Galleries Fractal Gifts

Ultra Fractal Tutorial - The Making of "Lords of Arrakis"
Part 2. Creating the "coloring" layer.

    Pages in Part 2:
1. Preparation and assessment.
2. Create new layer.
3. Apply coloring.
4. Adjust formula.
5. Adjust location.
6. Final coloring adjustments.

Layers Chart: Click to view.
Tutorial Map: Click to view.

Page 6. Final coloring adjustments.

Step 11. Assess coloring.
 
A. Set the visibility icon "on" for the "lords 1" layer and "off" for the "coloring" layer.
Set the merge mode to "normal" for the "lords 1" layer and to "color" for the "coloring" layer.

 
You will see just the "lords 1" layer, as shown here:

 

B. Set the visibility icon "on" for the "coloring" layer.

 
The familiar colors of "Lords of Arrakis" begin to appear in the image:

 
The coloring is fine except in the the top portion of the two "lords", where it reverts to shades of gray.

To see the reason for this, set the merge mode of the "coloring" layer to "normal".

 
This causes the "coloring" layer to become visible on its own:

 
See the major black areas at the top of the image, which, you will recall, comprise the outside region, filled with solid black by our settings in the outside tab. These areas are causing the black coloring in the top portion of the "lords". You can establish that the outlines of these black areas coincide with the outlines of the "uncolored" areas in the composite image by fixing your eyes on a certain place in the black outline and switching the "coloring" layer's visible icon on and off a few times.

One way to solve this problem is to use Ultra Fractal's solid color transparency feature, which can cause the solid color fill in a coloring region to be transparent.

If the black areas in the "coloring" layer, as seen above, were transparent, the colors of the underlying "lords 1" layer would show through these newly punched "holes" in the "coloring" layer, eliminating the colorless, shades-of-gray areas in the resultant composite image of the two layers.

The black fill areas would simply "go away".
 


Step 12. Set color transparency in outside coloring.
 
A. Set the visible icon of the "lords 1" layer to "Off".
Make sure the "coloring" layer in the Layers tab is highlighted.

 

B. Click on the Outside tab.
In the Outside tab, click on the black swatch in the Solid Color parameter.

 
This will cause the Select Color dialog box to appear:

 

C. In the Select Color dialog box, drag the Opacity slider all the way to the left (0).
This will cause the right half of the Solid Color parameter to display a transparency (checkerboard) area, turning on solid color transparency masking. The transparent area indicates that the swatch color, black, everywhere it occurs in the outside region, will be made transparent.
Click on OK.

 
In the Outside Coloring tab, the right half of the Solid Color parameter should now display transparency (checkerboard), indicating that the black color of the solid fill is made transparent.

 
The image should now look like this:

Observe that the black areas in the "coloring" layer have disappeared into transparency, and you can now see, through these areas, the checkerboard, or linoleum tile floor, pattern of "no layer".

 
This is the final "coloring" layer. Only a small bit of adjusting remains.
 

D. Set the visible icon of the "lords 1" layer to "On".

 
The image should now look like this:

 
Notice that the image in the "lords 1" layer shows through the formerly black, newly transparent areas in the overlying "coloring" layer.

 

E. Set the merge mode of the "coloring" layer to "color".

 

 
This is the final stage-2 composite image (composite image composed of first 2 layers created -- not necessarily adjacent to each other in the layers stack).  


 
Step 13. Save development file.
 
A. Save the development file.

 

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© 2005 Troy R. Bishop