How to get displacement to alter image?

[delpart]

Okay, I've got an idea I want to create for the SOTW. But I'm not sure how to make it happen as I've never been able to understand the tutorials for warping an image with displacement.

I can bump the daylights out of something using alpha masks and such, but I dont understand how you get the distortion to work using most of the displacement tools.

The concept always seems simple enough, but i've never managed to get the flag tut to work ...

I often like to think I'm as smart as I was decades ago, but this sort of thing leaves me running in circles like a horse in a barn fire and looking about as intelligent.

Any help, pointers, directions to better tutorials, mini-tutorials, etc would be greatly appreciated.

I just dont want another idea to go by the wayside because I cant figure out something that seems to be a stand of the digital painting tools again.

*** EDIT: I know this is not rocket science. I think I understand most of the alpha mask approaches ... I think I even understand some of how displacement would work ... I just dont see how a rectangle becomes warped along the contours and cant make that part of it happen ...

The best example is the flag thing. Rectangle turns into wavy rectangle. The shadows etc I can create, just not that aspect of the warp.

I also know I've just got some sort of cognitive block going on here that keeps me stuck doing the same thing over and over again regardless of tools or time. So far I've spent about 20 hours trying to figure this out and I'm at my wits end.

Please and thank you.

[Sargon III]

So you want to displace an image using the image itself as a mask, or a efferent pattern?
There is two plugins for this , Displacement and Alpha Displacement, they give same result, but AD is more advanced because you can displace an image using another image as a mask or same image, I am not sure how far you went with these two plugins, or even if this is your question, but some examples of what you are trying to achieve would be helpful.

In this tutorial -not sure if you have seen it before- I used a second image for the displacement in AD plugin to give a rectangle shape a 3D effect.

But in this one, I used the AD direct on the image itself.

Hint, for best result, use Gaussian blur on black and white image then apply the displacement.

[delpart]

Thanks Sargon. And special nod to Lance for pointing me to his Glass tut on the old fans forum as this was also helpful in getting one step closer.

Sorry for a late reply ..., got life coming at me from about ten different directions with a real whammy this morning.

I think I get where my logic is broken though and what I was confusing (bump-map morphing of a spline or similar 3D object, vs color shifting using something akin to solarize based on saturation level, etc). After I get a chance to sort through my testing etc I'll post more specifically on what I'm thinking I want it to do and where it seems to fail my expectations. Main issue appears to be with getting pure 255 to look right but I shouldn't expect that as I've learned enough to know now this is far from optimal for a lot of things.

Suffice to say, what I see in the 3D rendering world does not apply one to one without some artistic help in the 2D approaches ...

Just wanted to make sure I acknowledged this sooner than later just in case I do get off track from all this ...

[delpart]

Posting tests as thanks and if anyone else finds the thread can see some other examples of this and that later on ...

Taking a few to push this around some. Yet another learning curve here plus dismissing what my head keeps telling me this should be doing vs what it actually does. Displpacement definitely has a garbage in and out factor and pretty much any flaw in the alpha blend of either the mask or the destination layer will drastically alter the outcome. As I've mentioned elsewhere, many of the tools directly use alpha vs other methods to alter an image and these often dont show up with normal blending methods.

In some cases flaw isn't correct or fair. Some of the those subtleties are what make one illusion work while destroying another. Getting to learn how to see the angles using Xor of all things is even helping here in gaining some idea of what I might be looking at before I even consider moving a slider.

Okay, so here's some examples delpart style on what I've tested out and such.

First breakthrough using alpha blending as well as displacement. Due to working with an optical illusion background however it has a few issues. So here's just the top layer colored as it looks cool by itself:



Primitive subtle gradient base created with median to work from for deeper testing:



Using median to smooth blended primitive with displacement of complex background. Sort of works to avoid a few problems with deep relief when mapping to some shapes. Again, primitive fast testing:



Fun with primitive to create complex light and shadows with obvious alpha flaws to work around:



Colored text displacement on that image. inverted and colored of alpha blend to highlight the displacement for showing it here:



Non-alpha blended displacement of text layer on top of image:



Alpha blended and displaced for a blend that sort of works. This is where I need to probably work on layer blending and such some. Though I found the various alpha blends seem to match/work without fighting with the almost pure alpha when dealing in this color range ... obviously with color it has other impacts that may or may not require more layers ...

