode, neat effects but can clutter an image like this) and potentially the source coloration to allow for a better blend. Thanks for helping to flush it out a bit more ... No really, not sarcasm, just basic thank you. I'm fairly absent minded from time to time and this is what the forum approach is supposed to illicit in the way of feedback for people. Oh, and this source image watermark in the middle never helps on something like this. Sort of have to look at edges of the image to see what they went with.

Short on time to explain with picture examples ... Though I like the concept and have this idea bookmarked for later musings. This sort of image requires quite a bit of manual manipulation to do with just PDN. There is a fair chance that this example wasn't done with a 3D application from its look, but too hard to tell. A good example tutorial to get you started is one on creating shattered glass. I searched on shattered glass using the PDN search engine and its the first hit. Shattered Glass Tutorial Essentially what you have to do is layer on the shattered glass over the top of the football on top of the laptop. The glass more or less can be hand drawn cutouts from the base image screen to help control scale. Then using edge detect and similar plugins you can get the glass edges to blend in etc. Hope that helps to start.

Vote with full critique and unwanted advice and critique thrown in to explain ... I'm not the most capable but I can throw out words like crazy, so maybe this will be helpful. @NN : Definitely not an epic fail on that sig NN. Its clean and simple with good use of a color gradient to liven it up. The overall approach is good, but there are a few things you might want to revisit on it. Specifically the shadow and its blending. The glass block text approach only works when there is the illusion of transparency. The current shadow blends/blurs too much and the focal point light shadow just isn't working for me. It needs to be lengthened or something to help create a better illusion. Or possibly just a lower/tighter angle with a sharper/darker shadow. With the focal point my eyes are expecting a single close high intensity light source, but the blurring is more from a distanced one. Of course through glass it will get distorted and fuzz out as well. Perhaps just a colored shadow ... Ack, too many what ifs. Just thought I'd throw in some stuff while I was voting against it in this instance. @TH : I'm picking yours because of the impression and artistry. However, I would suggest something in regards to it almost being a loss to NN from the hidden W ... Mainly it looks like you wanted to do something there with it blending behind and coming out. A small trapezoid transformation of the text to have it start slightly smaller and extend to a little wider on the last letters would create a perfect pop-out text to match the blending the Wolfman pic has and firm up the 3D feel of it. Of course this is just my opinion and impression. So while my hormones say to vote for the cute nurse, I'm stuck on the Wolfman for this round ... TH: 1 NN: 0

I too wish to voice my thanks for maintaining this list. Especially the PDF as it is searchable in a quick fashion for reference to others. (Yes I find that F3 option in my reader is fast than the forum or custom search ... )

Ah yes, thats a specific plugin but I like it as it is simple and works for this sort of thing. Plus it tends to color some alpha channel blends etc. It can be found as part of Ed Harvey's Effects. Its not listed solo as he lumped them all together and they tend to be listed as clumps in the Index to some degree. Reference to his last pack: Ed Harvey Effects ignore the part in his description about sepia and such for color tint. The tool has a color wheel and is not limited to those set color ranges. The same thing can be done with Color Balance and Color Balance+ to some degree. But Color Tint is fast and dirty for this sort of thing. Depending on how you go about some of this, the + with highlight, midtone, and shadow coloration range options can be good for fine tuning ... Full list of available plugins here. Lots of changes over time so there will always appear to be some forms of duplication. But most of these tools/effects/adjustment plugins have their own flavor and purposes for the most part. **EDIT: I should also mention there are at least 5 different edge detect tools for PDN that could garner different results. I'm thinking on it as I multitask myself around a bit.

