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Chrome effects


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Please, take the time to read the entire thing, I do not want the first result you got off google for 'chrome paint.net', I have searched and found nothing that fits this criteria, rather I've only found cartoonish, jokes of 'chrome effects' that looks like they're from some bad 80's cartoon, if you find something you feel is moderately close to the effect I'm trying to recreate, by all means post it, but don't lmgty, don't be a smart---, huh?

So as per usual, I open up Paint.net and just mess about, creating gradients, text, layering effects, just following whatever and wherever.

I ended up with this:

MENU.jpg

I quite liked how the chrome effect turned out and so I decided maybe I'd memorize how to do it, I gained the general idea [How many layers it took, what all of the layers blending modes were set to, etc] of how it all comes together and attempted to recreate it in another seperate image. I failed.

This is the recreation attempt:

LOAD.png

This does obviously not look chrome in the least [i'm not concerned about the actual image, I was more concerned trying to get the text to be chrome], and I'm quite happy with how it turned out, but disappointed in how I failed to recreate something I know pretty much inside and out [still have the unflatted source of the previous image, thus it's easy to follow it step by step], and so I come forth to you, said 'experts' or even 'novice' users of the program, to possibly figure out how all this comes together, as I failed to do so.

Here is the base image:

BASE.jpg

And here is the source PDN file. (Please be wary of swear word, if you are easily offended or such, then I recommend you don't download or view the source file.)

EDIT: For the source file, when you view it normally it will have a whole bunch of overlaying and unreadable text, I have added commentary on how a layer was made and information about the layer, to read the text, view each layer solo.

If you figure out how it works and make something under the same principle, by all means post, I'm interested to see what you guys could make.

Edited by thehalflifedude
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Please, take the time to read the entire thing,

If you're talking about the The Rules. yes please do read the entire thing. Especially Rule #29.

I have edited your post accordingly. Please feel free to repost the images as links or resized versions of the original.

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That rule is so insulting that it's logically equivalent as a slap to the face, but reuploaded anyways.

I guess I can make my point without being a jerk so here goes:

I believe the 800 pixel rule is an absolute joke in the sense that absolutely no respectable CG artist or any type of artist, or even the mere photo editor, would EVER use a resolution as extremly low as 800x600, 800x600 wasn't even standard a decade ago, this is 2011. If you honestly are still on 56k modem, or use a resolution lower then 1024x768, then you do not deserve to even be browsing the internet merely, let alone using a image editing program. It makes sense for thumbnails and such, but my problem is making the thumbnails accurately represent their respected content, if you downscale a 1080p image down to 800x480, it will look like absolute garbage. However, you get a crisp and sharp image if you START your base image at 800x, but I honestly just refuse to use a standard that was never even a standard, to make an image.

So either way, your decision, your rules, I just disagree with them heavily is all.

Edited by thehalflifedude
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It is an off site image host, it just doesn't resize it because I'm uploading directly to my sites ftp.

Besides, it wouldn't solve anything, as I said, resizing a 1080p image down to 800x480 absolutely wrecks the image and does nothing but makes the image look distorted, blurred, and absolute garbage. You wouldn't want to click on the thumbnail from the image it shows you.

If you CREATE a 800x480\600 image, then it will look crisp, clear and it will look fine. But the same logic, if you create a 1080p image, then that will also look crisp and clear.

But if you upscale a 480p image to 1080p, it will NOT come close to the 1080p image because Paint.NET has to go "Hmmm... What might be between these pixels?" and it has to create pixels out of thin air to make a 1080p image.

Same applies to downscaling, it has to make pixels that don't exist, and in the process makes the image quality degrade.

Maybe I'm just terrible at resizing images down, but from the results I've gotton, I'm just not going to use them, not a big loss.

Anyways, drama aside, anybody have any ideas? I really do like this effect.

Edited by thehalflifedude
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or.. you could host it off site and post a clickable thumbnail-- that way PDN forums memory isnt overloaded and anybody who wants to can view your art in all its rampant glory

i did try to work on your problem and while i came up with some cool stuff it wasnt nearly a recreation of what you did- sorry

spacesig.png

SARCASM- Just one of the many services I offer free to the public.

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It is an off site image host, it just doesn't resize it because I'm uploading directly to my sites ftp.

Besides, it wouldn't solve anything, as I said, resizing a 1080p image down to 800x480 absolutely wrecks the image and does nothing but makes the image look distorted, blurred, and absolute garbage. You wouldn't want to click on the thumbnail from the image it shows you.

If you CREATE a 800x480\600 image, then it will look crisp, clear and it will look fine. But the same logic, if you create a 1080p image, then that will also look crisp and clear.

But if you upscale a 480p image to 1080p, it will NOT come close to the 1080p image because Paint.NET has to go "Hmmm... What might be between these pixels?" and it has to create pixels out of thin air to make a 1080p image.

Same applies to downscaling, it has to make pixels that don't exist, and in the process makes the image quality degrade.

Maybe I'm just terrible at resizing images down, but from the results I've gotton, I'm just not going to use them, not a big loss.

Anyways, drama aside, anybody have any ideas? I really do like this effect.

All of my images are created on a canvas 4 times the finished size. 3200 x 2400 becomes 800 x 600. I add a clickable thumnail to my gallery. So what you are saying is that my thumbnails look so bad that it would not encourage someone to take a look at the image?

The rule exists because not everyone has unlimited download or unlimited patience to wait for each huge image in a thread to load.

THiGVp.png

Knowledge is no burden to carry.

