Friday, June 17, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
New Atacama City
New Atacama City
Polthum Province
October 18th, 2438
Background: Hailed as the jewel of the New Agacian colony, New Atacama city embodies the ideals of many people who made the journey to New Agacia - To return to a less crowded and cleaner way of living than was possible on the critically overcrowded cities of Earth. Situated in the pristine forests of Polthum province, New Atacama city is a haven of beauty and progress.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Cambermann Memorial Space Elevator
Cambermann Memorial Space Elevator
Antisana Province
January 26th, 2438
Background: Named after Admiral Theodore Cambermann, who commanded the expedition that colonised New Agacia, the Cambermann Memorial Space Elevator is used to ferry large supplies of raw materials into space for use in the orbital shipyards. Surrounding the elevator is one of New Agacia's manufacturing facilities, comprising of numerous factories and raw material processing plants.
This area also marks the landing site of the "Intrepid", the first colonisation ship to touch down on the surface of New Agacia. A plaque commemorating this can be seen in the foreground.
Indigenous Population Protection Zone
Indigenous Population Protection Zone
Suldoren Province
June 7th, 2438
Background: What has been shown so far to be the most intelligent of species inhabiting New Agacia, these creatures (named Agacians by the first expedition members) appear to exhibit traits similar to our own Homo Erectus, and appears to worship fire. The entire Suldoren province has been declared a protected zone so that we do not interfere with their culture and way of life. It is an offence for any human to enter the protected zone without permission from the New Agacian Colonial Government.
Research Station Complete
Caanesti Ecological Research Station
Tolinae Province
April 14th, 2438
Background: Owing to the vast untold life that exists on New Agacia, research into the ecological biosystems of New Agacia is at the forefront of many researchers work. The Caanesti Research station was establised to conduct investigations into the local marine biosystems. Many such research stations have been established planet wide.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Sentasi Communications Array
Sentasi Communications Array
Darivi Province
March 22nd, 2438
Background: The Sentasi Communications Array was established as the primary means for communication between New Agacia and Earth, via a network of orbiting satellites and repeater stations positioned in the vast space between the 2 planets. The array consists of 14 telescopes, the largest of which spans 100m across.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Planet Tutorial
For those that may have been wondering how I built my planet image for my first series, I will give you a run down here of how its done. For the sake of this tutorial I will create a new planet to show the stages, so my final result here may look different than the image I'm currently using.
First things first, I always work on images much, much larger than I intend to present, as when they are downsized the details all come together nicely. Also, this tutorial is presented using PC shortcuts, if you use a Mac, I'm sorry...I mean please adapt any shortcuts to the Mac shortcuts.
Ok now onto the planet...
Here are all the stock images I used to create the planet. When selecting stock for use as a planetary texture, its good to look for images with lots of fine detail, since if we were looking at a planet from space we would see lots of fine detail. This is just a general guideline and not a rule, feel free to experiment. I use 2 textures here, but one will suffice.
This is a royalty free cloud texture I obtained from NASA, as it would not be possible for me to get a shot like this on my own.
My backyard retaining wall.
My backyard retaining wall again.
Step 1
Create a new canvas, at a suitably large size depending on what you plan to use it for (print, web etc) I created mine at 3000x3000 at 300 dpi. This would give me more than enough leeway to use the image wherever I pleased. Fill this canvas with black.
Step 2
On a new layer (which I have named "Planet Base") select the Elliptical marquee tool and draw out a perfect circle, making it not much smaller than the canvas overall. (hold Shift while dragging to do this, and Alt if you want to drag from the centre outwards.) Fill this selection with a colour, the colour doesnt matter much at this point, but a darker colour is preferable.
Step 3
What we are going to do here is create the blue hazy atmosphere of a planet. Duplicate the planet base layer (dont rename at this point) and on this layer, open up the layer effects palette by clicking on the fx button below the layer palette, or by double clicking on the empty space of the layer in the layer palette.
We are going to apply an "Outer Glow" and an "Inner Glow" to this layer. In the options provided, change the colour of both the glows to a light blue (I used #00a9ff, this is a HEX code which can be entered down the bottom of the colour picker).
Leave the blend mode set to Screen, change the Size (leave Choke alone, this option basically limits how quickly the glow fades) of both the Inner and Outer glows, and play with the opacity until you are happy with how it looks. (I set both of mine to 60%)
Step 4
Now to separate the atmosphere onto its own, so we have more control over it. Select the layer with the effects on it, and reduce the Fill of that layer to 0% (Side note: the difference between Fill and Opacity is that Fill only affects pixels on the layer itself, not including layer effects, Opacity affects everything). Your result should look like this, provided you hide your original Planet Base layer.
