Creating a metal pole?

[Hodor]

I found this picture online:

 

 

And wondering how I can recreate something like that?

specifically, I'm only looking for the metal pole head and a bit of the pole it self - not the electric stuff.

 

I tried using Shape3D plugin to create the head, and got something like that:

which is still missing something, but even if so - I'm not sure how to add the pole it self and the "connector" thing (little donut shape thing, don't know how it's named)

in a way that would look connected, and not be completely different texture.

 

Any tips?

 

 

[Pixey]

Hello @Hodor.

 

Here is a mini tutorial and this will be using @MJW's Texture Rounder.

And @MJW's Texture Shader.

 

1.  On a new layer use the Shapes Plugin ( @BoltBait has some great ones) to draw the pipe, the connection and the ball.

 

    Clickable

2.  Turn the pipe 90 degrees and then use the Texture object rounder.

 

  Clickable

 

3.  Find a nice shiny metal texture and copy it to the clipboard. Now return the pipe to horizontal.

 

  I used this texture

 

4.  Now use the Texture Shader Plugin.

 

Clickable

 

I hope this is helpful to you

 

 

 

[Hodor]

@Pixey thanks for the tips!

 

I tried to follow it, but the last step seems to be different for me. What kind of metal texture you used?

 

This is my image after texture object rounder, before using the texture:

Image_before

 

This is my metal texture I got:

metal_texture

 

This is what happens after I use it, with the "Reflection Map (Equirectangular)" setting:

result

 

 

 

[Pixey]

@Hodor - I've added the texture to the mini tutorial and also I fixed an error = it should be move it 90 degrees (not 80)

 

Your pipe may not be the same size as I used.  Just redo the shape with a longer barrel

 

Good luck - you are getting there 👍

[Hodor]

@Pixey thanks!

 

I used your texture and then realized it doesn't look the same too though. Played with the settings enough to understand how to make it look like yours,

which made me understand how to make mine look better! I now got this:

 

There are 2 things that are still an issue though:

1. You can see there is some white pixels around the border in some areas. how do I get rid of them?

 

2. there are 3 weird lines in the back of the barrel; where did they come from? how do I get rid of them too?

 

p.s.

The barrel size is fine for me because I'm using it in a game and can tile it, so the barrel is going to be game-editor-adjustable anyway :)

 

p.s.2

I knew that 80 degrees was meant to be 90 degrees hehe, no worries. Thanks for fixing that too anyway though

[Pixey]

4 minutes ago, Hodor said:

here is some white pixels around the border in some areas. how do I get rid of them?

 

And this where you need the most precious Plugin called AA's Assistant I always run it on anything I want to sharpen.

6 minutes ago, Hodor said:

there are 3 weird lines in the back of the barrel; where did they come from? how do I get rid of them too?

 

Yes, you could get rid of them with some blurring.  Sometimes this Plugin is very sensitive to size and, as you will have seen, there are a lot of sliders to play with as well.

It takes quite a while to get used to these @MJW plugins, but it's worth the practice as one can get some amazing results.

[MJW]

49 minutes ago, Hodor said:

2. there are 3 weird lines in the back of the barrel; where did they come from? how do I get rid of them too?

 

 

Try doing it again. I've never seen anything like that, and think those anomalies must have somehow been introduced some time after the Texture Object Rounder was used (though I have no theory about how).

 

BTW: Though Pixey has the height set in the Texture Shader at about 304, the "technically" correct height for shading objects produced by the Texture Object Rounder with default height scaling is 255. However, sometimes it looks better to have it a higher or lower, depending on the texture on the clipboard.

 

Make sure to enable Antialiasing in the Texture Shader. It will almost always produce a better looking result.

[Hodor]

@Pixey I tried playing with the various settings actually; the only way to remove those 3 lines seems to be the mapping mode; but the others make the actual result look worse.

 

@MJW I tried doing it multiple times actually, still the same thing.

Also, looking at the result after the Texture Object Rounder and before the Texture Shader, it looks fine. I think, anyway.

 

Regarding the scale: it doesn't really look good with scale that high, like 304 or even 255. I used scale of around 78.

But with either scale those lines still show up.

 

Regarding antialiasing: that actually solved the white border thing, like Pixey mentioned - although without using another plugin, so cool thing ^^

 

[MJW]

Would you please describe the exact steps between running the Texture Object Rounder, and the shading? I would expect that there are not too many.

 

Also, perhaps you can try running (then cancelling or undoing) the Texture Shader after each step, to see when the lines first appear. I've never seen anything like those three lines, and I can't think of any reason for them.

