Using FilterForge and Xara

[angelize]

I've split this thread off from this thread in the Clipart forum

I'll do my best to help anyone interested in learning more about Filter forge and how best to use it with Xara. Also we do have someone from from FilterForge who checks this forum from time to time so this is a much better place to take this discussion.

Some tips for using FF with Xara.

1. Currently there is an issue with using Filter Forge as a live effect, but this can be worked around by locking the effect.
2. Filter Forge can be used as a stand alone program to create seamless/ and nonrepeating (as in non seamless) textures that can be imported into Xara for many uses.

[Gare]

Perhaps a small discussion on the shader tree interface, and how you can add and modify operators first?

Shader trees aren't always intuitive to use, and they're mostly the arena of material creation in 3D programs.

-g

[angelize]

For me when I started learning Filter Forge I realized something: That the shader tree was doing something similar to layering different kinds of noise, and adjusting transparencies of the layers. It was a different way of working. Here is an example of a very simple filter, I took a perlin noise component and plugged in some control components and plugged it into the result component. This gives me a filter that can generate different types of perlin based noise. Each control component gives a corresponding control on the filter controls panel.