tttia

Pixel http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?t=82865 http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?t=207 ... l+tutorial brushing http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?t=879 ... ht=shading

Nadril, I appreciate that you actually read. That is a plus :) And i didn't mispell akman's name. I shortened it. Which, as it turns out, was smart since people already were too lazy to read what I put. However, you know I am going to debate your points on terragen. I did not in fact forget about world machine, or the ability to draw your maps in ps. I had world machine for a bit, and drew my own maps for a bit. But I think you are missing the point. Yes, I agree that intentionality is a key to good art. For me it is one of the essential elements. And a terragen that is thought out is better than an abstract that is not, or even...maybe....a pixel that is not. But thought out content is not the only element. Skill is the element I am talking about. Drawing is not a PROGRAM. It is more than just understanding your program. And that is the key difference. Let's do an experiment, hm? We each would have one week to study up. I would study up on terragenand you would study up on drawing. Then at the end of the week we would see who is at what level. I guarantee you that someone can learn to do terragen more easily in a week than they can to draw with a decent level of mastery. Why? Because one is a program, and one is a SKILL which is independent of any program. Which in fact is why when you moved to Vue people like jeppoz said that the program didn't look that good. Why did they say that? Because they expected that you...a great landscape maker...would crank out fantastic stuff. But the facts are that you are a great TERRAGEN landscape maker. If you switch to another program you have to relearn everything. Why? Because it is all a program. If suddenly all copies of terragen stopped working over night, what skills would you have? Simply these: composition, ability to draw a grey scale terrain map, and ability to pick...maybe make...textures. Are those anything that someone could not learn in a short time with even moderate disicpline? If someone who can draw goes to paint, painter, ps, open canvas, pencil and paper, etc. they can still do something great. Why? Because it is not a program it is a SKILL. Now as I said before,good terragen users have a good eye, and that is a skill. But it is not the same as having a good eye and the ability to draw. That takes PRACTICE. There is a huge difference between drawing a grey scale terrain map and drawing mrxman's dinos. And I think that most people inherently recognize that once they know what is involved in both. So what I am urging people to do is to practice the skill of drawing. We hate to say it around here, but it is true. If you want to be a good artist. Learn to draw. Or learn to model (which may be even harder). Learn to shape something for yourself. Incidentally, if you ever do a great landscape in vue using just the modeling tools rather than prefab stuff, I will think you are more than great. But if you really want to do that..I suggest importing from a better program. Nadril, on a personal note, I have always loved your dedication. Even when folks gave you a hard time, you didn't stop working at art. And I know you have put in time at learning terragen, and will at learning vue. But I would just suggest that you also consider learning to draw. Or, better yet, learn to model, then integrate it into vue. Then you will have some truly original, fantastic work. If you put yourself into learning modeling the same way you have other skills, you will get there.

You all are a bunch of intellectually lazy slobs. There ok, I said it. If you don't have the time to read a long post, then you certainly don't have the time to actually post about a long post you didn't read. Now I will double post with a substantial comment, in the hopes that you lazy people will read this.

it was wyrm and witty. sith has used it for a long time. But since he already knows who made it, it is not really going to help,

It appears to be a brushed sig...people do them...but not just like that one. Come up with a concept, then go post in the media market board and see if you get takers. Oh and I am sure witty WOULD do it....if you pay him real life cash :)

