"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:47cbf253$1@news.povray.org...

>>> (That's what's so great about vector images - you can edit *everything* 
>>> and nothing is ever "final".)
>>
>>   He is not using vector images.
>
> Indeed. What I way saying is that this is why *I* prefer vector graphics. 
> I make so many mistakes, it's nice having a system where anything can be 
> undone or modified later. But it doesn't seem to hinder Tim in any way...
>
Photoshop does support basic vectors. You can use the pen tool to make them 
and even edit them afterwards.


-- 
-Nekar Xenos-

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> Photoshop does support basic vectors. You can use the pen tool to make 
> them and even edit them afterwards.

Even PaintShopPro (which many think of as PS without as many features) 
allows you to add layers that contain vector art (including text).  There's 
no need to lose any of the vector art data until you want to save as a 
bitmap file format (as opposed to the native psp format).  Of course it 
supports all the usual anti-aliasing, gradient colour/opacity fills, line 
styles etc.

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> If all of the complex manipulations seen here are really done with 
> layers... hmm, it must take quite a bit of planning to make sure 
> everything is in the correct layer and not accidentally paint yourself 
> into a corner.

  You wouldn't believe the sheer amount of layers a graphics professional
uses when creating images. We are talking about hundreds.
  Every single minuscule thing is usually put into its own layers.

  If I'm not completely mistaken, you can group several layers in Photoshop
into one entity which then works as if it was a single layer. This way
you can eg. move a part of the image, which in itself is composed of many
layers, as if it was just one layer.

  Naturally layers can (and should) be named so that you can keep track
of what is where.

> Lilah appears to be in a single layer. (He moves her around as one 
> item.) And yet, he was able to scale just one leg. How do layers help here?

  Probably a bunch of layers grouped together, or maybe some other technique.

> >> - I guess the floor fills kind of give it away that this *must* be a 
> >> bitmap. But how does he manage to fill in all that counter-shading and 
> >> never accidentally draw over the outlining? Is he just extremely 
> >> skillful, or is the software assisting him somehow?
> > 
> >   Layers and layer masks.

> DPaint used to have a thing called "stencils" where you could mark 
> certain colours as "protected", and any pixels drawn in that colour 
> can't be altered. (Remember, DPaint works with palette-based bitmaps.)

> Is this a similar trick, or something different?

  A layer mask is basically an alpha channel for a layer. That is,
besides having a full rgba color layer, the layer can have an additional,
separate alpha channel (called layer mask) which is applied to the layer
as well.
  This is handy when you want to show/hide parts of a layer, without
actually modifying the contents of that layer. And the other way around
is useful too: You can edit the contents of the layer without modifying
the layer mask, which means that your edits will never "bleed" outside
boundaries.

  The layer mask is not a bitmask, but a full alpha mask. This means
that parts of the layer can partially visible, not just on/off.

> >> - How the heck does he do that thing with the floorboards? And the 
> >> shading for the shadow in the doorway? I've never seen anything so 
> >> advanced, ever!
> > 
> >   Layers, transparency.

> Well, sure - but how does he make the shadow edges soft? That must 
> involve some pretty special shading technology. Most software I've seen 
> will do simple linear colour gradients, but not complex shadow outlines 
> like that.

  Varying degrees of alpha transparency. I don't see any difficulty in that.

  In rgba images each pixel has an alpha transparency value. This value
can change from pixel to pixel.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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47cbf253$1@news.povray.org...
> I've heard of layers - but it never occurred to me that you could use them 
> for *composing* images. I always throught of them as simply a way of 
> merging two images into one. (E.g., so you could cut out part of one 
> photograph to insert it into another one.)

Here you go: an image made using 15000 layers.

http://www.bertmonroy.com/fineart/text/fineart_damen.htm

G.

-- 
*****************************
http://www.oyonale.com
*****************************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer images
- Posters

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Warp wrote:

>   You wouldn't believe the sheer amount of layers a graphics professional
> uses when creating images. We are talking about hundreds.
>   Every single minuscule thing is usually put into its own layers.

Wow. Just... wow.

And to think I still work on bitmaps using only 1 layer... (But then, if 
you take a photograph of something, it's all one layer, and there's not 
too much you can do about that.)

>   If I'm not completely mistaken, you can group several layers in Photoshop
> into one entity which then works as if it was a single layer. This way
> you can eg. move a part of the image, which in itself is composed of many
> layers, as if it was just one layer.

I can easily see that if *I* ever attempted to do something like this, 
I'd end up putting two things into the same layer and then being 
completely stumped later on because those things need to be in seperate 
layers.

>   A layer mask is basically an alpha channel for a layer. That is,
> besides having a full rgba color layer, the layer can have an additional,
> separate alpha channel (called layer mask) which is applied to the layer
> as well.
>   This is handy when you want to show/hide parts of a layer, without
> actually modifying the contents of that layer. And the other way around
> is useful too: You can edit the contents of the layer without modifying
> the layer mask, which means that your edits will never "bleed" outside
> boundaries.
> 
>   The layer mask is not a bitmask, but a full alpha mask. This means
> that parts of the layer can partially visible, not just on/off.

