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kirk23

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Posts posted by kirk23

  1. 18 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

    if you can live with 8 bit heigh

    Thanks a lot NotMyFault   The problem is although  those 8 bit per depth is not enough , even 7000 value I used is marginally enough actually and still gets  stepped  sometimes when you convert this depth into a normal map.   The original purpose of all this was  to composite materials   and  to get  usable normal map too.

       I am close to give up  on the whole idea 🙁   

      It still would be possible if keep the color and height  on totally different layers and in different groups   but producing necessary dynamic masking for  color ones would turn the whole  layer  stack into  a huge undecipherable and unusable  mess.    I think v2 with transform links makes it a bit easier  but still it will be a monstrosity.   I tried it couple years ago. :(

     

  2. Well, at least I figured out I can use symbols  from designer  and  a macro that  would do 8 extra copies and shift  them around  . First one up and  next ones clockwise  if selected down from the top in the layers pane.    Share them here  if anyone need it.   You  can save the symbol as an asset and then replace  the image with your own.

    symbol1.afphoto pattern shift 2048.afmacro

  3. 22 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

    Which values do you use to store transparent / black pixels?

    Thanks a lot for the example.   That expression syntax is something I don't understand quite well.    Those  spirals are  16 bit integer  screen captures from Zbrush .  So black pixels are just 0.    My guess it could be a proper render from 3d soft where black pixels get deep negative value but my purpose is not to simulate  actual deep Z buffer , rather  just a small depth to do depth based blending of materials. Small pebbles and a sand  and such matters.   So having an option for just  a subtle up and down and your formula works perfectly.

     

    Another challenge is how to make this subtle up and down by a brush with manual input .  Something that would  multiply on integer part of values or  only on  after comma part for color editing .    So far nothing I tried  is working.    Ideally a combination  of  hand painted mask  and  levels/ HLS  filter that would do it for integers /height  or after comma part(color) separately.   Hoped  just procedural "floor"  layer after any normal layer   would do the trick but seems it doesn't.

     

    ps.  I added mask on top of the spiral image  and it solves blacks RGBGrab05.afphoto

    My goal is to make a non-destructive version of what  Zbrush   calls  2,5D canvas. 

     

  4. Here I tried to recreate a technique from Substance Designer used to height blend  objects.   Each of two layers have its height info stored in integer part of floating point values, and color values after comma.   So a pixel with value 7000,34  consist of 7000 which is height/depth info  and 0,34 as a color info.     Then I use floor operation    like R-floor(R)  to see only color , like  7000,34 -7000=0,34  in top  procedural filter .  

    It all works only  if on screen resampling is set to nearest neighbor  so pixel values stay the same.

    Now a question:  how can I modulate  the height of layers  with real time visual feedback.  Like sending  some object  forward or backward  by modulating only integer (height)  part of pixel values.   What should be an expression for this in procedural filter?  

    floor2.afphoto

  5. I use my homemade  method.

    In LUT adjustment layer  I hit "infer LUT"   and select original photo of the color charts  and secondly  edited photo of  same color charts where I edited all  colors squares  to their proper numeric  ( target) values.   Like spectral red  be 255,0,0 etc.    Those values is written on the back of charts card.     DONE   . You have  LUT  transforming layer/preset   you can apply to all photos you did in same session/lighting setup you took your original image of color charts card.

    IMO it works no worse than  automatted  X-rite soft  for image/camera  profiling   I used before .   Before I misplaced my  X-rite color "pasport" charts    somewhere  and bought non-name cheap charts card

     

     

  6. 11 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

    This sounds like you may want to be using EXR files.

    Well,  I do want   but they are pretty useless in Affinity .  It splits them into a mess of  individual layers  and what I want is basically to work with all those info accessible  from a single layer  . CMYK provides a nice compromise.     Would be nice if we could use cmyk brush nozzles  too .

    It's tremendously more convenient when you operate with a single layer at once instead of  of a mess of linked  ones.

     

  7. 3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

    How would 16-bit get you a 5th channel?

    it's actually  5 channels in Affinity  . you forgot alpha one.    It's rather CMYKA

     

     

    22 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

    no real information about what could be achieved is given

    What I am asking is not related to printing. I couldn't care less  about printing.   It's all about extra channels . And gamut is irrelevant also.  I can do my own LUT  in Affinity that would show me  whatever colors I need.   CMYK is all just  same value numbers  and 16 bit gives us more of them .  Would allows to use extra channel for impasto painting , special ID masks.    Keep UV values in K and A . Have distortion values in extra channel and gazillion other appliances  necessary in 2d compositing .

