Using A Bezier Envelope In Inkscape

There is an awesome screencast by heathenx that shows you how to create wrap text around a globe.
Inkscape version : 0.48.1

Its not as good as the one in the tutorial, probably because the banner does not have the 3D effect. Well, I didnt follow the tutorial exactly either for making the banner. But still, the globe is pretty good.

I did learn a few things in the making of this world

1. Extensions are installed in inkscape by keeping the .inx or the .py files in the Inkscape\share\extentions directory. And you need to restart Inkscape for the extension to become available. This tutorial makes use of a cool bezier envelope extension, which once installed can be accessed via Extensions->Generate from path->Bezier Envelope.
2. I tried to act smart and create a square, make it a path and then use the bezier envelope on it, but it didnt work. As mentioned in the screencast, only when I used the bezier tool to make the bezier path, using 4 nodes, in a clockwise direction, I got the text to wrap around the banner.
3. You can easily set the stroke width by right clicking on the number that appears in the left bottom corner, right beside the block that says stroke.
4. You can create margins lines by simply dragging the mouse cursor from the side and top margins.
5. When you convert text to path, and there are several characters in the text, then you the conversion results in a group of paths, not one path. You can observe that in the Inkscape status bar. So, once you have converted your text to a path, it can be useful if you ungroup the resultant text and then do a union to get the single path that you were intending to get.
6. There is a lot of good stuff under the Extensions->Render menu.

Signing Off
Ryan

Realistic Textures On Text

I found a good site for some pretty amazing Inkscape screencasts. So I figured, lets start doing them. This cool tutorial for an realistic texture caught my eye.

X Men is one of my all time favorites. Here's what I made.

The tutorial does a bit more than I have done here. It creates spotlights to add more effect to the shadows. I kept a white background, so I just didnt feel like adding spotlights.

Also, I did learn a few things.

1. You can combine objects and imported images using the Object->Clip->Set option. Its unlike intersection or difference because the original objects can be retrieved back using the Object->Clip->Release option.
2. And I also learned how to effectively add decent shadows to images.

I did have a tough time using the texture with the text because the texture image was really huge and slowed down my lappy. Eventually, I took a screenshot of the texture which gave me a much lower resolution. That really sped things up. Had to restart from scratch though. The sluggishness really started bugging me.

Signing Off
Ryan

Tiled Clones in Inkscape

I was just going through this post by nicubunu. It creates a postal stamp using the Path->difference technique. But in this tutorial, he has discussed different techniques for creating the same effect. One of them involved using Tiled Clones. As mentioned in the link here, its this option is really in a very unusual place in the menu. As usual, I found my curiosity take control, so I decided to explore what it is all about.

Tiled clones is a way of creating several clones of an image, and arrange them in the form of a grid(this word is important).

Ok, lets explore. (FYI, my version of Inkscape is 0.48.1)

Create an object, lets say a circle, give it a color.

Select it.

Goto Edit - >Clone -> Create tiled clone.

You get a dialog as follows.

I am going to select and explore Simple Translation in this post.

Now click on the Shift tab. You can see this dialog.

I just clicked the Reset button so that we can begin from scratch.

Lets understand the shifting. 

I had just 1 circle. As you see in the dialog above, I selected 4 rows and 4 colums. i.e. If i were to click on the Create button, I would get a grid of 4x4 = 16 circles.

As you see in the image, all the circles are stuck together. This is where the shift options come into action.

Let us add spacing between the rows. Lets say that we want to add a 20 percent spacing between the rows.(ie 20 percent of the height of the original selected object). This would mathematically translate to - adding a y coordinate difference of 20 percent between the rows.

In the dialog, set Shift Y - Per row to 20 percent. This is what we get.

Now lets create some spacing between the columns. i.e. adding an X axis spacing between the columns.

In the dialog, set shift X per column to 20 percent.

Now you see that there is quite a good spacing between all the elements of the grid.

Lets try to make it slanting now.

As you can see, I reduced the spacing to 0, and just shifted each row by about 50 percent relative to its previous row.

Lets see what happens if we select the alternate option.

Now thats nice, isint it? You can choose to randomize the circles. Mixing and merging the different options yields unexplainable results though!

Here is the stamp outline that I created as per Nicu's blog.

Nice!

Signing Off 

Ryan

Make Grunge Brushes Using Inkscape

I checked out an awesome tutorial on how to make grunge brushes using Inkscape and then use them in GIMP. I created 3 grunge brushes. Then I imported them in GIMP, and created a background using my own grungy textures. Its pretty random, but was cooool.

Here's my own brush painting.

Here are the brushes that  I created. I used the third one for creating the above image.

