Ymax Tutorials

Design a Vibrant Blackberry Inspired Ad in Photoshop

2009-09-27T01:19:00.000-07:00

Design a Vibrant Blackberry Inspired Ad in Photoshop

The Blackberry Loves U2 TV promo features some awesome, bright and vibrant lighting effects. Let’s take a look at recreating the style to produce a Blackberry inspired design of our own.

Much like the old Apple/Coldplay advertisement, the new Blackberry Loves U2 promo features some stunning visual effects, showing the range of light particles and colours flaring from the background.

Looks pretty cool huh?! Let’s take a look at recreating the style in Photoshop, starting with a couple of stock photographs and spicing them up with some Photoshop touches.

Open up Photoshop and create a new document. Enter dimensions of your own preference. Here I’m using 2000×1200px. Set the mode to RGB to allow for vibrant colours, and fill the background with pure black.

Find a stock photo of a smoke texture, desaturate (CMD+U) to remove any colour. Paste the smoke into the background of the document to give a subtle texture. Reduce the opacity right down to 13%.

Next, find a stock photo of a singer. This particular image is courtesy of ShutterStock. Open up the image and adjust the Levels, this image has a dark blue cast, so adjusting the black point helps correct this.

Paste and position the singer into the document. Using a simple rule of thirds approach gives a nice, structured composition.

Select a large, soft brush, then dab a few spots of bright colours on three individual layers.

Change each layer to Overlay. Adjusting this blending mode adds a coloured cast that reacts with the underlying tones of the singer and smoke texture layers.

With all three colour spots changed to Overlay, it adds various hints of colour to the image. Next, dab a slightly darker spot of blue as the base of the light source.

Continue adding a couple more spots of colour. Referring to the original ad, there are hints of turquoise and red. Mimic these in your Photoshop design. Change the blending modes to Overlay to give the casts of colour.

Dab a smaller spot of white to the centre of the light source. The colour should blend from a large dark blue, through to a medium sized turquoise, followed by the smaller spot of pure white.

Place a couple more spots of white to disguise the circular shape of the brush marks.

No lighting effect is complete without a good old lens flare. Fill a new layer with black, then go to Filter > Render > Lens Flare.

Scale and position the lens flare so that it radiates out from the light source. Change the blending mode to Screen to hide the black background and reduce the opacity to suit.

Draw a few concentric circles, each filled with a vibrant colour. Add a large Gaussian Blur of around 30px.

Change the blending mode of the circles to Pin Light, then position them over the light source to give a hint of green and orange against the blues. Reduce the opacity to tone down the effect.

Next, generate a particles brush by adjusting various settings in the Brushes palette. Turn the Hardness to around 50% and Spacing right up to 1000% in the first section. Under Shape Dynamics, enter 100% Size Jitter and 0% Minimum Diameter. Under Scattering, enter 1000% Scatter with a Control of Pen Pressure (which is super handy if you have a Pen Tablet).

Draw a range of large white particles onto the document, letting Photoshop take care of the slight size variations. Add a Radial Blur in Zoom mode to give the impression of movement. Change the blending mode to Overlay.

Reduce the brush size slightly and continue to paint in another collection of light particles. This time change the blending mode to Soft Light and reduce to 50%.

Draw in a third and final collection of particles, this time smaller in size. Leave these as pure white. Go through and add a layer mask to the three particle layers, then with a brush at 50% opacity, dab over the particles to reduce their prominence and to give variation in strength.

On a new layer, paint over some of the particles with yellow. Change the blending mode to Overlay and reduce the opacity to give a coloured tint to selected spots, much like the original ad.

The design is looking good so far! We’re just about done, but let’s take a look at a couple of finishing touches.

Select the whole document (CMD+A), then Copy Merged (CMD+Shift+C). Paste the duplicate on top of the layer stack, then add a Gradient Map (Image > Adjustments > Gradient Map) to convert to black and white.

Change this black and white layer to Luminosity, then reduce the opacity to suit. This simply adds a little contrast to the colours, darkening the darks and lightening the lights.

Add in your logo or tagline and you’re done! The final graphic boasts plenty of the effects that made the Blackberry Loves U2 advert so awesome, the colour casts, vibrant light source and flying light particles all add to make a cool design.

Beginner Illustrator Tutorial – Create a Vector RSS Icon

2009-09-27T01:18:00.000-07:00

Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics application, so it doesn’t matter what size the icon is created at. We can simply select all the objects and scale them up to the size of King Kong, or likewise scale them down to the desired size. Unlike Photoshop, all our lines and shapes will keep their crisp lines and colours because they’re made of mathematical calculations rather than good old pixels.

Open up Illustrator and create a new document. Click and hold the mouse over the Rectangle tool to select the Rounded Rectangle option hiding underneath. Draw your shape on the artboard while holding Shift, use the arrow cursor keys to adjust the roundness of the corners while dragging.

Another difference between Illustrator and Photoshop is the options sat at the bottom of the main tool palette. In Photoshop, I’m sure you’re familiar with the foreground and background swatches – In Illustrator this is replaced with the fill colour and stroke colour. Click the stroke option and clear off any defaults, then bring the fill into focus. Over in the Gradient Panel, add an orange fill that varies from dark to light vertically across the shape.

With the shape selected, go Object > Path > Offset Path. Enter -1mm in the options. Grab the corner of the new shape and rotate to 180 degrees so the gradients flow in opposite directions.

Grab the circle tool and draw a shape elsewhere on the artboard. Clear out any fill, and add a thick 16pt black stroke.

With the Direct Selection Tool (White Arrow), select only the left and bottom points of the circle. Hit delete on the keyboard to trim the circle down to a quarter.

Copy (CMD+C) the quarter circle and paste in front (CMD+F). Scale it down while holding the shift key to keep everything tight. Tip: Check the Scale Strokes and Effects option in the preferences and alter to your personal liking.

Adjust the stroke weight to match the 16pt of the original.

Press CMD+R to show the rulers, then drag a couple of guides out in alignment with the quarter circles. Using the intersection as a source, draw a small circle to finish off the traditional RSS shape.

Our two quarter circles are currently set as stroked paths, but we can quickly convert them to complete shapes by heading to Object > Expand, then selecting just the Stroke option.

With the three objects selected, add a grey-white gradient fill running vertically, and a 1pt light grey stroke.

Press CMD-G to Group the objects together, then scale and position them into place in the overall orange container.

Select the inner rectangle from the orange box, Copy (CMD-C) and Paste in Front (CMD-F). Fill it with white. One tip to remember is unlike Photoshop, Illustrator can hold multiple items in just one layer, each stackable on top of each other.

Draw a large, flat oval over the entire graphic. Pay close attention to how the bottom curve overlaps the white rectangle. With the oval and rectangle selection, click the Intersect Shape Area option in the Pathfinder palette.

Reduce the Opacity of this new shape down to around 15%, giving a sleek shine to the icon.

Finish off the graphic with a couple of specular hightlights in the form of circles. Use 15% opacity again to maintain a subtle appearance.

There we go, a simple vector RSS icon using some simple steps, but covering some of Illustrator’s powerful tools.

80’s Style Design Using Photoshop

2009-09-27T01:05:00.000-07:00

The 80’s have always had an iconic impact on Pop Culture. I have been seeing a lot of 80’s inspired designs on the internet, but never found a tutorial. So, here’s a simple tutorial inspired by the 80’s. This is just a basic design to get you started, and Adobe Photoshop is all that’s required (and very few stock images). And of course, a lot of modifications can be done with this technique.

Final Preview:

Part 1: Creating The Main Text

Taking a canvas size of 1900 X 1200. Of course you could pick any size according to your preference, but make sure the resolution is decent enough.

Fill the background layer BLACK.

With the Text Tool type whatever you want the text to be. I chose “Leave, but don’t leave me”, from a Pink Floyd song. “But don’t leave me” is coming later. Right now we’ll work on “Leave”. The font I have used is Futura Heavy.

Right-click on the text layer, go to Blending Options to create Layer styles.
On the Layer style box, go to Gradient Overlay, tick it.
On the Gradient Overlay, we open the Gradient editor and make the New Custom Gradient as above. I have chosen shades of black, white and grey so that we can easily modify the colors later.

Then apply Stroke, and in the fill type, set it to Gradient, and choose the simple Black to White Gradient preset.

Next, make a new layer above the text layer, name it Gradient 1 (or anything you please). Fill it with a gradient. I used real bright colors, in honor of the 80’s.

The ‘Gradient 1′ layer is set to Soft Light mode, with an opacity of 72% (you can experiment with the modes, and opacity).

The above image shows you are current progress. We are beginning to have the 80’s looks to it.

Part 2: The Background

Next we are going to add a nice texture to the image. I have used a paper texture. You can find it here.

Select all (Ctrl/Cmd+A), copy the texture (Ctrl/Cmd+C) and paste it (Ctrl/Cmd+V) on your work. The Blend Mode is ‘Vivid Light’, and you can see we already have a great effect going.

Now it’s time to create a new brush to get a cloud effect; open up the Brush Engine, and use the following settings:

It’s a very useful brush, and can be used to make clouds in other work as well.

Now make a new layer “Clouds”, and paint with the brush you just created. Add a bit of Inner Shadow, to add more depth to the clouds.

Now change the order of layers, bring the ‘Clouds’ layer just above the Background. Also, the opacity of the ‘Clouds’ layer is Changed to 56%.

Now Ctrl/Cmd+Click the ‘Leave’ (Text) Layer, which selects the region of the text, and then go to the ‘Gradient 1′ layer and add a layer mask. This masks of the gradient from the rest of the image and leaves it on the Text.

Then we create a New Layer, Name it ‘Clouds 1′, Above the ‘Clouds’ layer. Make sure your foreground and background colors are Black & White, Go to Filter -> Render -> Clouds.

Keep the overlay mode as Vivid Light. Then in the Blending mode, add a Gradient Overlay, and use the following 2 colors for the gradient: #00fff0 and #e303bb.

Next we will add some stars to the background.

We now make a new layer above the ‘Cloud 1′ layer and fill it with Black. Then we go to Filter -> Noise -> Add Noise. Use Gaussian, Monochromatic, 10 % amount. There are various ways of making a star filled sky, this is the one I chose.

Next, choose Image -> Adjustment -> Levels and use the following values for Inputs: 65, 1.00, 99.

I have renamed the layer to Stars, and the blending mode is set as Screen.

Next we’ll add bigger glowing stars. Make the following brush using the brush engine:

Paint with varying brush sizes. Use the bracket keys ([ and ])to change the size quickly. Then add a Layer mask, and paint with black, using the same brush. This gets rid of some extra stars.

Now with a brush of 0% hardness and size of around 300, paint along the edges and get rid of some more stars, also add some Gaussian Blur if required.

Part 3: The 80’s Twinkle

It’s very simple to create the twinkle used in so many 80’s posters.

Take a soft brush, and just click once with it on a new layer, to create a soft circle.
Duplicate the layer, and go to Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur, Angle 0 degree, Distance around 46 pixels.
Keep duplicating and adding motion blur 3 more times.
Then merge all these layers (5 of them). Go to Free Transform, and stretch it, it widen the glowing object.
Finally, duplicate the merged layer, Rotate by 90 degrees.

We have the twinkle now. We merge both layers, and name the new layer ‘Twinkle’.

Now we can use the ‘Twinkle’ layer where needed.

Duplicate the ‘Twinkle’ layer over the Text layer (rotated, transformed etc.) and place them on the text. This makes it shiny and 80’s!

Part 4: The shapes

Create a new layer for the shapes.

Using the polygon lasso tool, and create a selection in the shape shown above. Select the Gradient tool, and use a Gradient of color White (foreground color) and transparent. We fill the selection with this gradient.

Next, Duplicate the shape and shift it a bit. (Press Alt/Option and drag the shape). Merge the layers, and duplicate them. Then we flip them horizontally and create and new shape.

Orient the shapes in different directions and places, as shown below:

Then apply a Gradient Overlay, using Blending options on the few layers, with Hard Light as the Gradient Overlay Blend mode.

