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Creating a 3D Looking Image?


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My idea for this was partially inspired by a piece from Red Ochre's gallery, here.

 

I have had, in some of my writing, long had a talisman described as an enormous emerald in a gold wire cage with a chain of the Chinese characters for Truth and Enlightenment.

 

So, I started out.

 

First, I created my emerald, using the tutorial by Ash, here.

 

Then I created a single horizontal gold wire loop using the techniques shown in BarbieQ's tutorial, steps 5-12, here.

 

I then duplicated the final layer of wire loop seven times for a total of eight loops.

 

I made a New Layer and placed it above all the others with numbering to help me keep what was where straight.

 

The first layer was left as it was.

 

For the remainder, I used Layers => Rotate/Zoom to change their orientation. I was working only with what I assume was the X-axis, the first variable on the UI.

 

Layers 2 and 3 were rotated at 22.5 and  -22.5 degrees.

 

Layers 4 and 6 were rotated at 45 and -45 degrees.

 

Layer 5 was rotated at 90 degrees.

 

Layers 7 and 8 were rotated at 67.5 and -67.5 degrees.

 

I saved the file. It looked about like this:

EyeOfTruth03.jpg

 

Then I duplicated each of the wire layers twice, naming then, respectively 1a and 1b, 2a and 2b, 3a and 3b, 4a and 4b, etc. I moved the original layers 1-8 down below the emerald and its green and white radial gradient background.

 

I saved again. (Actually, I saved more frequently than this, but this would be the minimum.)

 

I then selected the emerald layer, and, using the magic wand, clicked outside the emerald to select everything but it. Then I used Ctrl + I to invert the selection so only the emerald was selected.

 

Then I started on the duplicated layers. On 1a, I erased the lower side of the wire, only over the emerald. On 1b, I erased the upper side of the wire over the emerald. And repeat, on 2a and 2b, 3a and 3b, and so forth. Did a save after deselecting the emerald by clicking on its layer and hitting Ctrl + D.

 

Then came the fun. Deciding which layer to have active, and what order the layers should fall in to get the best effect. Discovered I could modify which rings appeared to go over or under each other by the sequence of the layers.

 

My best appearing sequence to date was achieved with these layers active, and in this order:

 

EyeLayers01.jpg       EyeLayers02.jpg

 

which yielded this:

 

EyeOfTruth03b.jpg

 

 

So now I'm trying to figure out how to make this better. I'd really prefer a whole wrap rather than the partial wrap, but whenever I try that, I end up with it looking like a 2D image sitting in front of the gem, ala my first image.

 

I also have to figure out how to make my chain. I have my Chinese characters on small ovals, thus:

 

TampE%20Picture.jpg

 

which should be linked somehow with small wire loops. But I'm not sure how.

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Edited by Marilynx
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Looks good Marilynx! B)
( After creating the 'satellite rings', much as you have, I used 'clipwarp' for the silvery texture... if that helps).

Also inspired by a 'Yellowman'(PDNing) tutorial... somewhere on youtube, which I cannot find. He has many useful techniques here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/PDNing/videos?shelf_id=1&sort=dd&view=0

 

Also useful to duplicate a layer, have one on top and one below, then use the eraser to get the over/under on the rings. (I speak cryptic sometimes! :P).

 

It takes a lot of work to make a tutorial - many thanks! ;)

Nice Xor'ed background. Shouldn't this be under tutorials?

 

Red ochre Plugin pack.............. Diabolical Drawings ................Real Paintings

 

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Looks good Marilynx! B)

( After creating the 'satellite rings', much as you have, I used 'clipwarp' for the silvery texture... if that helps).

Also inspired by a 'Yellowman'(PDNing) tutorial... somewhere on youtube, which I cannot find. He has many useful techniques here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/PDNing/videos?shelf_id=1&sort=dd&view=0

 

Also useful to duplicate a layer, have one on top and one below, then use the eraser to get the over/under on the rings. (I speak cryptic sometimes! :P).

 

It takes a lot of work to make a tutorial - many thanks! ;)

Nice Xor'ed background. Shouldn't this be under tutorials?

