Plugin or Tutorial to any Shape Glass or Glossy?

[Grandizer]

Hello,

I have seen and played around with the glass buttons and that gets me to a certain point. However, I am a programmer and not much of a graphic artist (but I dabble...) and can't get what I want from a button tutorial into what would be more like a plate or a pane of class.

So, is there a tutorial I am missing or can someone whip up a plug-in that can take a Layer or a given Color on a Layer or all Shapes on a layer and basically make them look in glass. Ideally rounded on the edges as well.

TIA,

Kevin

[HELEN]

Look in my gallery. I think the one that says, "More detailed graphics" you'll find red glossy hearts. Is that what you mean? I'm unsure what you're asking.

[Grandizer]

Hi Helen,

I think it is really close if not exactly what I want. Meaning if you started with just some 2D heart shape and then you made it thick and glossy and then changed your aspect ratio then yes. Please post or link to a tutorial of how you did it.

If not, let me try and explain it in your heart graphic. Assume some random 2D shape in this case a heart. Not a line but some sort of polygon. Then apply a thickness to it (in 3D programs I have used before this is called extruding it) with smooth rounded corners/edges and then make it glossy/glass-like.

Ideally I would be wanting different rectangles to get this effect applied to them. I am almost thinking that it really wouldn't require any color (obviously white or whatever glass color you want for the shiny part and then some sort of alpha masking) then whatever color is on a lower layer would show through.

Another way to explain it would be imagine just a plate of glass on a table. The glass has nice rounded sides all around. I want to essentially take shapes and turn then into glass. Not specificailly giving them any color.

Hope that helps and thank you for your reply.

Kevin

[BoltBait]

Are you looking for this? viewtopic.php?f=37&t=27031

[HELEN]

You can check this tutorial:

http://paintdotnet.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=27739&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=glass+ball

As for the glassy hearts that I did, well, I started with a 2D heart shape. I then used Rotate/Zoom to place it at an angle desired. I then added a Drop Shadow to the heart (make it as thick as you want by applying Drop Shadow once or twice). I then selected the inside of the heart and added New Layer. On that layer, I went to Bevel Selection and chose white for both inside and outside. Make the seletion thicker, also. Go to Gaussian Blur and move the tick symbol to probably 4-7px. Go back to the first layer where the 2d heart is, and choose the "thick" part of the heart and add New Layer. Do the same Bevel Selection as you did for the second layer. On the fourth layer, add the "glassiness" by taking your pen tool, drawing the "glare" part, select the inside of it, and then hide the layer. Add a New Layer and choose gradient where the primary color is white and the secondary is transparent (0). After you have the desired look, flatten the image. Then add a new layer and paint it black (or whatever color you choose). Move the heart layer so it is at the the top. The heart will probably be more or less transparent.

If you want, you can e-mail me at this e-mail (hlnl56@yahoo.com) so I can send you the .pdn file of the heart. I can't explain it that well, so that will probably be easiest for me. You can manipulate the same method for all your images.

EDIT: Yeah, the link that BoltBait gave is good and useful, too. That's basically the method that I used.