So, this is how it looks so far (below). We are almost done now. You can leave it right here, or make a few more adjustments.

I add the new Text layer, “But Don’t Leave Me”, and apply a stroke via the Blending options.

If you think the colors are too bright, you can add a Hue/Saturation mask on the top of the layer stack, and lower the saturation to somewhere around -15.

The final image:

Sky Writing In photoshop

2009-09-27T01:04:00.000-07:00

Motivational calendars and management meetings are rich sources of images slapped together without even the slightest consideration of perspective and/or depth. The most prolific of these usually involve words emblazoned across skylines, but the text rarely casts a shadow, and if does the shadow also shows right across the entire image, ruining the depth perception.

This tutorial details a simple techniqe to create text with a shadow that conforms to the structure of undulating clouds behind it. Images created using this method won't win you any medals, but they may get you noticed... and that's never a bad thing when it comes to business!

Step 1: Open up a skyscape image in Photoshop. For the best results the clouds should be well-defined, as in this photo:

Step 2: Creating A Displacement Map
Make a grayscale copy of the sky. There are lots of ways to do this in Photoshop – I’m going to use one of the Channels (because it’s quick and I’m lazy). Click on the Channels palette, and then select whichever channel gives you the best contrast – I chose the Red channel:

Step 3: With your chosen channel selected, right-click and select Duplicate Channel. In the Duplicate Channel dialog box, select New from the Document dropdown list. Give your new document a name (I called mine SkyMap).

Step 4: Now apply a Gaussian blur to your SkyMap image (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur). You don’t need to blur it too much – I chose 2 pixels. Your SkyMap image should now look something like this:

This is the image we’re going to use as our displacement map. Save the image as SkyMap.psd and close it. It probably goes without saying, but remember where you save this image, because you’re going to need it later. I usually save a displacement map in the same folder as the image I’m going to use it on.

Step 5: Now we need some writing. Switch back to your original image, and make sure the RGB channel is selected in the Channels palette (this also selects the other channels). Click on the Layers tab to switch back to the Layers palette. Select the Text tool and add some text on a new layer. A bold, simple font works best for this technique (I used 'Franklin Gothic Heavy'):

(“Blue Sky Thinking” is one of my favourite pieces of “management speak”.)
The colour of the text doesn’t matter, as we’ll be applying a layer style later.

Step 6: With the Text layer selected in the Layers palette, click the Add Llayer Style icon at the bottom of the palette and select Drop Shadow, or select Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow from the menu. Here are the settings I used:

I unchecked the 'Use Global Light' option and changed the angle to 135° to match the angle of the light in the sky image. Here’s the result:

Step 7: Changing the Drop Shadow to a Cast Shadow.
Now here’s the clever bit: Right-click on the Text layer’s Layer Effects icon (the f icon) and select Create Layer. This moves the Text layer’s drop shadow onto its own layer. (Incidentally, if you have multiple effects applied to a layer, selecting the Create Layer option puts each of them on a new separate layer.) Your Layers palette should now look something like this:

Step 8: Applying the displacement map.
Click the new Drop Shadow layer, then select Filter > Distort > Displace… You will then see this dialog box:

Enter the settings you can see above. You might need to play around with the Scale settings depending on the size of your image and the amount of displacement you want. Click OK, and then select SkyMap.psd (the file you saved in Step 5) in the 'Choose a displacement map' dialog. Press OK again. After a little processing time, your image should look like this:

If you temporarily hide the Text layer, you can see how the displacement map has distorted the drop shadow to make it look like it’s being cast onto the clouds:

We could leave the shadow as it is, but I only want the shadow to fall on the clouds, not on the blue sky. I could have used theThe Eraser tool erases pixels and restores parts of an image to a previously saved state.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt=""> Eraser Tool to rub out the bits of shadow I didn’t want, but (as I said before) I’m lazy and wanted a quick way to do it. So…

Step 9: Select Color Range.
Hide the Text and Drop Shadow layers, and then make sure the Background layer is active. Select Select > Color Range… from the menu. Click on an area of blue sky in the image, then adjust the Fuzziness slider so that as much blue sky as possible is selected (it shows up as white in the preview pane). When you’re happy with the area selected, click OK.

Step 10: With the selection still active, make the Drop Shadow layer visible again, and then click this layer in the Layers palette to make it active. The selection you made in Step 10 will now be transferred to the Drop Shadow layer. Press Delete on your keyboard. The parts of the drop shadow that fall on the blue sky will be removed, and it should now look something like this:

Step 11: Now make the Text layer visible again, and apply some layer effects to jazz it up a bit. I used the following:

The colours in the above gradients and color swatches were sampled from the original sky image. And here’s the final image, perfect for those monday morning staff meetings:

The Making of 'Seductive Intent'

2009-09-27T01:01:00.000-07:00

Before proceeding with this tutorial, please note that this is by no means a complete guide on HOW to paint digitally. Everybody, understandably, has their own unique workflow and techniques. Rather, this tutorial will show you how I go about creating a digital painting from a photograph and/or sketch. Having said that, I hope that you find this tutorial useful. Keep in mind that my artwork is done in Photoshop CS, but should also apply to earlier versions of that program as well. Now let's get rolling with a few simple principles:

Keep things simple initially; If the composition isn't working in the early stages, it won't get any better, no matter how much detail you add.
Don't be afraid to erase and re-paint: If something is bothering you, change it; The earlier the better.
Flip your canvas every hour or so; Your eyes tend to get 'immune' to the mistakes; When you flip it, you get a fresh view and mistakes tend to pop out.

For this commission piece, I was asked to paint a woman with a whip and a bra, rendered in a realistic fashion. If you're going for a realistic look, a reference is always handy. In this case, I used a stock image from ConceptArt.Org. Before we begin to paint, we start with a sketch. Below is an example of the technique I use to nail the proportions:

The Guide System

To get the proportions correct, I use something I like to call "The Guide System". What we do is open the reference picture, hit "Ctrl + R" for the rules to pop out, and drag the guides from there to the most 'important' spots; For example, I dragged a guide where her left eye starts, and another one to where it ends. Same thing for the hands, feet, etc - The more guides you have, the easier it will be to nail proportions.

Now bear with me here... When we have that all sorted, we save it (in this case we'll save it as 'ref.psd'), and then save it again as 'cg.psd'. We can then delete the reference picture, as we'll concentrate only on the sketch thereafter. Now we re-open the original ref.psd file, align both windows equally, and start sketching with a pencil-like soft brush on a blank canvas; You'll still have the guides saved in the blank document, so now you can begin to sketch (it's always a good idea to sketch on a new layer). I usually start with the face, zoomed in at 200%. Always zoom in as much as possible for the tight places, in this case, that being the face and hands; It makes a real difference!

TIP: Avoid tracing the image - You don't want to create a 'perfect' sketch and miss out adding your own twist to it. If you're not getting good results with the 'guide' system, you can always use the 'grid' system (which generally takes a bit longer, but you'll more likely get better results). These techniques are the digital equivalent of the polygon-shapes strategy taught to young cartoon art students to help them nail down body proportions.

Color Palette
Now that our sketch is complete, we can begin to paint. It's a good idea to keep the sketch layer's opacity around 50% at this point. Create a new layer, preferably underneath the sketch, and pick a color palette. In this case, I chose fairly desaturated hues for the skin and background. Having a color palette is very convenient (especially for the skin), as you can color pick from those at your own leisure.

Some tips: keep things simple at this point; 3 or 4 colors (2 mid tones, 1 highlight, 1 shadow) is enough. You don't need to have a color palette with each individual layer, but this is convenient regardless, especially if you're new to this style of working.

Now look at the ref pic, and try to lay down the colors where you see fit; Don't worry about it being messy at this point - just make sure you have the colors placed fairly accurately. Implementing some hues from the background on the main figure is also a good idea, as this will help 'unite' the foreground elements with the backdrop.

TIP: To get the values right, it might be easier to work in black and white. You can add color later (when painting, simply set the mode to color and use the proper color for the said elements).

Work In Layers
In order to make things more convenient for you, I recommend working in as many layers as possible. The hair, table, background, and skin are all in separate layers. Begin laying down colors in other places that apply. Again, 3 or 4 is enough at this point.

Creating too many layers can lead to things getting out of hand. If this happens, you can group all the layers in a folder. For example, all the layers in the figure grouped together, the desk in another group, and the background as well. Simply hit the 'group folder' button (check the image above) and drag the layers into that folder.

Blend Baby, Blend!
Now that we have the colors laid down, it's time to start blending. I tend to use a brush at 50% hardness and 50% opacity to blend. To get smooth results, repeat the process over and over. Color pick the mid-tones, and keep on blending to smooth them out. This takes some time to master, but the more you practice, the easier it becomes. You should also begin considering the composition of the background as well at this point.

Details
We now begin to add details, starting at the focal point first (in this case, it's her face). In general, you want to have the most details where you want the viewer to look first. Since in this case it's the face, we start with that and probably spend a considerable amount of time perfecting it. Smooth out your strokes further, and add more details (her clothing for, for example, done on a separate layer).

TIP: Don't get too carried away with detailing at this point. It can be frustrating to have part of the piece perfected, and the rest muddy.

Color & Lighting
At this point it's good to add some some color variation to make everything unite. A simple way to do this is color pick some of the background colors, and apply them to the skin (preferably with the color mode set to 'color', between 10-20% opacity). Don't be afraid to push your colors, otherwise your piece might be a bit flat looking. At this point I also rendered the desk; Notice that the light source is coming from the left in all the 3 'parts' - i.e. the desk, figure, and background. You have to be consistent in your light source to pull off a sense of realism; If you don't, it could break a potentially great piece.

TIP: A great way to create realistic skin tones is to paint a turquoise color over the highlighted areas at a very low opacity (3-5%). Something as simple as this tend to make a huge difference.

Refinement
Now that the image is nearing completion, study carefully what works and what doesn't. Don't be afraid to repaint anything that bothers you, even at this point. Better late than never! Don't forget to flip your canvas to get a fresh view. Show your work to friends/family, see what you can gather from their input if possible. When all is said and done, we will now...

Add Noise

A fast way too make your image appear less computerized is too add noise, which provides a great 'imperfection touch'. Just follow these simple instructions:

Create a new layer & fill it via the Paint Bucket Tool (RGB set to: 128).
Go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise & run with Amount set to 400% (monochromatic).
Set the layer blend mode to overlay, anywhere from 3-10% (whatever works best).

And now we're finished (feel free to do a hoola dance). Here's the final image, with some close-ups:

I hope you found this tutorial useful. Feel free to contact me should you have any questions.

Under Water Texture in Photoshop

2009-09-27T00:59:00.000-07:00

Digital cameras may be one of the greatest tools in the modern artist's inventory, but they do have their limitations. Without specialist (and expensive) equipment, for example, it is a very bad idea to try and take underwater shots, especially ones that rely on the camera being several meters underwater!

This tutorial details a simple way to keep your feet dry and create a realistic texture that closely resembles the surface of water if seen from below. The technique is relatively flexible and can form the basis of more complicated creations, if you are willing to experiment.

Step 1: Create a new document of a suitable size with a default white-filled background. I opted for 300*300px, but this effect will look just fine with any dimension.

Set your foreground colour swatch as a dark-blue (#043E7E) and your background color swatch as solid white (#FFFFFF). Now run filter > render > clouds once. You should end up with something that resembles my image on the left. Don't worry if it doesnt look exactly the same - the clouds filter uses a random seed, so the results will always look a little different.

Step 2: We now need to add our ripple effect. To do this, run Filter > Distort > Ripple, change the amount to 999% and the size to large. Press OK. Repeat the filter again, but this time set the amount to 999% and the size to medium. Press OK, and your basic ripple effect will be complete! Of course, this doesn't look overly realistic, so we should now run our new texture through a few extra optional steps...

Variant 1: Solar Glare
For that little bit of added realism we can add solar glare to make it look as if the sun is partially reflecting off the water. To do this, run filter > render > lighting effects with the settings shown below.

