Simple glossy ring/torus

[TheBad1]

This tutorial will show how to make something like this :

Plug-ins: Align Object Object Align Feather/Old Feather AA-assistant

Depending on your starting texture/ shine the results can be pretty varied:

The same technique used to make the keyhole in the image below. Point Warp used to distort into shape ...

[delpart]

Three ring circus ... ;D That's what the example makes me think of it.

Like the highlight thing especially. Saw how it could it be done in other manners I think outside of the radial approach from this.


Examples of the tut done in black with a tonal shift from using white balance to color the highlight and the torus slightly:



And messing around with other highlights:



And that example of the texture not being a good starting point for something like this. Outcome:

Turning this:

into this:

And I added back in a background of the pattern after merging it with the black torus just to show the blend ... and because it looked nifty. Of course tomorrow I'll be probably muttering something along the lines of "WTF was I thinking ..."

[blackpenny]

Yay! A new tutorial! Thanks Welshy!

First one, by the book:



Then I used Madjik's Donut distortion:



And Droste effect:



And I will be playing some more.

Cool results delpart! The last one looks really neat.

[delpart]

@bp: Thanks ... even in the daylight I'm not as put off as I thought I'd be.

I love the Droste effect on that. I was looking for that before and didn't find it ... (looks like I just found it using the google pdn search. I must have had a typo before).

Now I can do a different volume distort I "think" I needed ...

See, this is what tutorials are supposed to do. Open up everything.

[TheBad1]

Jan 14, 2012 5:51:31 GMT delpart said:

Of course tomorrow I'll be probably muttering something along the lines of "WTF was I thinking ..."

I laughed long and hard at that. Believe me mate, in 4 years I've opened up PDN on a Sunday morning never knowing what I'm going to see. Sometimes pleasantly surprised ... t'other times, glad I'm not single because they were serious beer googles

Great results mate, nice to see how you've run with it

@ B'Penny ... great results. Again great use of the tut. Love that Droste effect. Very effective

Inspired by my own tut thanks to someone else ... can't be bad

------------------------------------

I was going to post a new image when I finished it tonight, but off to reply to jackpelter on the main board ;D ;D

[blackpenny]

Yeah, I couldn't resist using Droste. I should put a link to it when I mention it, because it's in the Plugin Developers forum and not with the other plugins.

Hmmm ... wonder if I can work in Gridgrad somehow .....

[TheBad1]

I love Droste ... pretty versatile, would be great to have a few other options on the UI though. But we can't have everything

[barbieq25]

I agree with the Droste but boy at times in the right hands like Sargon - textured effects with kaleidoscope - well - stunning!

Anyway, got side-tracked gain & here I have tried out your wonderful tute & of course, had to push a bit more now that the kaleidoscope world had been opened up but also got me thinking & experimenting...

Started with Newton fractal in the circle & did the PI twice? In any case, a bit of cleaning & a bit of PDNing when I thought of something new made for a great day.

Here tis:

Also wanted to say thanks ever so much to Welshy for taking the time to write the tutes. Clear & easy to follow with really cool results. Now I am off to try something else with it.

[delpart]

Okay, I've seen how Droste can seemingly blend the effect to create overlap ... Sometimes at least.

But curiosity has got the better of me on how Minners and this one by BBQ get the circles to interlace like that.

I've created similar illusion a couple of times in passing with some lines and such but not in a lattice or higher level of interweaving. And not with objects like this. My thought is it would be something to do with layer rotation, but we're not working with meshes, etc to make that work.

(Not that I need yet another thing to figure out, but I just dont recall seeing anyone cover it, or if I did, I didn't understand what I was looking at before now ...)


Also, simply stunning blend and impressive control over Droste there ... (My manners these days.)


Random thought: I really should spend more time on things before just hitting the "print" button in my head and thus posting some things (text and art included). Its not "beer goggles" but I dont trust my perception much to begin with. My mind does seem to fill in blanks when reading/writing and of course with some of the PDN work. Sometimes it fills in far too much for comfort and I come back to making edits where I'm filling in 50 missing words from a few short paragraphs ... Break the concentration, take a walk, think about anything else, return with the red pen and really wonder about myself way too often.


*EDIT: I probably should have spent some time searching, testing, etc ... just felt like asking since I'm not wanting to get stuck ... again.