 

I will file the use of "clipwarp" away -- I have a number of items calling for a silvery text.

 

Dear me. I can spend a bunch of time watching those videos!

 

The duplicate layer for one over and one under was the 1a and 1b -- I studied your design most carefully, although I stumbled on the sequence of the layers for under and over effects entirely by accident.

 

I don't know that I'm good enough to be doing tutorials yet -- I've been using PDN less than two months! I would have to go back and find precisely which plugins were used on the parts of BarbieQ25's tutorial I borrowed, and likewise on Ash's, for the gem. But thank you for the compliment.

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That is a nice result Marilynx! :)

 

For the 3D look, you could make the emerald slightly translucent (lowering the opacity of the layer) in order to show the rest of the cage on the backside. This I believe should give another sense of depth to your picture.

You could also use KrisVDM's Drop Shadow plugin on the cage in front of the emerald to make a shadow casted on the gem. 

 

I used both of them to get this: 

Hidden Content:

Stone%20Pendant_zpsb2mpylhg.png

 

And for the chain with truth and enlightment, if it is something like this you're after, I'd suggest Welshblue's Chrome Effect Chain Link tutorial. I combined it with a part from Barbieq25's Making a Jewel tutorial for the coloring and curve settings. 

Chain%20-%20Truth%20Enlightment_zpsn3ks3

 

Oh, because I am allergic to things I do not want to do. *Cough*

- Michael J. Caboose

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Maybe you could do some kind of sphere/globe lighting and shading effects on the picture. Or make a shiny sphere/globe and then use layer opacity or blending modes to make it faint to where only it's shinyness and shadows give some visuals onto your picture.
 
Here are some tutorials showing spheres/globes:
-- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/12861-glass-ball/
-- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/19076-transparent-glass-ball-and-magic-sphere/
-- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/15707-glossy-galaxy-ball-tutorial/
-- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/22896-glowing-sphereorb/

 

Also, what does AA's assistant do to the edges of your gold rings and jewel? Dose it make edges smoother or does it make the shape of the rings weird?
(AA's erodes away rough edges, but sometimes that eroding can eat away at the object and then make it look unappealing.)

Edited by Cc4FuzzyHuggles
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Maybe you could do some kind of sphere/globe lighting and shading effects on the picture. Or make a shiny sphere/globe and then use layer opacity or blending modes to make it faint to where only it's shinyness and shadows give some visuals onto your picture.

 

Here are some tutorials showing spheres/globes:

 

Also, what does AA's assistant do to the edges of your gold rings and jewel? Dose it make edges smoother or does it make the shape of the rings weird?

(AA's erodes away rough edges, but sometimes that eroding can eat away at the object and then make it look unappealing.)

 

I can experiment with the globes -- one of the first things I attempted was that first tutorial you referenced. <grin> Got sidetracked with pearls and things from trying some of the others. Maybe I'll go back and study them to see if there's anything I can use -- that's a potentially worthwhile suggestion. And it may apply to more than just this project.

 

I tried the AA's assistant on a copy of one of the rings, but I wasn't crazy about the results. (It did do a nice job on that logo I was touching up, though!) The touch of Gaussian blurring and the photo-softening, not to mention the glow in BarbieQ25's tutorial for the metal seems to give a smooth enough edge.

 

Any thoughts on how to do my chain?

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That is a nice result Marilynx! :)

 

For the 3D look, you could make the emerald slightly translucent (lowering the opacity of the layer) in order to show the rest of the cage on the backside. This I believe should give another sense of depth to your picture.

You could also use KrisVDM's Drop Shadow plugin on the cage in front of the emerald to make a shadow casted on the gem. 

 

I used both of them to get this:

 

And for the chain with truth and enlightment, if it is something like this you're after, I'd suggest Welshblue's Chrome Effect Chain Link tutorial. I combined it with a part from Barbieq25's Making a Jewel tutorial for the coloring and curve settings. 

 

 

I was pretty pleased with the outcome of combining the ideas. I've had this particular Image in my head for a number of years, but am insufficiently the artist to create something like it by hand.

