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June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
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When you pose a 3D cube or rectangle shape, the most you can hope to see are three sides. Unless the cube is partially transparent! This month Gary shows you how to use the Extrude tool to make a reference model, how to create backside planes for your own cube, and how to apply transparency and color to make a drawing that looks as though it was created in a modeling program. If you think the power of Xara to the second power is awesome, wait until you see Xara cubed (X3).
Enjoy the flick (about 12 minutes) and then show us your cubes.
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
There are actually four parts to this tutorial: getting an extruded cube posed so it looks visually interesting, calculating one line to arrive at three backfaces for your own cube, playing between transparency and linear fills so eventually you can see all six sides of the cube—sort of like a glass cube except there are no intense and sharp specular reflections, and finally how to fake a shadow cast from the cube.
This is do-able for every skill level and I think it's a pretty neat thing to be able to do.
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My Best,
Gary
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
I enjoyed this tutorial, and here is my cube. I decided to make mine red and it reminded me of strawberry jello so I did a second version with a little wobble
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Frances, aren't you going to stain the carpet without putting a plate under that Jell-o™ ?
I love it! Three thumbs up.
If enough interest is shown in shading cubes (over creating them), I'll supply some "wireframes" later this month.
Well done, Angelize.
Actually a well done cube of Jell-o™ would look puddly and burnt. You get what I mean, though. :)
-g
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
By the way, there have been 233 visits to the Giveaway—the cloud PNGs that I sweated over (now don't go feeling guilty or anything...), and no art posted, no comments.
This is good stuff, folks!
Get the background composition element of your dreams right here
See what you can do here by mixing and matching Xara Xone tutorials?
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Hmmm?
My Best,
Gary
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
The clouds are top notch Gary and I will get to do a post with the cloud, I'm just finishing the semi-trans. cube, which is an excellent video and tutorial.
Stygg
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Well I've got some where to display my gallstone now ;)) Joking apart I have tried to follow this tut. to the letter, apart from some transparency changes and I must admit I had some difficulties at times trying to follow the various changes Gary made as the cube progressed, but that's probaly me not being as sharp as I use to be :D Anyway I overcame the problem by taking video snaps of the changes, importing into my document and got, I think, the changes that were shown, at least it was easier than swapping to and thro from vid. to my document. Hope after all that I've done justice to Gary's tut. and work. Much appreciated Gary for a very interesting and well worth knowing technique.
Stygg.
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Sorry guys but I think this one is a slight improvement over the first trans.cube :o Ahh! the beauty of ageing, it's a darn nuiscance :D
Stygg
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
I apologize for those who had a hard time with the values.
1. I thought I'd left them onscreen for long enough, and
2. I actually wanted you all to experiment, make up your own values for both color and transparency, and learn and retain more from experimenting than by following a "recipe".
Stygg, and everyone—
You don't have to screen capture the values for the transparency or color at all.
Download the zip file; it's got the finished piece in it as a *.xar file,and you can just ungroup the cube and get the values off the Color Editor.
Hint: if you want to make a green cube or other color, change the Hue of the colors on the cube, but not the Saturation or Brightness. Use the HSB color model in the Color Editor.
My Best,
Gary
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Gary no need to apologize to me about the values, they were on screen long enough but I do use vid.snaps to aid me, just my little quirk :D Also I do experiment with a finished tut. but first I always follow the "recipe" first so I know what I'm doing and why, it's no use me experimenting if it's not right in the first place, which is quite usual for me :D
Stygg
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
I've changed the colour and a couple of trans. on this one as well as brightnening up the whole image with two of the clouds Gary posted.
Stygg
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
I enjoyed the video too.Some good shapes on here.
The cubes make for a great brush as well.
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
@ stygg—
Very nice use of the clouds and the tutorial together!
@ Egg— Thanks for the brush! I never thought of doing that, and thak you for sharing it!
My Best,
Gary
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Thanks for the brush Egg. Who knows what I'll ever use it for, but time will tell. OK now back to topic.
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
That's a neat brush Egg, thank you for sharing.
Stygg
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
]I was having some fun with this tutorial and one thing led to another....
