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Techno Orb


Schot

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Alright guys heres a tutorial that erialc had lieing around that I thought was uber cool! :D

 

So the idea here is that we work together on the tutorials. Some of us may get it to work properly and some may not quite get the effect they were hoping for and so we'll help eachother out as best we can.

 

Once your satisfied with the end result, which doesn't need to be perfect btw, I would like you to post and share your work.

 

 

Admittedly there are some necessary things that need to be learned in photoshop as a novice but I figure lets start off with something fun! Though, novice be warned, we do need to learn some important things like "colour management"... Ugh, booooring. Even I have yet to understand this fully but its imperative to understand as it dictates the outcome of the colours in your final saved projects ie: jpgs or gifs. But that is for another day. Today we have fun and get ourselves an O so cool orb!

 

Have fun and share!

 

 

Cool Orb Tutorial Link!glowingorbexample5yr.jpg

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Yayy Schot I have been waiting for your workshops to appear :hugz: I am going to have a go at that orb again...I didn't save anything I tried with it previously as it ended up looking like a mutated M n M erm and I only got about 3 pages in lol

 

Fingers crossed and some peace and quiet and who knows....I'll post my attempts later :blush:

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Schot...I have progressed a little further than last I tried this...here's what I have so far

 

 

ae262bc4f30e2b21f1a498c493c5fdbe.th.jpg

 

 

But I come totally unstuck with the gradient making bit. On p4 of the tutorial I have something totally different and can't seem to adjust it. Could it be the version I'm using (6) doesn't have as much funcionality...or me being dim? :blush:

But this is what I see

 

659fe381f3929254c61d431729914b6e.th.jpg

 

Pwease help me :wacko:

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Hey erialc. Wow, you don't waste any time! :D

 

I had a look at your gradient tool and the tool seems to me to have the same options as the one shown in the tut. The only difference I noticed is that your gradient style is set to linear whereas the tut has it set to reflected:

Across from the word "Style" there is a drop down arrow. If you push that you will see an option for reflected.

 

Also, your scale is set to 100 where the tut suggests 150.

 

Hope that will help! :)

 

I'm off to give it a try!

 

P.S.

I just discovered that on page 4 there is no explanation as to how to open to the "Contour Editor". Heres how: Whenever you see a grey wave graphic next to the word "contour" simply right click on the graphic and the contour editor will open. :)

 

 

P.P.S. :P

Ooooook, so I finished the tut and discovered that in a couple of steps you need a moderate to advanced level of photoshop knowledge. Never fear! I've got lots of tips to help you guys get thru those nasty bumps in the tut which I will share tomorrow. For now, here is what I ended up with...

 

orb4wk.jpg

 

Catch you later!

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Step 5. on page 4

 

Ok, So here's an explanation of step 5. which is on page 4. I'm going to assume that the previous steps are understood but should you have questions on the previous steps feel free to ask. :)

 

Tips:

1. You'll be doing a fair bit of copying of information and if you go too fast, like I did..., you may miss an entry. Take your time that way you're less likely to miss something.

 

2. If you fit both the tut and photoshop onto the screen together so you are able to see both windows it will make copying over info a lot easier. What I did was sized the tut window to take up 1/3 of the left side of the screen and fit photoshop into the remaining 2/3s. Height wise/up and down.

 

3. If you plan to do this tut over a period of days make sure to save your work as a .psd file so as to preserve the layers of your project.

All the work done on this page is done in the "Blending Options" box which you open from the menu at the top of the screen.

 

Menu: Layer->LayerStyle->Blending Options.

 

Drop Shadow box:

Simply copy what it says in the tut into your "orbBorder" layers Blending Options box.

 

BevelandEmboss:

Again copy all the info in the tut into your Blending Options box. Once you have done that look for the light and dark grey graphic that is beside the words "Gloss Contour:". Beside the graphic you will see a drop down arrow. Click this to see a list of grapics and choose the one that matches the graphic that the tut is showing. After you have selected the graphic it will replace the original graphic that was sitting beside the words "Gloss Contour". Right click on this graphic and the Contour Editor will open.

In the Contour Editor you will see a wave that has the same shape as the graphic you right clicked on, but much larger. In this case I did not need to make any changes to the wave bacause when I opened my Contour Editor it was already the same as the tut. If yours is different from the tut then simply "click and drag" the squares of the wave until all the squares are in the same positions as the tut. Whew! Its actually much easier doing it than explaining it, haha!

 

Contour:

Which is just under BevelandEmboss in the Blending Options box. This one is a quickie.

Same thing as we did a moment ago only this time the kind of graphic we need isn't in the the drop down list so we'll have to make it. We'll use the default graphic to start with which is the first graphic in the drop down list. Its exactly half light grey, half dark grey each of which are triangles stuck together to form a square graphic.

Now with said graphic in place right click on it to open the Contour Editor. Now you should see an enlarged version of the graphic. Have a look at the tut and match it as close as you like. It doesn't need to be exact. To do this simply click and hold down the left mouse button on the bottom left square of the graphic and drag it up to closely match the tut example and hit ok. Voila!

Note that on most Photoshop versions you get a preview of the changes you are making AS you are making them. With this in mind, watch your OrbBorder while you are dragging that little square up to see the changes. Instead of duplicating the position the tut is showing, you could drag that little square all over the place so that you can get an effect you like/prefer!

 

Satin:

Copy all the info from the tut into your Blending Options box. In this part you see info typed in red, on the tut example, beside the colour selection box at the top:

This is the # for the hex colour. The creator of this tut wanted to be precise in this particular case so lets oblige her. Click on the colour box. This will open the Colour Picker. (Now I know it actually says "Color" and not "Colour" But its Colour damnit! :P) Emmm, sorry bout that...

