delpart

Thanks for the work on this one mate. I've not had the need for it yet but the side link reads etc were very educational.

All of what EER said is hard to grasp. Even when planning ahead, I've had some serious issues getting anything to print (to my needs and satisfaction) without doing some dial-in on the printer in question. The image ground work is key of course, but the printers can throw you for a loop depending on what they do when specifying various media types as well as ink types, etc. Also some printer drivers will do scaling modifications to accommodate various print size(s) when using the photo-printing api that PDN calls on. I found this with Samsung to cause me all sorts of headaches. It does a great job in adjusting for DPI of the source images but I sometimes lose specific parts of the alpha and relative luminosity unless I get a match using those ground rules ... My experience is not as detailed as I'd like to pass more than a passing warning that the formula for image DPI and printer controls can be more problematic than it should be. Suffice to say the same source image printed to a host of different makes and models of printers can make following the rules more important. It also helps when dialing in any controls you may have over the printer setup. Just two cents in case you run into something that doesn't seem to match how it is supposed to work. The DPI topic EER pointed you to kept me from becoming the next YouTube star of pitching a printer or two down a stairwell.

For a one to one comparison, are you referring the rudimentary level that Photoshop uses with perspective warping or Puppet Warp (CS5+)? For the life of me I cannot recall the software that made this sort of transform infamous in commercials and videos over a decade ago, but I thought it was a 3D rendering package or part of the Autodesk Empire sets ... Maybe someone else can fill in the blank there. In PDN, the work laid out with Quadrilateral Reshape is in the ballpark come to think of it. Here's a post actually showing it: Examples of the plugin direct thread link Obviously not enough control points or movable starting point controls without doing a prior selection to make it match what you wish to do with that example ... The Polygonal Transparency interface merger never happened with that tool to gain more control points that I can find. That would almost cover most basic needs with a selectable number of points. Hope that helps some. Also would like more specific examples of what this is called for comparison in other applications as the general idea versus seeing how its done elsewhere (like the PS example) is often inspirational to any dev or would dev for this ...

That is one impressive planet Lance. I rather like the muted solar/light source peeking around. The distortion rings are a nice focal point that seem to help set scale for your surface texture as well. Atmosphere halo density always seems to set overall scale. Not sure if you were wanting more glow or less scale. This seems to be the hardest thing to dial in from looking at all the examples/tut's etc. Though I like this one the way it is.

Ah-ha! With the limits of layering, they put it under frames ... Didn't look hard enough. ... Okay, it's not much different. Mainly inset deeper and provides a little more distance in the fade. Looks uniform with the same rounded corners ... I'll see if I can explain how to get the corners to match and the feel of the fade in a few. **EDIT: Kris' drop shadow is perfect for other things Rather, Kris' method is not what I'd start with for matching this effect from the folks at picnik though, you want to use Pyrochild's Outline Object Plugin ... It's almost an exact match set at:: Width: 100, Softness: 255, Normal blending and no angle. You'll still need to make your own background on the larger canvas and that effect can be applied either directly to the image over it or blended and distorted on a copy under it to achieve a greater range of results. Obviously you'll have to dial it in to your liking, but this is the match you're looking for to get closer from the start. **EDIT TWO: Or run Kris' drop shadow on a duplicate under the top layer with widening zero, blur 24 then run gausian blur at about 50-75 with keep original image un-checked ... then duplicate that layer and adjust the opacity to your liking if it is not dark enough to get the same effect ... Hope that helps, and appologies for the double edit. Just didn't clue in on the multiple shadow layers soon enough and basically you can choose which method matches your whimsy ...

The history merger isn't really the work flow helper it can be unless its the selective deletion of a step ... That's a nightmare to manage and gets confusing unless the two windows are separate. Now including more information from a step in the history so that you could see settings or the layer it was applied to would be great. I think that's what you're really aiming for. Have the history reflect the change and to what layer more completely ... Or have the layers show items from the history in some way ... I'd almost agree. Just how to display that information and whether or not it can be implemented without creating "clutter" by most people's standards. As for the paste: Uhm, not for me. I easily enough hit CTRL-SHIFT-V to land in a new layer. And when I'm swapping around or saving layers out, the CTRL-ALT-V for a new image paste also works. There are lots of times I'm actually wanting to paste directly into the current layer. I only see that as a hassle or trade-off. (Because it would mean I'd be using the shift-v variant to paste into the active layer instead of the opposite.)