[ATTACH=CONFIG]102573[/ATTACH
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
I decided to apply the techniques to a glass bottle.
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
@ Larry - Nice one Larry seeing you do not like spiders :D
@ Francis - That technique works really well on the glass bottle, must give that a try, thanks for showing, it looks really good.
Stygg
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
The glass bottle is innovative and very attractive, Frances.
-g
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Quote:
Originally Posted by
angelize
I decided to apply the techniques to a glass bottle.
Very effective Frances. I like it.
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Thanks stygg, Gary, and Larry. :)
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Francis I used your image as a guide to create a glass bottle using the techniques we learned from the trans. cube video. I was going to post my image separately but it looked good along side yours so I added a couple of text lines for a Hers and Him image, hope you don't mind, if you do, please feel free to remove it. Thanks for posting your image I would not have thought of using the techniques on a bottle. :D
Stygg
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
You folks are really very impressive with the perfume bottle.
Bear with me here, to add a few observations: first, you're dead on with any reflections you might have going on with the bottle because it's planar.
But you also have some curving surfaces, and if this was glass, specular highlights would occur. And they'd have well-define, not diffuse, specular highlights because glass is almost a perfectly reflective, smooth surface. Nice what you've done so far, especially stygg with the highlight on the top.
My tutorial this month is how to make a semi-transparent object, not necessarily glass, though. If you want some hints for glass, see the tutorial on the differences between plastic and meta.
Here's not-to-good crack at reproducing your bottle in a modeling program.
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Do you see any artifacts across its surface you might want to add to your splendid drawings?
My Best,
Gary
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Gare thanks for the tutorial, very interesting topic, really good to remember to your shadow technique.
Well relating this scene, not sure what is it or where :D Those objects behind finally are just some extreme size extrudes with playing their lights :)
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
I really like what you did, csehz, combining and contrasting a hard-edge, inorganic object with a background that reminds me of those fluorescent sea sponges and stuff miles below the ocean.
You instantly inspired me to do this:
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My Best,
Gary
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Thanks Gare, a modelling program generates such beautiful objects behind? Recently I had some tries with Blender, seeing what it can do by my computer hardly would survive such a rendering process :D
I was just considering yet how to extrude transparent cubes in Xara? So using extrudes not only for the tracing as reference, but exclusively those.
Finally came out with this idea, not sure there is something there they are just tries. The point of it would be putting over 3 transparent cubes which angles are in exactly 90 difference in a certain dimension
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Blender....
I have really wanted to like it but everytime I have tried to do anything with it, that awful user interface have made me walk away from the software. It was pretty much like going back in time to year 1990 when software on Amiga platform had interfaces like that.
Shame really as the capabilities of the software seem pretty good otherwise.
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
@csehz—
That is a WONDERFUL variation on the basic tutorial. It's exciting in its approach and its depth!
My Best,
Gary
P.S. I used XenoDream, an inexpensive organic modeling program that generates fractal sculptures, and then used Maxwell Render ot set up lighting, materials, and render the aquatic scene. It was O/T and I really shouldn't have posted it.
My Best,
Gary
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Quote:
Originally Posted by
theinonen
Blender....
I have really wanted to like it but everytime I have tried to do anything with it, that awful user interface have made me walk away from the software
somewhere, rotting away on a backup drive, i have a copy of bryce2, if you remember that
i used it once and hated its ui so much i never used it again
what a waste
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
gary
watched the tutorial and as always a very easy-on-the-brain way to learn new visual concepts & techniques
i highly recommend it and all the others to all artists new and old
but... i noticed a fairly important error, though, whilst watching
perspective - even if you're drawing freehand, it matters
our eyes/brain use the perspective of other objects to judge our own position/distance in the great scheme of things
get perspective wrong and the viewer's eyes/brain calculations subconsciously go "huh?"
at least mine did when you freehand drew the red lines of the rear faces of your cube (ps. backside means but/bootie in uk-english)
when I do a "huh?" i always like confirmation before making a fool of myself (doesn't always work ofc)
i took a screenie of the video and dropped it into xara - the black target is where you placed your rear centre point
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i then drew the three vanishing points of the three known faces
which gives me the actual lines of the three hidden faces
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and so the white target is the actual position
you can see the perspective is fairly out
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which will hinder any further attempt at realism in that drawing
i know how hard perspective is to get right when you do it freehand
but it's a big subject worthy of its own thread
other than that, i liked the effect and also the textures, very handy to have
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
I watched the tutorial and actually did my own version as the tutorial can be replicated with Artworks 2 with only minor modifications.
