Digital Camouflage

[PineappleQc]

This tutorial is available as a PDF. Click here to view or download it

 

Required Plugins:

• Clouds
• Jitter
• Pixelate+
• Stitch

 

Hello all

Here's a quick tutorial, as easy and detailed as possible, to make digital camouflage.

Here's the effect we're going for:

Pick The Colours

In order to use accurate-as-possible colours, I'll smudge them to obtain the average colours. There is usually three colours in a pattern: Background (darkest); Middle (bit brighter); Front (Lightest)

Get those colours in an other image, in case you need to find them again.

Making the Pattern's Base

Start with the background colour, and fill your canvas. For this tutorial I went 500px squared, but I suggest you go as high as your computer can handle, for quality purposes.

Next, start up your CLOUDS plugin with your second colour selected on a new layer, with the following parametres:

Repeat again with the new colour, on a new layer. Make sure to press 'Reseed' when at the plugin's configuration.

Giving it a digitalised look

Select the top layer, and run a JITTER effect on it. This is to give it that 'windy' look.

Next, run a PIXELATE+ plugin. You can either use my parametres or try your own settings.

Now use the Magic Wand with a tolerance of ~45%, and select an empty-looking spot while holding SHIFT.

Once you have that, press the buttons in this order:

CTRL+I (Invert Selection)

BACKSPACE (Fill Selection)

CTRL+I (Invert Selection)

DELETE (Delete Selection)

Here's the result you should have:

Rinse & Repeat with the middle layer.

Also, unlike what I did, I suggest using a slightly different PIXELATE+ level for the 2nd layer.

Realistic Clothing

Now we want to give the camouflage a realistic look. If you look again at the resource image, you can spot a number of distinctive features:

-The patterns are not perfectly aligned. You can replicate this by selecting the middle layer, pressing CTRL+SHIFT+Z and increasing the angle a single percent.

-The colours are not plain, this is woven. You can replicate this by adding noise to each layer.

-Woven Fabric: Run a STITCH plugin on each layer [OPTIONNAL]

-Shadows: Run a CLOUD effect with colours BLACK (alpha 250) and WHITE (alpha 0) and the

following parametres on a new layer. Don't forget the set the layer's BLEND MODE to MULTIPLY.

There you go! Hopefully you had much better results than I did, I really messed this one up...

Here's a better result:

Looking forward to seeing some results and criticism!

-piney

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by toe_head2001
Added plugin links

[simzz]

Nice tutorial. Thanks for sharing.

[Kaddl89]

Thats a real nice tut! I like the outcome very much. Thanks Piney

heres my result

Edited July 3, 2010 by Kaddl89

[LFC4EVER]

the last result looks like some real fabric. Really cool tut to create this. Thanks for sharing.

[PineappleQc]

Thank you for the feedback! You can find more variations in my gallery, located HERE

@Kaddl89: Good result! Don't forget to add some noise so it looks like a real fabric, and I suggest making all images twice as large as your result will be, in order to ensure a high quality and details.

[Kaddl89]

Well, I've added a Noise to each Layer... but your right maybe I should do it one more.

And I've did with size 2000x2000 and resized it smaller I have it now as my Screensaver cause I can't stop looking on it... It's really realistic

[PineappleQc]

hah, but 2000px squared down to 500px squared probably explains why it's not so noisy-looking anymore

Good result anyway, do you mind linking to the original size?

[Kaddl89]

No, I have a real bad Internet connection and it takes to long to load it up...

But I've made an other one maybe It's a little better ?

[chrisco97]

Nice tutorial, I like the result.

[killacure24]

Thanks so much for the tutorial, this is exactly what I was looking for!

[majicman12]

what plug in do you use for your clouds???? Ive been looking and i cant find, i just cant get the same look without knowing the numbers or how far on the slider (which normal clouds doesnt have) plz link or tell me how to get

[Insanitypays]

This tutorial is the best, thanks man, I tried out your marpat thing there and made this after messing with the shadows and colors... I think that verage clor thing is what crewed you up. I made it tonight. This was also a big help a few months ago when I made this texture for Battlefield: 2 http://www.moddb.com/mods/revival/images/marpat-v22#imagebox...

[Devilon9000]

I made rainbow camo!

[whebzy]

What is the cloud plugin you used?

[yellowman]

This Cloud.

Find all plugins here

To install plugin here

[doughty]

Interesting tutorial, I think this will be useful in future projects.

I applied median to the second image.

Edited June 24, 2012 by doughty

[klyek397]

some of my results

*edit

made it more rounded

 

Edited December 8, 2012 by klyek397

[Andrew22]

[Andrew22]

what plug in do you use for your clouds???? Ive been looking and i cant find, i just cant get the same look without knowing the numbers or how far on the slider (which normal clouds doesnt have) plz link or tell me how to get

Idk But You Can Still Do It With the regular clouds:  

Don't Forget To Hit OK.

Edited July 13, 2014 by Andrew22

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

Very nice and helpful post Andrew.

But, I do want to point out, that this question :

 

what plug in do you use for your clouds???? Ive been looking and i cant find, i just cant get the same look without knowing the numbers or how far on the slider (which normal clouds doesnt have) plz link or tell me how to get

 

Was asked back in year 2011.

 

Despite that, I'm sure your help will be appreciated by another user who tries this tutorial.

Edited July 13, 2014 by Cc4FuzzyHuggles