Lightning

Vilkacis · Post by **Vilkacis** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 6:50 pm

Okay, earlier I got this message from Figarou:

Figarou wrote:Head to this page and look at Ribb's avatar.

http://fullmoon.greggtaylor.com/forum/v ... id=46&p=10

The original pic is also on that page.

How would you make it pulsate like that?

I was wondering how its done.

I figured this might benefit more people than just Figarou, so I'm posting it for everyone to see.

Here's the avatar in question:

The technique I came up with isn't the same, but it's fairly close:

If you already have some lightning, you can skip to step 7.

Step 1: Start with a black and white gradient, like so. The bolt will follow the general path through the middle of the gradient.

Step 2: Under Filters, choose Render -> Difference Clouds. You can keep Undoing and re-applying the filter until you get one you're happy with.

Step 3: Invert it. You can kind of see the bolt now.

Step 4: Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Levels. Then, in the left number-box put 225, and .25 in the middle one. You can play around with these numbers a little to get good results.

Step 5: Make a few more on new layers (Important: set all layers except the bottom to Lighten). Once you have them in an arrangement you like, flatten the image.

Step 6: Now, if you want, you can make a new layer and set it to Color. Then use the Fill tool to fill in a lightning-like color. Flatten again.

Step 7-11: Now, to get it to brighten, go to Image -> Adjustments -> Brightness/Contrast. Mess around with the contrast. I found that it looks best between 0 and 50 or so. Because of that, I decided to use a step of 10 and get 5 frames out of it. Use a smaller step to get more frames and a smoother animation; although, I doubt anyone would really be able to tell.

Step 12a: Line up all the frames starting with the original and increasing in brightness until you hit the brightest, then start decreasing the brightness until you get to the frame right before the least brightest. Now, if you give each frame the same delay, it doesn't look all that lightning-like.

Step 12b: You know that lightning is one big, immediate flash, then fades (actually, it doesn't fade, that's just a trick your eyes play, but we'll emulate it here). So we eliminate all the frames in between the least bright, base frame and the brightest frame in order to get that immediate flash. Then, we leave in the frame that are fading out. In addition, I put a bigger delay on the base frame in order to time the flashes.

Compare:

I think I got decently close.

-- Vilkacis

Kzinistzerg · Post by **Kzinistzerg** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 7:49 pm

*looks at the lightning* this is about 10 months too late for a sig i needed... hehe oh, well. very nice work, however.

Figarou · Post by **Figarou** » Wed Jul 20, 2005 1:36 pm

Thanks Vilkacis. *prints instructions*

Aki · Post by **Aki** » Wed Jul 20, 2005 9:58 pm

Kewl.

Figarou · Post by **Figarou** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 2:20 am

He he!!! COOL!!

Vilkacis · Post by **Vilkacis** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 2:33 am

Figarou wrote:

Nice

-- Vilkacis

Figarou · Post by **Figarou** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 2:41 am

Vilkacis wrote:
Figarou wrote:
Nice

-- Vilkacis

Thanks.

Whats odd is that the items are in different locations in Photoshop elements.

You said.... (Edit -> Adjustments -> Levels.) to bring up "Levels"

In Photoshop Elements its...(Enhance>Brightness/Contrast>Levels)

Good thing I have a book to tell me where they are.

Lupin · Post by **Lupin** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 7:29 am

Figarou wrote:Thanks.

Whats odd is that the items are in different locations in Photoshop elements.

You said.... (Edit -> Adjustments -> Levels.) to bring up "Levels"

In Photoshop Elements its...(Enhance>Brightness/Contrast>Levels)

Good thing I have a book to tell me where they are.

In Photoshop 7.0, it would be Image -> Adjustments -> Levels. It confused me a bit the other day. You would think they would keep a lot of the things in the same place. (I would, because I'm lazy.)

Shadow Wulf · Post by **Shadow Wulf** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 9:10 am

great im gonna have to take special classes, keyword: SPECIAL

Vilkacis · Post by **Vilkacis** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:47 am

Lupin wrote:In Photoshop 7.0, it would be Image -> Adjustments -> Levels. It confused me a bit the other day. You would think they would keep a lot of the things in the same place. (I would, because I'm lazy.)

Ah, my bad. I wrote the instructions from memory, as I did them in Windows, but wrote them in Linux :/

I'll go fix that.

-- Vilkacis

Arania · Post by **Arania** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 2:50 pm

Vilkacis - :shock: Thank you SO much! That is an incredibly useful tutorial; I have been wanting to know how people have done realistic lightning CGs for a while now!

Vilkacis · Post by **Vilkacis** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 3:13 pm

Arania wrote:Vilkacis - :shock: Thank you SO much! That is an incredibly useful tutorial; I have been wanting to know how people have done realistic lightning CGs for a while now!

I can't claim too much credit... The first part -- creating the lightning -- is a rather common technique that can be found in several different PS lightning tutorials floating around on the web (I found them while working on Darth Canis' avatar), and the second part -- making the lightning flash -- was done mostly by looking at the example Figarou had given me and messing around with Filters and Adjustments until I came up with something similar.
But I'm glad you found it useful.

-- Vilkacis

Figarou · Post by **Figarou** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 3:22 am

Vilkacis wrote:
Arania wrote:Vilkacis - :shock: Thank you SO much! That is an incredibly useful tutorial; I have been wanting to know how people have done realistic lightning CGs for a while now!
I can't claim too much credit... The first part -- creating the lightning -- is a rather common technique that can be found in several different PS lightning tutorials floating around on the web (I found them while working on Darth Canis' avatar), and the second part -- making the lightning flash -- was done mostly by looking at the example Figarou had given me and messing around with Filters and Adjustments until I came up with something similar.
But I'm glad you found it useful.

-- Vilkacis

I'm going to try and put it to use. I need to study the layers and effects 1st.

Figarou · Post by **Figarou** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 3:39 am

Original

Edited

Lupin · Post by **Lupin** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 3:43 am

Neat. I like the way you got the lightning to trace across the picture.

Figarou · Post by **Figarou** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 4:22 am

Lupin wrote:Neat. I like the way you got the lightning to trace across the picture.

Thanks.

How much you wanna bet its going to be someones avatar here.

*cough* Shadow Wulf *cough*

Shadow Wulf · Post by **Shadow Wulf** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 7:22 am

Figarou wrote:
Lupin wrote:Neat. I like the way you got the lightning to trace across the picture.

Thanks.

How much you wanna bet its going to be someones avatar here.

*cough* Shadow Wulf *cough*

I heard that!!

but thanks for giving it to me

lol

Silverfang · Post by **Silverfang** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 3:34 pm

Neat, especially on the werewolf piccie

Figarou · Post by **Figarou** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 3:37 pm

Silverfang wrote:

Neat, especially on the werewolf piccie

Thanks.

It'll be cool if the original artist can see what I did.