I've always liked this kind of graphics outcomes. Could somebody in the forum to do it in Gimp? It would be nice to learn how to do it.

That looks interesting.
I have a few ideas, but all of them seem very involved.
I think this could be something that Lyle might be able to figure out, using his knowledge of G'MIC and scripts of course.

sorry my friend, no ideas, it's not my area of interest (I'm more limited than you in exploring possibilities of gimp+gmic; mainly prone to photo-manipulation than objects-texts creations...)

Thank you my friends. We will wait for Lyle's ideas.

I still cant do 3D letters without a script and it looks like a sphere (map to object) that is mostly transparent.

I don't see how you could do this in GIMP, or even in MathMap because the fonts show all the different sides. Other than doing it all manually with a 3D program like Blender. You could probably do it in Hexagon also.

Thank you Sallyanne and Rod. I thought that making lettering random and then en 3d. we'd get a square 3d-letter layer, and then to do the sphere. After that duplicate the layer and reduce the size to do the same process for the inner sphere and like that until to get the shape. So, I'm talking for talking as I have no idea about the process.

Very simple tutorial for you.

Create your text.
Duplicate the text and move it 1 pixel whichever way you want it to 3D from. For instance 1 pixel up and 1 pixel right would make the 3D from the bottom left.
Lastly on the top text layer just go to Colors> brightness and contrast. Play with the settings.
You could also stroke the top text layer and fade the opacity a bit.
Results after 5 layers -

Thanks Rod. I only tried with one extra layer. Didn't realize it had to be done a few times. Will try again soon.


Hope Lyle shows us how to do this orb with letters or other soon.

Will have to give him a challenge - or maybe it will be easy for him

Yes Sallyanne, it would be a huge challenge. Even without orientation of the lettering, it'd be very nice and cool. I've tried it but no success.

I think there could be a way to achieve this though not without a loss of quality, I'm up for the challenge.

I'm thinking random font script, G'mics packed sprite script and then a 3d script. create several layers this way and then use the map object script but manipulate the image with polar coordinates first prior to mapping.

I shall have a look when I get chance.

That could work he4rty! I think.

I've had a very quick play, maybe more spacing between the letters, but the hardest part is trying to get the quality of the image back.

very good he4rty

Have followed your tut now Rod and I think I got it. Have to do it better though yet.

That is fantastic! he4rty you almost got it!
what a tutorial do you mean, Sallyanne? I haven't seen it. Thanks

Cool Hearty; not sure why you think I know how to do this. lol

Maybe, start with a fill of random overlapping text like this then run Mathmap's Distort>Sphere might work too.

An excellent start though!

The problem I'm seeing now that I've tried to do this is the cylinder rotation ability of the characters on the side of the sphere desired. That cannot be done really in bitmap editors like GIMP easily if at all. I did try by creating selections then stroking with varying size and jitter (distorted aspect ratio out the outside smaller characters). First I created a character brush using these characters. I then created a seamless texture and sphere mapped the texture, but, as mentioned, the distortion was bad. I then commenced to stroke the sphere shell as stated. Now if some how skew and size stroking selections can be automated, then maybe you can get a good result in the GIMP. Anyway, I included the seamless texture and gih in the attached zip file. Below's my sorry result. lol

I'm liking the results Lyle.

Thanks he4rty; I'm thinking now that if you used two different brushes (edge inferred alphabet for the outer ring and then skewed aspect ration as you close in to the center until the aspect ration is 1 to 1 at the center would get you the sphere result desired, but then again, I could be wrong. lol