Filter Forge - The DOs and DON'Ts of Filter Construction

StevieJ

Designer/Artist

Posts: 11228
Filters: 163

Meryl Cheek smile:dgrin:

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Carl wrote: I'm so upset today.....I got a run in my nylons and I broke a nail.....

.....

Steve

"Buzzards gotta eat...same as worms..." - Clint :)

Posted: April 15, 2008 12:24 pm

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StevieJ

Designer/Artist

Posts: 11228
Filters: 163

I feel it my duty to put this string back on topic..... smile;)

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Crapadilla wrote:
I was hoping the wiki would serve to inspire, and I'm glad to read that the articles are being appreciated (even though I may be stepping on a few stickers ermmm... neckties)!

Originally I was a bit hesitant to set up an article clarifying the more 'obvious' pitfalls of filter-making (which we've all had to suffer through), simply because it might have appeared trivial to the more experienced authors. However, in the process of writing up entries I realized that many of the topics are not as trivial or obvious as I thought (and I even learned a thing or two).

In my experience new authors quickly jump to creating filters without familiarizing themselves with some of the more obscure technicalities of FF, resulting in - let's face it - a flood of filters that fail to live up to their full potential. Hence it is my conviction that providing new authors with a somewhat smoother path through the harsh realities of 'RTFM n00b' will certainly make for a better filter library in the long run

Steve

"Buzzards gotta eat...same as worms..." - Clint :)

Posted: April 15, 2008 1:00 pm

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
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StevieJ wrote: I feel it my duty to put this string back on topic..

I expected nothing less. smile;)

Well, back to our topic! I've made various smaller updates throughout the article and added another new section: The Order of Operations.

I'll be adding heavily to this particular section during the next days. smile:)

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: April 15, 2008 4:35 pm

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
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I expanded on both the "The Art of Blending" and "Patterns, Gradients, Frames and Blur" sections, furnishing them with more examples. smile:)

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: April 16, 2008 8:14 am

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StevieJ

Designer/Artist

Posts: 11228
Filters: 163

More good work!!! smile8)

How much are you charging for all this??? smile;)

LOL....

Steve

"Buzzards gotta eat...same as worms..." - Clint :)

Posted: April 16, 2008 1:34 pm

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
Filters: 59

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StevieJ wrote: How much are you charging for all this??? Wink Big grin

Don't mention it. That's probably just some old villain getting sporadic fits of altruism... smile;)

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: April 16, 2008 3:26 pm

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
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I went ahead and reorganized the whole article into separate wiki pages. It was getting a bit unwieldy with all the images, especially on first load! Check out the changes... smile;)

Now that it is manageable again, I'm thinking about several topics I'd like to add... stay tuned! smile:D

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: August 8, 2008 2:38 pm

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Carl

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nioce

visit http://carl-rolfe.artistwebsites.com/

Posted: August 9, 2008 2:41 am

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
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Carl lives!!! smile:)

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: August 9, 2008 3:44 am

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Carl

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Yeah but I'm having a bad hair day smile;)

visit http://carl-rolfe.artistwebsites.com/

Posted: August 9, 2008 4:40 am

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StevieJ

Designer/Artist

Posts: 11228
Filters: 163

What??? Did you get the curling iron stuck in there again??? smile:|

.....

LOL.....

Good to see you back, buddy!!! smile:)

Steve

"Buzzards gotta eat...same as worms..." - Clint :)

Posted: August 9, 2008 12:52 pm

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Carl

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My disappearance was grossly exaggerated smile:)

visit http://carl-rolfe.artistwebsites.com/

Posted: August 11, 2008 3:53 am

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StevieJ

Designer/Artist

Posts: 11228
Filters: 163

.....so you were lost in the Amazon for how long??? smile:|

.....

Steve

"Buzzards gotta eat...same as worms..." - Clint :)

Posted: August 11, 2008 1:27 pm

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
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I've added a new section to the article... smile;)

Inspired by Carl ermmm... I mean... Beliria! smile:devil:

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: August 12, 2008 8:16 am

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
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/bump

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: August 20, 2008 6:04 am

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Carl

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Nice bit of gardening smile;)

visit http://carl-rolfe.artistwebsites.com/

Posted: August 20, 2008 6:45 am

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
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Ah, so the article is comprehensible after all... I'm glad! smile;)

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: August 22, 2008 10:04 am

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Carl

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it's nice work smile;)

visit http://carl-rolfe.artistwebsites.com/

Posted: August 23, 2008 2:27 am

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Sphinx.

Filter Optimizer

Posts: 1346
Filters: 38

New section on clipping Feel free to expand it smile;)

Njyldgarkn sample cache!

Posted: September 30, 2008 9:14 am

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
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An informative read... very nice! smile:)

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: September 30, 2008 12:50 pm

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jffe

Posts: 2767
Filters: 88

"However using the threshold clipping trick like above, we effectively only fetch samples when they are visible in the end result." - So in the example with the Perlin Noise components, using a threshold with 2 Perlin Noise components set with detail/roughness at 100 ones is like only using 1 of them as far as the render time efficiency then ? As opposed to using a blending component that costs the time of 2 Perlin Noise components with high detail/roughness settings ?

jffe

Filter Forger

Posted: September 30, 2008 1:25 pm

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Sphinx.

Filter Optimizer

Posts: 1346
Filters: 38

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jffe wrote: So in the example with the Perlin Noise components, using a threshold with 2 Perlin Noise components set with detail/roughness at 100 ones is like only using 1 of them as far as the render time efficiency then ? As opposed to using a blending component that costs the time of 2 Perlin Noise components with high detail/roughness settings ?

Exactly! Though you have to add in whatever extra cost you might get from setting up the clipping..

Njyldgarkn sample cache!

Posted: September 30, 2008 1:39 pm

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Kraellin

Kraellin

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So what does clipping mean? In rendering, clipping refers to an optimization where the computer only draws things that might be visible to the viewer.

that doesnt make any sense to me. i mean, what else would the computer draw but something that might be visible to the viewer?

If wishes were horses... there'd be a whole lot of horse crap to clean up!

Craig

Posted: September 30, 2008 2:02 pm

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jffe

Posts: 2767
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Kraellin wrote: what else would the computer draw but something that might be visible to the viewer?

----The threshold seperates what you see into high & low, so for each defined region (high or low) it only fetches the pixels needed from the source component(s). As opposed to using blend, where it takes 100% + 100% instead of 50% and 50%. That's how I'm understanding it at least. Oh, and the 100% that is "lost" to the viewer of the output, is all those pixels that got blended when you really wanted them overlapped. Using the threshold doesn't so much replace blend, as it often times is just a different or better solution to a blending problem is all. Hopefully some of that made sense ha-ha.

jffe

Filter Forger

Posted: September 30, 2008 2:31 pm

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
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Kraellin wrote: what else would the computer draw but something that might be visible to the viewer?

What is more efficient?

a) Painting a house, then painting the big mountain which it sits behind over it.

b) Just painting the mountain.

smile;)

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: September 30, 2008 2:37 pm

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Sphinx.

Filter Optimizer

Posts: 1346
Filters: 38

Ahh that new clipping tree works great.. this one rendered in less than a minute, twelve iterations

Njyldgarkn sample cache!

Posted: October 1, 2008 4:36 am

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
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Cool!

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: October 1, 2008 7:11 am

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
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Added another little article... smile:D

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: January 4, 2009 7:11 am

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Carl

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excellent

being real picky -

"How do we create these Micro-Bumps? The technique is always the same: We take a Perlin Noise with zero Details, zero Roughness and zero Scale, and subtly Blend it over our Height map. The key word here is subtly! Note the Opacity value of 0,05 on the Blend component. "

- the overlay blend shows 0.50 smile;)

visit http://carl-rolfe.artistwebsites.com/

Posted: January 4, 2009 7:19 am

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Crapadilla

lvl 52 Filter Weaver and Official "Filter Forge Seer"

Posts: 4037
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ah good catch! smile:D

You're hired as proof-reader! smile:D

--- Crapadilla says: "Damn you, stupid redundant feature requests!" ;)

Posted: January 4, 2009 7:19 am

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Carl

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LOL

visit http://carl-rolfe.artistwebsites.com/

Posted: January 4, 2009 7:21 am

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Sphinx.

Filter Optimizer

Posts: 1346
Filters: 38

Clipping article updated. In the new Cheap Source Clipping method I look at Betis' Night filter and cut down rendering of the moon from over a half minute to six seconds.

Njyldgarkn sample cache!

Posted: October 11, 2010 10:47 am

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Vladimir Golovin
Administrator

Filter Forge, Inc.

Posts: 3108
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Sphinx, Dilla -- great stuff, thanks for contributing!

A couple of nitpicks about the Photorealism Techniques article:

1. I'd make the red diagonal line in the before/after images much thinner, and I'd use a neutral color -- the red color gives the impression that the image demonstrates a 'Don't do it' instead of before-and-after.

2. I'd add captions to both the 'before' and 'after' parts of the image, similarly to what I did in FF2.0 promo articles:

(I'd advice against using the 'shadow' I used above -- it looks great, but it detracts from comparison.)

Posted: October 11, 2010 11:03 am

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Indigo Ray

Posts: 979
Filters: 71

Thank you Sphinx for the clipping article!!! smile8)

I've always wondered about this, but I never consciously used it. Did you really speed up Betis' filter THAT much just by adding one threshold!?

"Time flies like an arrow; Fruit flies like a banana." -Groucho Marx

Posted: October 11, 2010 8:43 pm

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SpaceRay

SpaceRay

Posts: 6436
Filters: 12

Thanks very much to Crapadilla and also to every other one involved in this thread, as it is very interesting.

I want to try slowly to begin to learn how to do filters, well at least SIMPLE filter as I will not learn scripting or complex things as all of you experts can do.

Posted: January 15, 2012 3:51 pm

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Ghislaine

Ghislaine

Posts: 1575
Filters: 91

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I want to try slowly to begin to learn how to do filters, well at least SIMPLE filter as I will not learn scripting or complex things as all of you experts can do.

Oh yesss ! I'm glad to read that ! I look forward for your first filter.

I started with a simple one, a frame. 2 months and a half later, I mean this week, I have created my first complex one with the arrows. I'm surprised myself. I'm sure you will also surprise us. smile:)

visit http://3dscreensaver.t15.org

Posted: January 15, 2012 5:34 pm

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SpaceRay

SpaceRay

Posts: 6436
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Ghislaine wrote: Oh yesss ! I'm glad to read that ! I look forward for your first filter.

Thanks!! I knew that you would be glad for this, and I am glad that you are glad smile:)

By the way there is a much larger answer here in this other thread

http://www.filterforge.com/forum/read...ssage98699

Posted: January 15, 2012 5:43 pm

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Ghislaine

Ghislaine

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I know, I have already read that and you get my reply. smile:)

visit http://3dscreensaver.t15.org

Posted: January 15, 2012 5:55 pm

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SpaceRay

SpaceRay

Posts: 6436
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This is very interesting but I think that I could make it in a better way, I mean instead of reading all the 7 pages of this thread, I will make a resuming list with the most important points and useful text form all these pages on one only post here, and so it will be even much more useful.

I think that all the excellent done wiki pages of this article should probably be also included inside the Filter Forge Help guide as this is really very useful and interesting.

Posted: January 28, 2012 7:59 pm

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Burt

Random Old Guy

Posts: 274
Filters: 9

Thanks to all involved in this excellent resource. I only wish I had read it before I started the filter I am working on. Will definetly try to apply this information more fully with any new filters.

Posted: March 4, 2013 8:55 pm

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Rubina Schicker