Argh, Doughty beat me to it. Though my thought is "easy as 123, ..." Perhaps too much musical influence. Which is why I started to think it needed to be bouncing. But doing single frame animation is a true test of patience. All those retired Disney animators get another nod from me after trying to toy with this (and running out of patience ...).

You're most welcome. And thank you for the rather overwhelming gratitude as well. Had a rotten day with people all wanting to take my head off so this comes as a most welcome surprise. One thing I seem to know is how to smash clouds and some levels of distortion together. Glad to see all my iterations (puns intended for the chaos club) not go to waste for once. Also happy to contribute back publicly to anyone at all since I've leached so much silently from here ... Also, thanks for the exacting amounts for some more fun textures. Fast and simple usually seems to be best. By the time I'm usually done I've more or less turned my screen back into static.

I dont recognize the joker at first glance for whatever reason. The rest is pretty darn solid and intriguing. Matches previous offset shadow styles, so oddly enough that is a signature of a sorts ... Raised letters protruding from the background are overtaken slightly by shadow to kill the feel of it emerging a little ... Always more difficult to work at this scale or something that kills stuff like that. Hope that made sense, my head feels like its about to implode. Looks like the correct words to me at least.

Impressive conversion. Still stuck on the subject versus the work. The work I can say lots of flattering things about. The subject just doesn't get my wheels moving. (puns intended)

I'll have to defer to Rick, but since 4.x has yet to make the stage or public beta testing, it may be a while before you'd have to plan accordingly. Overall though, something to consider is that the rest of the software markets, including web applications and the like, are still looking for more horsepower and will only keep looking for more in time. Most of the graphic softwares are on inline with the gaming market more or less. The more the merrier, but keeping up is always expensive unless you're willing to accept a different experience or trade your time for the expense needed to stay above par. Depending on the machine in question, upgrading to Windows 7 later on would be potentially the more cost effective way of extending the hardware and to allow taking advantage of any advancements to PDN. Even I've not been able to justify upgrades of my own home setups in recent years, so I can understand your financial concerns in regards to gaining the best experience on a budget. (More blather than anything, but I figured I should share my thoughts.)

Yes a Core 2 will help quite a bit. Most of the rendering etc is CPU based, so you'll be gaining multi-threading, etc. Memory increase is also extremely helpful and required for some of the effects. PDN in its current revision of course can benefit from more processor power (more cores the merrier). But any step up will help you do more and be capable of running the latest version.

I probably got the noise level wrong but it looks like clouds, noise, splinter of duplicate layer set to blend mode of darken over the original or an alternate run of clouds ... Must be the noise replicating the edge(s) I thought I was seeing ... This is close, but I think my base cloud colors are off or something (edit: more likely its because I didn't include the noise on the base cloud layer I blended. I can see that little bit of gran matching now in yours):

I've seen a similar thing with positional pasting within PDN itself actually (not quite the exact same, but it is related)... While I'm not sure how PDN on the code level works with the clipboard, it will seem to try and match positional information from within itself with things ... I'll see if I can create an example to share of how and when it does this, but let me try text first. From what I recall you can reproduce it by making a selection in the center of a standard (800x600) canvas (small selection, like 100x100 pixels) Then paste that into a new, hand created image with dimensions of say, 400x250 (something random but smaller than the original, or conversely larger) ... you should see the paste from the original trying to land on wherever that selection was made. Relatively positioned from the upper left corner. I dont recall when or why it "wont" do that as well ... Just recall its helpful sometimes when trying to work with multiple image starts (icons, sprites etc) ... While I know this doesn't solve your dilemma, it may offer up suggestion as to why the problem is happening. I've also wondered if the plugin like "Tile from Clipboard" will have a different take on the positional information being used from the environment ... Just something else to test in this case. **EDIT: Nope, it sort of keeps positional information from the original layer but it will move both vertically and horizontally into the new image size. Would have sworn it would go over the edge of the canvas, so its just barely related after all.

