Difference Clouds duplicated in Xara Xtreme?

**covoxer** · 28 February 2009, 05:30 PM

Similar effect, but without 3rd party plugins.

**HayTay** · 28 February 2009, 05:53 PM

John,

Good suggestion. I had tried using a Fractal Fill to start with but with unsatisfactory results. I switched back to give your method a try and it, too, doesn't look good when placed over another image and given a Bleach, Lighten, or Brightness transparency. The 'lightning' doesn't retain its brightness and washes out to a medium gray color.

I'll continue to try a few other things using your method, though, as it requires a lot fewer steps.

Good tip,
HayTay
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**covoxer** · 28 February 2009, 06:06 PM

Hmmm. Seems to work fine with these types of transparency here.
Make sure the the top handle is all the way high. This is the brightness of those lines. To get nice Bleach transparency, it has to be 100% white.

**Burpee** · 28 February 2009, 06:30 PM

HayTay, I gave your mini tut a go but when I get to the last step, the levels are grayed out and won't let me interact. I tried up along the taskbar too and I can't interact with them either.

Conover, where is that Shade curve popup? I played with the fractal plasma and clouds and used the profiles to get a satisfactory black and white but I didn't like the design of either that Xara generates. It seems to be the same pattern all the time, just different spots along it.) Never mind, I found it in the Color filters by using the help menu.

PS-I figured out the small square plasma/cloud fill on my own. If you choose 'single tile', that's what you get. Xara seems to have a predetermined size for it. I can make a very large rectangle and choose single tile but it won't fill the rectangle. I just get a tiny square tile in the middle of my shape.

**HayTay** · 01 March 2009, 02:22 AM

Originally Posted by Burpee

HayTay, I gave your mini tut a go but when I get to the last step, the levels are grayed out and won't let me interact. I tried up along the taskbar too and I can't interact with them either.

Burpee,

Oops, sorry. I missed a step in the tutorial. After applying the Color Filter > Negative Live Effect make a Bitmap Copy (Shift + Ctrl + C) of the result. After that the Levels of the Bitmap Copy can be adjusted using the Photo Tool (P). Here's an update to the mini-tutorial with the step added.

Give that a try,
HayTay
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**HayTay** · 01 March 2009, 03:26 AM

Originally Posted by covoxer

Hmmm. Seems to work fine with these types of transparency here.
Make sure the the top handle is all the way high. This is the brightness of those lines. To get nice Bleach transparency, it has to be 100% white.

Right on, Covoxer.

That seems to be much better and closer to the effect achieved using Photoshop without the need for the 3rd party plug-in.

Increasing or decreasing the size/resolution of the Fractal Cloud fill changes the size of the bolts. An appropriate section of the Fill can be selected and either a clip or clip view can be applied to 'capture' a section and achieve the desired effect. Increasing the slope (thinner neck) of the Shade Curve using the added handles makes the 'lightning' thinner while a decrease in the slope (bigger neck) makes the 'bolts' thicker.

Nice one,
HayTay
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**HayTay** · 01 March 2009, 04:58 AM

In case anyone was wondering where I was going with all of this, I'll show you.

I recently purchased a book, Photoshop Classic Effects by Scott Kelby, and have been trying my hand at duplicating each of the tutorials using only Xara Xtreme Pro 4 and any plug-ins (if necessary). I'm probably about 3/4 of the way through the book and none of them have been too much of a challenge. So far, there have only been two tutorials that have thrown me for a loop, one having to do with a Pixelation effect and this one on creating the Lightning effect. I think I've got a handle on both effects now and I'm pleased to share the result of the lightning one with you.

I changed the original stock image to one I could post here and I made additional changes to the Channel 7 logo, the accompanying text and the lightning (of course). I am more than pleased with the Lightning Effect and the final outcome. Thanks again for everyone's input.

BTW, the lightning image I used was the one I generated in my mini-tutorial using the 2D HyperClouds plug-in. I may try replacing the lightning later with one generated using covoxer's method.

Your help and comments are greatly appreciated,
HayTay
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**steve.ledger** · 01 March 2009, 05:57 AM

Great result Harry and thanks for the thread. I can see other applications such as fiery explosions would be possible using some of these methods.
Incidentally, have you had a chance to check out Alien Skin's Xenofex plugin? It has a neat Lightning maker.

**HayTay** · 01 March 2009, 06:37 AM

Steve,

Funny you should mention 'fiery explosions'. Here's a Photoshop tutorial link I was going to take a stab at on Free Photoshop Guides called 'Blast Zone'. It starts out the same way by creating 'Lightning' from 'Difference Clouds'. This may be another challenging tutorial for Xara Xtreme because of the Filters > Stylize > Extrude step. I've done fairly good so far so I'll have to see what I/we can come up with.

And, yes, I did play around with Alien Skin's Xenofex 2 Electrify and Lightning plug-ins and they appear to produce nicely formed lightning bolt(s). Unfortunately I haven't purchased the full version so I can only see the effect. I've thought about shelling out the $59.00 US several times but that's as far as I got. I'll have to reconsider the purchase.

L8r,
HayTay

**steve.ledger** · 01 March 2009, 06:58 AM

Blast Zone looks interesting, though I have more fire colour in my minds eye.

Xenofex has been part of my kit for sometime, though it (like many other plugins) hasn't been used much since I discovered Xtreme.

As shown below Xenofex Lightning does create some nice bolts, but I'm sure even these could be created using Xtreme only..
Hmmmm http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/icons/icon3.gif