To put these effects onto a layer of their own so you have direct control, create a new blank layer UNDERNEATH this layer, select BOTH the blank layer and your atmosphere layer, and merge them together (CTRL+E is the shortcut, otherwise go to Layer > Merge Down) This will put the layer effects onto a new layer, which you can now directly edit. Rename this layer "Atmosphere".
Step 5
Now we are going to create the planetary texture. Open up your stock images, and drag them all to your canvas. This is where using high resolution stock images is handy. I renamed my texture layers and my cloud layer for ease of use. Hide the cloud layer at this point. Click on your texture layer (or one of them if you have multiple, hide the visibility of ones you aren't using)
What you are going to do now is load the selection of the "Planet Base" layer. To do this, Ctrl click on the layer icon itself within the layer palette. At this point I also noticed I forgot to bring my "Atmosphere" layer to the top of the stack, so do that now if you haven't already.
With your texture layer still selected, and the selection of the "Planet Base" layer still active, go to Filter > Distort > Spherize. (Yes this is destructive, but since we still have our original file, this doesn't matter) In this box, leave Mode on normal, and push the Spherize amount to 100%.
Click Ok. DO NOT DESELECT.
Step 6 We will now mask off what we don't need. With the selection still active, click on the Layer Mask icon in the Layers palette. This will hide all of the excess texture from around the selection. (See picture for location)
Step 7
We now have the absolute basic shape and structure for our planet, but it still doesnt look quite right, so we will do some more editing to make it a bit more convincing. From this point on it becomes mostly about experimentation and just finding what suits you and your needs.
I will show you one random way in which this planet could be made.
Step 8
Now I am going to add a secondary texture in to see if I can achieve an interesting effect. In the layers palette, bring the second texture directly above the first, and make sure it is visible. In this case I have desaturated the texture (Ctrl+Shift+I) because I know I will be using Blending Modes soon and want to avoid too many odd colour shifts, however this is not crucial.
Now we will Spherize it and mask it off like we did with the first texture. Load the "Planet Base" selection again by Ctrl clicking on the layer icon in the layer palette. (Alternatively, you can also Ctrl click the layer mask of the previous texture, since it was made from the same selection)
With the selection still active, and your second texture layer selected, go to Filter > Distort > Spherize. Leave mode on normal and Spherize amount on 100%. With the selection still active, click on the layer mask button to remove the excess. I also applied an Unsharp Mask (Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask) to sharpen up the detail.
Here is what mine looks like at this point.
Step 9
I am going to combine the texture of this layer with that of the one below using Blending Modes. This step is generally about experimentation and finding what looks good. I have selected the Darken blend mode and achieved the following effect.
Step 10
I am a little unconvinced by the monotony and strength of the colouring of this planet. To give it some interesting colour, first select your base texture layer, and open up the Hue/Saturation window (Ctrl+U) and play with Hue and Saturation sliders.
(Do not select the "Colourise" option as this will monotonise the colour)
Now select your top texture layer and repeat the above steps, but this time, click the Colourise option. This must be done as this layer was previously desaturated. Here is my result.
Step 11
Ok I am now pretty happy with how the planet looks. Now we will add some clouds in to take it to the next level.
Find your cloud layer (which should be at the very top of your layer stack) and make it visible. Now we will Spherize it and mask it off like we did with the textures. Load the "Planet Base" selection again by Ctrl clicking on the layer icon in the layer palette. (Alternatively, you can also Ctrl click the layer mask of the previous texture, since it was made from the same selection)
With the selection still active, and your cloud layer selected, go to Filter > Distort > Spherize. Leave mode on normal and Spherize amount on 100%. With the selection still active, click on the layer mask button to remove the excess.
To make the clouds show through and remove the black, we will use a Blending Mode. We need to use a Blend Mode that will result in the dark parts of this layer disappearing while retaining most, if not all, of the bright parts. Screen or Lighten are the best choices, as they will both result in the black portions disappearing. I have chosen Screen here as it gives the best result. You can play with layer opacity if you feel the clouds show up too strongly. Here is the result of that blend.
You may also notice the Cloud layer is above the Atmosphere layer. This is intentional as high level clouds on a real planet from this point of view could potentially affect the look of the atmosphere, however the difference it makes is very small and is not important.
