New Chrome-Effects with ReflectionMaps

I play with the Eye Candy 4000 Demo -> Chrome Effects.
New Settings and new ReflectionMaps (Gradients).

Make follow Settings and Save this under new Name:
BASIC:
1. Bevel Width = 5
2. Bevel High = 66
3. Smoothness = 44
4. Ripple Thichkness = 45
5. Ripple Width = 119.33
6. Bevel Placement = Inside marquee

LIGHTING:
1. Direction = 135
2. Inclination = 45
3. Highlight Size = 40
4. Highlight Color = white
5. Tint Amount = 100
6. Tint Color = white

BEVEL PROFILE:
Button

Go to Menue Setting and "SAVE" under new Name (like - Spezial).

The Setting is dependent on character size, possibly must it depending upon character size be adapted!

The Gradient-Files musst be copy in the Folder for the Eye Candy Settings -> ReflectionMaps!

Really nice, Thank you!

As far as I can tell, EC is hard wired to allow only its reflection maps. Curious about new reflection maps.

Rich

In English

I played with further ReflectionMaps, which I would not like to withhold from you. :D
With CorelPhoto Paint stored TIFF' s were not recognized! :rolleyes:
I store the Tiff' s with the Magix photo designer. It would make me happy, if you provide your results with those of me to Reflections post became.

Greetings
CMONE

Nice reflection maps CMONE. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks CMONE,

I think it must be a matter of TIF flavor. I saved from Photoshop and the file was recognized. I thought there may be a size problen as well. This enviroment is somewhat larger than what I saw in the resource folder.

Rich

Some of my environment used in SBP and E3. They will need to be changed to TIF.

Rich

Thanx, very nice.
But I could obtain the best effects, if I use color Gradients (elliptically, right parallelepiped, linear), best with repetitions (1x or 2x).
I hope Babelfish translate everything correctly. :D


Greetings
CMONE

Thanks for the pointer on the [Reflection Maps]. Although I don't know why you had to explain all the [chrome] settings.

Maybe Google translate would be better.

Thanks again, here's my experimenting:

Very nice effect.

Rich

EC/E3

I made an E3 environment in EC.

Rich

Trying a few more things.

Rich

A few more environments in JPG. The program seems to like uncompressed TIFs.

Rich

Very nice Effects;)

Here my 3D-Reflections Rendering Effect:D
I'am used Border Chrom effect and then 3D.

Greetings
CMONE

A blend of map filled text.

Rich

Added another bezel.

Rich

XXP & EC. Contours

I downloaded the zip on the first post and tried to recreate the bottom left (overlayed) one, but couldn't get it to work for me.

To be honest I'm still happiest with the chrome lettering effect I posted up in another thread on this subject. I have, I think, managed to improve on it slightly after looking at a Photoshop tutorial on chrome lettering. There aren't enough hours in the day for me to bother attempting such a thing in Photoshop (give me Xara any day), but I did notice on the tutorial in question that the gradient on the face of the letters seems to go from a very slight grey down to white and then a fairly drastic fade into a darker grey. Seems to give the most realistic effect IMO.

Thats Correct, your Example is Perfect.

But the Live Effect is good enough for me.
You can use the Chrome-Effect for other Clipart.

Here a quick example with mixed Chrome-Effect and overlay Gradient like your Example.

1. poor Chrome-Effect
2. Chrome-Effect with overlay the Gradient
3. poor Gradient
4. Example with Chrome-Effect an Clipart:D

Well thanks but mine is far from perfect.

I think that it's possible to get many believable chrome effects using a variety of reflection maps. It's the front face that's the hard bit. Your second example has a different reflection map but with that gradient it works just as well.

The reflection map I used is based on the outdoor.tif that comes with the Alien Skin Chrome filter. I just repainted the green and brown colours to blue and grey and saved it as an alternative file. It just seemed to fit better with a chrome finish for me.

Here's the map that I ended up with. It looks silly as a bitmap, but I like it for my chrome edges.

Silver and Wood. I saved these in my other application without compression to TIF and they worked.

Rich

Gold & Bronze:

In the context of this thread some of you might be interested in an old mini-tutorial I made about a Xara technique to create the look of extruded metallic text that appears to reflect its context. You can find it here.

Regards, Ross

Thx Ross, nice Effect, how come you on this idea?:eek:

I have played with the Effect and have it modified with a BumpMap-Layer, really good Idea from you!;)

Or with Photos and the 3D-Extrusionstool make a selfmade Reflection for Texteffects, inspirieng from Ross's Tutorial;)

TIF info from the chrome plugin reflection maps:

• 72dpi (but it works with 96, it's just a Mac/PC thing)
• keep it small, 100px square is more than ample
• 24-bit colour
• no compression

This is great, thank you guys for posting. I've been poking around for ages looking for a way to change the default chrome images, you'd think there would be an option within the plugin to do this.

You've helped me get closer to the effect I'm trying to get on speaker cones...

Hi I appreciate your post was a long time ago but I am trying to get a chrome effect in Designer Pro 11. Can anyone recommend a live effects plugin that works please?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dominic Miles

Hi I appreciate your post was a long time ago but I am trying to get a chrome effect in Designer Pro 11. Can anyone recommend a live effects plugin that works please?

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Welcome to TalkGraphics. As you have used a range of Xara / CC products, you should understand the power of blends, art brushes and names colours: http://www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/workbook44/page_6.htm.
No need for a live effect at all.

Acorn

This is a good one also Dominic http://www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/wo...tml/page_1.htm

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acorn

Welcome to TalkGraphics. As you have used a range of Xara / CC products, you should understand the power of blends, art brushes and names colours: http://www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/workbook44/page_6.htm.
No need for a live effect at all.

Acorn

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Ok well, I can't remember which version it was because I have had them all, but way back (maybe Corel Xara) there was a chrome plugin that worked a treat! - I need to do a graphic for a car sales website in black carbon with a logo edged with a shiny chrome line... It seems that the photoshop plugins idea has been worked around but that was a powerful feature.. Thanks for the support.

Thank you gwpriester! - That's great but I was looking for a quick way to get a shiny chrome effect and thought it would be easy with a photoshop plugin. I have bought one from graphicriver but it won't work. I have just upgraded to X365 in the hope that the 64bit plugin would work. But I can't get Xara to recognize it. I will have to draw it! - Lol...

Eye candy 4000 has a chrome filter, If you have Xara extreme installed you can point to it. Its in the picture editor/plugins folder.

If you have f eye candy 6 or it has a very good chrome filter that does let you easily add your own reflection maps how ever version 7 and up no longer work prperly with Xara software and Alien Skin will not work with Xara to address the issues.

But If you don't have the EyeCandy chrome filter you can use Xara's bevel tool and emboss filter to achieve a nice chrome effect. I've attached a .xar file that you can pull apart to see how I did it