Extream noob here, and zero graphic talent..

[parahandy]

Thatch, that is a fine picture. It never ceases to amaze me the talents of our membership, I am sure there are many members who could contribute but may be too shy to so. I say have a go and let us see what you can do, you will get plenty of encouragement and help if need be. Your work could be an inspiration to us and others.

[David O'Neil]

David, the problem with that approach and the one I took is that it gives a soft edge shape where as I wanted a hard edge to the shape but a soft edge on the shadow. There is also a different falloff to the color with feather than there is with the external glow.

You don't have to give the back shape a feathered edge. You can also adjust the falloff of a feather. Here's one of your clouds without any glow or clipview, unless I'm overlooking something else.

[Thatch]

True, the back shape doesn't have to be feathered and your attempt is a close approximation to what I did. However, as I recall now (this image is some 6 years old I think) feathering and glow are pixel effects and are therefore resolution dependent. The size I was working at for this particular peice was such that I did not have enough control with the feather to get the look I was going for. Even without that restriction the feather effect tended to loose the parent shape much faster than the glow did, meaning that the contour of the cloud shape faded away much quicker. A subtlety to be sure but one that I felt made an impact on the piece.

Of course the important part of this discussion is that Xara for all it's apparent simplicity does offer one copius was to skin the artistic cat.

J

[David O'Neil]

...feathering and glow are pixel effects and are therefore resolution dependent. The size I was working at for this particular peice was such that I did not have enough control with the feather to get the look I was going for.

I was simply pointing out what may be an easier technique. If I'm not mistaken, the algorithm behind both feathers and glows is exactly the same, meaning that you have the same control with each one. For some reason, though, XPro 3.0 gives you a little more, as it allows 50 pixel feathers, whereas it only allows 40 pixel glows.

Even without that restriction the feather effect tended to loose the parent shape much faster than the glow did, meaning that the contour of the cloud shape faded away much quicker.

Given that you can have bigger feathers than glows, something seems wrong with that statement, but maybe I'm wrong. You can modify the falloff of each of them in the exact same manner.

Regardless, your picture is beautiful. Excellently done!



ps - "feathering and glow are pixel effects and are therefore resolution dependent" means that both of our techniques end up with the same limitation in the end, although I don't believe it is much of a limitation.

[RTK]

the only drawback with clipview is you can only use it so many times within a complex drawing before one gags xara. Add/Subtract work just as well and you can throw lots more at xara before she gags.

As an example try grouping about 500 objects together and then using that to apply a clipview.... Xara will slow up dramatically if not gag.

I don't have this problem. Tried a completely silly scenario with 6000 objects, in two groups - AND ALL beveled and with drop-shadows. The two clip-views happen almost instantly. There's is a slight lag when dragging them around the screen, but still rather smooth when compared to Corel 11 with more than a couple of hundred plain objects.

Maybe it's a memory thing? I'm running 3 gigs?

Risto

[raynerj1]

That could very well be the case Risto. None the less 1 object is handled quicker by xara than 5000 grouped (or clip viewed) objects.

I myself have just gotten in the habit of working more effienciently even if I can't spell it.