a. I think pixel sigs have been great for this board. The trend has inspired people to take up drawing. That alone is worth all the MANY "rate my first pixel" posts. The real problem is that people take up pixeling for the money, not for the love of drawing. So they do just as good as they have to to sell. Pixels may be cartoony, but you are dealing with a board dedicated to a cartoony game. So I see no problem with that. They allow for endless creativity etc. b. abstracts...I don't even want to repeat all my views on them. I will just say this. When you get done with a work and say."hm...what should I call it...hm...er...hm...well...um....CHAOS! that is it CHAOS. THen you know that your piece was not worth being made. Most abstracts around here have few redeeming qualities. They aren't based on compositional elements like early abstracts. They don't have any point to them, or often forthought to them. They simply are a nice accident. They sometimes look good, and that is about it. More often they don't look good. Pixels on the other hand have an obvious point. They tell a story, portray a scene, sometimes give a joke, or even make you think. They often illustrate things about a person. I view them as considerably better than abstracts. c. terragen. I hate to say it, but I am tired of the "hidden deep secrets" of terragen argument. No matter how many secrets there are it is still sliders, textures, done. Yes, you may have 200 objects in there like akman. That doesn't change what it is. You did not do the work to make it photorealistic. You did not do the work to render the shapes. You did not do the work to make the lighting. You simply selected what looked good. Now that in itself is a skill. Selecting what is good. Whether it is messing with your terrain map, picking textures, picking the atmosphere settings, sure, that is a skill. But please do not pretend it is something more than it is. A photographer does much the same thing. THey find the scene, get the lighting right, adjust their camera settings, and boom..they have their image. We credit them for what they did right. But we aren't suprised when a photo is realisitc. It is SUPPOSED to be realistic. It is designed just for that. Terragen is the same way. I actually would like to use bryce, vue, poser, daz, etc. because you can just work in concepts, building a scene. and there is a time for that. But usually I just feel guilty for wasting my time in the end because I can never call the work my own. And that just bites. I wind up thinking.." I should have spent my time on a painting that would be all mine." Even if I paint all the skin etc. on a poser model, I still know the 3d designer did the hardest part.--getting the form right. Once you have the form right, you can make a good piece just by shading. The form is THE most critical part. Without accurate form, forget a good painting. It is like this. Once you make a terragen/poser/bryce/vue piece, what do you do with it? You can post it on sites like deviant art, etc. but when you do, you have two choices. You either say right out that it is terragen...at which point half the people have no interest becaue they feel it is too pre-fab...or you don't mention it, which is dishonest. I was ticked that half the people who commented on ackman's piece thought he hand painted it. He never said in the description what it was. That is not right either. So for me, I avoid this problem and simply paint. That way the 3d designer doesn't get the true credit. I still prefer terragens to abstracts. But I like pixels better than terragens, only on skill. I actually like some terragen or vue scenes. And once in a great while I like an abstract (don't let that out now). But I hold pixlers in higher respect because of the raw skill factor. d. Space scenes. Hm...they are not at the level of pixelers, but they do a lot to get their scene. There are a bunch of tricks for star fields, but after that it is largely brushing. And that takes some skill. But really....space scenes get old quick unless you integrate some new elements...ships...battles..structures, etc. e. brush painted sigs. Hey i am biased, I like em lol. I would say that brushing and pixeling both require skills in actual drawing. I admire the pixelers for the sheer detail they pack in a scene. You can't do that with brushing. For brushers the key is to get the blended tones, realistic feel. Both are tough. But undoubtedly pixel and brush painted sigs are my favorites. Simply because they show raw artistic talent, and have a huge range of concepts they can portray. In many ways space scenes can be in this category too. I just wish they were not so trendy and often done. It would be better to consider space scenes as one type of brushed sig, rather than space scenes as a whole different genre.

Your more than welcome. If you get a chance stick around and learn more about graphics :)

Yup, added more shadows, highlights, and took care of a wandering eye problem.

Actually that must be his mom's name. She would have the credit card.

um...what?

This is a VERY basic tutorial. I am just posting it because we get this question a lot. This way I can simply post the link. Go to the menu and select "File" then "Save as" Then see if the drop down menu shows the option for jpg like this: Sometimes it won't show anything but bitmap. Paint is odd that way. Just type in the file name as I did there with the quotation marks. Let's say your file name is dog. Type in "dog.jpg" Make sure you put the " " symbols or it won't work. Good luck.

Here is a simple tutorial that explains how to save in jpeg, etc. http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?p=1395196#1395196

Thanks! I stared at the thing so long now though, all I can see is the screw ups. I like this kind of work as a challenge...but man it is hard on the brain.

Check their gallery here: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/Gallery/Thu ... hp?Index=1 I am not saying all the pics are great, but some are really quite nice. Of course, you will notice a lot of poser models too as the products are marketed together. I hope to see more from Bryce too now that they were bought out by Daz....of course..I hope the price stays where it is. Having said that, I feel guilty if I use any of them....because most of the work is not mine. I guess for what they are they are fine. I just would rather paint.

Washing and Cleaning! man, I missed one. Of course most of the references I add to my wife's reading list of this sort are from the 1800's...they knew how to order a household back then!

Finally finished this thing.