There were a few things that I learnt while making these.

1. Pressing 1 in inkscape takes you to 100% zoom level.
2. You can trace a bitmap in inkscape via - Path->Trace bitmap.
3. If you select any one of the Multple scans option when tracing a bitmap, then you get multiple images which need to be ungrouped and then separated.
4. You can open a png in gimp, Image->Flatten. Then save it as a gimp brush (.gbr file) as long as the color mode is RGB or Grayscale. To do that goto Image->Mode-> RGB/Grayscale.
5. Applying jitter when using a brush is a very cool way to generate computerized randomness to your grungy image.

Signing Off
Ryan

Rusted Cog

I was wondering how to make a Cog in inkscape. I wondered and wondered, until I made it. It was pretty simple actually. Here is what I made.

There are a few things that I learnt while making this.

1. I had to create the tooth of the cog. For that I had to create a circle, create a square and then somehow render multiple copies of the tooth on the circle. For that I had to first convert the circle and the rectangle to paths. Then select Extenstion->Generate from Path-> Pattern along path. In the dialog that follows, choose the following. This will render the squares on the circle.
   
   
2. Next thing I did was to import a texture for the cog. Did it via File->Import bitmap. Then I resized the texture, selected the cog, in the fill section, select the patterns (it looks like a checked box). Then select the texture.
3. I duplicated and made the duplicate a black just to give the image a slight 3D effect.

To my annoyance, the image did get a bit screwed up when exporting to bitmap. The texture seems broken in the middle. I am guessing its just a bug, or maybe its happening bcos of the grungy texture. I tried exporting it a few times, but all in vain. Nevertheless, the cog looks pretty ok.

Signing Off
Ryan

Text from Image

Using the screen technique in the previous post, I was able to extract text out of an image. I simply kept an image in the background layer, then created a new white layer with text on it. Then I simply applied layer->screen on the text layer, and voila! 

Of course, I did a bit of rotation with the transform tool and i saturated the colors of the background a bit to achieve the red hot metal look. Its not so good, but then its not too bad either.

Here's what I made.

There are other ways to do this as well. I guess, alpha to selection on a transparent layer with just the text and then select the image layer, revert selection, delete. That should do the job equally well.

Signing Off 

Ryan

Image To Text

There is a nifty video on youtube that shows you how to create an image in GIMP as if it is made using text. I did my bit and tried to make something too. Of course, I changed the image, as per my liking. No points for guessing who she is.

Here's my take.

I did learn a few things.

1. If you want to paste a paragraph of text such that the text overflows, first resize the textbox as per your preferences then type/paste the text. If you first paste the text and then resize, your text will remain only on one single line, if it does not have any line breaks by default. Mine did not, so I had to figure that out.
2. Secondly, there is a lot of use of the layer mode screen in this image. I didnt know screen was so useful. You can find the official documentation for the gimp layer modes here. IMO, using this mode with black color text was the core of the tutorial.

Loved the effect!

Signing Off
Ryan

Parry Hotter

Taking about movies in my previous post made my mind go wandering, eventually leading me to Harry Potter. Honestly speaking, I am not such a fan of the movies. The books were far better, and in my opinion, the movies  were dumb as compared to the novels. After all, how can someone pack so many twists in just 3 hours! Not possible.

Anyways, I found a cool tutorial for making a harry potter style banner and I decided to take a shot at it. I installed script-fu in my Gimp 2.7 for it. The install instructions are available here. This was my first encounter with script-fu.

Here's my take on the tutorial. I call it Parry Hotter because IMO, a smart parry of words makes anyone seem hotter!

Signing Off
Ryan

Broken Text

Okey, I tried to follow an simple and sexy tutorial by Ryan Lerch for creating a broken text using Inkscape. Here is how mine ended up.

Eventually, I did a bit of tweaking and used a filter effect to give my text a chocolatey look. Doesn't the word remind you of the movie Broken Arrow? Yes, the one with John Travolta! Awesome!

By the way, the chocolate effect is achieved via Filters->Bumps->Copper and Chocolate

Should I have called this post - Broken Chocolate? Just a thought. (Mouth watering, anyone?)

Signing Off
Ryan

Stamped Sexy!

There was this awesome inkscape tutorial for creating a rubber stamp that I was trying out. Here's the link - http://howto.nicubunu.ro/rubber_stamp_inkscape/

This is what I ended up making.

However, there were a few issues that I encountered while trying it out. I was not able to apply an intersect on the text and the random calligraphic lines. Whenever I was doing an interesct, strangely, the outer rings would disappear. Or some other similar annoying thing would happen.

