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 Post subject: Wires and Wire Effects
PostPosted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 2:32 pm  (#1) 
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Wires -
*******************************
Designing realistic wires and wire effects in Gimp-2.6.11.

Here are examples of what you will be creating.
Image
Coming soon after
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All brushes and gradients needed for this tutorial will be included in the attached zip package.
Attachment:
wiretut_RD.zip [4.21 KiB]
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wiretut_RD.zip

First off we will need to create a wire to apply our effects to.So let's get started!

1) Open Gimp. I will be using the latest and greatest stable version Gimp-2.6.11 for this tutorial.
2) Create a new document by going to File>New - a dialog will open copy these values to it.
Image
Go to Windows>Dockable Dialogs>Layers to open the layers dialog.
3) Next we need to create a new layer - Go to Layer>New Layer put in these values - name the layer insulation
Image
4) The next thing we need to do is create a new path. Click the paths tool icon in your toolbox.
Image
Following the directions from the image below create a new path on the insulation layer.
NOTE - Y is just a point or location on any open document. There are 4 we will be using just 2, X and Y
Think of Y as up or down and X as left or right. If you look at the gimp image window bottom left you will see
the X and Y locations changing as you move your mouse. X is the number on the left and Y is the number on the right.
Try and keep the Y location of all your anchor points the same so our wire looks more uniform in the end result.

ANCHOR POINT INSTRUCTIONS-
Image

5) Now we need to stroke this path. To do this we first need to tell Gimp what to stroke it with and give Gimp some
values to work with. So open your Brush dialog window. Windows>Dockable Dialogs>Brushes, and select the hard round brush.
Image
Set the size to 1.00. You will need to select the paint brush tool in the toolbox to see brush options. make sure the
scale is set to 1.00.
Image
Select the foreground color box on the toolbox and type in this color hex code -
Image
Select the paths tool in the toolbox and open the Paths dialog window Windows>Dockable Dialogs>Paths
Make sure the path is visible by clicking the far left box to show the eye icon.
Image
Now use these values for stroke path
Image
This is what you should see
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Select any other tool in the toolbox except the paths tool and click the eye icon in the paths dialog to make the path invisible again.
Image
Okay we have our stroked wire looking path but we need to add some 3-D looks to it. We will do that with a bump map lighting effects layer. Press the d on your keyboard - this changes the foreground color back to black , and the background color to white which is what we need for the next step.
6) Creating the Bump Map Layer
Go to Layer>New Layer and name it bump map keep everything else default.
Right click the insulation layer and select Alpha to Selection - This selects our stroked path.
Select the bump map layer and go to Edit>Fill with FG color. Keep the selection selected.
Go to Select>Shrink and put in these values
Image
Go to Edit>Fill with BG color. Go to Select>None
Now we need to Blur this layer a bit - Go to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and use the following values
Image
Go ahead and select ok and blur the layer.
7) Making the wire 3-D
Move the insulation layer above the bump map layer and keep it selected. Go to Filters>Light and Shadow>Lighting Effects
to bring up our lighting effects dialog window - put in these values for each tab
Image
Image
Image
Image
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When you are done setting the above values for each tab select ok and let Gimp go to work.When finished you should have this.
Image
This is still pretty harsh looking and we need to fix that. Select the insulation layer and go to Edit>Fade Lighting Effects
Imagewire17.png

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Click on Fade to apply the effects.
Make the background layer invisible (click the eye icon next to the layer).

8) Now right click the insulation layer and select Alpha to Selection.Go to select invert - Go to Select>feather feather by 5.
That should be the default for feather and that's fine. Select the bump map layer Go to Edit>Clear this gets rid of that
shadow above and below our wire.
9) Make sure our background layer is still invisible. Right click any layer and select Merge Visible Layers.
Image
10) Duplicate our top layer - Right click any layer and select Merge visible layers again.Rename our top layer wire.
Now make our background layer visible again by clicking the eye icon next to the layer.

11) Select the free select tool from the toolbox
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Make selections at each end of the wire to create straight cutoff edges.Select the area go to edit>clear
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You should have this now
Image
12) Select the wire layer and go to Colors>Brightness and Contrast. Enter these settings.
Image

At this point you can also go to Colors>Colorize and color your wire any color you want it to be. :)

