heyas; okay, guys... i want to do a pic of the serengeti, with the long tall grass. any idea on how to go about creating such a thing? must experiment....

Pardon my poor vocab (don't have a dictionary either)...what's a serengeti?...a very serene mood scene or what? Bill Tesign

The African Plains of the Serengeti. Flat plains with high waving grasses.

Thanks Gail..now I know :) Hey BSong...do you have Garden Hose. Its lot faster and better then having it Vue. Well, if you are the "all must be in Vue" then forget it...if its "this program 'n' that", and the final result image is what you want...then I can help suggest :) *Boy!....do I already see a Rhino head and half body height partially showing in them wind blown tall grasses, or is it BSong with a bino peeping at Vickie...yakx3! Bill Tesign

I just got Garden Hose......great stuff. I screwed up and bought the Painter Nozzles set first...thought I'd be using them in Painter 3D. But that program just isn't working out like I hoped, so I got the PSP version as well. I love them! Now I gotta decide whether to hang on to the Painter version in case I do learn it or get rid of it. I do agree with Bill, to do it all in Vue will be tough. If you have the long grass you may want to try playing with that.

LOL!!!...Gail! I too got the Painter version (almost 2 yrs ago)but that was the time, the version for Corel Paint and Photoshop were not out yet. I really love the vines and grapes :) BSong..get Garden Hose and start 'spraying' :) Bill Tesign

I have Photoshop 5.5, where are these hoses or plugins. How much do they cost, how do they work. Sorry, I don't really use Photoshop for much, would like to though. Please help the less informed out Thanks, Dave

I have Photoshop 5.5, where are these hoses or plugins. How much do they cost, how do they work. Sorry, I don't really use Photoshop for much, would like to though. Please help the less informed out. Are the Photoshop ones as good as Painter? Thanks, Dave

Hi Dave, The addy is http://www.gardenhose.com/ I mistaken one thing though...its Paint Shop Pro 5/6 not Photo Shop...sorry. But it may work with Photoshop if you have an image sprayer plugin. I think PhotoShop has one and I forgot what its call. No problem looking it up for you if you want to....just let me know :) You can download someof the image brushes at the Garden Hose site and try out. Its free but you just have to register though. Bill Tesign

Hiya Dave, The Gardenhose stuff is not available for Photoshop. Tubes/nozzles/sprays are brushes that paint with images, basically. Very versatile and a lot of fun. There is a plugin for Photoshop called photospray, but it's fairly expensive I think, and I don't know if you can convert tubes or nozzles to that format. If you don't use Photoshop much, Paint shop Pro 6.0 is @ $90, is easier to use, has 90% of the features of Photoshop, including layers and multiple undo. Plus it adds "tubes" which are a godsend. It has some other cool included filters and effects. Head on over to www.jasc.com and download a demo. There are thousands of tubes available for free on the net. The Garden Hose ones are hi-res hi-quality plant images. Tesign is right, you can get samples from the site above. I got it on Ebay, paid $35 for the Jungle 2D (gardenhose 1 & 2) for PSP, $39 for Jungle 2d for Painter and $35 for Jungle 3D (for Painter only). Ummm, well as far as I'mm concerned, the PSP ones are far superior because I can use them! Seriously, tho, in Painter you have far more control over the image placement, rotation, etc. I just never "clicked" with that program. MC and their enigmatic interfaces! I got Painter Classic for $16 I think and Painter 3d for $35, so it's not like I shelled out $300 for Painter 6.0 and hated it. Anyway, check out PSP, you will love it. Hope this helps. Gail

Oh, and Bloodsong, there is a tutorial on just the effect you are looking for at the gardenhose site. http://www.gardenhose.com/ Go to Tutorials, then Mapping Grasses. It looks great there, tho they don't go into real detail for clueless folk like me. I'm sure there is a long grass tube on the net somewhere you could use. Gail

heyas; i got garden hose ages ago! but i dont recall any tall/dry grass in it. i do want to do the foreground in vue, because i want one cheetah lying sorta under some stalks. orio on the onelist had some ideas for the further grasses... at any rate, have you tried making vue textures with hoses? i did, they didn't turn out well :/ i made a row of poppies to replace the grass texture on the patch of grass to make a patch of poppies... i dunno why i bother :) besides, it's hard selecting out the image from the background, 'cause i cant remember how to get them to paint their own masks.

