Some Gimp Plugins I Stumbled Across

[Maximius]

I found these two plugins for Gimp, they look useful.

 

http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/resynthesizer

 

http://www.manucornet.net/Informatique/Texturize.php

 

Edit: I think they do the same thing actually, maybe one is better than the other.

Edited February 12, 2007 by Maximius

[Gildoran]

It looks like something that automatically applies the clone tool and image offsets. It may be useful as a way to save work, but the only way I intend to stop using the clone is when it's pried out of my cold dead fingers.

[Maximius]

It looks like something that automatically applies the clone tool and image offsets. It may be useful as a way to save work, but the only way I intend to stop using the clone is when it's pried out of my cold dead fingers.

 

 

Please explain further, why is it only useful as a way to save work? Does clone already do what this does? Or does it do it automatically, with the implication of not looking very authentic or something when compared to the human touch?

[Gildoran]

Yeah, the clone tool can be used to achieve the same effect, though it's manual rather than automatic; the clone tool allows you to "paint" an image instead of a single color. The example images that were given looked pretty good, and I'd probably be willing to use such a filter for a first pass, but I'd want to later touch things up using the clone tool, to fix distorted objects (I noticed a lot of mishapen fruit) and remove things that stand out (to make tiling less noticable).

[Maximius]

Yeah, the clone tool can be used to achieve the same effect, though it's manual rather than automatic; the clone tool allows you to "paint" an image instead of a single color. The example images that were given looked pretty good, and I'd probably be willing to use such a filter for a first pass, but I'd want to later touch things up using the clone tool, to fix distorted objects (I noticed a lot of mishapen fruit) and remove things that stand out (to make tiling less noticable).

 

 

So I could for example select a section of hedgerow, of an appropriate color and shading, and then clone it and remake a section of hedgerow with only that selection as multiple clones? Then, if I use a suite of cloned selections, all different, can I reconstruct the face of a hedge? Is that clear? Im trying to figure out if I should do that, or I have another idea, to use "color select" to select one color, then >somehow< replace another inappropriate color with the better one. Basically tone down the "hotspots" of light but retain the original image. This seems quicker than redrawing the whole fucking thing for a diffuse map. I'd love to learn how to someday but I'd settle for a little quick and dirty right now. Does this make sense or is there a better way to do it?

Edited February 15, 2007 by Maximius

[Crispy]

I don't know about The Gimp, but in Photoshop at least there are ways of toning down the highlights. There's a dialog box for adjusting the brightness of hilights/midtones/shadows separately, or you could do a "colour select" on white with a high tolerance and then play with brightness and contrast controls.

[Gildoran]

Using the clone tool to draw over highlights might work. Another possibility is doing what Crispy said with the color picker tool and brightness/contrast. You could also go into Layer > Colors and play with some of commands. My favorites are curves, hue/saturation and brightness/contrast. Another possibility is to create another layer over the background, and change the blend mode to "brightness". You could then mix the resulting image in various ways with the original.

 

However, it's usually hard to get rid of lighting information by editing an image; it's far better to try to start with an image without a lighting bias.

[Maximius]

Ill try the color picker and bright/contrast approach first. Also, the weather has been plenty overcast as of late, I wonder if I can get some photos that would work well. Everything I can find on the web is well lit with sunlight, as they are all hedge bush advertisements trying to look wonderful. Bastard hedge growers!

[Maximius]

I think I got something that will work, select by color SHift O, then I can fill it with the pattern color, which gently reduces the highlights with a mixture of all of the colors present. Im trying to figure out how to fill it with a solid color next. Ill post some comparison shots.

[Maximius]

Ok, just some simple stuff here but I'm a'learnin:

 

I used Color picker and the paintbrush on a fine setting to change this:

 

 

into this:

 

 

which I'm going to darken a bit with some forest green. I'll do this to about 8 different sections or so, then layer them after N-mapping to construct a bush or hedge. Heres a sketch of that:

 

 

and here is a birdeye view of the thing, without a "cap" of hedge map on top.

 

 

Its this kind of layering of panels that I hope creates a more realistic sense of depth, of actually looking into the bush a little.

[Unstoppable]

coolbeans :]

[Maximius]

The last link got cut off, here it is

 

[sparhawk]

The last link was put wrong by you and I already corrected it several hours ago.

[Maximius]

The last link was put wrong by you and I already corrected it several hours ago.