At the bottom-middle-ish part of the "Colour!" Picker, heh, you will see a box with 6 digits insde it. This is where you can add 676666

Now we need to choose a contour for Satin. Click on the drop down arrow to open the list and choose the contour that matches the one in the tut. Once chosen, open the Contour Editor by right clicking on the graphic. Now with the enlarged grahic in the Contour Editor box the tut tells us...

Note*Remember to tick the 'corner' box for each point in this contour.

Frankly I have no idea why this is needed and so who am I to argue. :unsure:

So, there are 5 squares attached to the line in the Contour Editor. When you click on one of the squares an option appears just below. The word "Corner", with a check/uncheck box, appears. Checkmark this option. Do the same for all of the squares there.

If the squares move a tiny bit when you click on them don't worry too much about it. It won't make a huge difference.

 

GradientOverlay:

For this one simply copy over the info then click the the drop down arrow across from the word Gradient and choose the gradient that matches.

 

There you have it! You have just completed the 1st of 4 layers. :D

 

In the next post I will explain how to make your custom gradient that is to be applied onto your second layer called "OrbBase".

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Step 8 on page 5:

 

Ok, I didn't know how to do this step before reading this tut and so I'm guessing there are others that might get stumped as well. So here's an explanation for editing the gradient.

 

After following the steps up to 7 on page 5 you will have a layer called "OrbBase" which is a solid black circle.

 

On the top menu go to Layer->Layerstyle->Blending Options

 

GradientOverlay:

Copy the info from the tut to your layer blending options box. Now you need to turn that black and white gradient into a black and green gradient.

Right click on the gradient to open the Gradient Editor. Now you will see an enlarged version of the gradient with little boxs above and below it. 2 on top and 2 below. In the tut it shows that there are 2 on top and 4 below so we need to add 2 more boxs below. To do this move your mouse arrow just under the gradient until you see it change from an arrow to a hand. Then click. Doing this will cause a new box to appear below the gradient. Do the same to create box #3 and drag the boxs into positions that closely match the example from the tut. Now we need to choose colours.

Note that once again the creator has added hex colour #'s which are in red. I think in this case it will be simpler if you choose your colours. You'll get a better feel for things this way as well.

The tut is asking you to choose colours for the 4 boxs below the gradient. To choose a colour for a box double click on a box and the Colour Picker will pop up.

1st Box: Choose black

2nd Box: Choose a dark green

3rd Box: Choose light green

4th Box: Choose bright green

Now hit "OK" in the Gradient Editor and again hit "OK" in the Blending Options box.

 

Thats it! Now you've completed the second layer and learned a great deal on the process which will be of use in creating the following layers. Tomorrow I will go over the "OrbGlass" and OrbReflex layers.

Till then!

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Guest gogoblender

holee smokes!

 

guys...I'm so sorry to intrude and pardon me fer gettin in the way of yer class, Schot...but wow....I can't believe the amount of detail and scope you're putting into the work here!

Erialc...seems like you've got one heckuva teacher!

lol, pretty soon we can start chargin mony here on this thread!

:P

 

gogo

 

p.s. great idea and nice work guys :thumbs: ...hmmm...this thumb's up smiley is...weird :P

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hehe GoGo he's an excellent teacher and this tut isn't by any means an easy one but I think Schots explainations are really helping. I must admit I have sat staring at various parts of this orb and thought I just can't see what I'm doing wrong...then as Schot pointed out it's sooo easy to rush it a little and miss one vital step. I have been going backwards and forwards between this and some very basic tutorials...thats also helped give me a lttle more understanding...lol I emohasise a little though;)

 

But hey there's nothing like a challenge! :wacko:

 

Goes to the bar to get inspiration from mah faerie friend...haha GoGo I'll pay with smiles :D:D:D:D:D

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I am planning on having a go at the Glowy orb again this weekend but as I said before I have found jumping round some easier tuts helpful...this is what I have so far nothing great but fun to do :)

 

802307b78c61738104ac0efff6638a29.th.jpg

 

50bfcc63ecf19571618795fe8ac50ff9.th.jpg

 

The second one I think the light reflection should be a bit higher as it looks kind of distorted to me but any was fun playing :)

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Thanks Gintukas...and now for my attempt at the tut Schot posted...well It's actually not really even that close to how it should look...but I have now found out at least where some of the editors are (cool tips...cheers Schot)

 

So lets just say this is my first proper attempt :blush: (it's not very good but ahh well)

 

65f0ff1b49c1791c49fc402834f6c95c.th.jpg

 

I'm off for a nap now :P

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My second attempt....the last layer killed me...the reflex I just can't seem to nail it...boo hoo hoo....my eyes are bleeding...lol...this is quite a challenge and I will get it eventually...Oh well here's what I have now...still not right but going in the right direction....erm I think it is....

 

314c0e5afa162d54b7d4a388e43c56a4.th.jpg

 

In the end I flattened all the layers and added a light filter to it as I couldn't get the reflex right! lol

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Those are excellent Erialc! Well done indeedy. :smart:

 

Maybe we can open up a thread up for that orb tut you did that teaches lens flare with polar coordinates.

 

Very cool seeing your progression from your first submission to your most recent. You learnin fastest girl!

 

As for that reflex.. I had a wee bit of a tough time getting it right. :unsure:

 

I'll type up explanations for those 2 final layers shortly. I've been away for a few days battling the evol forces of a virus! :sw:

 

Still recovering but I'll be ship shape in no time! :rambo:

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