Questions on an image I made

[RU42]

Greetings People. I have 2 questions resulting from something I did.

I am new to all of this and having a ton of fun with the tutorials etc. I ran across a tutorial on how to make a shaded sphere (tips and tricks section)

The tutorial was very easy - I made one in cyan blue. I then copied the image, set it across the screen and then did a blend to it (step 50) and the result is:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y28...phereblend.gif

My 2 questions are this:

1. I thought the blend would remain the same size. However, when I blended the 2 objects it tapered in the middle. Any ideas why? It looks cool but I am not sure why that happened.

2. Is there a way to change the color. Right now if I apply a color I lose all the transparency effects.

Thanks for the help!

RU

In case anyone wants to recreate this:
Draw a sphere according to this thread: http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=4620
I then set the outline to none
I added a slight feather
Copied the image and applied a 50step blend
I moved the floor shadow around the add a little more black to the front center of the image.

[pauland]

I've never seen anything like that. Perhaps you can post the file?

To change the colour, you should used a named colour, then you can change the colour of the named colour without editing the object (if you use similar colours in the object they should be a tint so they are related).

Anyway, a better explanation will follow real soon now (from someone else!).

Paul

[Egg Bramhill]

RU42,

The reason for this is that the blend isn't going from a node on the first circle to the corresponding node on the other.

See the attachment. The blend is taking the diagonal route. You need it to take the green horizontal route.

Return to your file and remove the blend and then re blend between corresponding nodes. That should cure your problem.

[pauland]

I guess that's a happenstance - a fun effect arrived at by accident!

[salaam]

I've been trying to create that effect for ages.
Thanks Egg, RU

Anas

[RU42]

Pauland - not sure what a named color is yet; I guess I need to look that one up now.

Egg - I see what you are saying but now I have another question. Based on your info I went back and played around. I got the smooth effect (same size the entire time) just like you pointed out.

Now, I am trying to recreate what I did with the diagonal - and I can't do it. I have no idea what I did. You mention nodes (same as objects?) Can you explain a little more. I am trying to recreate the diagonal blend as I did before but everything I do now comes out in a straight line.

Thanks for helping me understand the program more!

RU

[Odat]

If you refer to Egg's picture above, what you want to do (using the blend tool) is when you click to start the drag that makes the blend, click on one of the points on the first circle, then drag over and end on one of the points on the end circle.

To get a "straight" blend, pick the same point on both circles. To get the "diagonal" blend, pick a different point.

You can even do this on an existing blend to change the points that it's blending between. In this case, the line that you're dragging should get a bit thicker and change color when you go over the second point.

[RU42]

Arg - I am not sure why I cannot do this.

Using Eggs example - the green line is going from 12:00 to 12:00 node. The blue line is going from 12:00 to 9:00 node.

I have tried is selecting only one object or both objects but no matter what node I start at or drop off at - it seems to automatically go to 9:00 node to 9:00 node.

Even looking at the blend line, I get the blend cursor or the 4 arrows curser if I am either the start or finish points - regardless of which one I have I cannot do anything with the line.

I know I am missing something simple or have something ticked that shouldn't be - any help is greatly appreciated.

RU

[minimiro]

another way to create this is after creation of blend with control click to rotate one of the objects to some degrees

smal values give you just thinner effect in the middle
big values (180) making size of the blend in the middle relative to 0

[Ron Duke]

RU42,
Make sure your objects are converted to editable shapes before attempting the blend.
ron