isometric bubbling lava

[Flipper]

after doing some homework I found that using layer zoom/rotate gave me the best results of turning a 64X 64 lava image (created using clouds and the "hot" setting of gradient mapping) into an isometric view.

Officially I am using Angle: 45 , Twist angle:90 ,Twist radius: 70, X pan 0, Y pan .3, and zoom .75x

any suggestions are welcome on above settings.

the question is how to get it bubbling. Objective: have a lava bubble break the surface and then pop: 8 frame GIF

tried using bulge, ripple and at least two other distorts, but due to the small size I can't get a desired effect. Doing it large then shrinking tends to just distort it.

I then tried using a 3d object sphere with a bright yellowish Lava skin and was going to have it "penetrate" through the plane of the isometric image, but couldn't get that to work (is there anything that will actually turn this into a 3d plane or will a true 3d program be needed?).

I have exhausted my ability ( didn't take long) and now I humble myself before the experts

Edited October 21, 2010 by Flipper

[yellowman]

Using those settings in Layer Rotate/Zoom tool gives you a perspective plane rather than isometric,

For the growing bubble use Power Stretch plugin by pyjo, select the area were you want to work so you can control the position of the bubble in the plane then apply the power stretch

[Flipper]

thanks I will give that a shot.

Using those settings in Layer Rotate/Zoom tool gives you a perspective plane rather than isometric

Can you elaborate on the difference? Is there any plug in that will let you select predefined perspective?( dimetric, isometric, any others that would be used)

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Only plugin that comes close would be Perspective Effect

[yellowman]

Shape 3D could generate the both perspective and isometric views, to get the isometric view you have to put the camera Angle on 1, and for your shape (plane) chose the Box and put 0.01 for the height.

This is the XML file for the Shape 3D plugin, apply it on 64x64 cloud layer

[pdnnoob]

using shape 3D at these settings

will get you this result

I hope that's what you were looking for...

To get even better results, add a new layer and use the paintbrush to put yellow spots where you want it to be brighter. Blur the brush strokes, then change the layer settings to color dodge and mess with layer opacity. To make spots darker, just make a color burn layer.

Now...I noticed you are making an animated gif. Use power stretch for the part before it pops, then cut open the top with lasso select and use the paintbrush tool on a new layer to make the splatters. Painting it by hand is tedious, but using gaussian blur and all the other great tools in PDN to your advantage, it is guaranteed to get the best results in this situation. Be sure to use some color variations when you paint. Maybe use the color dodge layer trick as mentioned previously to do that.

[Flipper]

Wow,

That is excatly what I was looking for.

To give myself credit, my image did look a little but like pdnnoob's but I was so focused on it one way I failed to tryit the way pdnnoob suggested....One of those forest for the trees things.

Thanks for all of the suggestions on the perspective thing, I will have to try them all and descide which works best (or easiest if all have same result)

OK had a chance to play a little and for the life of me I can't get the plane view to match up to yours, I have been able to obtain the same result but would love to get the actual setting to the 2X1 perspective (2 run X 1 rise)

Edited October 22, 2010 by Flipper

[pdnnoob]

If you mean the flat sheet of "lava" texture under the bubble, I just followed your settings on the rotate/zoom in your original post...

Officially I am using Angle: 45 , Twist angle:90 ,Twist radius: 70, X pan 0, Y pan .3, and zoom .75x

[Flipper]

Ah ok wasn't sure if you came up with an easier way