[barbieq25]

Most of what you've said goes right over my head but I do like the outcomes & the fact that you feel you have made a breakthrough or at least some headway is good.

[delpart]

Thanks BBQ. I had hoped I wasn't delving too deep into this. Or confusing language on some parts of it. That and I'm not sure half the time what I'm seeing is actual or for that matter how to describe it without video of the stuff in motion ...

Figured someone might correct me or something if I was off.

Not for not, alpha displacement works differently than I thought it did. Like a lot of art techniques you have to sometimes work with things that dont look anything like the final outcome more or less underneath it all. The illusion is often greater than the brush stroke or something like that.

[barbieq25]

Is ok Delpart, some things go over my head & I am old enough to know to let them go. However, I am sure that other may understand all of it. It's just that there is a lot of maths stuff or what seems to me like maths stuff, in using computer programs, even a paint one

Maths is always best with dollar signs. Then I can do anything! Please just don't tell my students. Working with decimals now involves doors, windows & cheesecake or pizza, but they got the hang of it

[Sargon III]

Me as well, not sure what exactly you are trying to do or say , the images that you have posted are understandable of how alpha displacement alter an image, but what I know in alpha displacement plugin is that the relationship between white/black and the speed of the displacement is a direct relationship, so based on this:
gray (127/127/127) is neutral "or zero speed of displace, no mater how far you move the sliders"
White (225/225/225) has a maximum speed of displacement.
Black (0/0/0) has max speed same as white but in the opposite direction.
And other colors are within these two speeds, it is a linear equation.

[delpart]

*EDIT: Sargon. Sorry for the confusion. Kudos on that translation into text though. That combined with DPY's page on how it functions helped me with trying to figure out how to use the Neutral setting a little more. Also, what I probably need to do is stop being so random on how I'm learning all of this.
As usual I'm getting more confused by even trying to explain it.

A little more with the numbers though ... RGB values matter. Alpha value as well to some degree but since the good displacement tool uses RGBA Averaging somehow this isn't as much of a factor.

The one value (eek, that's its name actually) that doesn't make sense sometimes is having a slight variation in the Value of a color.

You can for instance have 000 RGB, 0 Alpha with Value 0. Then all of the same with Value 1 bordering it. This value change will affect alpha displacement and a host of other tools that I would think shouldn't care as they are supposed to use on RGB color space ...

The primary instance this can be a factor is when working with expanding a canvas. You have to be really careful of this or you wind up with a border when using some tools. Or extra lines showing up in odd places. Like when using the alignment tools ...

These slight fluxes blend all the way down as well and can show up later after you've long lost the history or even be able to tell what or where they occurred.

I'm not trying to teach or lecture here. Just trying to expand on what made me stumble as I experiment a little more. So far the displacement is easy enough to get a handle on. Especially when you are apply it to the correct layer (yes, I ran into the flatten, undo blues on that more than once) ...

I can see now how to use some things like alpha blurring (Gaussian+, etc) to correct some things that caused me an issue.

Again, the next thing though is to figure out how to use it with color correctly. How many layers are needed to not end up with an inversion, etc. Some of this learning is still on par with the Art 101 stuff ... A shadow is not always a shadow. Certain colors near each other create illusions. And all that sort of thing.

I probably need to stop being so random. But when I want to learn something that is alien to me outside of a classroom, I tend to use the shotgun approach. ;D

[barbieq25]

Delpart, teaching & lecturing is what we really like about this site too. That is why many of us have come here because we are serious about improving what we do.

I understand very little of what you are talking about here but that doesn't mean that you should not post it - on the contrary - if it is something you heave learnt, or have thought about, maybe it can help someone else. It might not be today or even next week but at least it makes us think a bit deeper & sometimes we do learn new tricks (ummm...even if we forget them too ;( )

[Goonfella]

Barbie is right. I love reading your long posts Del. It makes a nice change from the usual short and sweet ones you get most of the time ( I`m guilty of that myself )