Lord of the rings... two questions

Hey JediDrew can we see what SnowDog did? I was looking forward to seeing it.

 

I'm not sure exactly how snowdog did it, but I had an idea to do it with PS and AE, but it didn't seem to work for JediDrew. (I told him on AIM)

My idea was to make white text in PS and export with an alpha channel.....then use that as an alpha matte for an image in AE which would be the texture.

?

 

odj... if snowdog doesn't mind me putting it up to show you i will... otherwise there must have been some reason why he pmed it to me instead of posting it. I have repect his work. hear that snowdog? can i show them?

AWB... Your method didn't seem to work... i couldn't create the alpha channel the same way you did, it was werd. besides.. if there is a way to do it in JUST photoshop.. i rather do it that way.

 

Hey guys,

Inspired by the conversation going on here, I put something together real quick for my fan force. It's just a test really, but relevent to this here conversation.

You can check it out by going HERE

For the record, it was done in PS and AE. I Made the text in PS on a blue background set to R:0, G:0, B:255. And I added the textures with some plugins that I have. Then I went into AE, opened the Backgound pic, animated it to scroll to the righ, and keyed out the blue background of the text (I used the color keyer in AE 5.5 PB, normally I would have used Primatte keyer, but I don't have it on this computer). Anyway, that's the result. Let me know what you guys think.

 

My On2 Codec does not work.

 

Basically, what Darth_Venom did was an offshoot of what I was suggesting. However, the actual "LOTR" title in the movie is done against a black background, which is what JediDrew requested of me.

Here's the image:

[image=http://www.avatardigital.com/images/Poss1.jpg]

Essentially, I started by downloading the Ringbearer font, available here, among other places. I can't remember where I loaded it for my Mac G4, but I'm assuming you have a PC?

Then I went into Photoshop 7, created a document using the "720 x 534 Std. NTSC DV/DVD" preset... If you don't have that preset, just create a new document, 720 x 534 at 72dpi. I inserted a black background, R, G and B values all set to zero.

Then I created two text layers, so I could get "The" squeezed exactly where I wanted it over "Posse". Using the same filter settings for both, I applied a bevel/emboss to one, using one of the preset textures. I can't remember the exact values... but I basically textured the emboss, and then made the bevel a bit harder to give more stark contrast... as though it were hammered bronze or chiseled stone... then I used three different colors... one beige/adobe-ish for the text, and two others in the bevel/emboss highlights/shadows... black and then a linear burn using a copper-tan color.

In combination with the preset emboss texturemaps, the linear burn is what gave it the bronze-like highlights.

Once done with the colors... and matching the values with both text layers, I merged the two text layers... and then made the black layer invisible, and applied lighting effects only to the text... to avoid changing the black matte color. This was the final touch. Without the lighting effects, even with the bevel/emboss, the depth still looked somewhat one-dimensional. Why? Because lets say you have some sort of hammered bronze letters sitting out in the real world... aged bronze has sort of a greenish-lime tinge to it, which you can't really see on polished bronze, but hammered bronze it becomes very apparent when light is reflected off it. So I applied two spotlights from opposite directions, in a preset lighting effect I already had created for another image... one light was very very very slightly off-white/yellow, and the other a sort of twilight sky blue... and that made a huge perceptual difference between what looked like CG and what looked more realistic. The blue against the lighter brownish, almost yellowish-brown, produced the faint lime-green highlights... and the very light offwhite acted as a key light to accelerate the contrast set in the bevel/emboss, but it affects the entire set of letters, each letter somewhat differently, because of the fixed position of the key light... giving the impression of a more distant natural lighting source, rather than having only the uniform contrast characteristics that the bevel/emboss applies to each individual letter.

The entire process took less than half an hour in Photoshop 7.

 

Wow, it's been a while...

Well here's my feeble attempt at a similar effect made entirely with the GIMP (it's GNU license, free for all) and the same font.

I just used my initials as a test.

[image=http://home.attbi.com/~joeldick/renders/jcd.jpg]

Some people on another forum thought it looked pretty good... maybe not as good as the posse one from here, but I'm the humble sort. Just thought you might like to see what a GNU app can accomplish in the hands of a newer, less experience artist.

 

I like the breaks in the "D", especially... not bad, dude. And, as for my Photoshop stuff... well, I've used PS for seven years but... I dunno... I feel like an idiot when sitting in a room with graphic designers from a professional print shop. I know what I know, and it ain't much... *shrug*

...smoke and mirrors, as they say.

That, and, well, my wife was a graphic design major for a while and taught me some cool tricks here and there...

 

Ok, my site is fixed. Go to http://www.avatardigital.com/multimedia.html. I didn't have the space to do a decent streaming MPEG-4, so I just did it as Sorenson Video 3 with IMA 4:1 compression. Not my favorite options, but they work for basic web purposes.

 

Hey Darth Snowdog, I happened to notice you're in Minneapolis, reading the posts and all, I'm right over in St. Paul.

 

Cool, dude. Check out my page, hey. I'm out... going to bed. Be back tomorrow!

 

SNowdog...

I'm trying to follow your instruction but unfortunitly i am so new to Photoshop that i don't even know how to change the backround color. My friend can't really help me, he just let me borrow the cd, he is much older than me and not around.

I just wanted to let you know why there has been no reponse... I'm trying over here... I didn't want you to think your help went unappreciated, thanks and hopefully i will have my test up soon.

 

Here's my attempt at it, loosely follwing SnowDog's tutorial:

[image=http://www.cattproductions.com/fx/amuletlogo.jpg]