Topic awaiting preservation: For WJ: possible file path limit in displace? (Page 1 of 1)

hello, WJ/Stroker Since I don't know if you get the mail I sent you trough your PST profile, I'll post this link here: http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@187.sN63c9EFACB.38@.3bb45857/0 it seems that displace might have a limit in its code about the filepath...

Pierre Courtejoie

If I did get your e-mail, I must have chucked it. I'm usually pretty good about it, but I have been known to toss a few valid e-mails.

I saw that thread over at U2U. I remember one other complaint about the same some years ago. Personally, I've never ran into that particular problem. Also, it doesn't seem to be that wide spread. So, I've chaulked it up to something bizarre per individual machine and haven't worried to much about it.

edit:
broken sig be gone
need to fix that one of these days

(Edited by warjournal on 05-31-2004 02:10)

in fact, I did not send a mail about this but about http://www.stereopsis.com/kpt/kptblur.html

I thought that you might be interested about the technical aspects...

Pierre Courtejoie

I'm not terribly interested in blurring. I do have an interest, but Lens Blur takes care of my needs. Although, I haven't upgraded to PS CS and I doubt I ever will. I'm kind of funny like that.

Thanks for the thought, though.

Now, if you want to talk about something cool that PS needs, check out 3d procedurals that a lot of 3d progs use. I mean, Clouds/Difference Clouds pales in comparison to Noise, Cellular, Dent, and all that jazz.

edit:
damn broken sig again
must fix

(Edited by warjournal on 06-01-2004 14:18)

WJ, did you borg me? I had that in mind recently, maybe also a particle generator...

Indeed, when we think about how much special effects originate from clouds/diffclouds or noise, more SIMPLE fractal generators would not be an overkill!

Have you seen http://www.allegorithmic.com/en/products/pro_zone.php

Pierre Courtejoie

That's funny to hear from allegorithmic here since Sébastien Deguy was the person in charge of the Softimage tutorials in my university.

I did Borgify you a long time ago, but it never saw the light of day. Your usual avatar is a little too funky to borgify well. Maybe I'll give it another shot later this week or some time.

Yeah! I remember that map thingie.
I was a little taken-a-back by it because everything you need to do that kind of thing is already out there for free.

Sometimes I think it's a crying shame. A lot of people are pure Photoshoppers and always try to do everything in PS. Well, PS can be supplemented with some very cool, free junk. I'm not saying that pure PS is bad, but neither is a good supplemental.

For extra texturing options, one of the best 3d things to look into is RenderMan. There are quite a few free RenderMan compliant renders out there (Pixie comes to mind). Set up a plane facing the camera and render out a procedural texture rather quickly.

One of the cooler reasons to use RenderMan for extra texture options is Shading Language (SL). You can write your own procedural textures! How cool is that? If you don't want to write your own shaders, there are plenty of free ones out there (RenderMan Repository). Or you can get the likes of ShaderMan7 and visually put shaders together.

If you haven't noticed, this is on my list of things to talk about.
Wish I had more time to write.

Ha, I had not that in mind for the "borg", but it is a nice idea. I meant "did you read my mind?"

I think that there is an advantage in doing 100% photoshop works: for instance, the tutorials will be followable by the whole Photoshop community without the need to intall third party plug-in... didn't you use displace to mimick KPT5 shapeshifter?

I also think that simple texture/fractal generators could be good to supplement the 3 exisiting ones in Ps...

PIXIE: will it run under windows, or do I need linux for that?

Pierre Courtejoie

Yes, I did do the Displace and ShapeShifter thing. Totally different reasons, though. I would talk about why, but I'm afraid that I would end up getting pissy and going on a rant. Besides, ShapeShifter costs money while a lot of RenderMan things are free.

Yes, Pixie will run under Win. When I installed it, the only hard time I had was hunting down the environment variables. Once I found them and put them in their place, it was all good.

I also use Ayam, which is a free RenderMan modeler and previewer thing. Man, it's a quirky program - but it's free and it works.

(I've tried K3D before, but it had some nasty display issues. I might have to give it another go now that I'm on a new machine.)

There is also a free visual shader builder called ShaderMan7. I don't know what the deal is, but I can't get it to play nice with Pixie or 3Delight. I'm sure I'll figure it out after awhile. Currently, ShaderMan7 is not a regular part of my play.fiddle.learn.

So my current play.fiddle.learn goes something like this:
1. RenderMan (.org) Repository.
2. Grab a few shaders.
3. Compile them with Pixie.
4. Open Ayam and play with the shader.
5. Keep the renders that I like and toss the rest.
6. Open PS, grab the renders that I saved, and fiddle some more. You know, use as a mask, other ChOps fun, or make some custom brushes. Whatever strikes my fancy.

If I ever get the urge, I might learn some more Shading Language (SL) and just plain write my own damn shaders from scratch. I'm sure I will eventually head in this direction.

I'm taking play.fiddle.learn beyond PS, and I'm having a blast doing it. Actually, I never really intended PFL to be PS exclusive. You know, apply some PFL to PFL. Personally, I just plain love exploring in any ol' direction - PS or otherwise.

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's my nap time.