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glow effect

Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 4:40 am
by xlandar
I've been making some custom drones and stuff, and i ran into a problem. I have no idea how to make the glow images (such as the light on weapons when they are charging). what are some good techniques used to create that glow? (i'm using gimp).

quick preview:
Image

(it's an ion drone)

Re: glow effect

Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 10:55 am
by kartoFlane
Slap some brush with a color of your choosing, then use a blur filter (Gaussian is best for this purpose) to make it look like a glow. That's the most straightforward way.
Alternatively -- I don't know about Gimp, but in Photoshop every layer has layer settings, where you can apply some fancy effects to the layer -- outer/inner glow among them.

That said, you might have more luck just googling for "gimp glow effect"...

Re: glow effect

Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 11:42 am
by Sleeper Service
Airbrush tool with a fuzzy circle brush works as well. You can play around with the opacity and the brush size slider to get different effects.

The "drop shadow" filter also can produce very event glows, just set its x/y offset to zero and see what it produces. But this one is producing glow around the edges of stuff (around what you have selected or what is visible on the plane), so its more suitable for ship glows.

Re: glow effect

Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 2:45 pm
by Ora_unit_SR388
If you are using photoshop or paint.net, you could make a new layer, block some lighter color around it, then use unfocused, and make the layer additive.

Re: glow effect

Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 2:58 pm
by English Narwhal
Ora_unit_SR388 wrote:If you are using photoshop or paint.net, you could make a new layer, block some lighter color around it, then use unfocused, and make the layer additive.
Huh, I've never been good with glow effects.
By the way, how's the UI work going?