Hi all: In two of Rochr's works... 'Nightlife' and 'Sin City' he used an effect I quite like... and would like to know how to achieve... Look at these images (if you haven't already) and you'll know what I mean. Forthwith is a WIP (far from perfected yet) in which I want to set some houses on the distant terrain (-309.52 x and 5806.48 y) and from which I want to have some of these twinkly pinlights beaconing from. Everytime I try to do it... the light is yellow... not white... like I want it... the house in the foreground is placed at (-22.07 x and -309.52 y). Could be the haze colour in the sky perhaps? Thoughts? -Susan

yeah it could very well be the atmosphere settings. there's two ways to do this, one is through materials, the second is through postwork. afaik, rochr blends the two.

Rochr often does his lights in postwork, photoshop I think. He has posted this technique in the forum here, a search on his name should bring it up.

I believe he uses Universe Image Creator. A small program you can get a shareware version of. If I am not mistaken, he is using one of the STAR light features to make the small lights. Do a search for that program, should be easy to find.

A) ^ methinks that Whanfried has gone off the rocker. B) Rochr gets that effect in postwork as OCDDoug mentioned. THe effect can be achieved through layering the image then applying a "lighten" while color dodging/burning areas. You can also paint a noise channel and add it to lighten etc. There are many ways to do it in post work, too much to mention here. Rochr's main intense pinlight effects however are achieved in universe image editor. Not photoshop.

Woops guess we posted at the same time.

What exactly is going on here, other than some pretty immature behavior.

I have Universe Creator... just haven't used it yet... Thanks guys -Susan

Is someone hearing voices? Or is someone deleting posts?

And I think Rochr posted a little tut in the forum about the lights. I'd search for it but I gotta go to work. A search on Rochr's name should find it for you, Susan.

Thanks tjohn... I searched under his name and so many items came up I gave up... So I think I'll just crack open Universe Creator when I get to that point and see what happens. I'll get it somehow... -Susan

I know one method he uses is to (kinda)draw a thin line in photoshop. Then use a thin eraser to remove parts of it and then add a glow. Of course, he does it way better than I can demonstrate.

Yes, Phil, that's as I recall the gist of his tut.

Thanks Phil... seems like an interesting technique... very helpful... -Susan

Attached Link: http://www.rochr.com/Citylightstransmap.jpg

Like everyone has already pointed out, those lights are done with postwork. First using the method Drawbridgep showed, and then by putting some extra flares here and there with UIC. Ive also made this transmap(just invert it), that can be used for the models. Its a little more awkvard though, since youll have to make the objects hollow, and put some lights inside. Its not as exact as postwork, but it works. :) Also want to mention, that if you use the flares in UIC, use a copy of your original image. Ive just recently noticed, that it can screw up the image quality behind/around the flares. Seems like it only happens with some textures, but still think you should know about it. :)

To piggyback on Rochr's last comment about the image quality. I have noticed this as well. But what I found is, it's the UNDO feature that is causing this pixelation. Under the EDIT>OPTIONS> menu, there is a setting for JPEG compression for the UNDO feature. UNCHECKING this option will end 99% of the quality loss in your image.

See the image above.

And as best I can tell, this setting is DEFAULTED back ON every time you restart UIC.. so make sure to uncheck it each time you open it.

Message edited on: 08/18/2004 13:58

Message edited on: 08/18/2004 14:00

Striving, Thats great, thanx for the tip. Thats exactly how messed up my images got. And your solution is something ild never have figured out. :) The funny thing is, that ive never experienced the problem before the last two images. Really strange.

Rochr, No prob. I noticed it on an image I did a while back. I knew I was saving it out of UIC as a bmp, and couldn't understand why it was getting thrashed. So I started looking around in there and that seemed to fix it. Now go back and make more killer art! ;-) -bruce