Nifflas' Support Forum

Being Creative => Creativity Support => Topic started by: Evil on March 28, 2009, 23:54:09

Title: Stars
Post by: Evil on March 28, 2009, 23:54:09
How do I make stars? I know how to, but how do you do those with soft edges?
 
Im trying to make a screen, this is the best one I've come up so far:
Spoiler: Viewer Discretion is advised (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Miss Paula on March 29, 2009, 00:02:55
what do you mean with "star with soft edges"? (describe it better or find an example)
what program do you (want to) use?
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Evil on March 29, 2009, 00:27:25
Quote from: Miss Paula on March 29, 2009, 00:02:55
what do you mean with "star with soft edges"? (describe it better or find an example)
what program do you (want to) use?

Paint.net

You know with those glowing edges.

And it fades out.

...How do you add color on white stars? All I can do is have a gradient layer and lower the opacity.
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: LPChip on March 29, 2009, 11:28:46
Lowering the opacity won't give you smooth edges.

Create a black/dark blue filled layer. Add yellow/white/blue dots on it, then smoothen the result, then add dots in the center of the stars for those that you want to clarify.

Also, don't overdo the stars. A sky usually only have a few stars. You need to look somewhere else to find more stars. Its not that if you look into a direction you see hundreds. They are there, but due to the distance, you can't see them.
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Soron on March 29, 2009, 14:21:14
It's not due to the distance LP, If you are in an area with no light from the city (I mean complete absence) and there is no dust in the sky you can see even more than what evil portrayed. The photons emitted from the stars are super charged and travel to earth at light speed but still alot fades out and that's what we see.

Evil:- Try mixing the stars styles like make ones that fade from blueish or orange to black by atleast 5x5 or 10x10-15x15 pixels and the rest around it 2x2 or even a single blueish pixel, this will create a skyish feeling.
Spoiler: see what I mean (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: LPChip on March 29, 2009, 16:36:22
Yeah, I know that, but if you want to make a starfield similar to what you see with your naked eye (I assume evil wants that) then you don't want to overdo the stars.
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: minmay on March 29, 2009, 16:44:51
GIMP has some brushes and effects very useful for making stars.

For PAINT.net, personally what I would do is plop down a bunch of dots of varying opacity, then use a gentle blur filter, but I'm not sure that's the look you want.
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Kasran on March 29, 2009, 17:41:39
The way I made mine in Paint.NET was to use the Noise thing with high intensity, no color saturation and low coverage. I guess you could use Unfocus or some other blur if you want them to have soft edges.

Even better, do the first above step (as in with no blur) on a picture half the size of what you want, then resize it to 200% and let the resampling blur it for you. :U
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Evil on March 30, 2009, 21:19:53
How's this?  :)

(http://i39.tinypic.com/vnckrl.png)
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: youffle214 on March 30, 2009, 22:08:29
IMO your picture is really good. 8D I would suggest darkening the blue and yellow a bit, though.
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Evil on March 30, 2009, 22:37:39
Quote from: youffle214 on March 30, 2009, 22:08:29
IMO your picture is really good. 8D I would suggest darkening the blue and yellow a bit, though.
Thanks :)

And the yellow/blue is supossed to be bright.

It's a nebula!
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Strange Darkness on March 31, 2009, 00:29:22
Quote from: youffle214 on March 30, 2009, 22:08:29
IMO your picture is really good. 8D I would suggest darkening the blue and yellow a bit, though.
Ditto... C)p
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: youffle214 on March 31, 2009, 13:52:18
Quote from: Evil on March 30, 2009, 22:37:39
And the yellow/blue is supossed to be bright.

It's a nebula!
From what I've seen, blue nebulae aren't that bright, but anything can happen in this world. X)
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Evil on March 31, 2009, 23:43:07
Quote from: youffle214 on March 31, 2009, 13:52:18
Quote from: Evil on March 30, 2009, 22:37:39
And the yellow/blue is supossed to be bright.

It's a nebula!
From what I've seen, blue nebulae aren't that bright, but anything can happen in this world. X)

If you have ever been close to one....
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Kasran on April 01, 2009, 03:43:08
Quote from: Evil on March 31, 2009, 23:43:07
Quote from: youffle214 on March 31, 2009, 13:52:18
Quote from: Evil on March 30, 2009, 22:37:39
And the yellow/blue is supossed to be bright.

