Topic awaiting preservation: Minor Updates, staying motivated (Page 1 of 1)

Been working like a mad dog when I can to get the updates that I mentioned. Thanks a lot, Moth. Been doing my best to stay motivated into the late hours of the night. One thing I do is Google other tutorials, get indignant, and push forward. I just love getting mad over cheeky Displace tutorials. Flag in the wind my ass.

Along the lines of staying motivated, I thought I would let you folks in on some of the updates. A few things are still a mess, but I'm working on it, damn it.

Tweakables
Three pages of stuff you most of you folks should recognize. Even raped some of my content that I still have to get rid of. For example, ShapeShifter, Curve It Other, and More Fakery will soon be a thing of the past.

Reflection Map
Working on 9 pages of goodness. Got the first 3 mostly done:
Intro: Theory 1
Heart-Shaped D-Map
Other Methods

Yes, I said 9 whole pages. Again, thanks to Moth.
Once I am done with this mini-magnum opus, I am definitely taking a break.

Let me hear it, folks.




[This message has been edited by warjournal (edited 06-25-2003).]

Good stuff, as always, warjournal. I think you`re gonna catch on to this Displace thing yet.

What`s this about getting rid of some stuff ? Shape shifter. ,Curve it...
What choo talkin bout warjournal ?

Thanks Warjournal. Some great stuff there to get my teeth into. I'm firing up PS now to give them a run through.

What I mean by getting rid of some stuff, DB, is that it will become a part of the new rambles. ShapeShifter won't be ShapeShifter all on its own anymore, but a slightly smaller sub-section of the coming Reflection Map discussions.
Re-assimiliation I guess.

Taobaybee, knock yourself out and show me what you got. Bring it on, tough guy.

Finishing Touches
~75% done with this one

THAT`S the one I was waiting for. 'bout time you stopped holding out.


If you need a proofreader when these are done, lemme know.

Finishing Touches
Added the last two examples.
I hope I didn't try cramming too much into that page.
I know that the veterans around here shouldn't have a hard of time with it, but I'm not too sure about the fresh meat. Prolly have to add a disclaimer at the top concerning what I'm not going to talk about.

There you go, DB. That should keep you happy for a bit.
Might take you up on the proofreading, but I'm not sure just yet.

:whew:

Sheesh... a guy asks a simple question about a KPT filter and see what happens!

Seriously, it looks great WJ. The information will be invaluable to eveyone.

WJ, you rock, again.
I've been inspired.


400x200 8k version
800x400 110kb version

This is a tack that was sitting on my desk.
I'm diggin' the reflections/refractions of the surroundings.
The highlights, especially around the base of the tack, are looking good.
The shadows are looking not so good.
The pointy part, especially on the big version, looks like crap.

Not tryin' to steal your thunder, Mr. Journal, but comments, suggestions, critiques are most definately welcome.

Go, Mobrul!
Still waiting for Taobaybee to get busy.

Advanced: Theory II
Next page mostly done.
Written really quick like.
Major time crunch right now.

Donut coming soon.
This is where I left off.

Like a machine when the girlies leave me alone.

Donut I: Building the Base

Brain fry is starting to set in.
I'll finish this some time tomorrow.

Steve, remember that thing I mentioned not too long ago?

Donut II: Finishing Curves

My kung fu is the best!


[This message has been edited by warjournal (edited 06-28-2003).]

You always manage to blow my mind. Question... does the glass filter work the same way or is this info exclusive to the displace filter?

My kung fu is the best!

all your base are belong to us





[This message has been edited by Moth (edited 06-28-2003).]

Now that my brain has cooled off a little bit, I'm starting to see some nasty errors. Not just grammar and spelling, either. There is a disturbence in the force.

Yes, this stuff is for Displace and not Glass. Glass works way different than Displace. Although, in some cases, Glass is a perfectly good substitute for Displace. A good example is the infamous Matrix bullet effect. Try it. you just might be surprised.

I made some last minute changes. I decided to go with 8 pages instead of 9. The page that I left out is a rant that is better off on it's own.