As Artworks 2 has no extrude tool for creating 3D objects in perspective I used an early 3D software instead that can save the scene as a vector image and then imported it into Artworks 2. Quick example below, image on the left shows the cube imported to Artworks 2 and image on the right shows that same cube on the early 3D software. (Yes, I collect old software for no real reason but sometimes they can still have surprising uses.)
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
I had noticed that too Frank, but, I thought it was just my error, so didn't pursue it any further.
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
@ Big Frank—
Yes, I'd agree that perspective is a subject worth of its own tutorial or two.
Moreover, I'm truly happy when someone points out that I'm wrong, because I, too, need to learn (that's one of the perks of being a teacher), and I don't want to propagate mis-information on tg.
I 'eyeballed" the first point as you saw in the video, which the solution, right or wrong (wrong, actually), allowed me to quickly discover all the other points.
So the solution is to bisect all three of the perspective angles to arrive at the centre back point, eh? Good one, and thanks, Frank!
My usual mantra is: if it looks right, then it is right. This begs me to go back someday and see what other miscalculations I've done in my other work!
P.S. Modeling programs just aren't everyone's cup of tea, and I'll try to refrain from bringing a personal hobby into the tutorials in the future. I've been creating models for 23 years (which suggests a lot of free time and patience from a moderately-talented soul), using programs of increasing sophistication, and they're neither free nor inexpensive. Nor easy to learn.
My Best,
Gary
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gare
I'll try to refrain from bringing a personal hobby into the tutorials in the future
I have to admit had to enter the 'refrain' word to Google translator, but so please Gare do not hold back these modeling ideas and graphics, they are very good looking ones and also help in thinking out of the box.
Personally Xara will always stay a favourite program for me, but good to know what could be extruded from its line work in other ones. The best would be of course if Xara once also could propose such modeling features. Finally the program has the being 'Swiss knife' approach so why not
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
I totally agree ceshz, gets my vote. I was aware the perspective was slightly out, after all, we've all done plenty of perspective work in the past with Gary and I'm not using this as an excuse for sloppy work on my part but regards the semi-trans. cube, we were not working with perspective, vanishing points, isometric and the rest of it but how to apply shading and transparencies to give a balanced semi-trans. cube which I know how to now. I take on board Big Franks points but in this case I wavered correction for simplicity, the shading and transparencies were the order of the day.
Stygg
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gare
Moreover, I'm truly happy when someone points out that I'm wrong, because I, too, need to learn
i doubt i was teaching you anything there
;)
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
@ Big Frank,
Oh, I sucked at geometry, both in high school and college, Frank! And continue to suck. It's a real regret of mine and I excuse it to dyslexia, very real in my life, being left-handed.
If I don't learn from this forum, I'm only cheating myself for putting out and not taking anything in. A sincere thanks for the visual solution to discovering the back point, man! I would have pored through a geometry book for ages were it not for your visual example.
The rest of the tutorial worked, though! :)
My Best,
Gary
P.S. Once I get some drudge work out of the way this morning, I'll provide everyone with two more transparency-shading challenges, as I'll only have a written tutorial for JHuly this month (and probably post new seamless textures, but no video).
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csehz, back in post #27, came up with a marvelous rendition of 9 cubes, stacked horizontally, vertically, and deep.
I thought I'd offer a guide if anyone wants the challenge of recreated the famous puzzle toy in colored glass.
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I'm sure this is harder to solve than the puzzle!
:)
My Best,
Gary
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Re: June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara
ok here's my cube
i tried to be clever and do it my better way
then realised i didn't have a my better way
well i did but it was worse
so i did it the gary way
and it works :)
next time i'll just button it and do it your way