Step 5: And there you go - one simple 'water surface from below' effect, ready for further manipulation or useful as a stock effect all by itself.

Variant 2: Color Loss
It should be borne in mind, of course, that the light spectrum can be substantially affected by the relative density of the water. This often presents itself as a green tinge to the water if the camera source is quite deep. To reproduce this effect, simply go to the Layer > Layer Effect > Color Overlay dialog and enter in a color of #6DB829, with a blend mode of Normal and an opacity of 33%. Throw in the solar glare mentioned above and you should have an excellent texture that resembles my image on the right below. Enjoy! ;)

Animated Shine in Photoshop

2009-09-27T00:58:00.000-07:00

Give your signatures a little bling with this highly-detained animated shine. It may look difficult from the outset, but with both Photoshop & Imageready at your disposal, you'll be amazed just how quickly you can create this cool effect!

Step 1: Open up an image or artwork file in Photoshop of any size and/or format. If at this stage you have chosen an Adobe Photoshop file with layers, you may have to think about where you want to add the shine. Most people will just apply it to text, but I've gone far enough as to apply it selectively to a whole image. It's really up to you...

Step 2: Once your thinking is over, create a new layer on top of all the others (shortcut: CTRL+SHIFT+N) and call it 'shine'.

Step 3: Make a selection with your The lasso tools make freehand, polygonal (straight-edged), and magnetic (snap-to) selections.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt="">Polygon Lasso Tool. If you are applying the shine to a large object, select a large area akin to the selection in the first image below. Conversely, if you are selecting something smaller (like text), select a smaller area as shown in the second image below. For the sake of this tutorial, I will be using the larger-size selection.

Step 4: Now select the The gradient tools create straight-line, radial, angle, reflected, and diamond blends between colors.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt="">Gradient Tool, and make sure linear gradient is chosen.

Step 5: Select the "foreground to transparent" gradient, and make sure the color is a light color. Your settings should be similar to those below:

Step 6: Drag the The gradient tools create straight-line, radial, angle, reflected, and diamond blends between colors.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt="">Gradient Tool from the front of your selection to the back, trying to keep the line at a 90 degree angle to your selection.

Step 7: Select the layer/object you want to be shine-i-fied using the magic lasso tool (contiguous option unchecked if needed). Alternatively, you can use any of Photoshop's other selection techniques (there are lots of them! ;).

Step 8: Now its time for the good stuff! Select the "shine" layer once again (make sure you DON'T deselect your selection), and on the bottom of the layers palette click the "add layer mask" button.

Step 9: Now click on the link icon once (it will vanish, meaning that the layer and the mask are no longer linked). Then move your mouse back to the main layers and click the thumbnail of the shine layer (the one on the left).

Step 10: You can now freely move your shine effect (it works best if you hold the 'shift' key when you move it to keep your movement intervals regular).

Step 11: Now we need to add the animation, so transfer the file over to Imageready by clicking on the appropriate button on the bottom of the tools palette. Just in case you don't know which one this is, its this one:

Step 12: As soon as Imageready loads, make sure that the Animation Palette is open. If it isn't, you can manually open it by selecting it from Window > Animation. For the first frame, move the shine off of the image (just drag it until you can't see it), then click on the duplicate frame button.

Step 13: With the Shine layer still selected, move the shine slightly into view, then click the duplicate frame button again. Don't forget to move the shine in the correct direction - whichever way the solid side of the shine is facing is the front.

Step 14: Completing the rest of the animation is now relatively simple - Just continue moving the shine a little bit, and then clicking the duplicate frame before repeating the process. Of course, if you want the shine to be fast, drag it more every time, and if you want it to be slower, then drag it only a little every time. After you've created enough frames that you can't see the shine anymore, set the last frame in the animation to have a 2-5 second show time, so that you have a pause in the animation (you can change this simply by clicking on the '0 sec' text at the bottom of each frame and selecting an alternate value). You're now done, so save your masterpiece with File > Save Optimized As... and show it to the world!

Grunge Rubber Stamp Effect in Photoshop

2009-09-27T00:57:00.000-07:00

Lets face it - rubber stamps are an amazingly quick and easy way of marking something in real life, but recreating them in Photoshop is a little more difficult. Unlike real media, the electronic canvas does not have creases, folds, and underlying texture to distort the ink. Neither does an electronic stamp have problems with ink adherence, creating a unique effect every time it is used. That is not to say, of course, that Photoshop cannot reproduce these little nuances of real media. The aim of this tutorial is to describe a simple method to create grunge brushes, and to detail how these brushes can be used to reproduce realism in our rubber-stamped logos. Interested? Read on...

Step 1: Open up a stock image in Photoshop of any size and/or format. The best results for this tutorial usually involve large photographic images with effective color separation. Since the overall grunge effect will come out of this source image, it is best to select a photo with lots of vertical lines and straight edges going off at different angles. Rounded objects (especially 'natural' objects) do not work very well. From personal experience I can say that construction-yard pictures are ideal... although you may still need to experiment a little to obtain the optimal results.

Step 2: Ensure your background layer is selected in the layers palette, and prepare to vastly overexpose the contrast by selecting Image > Adjustments > Threshold from the main menu. A dialog box should pop up. Drag the slider nearly all the way to the left, leaving only the most prominent lines and details present. When you are finished, press the OK button to finalize your changes.

Step 3: Open up a new blank document (via File > New) of any size with a single white-filled background layer. Click on the foreground color swatch at the bottom of the tools palette and set it to red. Select the horizontal Type Tool and create your type. In my example to the left I used the 'Gill Sans MT Ext Condensed Bold' font with a size of 250pt.

Step 4: Select your text layer in the layers palette and rasterize the text via Layer > Rasterize > Text. This will allow you to modify the text like a brushed object. At this point you can further enhance your text as you see fit before going any further. I chose to add a simple border using the Rectangular Marquee Tool and PaintBucket Tool.

Step 5: This stage is entirely optional, but I find that it often helps to give the logo a little skew via Edit > Transform > Rotate. Logos at perfect right-angles to the canvas look fake and ruin the illusion of real media that are are trying to create.

Step 6: Go back to your original photo document that you created in steps 1 & 2. Switch to the Magic Wand Tool and click directly inside a black-color area of your photo. Expand your selection to all black areas via Select > Similar. Now that you have all the black areas selected, its time to Edit > Copy and Edit > Paste them over to your logo document that you made in step 3. The 'grunge' layer should automatically go to the top of the layers palette.

Step 7: Hold down CTRL on the keyboard (OPT if you are using a mac) and click on the grunge layer's thumbnail in the layers palette with your mouse to reselect the grunge object. Then, without losing your selection, make the logo layer active and press DELETE on your keyboard. Now all you have to do is lose your selection, hide/delete your grunge layer... and its done! All quite simple really!

'Out Of Bounds' Images in Photoshop

2009-09-27T00:55:00.000-07:00

An "Out of Bounds" (OoB) image is an interesting concept that, I'm sure, you've seen many times on the internet and in magazines and wondered how it was done. Well, wonder no more - I'm going to lay it all out for you in this concise and easy-to-follow tutorial.

Step 1: First, as always, you have to choose an appropriate image. For this lesson, I've chosen this image of a Goat (i.e. the image on the left). What made this image appropriate is the position of the car and the direction it's facing. You should be able to tell when an image is appropriate after trying a few for yourself. As with anything else, practice makes perfect - or, at least, a reasonable facsimile of perfection.

Step 2: Using whatever method you're comfortable with, the next step is to extract the object - in this case, the car - from the rest of the image. As you can see in the image to the right, I only needed the front half, so I used the Pen Tool to get what I needed and stopped when I knew I was inside of the area that I was going to frame. (If you haven't started using the The pen tools let you draw smooth-edged paths.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt="">Pen Tool, yet, you really should. It's so much easier than you think, once you get the hang of it). Once you've made your selection, hit Control-J (Mac: Command-J) on the keyboard to copy it to it's own layer. You should then hide this layer to stop it interfering with the next few steps.

Step 3: Next, using the The marquee tools make rectangular, elliptical, single row, and single column selections.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt="">Rectangular Marquee Tool, we make a box then, using Select > Transform Selection, we move and reshape the box to fit. When in Free Transform mode, you'll notice that the tool tip changes when you hold Control (Mac: Command) on the keyboard. With this, you can grab any corner and move it wherever you like. The control points in the middle of each side now work like they do in Image > Transform > Perspective. Go ahead and move it around and, when the selection looks good, create a new layer on top of your source image (beneath the cutout you made in step 2) and fill the box with white. You can do this, easily, by making white your foreground color and hitting Alt-Backspace (Mac: Opt-Delete) or Edit > Fill. Now, use Select > Modify > Contract to make the selection smaller. I used a 30 pixel setting on this image, but it's a fairly high resolution one, so you'd have to set yours to whatever fits. With the selection contracted, hit the Backspace (Mac: Delete) key to clear the selected area and make it a frame-shaped object. Don't de-select just yet though.

Note: It might be easier for you to complete this step before cutting the object out so you can see exactly how much of it ends up outside of the frame).

Step 4: Now, with the selection still visible, switch to the original image and hit Control-J (Mac: Command-J), - again to bring the selected area to it's own layer. If you've, somehow, lost the selection, you can get it easily with the The Magic Wand tool selects similarly colored areas.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt="">Magic Wand Tool - with Contiguous set to "On", just click in the blank area inside of the frame, with the "frame" layer selected, of course. Now, you'll want to merge this new layer with the "frame". This "framed" layer will need a Stroke applied to it. Go to Layer > Layer Styles > Stroke, or click the first button in the Layers Palette and choose Stroke. Make it black and keep it to just a few pixels - enough to see but not so much as to look out of place.

Step 5: You're going to need to place a layer at the bottom, filled with white, to use as a backdrop.

The next thing we need is shadows. In this instance, the car was already casting a decent shadow in the original image, so I cut that out and placed it above the "framed" layer and below the car layer. As you can see, I selected the area that would appear from the inner edge of the "frame" to the outer edge of the image and blurred it a bit. This just makes the whole thing fit together better. Next step is to duplicate the "framed" layer and, with the lower layer selected, go to Image > Adjustments > Hue and Saturation & slide the Lightness slider all the way to -100%. I know that there are other ways to make Drop Shadows, but I just happen to like the old ways. Pick up the The Move tool moves selections, layers, and guides.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt="">Move Tool and use your arrow keys to move the "shadow" down and to the side. I went to the right, in this image, because the light appears to be coming from the left. Also, the car's shadow is a little to the right and it's more pleasing to the eye when you can be consistent with things like light sources and shadows. When they don't match, it leaves the viewer with a "something's wrong" feeling. Even if they can't actually see that a particular shadow is out of place, they'll still get that feeling and will be left with a bad impression of your work...

Step 6: ...Ahem...sorry...little tirade there. Anyway, back to the project! You'll want to blur the "shadow" layer a little via Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and reduce it's opacity. The shadow cast by the object should be the same opacity as the one cast by the "frame". If you've created both shadows yourself, then you can just set them to the same number on the Opacity slider. In this case, my car's shadow came from the image, so it's opacity setting was different from that of the "shadow" layer. I had to set it by eye and here's another place where personal preference comes into play.

Now all you have to do is unhide the cut-out layer you made in step 2, and you are finished! The image below shows the result of all my hard work. As you can see, I made the "frame" at an angle to match the direction the car is facing and cut off the back end of the car to better illustrate that it is coming from inside of the "picture". Little touches like that can make a world of difference. Now, get to work on one of your own! Vrooom! Vroooomm!!

Thermoptic Camouflage in Photoshop

2009-09-27T00:53:00.000-07:00

Thermoptic camouflage, commonly known as the technology which allows the 'Predator' to become virtually transparent in the eponymous series of films, has been a popular component of sci-fi ever since it was first shown off in 1987. Whilst modern interpretations of this camouflage usually involve lots of computing power (or tricky editing) for moving video, it is remarkably simple to duplicate this effect for single-frame images using only Photoshop and a little filtering know-how. Interested? Read on...