Rough drafts are all done. Still have to beef up the navigation with a sub-table of contents. Few other loose ends to tie up.

Reflection Maps

Mucho thanks to cyoung. Because of him, I have a little surprise in there. Man, talk about irony. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!

Talk to me, folks.

quote:

---

The page cannot be displayed HTTP 500 - Internal server error

---

=(

Try it again, NoJive. She's workin' for me.

Page works for me.

Excellent stuffs WJ, very cool.
I'm sure everyone thanks you muchly for taking the time to post this tastey treat.

I myself particularily like the introspective on the "scope of view". (i'd probably call the FOV myself... but who's counting)
That's something i myself forgot to consider in all the damn glass/metal/chrome/plastic balls/orbs/sphere tutorials i've written. Spherize works well for reflections on spheres... as long as the reflections are a bit hidden/masked by highlights/shadows and colour.

I can see now, thanks to you (BURP!)... i'm gonna have to bang my head around and see what falls out for this little snafu.


My kung fu is the best!
(LOL my buddy sent me the link to that site a long time ago... very funny stuff)



[This message has been edited by theGuest (edited 07-06-2003).]

Quite amazing Warj.
Your

quote:

---

"Play Fiddle Learn"

---

is right up there with what I call DL's 1-2-3

quote:

---

step 1 is to LOOK at what you want to recreate. Step 2 is to spend some time determining what makes it look the way it does. Step 3 is figuring out how to recreat those things.

---

Very likely the best 2 bits of advice ever. Add that to ALL the tut's here and at GN, you guys have certainly walked a bunch of us out of the woods.

Thnx



[This message has been edited by NoJive (edited 07-06-2003).]

Glad to see that my little surpise at the end made a few people think. I still get the giggles when I think about it.
Don't bang your head too hard, Guest.

I feel kind of strange because I'm way out on a limb with my reflection map stuff. It's like, I don't now of any similiar material to compare it to. Know what I mean?

While I have a few minutes, I want to give thanks.

Thanks to Steve for his Curves tutorial. With out that, I would probably still be twisting my brain trying to do certain things. It's not often I make a D-Map with out Curves. It was the final piece to the puzzle. You made Cannify happen.

Again, thanks to Steve. This time for his Hand Made Hightlights and Shadows tutorial. With out that, I probably still wouldn't have a way of making a D-Map from text that I'm happy with.

Thanks to my supporters of Technical Slop (you know who you are). If it weren't for you folks, I would still be in the closet and keeping all of this stuff to myself. I recently found out that I have more closet supporters than I ever suspected (you know who you are).

Thanks to my critics. I've taken some hard knocks from folks at other forums. Folks that don't like my stuff because of the design/lay-out. With out them, I wouldn't have been so stubborn to keep Tech-Slop's focus on pure information. Screw eye candy!

Thanks to Moth for asking what he asked when he did. Sure, I've been poking him in the ribs, but it's a heart-felt poke to the ribs. Moth, I'll explain this to you one of these days.

Thanks to various other folks for asking questions. You have helped me push the enevope beyond what I would have done if I had been only answering my own questions.

Thanks to cyoung for the photos. Kudos, bro.

Thanks to Doc for his benevolent tyranny. Makes for an excellent atmosphere.

A long time ago I gave up writing foundation pieces for Displace. That time has almost come again, except for the "advanced" stuff. Just a few more things to write about, and I'm done.

It's been one Hell of a journey.

I do have one thing to ask of you folks, but it's going to have to wait. As luck would have it, it's raining pretty hard out and I'm waiting for the power to go out again.




[This message has been edited by warjournal (edited 07-07-2003).]

Good stuff, WJ. (Still a few typos)

And while the thanks are going out, thanks for sharing all your play.fiddle.learn. This is stuff I`d never have taken time to figure out for myself. It`s been a great help.
Although I have trouble reproducing your results, that`s where the .fiddle part comes in, eh ? You make me think about it.

Damn it.

You are welcome, DB. And I'll be giving the spell checker a work out a little later.

