Digital Art Zone

I have some images (jpegs, pngs) that I’d like to insert into DS. Not as backdrops (I know how to do that) and not as textures (I was recently told how to do that) but just as a flat image that I can stretch about or alter scale. Is there a way to do this? I have a prop which is like a sheet or plane with fog on it, so I’m guessing I’d need to do something similar? Also, when adding textures to a figure, is it possible to add it to just one limb (eg an arm) instead of both?

The first you can do by applying the texture to a plane primitive, then scaling it or using DFormers on it (if you want to do that it needs to have enough divisions to work with) - Create>New Primitive. For something like fog you would also need an opacity map, however - black wheer ti should be invisible, white where it should be opaque, and grey for in-between areas.

Texturing only one limb would be trickier - you could do it, with a mask (black where you wanted the original map, white where you wanted the new) in Sahder Mixer or, more simply, by using the Layered Image Editor (you can launch that from the same menu you use for applying an image - add a layer for your new image over the base texture, then apply your mask image to that).

For the first part of your question you need to create a new primitive and then select a plane .  Size is up to you depending on your need and divisions we tend to leave it at 1

use to X rotate to turn it if you wish to use it like a back drop and then z translate to move backwards.

You can then add a texture on to it vie the surface tab.

For the second part of your question you will need to use an image editing program like gimp or Photoshop and edit the texture is the main way of changing the texture on one limb.

Using Layed Image editor on the surface tab is another option you will need to have the texture in a non interlaced png format and then you can use L.I.E to place the texture on top of the currently applied texture on the limb.

Thanks. I’ll leave the one limb texturing until I know more about what I’m doing.
I’ve created a plane, now how do I create or find an opacity map?

What are you applying to the plane? The opacity map has to match the thing you are wanting to make semi-transparent.

I have pictures of lightning and some flames. I’ve clicked on Opacity Strength option and added the lightning which appears on the plane in different colours than the original picture. Now when I move the arrow the whole thing fades. What next?

You’d do best to make a copy of the image and open it in an image editor (justa bout anything other than Windows paint will do). There should be some kind of levles or equalisation command - you want to drag the black point up to darken the background to black, the and the white point down to lighten the foregound flames or lightning to white. If you end up with other white areas, such as street or car lights in the lightning) paint them out with black. Now if you use that image as the Opacity map it should give fairly decent results.

take a look at this tutorial http://homepage.eircom.net/~neilvpose/ds-settings.htm and scroll down to the section on opacity.

but the basic principle is that what you want invisible needs to be black what you want visible needs to be white and different shades of opacity require shades of grey.  some you can do with the settings but it is best to do on the map so a 50% grey will give 50% opacity.

Thank you for your help again, guys. I’ve got some pics to work, using opacity maps as advised to make black invisible and so on. But what do you do if part of the image you want visible IS black?

Also, when I create the plane, the divisions is set to 1. What are divisions? And what do d-formers do? I’ve never heard of them.

Divisions is a bit like having 2 ply or 3 ply paper if we are going to do a bit more than just add a texture to the plane like add a displacement map or a deformer we need to up the divisions to make the plane tension strength a bit stronger if that makes sense we almost make the plane thicker with out making it thicker just stronger.

Which leads on to deformers this is a little tool that you use to deform meshes,  say you wanted a curve in the centre of the plane you would add a deformer and adjust it until you got the correct curvature.

I can hardly get them to work myself and since we have moved forums we have lost all our tutorials on deformers so I have no where to send you for extra help at the moment sorry.

HI SteveM17

what do you do if part of the image you want visible IS black?

If you have an image editor like Photoshop, Paint shop pro, or the GIMp program, which can deal with transparency and selection masks. the you would create your Colour image,. and a separate Alpha mask.

you would create a grey-scale image for the Alpha channel which would have all the parts you wanted to be visible in White, and all the parts you wanted to be invisible in Black.

So, for example,. If you had Black text in the colour image, but wanted it Visible when using the alpha channel,. you would make anothe image where the text was white and the background was black.

A simpler method is to use a PNG format (which supports alpha channel transparency) instead of JPG which doesn’t.

Quick example :
colour image with black text and a white Lightning bolt.
Alpha channel mask with the text and lightning bolt masked in white on a black background.

the resulting render on a Plane

Divisions is how many times the object is sliced - with a plane, 1 division is a simple square, 2 divisions are four squares, 3 divisions are nine squares (a 3 by 3 grid) and so on. DFormers move only the vertices (in the plane, the places that the corners of squares meet) so if you want to use one to distort a plane there have to be enough divisions to give you enough vertices for the shape you want to be achieved - a single division can have the corners moved only, whereas with twenty or so divisions you could make a waving flag with a bit of fiddling.

Well, I’m eperimenting with this stuff, I think I can get the effect I want. If I think of these things in a similar way to stencils it helps get my tired old brain around it.Just looked at d-formers guide in the help file - complicated!

Cheers for your replies.