Popular Post lynxster4 Posted January 28, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted January 28, 2018 This tutorial is available as a PDF. Click here to view or download it Here's my version of Chrome Text with Reflections. We will be making this: I used a modified version of @dipstick 's emap. I got rid of the transparent edges. Download the emap and save it to your computer. Spoiler I used Beach Wide font. Download it here. Be sure and install it first before you open PDN. Plugins Used: xod's Align MJW's Texture Object Rounder MJW's Texture Smoother MJW's Texture Shader Spoiler 1) Open a new transparent canvas at 1000x250 2) Select Beach Wide font at 160pt and type your text 3) Use xod's Align to center the text 4) Image ----> Rotate image 90° Clockwise (this allows the next step to look better - you're following the lines of the text) 5) Effects ----> Height Map ----> Texture Object Rounder at these settings Make sure you untick 'Show Shading' before clicking OK!! 6) Image ----> Rotate 90° Counter-Clockwise 7) Effects ----> Height Map ----> Texture Smoother Set Repetitions to 100, tick 'Show Shading' and click 'Smooth Texture' 2 times and watch your letters mellow out. Make sure to set 'Texture Height Scale' to 255 Untick 'Show Shading' and click OK 😎 Open previously downloaded emap in PDN. Edit ----> Select All (Ctrl+A), then Edit ----> Copy (Ctrl+C) to copy image to Clipboard 9) Duplicate text layer 2 times and erase letters on each layer (this facilitates the emap for better coloring). NOTE: In my original example here , I did each letter individually. 10) On bottom layer run Effects ----> Height Map ----> Texture Shader. Use these approx. settings; go with what looks good to you. Repeat Texture Shader on the other 2 layers. Play around with the 'Clipboard Image Offset' sliders and 'Clipboard Image Rotation' wheel. Please make sure to tick 'AntiAlias' at the bottom of the plugin...I didn't show it to save on images. 11) Flatten your image. Add a new layer and make a neat background. I used Red's Gradients Galore at these settings: 12) I moved the text layer up about 20 px, then duplicated the image and ran Effects ----> Object ----> Shadow (at default) on the bottom text image. That's it! Hope you like my Chrome Text with Reflections! EDIT: OBSERVATIONS & COMMENTS I've been playing around with this today. I noticed that my settings are specific to my example above. What I have given you are the plugins needed to create the Chrome Reflection. If you use a different canvas size, a different font or another shape entirely, you will have to make adjustments to the Texture Shader settings highlighted with red boxes to get something that looks 'right'. Here are two more examples: Here are the settings: Spoiler Another example: And the settings: Spoiler And @dipstick's environmental map is very good at capturing this. Hope this helps clear things up a bit. 9 6 Quote My Art Gallery | My Shape Packs | ShapeMaker Mini Tut | Air Bubble Stained Glass Chrome Text with Reflections | Porcelain Text w/ Variegated Coloring | Realistic Knit PatternOpalescent Stained Glass | Frosted Snowman Cookie | Leather Texture | Plastic Text | Silk Embroidery Visit my Personal Website "Never, ever lose your sense of humor - you'll live longer" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dipstick Posted January 28, 2018 Share Posted January 28, 2018 That's a very creative way to do that and the results are very impressive. very cool... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seerose Posted January 28, 2018 Share Posted January 28, 2018 Dear @lynxster4! where do I find @dipstick's emap? Quote Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Gandhi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynxster4 Posted January 28, 2018 Author Share Posted January 28, 2018 1 hour ago, Seerose said: Dear @lynxster4! where do I find @dipstick's emap? Hi Seerose! The emap is under the first 'hidden contents'. It's an image that you are going to copy to the Clipboard. Quote My Art Gallery | My Shape Packs | ShapeMaker Mini Tut | Air Bubble Stained Glass Chrome Text with Reflections | Porcelain Text w/ Variegated Coloring | Realistic Knit PatternOpalescent Stained Glass | Frosted Snowman Cookie | Leather Texture | Plastic Text | Silk Embroidery Visit my Personal Website "Never, ever lose your sense of humor - you'll live longer" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dipstick Posted January 28, 2018 Share Posted January 28, 2018 I really hate using Windows, but I had to fire up my Windows VM just to try this TUT. My old version of PDN won't run MJW's plugins. I didn't get as good a result as you, but not too bad just the same. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynxster4 Posted January 28, 2018 Author Share Posted January 28, 2018 (edited) @dipstick Mmmm....that's interesting. I'd like to see if it has anything to do with canvas size and the amount of letters. Did you do all three at once or individually? My settings for Texture Shader are geared for canvas size, font size and (2) letters at a time of exactly the example I posted. All TS settings would have to change if you used different size canvas and text, I would think. I can't really test this till tomorrow as my son has my computer disassembled. He's installing a new mobo; my old one is taking a dump... I will def look into this tomorrow. The settings on TS need to be so precise to get a good result. MJW wrote his plugin to 4 decimal places; that literally leaves thousands of combinations. Believe me, I fiddled with this all day yesterday...it was time-consuming. Thank you for the example. I'll let you know what I find. Thank you @BoltBait, @Ego Eram Reputo, @dipstick and @Djisves for the rep points!! Edited January 29, 2018 by lynxster4 Quote My Art Gallery | My Shape Packs | ShapeMaker Mini Tut | Air Bubble Stained Glass Chrome Text with Reflections | Porcelain Text w/ Variegated Coloring | Realistic Knit PatternOpalescent Stained Glass | Frosted Snowman Cookie | Leather Texture | Plastic Text | Silk Embroidery Visit my Personal Website "Never, ever lose your sense of humor - you'll live longer" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewDavid Posted January 29, 2018 Share Posted January 29, 2018 Well done @lynxster4. Thank you for the tut I got some practice using @MJW's height map plug ins. It's not just for text anymore 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynxster4 Posted January 29, 2018 Author Share Posted January 29, 2018 Beautiful chopper @AndrewDavid Now we know it works on shapes! Quote My Art Gallery | My Shape Packs | ShapeMaker Mini Tut | Air Bubble Stained Glass Chrome Text with Reflections | Porcelain Text w/ Variegated Coloring | Realistic Knit PatternOpalescent Stained Glass | Frosted Snowman Cookie | Leather Texture | Plastic Text | Silk Embroidery Visit my Personal Website "Never, ever lose your sense of humor - you'll live longer" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixey Posted January 29, 2018 Share Posted January 29, 2018 A fabulous tutorial @lynxster4. You are so smart to have mastered the use of @MJW Plugins. I've not used the smoother and object rounder before. I really, really need to keep trying with them as ............. when one gets the right settings, one can get such lovely results 1 Quote 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynxster4 Posted January 29, 2018 Author Share Posted January 29, 2018 (edited) @LionsDragon @Pixey and @MJW ...thank you for the rep points! @Pixey your example is beautiful! Well done! You used a different font and it came out so...chromey!! @dipstick see my 'Observations & Comments' that I added to the first post. I think at this time, this is the best we can do. I don't know how the GIMP font script works (must be pretty involved), but it spurred us on to a solution for now. I'd be very interested to see what new mapping method MJW comes up with! Edited January 29, 2018 by lynxster4 1 Quote My Art Gallery | My Shape Packs | ShapeMaker Mini Tut | Air Bubble Stained Glass Chrome Text with Reflections | Porcelain Text w/ Variegated Coloring | Realistic Knit PatternOpalescent Stained Glass | Frosted Snowman Cookie | Leather Texture | Plastic Text | Silk Embroidery Visit my Personal Website "Never, ever lose your sense of humor - you'll live longer" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dipstick Posted January 29, 2018 Share Posted January 29, 2018 Lynx, I like your version of the chromed peace sign. It's a little twisted, but it's cool. If MJW can successfully implement a method to map an E-map around an object, that would be great. I have a few E-maps for various reflections and color