 

I like the look of that slightly less-than-opaque gem. Just tinker with the layer opacity, hmm? Am I correct that you had two layers, one in front and one behind the gem, each with all eight of the ovals, kind of making a "sandwich" with the ring layers the bread and the emerald the filling?

 

Yes, the chain set up you have there is precisely what I'm after. I had looked at Welshblue's Chrome Effect Chain Link tutorial, but hadn't yet played with it. Can you use any picture for that? Or even any layer? I assume you used that method for putting the links "through" the characters? THat is, using the transparent mode of the radial gradient to fade out the part that goes "behind"? Did you use Layers => Rotate/Zoom to change the angle of the pieces on different layers and then merge them together once they were in place?

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I like the look of that slightly less-than-opaque gem. Just tinker with the layer opacity, hmm? Am I correct that you had two layers, one in front and one behind the gem, each with all eight of the ovals, kind of making a "sandwich" with the ring layers the bread and the emerald the filling?

 

Yes, the chain set up you have there is precisely what I'm after. I had looked at Welshblue's Chrome Effect Chain Link tutorial, but hadn't yet played with it. Can you use any picture for that? Or even any layer? I assume you used that method for putting the links "through" the characters? THat is, using the transparent mode of the radial gradient to fade out the part that goes "behind"? Did you use Layers => Rotate/Zoom to change the angle of the pieces on different layers and then merge them together once they were in place?

I think I used 5 rings... but yes. That is one expensive low-res sandwich  :lol:

 

Welshblue uses a picture with a white shine applied, but you could use any image or layer, and it will work the same. I filled a layer with a yellow color and ran Shape3D on preset to get a shine and some shadow to the layer. The I used the rest of the tut to make the ring into a chain link, and ran the Curves settings from Barbieq25's tut.

 

Piercing the characters: I placed the link where I wanted it to be, duplicated the layer (and put one of them below the layer with characters). Then I used the erasor on the top layer of the chain links to erase the bottom half. Then I added two blurred, dark dots at the "entrance" of the links.

 

I also came up with an alternative gold wire cage since I wasn't very pleased with my sandwich-looking pendant. I used Shape3D with the lighting unchecked. 

Hidden Content:
Golden%20Cage_zpsxv3anvwm.png

 

Oh, because I am allergic to things I do not want to do. *Cough*

- Michael J. Caboose

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I think I used 5 rings... but yes. That is one expensive low-res sandwich  :lol:

 

Welshblue uses a picture with a white shine applied, but you could use any image or layer, and it will work the same. I filled a layer with a yellow color and ran Shape3D on preset to get a shine and some shadow to the layer. The I used the rest of the tut to make the ring into a chain link, and ran the Curves settings from Barbieq25's tut.

 

Piercing the characters: I placed the link where I wanted it to be, duplicated the layer (and put one of them below the layer with characters). Then I used the erasor on the top layer of the chain links to erase the bottom half. Then I added two blurred, dark dots at the "entrance" of the links.

 

I also came up with an alternative gold wire cage since I wasn't very pleased with my sandwich-looking pendant. I used Shape3D with the lighting unchecked. 

Hidden Content:
Golden%20Cage_zpsxv3anvwm.png

 

Now, that is a different gemstone from the tut I was following! You can't go and show me something like that without telling me how you did it!

 

And the same on that cage! Looks like you have a total of four loops going around the gem, with a piece in front to attach the chain to?

 

That's pretty nice!

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I think people are sometimes missing the boat on Shape3D when they turn off lighting for images which represent lighted objects. The lighting Shape3D does will typically be better than any attempt to add a shaded effect post facto.

 

(BTW, the highlights on gold are golden, not white. Highlights on most materials are the color of the light (so usually white). Colored metals are different. They essentially act as filters, so the highlights are the color of the metal.)

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Now, that is a different gemstone from the tut I was following! You can't go and show me something like that without telling me how you did it!

 

And the same on that cage! Looks like you have a total of four loops going around the gem, with a piece in front to attach the chain to?

 

That's pretty nice!

