A Planet-Building Tutorial

[Spinny]

I haven't looked at your .pdf tutorial yet, but I ginned this up just playing around with the material actually included in Chapter 5...

[Spinny]

And here's a question for you guys. Attached is the .xar file for the above jpeg. I'm wondering why I can't apply a profile to the transparency of the ice caps object (the arrow is greyed out), yet I can for the shadows and the fractal clouds transparencies. Any ideas?

Thanks!

[steve.ledger]

Planet Xtremus and it's two moons, Xarian and Camelot.




Thanks for the inspiration Gare.

[jvila]

Planet Xtremus and it's two moons, Xarian and Camelot.




Thanks for the inspiration Gare.

Wow Steve, Your planets rocks.
Very well done

[handrawn]

I'm wondering why I can't apply a profile to the transparency of the ice caps object (the arrow is greyed out), yet I can for the shadows and the fractal clouds transparencies.

its a multi-stage transparency would be my guess - don't think you can profile those - same with muti-stage fills - yes?

[Gare]

Hi Spinner—

Lovely work, by the way.

I downloaded your file; top object takes a profile as I can see, but yes, a profile controls the bias and contrast between two pins on a transparency, and no more. If you have three or more pins defined—this goes for any fill, contour, or blend, as well—and try to apply a profile, the arrow button will be dimmed. Also if you have a profile defined and attempt to add a pin ("stop", whatever we call it), you'll get a polite but firm attention box telling you if you go ahead, the profile will be removed.

But you can "mix it up" and achieve almost any effect you like by adding a lot of duplicate objects, moving the center of the transparency or fill, redefining the colors, blend mode, and scale of fractal fills...and get the effect you seek. Also not to forget using ClipViews to hide areas you don't want visible.

sledger did a wonderful thing with fills there! If you read chapter 5, or just download the chpater 5 files, you can see an example of a "painting" of a sunset, done entirely with fractal fills and transparency.

My Best,

Gare

[Spinny]

Indeed, it's a multi-stage transparency. I wanted to firm up the boundaries of the ice caps a little, and figured a profile would do the trick. Easiest fix would be to do the caps one at a time instead of both on the same disc, methinks.

Thanks for the info! I'll check out the .pdf tute itself once I feel like I'm done with the chapter, I expect there are lots of nuggets in there based on the great stuff posted above!

[Gare]

Attached is a "medium-simple" Xara animation file.

I'm certain anyone can do it better after reading the animation chapter!

I just wanted to demonstrate that in a Flash animation, you can fake the look of moving stuff in three dimensions.

Pop goes the Planet

My Best,

Gare Skywalker