robinm

That was it! Thank you both for your help, much appreciated. Mike

Thanks for replying so quick. That's pretty much what I'm doing. The image was definitely saved as png. It actually looks transparent in the PDN program (it has the checker board pattern) but when I save it (as png) it somehow develops a white background When I open the image I've saved it also has the white background and not the transparent one. PS programming is far easier than painting!

I'll start by saying I'm not an artist but a games programmer. I'm trying to create a simple image of transparent mist then I can move slowly across my current game. I suppose the best way of describing the effect I'm after is to imagine flying through a cloud containing brightly coloured beach balls and other objects. I don't want to hide stuff but I do want to give an impression of thick atmosphere. I definitely don't need to have the mist follow any ground features. I just plan on creating a couple of 1000x800 images and then overlay them and move them slowly. I might also try and alter the transparency of the images on the fly to further the effect. Is this possible in PDN? I've tried setting the primary colour to a transparent grey and the secondary colour to totally transparent. I then filled an area using the render > cloud effect. It looked fine in PDN but when drawing the image I don't have any transparency and instead get a large block of white with grey clouds moving around the screen. Am I doing something wrong? is there a library I can grab a suitable image from? Many thanks Mike

Welshblue Many thanks for that - I suspect it will take me a day or two to work myself through your example. Hope you're feeling better. Mike

No problem, take it easy and get well. Mike

any joy?

A quick tutorial would be much appreciated but please remember I'm a beginner while you're writing.

I tried grabbing various stone textures from the page you linked to, pasting them into PDN and then using the effects > render > 3D object utility. I could create quite pretty images but they always resembled crumpled napkins than a mountain ranges I obviously tried changing the view distance but the images would lose any realism and my results certainly never looked like your mountains. Can you explain (preferably in detail) how you generated your image as it's exactly what I'm after (apart from dimensions). Hopefully I might learn a bit along the way! Mike

I tried the 3D object with the stone texture and I could produce some interesting results but I felt a monkey in front of a typewriter - I'll keep bashing though. I tried Terragen too - the fractal images look like they could produce exactly what I'm after but it was all a bit baffling - I couldn't even see how to change the size of the image. It might be an interesting PDN effect that adds mountains and/or foreground into the currently selected area using the texture that's been copied. There could be sliders for mountains, shading etc. I'll keep bashing at the keyboard and hopefully I'll generate either a landscape or a sonet. Cheers. Mike

I'm trying to produce a simple alien landscape for a game but sadly I'm not an artist. The game is based on Mars so I'm after a red desert in the foreground with hills in the background. I also would like to create a couple of layers of hills so I can create some artificial depth to the view.It's a shoot them up game but the player can scroll from side to side across the landscape so it needs to be wider than a normal image (1500x160). A friend created the following background for this game I produced but I think I'll lose him if I ask for any more It would be ideal if there was some software that could generate a simple image for hills ie you just key in the dimensions, perhaps say what type of hills/mountains, darkness, shading etc. I'm probably hoping for too much there though. I do have PDN and I know how to use things but I just have no clue what I'm doing. If anyone can suggest how I could produce something similar to the above (I don't need the buildings) then I can get going. Thanks for reading. Mike

Nanettealsop - Cheers, that worked fine Pdnnoob - I just clicked the large blue box that said download after clicking the download link on the page you mentioned. It asks what OS and what location and then starts of trying to give me a pdf creator while the optimium installer then tries to give me all sorts of junk. I've no idea what the optimum installer is and haven't seen it before. I've been using PDN for quite a few years but haven't needed to download a fresh copy for a long time. Perhaps I did something wrong but I don't think so. Perhaps my machine is infected but it's a new PC I built just yesterday from scratch. I haven't got round to installing add block yet but it's on my (rather long) list. Mike

That was the link I tried! I didn't hit the adverts at all. It initially tries to install a PDF creator. Then in tells me the product is add supported and that I don't need to accept these items but then installs items anyway. It uses something called optimum installer to do all this. I then have to spend an hour removing it all. I suppose on the positive side I don't have my PC filled with porn. Have you tried using the download button you recommend? I chose the options for XP and the United Kingdom. Am I doing something wrong? Mike PS sorry about putting it in the wrong section.

I'm trying to setup PDN on a new computer (XP) and the only download site I can find keeps on bringing up something called optimum installer which wants to fill my new PC with garbage I don't need. Can you point me to the proper download site? Many thanks Mike