13) Now our wire needs some copper ends.
Make sure you have installed the copper gradient i included in the file.Just place it in your gradients folder and refresh
your gradients.
Create a new layer above our wire layer - Layer>New layer name it copper end.
Select the magnification tool
Image
Zoom in quite a bit on one end of the wire by making a rectangle selection at the end of the wire in the image.
Image
Be sure the copper end layer is selected.
Select the rectangle selection tool from the toolbox. Create a rectangle 25 pixels long by 10 pixels wide
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Select the gradient tool in the toolbox
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Go to Select>None
Duplicate the copper end layer.
14) We need to rotate and place our copper ends so they are under the wire and look correct.
Select each copper end layer and go to Layer>Autocrop layer.This makes it much easier to rotate each end.
Select the rotate tool in the toolbox
Image
Move each end after rotating it to the wire insulation like so.
Image
Do this with the other end also
Image
Now go to View>Zoom>Fit Image to Window - Move the 2 copper end layers below the wire layer
Image
15) Next we add some depth to our 2 copper ends.
Select the Paint Brush Tool in the toolbox and in the tool options window select a soft brush about size 9.
Image
Right click a copper end layer any will do and select Alpha to Selection.
Zoom in again on the selection. Paint in the areas shown below
Image
Select the wire layer
Go to Filters>Enhance>Unsharp Mask
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Go to View>Zoom>Select the 1:1 (100%) option.This is View actual pixels for Gimp.
Image
Make our background layer invisible - select any layer and select new from visible.
Make the background layer visible again and make everything else but the top layer and the background layer invisible.IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU KEEP ALL THE LAYERS! You will need them for the next tutorial.
Image
Select our top layer
Now go to Filters>Light and Shadow>Drop Shadow - use the default values.
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Our wire is done. :)

Wire effects will be next! Again be sure you kept the wire layer separate from the 2 copper end layers and made a new from visible instead of merging all layers.See you in the next tutorial!

Stay tuned.

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial.

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Edmund Burke nailed it when he said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."


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 Post subject: Re: Wires and Wire Effects
PostPosted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 2:51 pm  (#2) 
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Very well done Rod... thanks

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 Post subject: Re: Wires and Wire Effects
PostPosted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 3:06 pm  (#3) 
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Very cool tut Rod; did not know about the Fade Lighting effects option (continue to learn something new every day about GIMP). Thanks for sharing the tute. :)

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 Post subject: Re: Wires and Wire Effects
PostPosted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 3:58 pm  (#4) 
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lylejk wrote:
Very cool tut Rod; did not know about the Fade Lighting effects option (continue to learn something new every day about GIMP). Thanks for sharing the tute. :)


Actually the next time you run any filter on an image checkout Edit>Fade as Gimp can fade almost all of them. :)
That includes PS plugins.

Glad you guys liked the tutorial.Tomorrow i will add the effects part. :bigthup

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Edmund Burke nailed it when he said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."


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 Post subject: Re: Wires and Wire Effects
PostPosted: Sat Dec 31, 2011 6:54 pm  (#5) 
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Nice tutorial, easy enough to follow and the images helped.

Why doesn't the final image have that glossy effect of your example wire at the top? I kinda like that ;)

But here's mine:

Image


(Arg, annoying! The background here isn't white, grr!)


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 Post subject: Re: Wires and Wire Effects
PostPosted: Sun Jan 01, 2012 1:09 pm  (#6) 
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Rod wrote:
lylejk wrote:
Very cool tut Rod; did not know about the Fade Lighting effects option (continue to learn something new every day about GIMP). Thanks for sharing the tute. :)


Actually the next time you run any filter on an image checkout Edit>Fade as Gimp can fade almost all of them. :)
That includes PS plugins.

Glad you guys liked the tutorial.Tomorrow i will add the effects part. :bigthup


thanks Rod
I saved it as a pdf


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 Post subject: Re: Wires and Wire Effects
PostPosted: Sun Jan 01, 2012 9:39 pm  (#7) 
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Amanda47 wrote:
Nice tutorial, easy enough to follow and the images helped.

Why doesn't the final image have that glossy effect of your example wire at the top? I kinda like that ;)

But here's mine:

Image


(Arg, annoying! The background here isn't white, grr!)


To get the other effect just use a different layer mode in Fade>Lighting Effects :)
Here i used Addition with a slightly different amount of opacity.

Image

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Edmund Burke nailed it when he said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."


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 Post subject: Re: Wires and Wire Effects
PostPosted: Mon Jan 02, 2012 5:26 pm  (#8) 
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Great tutorial, Rod!. Thanks for the effort and the posting.

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 Post subject: Re: Wires and Wire Effects
PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 3:41 pm  (#9) 
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Great tut Rod!! I will have to give it a try. :) Plus I got to learn about lighting effects.. Oooo... :bigthup


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 Post subject: Re: Wires and Wire Effects
PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 6:07 pm  (#10) 
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Finally got around to your tute Rod. Very nice.

Image

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 Post subject: Re: Wires and Wire Effects
PostPosted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 12:44 am  (#11) 
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Very nice results Molly! :)
I still need to get to the effects part.So busy getting this PhotoFont thing going. :)

I still have a few tutorials to catch up on myself.Like your frame tutorial with lace...very much been wanting to do that one.I got so far as to dl the brushes and ...back to photofont work :lol
That is about set though so soon i hope i can do a few tutorials from other users that are posted.

Then i need to get to work on my space button tutorial. That's a fun one. :)

Thanks for giving this wires tutorial a try. Also thanks for the kind compliments folks.

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Edmund Burke nailed it when he said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."


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