Lesson 1

[Subuatai de Bodemloze]

Lesson One:

INTRODUCTION

Welcome everyone to the Gimp intermediate and advanced course. It's is both lolgast's and my pleasure to help you along your artistic journey. Those of you that have used Gimp before should have a pretty good understanding and be comfortble with the software. We have both quickly gone through and read Astrogoths Gimp basic course to get a feel as to what was covered in that course, so we will try not to duplicate anything that he has already made clear. But, forgive us if we do though.
Some of you have asked if we are going to be covering UV maps and texturing or skinning. The answer to that is simply No. No because neither of us have done much or any of that stuff. I may start skinning in the coming months, to help with the Dominion of the Sword unit backlog. Saying that when that time comes I may offer an introductory course into that area. It would most likly be in Photoshop though. I will open a thread for questions and help. I would prefer that the course threads be used for the lessons and your finished work. So welcome to the course and shall we begin!?







General Notes:

• All students should be aware that when using images other than ones provided by Lolgast or myself MUST be included (or linked provided) in your completed lesson post.
• Lessons will be one week in duration. We have taken our own time in setting this up and running this course, se we ask the same of you. All assignments will be due no later than 9 days after we post the lessons. Any late submittals will be treated on a individual basis provided you have justifiable circumstances. We are not Ogres but we would also like to avoid having students one or two lessons behind the bulk of the class.
• We will do our best to post the lessons promptly, but if there is a delay be patient.
• I am at GMT-8 and lolgast is GMT+1, please keep that in mind when you pm me 4 times in an hour asking for help... If I don't respond to you, chances are I am sleeping or something.

LAYER EFFECTS

First off; what are layer effects and how do we use them? I will sum it up like this:

GIMP has twenty-one layer modes. Layer modes are also sometimes called “blending modes”. Selecting a layer mode changes the appearance of the layer or image, based on the layer or layers beneath it. If there is only one layer, the layer mode has no effect. There must therefore be at least two layers in the image to be able to use layer modes.
You can set the layer mode in the Mode menu in the Layers dialog. GIMP uses the layer mode to determine how to combine each pixel in the top layer with the pixel in the same location in the layer below it. Layer modes permit complex color changes in the image. They are often used with a new layer which acts as a kind of mask. For example, if you put a solid white layer over an image and set the layer mode of the new layer to “Saturation”, the visible underlying layers will appear in shades of gray.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

As you can see; it has basically the same effect as if you were to desaturate the layer. But by using a layer effect we do not lose the colour of the base image that we may need for another layer.

If you are interested in gaining a better understanding please follow this LINK.

EXTRA CONTENT

Lets download some extra content eh? If you don't mind please download the following. some wich are very handy like:

Extra layer effects (can be found under script-fu)

http://registry.gimp.org/node/13469 (Adds a little programm some of the effects look a bit corny but it's very useful)

GreycStoration (Is great for cleaning up noisy pics/renders It's a must have)

After you download these, open them with winzip and place them here: Documents and settings CrogramFiles/Gimp/lib/gimp/2.0/plugins

GreycStoration and G'mic should be placed here:
ProgramFiles/Gimp/lib/gimp/2.0/plugins This maybe vary a bit from version to version. As long as you'll export it to a folder named plugins your good

FX Foundary (90+ Fu-script pack)

After you download these, open them with winzip and place them here: Documents and settings -> select your user -> .gimp-2.6 -> scripts
Mine here at work is: C:\Documents and Settings\chris\.gimp-2.6\scripts

Now start the Gimp and you should have new menus and scripts installed!

LESSON ONE

*****
RE-EDIT: We will being using this pattern file in the main lesson (Part 2). Consider this a warm up.
I only need to see your images and files:
A) when I ask for them (IE: End of part 2 & 3 of lesson 1)
B) if you are having difficulty with something and i can't figure out what your asking me.

RE-RE-EDIT:
I will do my best to describe things clearly and to the point.
All lessons, while are set piece. Though your creativity is allowed, and you can take artistic freedoms where you like as long as you are using the techniques outlined in the specific lessons.
*****
LARGE IMAGES IN ALL SPOILERS

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Subuatai de Bodemloze]

LESSON ONE PART TWO

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Download one of these pictures or find something else that matches a dark theme

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As well you need these 1of each of these images as well, or find your own.

Rust:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Stripes

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As well you need to surf.. a site like PLANET RENDER and find yourself an image that you feel would suit your colour scheme. Or Google if your are feeling lucky.
I chose this > image < for mine.

LESSON 1 PART A

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

LESSON 1 PART B

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My Wallpaper

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Without text my wall paper for this week

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Homework: Make a wallpaper based on this technique. It is required to be the minimum resolution of your desktop. I want to see both the effect on the symbol and the text. Everything except the render MUST be your work. As well as posting your wallpaper (which you can reduce in size if you want for your proof) please post a screen shot of your layers or post your xcf file. I expect a lot of questions for this lesson, it is definitely not a basics lesson. For that reason I have decided not to do the second part of lesson one. Cheers all.

[Subuatai de Bodemloze]

MY XCF FILE LINK

some clarification

[Ascarona]

Question about the G'MIC plug in (second download link),
theres plug-ins for Windows 32 bit, I'm running 64-bit with Windows 7 but can I still use it?

[Subuatai de Bodemloze]

I don't see why you can't though I can't garantee that. Let me know if you have any problems.

[Odoaker]

Dear Sübü'ätäi

I do not know, where to put gmic and gtk to. I put their contens with their folders into GIMP-2.0/bin/ folder.

What means edite-->paste new pattern? May you show me it with a picture? Otherwise I am ready, I guess...

Cheers
Odoaker

[Subuatai de Bodemloze]

[Huene]

for the next lesson can you use a different font? i can barely read this

[Subuatai de Bodemloze]

Yes I have changed it in the second and 3rd parts

[GrumpyBean]

OK i got a question:

Are we supposed to post our work for part 1 or wait until all parts are complete?
part 1 of lesson 1

[Subuatai de Bodemloze]

@ Grumpy lol, no mate I don't need to see your holes. I will ask you to post after part 2 and 3 of this lesson. Sorry for not being clear.

Added to first post

*****
RE-EDIT: We will being using this pattern file in the main lesson (Part 2). Consider this a warm up.
I only need to see your images and files:
A) when I ask for them (IE: End of part 2 & 3 of lesson 1)
B) if you are having difficulty with something and i can't figure out what your asking me.
*****

[Xavier Dragnesi]

Cool, I think I've got it.

[Subuatai de Bodemloze]

Lesson One fully posted. Refer to post #2.

[Hesus de bodemloze]

Does the render site only provides jpeg files?

[Subuatai de Bodemloze]

make an acct there and then you should be able to get png versions

[lolgast]

Register and click on the tumbnail. Then you'll get it bigger. Sometimes for me it still shows BG then. If that happens in your browser right click the image and select properties. Then you'll see an image link. Copy it, paste it into your adress bar then copy the image again and it should be fine

[Odoaker]

I am ready, half the way...

[Raglan]

yay, first to post

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

and the xcf file

[lolgast]

Where's the .xcf file? I don't see it. Did you attach it via twcenter's on system because it's not sure that this works yet. Why don't you try it again and if it doesn't work use a site like megaupload?

[Raglan]

Where's the .xcf file? I don't see it. Did you attach it via twcenter's on system because it's not sure that this works yet. Why don't you try it again and if it doesn't work use a site like megaupload?

sorry, i was editing it in as you posted, its there now