Both are good but the gold one with the chain is very nice! Good job, Molly!

Hey, it's snowing here for the first time this year. We are supposed to get 3"+.

I hope someone doesn't slide into a pole and take out my power. That would not be good. We're just not prepared for snow, here in the deep south. I'll be stuck here for 2 or 3 days. My pickup truck will never make it up the hill.

Love it. Put some cement blocks in the back.
My sister that lives down by you will be over the moon. She says everything closes down when it snows there. like schools work etc.
We got two blizzards this past week end and some of the drifts are 6 to 8 feet. Now it is snowing again, the winds are so high that is is swirling all over.
You will have to stay in Tux and gimp till you drop.

This script is just too cool.

Thanks man, appreciate it.

Thank you for putting up this script - for what it does, it can save a lot of tedious steps, plus it does some thing which I would not have considered possible without it.

I downloaded this script at some point last week, but before I got around to testing it on my system I happened on some tutorials which I hadn't noticed before, which seemed to be leading toward what 3D Extrusion does. I followed several of them over the weekend, and this one to be specific:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfeIBK1k_PY
As it turned out, this follows the hard methods, but I decided that it was a good idea to learn them before getting into the script. Here's what I ended up doing, based on this tutorial:

It wasn't easy, but then not really that difficult either. Note how the extrusion (done with the Motion Blur Filter, painted over) tapers inward, but along the X axis. When I later tried 3D extrustion (adding my own front layer and paint to the extrusions), this is as close as I could come to that specific effect (okay, looks like I added a bit more extrusion depth:

Now that's pretty awesome, but then if I want the extrusions to "shrink" without the parabolically dizzying effect (just like the tutorial), it doesn't seem to be available as part of 3D Extrusion. I hate to complain - again, for what it does, this script makes it easy. It also is the only way by which I've seen in stock GIMP for producing that curved extrusion shrinkage, but I'm really perplexed over what it will not do. You cannot turn off the curvature when your extrusions shrink as they move backward. There is an option for growing the extrusions along the X-axis, but not for shrinking them in the same plane, and that just seems odd. Another interesting extrusion feature option in the Motion Blur Filter is Radial, and I think that is just way too badass to be left out! For what this script does, thank you, but for the options left out, I just have to ask why?

One more issue with 3D Extrusion, maybe somebody can tell me if they have experienced this on their system. This is an error situation, and it although my hardware is quite cheap and old, my system is performing normally before the error occurs. There are four Extrusions options: Directional, Shrink, Grow, and Grow Along X-Axis. The first two options always seem to work reliably, but after I've done some work and have more than a couple of images open, the last two always result in this:

Has this happened to you before?

Can anybody recommend minimal hardware for this script?

Finally, my summation of this script, which is really the first add-on script which I've tried. Perhaps my expectations were a little unrealistic, thinking scripts like this are making GIMP do what it could not otherwise be made to do at all, but this one really seems to be more of an "Easy Button" for what it's already good for with more time. Am I incorrect in that summation, and would I be so if I had similar expectations of other scripts? I still haven't learned much on vector graphics yet, and I find it somewhat vexing that you cannot have a program to what both GIMP and Inkscape are capable of. Is it necessarily impossible to script or plug-in capabilities for GIMP which are specifically Inkscape? Can anybody explain why or why not?

Hi MisterA,

I'll try to respond to a few of your questions, as best I can. This script does not use motion blur or shadows to create a 3D effect. Instead, it replicates and offsets to produce a 3D effect. There is a big difference between the two techniques and they shouldn't really be compared or conflated. There are probably GIMP scripts which use motion blur or shadowing to create a 3D effect but I'm not aware of them.

For "Directional Extrusion", this script applies a bump map to the original image, then replicates that layer, while offsetting it in one of 8 directions, to a given depth. Applying a bump map before replicating, adds needed contrast to the extrusion. Without the contrast, the final result will simply be a blob of the same color/pattern and not have any 3D effect.

No Contrast (no bump map)

With Contrast


This script also keeps the original layer, placing the extruded layer just below, which allows more options for manual contrast between the top "end cap" and the extruded layer.

There is not much contrast in your example, which for me, kinda kills the 3D effect. For this effect, I think creating more contrast and selecting less depth, produces a better result.



The above example is about the same depth as your first example and there is not the curvature you mentioned. When "Shrinking", curvature will occur with high depth values and large spaces between characters.

This is the result you get from "Shrinking along the x-axis". I'm not sure if this it was the result you were expecting.


The last two "Grow" options were created by request, so they might only be useful in certain instances, for certain applications.

I am not able to duplicate the issues you are having with the "Grow" and the "Grow along X-axis" options. If you can provide the exact steps required to reproduce the issue, I can have a look to see that might be wrong. There are no special hardware requirements in order to use this script.