 

April Jones, 2012

 
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That rule is so insulting that it's logically equivalent as a slap to the face....

No it's not insulting, the rule is designed to stop the posting of huge images that serve no purpose except to slow down the forum.

I believe the 800 pixel rule is an absolute joke in the sense that absolutely no respectable CG artist or any type of artist, or even the mere photo editor, would EVER use a resolution as extremly low as 800x600, 800x600 wasn't even standard a decade ago, this is 2011.

We are not forcing you to use any resolution at all. Just post a smaller image, part of the original image or a link, or a thumbnail. See? Options.

If you honestly are still on 56k modem, or use a resolution lower then 1024x768, then you do not deserve to even be browsing the internet merely, let alone using a image editing program.

I live in the country. Miles from the nearest broadband point, yet I still manage to run a web design business. What would you have me use? MS Paint and a carrier pigeon?

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I'll lend it to you when it next touches down boltbait.lol.png

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No it's not insulting, the rule is designed to stop the posting of huge images that serve no purpose except to slow down the forum.

I understand massive images, such as a 1080p image, but a 1280x600 image barely comes to 200-300 KB if you know how to use an editing program, and that's not even remotely close to ANY standard known today.

I run a 720p monitor, which I bought in 2002, and if you have a CRT monitor, I almost guarantee it can go all the way up to 1080p, albeit not natively, but without tweaking they usually go up to 1280x1024, which is even higher then 720p

We are not forcing you to use any resolution at all. Just post a smaller image, part of the original image or a link, or a thumbnail. See? Options.

Yeah, butcher the quality either way, making it a link will just simply frustrate's people, nobody is going to click on something they have no idea what they lead to.

I understand thumbnails are to give a general idea, but honestly at the highest you can use here, you can see the entire image but any\all of the detail that makes up that image is completely lost.

EG: I made a image with a small Miniradar\radar type object in the corner, and what made this object look decent was the amount of noise you could see on it, but when you downscale it, all the rardar looks like is a terribly done gradient sphere, and that being your first impression, isn't a good one, isn't it?

I also had a thin line going through the entire image, which was bent and distorted slightly throughout the entirity, meant to showcase that there is a form of energy running through it, but when you downscale it, you can't see that because all it looks like is a perfectly straight line with constant breaks because Paint.NET can't downscale all the tiny distortions.

If my image was just a gradient ramp with some text, yes, that would look fine downscaled, but I make my images on a large canvas for a bloody reason, and that is fine detail. If I lose all that fine detail that makes the image look good, what is the point?

Insulting in the sense:

It's like going to a racetrack and complaining the cars go too fast for you too keep up and that they should slow down just because you're still drivng a hand-crank car, yes, maybe it's rude or disrespectful for those who don't have a thousand dollars to shell out for an actual car, but honestly... Really?

In the same sense, I should run a contest, it will be for phone developers specifically.

The description will be to make a simple 2D game for a phone.

Hobbyists, professionals, and real developers show up.

They all make games, many of them for Iphone, some for Windows 7 phone, and soforth.

At the end, I disqualify them all because my ancient Nokia phone can't run the games and I tell them they're idiots for developing for a 200$ phone, and that not everybody can afford one, and that they should be developing for the older cell phones because nobody can afford an iphone, how insulting would it be if you were one of those developers and you actually took yourself seriously in the business, to receive such a blow?

Look at the second image. Notice what defines it. The sharp coarse details all over defined by noise, now downscale that image to not even a quarter of the original size and then show that to somebody. Think they'll see any detail? No. It'll look like some bizarre red waffle or blood puddle.

As I've said before, if you make it off a 800x600 canvas, it looks great and sharp and all, but downscaling anything to anything is just ridiculous, and you lose a lot of fine detail, which my images thrive off of.

Barbie: Judging from your gallery, your images lack any if at all fine detail, your images are mostly primitive shapes and texturing, those look great downscaled because it is simply "thumbnail tells the whole story, and the story looks a bit better if you actually expand it", but in my case my images thrive off of fine detail, mostly involving noise, and as the noise is often what defines the shapes of things, and the detail of things, then when you downscale stuff, things lose detail, even basic primitive shapes lose proper detail and shape, and overall the image loses a lot of quality.

I'm not saying your images are bad by any means by saying they're primitive, but you are comparing to entirely different things here.

In fact, I've even made images like that, where it's "Thumnail tells story, and story get's better if you choose to click fullsized", where fine detail is added, but not defining anything, which is what I'm trying to point out here

EG: The first image posted, and something like this, which is basically [supposed to look like] a concrete wall:

russian.jpg

You know what it is from the image, and because the detail in the concrete doesn't DEFINE anything, it looks fine and nothing is wrong, and then you can view fullsize should you want to see higher definition, like I was saying with your images, but as I've said multiple times, I enjoy making grunge images and much of my artistic styling is with defintion of the shapes beyond basic primitive point to point, which is why detail being lost is such a big deal.

I think what I'll do is instead of downscaling the image, make a small banner or strip, and then render out something of relevance to what the image is at that resolution, so I can preserve detail.

Edited by thehalflifedude
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lol-i have a legal pad right beside my keyboard, that way when i hit a technique i want to save- i writer it down immediatly, before i started that i was constantly banging my head on my desk

spacesig.png

SARCASM- Just one of the many services I offer free to the public.

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The gradient is definitely an important part of how that final chrome image turned out, so you may have to initially start working with another gradient background, and then overlay that onto a new background once the chrome effect is achieved again.

The recreation attempt is a pretty cool effect in its own right.

xZYt6wl.png

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