textures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynxster4 Posted January 29, 2018 Author Share Posted January 29, 2018 15 minutes ago, dipstick said: Lynx, I like your version of the chromed peace sign. It's a little twisted, but it's cool Thanks! That's probably because I used only 1 repetition of 100 of the Texture Smoother. If I would have used 2, it may not be so twisted! But I like your emap very much...it does a respectable job to get reflected chrome... Quote My Art Gallery | My Shape Packs | ShapeMaker Mini Tut | Air Bubble Stained Glass Chrome Text with Reflections | Porcelain Text w/ Variegated Coloring | Realistic Knit PatternOpalescent Stained Glass | Frosted Snowman Cookie | Leather Texture | Plastic Text | Silk Embroidery Visit my Personal Website "Never, ever lose your sense of humor - you'll live longer" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seerose Posted February 1, 2018 Share Posted February 1, 2018 (edited) Dear @lynxster4! ? I used another (map). Tried all kinds of settings but I did not manage to find the right attitude. Thank you so much for your effort. Edited April 24, 2018 by Seerose 1 Quote Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Gandhi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynxster4 Posted February 1, 2018 Author Share Posted February 1, 2018 Well, that looks cool @Seerose! You may have forgotten to set the 'Height Map' setting to 255 on the Texture Shader step. Quote My Art Gallery | My Shape Packs | ShapeMaker Mini Tut | Air Bubble Stained Glass Chrome Text with Reflections | Porcelain Text w/ Variegated Coloring | Realistic Knit PatternOpalescent Stained Glass | Frosted Snowman Cookie | Leather Texture | Plastic Text | Silk Embroidery Visit my Personal Website "Never, ever lose your sense of humor - you'll live longer" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynxster4 Posted February 1, 2018 Author Share Posted February 1, 2018 I just realized this tutorial got pinned! Whoever pinned it, thank you!!!! Quote My Art Gallery | My Shape Packs | ShapeMaker Mini Tut | Air Bubble Stained Glass Chrome Text with Reflections | Porcelain Text w/ Variegated Coloring | Realistic Knit PatternOpalescent Stained Glass | Frosted Snowman Cookie | Leather Texture | Plastic Text | Silk Embroidery Visit my Personal Website "Never, ever lose your sense of humor - you'll live longer" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJW Posted February 2, 2018 Share Posted February 2, 2018 The method of making rounded text with the Texture Rounder is very clever and effective, but I want to mention another method that I've often used. This is from a comment I made on the Texture Scaler thread (so, not surprisingly, uses the Texture Scaler plugin). The Don't Scale Transparent Pixels option allows the range of a height-map object to be changed without changing the height of the transparent background (which will usually be zero). Combined with Pre-Scale Heights to Entire Range and Set Transparent-Pixel Heights to Zero Before Scaling, it forces the height of transparent pixels to zero, while moving the height-map object so that the minimum height of the object pixels is zero. This can be quite useful for producing height maps by blurring shapes. The basic idea is: Draw white text on a black background. Copy the image to the clipboard (after, perhaps, a one or two pixel blur to soften the edge). Blur the image. The type and amount of burring depend on the desired result. Use BoltBait's Paste Alpha to restore the original object shape and make the background transparent. Run Texture Scaler with the first three options enabled. Perhaps also use a bit of feathering. In many cases, it will be useful to use the Texture Smoother to smooth the resulting height map. Another way: Draw a white shape on a black background. For example, a filled rectangle. Perhaps blur a pixel or two to soften the edge. Duplicate the layer. Set the top layer's Blend Mode to Multiply. Blur the top layer. The type and amount of burring depend on the desired result. Merge the layers. Run Texture Scaler with the all options set, and a Feather Range of 0. (This erases the black areas) Rerun Texture Scaler. (This rescales the non-transparent pixels.) In many cases, it will be useful to use the Texture Smoother to smooth the resulting height map. Another approach that seems to work well is to use the first method, but do the Texture Smoothing before doing the Paste Alpha. There are plenty of possible variations, especially tricks to make the outer edge smoother. For blurs, I usually use Gaussian Blurs or Motion Blurs, such as two Motion Blurs at right angles. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynxster4 Posted February 2, 2018 Author Share Posted February 2, 2018 (edited) I will have to try this method @MJW I know I'm not using your Texture Object Rounder the way you intended, but it does a nice job (along with Texture Smoother) on text! Some of the results are surprising! Also, any reason why you use white text instead of black text? Thank you @welshblue I look forward to your post! Thanks for the link. I'm getting quite a collection of neat maps already! Edited February 2, 2018 by lynxster4 Quote My Art Gallery | My Shape Packs | ShapeMaker Mini Tut | Air Bubble Stained Glass Chrome Text with Reflections | Porcelain Text w/ Variegated Coloring | Realistic Knit PatternOpalescent Stained Glass | Frosted Snowman Cookie | Leather Texture | Plastic Text | Silk Embroidery Visit my Personal Website "Never, ever lose your sense of humor - you'll live longer" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dipstick Posted February 2, 2018 Share Posted February 2, 2018 Here is my current collection of E-maps (aka marbles). E-maps_Racer.7z And here is a little something I made with the Crystal_Blue E-map.. 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynxster4 Posted February 3, 2018 Author Share Posted February 3, 2018 Thanks for sharing @dipstick That skull looks wicked!! Quote My Art Gallery | My Shape Packs | ShapeMaker Mini Tut | Air Bubble Stained Glass Chrome Text with Reflections | Porcelain Text w/ Variegated Coloring | Realistic Knit PatternOpalescent Stained Glass | Frosted Snowman Cookie | Leather Texture | Plastic Text | Silk Embroidery Visit my Personal Website "Never, ever lose your sense of humor - you'll live longer" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynxster4 Posted February 5, 2018 Author Share Posted February 5, 2018 I really like that @welshblue! Actually looks more like ice. Excellent twist! Quote My Art Gallery | My Shape Packs | ShapeMaker Mini Tut | Air Bubble Stained Glass Chrome Text with Reflections | Porcelain Text w/ Variegated Coloring | Realistic Knit PatternOpalescent Stained Glass | Frosted Snowman Cookie | Leather Texture | Plastic Text | Silk Embroidery Visit my Personal Website "Never, ever lose your sense of humor - you'll live longer" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ego Eram Reputo Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Added a PDF link to the first post ( @Woodsy did all the hard work) Quote ebook: Mastering Paint.NET | resources: Plugin Index | Stereogram Tut | proud supporter of Codelab plugins: EER's Plugin Pack | Planetoid | StickMan | WhichSymbol+ | Dr Scott's Markup Renderer | CSV Filetype | dwarf horde plugins: Plugin Browser | ShapeMaker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynxster4 Posted February 6, 2018 Author Share Posted February 6, 2018 Thank you @Woodsy for making the pdf. Thank you @Ego Eram Reputo for adding the link. Quote My Art Gallery | My Shape Packs | ShapeMaker Mini Tut | Air Bubble Stained Glass Chrome Text with Reflections | Porcelain Text w/ Variegated Coloring | Realistic Knit PatternOpalescent Stained Glass | Frosted Snowman Cookie | Leather Texture | Plastic Text | Silk Embroidery Visit my Personal Website "Never, ever lose your sense of humor - you'll live longer" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LionsDragon Posted February 6, 2018 Share Posted February 6, 2018 Love it, love it! I used @dipstick's red marble and got a fantastic glassy effect: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJW Posted February 6, 2018 Share Posted February 6, 2018 Wow, @welshblue, those glass letters are really glass-like! (Though, as lynxster4 points out, they also resemble ice.) A very original and attractive effect that seems worthy of a tutorial. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seerose Posted February 6, 2018 Share Posted February 6, 2018 @dipstick! Thank you for sharing. Quote Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Gandhi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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