On a side note you might want to check out the Logo Toolbox script, which also includes a 3D extrusion option. I'm in the process of updating that script, so I'll have a new release of the Logo Toolbox script soon.

GIMP is a Raster Graphics app, whereas Inkscape is a Vector Graphics app.

Probably so. The Motion Blur procedure depends on keeping a duplicate of the original layer, as the front layer ("end cap" is what you call it) - your script creates this before it does its work. The blurred text then has to be painted over (I used the Gradient tool, but I could have filled it in solid). To get any sort appearance of grain on the extrusions requires heavy overlay of a dot pattern prior to the blur action. I got the idea to make a tiny x-pattern from this kid's tutorial (it's no longer available for download, and not all of his ideas make sense). Needless to say, it's kinda difficult to then paint the blurred layer without wiping out the grain (Grain Merge Mode is the closest compromise which I'm aware of - the kid in this video didn't bother with the opaque paint.)


Actually, I now believe that just plain "Shrinking" produces the direction which I wanted - I didn't realize that this is what I was doing all along because in Motion Blur there's a psychological wall (how far can you really BLUR your text) that you hit when it comes to really going deep). So I never noticed how it what I did in the Motion Blur filter really followed the same curve which "Shrinking" does in 3D Extrusion, and this effect really is more desireable (although that wierd example you just showed would be a cool option when you WANT to be weird). Apologies on that misconception.

However, it would be still be really cool if you could do what you have been doing with the Radial option in Motion Blur - please check that out.

There are no steps, other than the normal application of either of these two Extrusion options with the same settings otherwise when using the other two. I don't know for sure, but I've noticed it happening when I have at least three projects of similar size open, and I have previously run 3D Extrusion a couple of times just to see what happens. Like I said, my hardware is old (almost six years and this Toshiba was a bargain in it's day), although I have not noticed similar problems with other applications. I frequently watch full-length movies on full-screen, no problem there with the laptop cooler while running Linux.



Thanks!

Yes. I am familiar with the motion blur technique used to simulate a 3D effect and it does work well, for what it is. What can be achieved with that method is somewhat limited.

The 3D Extrusion script doesn't use blur at all. To simulate a 3D Effect, this script stacks up and offsets copies of the original layer (after a bump map for contrast). It then merges all of those individual layers together to create a single "Extrusion" layer. This allows you to "extrude" any kind of image.

For example, you can start with gradient filled text and extrude that.

I used the default script settings, then Colors/Hue-Saturation and tweaked the layers to add additional contrast.

If you select the "Overlay with pattern" option, the script will create an overlay layer just above the original layer, using the selected pattern. This allows you to do things like combine the extruded gradient text with a texture/pattern.


By selecting the "Extrude with pattern" option, you can direct the script to extrude the selected pattern (so you don't have to manually fill with a pattern before you extrude).

I again used Colors/Hue-Saturation to tweak the layers for additional contrast.

One caveat when using the "Extrude with pattern" option is that the color/lightness of the original text/image is factored into the final result. This could be considered a "bug" or a "feature", depending on how you look at it. If you want to maintain the pattern's color/lightness, just start with medium light text, something like gray: #9F9F9F.

This is actually the perfect situation and example of why we need scripts. Imagine the hassle it would be to create 30 to 40+ layers and offset them manually to create this effect. Then, you decide you want the extrusion to be in a different direction.

Without using a script, this technique wouldn't be very practical.

You really do need a script when you use this method, but I see how only this one makes the pattern of your "cap" layer follow down the path of the extrusions without being ...err...blurry. Anyway, thanks for doing this!

sweet! thanks for sharing

GnuTux, great texts, how did you create the dark blue chrome effect? - in Peace RJKD

These are some really great extrusions!

I'm still just downloading these new filters and playing.

Indeed it is!!

Hi there,
I have downloaded this script from Gimp Scripts but the dialogue box is different without extrusion type. From where I can get this particular version?
Thanks

Rashid - post #1 in this thread has the link to http://gimpscripts.com/2013/12/3d-extrusion/ which provides the latest version, although it is several years old.

If that is the one you used ... then I am not sure where the problem lies.

Thought I would post some updates for GIMP 2.10.x Script-fu (Scheme):

3D Extrusion V2.4

;V2.4 - For GIMP 2.10.x (Procedures Deprecated)
; (gimp-layer-set-mode

I'm currently using Fedora 31 (MATE) /w GIMP 2.10.12 (Not sure what's up with 2.10.14).

Glad to see you back here, Merry Christmas!

Thanks dinasset,

Nice to see you as well.

I've been very sick for several years and its really nice to be filling better again. Coding helps improve my condition tremendously.