 

[MJW]

I compared the colors in the places with the problem. In every case  I looked at, one or two of the RGB color components in the bad colors are one less than the values of the good colors.

 

Examples in hex:

 

GOOD               BAD

21 A0 AC          21 9F AC

22 C6 E0          22 C5 DF

23 DC 79          23 DB 79

22 6D 66          22 6C 66

22 0B 6D          21 0B 6D

 

It's not a one-bit difference, but a numeric difference, as A0 to 9F shows.

 

Is there any chance you rotated the layer by, say, 90.01 degrees instead of 90 degrees? That would be an unusual thing to do, but I think it could produce similar artifacts (because the heights would be mis-interpolated).

 

EDIT: I would hate to think so, but perhaps it's a problem with Rotate/Zoom not precisely exchanging the X and Y coordinates for a 90 degree rotation. If you check the shading before and after the 90 degree rotation, you can see if that's the problem. (I've rotated Object Rounded objects by 90 degrees and never seen that sort of thing, but it could depend on the exact image.)

[MJW]

I believe I've confirmed that the problem is that Rotate/Zoom isn't doing an exact 90 degree rotation. There are other ways to rotate the height map using the rather complex Texture Merger, but I'll try to come up with an easy way soon.

 

I think Rotate/Zoom has another problem, which I'll report as a bug if I confirm it. If I start with a square window with a constant color background, then rotate by ninty degrees, the top line of pixels is transparent, which I believe indicates the rotated image was translated one pixel down.

[Hodor]

@MJW well looks like you already found the bug, but just to answer your question anyway about the exact steps between rounder and shading - it was only the rotation.

That is:

1. Rotate to make the object vertical

2. Run Texture Object Rounder

3. Rotate to make the object horizontal

4. Run "shading" (texture shader)

 

I'm also not familiar with the Texture Merger (or another way to rotate without the Rotate/Zoom), so I'll be waiting for this here.

 

And thanks for checking the problem and helping btw! :)

[MJW]

The Texture Merger is probably the plugin I'm most proud of, even though I sometimes wonder if I'm the only one who ever uses it. It's designed to combine height maps.

 

It's quite a complex (and, I admit, more that a little confusing) plugin. Using it to rotate the height map created by Texture Object Rounder isn't too difficult, though.

 

- Copy the height map to the clipboard (Ctrl-C).

- Run Texture Merger.

- About halfway down the (very large) menu, there's a drop-down list labeled Height Merge Method. Select the last option, Clipboard (No Displacement).

- You may also want to enable Antialiasing.

- Now you can rotate (and also scale and translate) the height map using the clipboard controls at the top of the menu.

[Pixey]

7 hours ago, MJW said:

The Texture Merger is probably the plugin I'm most proud of, even though I sometimes wonder if I'm the only one who ever uses it. It's designed to combine height maps.

 

I think it would be a fabulous thing if, and when you have the time, you could do a few tutorials for us 😀  I'm sure the reason we don't use these amazing Plugins of yours, as much as we do, is because they are rather complicated and I know I, for one, could benefit from a few more tutorials using it 🤗

[lynxster4]

I'm not understanding the three lines on the pole either.  I did this quickly using @Pixey's example.

I rotated 90 degrees, ran Texture Object Rounder, then I ran Texture Smoother at 70, then I rotated back.

Ran Texture Shader with @Hodor's texture and came up with this:

 

If I did not use Texture Smoother, I didn't have any lines on the rod, but did have a few on the ball.  Puzzled...

 

[lynxster4]

On 7/9/2021 at 3:42 PM, Hodor said:

1. You can see there is some white pixels around the border in some areas. how do I get rid of them?

 

At the bottom of the Texture Shader plugin UI, check Anti-Aliasing, maybe bumping it up to 6.

After you're done, it doesn't hurt to run AA (Effects-->Object-->AA's Assistant.

 

[Hodor]

On 7/10/2021 at 10:56 PM, lynxster4 said:

I'm not understanding the three lines on the pole either.  I did this quickly using @Pixey's example.

I rotated 90 degrees, ran Texture Object Rounder, then I ran Texture Smoother at 70, then I rotated back.

Ran Texture Shader with @Hodor's texture and came up with this:

 

If I did not use Texture Smoother, I didn't have any lines on the rod, but did have a few on the ball.  Puzzled...

 

 

I wasn't aware about the Texture Smoother; I'll try that it then. Thanks!