jaymac42 | 14 years ago | 12 comments | 3.2K views
I have two PNG photos I'm using in a new show. One has no alpha channel and I'm able to change the Z-coord of the Size parameter to make it "fat." The other picture has an alpha channel and changing Z on Size has no effect on its thickness. Is there a way to fatten up the second, malnourished photo?
(I'm just guessing that the alpha channel causes this problem. Maybe something else?)
Cheers, John
I think you have to switch the 3th dropdown below the text box from FLAT to SOLID in order to make it fat.
michiel, 14 years ago
I had already tried that but it has no effect on the alpha-channel photo. So I just went back and added an alpha channel to my first photo -- and it worked! Which means there's something odd about my second photo.
The second photo was made in Gimp by cutting out a region from a third photo, a JPEG, and saving it as a PNG with alpha. (I'm making a mosaic -- this is one of several pieces.) Although only the selected region is visible in photo #2, all the original pixels from #3 are still embedded and I'm wondering if this prevents the surface of #2 from getting "thick"? Or maybe it is getting thick and it's invisible?
jaymac42, 14 years ago
If the borders of your transparent picture are transparent, the extruded borders (edges) of your picture are transparent as well. I think this explains the phenomenon you are describing.
michiel, 14 years ago
Yes, that's it exactly. I tried changing the thickness of the picture and rotating it. Depending on the thickness, you get different rotational effects, so there's "something" there behind the plane figure.
I've been trying to see if one can extrude the non-alpha portion of a texture in Gimp but no luck so far. Has anyone been able to do this with other tools?
jaymac42, 14 years ago
I tried that too! Got some weird results but maybe I did it wrong. Let me read article 423 again and see if I can get it to work. Thanks, Michiel.
John
jaymac42, 14 years ago
regards
when it comes to images in PNG alpha in jail, in order to use it in 3d in BluffTitler,
it is best to put that image into a font from your pc.
can be used for this (foncreator)
I leave here a link to a tutorial that I have done long ago.
is in Spanish but surely on youtube you find some in English
luck
maitegras, 14 years ago
Thank you so much, maitegras! What an excellent idea! A few months ago, I saw that you did something similar with the GetierAnimalis font but I was unaware one could assign new textures to characters in a font until I watched your tutorial.
I also want to thank you for your very original slideshows that I found at the link below. I used three of them in a wedding video I just finished and the bride and groom loved them!
Best regards, John
jaymac42, 14 years ago
I'm getting close. I changed picture #2 to a black polygon on a white background and generated the EPS. In BT, this becomes a white polygon on a black background and it's extrudable. Yay!
I then tried to change the texture of the layer (using F9) by attaching Picture #2's PNG. But the whole thing turns black. I tried several parameters below the text box and "Inverted" shows a bit of color but all the others have no apparent effect.
Man, I'm so close! I hope you can figure out what's happening.
Thanks,
John
jaymac42, 14 years ago
What you are looking for are the TEXTURE POSITION and TEXTURE SIZE properties.
The process is called "UV mapping".
michiel, 14 years ago
Closer and closer. I was able to use the above properties to get a close (but not exact) fit of the texture within the EPS. Then I rotated the figure (where Z = 2 on the Size property). The texture remained on the surface of the figure but did not extrude to its depth. The extruded part remained black. Is this a problem with the PNG texture file?
jaymac42, 14 years ago
Adrien60 has been so kind to upload an example. I'm sure his show will answer all your questions:
michiel, 14 years ago