[TheBad1]

@ Barbie' ... absolutely awesome. From the colours - to the rings and love the addition of the droste 'kiss curl'

Thinking and experimenting is good Looking forward to seeing the latest experiments ...

@ Del ... have a look @ Sargon's video, you get the jist of links there

Click

[delpart]

Ah ha! I'd looked at it and didn't make the connection before. Thanks for saving me some frustration WB and anyone else who would have posted the same thing up for me. And once again, thanks to Sargon for these freaking awesome videos.

(Ack, now I sound like I'm in an awards show, "I'd also like to thank the producers ...")

**EDIT: In a nutshell ... duplicate layer and transparent gradient blending to achieve ...

[TheBad1]

You're welcome mate. Another way on individual links is to make your links, select one with magic wand set to Global, then use transparent gradient or eraser ... hope you understand this:

[delpart]

Yup. Figured it would require some fine tuning. The video, like many things, does require some "further knowledge" to understand how to apply it fully or to different situations.

Funny, I'd already figured I would have to create some form of masking to work with a more complex shape and the wand certainly does illustrate creating this. I just wish that darn thing's AA worked better ... I know, 4.x and all that, but its still frustrating, regardless of sensitive level etc, to have to clean up after it ... in my experience that is ...

I'm still fighting with the need to do anything that is on the level of finite control or near drawing ... Mainly because it seems that I have to use Undo about 50 times every time I pick up a brush or similar tool (relatively speaking) ... hence why I'm still at stage one with the smoke tut concepts for all that.

However, more comfort (knowledge on how to correct/create), more control (less is more, especially with smudge), less analyzing (dont think about it, just keep clicking) equals more art and less anger closing of PDN with "dont save" selected ... ;D

[blackpenny]

Great result Barbieq - love the colours!




Droste and Gridgrad

[delpart]

Gridgrad? Is there another gradient tool I've missed!?

[aislin]

I must have missed it too...

[TheBad1]

I'm meant to be going to bed ;D

Grid-Grad was a competition trialling this by Pyro' ... forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/22536-wotw-36/

A great plug-in. BP has inspired me to try it a bit more again ...

[delpart]

Yeah, that's not on the list anywhere ... Plus I was searching on the wrong thing to start with ...

Searching on Grid Gradient I get the right thread from the start. Woot. Another toy to play with and probably easier than using Sqwirkle Warp or drop shadow, etc to generate a clean starting point.

Thank you.

[barbieq25]

BP, I just love, love your droste image. Reminds me of octopus tentacles. Octopus & nautilus - awesome. Fabulous combination of textures & perfect colour!

[blackpenny]

Delpart, gridgrad is loads of fun and totally addictive. You'll see. I nearly worked it to death when I first got it.

Thanks for the link Welshy, I should add it when I post something that uses it. Bookmarked now. It hasn't been released to the general public yet, has it?

[Sargon III]

Sorry Welshy, not trying to hijacking your tute.
@ delpart, for chain links, sometimes the old-fashioned way brings much better result in some cases, or in most cases even if it is a little slow,
What I mean is, as long as PDN supports layers, then just Lasso select the required part from the bottom layer, copy it and paste on a new layer on top then apply the drop shadow if it needs ( drop shadow is easy to apply with this method if you know how to deal with selection modes).
With this way you will get the most clean result, always this step should be the last step after applying AA and other effects.



I know I can't explain it with words better than this, so I am attaching this simple PDN file to clear the method if your are interested.

Attachments:

[delpart]

Now that will take some experimenting to implement for sure. But I do see what you mean about being able to better control adding shadow. I hadn't gotten around to this yet, but I had figured I would need to add a least one more layer to blend that more easily. Looks like I was mostly correct.

Thanks for the PDN file. The most certainly saved a lot of explanation. It does remind me of what I've been trying to learn with gradient blending as well. Or in this case, how to keep straight when lighten and other blending modes are *not* needed and the best way is clipping the entire layer down to a selection.

And actually your text description would have worked well for this. This could be because I'm becoming more familiar with PDN but with the PDN file to go with that, it was quick to grasp what you meant.

Again thanks again, because what I had intended to do eventually from WB's initial description with selections was the inverse of what should be done. At least according the note I wrote on the back of this credit card statement ... ;D