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Texture Merger


MJW

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No. The sphere image should be in the PDN canvas; the grid should be copied into the clipboard. The Texture Merger will combine them using the selected Merge Method, which for my example is Subtract.

 

EDIT: Thanks to Pixey for providing the answer in a more detailed fashion.

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Dear MJW and Dear Paint User!  <3

 

I didn't quite understand it. Here is my result. Thank you to all.  :cake: :coffee:

 

08-11-2016.png

Edited by Seerose
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Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Gandhi

 

mae3426x.png

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Seerose, assuming you were trying to achieve the gridded look, it appears to me to have too much displacement. I suspect the Merged Texture Height is too high. It's an interesting looking result, nevertheless.

 

(EDIT: I'm not sure if your comment, "I didn't quite understand it," is meant as a request for help to achieve the gridded appearance of my example, or is simply saying you didn't understand it, but now do. If it's the latter, you can probably ignore my initial comment on how to "correct" something you may not want to change.)

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I've released Version 1.1.

 

There aren't a lot of functional changes.

 

The changes include.

 

I fixed some relatively small bugs with how the height values are treated. One bug caused the merged height value to sometimes overflow from 1.0 to 0. Another sometimes changed the low bit, which made Make Unmodified Canvas Heights Transparent not work as well.

 

Because BoltBait complained that there were not enough options, I added a new one: Scale Clipboard Heights by Clipboard Image Size. When enabled, changing the image size will also change the height, For example if the clipboard image is a sphere, enabling this option will make it remain spherical when the size is changed, instead of appearing to stretch out or shrink in height, because the height remains the same while the XY dimensions change.

 

I reworded the command names, in most cases simplifying them. For example, Canvas Height Offset in place of Canvas Height-Map Height Offset. I also changed the order of a few.

 

I replaced Window with Canvas.

 

Instead of an option to multiply the Merged Height Scale by ten, I used the large range, and have an option to divide it by ten. I also increased the range to 2000.

 

I made two changes which I believe are improvements, but about which I'll be interested in hearing opinions.

 

First, I added colors to the sliders. The Clipboard Image sliders are green, the Merged Height sliders are red, the Window Height sliders are blue, the Clipboard Height sliders are cyan, the Antialias slider is orange, and the Shading sliders are gray. I hope it will make it a little easier to find the correct controls, but perhaps it's more distracting than helpful. The slider colors fade from the color to white, but I can as easily make them fade the other way, or make them constant colors.

 

Second, I made the Mapping Displacement and Height Scale sliders non-linear, so that moving the sliders in the low range changes the values less than when in the high range. The idea is that a change from 3 to 6 makes more difference than a change from 103 to 106, so the slider should require a larger movement  at 3 than at 103 to produce the change. I'm not sure if the advantage of better control in the low range outweighs the non-intuitiveness.

 

 

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MJW, I like the changes you have made to Texture Merger.  The color coding is very helpful. 

And I see what you did by changing 'Scale' to 'Divide'.  I successfully made your gridded sphere again by using the 'with scaling numbers' in your short tutorials.

 

I think you should revise your tutorials in this thread to reflect your changes to the plugin.  A 'beginner' or 'newbie' who wants to try this may not be able to figure out what to change.

 

And I have a question.  Where you say:

    

"Another short diversion. If you use Add instead of Subtract, the lines will show up as ridges. However, at the center of the sphere, the sum of the heights will be too large to fit in the 0-to-1 range, so the height will be clipped. What to do? The answer is that the Window Height-Map Height will need to be reduced, and the Merged Height-Map Height will need to be increased to compensate. If the Window Height is set to 0.5, the Merged Height will need to be twice it's original value of 255, which is 510. The Clipboard Height and Displacement will also need to be adjusted. (I usually only reduce the Window Height as much as I need to, to avoid overflows.) These adjustments, while sometimes inconvenient, are usually not too difficult, because most everything is just based on appearance, anyway."

 

If you use Subtract and Invert the Clipboard Height Range, you end up with the ridges without the 'flat spot'.   Is this an alternate 'correct' way to do it, or is making the additional adjustments when using Add, the way it should be done?  Just curious.....I hope you understand what I mean.

 

Thank you for revising the plugin!   :)

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Thank you for reminding me, lynxster4. I will update the tutorials as soon as possible.

 

Quote

If you use Subtract and Invert the Clipboard Height Range, you end up with the ridges without the 'flat spot'.   Is this an alternate 'correct' way to do it, or is making the additional adjustments when using Add, the way it should be done?  Just curious.....I hope you understand what I mean.

 

An excellent point. That does work, and avoids having to rescale or add a small negative Canvas Height Offset. Maybe all amend the comment to include it, parenthetically.

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Looking forward to the revised tutorial - as I'm in trouble :/.  I'm getting a white screen when I check shading.  I'm also missing the 'scale Clipboard by one tenth!  Math is not my best subject :mrred: ..... I guess that is now something else?

 

Otherwise - I like the new UI and the green & pink shading is really a nice addition B)

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How I made Jennifer & Halle in Paint.net

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"Rescuing one animal may not change the world, but for that animal their world is changed forever!" anon.

