[Setekh]

 

Originally posted by Spectre:
Hey Setekh, That silent flight pic cool as sheeet   good work.

Cheers, dude   Got something else cool, that you'll all see soon - all in good time  

 

Originally posted by NeoHunter:
Okay! What program did you use to create that picture? I only have Adobe Photoshop 6 at home.

Yep, as Thunder has mentioned many a time (because he bugged me about it a lot at one stage - now I bug him about it now  ), I use Spire. However, again, he's right in that most effects I've been able to do with Spire, Thunder and I have found parallels in Photoshop. I can't say that everything will work the same or come out exactly right, but Photoshop is a huge program, and surely there are plenty of possiblities to explore. Albeit they might be hidden under a plethora of menus or paletes and an exorbitant price (one of the reasons I started the Spire project), it is indisputable that the power is all there.

That said... it's really just a matter of transparent path objects (in various programs called aliases and vectors), the same with frames, and a lot of glow effects.  

[NeoHunter]

So, who can teach me how to do beam effects in Photoshop?

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[Setekh]

Heh heh, Thunder?  

[Fineus]

Whistles....

Um... I have really bad typing cramp right now but I've bookmarked this thread so I'll come back to it later when I feel a little better about typing large amounts of stuff...

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[Carl]

 

Originally posted by NeoHunter:
So, who can teach me how to do beam effects in Photoshop?

i'm not too sure if i want to reveal my secret of how to make my patented 133+ beams(TM) but i'll think about it.

[NeoHunter]

Thanks a lot you guys! I'll check back here soon.

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Not to mention a FREDder!

[Setekh]

Well, what I used to do was draw a triangle, and then make that glow. Worked for me...  

[Fineus]

Hmm, to tell the truth in my latest render (which only Setekh has seen  ) I've used a slightly different way of doing the beams than before, but I think it's probably as effective although it could use some refining.

Make a brush, give it a size of 200 and a "roundness" of 20 or something. Make it green, red, yellow - whatever the beam will be. Then make a beam shape from the beam turret to the target. Next make the brush smaller and less round again and select white. Essentially you are handpainting a beam, you know more or less what one looks like I assume? so in the end you achieve a beam. Any questions? (not to clear a description I know).

[Sandwich]

Yeah - do you have any way to keep the beam straight when you hand-paint it, unlike Ace and his bending beams?  

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[Fineus]

Funny that, gotta love it  
Yeah I do - you use a "straight line selection tool" any make a beam shape. This means that you can fill in the line pretty easily and hand touch it to suit your needs. I'll try and do a rapid render to show what I mean later. Also note that the straight lines on the beam probably won't matter because you'll have an explosion infront of it anyway (hopefully)  

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[Setekh]

Does PhotoShop have paths/vectors? Or is it just Illustrator? Paths are like shapes which can be resized and deformed as much as you want, but they are recalculated everytime that happens, so you never lose any quality on them. I used paths to do all the schematics and flight path in my guide to atmospheric maneuvring.