If I understand you crrectly, do it using layers. You can spray on a layer and fill the image with black and have the background white. Remember that in layer, the spray is a floating object and can be move around. Same one image in colour with white background as usual and the other as a black and white. You should have no problem having the rest done in Vue using the "Variable Transparency" feature. I know you have Corel Draw 5 and the Photo Paint version may not surport layers...can't remember. CDR 6 onward yes, but don't buy version 6..its a giant bug! Version 7 is the most stable..8 all right and 9, Godsend :) You can do it in Photoshop too....but I hardly use it, like Bryce to Vue :) Bill

heya; naw, tesign... i create an empty layer, then i can't paint on it. that is no help. so THEN i figured out, if you go to the layer mask and invert it (so it isnt blocking you), then you can paint on it. BUT inverting the mask causes the 'empty' layer to be filled with the canvas colour, so the hose pieces aren't on a transparent layer. unless you know some painter trick you're not telling me. (i have painter 5.) anyhow, i did manage to clip the pieces from the background and make decent trans maps and all... but they still weren't so great. guitta's are much better, so i'll find something else to do :)

Is it MC Painter 5 or Corel Photo Paint 5? All this PSP term like PhotoShop and Panit Shop is getting me all mixed up. Did you see my post on the image, "The pack" earlier on as an example (I have taken it off after two days as not to clogged up space and bandwidth)? Those tall grass were done in layers. Anyway... Bill

heya; sorry 'bout the confusion; the only thing with a hose i have is fractal design (metacreations) painter 5. hmm... no, dont remember seeing 'the pack....' how could i miss it?

Ok...BSong, I putting it up again briefly (like I explain earlier). Check the next post. Hust take note of the grasses on the left...they were done in layers with Corel Photo Paint, like wise can be done with any Paint program that has layer features. Bill

lol cybeo! there is a 'first draft' (i think 'wip' sounds funny) of the cheetah pic around here somewhere. you know, tesign... you keep telling me to use the image hose on an empty layer, and i keep telling you i cant. i sense a little communication gap here, so... let's talk about something else :)

"you know, tesign... you keep telling me to use the image hose on an empty layer, and i keep telling you i cant. i sense a little communication gap here, so... let's talk about something else :)" Duh? I thought I only mentioned it once and just an example (on a different post) to illustrate. I did not reply to your last post on this subject with regards to your Painter 5. What are you talking about?....please enlighten. Bill

heya; no, i think we had this conversation 3 times. i have a picture, and you want me to use the garden hose with the tall grass stuff on a new layer over it. the problem is, i CAN'T spray the hose on an EMPTY layer. if i create an empty layer in painter, it has a mask that covers everything, so i can't paint on it (which is dumb). if i invert the mask so i can paint on the whole layer, then it adds the canvas colour to the layer, so it isn't transparent any more. unless you MEAN, just spray the hose on the image, without any layers. in which case, i'm nuts. :)

Hi BSong, "unless you MEAN, just spray the hose on the image, without any layers. in which case, i'm nuts. :)" Of course you are if you do that and you know better. I do have Painter 6 and its version 6.0.3 right now. I do not know about 5 and yes, you can create a new layer, unlock it and spray whatever you want on it without affecting your first layer which is your "canvas". If you create more layers, you can even switch them before or after anytime.This is very much the same as Corel Photo Paint and Photoshop. This is my LAST word on this subject and but I still don't understand why you can't spray or paint on a new layer without affecting the first layer which is your canvas unless your new layer is lock and it doesn't prompt you. Anyway, what do you think "layer" feature is create for? Amen. Bill

ARGH! it isn't LOCKED! it has a MASK that covers the whole layer and WONT LET YOU PAINT ON IT. see, there is an empty layer, yes i CAN create that. but I CANT PAINT ON IT. IT WONT LET ME. unless i FILL IT WITH SOMETHING. then it is NO LONGER EMPTY, and it COVERS THE BACKGROUND. i just dunno how else to explain it to you. i create empty layer. i select empty layer. i spray hose. i draw with pencil. i paint with oils. nothing appears, because the mask tells it to not let me paint anywhere on it. i invert the mask so i can paint anywhere on it. now my empty layer is not empty, it is the canvas colour. it is all white. you can't see the image through the all white. it is opaque. if i spray/draw/paint on it, it is just stuff on a white background. the picture is still on the background, but you can't see it with the opaque layer. if it makes you feel any better, i dont understand why i cant paint on a new layer, either! some dummy designed painer 5 that way. if it works for you in painter 6, i am happy for you. :) oh, by the way, i finished the cheetah pic, but i havent uploaded it to my gallery yet. soon. maybe i should do it now... :)