Step 1: Before we can begin, you need to obtain a simple background image of any size and/or resolution showing a suitable location. I chose this one of the New York subway:

Step 2: After opening your source picture in Photoshop, find another image, this time of the character that will be camouflaged. I chose the 'Alien'. Pop the images side-by-side so you can work with them more conveniently.

You now have two choices - you can either select the outline of the character witrh the polygonal Lasso Tool (L) or you can use (as I did) the extraction filter (via Filter -> Extract). If you choose the latter method, pick the edge highlighter tool (B) with a relative small brush size and draw a line following the edges of your character. Zoom in and pan as needed. Don’t be afraid if you have blank spaces inside the character, and if you make a mistake use theThe Eraser tool erases pixels and restores parts of an image to a previously saved state.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt=""> Eraser Tool (E). After you have circled your character, switch to the Fill Tool (G) and click inside the character outline that you have just drawn. This will make your outline fill up with color. Now press OK and you should only have the alien image over a transparent background.

Step 3: Click on the Move Tool (V) and make sure you have the alien layer selected. Now drag and drop the alien from the second photo onto the first photo with the background. Move it around and/or resize it so it looks good on the background. Select your first layer (i.e. the background) & press Ctrl + A to select it all and Ctrl + C to clipboard it. Duplicate your alien layer by right clicking in the layer tab and choosing Duplicate layer from the dropdown menu. Select the second layer (i.e the alien layer), CTRL + Click this layer, and press D on your keyboard so that the color swatches revert to the default black/white. Choose Filter > Render > Clouds from the main menu to render a simple cloud effect in the shape of your selection. You won't see this effect at first, of course, because the top layer is covering it, so click on the eye check box next to the topmost layer to make it dissapear and the layer become invisible.

Step 4: Making sure you have the second layer selected, take the Rectangular Marquee TooThe marquee tools make rectangular, elliptical, single row, and single column selections.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt="">l (M) and create a rectanglar selection around the entire picture. Now make a new work area by going to File > New, and set the resolution to the exact same settings as your background image (if you don’t know these settings, you can right click it in windows explorer and choose properties > summary tab and click on the ADVANCED button). No matter what the background of the new image you need to fill it with black. Go to Edit > Fill and choose black as the fill color. Press OK.

Step 5: Now select the other work area in which you’ve made the rectangular selection. Leave it as it is and choose the Move Tool (V). Drag and drop the rectangular selection on to the second work area and position it so it matches the first work area.

Now on the second work area (the one with black and the silhouette of the alien in rendered clouds), Ctrl + Click the second layer's thumbnail in the layer palette to select the alien. Choose Filter > Sketch > Bas Relief. Change the detail setting to 13 and the smoothness to 6. Press OK to render the effect and merge all layers together via Layer > Flatten Image. Save the file anywhere you see fit, but ensure that you save it as a .PSD file. I called mine displace.psd. You can now close this document.

Step 6: Now back to the first work area. Select the second layer and delete it by right clicking it in the layer palette and choosing (guess??) Delete Layer. Now you wshould only have the background layer and the hidden layer of the alien. Select the background layer and run Filter > Distort > Glass. On the dialog that pops up, set the distortion to 8, the smoothness to 9. and load our displace.psd file as the texture, like this:

Step 7: It’s now time to unhide the alien layer. Click on the checkbox where the eye icon was previously showing to make the layer reappear. With this layer selected in the layer palette, set the blending mode to Overlay and the opacity to 50%. Of course these settings can differ from picture to picture, so feel free to experiment with them.

And there we go... all finished! This is the final result of all my Photoshop wizardry, clearly showing a camouflaged alien. Scary, eh? You can also see it HERE at a higher resolution. Have fun! :)

Create a Skull Tattoo in Adobe ILLustrator

2009-09-27T00:49:00.000-07:00

Lets face it - tattoos can look really cool, but only when designed properly and for the individual displaying them. In this tutorial you will learn about the Pen Tool, pathfinders, and transforming objects while making a fairly basic but cool looking skull tattoo. Once that's done, all that's left to do is add it to a photo of your arm to make sure it looks good, and then go to the tattoo artist to get it done for real. Simple!

Step 1: Create a new document - it doesn't matter what size, because you can resize vector graphics to any size you want without losing quality. Then, using the Pen Tool, draw the shape below (also known as a 'flair'), following all additional instructions:

Step 2: Select your flair, and copy & paste a new copy in front (CTRL+C to copy, then CTRL+F to paste in front). Then go to Object > Transform > Reflect and select horizontal to reflect the shape over the horizontal axis.

Step 3: With the Selection Tool (black filled arrow) active, click to select your copied object, move it to the left, then rotate the top right corner down a little (when you hover near the corner point, the cursor will change to the one shown below - you can then click and drag to rotate the object).

Step 4: Make a crescent shape using the The pen tools let you draw smooth-edged paths.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt="">Pen Tool again.

Step 5: Select the two shapes shown below, then click the Trim button in the pathfinder window (to bring up the pathfinder window, go to Window > Pathfinder). Trim will cut the bottom object in to 2 pieces where it is overlapped by the top object.

Step 6: Select the shape shown and move it in front of the other shapes (right click the shape once selected and choose Arrange > Bring to Front).

Step 7: Grab your Direct Selection Tool (the white filled arrow) and use it to select the shapes shown. Once selected, use the Trim pathfinder again.

Using the Direct Selection Tool, select the shape shown below and move it to the front.

Step 8: Now select all of your shapes, and give them a 1pt white stroke. Notice how the shapes are now intertwined?

Step 9: Your flair is now complete, so its time for some skull making. You will be drawing the right half of the skull, using the pen tool once again. I'll do my best to explain. Start at the bottom with a click, then click and drag each point on your way to a skull shape. When you get to the top, just click (no drag), then click the starting point again to complete the 1/2 skull. The left side does not have to be perfectly straight.

Step 10: Draw an eye socket and a half nose with the Pen Tool, then fill them with white. Zoom in for better control (CTRL+plus symbol)

Step 11: Here comes the fun part - select everything, then copy and paste in front (CTRL+C, CTRL+F). Then flip your copied objects over the vertical axis (go to Object > Transform > Reflect then choose Vertical). You should now have this mess:

Step 12: Now simply move your copied objects over to complete the other half. Let's get rid of the line down the middle of the skull. Select the right eye socket and right half of the nose and bring them to the front (right click & choose Arrange > Bring to Front from the context menu that pops up).

Step 13: Finally, select the two halves of the skull (not the eyes/nose) and click the Add to Shape Layer button in the pathfinder window.

The final result:

Simple Flash Preloader

2009-09-27T00:48:00.003-07:00

As the size of your flash file increases, so too does the time it takes to load it. Visitors to your site may get irritated if they have to wait for the animation to load. Using a preloader can help that - It will load all the necessary pieces prior to displaying the animation. It will also show its progress so visitors will be able to see how much is loaded and hopefully wait for it to finish!

Step 1
What we'll need to do is set up the necessary layers. We'll need one for Actions, which is the scripts being used for the preloader. The Text layer will show the percentage complete for the preloader as text. The Stroke is just the stroke outside the progress bar. We want the progress bar to fill up within the stroke. The Progress bar will visually show the preloader's progress by using a rectangle. And finally, the last layer is the actual animation you want playing after the preloader has finished.

Step 2
On Frame 1 of the Progress Bar layer I inserted a keyframe and drew a red rectangle 200 pixels wide and 20 pixels high:

I then selected the progress bar and hit F8 to make it a movie clip. Make sure the registration point is set as below. Why? Well... because we want the progress bar to fill from left to right!

In the Properties panel, name your progress bar preloader:

On Frame 1 of the Stroke layer, I inserted a keyframe and drew the following rectangle:

The above is just a stroke with no fill. The Stroke layer is above the Progress Bar layer. Why did we do it this way? Its quite simple really - we want the progress bar to fill within the stroke area. If we added a stroke to the progress bar itself, it wouldn't look right!

On Frame 1 of the Text layer I inserted a keyframe and added a text box as follows:

I then selected the text box and on the Properties panel I set it to Dynamic Text and named it loadText:

Step 3
Now that we have laid all the groundwork for our animation we can get to the script that will actually make this preloader work. On Frame 1 of the Actions layer add the following code:

var amountLoaded:Number = _root.getBytesLoaded()/_root.getBytesTotal();
preloader._width = amountLoaded * 200;
loadText.text = Math.round(amountLoaded * 100) + "%";

I highlighted the important pieces in the script. "preloader" was the name we gave the progress bar. "loadText" was the name we gave the text box. And "200" was the pixel width of the progress bar.

Step 4
On Frame 2 of the Actions layer add the following code:

if(_root.getBytesLoaded() == _root.getBytesTotal()) {
gotoAndPlay(3);
}

else {
gotoAndPlay(1);
}

What this script is saying is if the bytes that have been loaded equals the total number of bytes in the file then the preloading is done and you can go to frame 3 and begin playing the animation. If the bytes loaded does not equal the total then go back to frame 1 and keep preloading.

NOTE: You may be asking why frame 3 has blank frames for the Text, Stroke, and Progress Bar layers. This is because we don't want the preloader to display once the actual animation is playing, which begins on frame 3. Also, you may not even see your preloader display if your file size isn't that big. What you could do is add a few more objects to your design and then go to Control > Test Movie. The flash player should appear and your movie will play. On the Flash player menu go to View > Download Settings and choose the slowest setting. Then test the movie again and you should see your preloader working.

Animated Shine

2009-09-27T00:48:00.001-07:00

Cars look so shiny and new after a nice wash and polish... How about we keep them that way? With this tutorial, you'll learn how to add an animated shine to your car using a gradient and mask technique. No need to even get your hands wet!

Step 1: Find a nice image that you want to work with - I am using a picture of my car, a 2001 Mercury Cougar C2. The resolution of the image you choose will affect the quality of the end result (but also the filesize).

Step 2: Open a new document in Flash. I set my canvas size at 300 pixels wide and 200 pixels high. Go to File > Import > Import To Stage and choose your image. I named the layer CAR.

Create a new layer and call it GRADIENT. Using the The Rectangle Tool allows you to draw squares and rectangles.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt="">Rectangle Tool draw a rectangle to the left of your image making sure it is taller than your image and that it has no border. The fill should be a linear white gradient with a left fill of 0% alpha, a middle fill of 100% alpha and right fill of 0% alpha. That basically means it's going from transparent to white to transparent. You should have the following so far:

Step 3: Now let's create the areas where we want the shine to animate. Create a new layer and call it SHINE AREAS. Using the The pen tools let you draw smooth-edged paths.'); Activate();" onmouseout="deActivate()" alt="">Pen Tool I defined some areas. Make sure there is no border. The fill can be any color, but I used red because it's easier to see on my image. Here are my results:

Step 4: On your timeline, insert keyframes at frame 30 for each of the 3 layers as seen below:

Step 5: We want the gradient to move from left to right. It's position on the first keyframe is to the left. For the keyframe at 30 we want it's position to be all the way to the right. So click on the keyframe at 30 for the GRADIENT layer. Holding down the Shift key on your keyboard, move the gradient all the way over to the right.

Step 6: Now click on any frame between 1 and 30 on the GRADIENT layer. On the Properties panel at the bottom of your screen, there is an option for Tween. Set it to Shape. This will animate your gradient shape, making it move from left to right. You should see the following in your timeline to signify the tween is in place:

Step 7: If you were to hit the ENTER key at this point, you would see that the white gradient will move from left to right. Cool... but not exactly what we were looking for yet! There's one final step to finish it off. So, right click on your SHINE AREAS layer and choose Mask:

So now, instead of the white gradient displaying fully across the image, it will only display within the shine areas that were created! Here is my final result. Enjoy!

HyperNURBs Modelling (inc. Weights)

2009-09-27T00:44:00.000-07:00

Step 1 - Modelling the Pipe

The first and 'hardest' step is to make a cube. To do this, just point-and-click on Objects > Primitive > Cube in the menu. Every object created within Cinema 4D starts as a "primitive" object. It cannot be edited normally, except by Cinema 4D's own rules and configurations. Thus, in order to edit this cube as a more basic bunch of polygons, we must transform it into an Editable Poly. Yet again this is quite simple to do - just click on the "Make Object Editable" icon in the left menu.

