Preserved Topic: DMap help Please..........

I need some guidence on making Dmaps. I have been readibg over at the GN. Very good tut on uses. BUT........I would like to try making my own. I understand the gradients thing..........need to know how to put them together for use. How do you do it ??????

To make a DMap, you need a fresh brand new .psd file that is about the same size or the same size as the file you wish to dispplace. Go to Channels, and working in Red channel make the first part of your DMap, if you want more distortion or a different distortion direction, Do more in the Green Channel. Once you are happy with that, save the file as a standard .psd file. Open the file you wish to displace, load the filter, and when prompted, load the DMap / .psd file you just made. The Tutorial is very, very good but it is a little lacking in how to make a DMap in detail.
If you've more questions, feel free to ask away.

THANKS......that tells me what I need to know............

The tut is very good........mind boggeling though......

Hey - I completely understand the "mind boggling" part - you should have seen the manic look in my eyes about a month into writing it! Scary.

But - tell me more about how I could clarify the process of making or applying a D-Map and I'll try to incorporate it. When you get real close to a tutorial it's difficult to maintain perspective. I'd sure appreciate some insights. It is a confusing topic until you've used it for a while, and there's only so much I can do to simplify it. Still, the point of the lousy thing to be useful to people, so give me some comments about where I lost you.

Thanks

For what it's worth Steve, and btw thank you very much for your brilliant work, I learn a lot from it....I personally get lost at the 2 channel Dmap part.......1 Dmap I get....do you run the filter twice with 2 channels? I've been running it once and then rotating the dmap 90degrees and running it again to get the horizontal & vertical lines to warp the same.....but it seems sort of lame to do it that way. Keep up the great work, what a refreshing attitude you have.

Use the Channels palette and work in the seperate RGB channels. Takes some getting used to, but it's not that hard. I like to keep my Blue channel Gray 128 because it helps me see the RGB composite better -- not too muted, not too saturated... just right.

play.fiddle.learn

Tafka (and any else interested):
A one channel DMap will move pixels sort of diagonally: x AND y axis

A two channel DMap isolates x-axis movement in channel 1, and y-axis movement in channel 2

You don't need to apply the filter twice: it does it automatically for you.

The advantage to a 2 channel map is that extra control you get by being ablet to affect up-and-down and left-and-right independently, and you can avoid that movement on a diagonal look.

When I talk about one and two channel DMaps, and Warjournal talks about Red and Green channels, it gets confusing. I like to make DMaps in multiChannel format. This isn't RGB or CMYK or any such thing - it's essentially a grayscale file with an additional alpha channel. THEY DON'T HAVE TO BE DONE THIS WAY! An RGB file works fine, a CMYK file works fine, so long as they are saved as .psd files. Displace simply ignores anything after the second channel. You could have a file with 10 alpha channels - 8 could be used to store anything you want.

Does that help? Wow - Pandora's box here

Thanks Steve, I think that helps...I haven't tried it yet. I'll tinker in the morning and see if I grasp the dual channel thing.......I think I get it but won't know till I try.........Once again thanks for your information and professional attitude........

Wow. I know about the channels thing (CMYK, RGB, multiChannel), but I never thought of making it a point. Add it to the list of conventions, considerations, and foundation stuff. Truly amazing.

I think a record has been set for the number of Displace mentioned/discussed/related threads.

<edit>Pandora's Box! That just sunk in. Oh, Steve, if you only knew then what you know now. Well, I'm off to do some more diagrams. </edit>


[This message has been edited by warjournal (edited 01-27-2001).]