It's a nebula!
From what I've seen, blue nebulae aren't that bright, but anything can happen in this world. X)

If you have ever been close to one....
We haven't, yet, except possibly via satellite-camera-probe-thing.
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Soron on April 01, 2009, 11:57:22
When it glows blue it means the light takes a short time to reach our eyes says the red shift, This nebula is quit  close  :S
I recommend larger stars in scale.
It's nice :D
 
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Evil on April 01, 2009, 13:16:58
Quote from: Soron on April 01, 2009, 11:57:22
When it glows blue it means the light takes a short time to reach our eyes says the red shift, This nebula is quit  close  :S
I recommend larger stars in scale.
It's nice :D
 

I think what I'm trying to do is cover the earth with a nebula...I think...
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Soron on April 01, 2009, 15:47:31
Quote

I think what I'm trying to do is cover the earth with a nebula...I think...

RAWR  :crazy:
Let me do it..
offtopic spray paint?!
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Evil on April 01, 2009, 21:25:48
Quote from: Soron on April 01, 2009, 15:47:31

Quote

I think what I'm trying to do is cover the earth with a nebula...I think...

RAWR  :crazy:
Let me do it..
offtopic spray paint?!
....GENIUS~!
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Soron on April 04, 2009, 14:17:55
How so genius?
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Evil on April 09, 2009, 09:21:41
(http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/9192/starsrm.png)


(http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/5096/star2j.png)

is it good? :D
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Kasran on April 09, 2009, 18:19:49
Very, very nice. :O
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: AmADizii on April 10, 2009, 03:08:49
Is there anything in the furst picture except just blackness?
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: chipset on April 10, 2009, 03:50:09
Nice galaxies, Evil. :) I especially like the second one.

Quote from: AmADizii on April 10, 2009, 03:08:49
Is there anything in the furst picture except just blackness?

There's stars? You might need to increase the brightness on your monitor.
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Purple Pineapple on April 10, 2009, 04:37:48
Are we aloud to use those or are they reserved for Evil until further notice? (Another way of saying that This... looks... awesome!)
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Evil on April 10, 2009, 05:23:46
You can use them   :)
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: LPChip on April 10, 2009, 16:22:41
They're alot better Evil.

This is exactly what I ment with using too many stars. Now they're present but they're very soft.

As final touch to the images, you could put a total of 5 or less stars which are very bright and a little bit bigger (2 px?) on the image. Those would be stars that are nearby.
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: AmADizii on April 11, 2009, 07:27:31
These make cool Knytt Story Gradients.
I like them.
Nice Job, Evil.
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Comhon on April 20, 2009, 07:58:32
Really nice job. Thanks a lot.
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Dynamite on April 22, 2009, 14:22:44
I can't see anything in that last 2...I really loved this one: (http://i39.tinypic.com/vnckrl.png)
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Looki on May 01, 2009, 15:33:09
Your eyes are either really bad, or your monitor settings are.
The pictures look really nice... I especially like the last (yellow) one. :)
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Evil on May 02, 2009, 00:30:10
Spoiler: I made a planet!  :D (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Purple Pineapple on May 02, 2009, 03:03:27
1600 * 1600 pixels O_o Quite an achievment.
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Kasran on May 02, 2009, 17:12:41
Evil, that is incredibly awesome-looking.

It would look even more awesome if it had continents :crazy:
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Dynamite on May 04, 2009, 09:56:50
It looks like earth 9,999,999,999,999,999,999 billion years ago  :nuts:
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Gaeel on May 04, 2009, 12:40:14
Quote from: Dynamite on May 04, 2009, 09:56:50
It looks like earth 9,999,999,999,999,999,999 billion years ago  :nuts:
The Earth is accepted by scientists to be around 4.5 billion years old

You're saying it looks like nothing then?
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: KG on May 04, 2009, 19:33:58
Quote from: Gaeel on May 04, 2009, 12:40:14
Quote from: Dynamite on May 04, 2009, 09:56:50
It looks like earth 9,999,999,999,999,999,999 billion years ago  :nuts:
The Earth is accepted by scientists to be around 4.5 billion years old

You're saying it looks like nothing then?

That's even older than what scientists believe to be the age of the Universe, which is something over 13 billion years.
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Evil on May 09, 2009, 02:13:49
Quote from: Dynamite on May 04, 2009, 09:56:50
It looks like earth 9,999,999,999,999,999,999 billion years ago  :nuts:

Do you mean minutes?  :D
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Soron on May 09, 2009, 12:14:43
nice gradients :D
Playing around with photoshop? It's always good fun.
I've made a couple gradients in my time and if you're interested I'll show you them, (fix, they're on the old forum  :S)
Title: Re: Stars
Post by: Evil on May 09, 2009, 23:49:25
Quote from: Soron on May 09, 2009, 12:14:43
if you're interested I'll show you them

sure ;)

and I made this for someone
Spoiler: (click to show/hide)