Now that the object has been converted into its raw component polygons, we can get down to some serious business! Select the Polygon Edition Tool in the left menu, and then the Live Selection tool (as shown by the pictures below on the left and right respectively).

Select the uppermost polygon, right-click on it and select the Extrude option. Extrude "lifts" up the section.

Click and hold the mouse button while moving it to extrude the polygon. Repeat this step four times, until the object looks like this:

Extrude the bottom and right-side polygons, so that your model looks like ours below:

Now make a HyperNURBs Object by selecting Objects > NURBs - HyperNURBs. Really hard, huh? We are now ready to smooth this bunch of cubes. So, in the Object manager, drag down the cube object over the HyperNURBs, thus making it a "son" of this object and applying the smoothing effect.

An important point to notice is that the HyperNURBs will smooth ONLY the first son listed, completely ignoring the rest (i.e. if you have two sons, cube1 and cube2, and the cube1 is the first listed, only cube1 will be smoothen - cube2 will remain sharp). This said, it actually does smooth ALL the sons of the first son (i.e. Nested Objects). So, if you want to smooth multiple objects, compact them within a Null Object (Objects > Null Object) and then make the Null Object a son of the HyperNURBs object.

If everything has gone smoothly (if you'll excuse the pun), our pipe will now look nice and smooth... but still be far from complete.

Let's start by editing the top. Select the Edge Edition mode, which is exactly above the Polygon Edition button, and then click the Live Selection object. (Note: You MUST actually click the Live selection button even if it is already selected, because you must later edit the HyperNURBs weight via the Attributes Editor, which is only selectable via the Live Selection attributes. When you click the Edge Edition, the attributes editor is set to the Edge Edition tool, meaning that you wouldn't find the Weight editor). With this little issue clarified, select the top edges.

In the attributes manager, select HyperNURBs Weights, adjust it to 100% and then press the Set button. This will ensure that these edges have 100% weight against the smoothing, or, in other words, completely ignore the smoothing strength of the HyperNURBs. Cool, huh?

Repeat this step with the other openings.

Let's give a final touch to the side-opening to make it sharper. Select the inner edges and apply a 100% Weight to them.

And that's it - The pipe is done! It's good to remember that the weights can also be added to polygons and points as well as edges, thus ensuring a staggering level of flexibility. If you want, play around with the weights in other extruded sections and try to make something like this model we rendered earlier...

Simple Painterly Effects

2009-09-27T00:39:00.000-07:00

Photoshop is a fantastically well featured program which can take years to master. This does not mean, however, that superb photographic effects are beyond the grasp of novice users. This tutorial describes a very simple technique for creating images with oil-painted effects using nothing more than a photograph and the basic Photoshop tools. The end result is as impressive as it is simple!

Step 1: Open up a stock image in Photoshop of any size and/or format. The best results for this tutorial usually involve images with a high resolution and lots of bright colors. Once you have done this, select Layer > Duplicate Layer from the main menu to create a duplicate layer on top of your base photograph.

Step 2: Using your mouse, select the top/duplicated layer in the layers palette and set the blending mode to Overlay.

Step 3: With the top layer still active, load up the cutout filter via Filter > Artistic > Cutout, and enter in the settings on the left. When finished, press OK.

Step 4: Select the bottom/background layer using the layers palette, and run Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur with a radius of 4.2 pixels. You can vary this value to taste if needed. Press OK when you are finished.

Results: And its really that simple! You should now be graced with an image that looks as if it has been painted using traditional techniques. Of course, this technique is no substitute for the skills of a trained artist, but for under one minutes work, the effect is still pretty darned good!

Create a Character Mascot with Adobe Illustrator CS4

2009-09-19T03:01:00.001-07:00

Mascots are becoming increasingly popular in web design. In this intermediate Illustrator tutorial we will show you how to create a vector character mascot from a sketch in Adobe Illustrator CS4. The techniques in this tutorial can easily be applied to other illustrations, icons, and design elements; as well as legacy versions of Illustrator.

Final Image

Below is the final illustration we will be working towards.

Tutorial Details

Program: Adobe Illustrator
Version: CS4
Difficulty: Intermediate
Estimated Completion Time: 2 hours

Step 1

To start, create a sketch of your character. I like to use my Wacom pen tablet and Photoshop to create the sketch, but you can use whatever medium you choose. After creating the sketch, scan it (if you are using traditional media) and save it on you computer in an easily accessible spot.

Step 2

Now to Illustrator. Create a new document and place you sketch in your new document by going File > Edit > Place. Find you sketch on your computer and center the image on your document.

Step 3

Once placed, choose Template from the pop-up menu of the Layers panel, making it a little easier to trace the image in the following Steps.

Step 4

Now that we have the sketch on a template layer we can create new layer to trace the sketch. To create a new layer, press the new layer button in the bottom right of the Layers panel. Creating multiple layers helps with organization and workflow. It is also a good idea to name the layer by double-clicking on the new layer and renaming it in the Layers Options dialog. Name the first layer Face.

Step 5

With the Pen tool (P), start tracing the dominate shapes of the face, making sure you close the paths for easy filling, like the skin of the face and the hair. For some of the other face elements like the nose and mouth outlines, you can keep them as open paths. In the next Steps we are going to create a brush that make it easy to give the paths a tapped stroke look.

Step 6

Now that we traced the shapes and lines of the face we can create the irises of the eyes with the Ellipse tool (L). Create three ellipses, one big, the second smaller and centered within the bigger one, and the third off to side of the centered ellipse.

Step 7

Use the Ellipse tool (L) a create an oblong ellipse, considerably wider than it is tall. Drag the ellipse in the Brush panel and chose New Art Brush from the New Brush dialog. Once in the Art Brush Options dialog, change the Colorization to Tints, making it easy to change the color of the brush.

Step 8

Select the open paths from your trace, and select the new brush form the Brush panel. You might have to change the Stroke Weight on some of the paths from the Stroke panel depending on if the stroke needs to be thicker or narrower.

Step 9

Fill in the closed shapes with appropriate color and change the stroke color for the brushed paths.

Step 10

Using gradients creates a sense of a light source. For this tutorial we are going to imagine the light source coming from the left side of the character. Start with the face shape, and create a linear gradient from the Gradient panel. Use your skin color for the left Color Stop and a darker skin color for the right Color Stop in the gradient. By default you gradient is probably already looking correct, but if not, use the Gradient tool (G) and adjust the gradient from left to right, making the lighter part of the gradient on the left of the face.

Step 11

Go through the rest of you closed shapes and create linear gradient keeping in mind your light source. Also keep in mind you want smooth transition from shape to shape. A good example is the right ear shape. If you adjust the gradient so the lighter part of the gradient is on the left side, the ear will look funny. A simple fix is to reverse you gradient so the colors next to each other match. For the eye make the gradient vertical so the darker part of the gradient is at the top of the iris shape.

Step 12

The face is starting to look pretty good, but let’s add some more shapes and gradients to give a little more depth and character. Start by creating an ellipse with the Ellipse tool (L). Make the ellipse about the size of an eye and place right below the right eye. Fill the ellipse with a radial gradient from the gradient panel. Change both of the Color Stops to a pink skin color. Then, change the Opacity in the Gradient panel of the second Color Stop to 0. Copy (Command + C) and Paste (Command + V) the ellipse and place under the opposite eye.

Step 13

For the next shape, use the Pen tool (P) and create a shape that distinguishes the contour of the nose mouth and eyes. Next, select the main face shape, Copy (Command + C), and Paste in Front (Command + F ). Select the copy and the new face shape and press the Intersect button from the Pathfinder panel. FIll the intersected shape with the same gradient as the previous Step’s ellipses except make the gradient linear. Adjust the gradient with the Gradient Tool (G) and go Object > Arrange > Send Backward (Command + [) until the shape is arranged right after the face shape.

Step 14

Create a new layer from the Layers panel and name it Body. In the Layers panel drag the Body layer below the Face layer.

Step 15

In the new Body layer, trace the body of you character, like you did the head. Also trace the keyboard of the laptop, but not the screen.

Step 16

Fill the shapes in with some basic color like with the face.

Step 17

Also just like the face, fill the shapes in with gradients and draw extra shapes to create more depth. Great places to do this are in the clothing and skin.

Step 18

Create a new Layer and name it Computer.

Step 19

Trace the laptop screen with the Pen tool (P) like you have previously done.

Step 20

Again, fill it in with some basic color, add some gradients to create some depth, and finish it up with some extra Pen tool (P) drawn shapes. Use the technique in Step 13 to Intersect the new shapes so they align with the object below.

Step 21

Create a new Layer and call it Background. Arrange the Background layer in the Layers panel so it is behind all layers except the Template layer.

Step 22

To create the background shapes, first create an oblong ellipse with the Ellipse tool (L). With the Selection tool (V) rotate the ellipse slightly to the right. Copy (Command + C) the ellipse and Paste in Back (Command + B). With the copy selected, scale it slightly with the Selection tool (V). To scale it proportionally from the center, hold down Command + Option/ Alt + Shift. while scaling.

Step 23

Hold down the Option/Alt key and drag out a copy of the original ellipse to the bottom right side of the other two ellipses. Copy (Command + C) the original ellipse and Paste in Front (Command + F). Select the copy and offset copy and press the Intersect button in the Pathfinder panel.

Step 24

Fill the first two ellipse with a light blue-green and a dark blue-green. For the offset ellipse, fill it with a radial gradient with the first Color Stop a light green-blue and the second a darker blue-green color.

Step 25

We are pretty much done, but we can customize it more by adding a logo to the t-shirt and computer screen. For this tutorial, Grant was kind enough to let me use the Colorburned logo. No matter what logo you are using, place a copy on the Body and Computer Layer.

Step 26

After placing the logos, we want to make sure that the look like they have the correct perspective. For both logos we can get away with just rotating them slightly to the left. For some logos you might have to alter them considerable more. I suggest using the Transform tool. With the Transform tool (E), click and hold an anchor point, then press the Command Key (Ctrl for Windows), and adjust accordingly. Make sure you click and hold on the anchor before you press the Command Key, or else it will not work.

Step 27

For the logo on the t-shirt, we are going to keep the Colorburned branding color, but for the logo on the computer, we are going to make it look like it is stamped into the laptop. To start fill the computer logo with a gradient similar to the lightest gradient in your computer, but with both Color Stops lighter. Adjust the Gradient so the darker color is at the bottom of the logo. With the logo still selected, go Object > Path > Offset. In the Offset dialog, change the Offset to 3 px (this can change depending on the dimensions of your illustration) and choose Round from the Joins drop-down menu. Fill the offset shape with a linear gradient with the first Color Stop white and the second Color Stop a dark computer color. Adjust the gradient so the darker part of the gradient is at the top of the offset.

Step 28

Now all that is left to do, is press the visibility icon in the layers panel for the Template layer and you are done!

Final Image

Again is the final character illustration.

Handy Techniques for Cutting Out Hair in Photoshop

2009-09-19T02:56:00.000-07:00

When trimming out images in Photoshop, human hair or animal fur always proves troublesome and can be tricky to achieve a realistic look. Here are two techniques I use on images with both plain backgrounds, and those with a varied background tones, each achieving pretty decent end results.

Technique One: Images with Plain Backgrounds

The best photos are those professional studio type shots that are taken against a plain white background. These shots make it much easier to find the edges of the subject, but trimming out fine hairs can still be a little tricky. In this example we’ll be using the common Channel technique to trim out this lovely lady.

Open up your image in Photoshop. This particular image doesn’t have a pure white background, but it is a plain colour and has good contrast between the subject and grey backdrop.

Head over to the Channels palette and review each of the Red, Green and Blue channels. Each one will be made up of slightly different tones, pick the one with the most contrast between foreground and background. Drag this channel onto the new channel icon to duplicate it.

