We are continuing in the series entitled
Metal Wurx, and now
Part III will show you how to make different types of tread plates. You will need the tread plate patterns provided in the Metal Patterns zip file from
Metal Wurx – Part II, and a rusted metal image like this one available at deviantart.com.
http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/ ... 2#/d3i25upOnce you have downloaded the zip file, place the patterns in your Gimp “user” patterns folder and go to the Bucket Fill tool dialog and refresh your patterns before starting this tutorial. If you have been following these tutorials, they should already be there.
Step 1.
Open a new image 1024x 768 and about 600 ppi and create a new transparent layer above the background layer and name it “pattern”.
Step 2.
Select the Bucket Fill tool and in the tool dialog tick the two circles in front of “Pattern fill” and “Fill whole selection”. Now click on the sample pattern and in the window that pops up, find the TP_1 pattern. You may have to use the list mode to find it. Once you have the TP_1 pattern loaded and with the transparent layer “active”, use the Bucket Fill tool to fill the layer with our pattern. You should have an image similar to this.
Step 3.
We want to dress up our pattern just a little before we go any further so select the eraser tool and using a circle brush carefully erase the partial pattern on the outside edges. You will probably want to change your view setting to about 200% to make this operation a little easier.
Once you have it cleaned up, duplicate the pattern layer and rename the duplicate layer “pattern blur”. Check the box at the top of the layers dialog to “Lock” the alpha channel like so.
Set your Foreground color to a medium gray (808080) and drag the color over to your image to fill the pattern blur layer with the gray color. Now go back and uncheck the box to “unlock” the alpha channel.
Step 4.
Go to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and set both values to 7. Tick the eye in front of the Pattern Blur layer in the layers dialog to turn off the visibility.
Step 5.
Go to File>Open as Layers and navigate to wherever you saved your rust image or the image you are going to use, and open it in gimp. If you need to resize your image (mine is really huge!) go to Layers>Scale Layer and enter 1024 x 680 and click OK. Rename your rust image layer to Rust then right click on it in the layers dialog and select Add Alpha Channel. Duplicate the Rust layer one time and rename the duplicated layer to Tread.
Note: We could at this point just bump map the rust layer but you would not be able to do much of anything else. Therefore, we will have one Rust layer for the tread itself and one for the background. This way we can control each layer separately and apply some lighting effects afterwards.
Step 6.
Select the rust layer and tick the eye in the layers dialog to turn off the visibility of the Tread layer. Go to Filters>Map>Bump map and in the Bump Map dialog box, make sure the Rust layer is selected as the bump map, set the Map type to Sinusoidal and the depth to about 7. Tick the box to invert the bump map and click OK.
Now turn on the visibility of the Tread layer, and turn off everything except the background layer. Right click on the pattern layer in the layers dialog and select Alpha to Selection. Go to Select>Invert then go back and click on the Tread layer to select it and make it the active layer again, and hit the Delete key to cut away everything except the tread pattern. Go to Select>None to turn off the selection. At this point you can delete the pattern and background layers. We will not need them anymore.
Step 7.
Go to Filters>Map>Bump Map and select the Tread layer as the bump map. Uncheck the Invert bump map box and set the depth to 3 then click OK. This will give us just a little texture for the treads since they should have a little smoother worn look to them. Now let’s repeat the bump map but select the blur layer as the bump map and set the depth to 7. At the bottom of the bump map dialog you will need to move the slider over until the Ambient is set to 50. This will add a little light to the dark side of the tread pattern. Go to Filters and click at the very top where it says Repeat Bump Map.
Step 8.
Delete the three bottom layers so that you only have the Rust layer and the Tread layer.
Select the tread layer to make it active and go to Filters>Light and Shadows>Drop Shadow and enter the following settings.
Duplicate the Drop shadow layer and you now have your first rusted tread plate!
Step 9.
All we have left to do is a couple of simple steps. Right click on the Tread layer and select Merge Down. Right click on that layer and Merge down again. (It will be named “Drop Shadow” because that was the bottom layer. You don’t have to rename it again, but you can if you wish). Now we are back to a tread layer and a rust layer.
Step 10.
Tread plates are usually thick and heavy so Right click on the Rust layer in the layers dialog and select Drawable Multiplication and use the settings as shown below.
Saves a whole lot of time!
If you don’t have this script you can always duplicate the layer and move it one pixel down and one pixel to the right and repeat several times to get 10 layers, or…………. you can get the script at the Gimp Plug-in Registry here…
http://registry.gimp.org/node/22383Once you make your 10 layers (merged) you should now have a new layer called “rust copy #1” between your Rust layer and your Tread layer like so.
Step 11.
Move the Rust layer above the copy in the layers stack and click on the rust copy #1 layer to select it. Go to Colors>Curves and grab the line in the middle and by holding down the mouse button, drag the curve down just a little to darken the rust copy layer. This will help distinguish it from the top layer and add depth to the image.
You will note in the image above that the image is actually slightly larger than our canvas so to correct this, go to Image>Fit Canvas to Layers. We’re almost done.
Step 12.
Right click anywhere in the layers dialog and select Merge Visible Layers. Go to Filters>
Light and Shadow>Drop Shadow and set the both X & Y offsets to 15, the blur radius to 25 and the opacity to 80%. Merge your layers and save as a PNG and there you have it!
Here are a few examples of some of the other tread plates you can make with the patterns I have provided. The process is pretty much the same but if you hit a snag just give me a shout and I’ll try to help.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
Metal Wurx IV will show you how to make metal mesh, screens, expanded metal and much more!