Yes, I do have something to ask of you folks. I would like donations to go into a Displace gallery. Preferably made with Displace tricks from Tech-Slop. Pretty much anything - from the fugly to the emaculant. To be honest, I'm perfectly happy with a 15 minute fiddle. As long as Displace was used, I'm good.

I know some of you folks have been fiddling behind closed doors. This time, I would like a showing. Please don't be embarressed. If you are, feel free to e-mail me with what you've got and you will remain anonymous. Hell, I'll toss in a couple of my "failed" experiments.

Make me proud. Bring a tear to my eye.
Show me, and rest of our little chasm, what you've got (even if you do want to remain anonymous).

This one from your last.





I`ve surely got some more around here somewhere, as many time as I`ve gone through these. (yea, I`ll get it someday) . How much space do you have ?

That's the spirit!

How much space do I have? I honestly don't know.
I would have to say that I have several megs available.
Yeah, that's the ticket.

Tomorrow night I'll work on a few of my own.
Might even toss in a surpise idea that I've been working on.

Sorry I haven't posted here sooner. Thank you for the kind words. Here's something for your gallery.



[This message has been edited by Moth (edited 07-22-2003).]

Thanks.
Still trying to find some good sit-down time for myself.
Not easy this past week or so, but I'll get to it.

That's fine. I just wanted to let you know I hadn't forgotten about this.

Life has a funny way of sneaking up and eating all of your photoshop time.

I'll try to get more images to you. Do you have any guidelines as to file and image size?

My brain hasn't found it's groove for this again just yet. Comes and goes.
In around 2 weeks, I'll have a bunch of days to myself - all by myself! Party in my cell!
I'm planning on pulling several all day marathons for just Tech-Slop.

As for dimensions and filesize, I prefer no bigger than 800x800 and less than 100k.
But, once I get going again, I'll probably use thumbnails, so those numbers will be pretty loose.

Found a really old displace thingy.

You said you wanted displace stuff, yes ? I`ve got some more for ya, just have to find them.
What happened to all those displace grid sigs and stuff that used to proliferate around here ?

The man asked for Displace stuff. I know you have some. You know you have some. Give it up.

If you don`t have some, go Displace something, dammit.

^^^ Don't have any ... I am still trying to nail the canify stuff

sib

edit: forgot I do have one - first go at displace

[This message has been edited by sib (edited 07-29-2003).]

Warjournal. Here's another something for your displace gallery.
http://home.columbus.rr.com/rabbithorserun/brett/takalim-gold.jpg

Moth, that's an interesting font. Where could I find something similar?



.. One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor ..

The name of the font is Samarkan. I'm not sure where I got the font (i use a Mac and it may have been provided with my computer) but the font can be found here if you have Windows.
http://fonts-free.com/font/samarkan-normal-win.html

Moth, I sent an e-mail, but it bounced. I hate it when that happens.

Kind of bad news, ya'll. I'll be holding off on a gallery for a bit. The main reason being my lack of archiving. I dug through 8 CDs of archives, and only found one usable D-Map that I had saved - I had tossed damn near everything Displace related. I saved everything else, but not my Displace junk. So, I'm going to be busy building up my own pieces, then I'll get back to this.

The good news is that I'm nearly all set to make a serious PDF of Tech-Slop. I had to hand edit every single damn page, but I can now whip it out in a few minutes. All I have to do now is a few minor edits.

That's bad news about your displace maps. I hate when that happens.

Tech-Slop as a PDF? Woohoo! *does a happy dance*

Definitely looking forward to it.

By the way, your snowy mask ramble inspired me to make a new text effect. I used guassian blur and solarize on an alpha channel of the text to create a bump map for lighting effects and a difference layer above the base text for the effect. I think it turned out well. I can't post it here (I'm at work) but you can see it at Mark's place on the show board.

I know I've been really slack of late warjournal, but as Moth so eloquently put it "Life has a funny way of sneaking up and eating all of your photoshop time". I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your work at Tech Slop and sharing it here. I hope to "Illustrate" my thanks and post them ASAP.
Tao