Step 12
Ok the planet is now finally finished. The only remaining step is to place it into the image you wish to use it with. As an example I have placed it on a star field, and masked off a portion of it to simulate how it would look being lit by a nearby star.
The star field is an image I had created previously (If you are interested in star field creation, check out this tutorial by Greg Martin)
http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts_arts/making_a_star_field.html
To do this, I merged all of my texture and cloud layers together. To do this, select all of the necessary layers, and press Ctrl+E.
This left me with 3 layers, the Planet, the Atmosphere, and the Base.
I placed these onto my star field as three layers and put layer masks on all of them except for the base.
In this layer mask, I paint using black to hide a portion of each layer to simulate the light that may fall on the planet. (For this step I used my Wacom Tablet, with the Opacity settings set to Pressure, so the harder I press, the more opaque the effect. You can achieve the same type of effect with a mouse by simply adjusting the opacity of the brush in the Options bar at the top, and gradually painting over and over)
This is my final result.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and feel free to ask any questions regarding any particular stage.
Remember, the key to this is experimentation, just play around and find what works for you.
First things first, I always work on images much, much larger than I intend to present, as when they are downsized the details all come together nicely. Also, this tutorial is presented using PC shortcuts, if you use a Mac, I'm sorry...I mean please adapt any shortcuts to the Mac shortcuts.
Ok now onto the planet...
Here are all the stock images I used to create the planet. When selecting stock for use as a planetary texture, its good to look for images with lots of fine detail, since if we were looking at a planet from space we would see lots of fine detail. This is just a general guideline and not a rule, feel free to experiment. I use 2 textures here, but one will suffice.
This is a royalty free cloud texture I obtained from NASA, as it would not be possible for me to get a shot like this on my own.
My backyard retaining wall.
My backyard retaining wall again.
Step 1
Create a new canvas, at a suitably large size depending on what you plan to use it for (print, web etc) I created mine at 3000x3000 at 300 dpi. This would give me more than enough leeway to use the image wherever I pleased. Fill this canvas with black.
Step 2
On a new layer (which I have named "Planet Base") select the Elliptical marquee tool and draw out a perfect circle, making it not much smaller than the canvas overall. (hold Shift while dragging to do this, and Alt if you want to drag from the centre outwards.) Fill this selection with a colour, the colour doesnt matter much at this point, but a darker colour is preferable.
Step 3
What we are going to do here is create the blue hazy atmosphere of a planet. Duplicate the planet base layer (dont rename at this point) and on this layer, open up the layer effects palette by clicking on the fx button below the layer palette, or by double clicking on the empty space of the layer in the layer palette.
We are going to apply an "Outer Glow" and an "Inner Glow" to this layer. In the options provided, change the colour of both the glows to a light blue (I used #00a9ff, this is a HEX code which can be entered down the bottom of the colour picker).
Leave the blend mode set to Screen, change the Size (leave Choke alone, this option basically limits how quickly the glow fades) of both the Inner and Outer glows, and play with the opacity until you are happy with how it looks. (I set both of mine to 60%)
Step 4
Now to separate the atmosphere onto its own, so we have more control over it. Select the layer with the effects on it, and reduce the Fill of that layer to 0% (Side note: the difference between Fill and Opacity is that Fill only affects pixels on the layer itself, not including layer effects, Opacity affects everything). Your result should look like this, provided you hide your original Planet Base layer.
To put these effects onto a layer of their own so you have direct control, create a new blank layer UNDERNEATH this layer, select BOTH the blank layer and your atmosphere layer, and merge them together (CTRL+E is the shortcut, otherwise go to Layer > Merge Down) This will put the layer effects onto a new layer, which you can now directly edit. Rename this layer "Atmosphere".
Step 5
Now we are going to create the planetary texture. Open up your stock images, and drag them all to your canvas. This is where using high resolution stock images is handy. I renamed my texture layers and my cloud layer for ease of use. Hide the cloud layer at this point. Click on your texture layer (or one of them if you have multiple, hide the visibility of ones you aren't using)
What you are going to do now is load the selection of the "Planet Base" layer. To do this, Ctrl click on the layer icon itself within the layer palette. At this point I also noticed I forgot to bring my "Atmosphere" layer to the top of the stack, so do that now if you haven't already.
With your texture layer still selected, and the selection of the "Planet Base" layer still active, go to Filter > Distort > Spherize. (Yes this is destructive, but since we still have our original file, this doesn't matter) In this box, leave Mode on normal, and push the Spherize amount to 100%.
Click Ok. DO NOT DESELECT.
