Textures Question

[Belle]

Hey Guys,
I'm starting with a square, giving it a flat fill. I'd like to add some texture to the square, but the only way I've discovered is to open the folder of textures in the fill gallery and select it as a transparency.
The only problem with that is that it's so transparent it lightens the color too much. If I reduce the transparency, the texture goes away.
I'm sure I'm missing something.

If you had a plain square, how would you add texture to make it look like, say linen or a plaster wall, or just plain bumpy without losing the color?

Thanks so much for any insight you can give. I've been able to add texture by using plug ins but would like to use these texture tiles that I have if I can figure out how to do it, as I have many that I like more than the few in my plug ins

I did search the posts but didn't see anything specific enough to what I'd like to do.
Am attaching file....

Thanks so much,
Belle

[dduran]

Do you need to have transparent. You could just do it as a solid fill

Danny

[Egg Bramhill]

I'm starting with a square, giving it a flat fill. I'd like to add some texture to the square, but the only way I've discovered is to open the folder of textures in the fill gallery and select it as a transparency.

I think your making a very simple mistake here. Try "open the folder of textures in the fill gallery and select it as a Fill (NOT Transparency)"

[David O'Neil]

If you are trying to apply an arbitrary color to a texture, perhaps you want to create a bitmap copy of the texture, open it with the Xara Picture Editor, create a bump map of it, and then apply colored 'rectangle' over it, with an appropriate transparency (probably 'Flat-bleach'). (The third 'play' doesn't look too hot, but should give you ideas as to further playing around.)

David

[jamesmc]

This is a way I do things like that. If I find a pattern I like, but don't like the faded color that the transparency adds, I just stack them. See the attached.

Which of course, is the same method as using one 75 percent transparent red square, with one difference. Because the stone fill uses black in the pattern, the pattern becomes more intense in its blackness and stands out more than you would if you used a regular 75 percent transparency with a patterned fill. See second image for the 75 percent red and stone fill and compare the two.

This is one way a bump map works that is, it increases intensity of a particular color/shade or some state as increasing height.

And in a way, this is one method professional printers works with colors, it layers colors with print plates and mixtures of ink. Sort of sideways approach to the CMYK conversation (not really, but gives insight into layered texture and color shades, intensity, luminosity and in the making of textured 3D objects, radiosity, bump maps, shadow effects, etc., etc.)

[molucca]

If you use the transparency method, there is a profile option to adjust the effect.

Other applications apply textures similar to this. They make the image trasnparent letting the background show through. You can adjust the shade of the tile, and I had to make a new set for another program that uses textures inverse to Xara. Rich

[remi]

If you need only a bitmap fill (without transparency), you'll find a nice tutorial about this at the Xara Xtreme video tutorials (Menu "Help" -> "Movies", Section "Bitmaps", Video "Using bitmap fills").

Regards,
Remi

[Mike Bailey]

If you had a plain square, how would you add texture to make it look like, say linen or a plaster wall, or just plain bumpy without losing the color?

I would apply some texture to the shape, then overlay another shape with a chosen color and use stained glass transparency on the overlay.
Also if you place another shape between the texture and color using a solid black fill, 0% saturation transparency it will reduce the colors on the underlying texture to gray values, by doing such the effect may be improved.

[Intbel]

You could always put your colour down first and your bitmap on top - then apply transparency to the bitmap ...

[abligh]

Hey Guys,
I'm starting with a square, giving it a flat fill. I'd like to add some texture to the square, but the only way I've discovered is to open the folder of textures in the fill gallery and select it as a transparency.
The only problem with that is that it's so transparent it lightens the color too much. If I reduce the transparency, the texture goes away.
I'm sure I'm missing something.

Note, in addition to the suggestions above, you can do the following:
* Apply the bitmap as a FILL but then contone it (select the fill tool, and drag colours to appropriate fill handles - hint: tab toggles between them). That way you can make a red brick texture (say) go between yellow and brown.
* Apply the bitmap as a transparency, then alter the start and end transparencies (go to the transparency tool, select the appropraite fill handle, and change the transparency - again tab toggles between them). You may find you want to alter just one transparency.
* Combine either of the above two with changing the profile (i.e. rate of change from start colour to end colour, or from start transparency to end transparency) using the button on the bar.
* Apply the same bitmap both as a transparency, and a fill
* Apply a different bitmap as transparency and a fill
* Apply it as a bitmap, chose contone colours, clone the object, chose slightly different contone colours, and chose a different texture (perhaps a fractal) as a transparency to fade between the two. This can make what otherwise would be a boring repeating fill look more interesting, especially if you make the fill geometry of the transparency substantially different.

Alex