Haha, I'm sorry! Shame on me  :lol:

 

The gem is made of the Round/Oval Cut shape from Lynxster4's Faceted Gemstone Pack and I colored each corner with a gradient of a light and a darker green with different luminosity. Below is a quick HowTo to show how I colored the gem. The layers are named with the colors I used on the gradients. Number 4 and 5 are execptions though since I used a diamond gradient on those, the name on that layer describes what colour I used on the corners (every other corner is colored with the first)

HowTo  :arrow-down:   

Hidden Content:
HowTo%20-%20Gem%20Shape%20Fill_zpsr3y8kg

 

Oh, because I am allergic to things I do not want to do. *Cough*

- Michael J. Caboose

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I think people are sometimes missing the boat on Shape3D when they turn off lighting for images which represent lighted objects. The lighting Shape3D does will typically be better than any attempt to add a shaded effect post facto.

 

(BTW, the highlights on gold are golden, not white. Highlights on most materials are the color of the light (so usually white). Colored metals are different. They essentially act as filters, so the highlights are the color of the metal.)

I made the cage pic this morning in a haste so there are definitelly a lot of room for improvement. I like the lighting in Shape3D ver much, especially in greyscale and for making chrome, however I think the lighting sometimes comprimises the colours of the rendered picture and make them a bit too dull (for my own taste of course) in the shadowed part, turned it off for that reason for this pic since I didn't have time to fiddle with layers and blend modes ;)

 

That's very cool, I never concidered the color of the light reflected off colored metals. Now tha tyou've mentioned it, it makes perfect sense. Thanks for the tips MJW! Always appreaciated! :D

 

Oh, because I am allergic to things I do not want to do. *Cough*

- Michael J. Caboose

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I hope I didn't sound overly critical, Limon. I certainly didn't intend to be, particularly since you produce such impressive images. I just recalled several past comments where people mentioned turning off lighting in Shape3D in cases where I thought it would be useful to use. I assumed it was because the lighting in Shape3D is rather difficult to control -- or at least I find it to be. With a little persistence, the results can usually be quite good. When the lighting isn't quite right, sometimes it helps to use the Brightness/Contrast and Hue/Saturation adjustments to punch it up a bit (of which you're no doubt already aware).

 

When lighting is enabled, good way to produce a gold effect in Shape3D is to change the color of the light to golden.

 

EDIT: I also suggest for anything where the specular highlight matters, such as metal, to use Cook-Torrance option instead of Phong. There's nothing wrong with the Phong lighting model (it's the one I've almost always used, and the one used in Texture Shader), but Shape3D's implementation seems rather limited. I'm not sure why. I can't seem to produce anything but rather dull, undefined highlights. The Cook-Torrance option produces a much greater range of highlights.

Edited by MJW
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I think people are sometimes missing the boat on Shape3D when they turn off lighting for images which represent lighted objects. The lighting Shape3D does will typically be better than any attempt to add a shaded effect post facto.

 

(BTW, the highlights on gold are golden, not white. Highlights on most materials are the color of the light (so usually white). Colored metals are different. They essentially act as filters, so the highlights are the color of the metal.)

 

I haven't played with Shape 3D enough to be sure, although some of the effects I get I like better without the lighting.

 

And yes, I know highlights on gold might be gold, but I liked the effect I got of almost a white gold and yellow gold mix -- in fact, I've been trying to figure out what I did for that effect in case I want to use it again. Haven't been able to duplicate it, and of course, by the time I decided I liked it that well, I had already closed the project, so I couldn't check my steps and settings. Annoying.

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I haven't played with Shape 3D enough to be sure, although some of the effects I get I like better without the lighting.

 

And yes, I know highlights on gold might be gold, but I liked the effect I got of almost a white gold and yellow gold mix -- in fact, I've been trying to figure out what I did for that effect in case I want to use it again. Haven't been able to duplicate it, and of course, by the time I decided I liked it that well, I had already closed the project, so I couldn't check my steps and settings. Annoying.