Step 6 We will now mask off what we don't need. With the selection still active, click on the Layer Mask icon in the Layers palette. This will hide all of the excess texture from around the selection. (See picture for location)
Step 7
We now have the absolute basic shape and structure for our planet, but it still doesnt look quite right, so we will do some more editing to make it a bit more convincing. From this point on it becomes mostly about experimentation and just finding what suits you and your needs.
I will show you one random way in which this planet could be made.
Step 8
Now I am going to add a secondary texture in to see if I can achieve an interesting effect. In the layers palette, bring the second texture directly above the first, and make sure it is visible. In this case I have desaturated the texture (Ctrl+Shift+I) because I know I will be using Blending Modes soon and want to avoid too many odd colour shifts, however this is not crucial.
Now we will Spherize it and mask it off like we did with the first texture. Load the "Planet Base" selection again by Ctrl clicking on the layer icon in the layer palette. (Alternatively, you can also Ctrl click the layer mask of the previous texture, since it was made from the same selection)
With the selection still active, and your second texture layer selected, go to Filter > Distort > Spherize. Leave mode on normal and Spherize amount on 100%. With the selection still active, click on the layer mask button to remove the excess. I also applied an Unsharp Mask (Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask) to sharpen up the detail.
Here is what mine looks like at this point.
Step 9
I am going to combine the texture of this layer with that of the one below using Blending Modes. This step is generally about experimentation and finding what looks good. I have selected the Darken blend mode and achieved the following effect.
Step 10
I am a little unconvinced by the monotony and strength of the colouring of this planet. To give it some interesting colour, first select your base texture layer, and open up the Hue/Saturation window (Ctrl+U) and play with Hue and Saturation sliders.
(Do not select the "Colourise" option as this will monotonise the colour)
Now select your top texture layer and repeat the above steps, but this time, click the Colourise option. This must be done as this layer was previously desaturated. Here is my result.
Step 11
Ok I am now pretty happy with how the planet looks. Now we will add some clouds in to take it to the next level.
Find your cloud layer (which should be at the very top of your layer stack) and make it visible. Now we will Spherize it and mask it off like we did with the textures. Load the "Planet Base" selection again by Ctrl clicking on the layer icon in the layer palette. (Alternatively, you can also Ctrl click the layer mask of the previous texture, since it was made from the same selection)
With the selection still active, and your cloud layer selected, go to Filter > Distort > Spherize. Leave mode on normal and Spherize amount on 100%. With the selection still active, click on the layer mask button to remove the excess.
To make the clouds show through and remove the black, we will use a Blending Mode. We need to use a Blend Mode that will result in the dark parts of this layer disappearing while retaining most, if not all, of the bright parts. Screen or Lighten are the best choices, as they will both result in the black portions disappearing. I have chosen Screen here as it gives the best result. You can play with layer opacity if you feel the clouds show up too strongly. Here is the result of that blend.
You may also notice the Cloud layer is above the Atmosphere layer. This is intentional as high level clouds on a real planet from this point of view could potentially affect the look of the atmosphere, however the difference it makes is very small and is not important.
Step 12
Ok the planet is now finally finished. The only remaining step is to place it into the image you wish to use it with. As an example I have placed it on a star field, and masked off a portion of it to simulate how it would look being lit by a nearby star.
The star field is an image I had created previously (If you are interested in star field creation, check out this tutorial by Greg Martin)
http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts_arts/making_a_star_field.html
To do this, I merged all of my texture and cloud layers together. To do this, select all of the necessary layers, and press Ctrl+E.
This left me with 3 layers, the Planet, the Atmosphere, and the Base.
I placed these onto my star field as three layers and put layer masks on all of them except for the base.
In this layer mask, I paint using black to hide a portion of each layer to simulate the light that may fall on the planet. (For this step I used my Wacom Tablet, with the Opacity settings set to Pressure, so the harder I press, the more opaque the effect. You can achieve the same type of effect with a mouse by simply adjusting the opacity of the brush in the Options bar at the top, and gradually painting over and over)
This is my final result.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and feel free to ask any questions regarding any particular stage.
Remember, the key to this is experimentation, just play around and find what works for you.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Tasmania - A stock photo journey
On April 8, 2011 24 students and teachers set out on a 2 week long photographic expedition to "that other state" of Tasmania, where t-shirts have one too many holes in them...ah ok enough of the inbred jokes.
My primary motivation for going on this trip was to gather a large stock library of images to use in this semesters folio work. While I have not truly planned out a reasonable portion of my work, I still worked on the assumption that if I might get use out of a photograph, just take it.
I will be the first to concede that this isn't necessarily the best way to work, especially in the latter stages of a degree. Work at this stage should be more thoroughly planned than I have done so far and that fact is starting to wear on me. A certain degree of uncertainty and impromptu shooting can lead to unexpected results, both positive and negative, however should still be kept to a minimum for this type of work.
So, to cut through the fat and get to the point, I did a brief overview of the trip before we departed to get an idea of the types of scenery we may come across and tried to figure what shots I really should get, and what shots may just prove useful later on.
To this end my plan for Tasmania really boiled down to a few simples things
1- Take plenty of coastal shots, including rocky outcroppings.
This was going to be achievable in so many places since we were pretty close to the coast for a large portion of the trip. The 3 most appropriate places for this were Port Arthur, Maria Island and Strahan, although thats not a comprehensive list.
Heres some things I shot for this topic. (Most if not all of these were shot with the intent to become stock, so as standalone photos, they aint much chop)
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
The road into Queenstown
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Wineglass Bay
Maria Island
Near Port Arthur - on route to the Totem Pole
Near Port Arthur - near the Totem Pole
Near Port Arthur - on route to the Totem Pole
Near Port Arthur -near the Totem Pole
Near Port Arthur - on route to the Totem Pole
Near Port Arthur
Port Arthur - shot from the ferry
2- Take plenty of mountainous shots.
Again this topic was going to be quite easy to cover since Tasmania is a relatively hilly state. The most prominent places I had in mind for potential shots were Cradle Mountain and Strahan.
Queenstown - shot only for the hill in the background
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain summit
Cradle Mountain summit
Cradle Mountain summit
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain - not likely I'd use a shot like this due to recognisability
3. Take some desolate shots
There was only one place I had in mind with regards to this requirement, Queenstown. With its bare hills and mining operations, Queenstown scenery would have proved potentially useful for my Industrial Sector image. Unfortunately the weather and time did not permit me to get any really useful shots here.
Ok so for the most part those were the types of images I was looking to shoot, and I managed to build a large library of images to use for some of this semesters work, now to get to work putting it all together.
My primary motivation for going on this trip was to gather a large stock library of images to use in this semesters folio work. While I have not truly planned out a reasonable portion of my work, I still worked on the assumption that if I might get use out of a photograph, just take it.
I will be the first to concede that this isn't necessarily the best way to work, especially in the latter stages of a degree. Work at this stage should be more thoroughly planned than I have done so far and that fact is starting to wear on me. A certain degree of uncertainty and impromptu shooting can lead to unexpected results, both positive and negative, however should still be kept to a minimum for this type of work.
So, to cut through the fat and get to the point, I did a brief overview of the trip before we departed to get an idea of the types of scenery we may come across and tried to figure what shots I really should get, and what shots may just prove useful later on.
To this end my plan for Tasmania really boiled down to a few simples things
1- Take plenty of coastal shots, including rocky outcroppings.
This was going to be achievable in so many places since we were pretty close to the coast for a large portion of the trip. The 3 most appropriate places for this were Port Arthur, Maria Island and Strahan, although thats not a comprehensive list.
Heres some things I shot for this topic. (Most if not all of these were shot with the intent to become stock, so as standalone photos, they aint much chop)
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
The road into Queenstown
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Wineglass Bay
Maria Island
Near Port Arthur - on route to the Totem Pole
Near Port Arthur - near the Totem Pole
Near Port Arthur - on route to the Totem Pole
Near Port Arthur -near the Totem Pole
Near Port Arthur - on route to the Totem Pole
Near Port Arthur
Port Arthur - shot from the ferry
2- Take plenty of mountainous shots.
Again this topic was going to be quite easy to cover since Tasmania is a relatively hilly state. The most prominent places I had in mind for potential shots were Cradle Mountain and Strahan.
Queenstown - shot only for the hill in the background
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Strahan - shot from the seaplane
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain summit
Cradle Mountain summit
Cradle Mountain summit
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain area - during summit hike
Cradle Mountain - not likely I'd use a shot like this due to recognisability
3. Take some desolate shots
There was only one place I had in mind with regards to this requirement, Queenstown. With its bare hills and mining operations, Queenstown scenery would have proved potentially useful for my Industrial Sector image. Unfortunately the weather and time did not permit me to get any really useful shots here.
Ok so for the most part those were the types of images I was looking to shoot, and I managed to build a large library of images to use for some of this semesters work, now to get to work putting it all together.
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