With only the new channel selected, adjust the Levels (CMD+L) to dramatically increase the contrast between light and dark areas. However, don’t go too far, as you’ll notice some horrendous pixilation appearing in the fine areas.

Due to the slight variation in tone of the background, it appears grey in the darker areas. Use the Dodge tool set to a low Opacity to target the highlights and brush over this background area to really brighten it up.

Switch over to the Burn tool and target the shadows to dramatically darken down the inner areas of the image to pure black.

Use the brush tool to finish off the blacks by painting over the remaining areas of the inner section of the image.

Inverse the image to switch over the black and white areas (CMD+I), and give a quick check for any stray areas that may have been missed by the brush.

CMD+Click the Channel thumbnail to load the selection, then turn back on the visibility of the original channels. Head back over to the Layers palette and copy the selection. Paste it on a new layer and hide the original to see the cut out image against transparency.

The selection has managed to trim out even the finest of hairs to give a realistic cut. Paste the photo against an alternate background. Zoom in and check for any light coloured fringes around the edges, especially if placed against a darker background. These can be reduced using the Burn tool set to Highlights and gently brushed over the outline of the image.

Technique Two: Images with Detailed Backgrounds

The Channels technique is all well and good for studio photography with plain backgrounds, but it gets a little more difficult on standard shots with detailed backgrounds getting in the way.

Open up your image in Photoshop. This image has a decent contrast between foreground and background, but certain areas of the hair do blend in with the darker tones of the backdrop.

Start by trimming out the clear edges with the Pen Tool, but when you reach the hair simply create a rough tracing.

Around the hair portion, aim to include only solid areas of hair that aren’t merging with the background, otherwise the lighter tones will mess things up later.

Make a selection with a feathering of 0.2 pixels to remove any harsh edges then paste onto a new layer. Reduce the transparency of the image so that the original hair line can just be seen.

Here’s where the fun begins! Use the Smudge Tool to draw in areas of new hair, using the original outline as a template. Begin with a 4px brush to flesh out the thick base hair and disguise the jaggy lines from the path. A Wacom Graphics Tablet really comes in handy here to speed up the process and help add varied line thicknesses.

The new hair will soon flesh out the image back to its original appearance. It doesn’t look too bad at this stage, but repeating the process with a thinner brush will draw in those individual hairs.

Use a 2px brush with the Smudge Tool to draw thin stray hairs in varied directions to add realism to the image.

The photo can then be placed on any background with ease, and displays a crisp cut-out with no fringing or loss of fine detail.

3D Text Shatter Effect - Cinema 4D

2009-09-19T02:54:00.000-07:00

I’m going to show you how to make a 3D text shatter effect. This effect is made in two programs, Cinema 4D and Photoshop.If you haven’t heard of Cinema 4D before it is a relatively easy to use 3d application, it is quite similar to 3dsMax or Maya. I will go pretty in depth with the Cinema 4D part, for all the inexperienced users, so bare with me if I go too slow. Now enough chit chat, let’s jump in.

Required Resources

In this tutorial we will be using some resources you will want to download before starting:

(Optional) Cinema 4d material
note: you will have to make an account to be able to download this material, it is well worth the effort though since it is one of the biggest c4d material providers on the web!

Final Image Preview

Step 1: Creating the basic text

Open up Cinema 4D and make a text object

Write “Media Militia” in the text object

Now rotate your text object: 90* on the X axis and -90* on the Y axis

Create an Extrude NURBS object

And drop your text in it

Change the object properties of the Extrude NURBS to 0 / 0 / 35

Now take your ExtrudeNURBS object and hit “C” (this makes your object editable)

Open this object and select everything (Ctrl+A) then right click your object and press “Connect”

You can now delete your old object that you just “Connected”

Rename your object “Media Militia”

Take the polygon tool and the Rectangle Selection tool, make sure to un check the “only select visible elements” box

Now with the scroll button of your mouse click on your “canvas” and you will see that four different views just opened up, we will be using the top view

So middle click on the top view to make that view bigger, and select the first “M” letter of Media Militia right click on it and press “Split”

This creates a new object with just the “M” now delete the selection you have selected, this will delete the “M” from Media which leaves you with an “M” object and a “edia Milita” object. Rename the object you just split to “M”

Now go back to your “Media Militia” object and select and split the “t”, just as we did with the “M”. Delete the “t” from your Media Militia object and rename the “t” you just split to “t”

Middle click on your screen and go back to perspective view. Take the Live Selection tool and on your “M” object select the shown polygon:

Right click on your screen and select “Extrude”

Add 350 to the offset

Go into Top View and select your “t” object, press Ctrl+A (to select all the polygons) then take your Scale Tool and scale up the X axis (or the red axis) to 220

Go back to Perspective View and select the shown polygon with the Live Selection tool

Right click on your screen and select Extrude and add 1000 m in the Offset

Take your Use Model tool and the Live Selection tool

Make a floor

Go into Right View, select your three text objects and move them right on top of your floor

Now make two copies of each text object, and place each copy underneath it’s original, name each object as shown below

Create a Shatter Object and copy it, name one shatter object “Shatter 1” and the other one “Shatter 2”

Change the strength of the “Shatter 1” object to 20 %, and the strength of the “Shatter 2” object to 10%

Select both Shatter objects and copy them twice, now place a Shatter object in each copied text object (match them up according to their number as shown)

Now select all of your text objects ending with either a 1 or a 2 and take the Live Selection tool

And move the “green axis” up 14.3 points, so that it is on top of the original text object

Go into top view, take your Polygon tool and select all your text objects ending with “1”

Make sure you have no polygons selected (left click anywhere on your canvas to de-select any polygons you might have selected)

Right click on your canvas and select “Knife” (make sure the visible only is checked)

Now start randomly cutting from one side of your text to another, do this around 30-60 times (this will make the shattered pieces smaller)

Make sure you don’t leave any long polygons like the extruded M and T uncut

Keep cutting until you have something like this

Now do the same for the text objects ending with “2”

After that go into side view and start cutting up the text objects ending with 1 and 2 just as we did earlier (make sure to un check the “Visible Only” box)

Now select all your “2” text objects and scale up the green axis using the scale tool

Then move it down, so that the top of the letters are slightly on top of your original text

Now take all the “1” text objects and scale them up as well

Then as we did before move them down, so that the top is a little higher then the original text

Step 2: Adding Light and textures to our image

Make a basic light

Make three copies of it, and name them 1, 2, 3, 4 accordingly

Change the Intensity of the first three light objects to 45% and change the intensity of the 4^th light to 70%

Now select the 2^nd 3^rd and 4^th light objects and change the shadow to “Shadow Maps (Soft)”

Now go into top view and move each light as shown below

Go into side view, select all your lights and move them up a bit as shown

Now we are going to make the materials for our floor and for our text

Start by making a new material

Double click on the material (to open the material editor) and change the color to the following

Now check the boxes for Luminance, Bump, Specular, and Displacement

Change the settings to the settings shown in the screen shots below (In the bump and displacement options you will have to load in the metal texture image)

Now close the material editor, and drop the material onto the floor

This next part isn’t necessary but it gives your text a nice touch, it does take longer to render though.

We are going to load our downloaded material and place it on all of our text objects

Go into the render settings, and change the Output to the following

Then we are going to put on Global Illumination and Ambient Occlusion (just click the check box on the top, leave all the other settings on default)

Before we render our scene we are going to set our perspective view on a nice angle, I put my picture on this angle

Now hit the render button

This can take quite a while, depending on how strong your computer is, but after that we are done with Cinema 4d and we will go play in photoshop

Once it is finished rendering save it as a jpg format, and 300 dpi (dots per inch)

Step 3: Editing the picture in photoshop

Open your image in photoshop

Double click your layer and name it “Base”

Make a new layer under your base layer and fill it with white

Now add a white mask to your “Base” and with a large soft black brush (bring the opacity of your brush down to 50%) start masking out the colored edges

Now import your metal texture and resize it so that I covers the entire media militia text, desaturate the texture and change the blending mode to overlay.

Take your eraser tool and delete any harsh exteriors

Take your base layer and go to Image>Adjustment>Curves and change the settings to something like the following

Now import your ink texture, rasterize it, and name it Ink. Make sure you place it underneath the metal texture

Change the blending mode to multiply

Add a mask to the layer and get rid of all the dark areas surrounding the actual ink

Now duplicate this layer and hide the original, rotate and move your copy so that it is on top of the text, then with a very soft brush mask out the parts that stick out from the text.

Then after that change the transparency to 5%-50% (change it around so that you get a random look) and with a small brush start brushing the edges of the ink that is on top of your text

Duplicate your original ink texture and cover another part of the text and repeat the same process as with the other ink texture. Do this until all your text is covered with ink textures.

Now select all your ink layers and add them to a group, name the group Ink.

Change the opacity of your ink group to 40%

Now make a new layer, name it Shadow, and with a black color and a soft, big brush add a line around the text as shown:

Add a Gaussian Blur, 17 px, and bring down the opacity to 30 percent. Now delete any parts of the shadow that you don’t like with a big soft brush

And we are pretty much finished

If you want to go even further you can take the dodge and burn tools and make some highlights on your Base layer

Create your own cute fuzzy monster in Illustrator

2009-09-19T02:43:00.000-07:00

Follow these steps in Adobe Illustrator to create your very own super cute fuzzy monster character. We’ll be working with the basic shapes to start, then use a variety of gradients to add depth. We can then finish it off with some detailed fur effects to really lift the design from the screen.

Start work on the eyeball, draw a perfect circle on the artboard. Hold Shift to keep things in shape. Add a simple radial gradient spanning from grey to white. Adjust the gradient sliders so that the grey creeps in slightly from the edges of the circle.

Copy (CMD+C) and paste (CMD+F) the circle, scale down while holding Shift and Alt, then swap the gradient out for a couple of darker greys to form a pupil.

Repeat the process, but this time scale down the circle into position as the iris. Choose a nice bright colour for the eye, such as green. Switch the gradient to a dark and light tone of your chosen colour.

Draw a couple of specular highlights in the form of circles. Drop the opacity down to 80% to allow the underlying elements to show through.

Paste in one more circle, this time scale it up, and add a gradient from dark to light purple. The outer colour will blend into the main body, which will also be filled with this purple swatch.

Draw a huge rounded rectangle onto the artboard to form the basic body shape. Alter the curvature of the corners by using the cursor keys while dragging. Align everything up centrally down the vertical axis.

Draw a temporary shape that covers the bottom curve of the rounded rectangle. Use the Subtract from Shape Area option in the Pathfinder window to chop out the excess. To extend this flat edge, drag it downwards while holding Shift with the Direct Selection Tool.

Draw another rounded rectangle, this time to form the smiling mouth. Use another temporary tool and the Pathfinder palette to chop out the unwanted area, leaving a flat top edge.

Fill the mouth area with a radial gradient, fading it from grey to black adds a nice touch of depth, which would otherwise be a flat black colour.

Draw a couple of goofy teeth using the rounded rectangle tool. Copy the mouth shape, send it to the front (CMD+Shift+]), then use it as a Clipping Mask to hide and crop the teeth into place.

Draw a red oval to form a cheeky tongue, filled with a pink to red gradient. Use another Clipping Mask to hide the unwanted overlap.

Select the mouth shape, then go to Object > Path > Offset Path. Fill the new object with a purple gradient, then add a Gaussian Blur of around 8px to remove any hard edges.

Elsewhere in the document, draw a small circle. Use the Direct Selection Tool to drag the right hand point outwards. Remove the Bezier curves using the Convert Anchor tool under the Pen tool options, then click the New Brush Icon. In the options, choose New Art Brush, and change the color to Tints.

Now the fun part! Using the Brush tool, draw each piece of hair spanning from the body outwards. Here’s where that Graphics Tablet really comes in handy, but it’s still achievable with a mouse.

In no time the harsh outline will be invisible through the wealth of fur. Add a little extra to specific areas to flesh out the desired body shape.