Marilynx, if you post the specific image I'm sure you can get some advice in how to recreate the same effect :)

 

I hope I didn't sound overly critical, Limon. I certainly didn't intend to be, particularly since you produce such impressive images. I just recalled several past comments where people mentioned turning off lighting in Shape3D in cases where I thought it would be useful to use. I assumed it was because the lighting in Shape3D is rather difficult to control -- or at least I find it to be. With a little persistence, the results can usually be quite good. When the lighting isn't quite right, sometimes it helps to use the Brightness/Contrast and Hue/Saturation adjustments to punch it up a bit (of which you're no doubt already aware).

 

When lighting is enabled, good way to produce a gold effect in Shape3D is to change the color of the light to golden.

 

EDIT: I also suggest for anything where the specular highlight matters, such as metal, to use Cook-Torrance option instead of Phong. There's nothing wrong with the Phong lighting model (it's the one I've almost always used, and the one used in Texture Shader), but Shape3D's implementation seems rather limited. I'm not sure why. I can't seem to produce anything but rather dull, undefined highlights. The Cook-Torrance option produces a much greater range of highlights.

No, I don't think you sounded overly critical. I thought it was good to get some advice on how to improve in general when it comes to metalls since I have become interested in experimenting with those kinds of textures.

 

The cook-torrance option worked much better on the cage, thanks MJW, didn't even know what it was for until you mentioned it ;)

 

Oh, because I am allergic to things I do not want to do. *Cough*

- Michael J. Caboose

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Marilynx, if you post the specific image I'm sure you can get some advice in how to recreate the same effect :)

 

 

It's the Chinese character ovals for my chain. As MJW pointed out, the reflection from gold ought to be, well, GOLD, but the effect I ended up with, quite by accident, gave it, I thought, a look as if it were part yellow gold and part white gold.

 

I was following BarbieQ25's steps 5-12, but I did some kind of tinkering with the values, and now I don't know what I did.

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Agreed. I's like to see a tutorial on that, MJW.

 

The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: But how did it end up in there?
The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him.

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Thank you, BoltBait and David Atwell. The method is simple enough that it doesn't really warrant a tutorial. I didn't record my original steps, but I tried to reproduce them.

I took Marilynx's original earring image, and eliminated all the shading so I just had white ovals and black characters. (That was really the hardest part.)
I moved the characters to a separate layer and made the ovals all white.
I filled the background of the ovals with black, and applied a small Gaussian blur (2 pixels).
I used the Magic Wand with 0 tolerance to select the black background, then reversed the selection.
I applied about a 25 pixel Gaussian blur so the the edges of the ovals had a smooth gradient.
I switched to the character layer, and applied a small blur of about 2 pixels. I used the Motion Blur, first at 45 then at -45 degrees. That seems to result in sharper sides than the Gaussian Blur.
The character layer was the upper layer. I set its Blend Mode to Multiply, and adjusted the Opaqueness so the characters were grayish. The Opaqueness was about 90.
I used Copy Merged to copy the combined image, then pasted it as a new image.

In the new image, I selected the black background with the Magic Wand, then filled it with transparent black (I didn't erase the selection, because that fills with transparent white.)

I used the good ol' Texture Shader, with approximately the following settings:

Image: White

Texture Height Scale: 17

Use Alpha from Texture: Checked

Ambient Light: 48, 33, 0

Directional Light: 255, 195, 0

Directional Light Direction: 0, 28, 27

Directional Light Intensity: 1.25

Specularity: 71

Specular Concentration: 21

Antialias: Checked

Antialias Quality: 4

I then applied AA's Assistant to clean up the edges.

Finally I added Marilynx's image as a lower layer, so I'd have the same background, and flattened the image.

 

As with most things given step by step, it sounds more complex than it is. Getting the directional light in the the most effective position and such is mostly just a lot of experimentation.

 

EDIT: I should perhaps mention that after shading, I almost always play around with the Brightness/Contrast and Hue/Saturation adjustments to tweak the image colors.

 

EDIT 2: If anyone wants to try this (or something else), but doesn't want to spend the time producing the raw, unshaded earrings, here are some to use:

 

ChineseEarringsPreShaded_zpswatouqpq.png

Edited by MJW
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