how do you create this background

[Wicky]

I've found this file somewhere and tried to replicate, but I don't understand it at all. it deals with blending, but how and where i don't understand.
Is there someone who can help me with this file by explaining how you create this kind of things? I would love to be able to create this kind of backgrounds.

thanks,
Sander

[MarkMyWords]

It looks like a series of blends between lines to me.

If you move the display quality slider (the small one next to the magnet button) to the left you will see the seperate blends and finally the lines. You can then drag each blend out and inspect it.

Deconstruct it and see how it is put together. Very clever, but quite simple in construction.

[gwpriester]

It is very subtle. It might be blends or shapes with transparency applied.

For example, create an organic shape, apply a Circular transparency. Move the center of the transparency around. Change the center slider setting to about 50-60%.

Gary

[Nostaw]

Hi Wicky, that's a background I created a while ago and posted here.

I guess there are million of ways to create those kinds of backgrounds.

I normally start with a simple rectangle and create a linear/cirular/elliptical colorfill with various hue and darker and lighter shades of one color. e.g. If I decide to create a blue background, I pick slighty cyan-ish/violet-ish colors for the fade, making sure not to move too far from the original blue I like.
Then I add dark/light areas onto the background by simply placing rectangles with elliptical fades from 75%-100%.

From here I only add light and dark shapes/blends onto the background by using transparency. I tend not use too many colors, and not too dark or too light areas for a background, it will take the information away placed later on top of it.

Creating some Blends:
Draw a line with max 3 points to make it look smooth, use the pressure profiles (e.g. Reed), make it quite thick (e.g. on a 1024x576 pixel background use 2-4 pixel outlines). If you simply blend these lines, it would look boring, so here is a interesting workaround:
1) Convert both lines to shapes (maybe make a copy of the lines first and move them aside).
2) Select both shapes, then select the Blend tool.
3) With the blend tool selected, start clicking the tip of line1, and move the mouse to the tip of line2 - a red line appears and now release the mousebutton - the blend looks totally different. If you go more than 100 blends, select the first line, select a transparency level of 90%, for the second line a transparency level of 95% - play around with these values, it sometimes looks good to give the second line a transparency level of 100%. Also, try modifing very sutle each line, select a point, hold ALT and press the cursorkeys - watch the blend, it creates some interesting effects.
4) Make sure you switched on the Antialiasing for the blends (press the small AA icon in the Blend tool).
5) More interesting effects: Set the view quality to 0, CTRL+SHIFT click on line1, and create a linear/elliptical transparency fade. Then do the same for line2. Set the quality back to Full, select the entire blend and create a transparency fade over the entire blend.
6) Use the same blend, resize it, scale it, stretch it and place it on interesting positions on the background...

There is no rule, the only thing I would suggest is only to use as much as necessary, e.g. 6 blends: start with big scaled blends which go beyond the pagesize and go smaller from here which fit inside the background area.

It's alot of hairpulling - and quite fun

[Wicky]

thanks very much for all the tips! I'm going to fiddle around with them and see if i can come up with something decent. if so I'll post it here for reviewing

[Wicky]

I'm getting totally stuck with this technique. I try to follow the instructions by: create 2 lines with the shape editor tool and then converting them to shapes (see attached file). But when i make a blend from the one tip to the other it's a complete mess, nothing like the described example
What am i doing wrong here.
sorry, I thought I understood this program a little but i came to the conclusion that i know nothing at all.

[Nostaw]

Hi Wicky, check the attachment and follow the 12 steps. This should give you an idea of how to create those kind of blends. I guess everyone has its own technique. That's the beauty of Xara
Edit: updated/corrected some steps of the attached .XAR file.

[WolfMoonHP]

Nostaw, these are amazingly fun to do! Thanks so much for showing the technique.

I have visions of animating one of these in Flash...I'll bet it would be absolutely hypnotic
---
Will

[Nostaw]

Nostaw, these are amazingly fun to do! Thanks so much for showing the technique.

I have visions of animating one of these in Flash...I'll bet it would be absolutely hypnotic
---
Will

No problem About the fun bit, I totally agree. I always wanted to create entire pictures with this technique but it never happened. Animating these in flash... hmmm - that's gonna be daaamn sloooow I guess - but you could export each blend as a bitmap and rotate these in flash. Anyway, the possibilities are endless - and fun

[juergen]

Will,

Vista got similar stuff as animated desktop background.
Not sure what the reason is, might be they want you to just look at the desktop instead of starting programs and actually do something

Juergen