Select one of the hairs, then go to Select > Same > Stroke Color. Head over to Object > Expand Appearance, then add the main body to the selection by Shift+clicking. Choose the Add to Shape Area option from the Pathfinder window to blend it all together. Add an Inner Glow from the Effects menu to add depth to the graphic, choose a darker purple and adjust the blur to control the amount of glow that appears.

Duplicate the brush graphic, then change its colour to something garish, the colour itself doesn’t matter, but it’ll be used to identify them later. Continue drawing a bunch more hairs throughout the internal body area of the monster.

Select just one of the blue hairs, then go to Select > Same > Stroke Color. Expand the Appearance then swap out the blue fill with a gradient that flows from a light pink to zero opacity. (Transparent gradients in CS4 is really required here, otherwise use pink to black and set the blending mode to Screen).

Repeat the process to fill out the monster with even more fur, the more layers, the cuter and cuddlier it becomes!

After plenty of mouse clicking or pen tapping the monster will be completely covered in thick fur.

Zoom in and tidy up any messy hairs, including any that overlap the mouth area. Copy and paste the mouth graphic, position on top and use the Pathfinder tool to crop down the hairs to size.

A simple vibrant background renders the monster illustration complete! The subtle gradients and little touches of transparency really help add depth to the design and allow it to pop from the screen.

Create a gear and render it realisticly with Mental Ray

2009-09-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

First, go to your modelling toolset, polygons>tool options> and make sure keep faces together is checked.

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Enjoy the tutorial!
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This tutorial is primarially focused on rendering. It will teach; Final gather with metal ray, DGS shaders, basic polygon modelling methods, Depth of field. You will need; Mental Ray, an HDRI map, and Maya 6.0

We will start by creating a cyllinder for our sprocket, 7.0 users may create a pipe, on the Y axis, as for users below 7.0 create a cyllinder on the Y axis, it should have about 4 spans along it's height

Scale the cylinder so it looks like this

Now we're going to need to make it hollow in the middle, so duplicate your cyllinder, scale it so it's a bit smaller in diameter, and make it a bit taller than the origional, then select the origional cyllinder first, then the duplicated, go to the modelling toolset, polygons>booleans>difference

Alright, now we've got a pipe, for 7.0 users that have created the pipe already, now is your time to get back to work! We're going to make the teeth of the sprocket, go into face mode, and select the two middle faces (do not drag your mouse when selecting, click them individually) and skip a span, follow the pattern below

Now go to Edit Polygons>Extrude Face, and click the arrow that should be pointing straight out, and drag it, then scale it so they taper slightly (Be sure NOT to click the manipulators in your tool box, it will cause your extrude manipulators to disappear, and you'd have to re-do it)

Rightclick it, object mode, ok now you've got the teeth! Let's modify what they're on! Just follow what the pictures look like, we're going to be using face mode, and the Edit Polygons>extrude face tools.

Scale the selected ones with the middle scale button

(keep these faces selected) now extrude them again, and go up with them.

It's a bit tall, so select the top, and bottom faces, and scale them so they come closer

We'll select the two faces all away around the middle inside of the sprocket and extrude them

Use the move manipulator

This will be a bit tricky to explain, but I'll try. Keep the same faces that you just extruded selected, now go to edit polygons>extrude face, scale it so it's not as high, then extrude it again, and make it come out a little bit more

Ok I'd say we're done with modelling it! Now we'll BEVEL it, apply a bevel with these settings Edit polygons>bevel

Ok for some of you, I don't know if the bevel was too big, but for me an error happens when you boolean an object, then try to bevel it, the bevel becomes very small, so if the bevel is too big for you make it about .3 to .4 if your bevel does look small like mine, we'll smooth it.

Ok! That looks pretty good, it's a bit high poly, but that's OK I suppose. Now we should move on to the rendering part of the tutorial, move your sprocket up so it rests on the grid, then create a polygon plane on it's Y Axis, and scale it out so it's very large. Check under it to see if your gear is going to far through it, we want it to sit on top of it

Select your plane, and apply a lambert shader to it, lighting/shading>assign new material>lambert Give it a greenish color, just because it looks cool

Ok! Now select your gear, and go into rendering toolset, Lighting/shading>assign new material>Dgs_material, and apply these settings

Ok you've got all the materials down, we're going to set the scene up for rendering, create an ambeint light with no intensity, and make it cast shadows

Now create a point light with no intensity, and make it cast shadows (these will be our shadow makers, we're giving them no intensity to disable the default lighting, and the reason why we're using an ambeint light and a point light is because, a point light creates hard shadows, and an ambeint light creates soft shadows, you combine the two and it gives you a nicer shadow)

Now we've got the lights, go to render globals Select mental ray out of the drop down menu, in the common tab of mental ray, change the size to any size you want, I chose full 1024, now over in the mental ray tab apply these settings:

Min sample Level 1

Max sample level 3

Turn all the raytracing sliders to maximum except shadows, or you could if you like

Final Gather, turn final gather on by clicking the final gather check box, give it 500 final gather rays

Image based lighting, click create, if you do not have an HDRI map you can download one from my DeviantArt account, by clicking this click http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/24226891/ I used the APT probe wich is included in the .rar file. you can choose to either set the mapping to spherical or angular, angular tends to look a bit better. I chose sphereical

Here is the final result

This is what yours should look like if you used Angular mapping on your HDRI, as you can see it's a bit brighter but the shading on the gear looks much better

How to model a screwdriver and render it with mental ray

2009-09-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

This is a basic modelling tutorial that will teach you how to make a screw-driver and render it with FG (Final Gather) With global illumination, HDRI (High dynamic ranged imagery) And DoF (Depth of field, optional).

Let us begin shall we, open Maya, and go to the modelling section. Now create a polygon cylinder on it's X axis, with 30 subdivisions around axis, 5 subdivisions along height, and 32 subdivisions on it's caps.

Now take your scale tool and scale the cylinder out on it's X axis a bit, like in the image.

Go into vertex mode, go at a side view of the cylinder, select the two middle spans.

And scale it using the middle scale button to make them smaller, and then select the span closest to the end of -X half of the cylinder and move it close to the end spans

Now select the end spans on the -X end and move them closer to it's nearest span

Select the 4'th span and scale it with the middle scale button to make it a bit larger, then move it closer to the 3'rd span on the -X end.

Select the two end spans, and scale them on their X axis, then move it to the -X direction.

Ok, we're pretty much done with it's basic shape, we'll need to boolean some sphere's into this, let's create a sphere with 30 subdivisions around it's axis, and 30 subdivisions along it's height on it's Y axis

Ok, we're going to need to turn this into a capsule like shape, we'll do this by going into vertex mode, and select one half, and move that end out quite a bit. I'd suggest you go into front view for this by clicking the on the tool-bar

Now we're going to scale it with the middle scale button, to make it smaller, and move it into position over the handle

Now dupilcate the sphere, and move it on the exact underside of the handle, try to make it as deep in on the handle, as the top sphere is.

Now select both spheres, then hit CTRL+G, to group them, then select your rotate tool, and hit CTRL+D to duplicate the spheres, then rotate them along the edge, keep doing this

Now smooth the handle twice Polygons>smooth

Combine (polygons>combine)all the spheres, then select the handle first, then select your combined spheres, then boolean difference them (polygons>booleans>difference), if your screwdriver handle dissappears, undo all the commands until your spheres are seperate, and then boolean them individually, if that doesn't work, start over with making your spheres. (what I had to do)=

Ok looking pretty good! Now we will start on the screw-drivers shaft. Create a polygon cylinder with the same settings as the last one, then scale it with the middle scale button to make it smaller, then scale it out on it's X axis

Now we're going to make it a standard bit end, select the three spans on the -X end, and scale it on it's X axis to make them closer together and then move them in the -X direction

Now select the two end spans, and scale them on it's +Z axis

Ok now let's boolean some cubes to it. Create a cube, and move it to the end at an angle, then duplicate it then select the shaft, then select a cube, then go to polygons>booleans>difference, now rotate the shaft 180 degrees and boolean again.

Now scale the end on it's X axis to make the edge a bit long

Ok, we've got the screwdriver model done, now we're going to go on to the materials, and render settings! Ok, select your shaft, and go into the rendering section, lighting/shading>assign new material>Dgs_material

Ok that's good enough for that! Now we'll make our handle a "Dieletric" material, go to lighting/shading>assign new material>Dieletric_material, give it any color you like, I chose a yellowish color by clicking the "col" white block, you can select a color for it.

Alright, now we're going to set the scene up for rendering, select your screw-driver, and move it up some, so that it's resting atop the grid, then create a polygon plane on it's Y axis, doesn't matter how many subdivisions it has, and apply a lambert material to it Lighting/shading>assign new material>lambert, and make it a tanish color

Now create an ambient light, with no intensity, make it cast shadows, then go to render globals Select mental ray in the drop down menu (if it's not there go to window>preferences/settings>plug-in manager, and check mayatomr) apply these settings in the render globals:
min sample level 1
max sample level 3
RAYTRACING SECTION, move all the sliders up to 10 except the shadow trace depth attribute
FINAL GATHER SECTION, check final gather, final gather rays 500
IMAGE BASED LIGHTING SECTION, click create, if you do not have an HDRI map, E-Mail me at bartonix@gmail.com and I will send you one, now over in your attribute editor for your HDRI map, apply these settings:

Make sure the mapping is on angular, and that you find where you saved your HDRI map

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Optional DoF

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for DoF you're going to need an extra screw-driver, a bit further away from this one. And perhaps a different color handle. I chose a blue-ish purple color

Ok, once you've duplicated your screwdriver and moved/modified it, select the screwdriver you want your camera to be focused on and go to display>heads up display>object details. Now on your new HUD, find it's distance from the camera and either write it down in note pad and copy it, or remember it. Now select the ground plane, and hit the right arrow key until you come upon the perspective camera (perspshape) scroll down to the mental ray tab on it, and click the little box by the attribute "Lens shader" scroll down and find the lenses in the pop up, and select "physical_lense" now on the attribute "plane" type the number the distance of the camera is, and put a - infront of it, (this will work in most cases, if not, put a +) now render!

How to turn your photo into movie-like effect using Photoshop?

2009-09-18T09:06:00.001-07:00

What you need to have: Adobe Photoshop
What you will learn: colour mood adjustments + depth of field effect + film effect
PS: ⌘ key for Mac users / CTRL key for Windows users

Colour mood adjustments

1. Adjust the Hue/Saturation: ⌘U/CTRL-U

2. Adjust the brightness and contrast: Menu > Image > Adjustments > Exposure…

Depth of field effect

3. Duplicate current active layer by dragging it to the ‘create a new layer’ button located at the bottom of Layer window.

4. Apply lens blur on the new layer on top: Menu > Filter > Blur > Lens Blur…
Adjust according to your own preference.

5. Click on the ‘add layer mask’ button at the bottom of Layer window. Then click and select the ‘Layer mask thumbnail’ (the white rectangle).

6. Select brush tool(b), set the master diameter to 400px. Then choose the focus point in the photo and click on it.

Film effect

7. Create a new layer by clicking the ‘create a new layer’ button located at the bottom of Layer window.

8. Fill the new layer with black colour: reset colour to default black & white (d), switch black colour to background (x), fill the layer (⌘-del/CTRL-backspace)

9. Set the opacity of the black layer to 70% by pressing ‘7′

10. Use erase tool(e), set the master diameter to 400px. Then start erase the center of the photo.

11. Flatten the image: Menu > Layer > Flatten Image and add noise: Menu > Filter > Noise > Add Noise…

Cinemascope (optional)

12. Add black bars on top and bottom of photo and it’s done!
Use Rectangular Marquee Tool(m) to select (drag) upper part of photo, hold the shift key and select the bottom part, fill with black colour (⌘-del/CTRL-backspace)

You can also add an extra step to twist the colour into this mood by using ‘Color Balance’(⌘B/CTRL-B). Drag the slider towards cyan and blue for Shadows, Midtones & Highlights.

How to Create a Realistic 3D Diamond Ring Using 3DS Max

2009-09-18T09:05:00.001-07:00

Here is an example image of 3D diamond ring. To create this ring we’re going to use four different elements and combine them together. Let’s start with the little diamonds.