Toon or pencil sketch or outline or ... anything that tries to either do addition or erosion to the points splinter blur creates will get you the "cracks" for a mud texture like that. Has to be blended in, multiple layers, all the usual for a good texture. Some of the edge or other methods like edge detection can lend to this as well, but the example you're showing is uniform and lacks the usual offset you'd see from those. Those things on the edges are the hallmark of splinter blur in lighten mode as it bounces off the side of your canvas. **EDIT: Errr, darken mode, just noticed they're all black, my eye's were playing tricks on me ... Combinations of clouds>crystallize>dents>clouds(blending mode)>splinter blur (lighten or darken)>then toon or pencil sketch or ink sketch>blended with some form of the original cloud layering to create depth ... More or less. Duh, YellowMan has a tutorial on making that texture in the extreme. No need for me to re-invent the wheel in text ... Look here: Cracked floor tutorial at PDN Fans

@Siouxsie: I could use the examples to try and determine what's what there. PM me with links. I'm not offended by this art. (Based on avatar and sample I'm pretty sure its in the same theme.) Based on the original I'm guessing you want a little more opacity in the blending and a slight irregularity to the shadow form. I guess I should have said I'm also a fan of S and B ... Prior to her small mainstream hits in the early 80's ... seems like just yesterday now.

Well, I dont know if it's the full merger with Google at this point or what but I cannot determine how you do a drop shadow even dragging new image layers in with that other tool to create a comparison. Picnik never really focused on layer work-flow in my limited exposure to it. Even in the groups I could see reference to Drop Shadow, but I'm not finding it ... The way the corners are faded etc reminds me more of Sumo's layers ... The sliders in the interface control the amount of blur or fade ... The maximum extent of this is about 24 pixels with the widening radius set to zero and the blur set to its maximum at 24. It will be uniform all around the object. You can create a fast mask of sorts but unchecking the keep original image. Creating a duplicate layer of the object and working on the one that will be below the original can allow you to zoom and distort the shadow and even run another couple of passes to extended the blur. Zoom blur and other distortion blending can help create a reversed irregular vignette halo effect. Unlike Picnik and a few other services, PDN (and other advanced editors) offer you more options, but at the expense (sometimes) of fast simple filters and effects. There's a ton of ways to replicate what Kris has done with Drop Shadow, but the plugin is a great starting point as it allows fast and easy views of what you're aiming for. **EDIT: Side-note that when working with large canvas sizes (3500x) some effects are not that helpful as the range of the effect is limited. This may also be something to consider when working with many of these plugins. In this case you'd have a very slight border on such a large canvas and it would be more limited for creating an equivalent effect.

So someone at the publisher has been using PDN for some time then (or whoever it is that wrote the review) ... Or has grabbed those files from a dreaded mirror somewhere ... I'm leaning towards long term user.

Okay now all I can see is manual type set as well ... My father did that many many years ago in one of his many odd jobs before finishing graduate school etc. I can almost smell the ink. Thanks for the double whammy you two.

Uhg, where's my reply I made on this ... Insert lots of things that the filter would censor here: _________________. Contrast and avoiding a lot of near like object collision (stars, other fades, rings, etc) will make it more intense etc. EER's got a great example of the "OMG that's really bright" effect happening using a type of halo/haze that I've yet to create when I want to see it ... Glad that was posted though as it shows the other potential of creating negative space or high contrast to create a brightness effect. And all the rest of my blathering is gone to the ether ... Now I have to look up the links I had too, insert more filtered content ...

Of course, excluding the AA ... I like the stylized feel of it and its got a better feel. No offensive to one of my favorite devs, but the lens flare really should be done by hand or really worked over as well. Maybe I've seen too many on images or from the PS crowd, but it just never looks like a flare to me ... Not saying to yank the flare, just that would be one area to hammer on. Like everything else on my wish list, so many little things to work on, so little time ...

Nope, that's exactly what you want ... still curious why you didn't just try it but here's an example shot(s) of the potential matching this application of the effect. (Not creative, just illustrative folks. Dont hate me for simplicity.) Side by side walk through more or less with full transparency: Side by side walk through with screen capture showing the areas of transparency:

Great start. We all have to learn to walk before running etc. It is very frustrating to me to not find somethings as simple as I thought they should be when doing this. Great tutorial work and some nice starts on the planet scapes. From the galleries I've seen (Goonfella's even was a great one in the before and after) these always evolve and just keep getting better as you grow more knowledgeable with the tool-sets. Friendly side note: You'll want to fix those image sizes though (here and elsewhere) on some of those as they are exceeding the rules ...

That should just be the source code file in C or C# or C whatever. In theory you can diregard this file unless you plan to delve into how its constructed, etc

Adjusting the Tolerance level will adjust how much it changes as well. Similar to how the paintbucket fill works ... just a little more selective. Its not the easiest tool to figure out. I still dont know when to appropriately use it myself. Like the clone tool, this one does require quite a bit of experimentation to gain any level of scope of how it works. I've not found a good tutorial that matches up using it any crazy ways that would explain it better, but perhaps someone else can point to something that may help there.