Galleries Fractal Gifts

Ultra Fractal Tutorial - The Making of "Lords of Arrakis"
Part 7. Creating the "space ring" layer.

    Pages in Part 7:
1. Preparation and assessment.
2. Create new layer.
3. Adjust location.
4. Apply Clipping transformation.
5. Adjust layer properties.

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

Page 4. Apply Clipping transformation.

Step 11. Add Clipping transformation.
 
A. With the "space ring" layer highlighted in the Layers tab, click on the Mapping tab.
In the Mapping tab,click on the Add button.

 
This will cause the Select Transformation dialog box to appear.
 

B. In the Select Transformation dialog box, in the root of the library, not in any folder, select the "Standard.uxf" transformation file, and, within this file, the "Clipping" transformation.

 
The image should go black:

 


Step 12. Adjust Clipping transformation.
 
A. In the Mapping tab, with the Clipping transformation highlighted, type in the following parameters:

 
The image should now look like this:

 
You can observe the effect of the Clipping layer by alternately clicking the Enable icon for the "space ring" layer on and off and observing the changes.

With the Clipping transformation hiding the lower portion of the "space ring" layer, all that the Lake transformation ends up contributing to the scene is a single bright dot (the lower one of the two visible at the center of the left center edge of the image) and a dot at the left lower corner of the image. But I like the dots and kept the Lake transformation.

As things stand, the space ring shows in the upper portion of the composite image properly, but the lower portion of the composite image is completely filled in with black. The next step is to make the lower portion of the "space ring" layer transparent so that the layers below it will show through.
 


Step 13. Change Clipping Shape into transparency mask
 
A. In the Mapping tab, click on the black swatch in the Solid Color parameter.

 
This will cause the Select Color dialog box to appear.

 

B. 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, where it occurs in the outside region, will be made transparent.
Click OK.

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

 
The image should now look like this:

 
The transparency mask is allowing the lower two-thirds of the other layers to show through, but the unmasked upper one-third of the "space ring" layer is completely blocking all of the lower layers.

Our next step will be to set the Merge Mode for the "space ring" layer to "Lighten", to allow the lighter areas of the layers below to show through.
 

<< prev page page 4 next page >>

© 2005 Troy R. Bishop