Then I did a bit of experimentation. Here is what you need to do to get the desired effect.

1. Select your text, convert Object to path.
2. Select your concentric circles - Stroke to path
3. Select your text, Object->Ungroup. (This ungroups the different alphabets, which are actually paths)
4. Select everything, i.e. The circles, and the text and do Path -> Union. (Now, all the different paths are considered to be one single combined path)
5. Now select your random calligraphic lines, and then your stamp, and then do a Path -> Intersect.

Voila! You got your effect.

The issue was that when you use an interesect command, if you have more than path to interesect, the result of the intersect operation yields areas that are common to all the paths. When we convert the text to a path, each alphabet becomes an independent path. So, if you try to interesect it with a common figure, you will end up with nothing because in order to get something, all the paths need to overlap at least at a single point.

Signing Off
Ryan

Harry Potter Anyone?

I had to install fonts in GIMP. I am using Gimp version 2.6.11, on a windows XP machine. Installing fonts is pretty easy.

1. Copy the font type, which in my case was the Harry Potter font type (You can get it from http://www.searchfreefonts.com/free/harry-potter.htm) to a custom directory, for example D:/my_gimp_fonts. I got a TTF file from here download and kept it there.
2. Then open Gimp, Goto Edit->Preferences. In the left panel choose Folders->Fonts.
3. Specify the font directory location in the text box. In my case it was D:/my_gimp_fonts.
4. Click on the leftmost icon, which looks like an empty notepad, to add the font directory to gimp.
5. Restart gimp.

Next time onwards, you can simply add more fonts to this directory, and GIMP will automatically detect the newly added fonts. You can also choose to add as many directories as you wish, although too many directories wont make much sense.

Signing Off
Ryan

Just A Sticker

This time, inspired by Ryan Lerch's inkscape tutorial for a sticker I tried to make one of my own. Here is how mine ended up.

There were a few things that I learnt from it though.

1. When you do a cut path, the paths get cut, BUT, BUT BUT, you cant see any damn thing on the screen. Because the fill color vanishes. So, when you have cut paths, instead of fumbling around wondering what happened to the shapes you just had, simply choose a color from the color palette and you will be able to see your shapes, with a faint border between them, indicating the line where the objects were cut.
   
2. Secondly, you need to export to bitmap if you want to save the image as a png properly. Thats because if you simply do a save as, your png somehow gets screwed if you have a blur in your image, the way I had. Try using save as  - png, for an image with blur, and you will see for yourself.

Signing Off
Ryan

Cool Inkscape Tutorial Links

Learn how to create business card templates
http://blog.worldlabel.com/2009/business-card-tutorial-in-inkscapeorg.html

Learn how to create a sticky label with a folded edge
http://ryanler.wordpress.com/2007/05/23/inkscape-sticker-with-folded-edge-tutorial/

Creating cool 3d looking pencil
http://screencasters.heathenx.org/wp-content/videos/ep081/ep081.html

Signing Off
Ryan

Thoughts on how to use GIMP's Features

Gimp layer modes are described here http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-concepts-layer-modes.html
If you look at the multiply layer mode, the formula mentioned is MxI/255. And it is also mentioned that if either layer is white, the resulting image is the same as the other layer (1 * I = I). If either layer is black, the resulting image is completely black (0 * I = 0).


Signing Off
Ryan

R is Bright :)

Was trying a tiny experiment. This is how it turned out eventually.

Learnt a simple technique to create light in the process.

1. Set the background layer black.
2. Creaet new layer. Make a white color spot somwhere in the center.
3. Create new layer. Go on Filters ->Render ->Clouds ->Solid Noise. Set the X and Y size to 16.0. Go on Filters ->Blur ->Pixelize with the width 5px and the full hight of the picture (768px). Apply Filters ->Distorts -> Polar Coordinates with the values 0 | 0. Now set the Layer mode to Grain extract.

Signing Off
Ryan

Cool GIMP Tutorial Links

Try this one

Smoothening skin texture.
http://www.digitalphotoguides.com/flawless_flesh.html

Creating a 300 type skin look
http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/dragan-effect-simulation

Create electricity/lightning effect on objects
http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/electrifying-objects-electricity-effect

Create a zig-zag effect
http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/create-colored-zig-zag-pattern

Creating an exploding planet
http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/exploding-planet

Creating foggy rays
http://www.webdesign.org/raster-graphics/gimp/leopard-s-aurora-borealis-wallpaper-in-gimp.17153.html

Creating light rays
http://www.webdesign.org/raster-graphics/gimp/easy-way-to-create-light-effects-in-gimp-in-9-steps.17155.html

Signing Off
Ryan