Modeling 3D Diamonds

If you’d like to have accurate model of a diamond you have to check their ratios and shapes first. If you’d like to have just a diamond not knowing how does it look like you will end up with some unrealistic model. We are certainly going to use real ratios and we’ll create as realistic model as possible. I’ve made a quick sketch (don’t use it as a reference image because it’s not precise).

Modeling Diamond – Size

Let’s start with the NGon that has 16 sides. Go to Shapes -> Splines -> NGon and create one in the top view. Place it on position [0,0,0]. My one has a radius equal to 21.7. Once you have it we can calculate all the dimensions we need:

43.4 is 100%
43.1% of 43.4 is 18.7054
2.5% of 43.4 is 1.085
15.4% of 43.4 is 6.6836
53% of 43.4 is 23.002

Modeling Diamond – Creating the Shapes

Once we have all these dimensions we can create a diamond. If you’d like it to be perfect just use the numbers above but you can also round them and make it almost perfect which doesn’t matter for simple scenes like this one. It would probably make a difference if you were working on some real ring project that requires high precision but I think 3ds Max it’s not software created for designing professional rings.

Modeling Diamond – Extruding Your Shapes

Let’s extrude your NGon with amount set to 18.7054 and add a modifier called Edit Poly to your object.

After that go to Vertex sub-level and scale all the top vertices like on the image below.

When they are close enough you can use Weld Tool to weld them together.

The next step is to rotate entire object upside down and extrude top polygon that will be our gridle. Use 1.085 as the extrudion amount value.

Afterwards extrude it again using 6.6836 for the extrudion value and select all the top vertices again. Scale them down to 57%.

Ideal Cut

Once we have right dimensions it’s time to virtually cut it. It’s the hardest part because standard diamond shapes aren’t just made of a series of standard lines. To make it correct just follow the screenshots and instructions below.

First make sure you are using Cut Tool. This will allow you to create some more edges on top of the diamond.
Then go to a Top viewport
We have to start with the center part and create there two squares
The next step is to connect some vertices with the gridle. Make sure you are starting with the farthest vertex that is a part of one of the squares!
Select all the polygons around that are making specific shape presented on the fourth image and hit delete to get rid of them
Use cap to fill the holes
Lastly select all the vertices you’ve previously connected with the gridle and move them down in Front viewport. The value of this offset is hard to calculate but it’s around 1.2 Max’s units I guess
There are also some missing edges at the bottom of the diamond so you can simply use Cut Tool to create them.

Modeling a Ring

Modeling a ring is quite an easy task. Inner diameter usually varies from around 11mm to 25mm so let’s create a circle that has 10mm radius (20mm diameter). After that duplicate your circle and convert it to Editable Spline. Go to Vertex sub-level of Editable Spline and drag one of the vertices up. Most of the rings has a similar shape so it’s good to draw something like this to have an outline of how it is going to look like. Afterwards delete one segment of your circle.

Lofting

Then create a little NGon with 5 sides and a rectangle with rounded edges. Move one of the NGon’s vertices farther than the others.

Select the circle you’ve created in the previous step. Go to the Compound Objects -> Loft and pick a NGon as a shape.

Change the Path value to 30 and pick rectangle as a shape.
Change the Path number to 70 and pick the rectangle again.
At the end change the Path to 100 and pick NGon as a shape.

Try to adjust your ring’s shape according to the outline from the prevoius step. You can rotate and scale NGon and rectangle by going to the Loft’s sub-level called Shape.

Placing Diamonds

Now it’s time for the top part of our ring. You can place there all the diamonds and other things as you like. I’m not able to depict everything because it would be boring so here is a little preview of what it is made of. If you have any problems or questions regarding this step feel free to ask but I hope it’s clear enough how to create all the elements.

Materials

That’s very short and easy. Use VRayMtl for both materials.

Diamond material – diffuse: black, reflect: white, refract: white, IOR: 2.47, refractions subdivs: a lot more (like 50).
Gold material – diffuse: black, black, reflect: brown (rgb(187,164,70)), reflection glossiness: 0.8, refract: black, IOR: 0.23 or a little bit higher.

Scene

Create a plane and apply a pure white material to it. Create many omni light around but decrease their multipliers from 1.0 to 0.25. Place them randomly. You can add some random objects around (big objects or many smaller) and render your scene with the standard VRay settings and Global Illumination turned on. Use Irradiance Map + Light Cache for GI. You can also try to render it using HDRIs or you can use both lights and HDR image.

Conclusion

Again, this is what I got. I hope you enjoyed it. As usual the next tutorial is coming next week so don’t miss it!

Displacement Water

2009-09-18T09:04:00.001-07:00

Creating a realistic water surface in Photoshop is quite a challenge because it is the distorted reflection of the surroundings that makes the water look liquid. The displace filter is an excellent tool for making this distortion.

The displace filter "shifts pixels" in an image according to the brightness values of a displacement map. You can use any .psd file as a displacement map (if saved with "Maximize compatibility"). Displace uses the first and the second channels of this .psd file for horizontal and vertical displacement respectively. Each channel is a grayscale image. Medium gray (brightness 128) does nothing. Darker values will shift an image in the positive direction (in Adobe coordinates). Brighter values cause a shift in the negative direction. The amount of displacement can be controlled separately. At a scale value of 100, the displacement measured in pixels is equal to 128 minus the brightness of the displacement map. For example, a white pixel will shift an image 128 - 255 = -127 pixels at the corresponding pixel at that setting.

The following tutorial shows how to create a relatively simple displacement map and how to create a water surface with it. This method does not adjust for wave height and distances, but it produces good results if the water is calm and if the surface is not intersected by other elements.

Part one: creating a displacement map We start with making an image in which the brightness represents the height of the surface. Bright is high, dark is low. The dimensions of this image control the size and shape of the waves. Start with a larger image to create smaller waves.
Create a new file in RGB mode of 1000 pixels wide by 2000 pixels high. Go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise... Enter these settings: Amount: 400% Distribution: Gaussian Monochromatic Click OK Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur... Choose a radius of 2,0 pixels and click OK.
We will use the result of the previous steps as a bump map to create a representation of the tilt of the surface. We will do this separately in channel 1 and channel 2. You can ignore channel 3. It does not affect the displace filter.
Select channel 1 in the channels palette. Go to Filter > Stylize > Emboss... Enter these settings: Angle: 180° Height: 1 pixels Amount: 500 % Click OK Select channel 2. Apply the Emboss Filter again, but this time use an angle of 90° instead of 180°.
Now we are going to change the perspective. Stretching the base lowers the horizon. We would have to drag the corners to infinity to extend the water surface all the way to the horizon. We will not do that. Stretching to anything above about 3000% is enough. The perspective stretch only works between 0 and 700%, so we will stretch to 600% twice. This equals 3600%.
Unlock the background layer. Zoom out and go to Edit > Transform > Perspective. Drag one of the bottom corners to the side, to a width of 600% and hit Enter. Select the canvas with Ctrl+A / Command+A. Press Ctrl+Shift+T / Command+Shift+T to transform again. Crop away the area outside the canvas with Ctrl+A / Command+A and Image > Crop. Reduce the height of the image to make it square. In this case 1000 by 1000 pixels.
In reality, waves cause rotations in a reflection instead of translations. As a result, the horizontal distortion decreases towards the horizon. The vertical distortion does not. However, we have to adjust channel 2 as well, because the perspective change has caused aliasing near the horizon. We will use motion blur later to compensate for this.
First adjust channel 1: Select channel 1. Press Q to switch to Quick Mask Mode. Draw a white to black linear gradient from the top down across the image to create a gradient mask. Press Q to go back to Standard Mode. Now we have a gradient selection. Fill with medium gray (brightness 128).
Adjust channel 2 in a similar way: Select channel 2. Go to Quick Mask Mode. Draw a gradient to select the narrow part near the horizon where the waves are too large. Press Q to turn the mask into a selection. Fill with medium gray.

This is what the finished displacement map should look like with the blue channel hidden. Note that in the green channel, the bright areas will shift a reflection upwards, which represents a tilt towards you. The dark areas produce a tilt away from you. This may be a little confusing because it's probably the opposite of how your brain interprets the brightness variations. Save as .psd with "Maximize Compatibility". You may have to change the preference at Edit > Preferences > File Handling > Maximize PSD File Compatibility to be able to save with Maximum Compatibility.

Part two: creating a water surface We will create a lake in this valley.
First, we have to make a "flat" reflection which we will distort later with the displace filter. In this example, we will treat the landscape as a single background object. This only works if the background is very distant. Determine where the horizon should be. Select everything above this line and copy it to a new layer. This will be the reflection layer. Extend the canvas downwards to make room for the reflection. Flip vertical and move the layer down to mirror it with the background.
Near the horizon, almost 100% of the light is reflected of a water surface. At higher angles, the reflection component becomes smaller so you can see the color of the water itself. The color will be dark blue or turquoise if the water is clear. Of course, you can make any liquid you want by using another color.
Create a new layer below the reflection layer and link it to the reflection layer. Fill the area behind the reflection with the desired color. (You can adjust it later with Hue/Saturation.) Add a layer mask to the reflection layer. Draw a white to black gradient down from the horizon to show the lower part of the color layer.
Now we can add some wind. Before applying the displacement map, we will use motion blur to simulate the effect of the waves in the distance. The blur distance depends on the size of the image and the wind effect you want to create.
Select the reflection layer and Ctrl+click / Command+click the layer mask to make a gradient selection. Lock the transparent pixels by clicking the little checkerboard icon in the layers palette. Go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur... Use an angle of 90°. Set the distance value and click OK. Repeat the motion blur with Ctrl+F / Command+F. Unlock the transparent pixels and deselect.
Now we are ready to apply the displacement map. To prevent aliasing in high contrast edges, we will scale the layer up first. You can skip the scaling steps or use smaller values if you are going to scale down the final image anyway. The displacement map will stretch or shrink to fit a selection. To get the right perspective, the horizon of the displacement map should approximately coincide with the horizon of the scene. Here, we can just select the content of the reflection layer to get the right alignment. Only a little displacement is enough to make the water look liquid. The right amount of displacement depends on the size of the image and height of the waves.
Use Transform to scale the reflection layer to 400% in both directions. Ctrl-click / Command-click on the reflection layer thumbnail to make the selection. Go to Filter > Distort > Displace... Enter the amount of displacement. The horizontal scale value should be about 50% of the vertical scale. Also select "Stretch To Fit" and "Repeat Edge Pixels". Click OK. Find the displacement map on your computer and click "open" to apply it. Deselect and use Transform to scale back to 25%.
Now it really looks like water. Notice that the layer mask is also distorted because it is linked to the layer. This causes the reflectivity to change with the angle of the surface. We will make some final adjustments to complete the image.
Select the layer mask, go to Levels and change the white output level to about 240 to make the surface slightly transparent near the horizon. If needed, use the other sliders to further adjust the reflectivity. Finally, cut away the edges of the image if the repeated edge pixels are noticeable.

Soft Glow Effects

2009-09-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

This will be a short and simple tutorial for photo edit. I try this during my lunch time yesterday and find it is quite interesting. So, I wish to share with you guys too. This is best for those who like photo with glow effect or a little fantasy effects. Well, check this out.

Step 1

Open the image, if you wish to use mine then download here. CTRL + J to duplicate the image and rename as glow.

Step 2

Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur > 3px. Press “D” to reset the color mode to default (black foreground and white background). Go to Filter > Distort > Diffuse Glow and set the Glow and Clear amount to 18. Graininess to 0. Set the layer opacity to 60%.

Step 3

CTRL + E to merge both layers. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Set as below. Repeat 2-3 times to get the best effect by pressing CTRL + F.

Step 4

Create a new layer and rename as light. Grab the Polygonal Lasso Tool and make a selection as below. With Radial Gradient set foreground color to white. Drag it from top to bottom as shown. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur > 60.

Step 5

Reduce the layer opacity to 50%. Well, it is done! Hope you enjoy this.

Here is another example: