Gel Navbar with a difference...

[gdavidson]

... I left it in the bottle [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

I'm trying to master a true transparency technique where transparent *looking* objects can be placed on top of others and remain transparent.

I find it quite tricky to establish a firm rule, but highlights are generally a white "mix", darkening areas are harder to achieve without looking muddy grey.

I don't know if there are any other software packages that offer Xara's extensive interactive transparency options but Xara seems King to me!


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Graeme

[gwpriester]

or an answer? :-)

Great explorations either way. Especially like the threads on the bottom example.

I do find it helps to avoid white and black. Very pale and very dark values of the same color often add more richness and depth to the colors.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

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XaraXone

[gdavidson]

Yes, that was an, erm, strangely phrased post I made! Too much Xara... must sleep [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

I agree entirely with yout comments about avoiding black . I'm striving to create glass buttons that can easily have their colours changed. I could have used linked colours for all the colours used in the button but this would affect every item on the page using those colours.

The solution appears to be to make the container entirely out of white/grey mix transparencies and have a single coloured glass transparency element in the backround to tint the container.

I found on previous attempts to do this that it was easy to create something that looked transparent but in reality wasn't. Additionaly, changing the colour of my early attempts was a nightmare by the time you found all the coloured elements.

Hope my technique helps anyone else working with glass!

[This message was edited by Graeme Davidson on June 15, 2002 at 06:06.]

[Ross Macintosh]

[graeme-quote] changing the colour of my early attempts was a nightmare by the time you found all the coloured elements [/graeme-quote]

Sounds like a good time to use layers. Have the coloured part(s) you may want to change on their own layer behind. Layers above can be made uneditable and you can make the changes without bringing the coloured parts to the front. Layers are easy to master and can be very effective in managing a more complex drawing. Layers are your friend. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

With regards to your bottles - I think they are great but that one little thing bugs me. It is that diagonal highlight on glass near the cap. If you want a highlight there try using an eliptical transparency where the axis of the transparency correspond with the edges of the bottle. The centre of the transparency needn't be on the edge of the bottle. I think having the highlight 'fall off' in two directions would look better than the linear-looking transparency.

Another small thing is you could slightly reduce the size of the coloured part (bottle contents) to make it look like the glass has more thickness.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[gdavidson]

Hi Ross,

Thanks for the heads-up on the use of layers. It's something I haven't made any use of yet - apart from seperating text on buttons.

Yes, you're right about that diagonal fill. Somewhere along the line something happened to the Xara file and many of my fills (all the ones used for the caps) had changed direction in an identical manner. I think the annoying highlight is one of the victims too. I've had this happen before (particularly with bevel fills) but normally it wasn't carried through to an export or save.

I made the artwork from one a real-life bottle, and I was surprised to see that in reality, the colour went all the way to the edges despite the glass being 2mm thick! However, it might be more aesthetically pleasing to the eye to add some wall thickness. I'll give it a try and see how it looks.

That's what I like about vector art - you can make an object look better than it does in reality [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Cheers!

--
Graeme

[gdavidson]

I ditched that dodgy highlight but couldn't make a bottle that looked sensible with clear sidewalls.

Having looked at some larger bottles round here, it's apparent that round bottles don't have visible sidewalls but square ones do - live and learn [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Cheers!

--
Graeme

[gwpriester]

Another way to make your bottles look transparent to to add a colored shadow that looks as though it were caused by light passing through the gel.

I make a bitmap of the bottle, blur it (try Sean Sedwards Blur plug-in available in the XaraXone Shareware page) and then place it on top of the image and add Stained glass transparency.

Gary

Gary Priester

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XaraXone

[chuckpa]

A little soft shadow as suggested by Gary (don't forget that the lettering on the transparent vial will also cast a shadow)- and a bright surface reflection.

[gdavidson]

Hi Gary and Chuck,

Thanks for the tips! Here's the culmination of a Drop shadow on the text and tweaks here and there - particuarly on the bottle base which ended up looking chrome instead of glass.

I'll need to find out how well Fireworks can do a drop shadow as it's the first thing I'll need to remove to export the bottles.

Cheers! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

--
Graeme

[michaelward]

Before that last post I really thought the bottle base was chrome!!

You've got the effect spot-on now, and it looks a lot more like glass.

This is a superb technique, and is a step up from the old Gel buttons we had so much fun making! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]



Michael Ward
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