    If they make 32 bit cmyk  like in Photoshop it could be actually 10 channels in single layer  since  32 bit allows to keep different images before and after comma.

    In a word  I am asking  for all those things people still using Cmyk in Photoshop for    after printing industry have died  basically.

     

  8. 14 hours ago, firstdefence said:

    else use Affinity Photo's Photo Persona and raster brushes

    No, I absolutely don't want to use Photo for this .   I just need a tool that can scatter  both vector or raster objects along  a vector spline , randomly or in certain order.  And still be ABLE to replace the objects , use symbols , re-link  bitmaps.  If I want .  Not immediately rasterize it in document resolution as what Photo would do most probably.

    Like what Xara or old  good Creation house Expresion could do decades ago

    So bitmap nozzle brush is not ok  and text tool is such a pain in your a.. for that

  9. 11 hours ago, fde101 said:

    No, 3D never appears on a "screen surface".  3D is rendered to produce a 2D image which is then presented on the display - that rendering process is complex and there are entire books representing multiple ways to accomplish it, with various characteristic benefits and shortfalls.  The complexity of the processes involved in producing such a rendering should be reason enough to consider that the underlying data and processes have rather different requirements in their native forms.

    I am  talking  about stuff 2d compositing soft like Nuke do.   It doesn't have to be  full scale  ray tracing  , or ray marching  or whatever.   Just  a depth  channel  you could use for  deforming a logo on a flag in one click instead of mesh deforming  manually.  Or adding some mist, compositing  in some particle effects . splashes , volume light, fog layers  etc.

    t's nothing complicated really . You could call it 2,5D  as Zbrush named it.   Or what Corel Painter does for impasto .  It's all perfectly re-creatable  with current layer system , just inconvenient as hell since requires a huge messy pile of groups , layers and in-between linking . What I offer is to make it easier on UI part.  That's all.   

    Some phone cameras already include depth channel to its photos , why not make it usable.

  10. 20 hours ago, fde101 said:

    These are not just "interface" fixes, some of them could potentially require more extensive changes to the core of the software (particularly for proper depth channel support).

    They have CMYK  right , it's basically 4 channels + alpha  , so 5 channels .   The only thing to make it work  is to support 16 and better  32 bit  in  CMYK mode , like Photoshop does.  The rest is just color management and support in brush nozzles .    Well, the later is optional probably .

    In Photoshop  the idea would be perfectly workable right now  if it would have  same live lighting filter  to visualize  the depth on the fly  somehow.

    Again , I am not talking  about turning  Affinity into Nuke.  Just a few features like impasto painting for example.   People sometimes forget that there is  no difference in between 2d and 3d  in computer graphics .  3d is also 2d  on your screen surface or camera plane + a bit of 3 century geometry.  Same as any perspective drawing  starting from antiquity. 

     

  11. No need of  actual 3d features  IMO.    Would be nice  if they just add some 2d compositing features to work with  CG images , to combine them with photo properly etc.

    1. cryptomatte live filter with a mask on demand  ( not like exr-IO plugin for Photoshop with gazillion layers at  once, just  one exact necessary  mask at a time on demand)

    2. RGBDA  channels mode with depth channel.   Just convert  CMYK to this  one please. Or make CMYK to support 32 floating point  like Photoshop.

    3.  A few special  layer blending modes for  depth combine .   Like where depth is using lighter blending and  other channels  use a mask produced on the fly by subtracting underlying depth from combined one  + threshold.

    4. UV live filter that would sample UV AOV  or manually made UV gradients  to remap  pixels over it.  So we could  replace  rendered materials in one click   without messing with  mesh deforms etc.  

    5. Proper live AO  and shadow ray tracing   from depth channel as a live  filter. 

    6.  Brush nozzles  with depth channel  .  A vector way to scatter them in Designer.

    Imo it should be all easily possible, just a few  small interface fixes here and there.

    Please don't waste your time on something like Adobe Stager .    It's totally useless.     Just make  some basic 2d compositing  abilities , preferably Blender compatible . So we wouldn't have to buy Nuke just to  make a nice one frame CG picture.   No need  to make a mess of node based interface for that  too ( while would still be nice indeed).

     

     

     

     

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