Welcome to the forum. Well, chocolate is one of those evil things for this. A lot of people use ray-tracing (something PDN doesn't do) to get the right highlights and effects because of the basic characteristics of the substance involved. Its waxy, glossy and muted all at the same time and has a tendency to absorb and reflect light ... I just stared at a piece of chocolate and moved it around even (darn Christmas stocking stuffers) ... So a quick look at the tut shows that you get this color by converting black to a hexadecimal of 180000 ... So basically if you are looking for the base color to work from, start with the color more option and change it to that number under the hexadecimal. Most chocolate is not really brown but reddish in nature as well. Another trick of the eye you have to fight with. Also, when possible look into posting the source image you are trying to bend this idea to in a new thread in the questions and discussion thread for more help on how to possibly get closer to working the image to your liking. And keep in mind a quick update to 3.5.10 is helpful for reasons beyond the forum rules about using the current version. Using that color on a basic gradient with minor distortion to create a square. Obviously its missing key highlights etc. But it shows a basic chocolate like coloration.

I got a little confused on the color replacement tool before. EER is spot on on how it can work with a set amount of tolerance to extend the color range a bit there. Only thing I noted in his expert advice (not meant as a slight, its really expert ...) is that you may get hung up on that tool with how you have to set the secondary color to the source and the primary to one you wish to replace ... or vice versa if you like using the right mouse button more for this sort of thing. The help file also spells out how to use the CTRL key to help speed up selection of colors to work with. If you are doing multiple passes this is rather helpful. Help file reference here: Recolor Tool Help File You may also want to look at this plugin for broad recoloring as it can be a little more fine control than even conditional hue/saturation: Tanel's Color Mixer Plugin

Well it looks like a black and white original yes? Not sure if it is or really desaturated on that. It may help to throw the original in the mix to be able to help more. It looks like picassa is doing an edge detect of sorts and coloring it. Dont have Picassa handy to run a test to compare on this system atm. When in doubt post source and conversion ... Here's a fast and dirty test on a M.Monroe nearly black and white. The effect isn't as strong, but its in the ballpark. Duplicate layer, edge detect, color tint, blend mode additve, merge ... Original: Edge Detect Layer: Merged:

Ditto on lots to learn mate. At least you have some raw talent in your hands to draw from (pun intended.) Amazing work on the RoboCop in its original form. PDN helped transform it, but kudos on the original. And simply stunning work on the sword. Getting true metal glints without ray tracing of environmental things is harder to accomplish but that's the rub ... and why there are about a million different ways and dozen of program to composite an image. Nice arms work as well. Had you not pointed out the details it would have been missed regarding those subtleties. Especially in regards to the name. Thanks for sharing.

Funny you'd mention that since that's how I describe the stag I'm in with my use of PDN right now ... If I had a touch pad I think I would have done it to some degree already just to make that claim ... @Jaxon: Love the abstract and the marble works. Great use of tutorial mash-ups. Thanks for sharing them.

This is rather helpful. With various adjustments etc the infinite part is right in adapting this plugin to create a source library. Just now in trying to work with it I see that I can get a semi transparent palette plate to work with and adjust out of the highlight so get less white in the mix. Of course I can also see how I should/could adjust the light color but the highlight doesn't respond correctly. Which is the bane of 3D modeling ... colored/patterned light source and all that rot. Well I wish the images were still in play so people wont skip this. This tut does offer great insight for using a tool in another manner. Thanks for that.

Well, I kept coming back for inspiration and finally realized that unless I actually vote I probably don't deserve to see another round as thats not how this works. While I like NMD's it feels too cluttered and lacks the resolution for a signature. A larger canvas would suite it better. So I'd have to pick AGJM in this instance. Simple sometimes is best. AGJM: 3 NMD: 1

Lovely work. Have to agree with my betters on the fire being some of the best I've seen and the entire composition of that is spot on. Tut or not, it was your hand. Brokeh pieces are great as well. Simplicity in form makes for simple wonderment. "Imageshack doesn't like transparent thumbnails. Anyone knows if photobucket can do them?" --- Most of mine work when thumbed as transparent if I recall. Image load times and ability to shorten links to image only is simpler via PB as well IMO.