It is decent, but I would go for psp before photoshop elements. Or...get a wacom tablet and get elements for free (though not version 3). Before you do any of that though, try the gimp. It is free..The GIMP is an open-source port from Linux. It is fairly stable, has a fair array of features. Photoshop it is not. But it is probably the best free option out there. http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html You will need to download two files. First you need the Gtk environment. This is a file that enables the other to run. Then you need the Gimp itself.

I am not really sure about gimp, but in the program I used it is a fill tool, that looks like the fill bucket, but with a two tone look.

Actually Jeppoz, I think it is the fact that they are using limited trial versions that is causing some of the problem. That program is in fact much more powerful than terragen.

There are really very few advantages that programs can give you for pixeling. The only one that GIMP would have, as I mentioned, is layers. The more advanced features of GIMP are really used for photo retouching, brushing with transparency, effects, levels adjustments etc. None of those are needed for pixels.

Do you really want to get into that conversation again? Considering that half the people who commented on his work thought he DREW it in ps or gimp etc....I would say it is incredibly over rated. He never put vue in the actual description, though it was buried way in the comments where no one ever reads, and it is simply under generic landscapes, with no indication it was done in a pre-fab 3d program. I don't remember all of the old categories, but I am sure 3d was one of them..and he certainly could have re-classified by now. comments such as this one abounded: I will simply say of this as I have all the other terragen, poser, daz, vue, bryce, etc. works, that they are fine for what they are...a good scene. They are not in any way indicative of talent beyond a good eye and some patience.... Yes, as you mentioned, composition, much the same a with photography. I will say though that akman does have a good eye, and a lot of patience. So I give credit for that But in any case, it appears to have limited modeling capablilties. That doesn't mean anyone here is actually using them. They just exist. Here is a rundown of the specs: http://www.curiouslabs.com/go/products/vue also on the e-on site http://www.e-onsoftware.com/Products/vue5/ So in other words...not a whole lot of capability. Curious labs sells a package deal that bundles poser and vue.

Since the start of the pixeling trend there is less call for actual rs chars. Besides, the new ones are fairly ugly (not that the others were pretty by any means), and are harder to animate due to the increase in colors. ah the good old days... Doh, couldn't find one of my favorites.... Ah, found the individual frames and re-did it...it is over the limits now , not going to mess with fixing it.

um,......yes, the point is the process. I am not going to retake a bunch of pictures just to answer the guy's question. And I lost my text for the tutorial using individual color channels for cleaner detail masking. So this one will have to do. Personally I am hoping he wants to work with something other than an rs character anyway. Who wants an rs char in their sig?

http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?t=206220

This is an old tutorial, as you can tell by the rs1 graphics! I just reposted it to answer a question I saw on here. This way I can just post the link when someone has a question. This is a simple tutorial meant to help people new to sig making with a basic operation. In this case we will be looking at how to knock the background out of a picture of your character. In order to capture your character, simply hit printscreen on your keyboard. Then go into whatever image program you are using (mspaint, etc.) and hit PASTE. Once you have your characters picture, follow these directions. IMPORTANT NOTE! This method only works if you captured the picture of your character (or other image) in an area with a single background color. There are other methods for more complex images...most of which involve manually cutting with an eraser. This is made for Corel Photopaint...but your program will probably have similar options. The first step is to crop your picture down to a usable size, so that only the part you really need shows. This can be done with the crop tool in most programs, as pictured below. Or, in mspaint I think you have to use a box selection (makes a little dashed box around the character), then hit cut, then paste the new smaller selection into your work area. Now that you have it down to a small size, you need to go to your "mask menu" and click on the "magic wand" tool Now just click anywhere in the background with the wand. Please notice that the wand's sensitivity can be adjusted. It works by detecting the HSB ...hue, saturation and brightness. This works on a sliding scale. Basically the scale says how picky you want to be. It is best not to be too exact, because then you tend to get a very pixelated image. But if you are not exact enough you get the selection bleeding into your character. Try experimenting. Around 10 usually works for me, but I don't know if all program have the same scale. Now you will see that the background is surrounded by dotted lines, indicating a "mask." This allows you to make changes just to that area. However, it is not the background you are wanting to change. So you now go back to your "mask" menu and select "invert" Now your character is masked. Go to the edit menu, select "cut" then go to your signature background, or whatever you are pasting into , and select "paste." It is now a new selection. Or in some programs you can paste as a new object or layer. ...you now have a separate layer with just your character. Good luck!