Right. So... there's a channel that controls how opaque a layer is, and 
another channel that controls how much you can draw on it?

>> Well, sure - but how does he make the shadow edges soft? That must 
>> involve some pretty special shading technology. Most software I've seen 
>> will do simple linear colour gradients, but not complex shadow outlines 
>> like that.
> 
>   Varying degrees of alpha transparency. I don't see any difficulty in that.

Oh - you mean make a layer that's just flat dark-green, and then paint 
onto the alpha channel to blend it into the light-green parts? Ingenious...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Gilles Tran wrote:

> Here you go: an image made using 15000 layers.

GAH!

Why would you...? no, HOW would you...? damn, 2 MONTHS?! An image file 
that's more than 1 GB in size? How the hell do you edit it? What the... 
I think I need to sit down.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>>> Are you *kidding* me? This is the most advanced thing I've ever seen! 
>>> o_O
>>
>>   Clearly you have never used an image manipulation program to its full
>> extent. Even the Gimp has many of the features showcased in that video
>> (although, admittedly, some of them are not as easy to use).
> 
> Well, given that I can't actually draw, I guess I don't spend a huge 
> amount of time with drawing packages. (Which arguably Photoshop is and 
> the GIMP isn't - depending on your definitions.) And it's not like the 
> GIMP comes with a manual. It's not even clear what half the buttons are 
> meant to DO...
> 
> Some things that shock me about this video:
> 
> - Tim manages to draw, UNdraw and then redraw lines multiple times. 
> Usually in a bitmap editor, all drawing operations are final and cannot 
> be undone like that. (That's what's so great about vector images - you 
> can edit *everything* and nothing is ever "final".)

You just erase. Since you should be using layers anyway. Erasing on a 
layer won't affect the rest behind.

> - He scales objects. This generally isn't possible in bitmap editors 
> without absurd levels of highly-visible distortion. (Tim even scales 
> individual *parts* of objects - something I've never seen any bitmap 
> editor allow.)

Layers.

> - Tim is able to move objects around, place one in front of another, and 
> draw stuff behind objects. It's standard in a vector editor, but I've 
> never seen it in a bitmap editor.

Layers or even moving a selection (so called 'floating selection', 
because it's not merged with the current layer yet).

> - I guess the floor fills kind of give it away that this *must* be a 
> bitmap. But how does he manage to fill in all that counter-shading and 
> never accidentally draw over the outlining? Is he just extremely 
> skillful, or is the software assisting him somehow?

I'm not sure I understand your question, but: using "replace color" 
instead of a brush could help. Even Paintbrush in Windows 3.1 had 
something like that, and it was removed in MS Paint later. You can paint 
all over the image with color X, but only areas of color Y will be affected.

> - How on earth does he do the text like that? When *I* want to outline 
> something, I have to sit there for hours drawing the outlines in by 
> hand. He appears to have some kind of automation that does it for him... 
> And not to mention all the squishing and bending of the text, and the 
> multiple levels of gradients and...

Just a panel with dozens of options :)

I used to have Paint Shop Pro 5 (that's from 1996 i think). To do text 
with outline, first I added some plain old text. That added text to the 
current layer and selected it (selection shape had antialias too). Then 
I created a new layer *behind*, enlarged selection (selection | 
transform | enlarge IIRC), and filled the selection with another color. 
Obviously not as easy as on any modern software, but I could do it anyway.

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> 47cbf253$1@news.povray.org...
>> I've heard of layers - but it never occurred to me that you could use them 
>> for *composing* images. I always throught of them as simply a way of 
>> merging two images into one. (E.g., so you could cut out part of one 
>> photograph to insert it into another one.)
> 
> Here you go: an image made using 15000 layers.
> 
> http://www.bertmonroy.com/fineart/text/fineart_damen.htm

Other than the strange personal fun of the author, I can't see any valid
reason to do that kind of work using that kind of technique.  Why give up
the flexibility of 3D CG, or the simplicity and feel of hand-painting ?

Fabien.

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Fa3ien <fab### [at] yourshoesskynetbe> wrote:
> Why give up
> the flexibility of 3D CG, or the simplicity and feel of hand-painting ?

  Why not? Relieves stress?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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> If all of the complex manipulations seen here are really done with 
> layers... hmm, it must take quite a bit of planning to make sure 
> everything is in the correct layer and not accidentally paint yourself 
> into a corner.

Humans can make mistakes, sure.

http://cad-comic.com/comic.php?d=20080216
http://www.cad-forums.com/showpost.php?p=2554424&postcount=31

>>> - How the heck does he do that thing with the floorboards? And the 
>>> shading for the shadow in the doorway? I've never seen anything so 
>>> advanced, ever!
>>
>>   Layers, transparency.
> 
> Well, sure - but how does he make the shadow edges soft? That must 
> involve some pretty special shading technology. Most software I've seen 
> will do simple linear colour gradients, but not complex shadow outlines 
> like that.

If the shadow is on its own layer, you could blur it when you're done :)

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