linda's graffiti wall - incredibly lushincrediblylush.com/shared/graffitiwall.pdfi got this...

06/24/2007 05:23 PMLinda's Graffiti Wall

of 5file:///Users/lindadaireaux/Desktop/bricktut/bricktut.html

2D Workshop Tutorial:

Creating a Custom Graffiti Wall for Vue

by Linda Daireaux

I got this idea from an old Computer Arts Projects magazine. Even though there are some fantastic inner city models tochoose from these days, I thought it might be fun to make our own custom graffiti walls in Photoshop.

Note: You should have a fairly decent knowlege of your 2D program to be able to follow this lesson.

What you need for this tutorial:

Any 2D graphic program such as Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or GimpA nice looking Graffiti font installed on your H/D. Do a search for "graffiti font" and you'll find many free ones tochoose from.A tiling brick wall image, or a program or filter that makes brick wall textures.

*****

1. Create a new image in your 2D graphic editing program 1500 X 750 pixels. Tile your image with bricks and duplicateyour brick layer, labeling the second one, "bump".

2. Desaturate the bump layer and then fiddle with the brightness and contrast so the mortar remains dark, while the bricksbecome light. They should look something like this:

Hide this layer so that the red brick background is showing. We'll come back to this layer later. If it's needed, you canadjust your brick layer now to make it dark so the graffiti will show up better.

.

3. We'll be working along the bottom of the wall. Create a new layer labeled "dirt" and set your brush color to black.Select a nice brush to paint dirt. In Photoshop I selected a dry brush and painted dirt on my bricks, changing the sizes,opacities and insisted on making the bottom of the wall dirtier than the top. I'm finding my spatters and smears too"painted" looking, so I will add a gaucassian blur to smooth out the dirt stains and make them look more natural.



Then play with blending modes to make the stains blend into the wall a bit better. Here the blending is set to Photoshop'ssoft light:

4. Create another new layer, called, "paint". This will be an "older" graffiti layer along the bottom of the wall. I had funhere choosing different brushes and colors to make a nicely vandalized wall. Go to town with it!

Play around with the blending options to make the colors fade into the wall. Here I have the paint layer set to "overlay" at100% and a copy of that layer on top of it set at overlay at 18% to get the effect I wanted. Don't hesitate to use severallayers of different blend types and opacities to get cool effects.



5. Make a new layer labeled Graffiti, Choose your graffiti font and create a large word, or group of words to cover a goodpart of the wall, setting the color to black.

If your font has heavy black outlines and empty letters, as the one in the illustration below, rasterize the type or layer, andthen using the select tool, select the interiors of each letter and fill them with the gradient as in step 6.

If your font is a solid one, duplicate your graffiti layer and change the text to white, then move it slightly up and to theleft so the black layer resembles a large and opaque shadow like so:

Rasterize both layers of type.

6. Select your gradient tool and choose a nice, vibrant, light-colored gradient that will stand out against your dark wall. Ichose an orange/yellow variation. Using your select tool, choose the white lettering, making sure you have all parts of theletters selected, then fill the selected lettering with the gradient. I placed the darkest color on the bottom but that's totallyup to you. You can play around with beveling, embossing, etc. to see what cool effects you can get. How about addingstars or drips, or paint your letters with different colors?



Add a gaucassian blur to the black font if you have the two font layers. When you're happy with what you have, mergethe two graffiti font layers, then duplicate the resulting layer. Set the bottom one to Multiply at 100%, and slide theopacity of the top font layer so that some of the brick wall shows through. Mine is set at 75%.

8. Save your file, then resize to 1000 X 500. Now flatten your image and save this picture as "graffitiwall.jpg" or inwhatever your favorite format is. Once your image is saved, undo back to where the layers are separate again and thistime, make all layers invisible, but enable the bump layer visibility. Flatten again and save this one as graffitibump.jpg.Now close your 2D program.

7. Open Vue and create a cube with these proportions: X=10, Y = 2 and Z = 5. Double click on the texture to bring up theTexture Editor. Set the Coloring mode to Mapped Picture, then double click the black image square to browse to yourgraffiti wall image. Select the image and change the mapping mode to Object - Parametric. Click on the Bumps tab thenright click on the sphere and select, "Edit Function", which will open the Function Editor. On the left, click the icon thatsays: "Add Texture Map Node", then double click in the black square at the bottom to load your graffitibump image. HitOK to close the Function Editor. I find the default bump strength of 1.000 to be way to much so I have set mine to 0.150.It all depends on what you think is best for the image you want to create with your wall.

Finally, you can save your wall as a .vob and make sure the textures are included as you save. Then you won't have tohunt for them if you want to use your wall again.

That's it! :)

Copyright 2007 by L. Daireaux

linda's graffiti wall - incredibly lushincrediblylush.com/shared/graffitiwall.pdfi got this...

Documents