PD Pro Digital Painter & Project Dogwaffle:

Space Backgrounds

Here are some easy steps to make some interesting nebulous backgrounds. These can be thought of as space nebulae, perhaps to be used as screem wallpapers or screensaver or backdrop in 3D animation, and many other uses.

1::My name is Noise.... Plasma Noise

Under the "Filter" menu, select Render and the the Plasma Noise filter.

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Version 3.5 of Project Dogwaffle has a new set of modes for colored Plasma noise, including the HSV mode. Select the HSV mode.

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Click the button on the slider until you have a layout of plasma noise you like with good distribution of dark and bright colors. Look for example at the red colors and imagine the nebulae there. Blue and other drak colors can later be turned dark grey or black, as we'll see.

click image for full view

You can of course experiment with changing the scale.

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2::Checking Your Weight on a (Grey)Scale

Let's convert the color to a greyscale image. Under the Buffer menu, turn the image into a greyscale, through the new colored lens exposure tool.:

Buffer > Greyscale > Expose through lens...

click image for full view

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exposing through colored lens for greyscale conversion

Place the cursor over the desired color and you'll see the image change to greyscale and update in realtime as you drag the cursor over the color wheel

click image for full view

3::Looking for a different Color Gradient:

Hit the shortcut 'p' to p)lay with the color gradients or click the beachball for playtime.
The default gradient is a greyscale.

There are several gradient sets to choose from, and 8 gradients in each set. Of course you can change them and customize them and create new ones.

Select the desired tab (Red, Green,. Blue...) and drag the mouse in the color area to change the intensity (value) of the channel along the gradient from left to right. The resulting color of all 3 channels combined is shown.

You can also drag-and-drop specific colors from the color well in the main palette, or from the primary adn secondary color boxes through the well.

4::Map your new Gradient

Select the menu:

Filter > Color > Map to current gradient

and voila, you have new color sschemes applied through the image.

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5::Halos and Lens Flares and Lightning (oh my)...

A lot of magic and special fx can be added with the Line tool. It is a more generic Linear tool, really, and holds the secret to a bunch of very cool additional effect tools, such as the Nova and Lens flare tools, even linear and circular gradients and a linear alpha fader. Finally, a Lightning tool is at home there too.

When you use the Nova tool you click and drag from the center of a starbright position out to its perimeter to indicate its size. Let go and the rubberband circle and line go away to show a star. Repeat at the same position and at different angle or color and create interesting Novae and glow fx.

There's also a simple Lens flare engine. I say simple by comparison with the more sophisticated one called the Radient engine (accessible throug the Filter>Render>Radiant menu).

If the lens flares appear as desired in size but too bright you can reduce the brightness through blending-reduction - use the menu:

Filter > Fade last action...

to interactively reduce the intensity through a slider. It's also available as middle-button drag from the undo button (back pointing arrow in tools panel)

Now you know how to add lens flares, Novae etc... how about comet tails and meteors?

The one to the lower left was an airbraush along the Line tool with dryout effect on the brush, and drawn from lower left to upper right (i.e. in reverse order) to dry out and fade away. You can see another example here.

< click to enlarge

Here are some other examples: (click to enlarge)

To Probe Further:

look for Planet Dogwafflia, Doomsday Planet, Space art, Spherize and other space related tutorials and galleries: