Can't figure out how to use gradients and effects.

[Taxicab Messiah]

Is there a way to turn an effect (like blur) into a low blur to high blur gradient?  I'm not talking about transparency im talking about having a models feet be 4% blur and a models head be 96% blur and the rest of her body moving up in blur as the effect moves up.  I can't figure it out.  Thanks so much!

[NotMyFault]

Hi, 

assuming you are using Photo. There is no direct method to get a gradient on blur radius.

instead, you can

• add a live blur filter with the maximum desired radius (don’t go crazy high, often 10 or 64px is enough)
• add a gradient on the inherent mask of the filter layer, from 96% to 4%, using the gradient tool, and adjusting the colors (lightness) of the 2 nodes.

this will create a blend of both layers, and look very similar. Technically it is not the same.

[Taxicab Messiah]

So if I want someone to disintegrate I really can't have the effect happen gradually very easily

[NotMyFault]

35 minutes ago, Taxicab Messiah said:

So if I want someone to disintegrate I really can't have the effect happen gradually very easily

The tilt shift filter is probably what you want.

never the less, applying an gradient is a few clicks, what make you think it is „not easy“?

[NotMyFault]

40 minutes ago, Taxicab Messiah said:

disintegrate

This is a different type of effect, not blur.

Try diffuse filter 

can you give us an example image of the effect you want to achieve?

[Taxicab Messiah]

The point isn't about the effect - the point is the process.  I want to be able to use this graduating intensity for any and all effects.  I thought I was pretty explicit in my post.  I want to be able to have an effect graduate in intensity just like the gradient tool does for color.  I want one side of an image to have a low % version of an effect and the other side of the image to have a high % version of the effect.  I didn't say applying a gradient wasn't easy, either.

[GarryP]

15 minutes ago, Taxicab Messiah said:

I want to be able to use this graduating intensity for any and all effects.

Are you talking about Effects (FX), or Filters, or Live Filters, or Adjustments, or something else?

NotMyFault has told you how to do it for Live Filters, and you can do a similar thing for Adjustments, but you cannot do the same thing for (non-Live) Filters or Effects (FX).

[Taxicab Messiah]

I am talking about FX, filters, and live filters.  NotMyFault did not tell me how to do it for Live Filters - he suggested a cheat related to blurring, which I appreciate, but I really just want to know if this method of applying filters exists where the effect gets stronger over distance. 

[GarryP]

Live Filters, (non-Live) Filters, and Effects (FX) are different things and they work differently.

Live Filters are non-destructive and can be modified via their in-built mask, (non-Live) Filters are destructive and cannot be modified once applied, while Effects (FX) are non-destructive but they don’t have any in-built masking facility and can only be modified via their settings.

It’s best to be clear which one you are using so there’s less confusion.

The “cheat” that NotMyFault gave isn’t a “cheat”, it’s just one way to do something, but it might not be quite what you want.

As far as I know there’s no way to introduce a ‘gradient’ of different blurring amounts across a single Live Gaussian Blur Filter.

You might need to use a combination of multiple masked Live Blur Filters, each blurring by a different amount and masked to a greater or lesser degree.

[markw]

6 hours ago, Taxicab Messiah said:

Is there a way to turn an effect (like blur) into a low blur to high blur gradient?  I'm not talking about transparency im talking about having a models feet be 4% blur and a models head be 96% blur and the rest of her body moving up in blur as the effect moves up.  I can't figure it out.  Thanks so much!

Is this the sort of thing you had in mind?
As NotMyFault suggests it’s quite simple to do with ‘Live Filters’ but not sure it’s possible with ‘Live FX’?

Graduated Blur.afphoto

[Taxicab Messiah]

Yes, Mark, that's it.  However it's easy to cheat and get around limitations of the program with blurring FX.  I'm talking about graduating anything.  I've posted another example - this is the Voronoi filter.  Instead of applying the filter to different areas and attempting some sort of blending to help them mix I want the cells to get gradually larger as they move up the image in a smooth fashion.

[kaffeeundsalz]

1 minute ago, Taxicab Messiah said:

I'm talking about graduating anything.

No, there is no easy way in the Affinity suite to to this because you can't have arbitrary parameters to be controlled via key points or something like that.

[NotMyFault]

As explained, this is not available out of the box in any Affinity app.

For Voronoi, you could use a live perspective filter (or two, inverse to each other)

for most blur, a gradient on the mask will provide the result with minor, mostly invisible difference

[Taxicab Messiah]

That's all I wanted to know.  I appreciate your help while I figure out how to use the program.

[NotMyFault]

1 hour ago, Taxicab Messiah said:

NotMyFault did not tell me how to do it for Live Filters - he suggested a cheat related to blurring, which I appreciate

The tilt shift filter does exactly what you request. It provides a blur radius depending on position of the slidable nodes.

[Taxicab Messiah]

Yeah but this only works specifically for blurring effects, I was only using the blur as an example.  I wanted to really be able to have a villains arm start disintegrating and then have his fingers look crazy - things like that, using all sorts of other effects.

[NotMyFault]

19 minutes ago, Taxicab Messiah said:

Yes, Mark, that's it.  However it's easy to cheat and get around limitations of the program with blurring FX.  I'm talking about graduating anything.  I've posted another example - this is the Voronoi filter.  Instead of applying the filter to different areas and attempting some sort of blending to help them mix I want the cells to get gradually larger as they move up the image in a smooth fashion.

Easy by 2 live perspective filters

[Taxicab Messiah]

This is a clever attempt at a work around but there is no extra clarity of genuinely smaller cells on the bottom portion of the image.  I can see that it's just tilted.  If you look at my original voronoi example the feet are very finely detailed and this doesn't offer that while having the downside of distorting the image.  I've opened up a feature request on the other appropriate thread.

[NotMyFault]

1 hour ago, Taxicab Messiah said:

This is a clever attempt at a work around but there is no extra clarity of genuinely smaller cells on the bottom portion of the image.  I can see that it's just tilted.  If you look at my original voronoi example the feet are very finely detailed and this doesn't offer that while having the downside of distorting the image.  I've opened up a feature request on the other appropriate thread.

of course there is extra clarity in lower area. The screenshot is extremely zoomed out so you can’t spot that detail.

The „tilted“ look is just unavoidable byproduct of the seamless gradual cell size transition. If you add more bands in you example the effect would be similar.

 
your example doesn’t work in practice. There are ugly non-matching transitions. You can’t have all in one. Either

• smooth transition of cell size, seamless, but some kind of distortions on grid or cells, and tilt shift effect
• clearly defined cell size and edges, but bad transition between „bands“ where cells doesn’t match.

you can wish anything what you like, but not every wish is realizable or even reasonable.

 

[Taxicab Messiah]

The reason I posted the voronoi image was as an example of a problem I wanted to solve.  That wasn't the solution.  It's obviously horrific.  I'm not wishing anything.  I'm simply asking how to do something that I now understand can't be done in the Affinity Suite.  I have opened up a feature request and now consider this thread closed.

[NotMyFault]

Without detectable reason this thread feels derailed. Maybe I should have been warned by your chosen account name. Please accept that the forum is public and threads started by you are not your personal belonging. Forum users are free to reply with all content adhering to the forum guidelines. 

[Taxicab Messiah]

A bit of a surprising emotional response for someone with a public-facing bio preaching about eschewing such things but I'll leave you to it.