Galaxy Transformation

Xhin · November 25, 2019

Polar > Galaxy Transformation

This plugin spirals an image inwards in a deep galaxy-like way. It can also be used as a Polar Inversion plugin with more options.

This plugin started as an attempt to generalize the fractal-like nature of my Polar Singularity plugin so some of my plugins won't have an annoying vanishing point in the center. I was successful there, but liked the way a basic spiralling effect looked so much that I turned it into a full plugin. Along the way I apparently rediscovered polar inversions, so I've got a second tutorial below for using this plugin as a polar inversion plugin with more options. It's also possible to use this plugin as a full-width Twist or Bulge plugin but I forget what the exact settings are there.

First, let's take a look at this plugin's settings:

Intensity -- Determines the intensity or "depth" of the effect.
Spin -- Allows you to change the intensity of the spiral (or its direction) without affecting the Intensity.
Source Pan -- Lets you pick a different part of the image to apply the effect to. Like my other plugins the image gets reflected outwards infinitely so this is seamless.
Source Zoom -- Zooms in or out on the infinite-reflecting image. One way of looking at this setting is increasing (>1) or decreasing (<1) the complexity of the effect.
Source Rotate -- Rotates the image prior to kaleidoscoping. If your Kaleidoscoping value is set to 1 and mirroring is turned off, this is identical to Dest Rotate.
Dest Pan -- moves around the rendered image.
Dest Rotate -- rotates the rendered image.
Kaleidoscoping -- Works the same as the "pieces" setting in various kaleidoscope plugins with piece wrapping turned on. Unlike those plugins though the twisty nature of the effect is preserved, giving the image a neat sunflower-like effect. Great if you're using this plugin to make mandalas or something similar.
Kaleidoscope Mirroring -- Reflects pieces rather than wrapping them so you get more of a "star"-like effect.
Quality -- 1-5 are what you'd expect, 6 is equivalent to 10 and 7 is equivalent to 20 -- those two settings are good if you're doing something really really crazy, but they do take a while to render. Through some effort I also optimized my most recent quality slider -- settings 1 and 2 are significantly faster than they are in my other plugins. I'll be propagating this change out into my other plugins soon.

Let's take a look at what the plugin does:

Here's a source image. I'm using a beach because a lot of the effects you really need to have a full image to see how they work.

Your default setting. Note how this effect doesn't resemble other "twist" plugins -- it's a lot "deeper" and reflects inwards infinitely.

Here I've altered the Intensity setting to make it "deeper".

Like the above, but with the Spin setting increased so it resembles the original settings. In general you're going to be adjusting Intensity and Spin a lot to get the kind of curve you want.

Back to default settings, and I pulled the Source Zoom way down. This has had the effect of making the image less "complex" but also probably more aesthetic.

Here I've moved the Dest Pan to the top left. Now the spiral's center is in the top left, however because of how my plugins work you're still getting a lot of interesting effects away from the spiral.

In this case I've moved the Dest Zoom around. I also made Spin negative and messed around with some other settings. Dest Zoom will allow you to zoom into whatever thing you've constructed, which is quite neat since the scale is infinite.

Here's what it looks like when you're using the Kaleidoscoping setting. Note how the twisting nature is preserved among all the pieces, so you get this really cool hurricane-looking effect. Should be quite useful for abstract art. This setting is also where Source Rotate plays a role -- you can use this setting to change what appears in each piece.

The same as the above, but with Kaleidoscope Mirroring turned on. Now your kaleidoscope pieces are flowing together seamlessly. Should be enormously useful if you're trying to create actual galaxies.

Polar Inversion + Tutorial

Next, I'm going to outline how you can use this plugin to create polar inversions with some interesting new options.

To start with this, set Spin to 0. Now your Intensity slider is equivalent to the Intensity slider in the base Polar Inversion plugin.

You can use the Source Pan setting to change the appearance of everything. This happens in the base plugin too (with the "offset" setting), however that also moves around the image at the same time. Here you can use Source Pan to use a different part of the image and Dest Pan to move around the rendered image.

While in this mode, you can still use the Zoom controls to focus in or out on the inversion without altering the intensity settings. This gives you some very fine control over the way it appears in your art.

With higher Intensities and some use of Dest Pan and Zooming, you can see what the outer "walls" of the polar inversion look like. Interesting distortion effect in its own right.

You can also use the Kaleidoscoping setting to create polar inversion kaleidoscopes natively.

Still to do

This is probably the final version of my quality slider, unless I find new optimizations. So I'll be migrating this to the rest of my distortion plugins probably this week.
The settings can be quite sensitive sometimes, and you can also get crazy things sometimes. I've improved this a lot, but I'll probably work on it some more.
You'll sometimes get a seam on the far left. I've eliminated a lot of the bugs around this, but it still seems to happen with the Kaleidoscoping/mirroring settings on and a negative Spin. I'll need to look into it some more probably.

Download Link

https://github.com/Xhin23/Paint.net-Plugins/blob/master/Galaxy Transformation.dll