 

 

argh, its still not linking though, unless its my puter or something. Ill try again when I get home. The last pic shows all those panels, layered like an onion but with more space in between and on the sides to let light/shadow pass through.

Edited February 16, 2007 by Maximius

[oDDity]

There are great tools in phototshop for what you are describing, i.e replacing one colour or tone with another in an image, or desaturating selective parts of an image. The selective colour tool and the replace colour tool are both great for this. There's also the match colour tool if want to change one image to the tones and colour scheme of another.

These are much better than trying to select parts of an image and use hue/saturation/brightness/contrast etc on it.

[sparhawk]

Now the link works. If it is the correct one.

[Maximius]

There are great tools in phototshop for what you are describing, i.e replacing one colour or tone with another in an image, or desaturating selective parts of an image. The selective colour tool and the replace colour tool are both great for this. There's also the match colour tool if want to change one image to the tones and colour scheme of another.

These are much better than trying to select parts of an image and use hue/saturation/brightness/contrast etc on it.

 

 

Nice, thanks, do you happen to know if these are also in GIMP? I know desat and select color is, but I cannot find replace or match color. But they are probably there and I just haven't come across them yet.

 

P.S. Thanks hawk for that link.

 

 

Ooo, just remembered an important question too, can these maps be bent or curved without applying them to an actual models surface? Im trying to make these hedges using mostly or entirely alpha maps but they will look like shit if I cannot curve or bend them into more natural shapes.

Edited February 16, 2007 by Maximius

[Crispy]

Not sure exactly what you're looking for. I know Photoshop does have some distortion filters.

[Maximius]

Not sure exactly what you're looking for. I know Photoshop does have some distortion filters.

 

Im probably confusing my terms somewhere, what I want is for the "panels" of hedgerow texture or material to be curved, so I can shape my hedge. But I don't want to use polys, I'm just drawing pixels here, at least I think I am. So can I bend the section of pixels that makes the image, without applying it to a polygon surface? The image of the hedge section I posted, can that , as a pixel map, be curved or warped or something or is it always going to appear as a flat plane?

 

This game ThinkTanks I bought recently, lots of fun, has these toony little trees, but the leaves are pixel maps I think and they are gently curving palm type leaves. If I can do something similar, it will make things look a lot more organic.

[Crispy]

Oh, I see. I think. No, if you want to actually curve it you will need to use mesh geometry. You could partially fake it using normal maps in certain situations but that might get complicated.

 

Leaves are typically done with alpha maps. You have 1 poly (2 tris) for each leaf, but some texels (texture pixels) are not drawn. If I'm understanding you correctly this won't work for you here.

[Maximius]

Drat, that sucks. I guess I'll have to design a mesh body with as few polygons as possible, in order to keep the rounded look. I really don't want a bunch of boxy, angular hedges. But I also want them as low-poly as possible, too.

 

 

Can you tell me a bit more about partially faking it? Maybe it would just be enough.

Edited February 17, 2007 by Maximius

[Crispy]

Well, you can use normal maps to make a square thing be shaded to look "round". It works pretty well for railings, for example; the Doom 3 railings are square, I believe, but they look like round poles because of the normal mapping.

 

The reason it gets complicated is because you're already using normal maps for the hedge foliage, right? So you'd need to combine the normal maps to get both effects.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about it - the square look will probably be OK, I reckon. Or you could blunt the upper, outer corners of the hedges with a 2-6 triangles on each corner, because 12 extra tris per length of hedge is not going to matter much.

[Maximius]

I wouldn't worry too much about it - the square look will probably be OK, I reckon. Or you could blunt the upper, outer corners of the hedges with a 2-6 triangles on each corner, because 12 extra tris per length of hedge is not going to matter much.

 

 

Thats what Im aiming for now, I have to fire up Lightwave and make some models of hedge bushes soon.

[Gildoran]

Drat, that sucks. I guess I'll have to design a mesh body with as few polygons as possible, in order to keep the rounded look. I really don't want a bunch of boxy, angular hedges. But I also want them as low-poly as possible, too.

Everything in videogames is made up of triangles. If you see a "curved" surface, it's just made up of enough triangles that you don't notice the flat segments.

 

I should mention that high-poly things are only expensive to draw if they cast shadows or are animated, so if you're going for a separate shadow mesh, you may be able to get away with something high-poly. However, I highly recommend going with what Crispy said - in D3 low-poly things can look very high-poly if you properly utilize smoothing groups and normalmaps.