 
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Scale Clipboard Height-Map Height by One-Tenth is replaced by Divide Clipboard Height Scale by Ten. It does the same thing, just a different name.

 

For various reasons, I decided the name Clipboard Height Scale would be better than just Clipboard Height. I thought the two "scales" in Scale Clipboard Height Scale by One-Tenth sounded odd, so I went with the simpler Divide Clipboard Height Scale by Ten.

 

It's always hard to figure out what's causing the shaded image to look white. I always move the light direction to the side, since that makes the shading clearer. A common cause (for me, at least)  is that the sum of the Canvas and Clipboard heights is too large, and is overflowing, and therefore clamped. If so, you need to adjust the Canvas and Clipboard Height Scales. One thing you can try is to make the Merge Method Canvas or Clipboard (No Displacement) so you can see the effect of the individual height maps.

 

I think the tutorials have been fixed now. I'll re-read them later today to make sure I didn't miss anything.

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I am probably doing something wrong - but the result seems not to be the same as before :/.  It doesn't have that 'curved' look over the sphere - it's kind of flat >:O .

 

2WCuYXQ.png

 

 

 

 

30b8T8B.gif

How I made Jennifer & Halle in Paint.net

My Gallery | My Deviant Art

"Rescuing one animal may not change the world, but for that animal their world is changed forever!" anon.

 
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I think you're using the wrong height map in the clipboard. It should be the gridded sphere not the grid, itself. I did what I should have done in the first place, which is insert the height maps to use into the comment. Try it now and see if it works.

 

EDIT: Changed answer after looking at it more closely.

 

EDIT 2: In Part II, I just corrected the Merged Height Scale, changing it from 25.5 to 255. (This was because there used to be a "Scale by 10" option that was enabled. Now the large range is the default.)

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On 8.11.2016 at 7:29 PM, MJW said:

 

 

Dear MJW! <3

 

I have tried several times. I can not make this picture. What do I have to consider? Thank you so much. :cake: :coffee:

 

 

Edited by Seerose
Image not found

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Gandhi

 

mae3426x.png

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15 hours ago, MJW said:

EDIT 2: In Part II, I just corrected the Merged Height Scale, changing it from 25.5 to 255. (This was because there used to be a "Scale by 10" option that was enabled. Now the large range is the default.)

 

Yup - that was what I was doing wrong :arrow-up: I was so 'programmed' into doing it the first/original way :roll:

30b8T8B.gif

How I made Jennifer & Halle in Paint.net

My Gallery | My Deviant Art

"Rescuing one animal may not change the world, but for that animal their world is changed forever!" anon.

 
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1 hour ago, Seerose said:

 

Dear MJW! <3

 

I have tried several times. I can not make this picture. What do I have to consider? Thank you so much. :cake: :coffee:

 

 

 

@Seerose - I will make a video for you of how to make the first sphere.

30b8T8B.gif

How I made Jennifer & Halle in Paint.net

My Gallery | My Deviant Art

"Rescuing one animal may not change the world, but for that animal their world is changed forever!" anon.

 
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11 minutes ago, MJW said:

Seerose, your image shows up for me as: "postimage - free image hosting   image not found or was removed."

 

Me, too, Seerose.  :/

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Not unless the picture was intended to be a blue square saying "postimage - free image hosting   image not found or was removed."  (In other words, the image still doesn't show up for me.)

 

EDIT: Just in case, I cleared my browser cache. Still no go. The image in your November 8 comment, which also appears to be from postimage, shows up correctly.

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On 11/14/2016 at 11:04 PM, MJW said:

Not unless the picture was intended to be a blue square saying "postimage - free image hosting   image not found or was removed."  (In other words, the image still doesn't show up for me.)

 

EDIT: Just in case, I cleared my browser cache. Still no go.

 

TextureMergerGridSphere.png

Edited by Seerose

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Gandhi

 

mae3426x.png

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Hopefully this video I put together will be of help to @Seerose.  If you don't like it @MJW - I will not be offended if you want me to take it down.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Pixey
updated video
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30b8T8B.gif

How I made Jennifer & Halle in Paint.net

My Gallery | My Deviant Art

"Rescuing one animal may not change the world, but for that animal their world is changed forever!" anon.

 
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Excellent video, Pixey!!!     5254.gif

 

Seerose should be able to follow this....great job!   

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Pixey, the reason Divide Clipboard Height Scale by Ten shouldn't be set in your demonstration is that you type in 0.015 instead of the instruction's 0.15. I think maybe I'll change the instruction to eliminate setting the checkbox, and specify using 0.015. The checkbox is useful when using the slider to adjust a small value, but isn't helpful when the value is typed in. I set it out of habit, since that's what I typically do when using small textures in the clipboard.

 

BTW, if you type a value in a slider edit box, you can cause it to be entered by clicking in any other slider's edit box. That's useful to know for the Texture Merger, which seems to require a lot of typed-in values.

 

Thanks for making the video!

 

EDIT: In Patrt II, I removed the instruction to set the checkbox, and changed the scale value to 0.015. I also added a note about how to enter typed-in values.

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