Crystal Pile-Up

Good looking and well done the 3D effect

And this is using a texture with overlay blend mode

And one artistic texture with Multiply blend mode and then after adjusted with Shadow and highlight

Investigating more about this it seemns that this may be done with some kind of shading of the Stones or Chaffs components to make they show as 3D shapes, and have been looking in the forum for Shading for making a 3D effect from 2D and found this

How to make Shading from bump channel?

Or also

Shading Any shape

BUT then after looking at the filters included I have seen that maybe I am wrong as this example from above in the first post looks much more like the other filter from you

Shiny Eggsplosion

replacing the eggs with the 3D shapes



Or also more like the Pile of stones by Totte

While trying to discover and possibly make something similar to this shown by uberzev I got something totally different and looks like Smarties chocolate colored candies

Now after the upload of Indigo Ray Tri filter and Skybase Crystal I suposse that I will be able to make at least something similar to what is shown in the first post, unless the method and way to do this is different to these filters.

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Morgantao wrote: Hehe, those smarties sure look good!

Thanks Morgantao, glad you like them , although it can be done better, they do not look really realistically positioned.

I took a wild guess how it was done. Whatever, I'll let Uber do the talking.

Thanks for trying to make this, will you find the secret ?

It seems that you are near, much than me

yeah Uber's nice non-clipping stones is the way to go here. I just didn't bother making it look nice just as a test run... you know... hook up a couple nodes and get results that resemble that of the original. Uber's is much more uniform. I kinda speculate there was some specific method with that but who knows. Maybe it was pretty simple.

And for SpaceRay: Hint: use Threshold!

I know that on the above one I should be able to cut out the stone and take out the black background part so they can be free and then have a transparent background to be mixed together with another layer (or more layers) of stones, but regretably do not know how to do this and have tried many ways, but do not have the skills to do it with THIS component, I could do it with the Smarties candies above and was possible but NOT with this stones
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And using bomber I got only triangles (that are obviously wrong) and not this "stones" like shapes above and I think that probably this filter does NOT use bomber to get this effect, or maybe I am wrong

Well... guess that went bad.

Here's just my suggestion on accomplishing a similar effect. Not that this is exactly the way uber has done it.

In this case I'm using 4 stones components and 3 thresholds. The bottom most stones component is the background where the rest of the 3 above it are foreground to "build up" the stones. The rest utilizes a chain of thresholds to mask out areas that I don't need over places I want.

You probably just need to get the basics down before hand. In many cases we're not doing anything THAT complicated. Unless you're Uber who likes to go explosively awesome in that program. Either way in this case I'm demonstrating a fundamental technique that gets used everywhere.

In many cases picking bits and pieces of other filters may work in your favor but there are some instances (like in this case) where that would go against your will. Many filters have specific reasons why the structure exists. By taking parts of that structure you may be engaging in a whole new level of issues since that part was made specifically for THAT filter. In the end you create a bigger mess than accomplishing a goal because you have to take into account the specificity of that part. So avoid doing it unless the part you're picking is general enough that it encompasses many purposes.

Of course there's more to this entire thing. I just gave you the basic part of it.

Well... if you like assign right or wrong values on ambiguous things like this heh.

I'm just saying that it just doesn't get you closer to things you want to do. Which then you'd have to try alternative methods like doing it from scratch.

Now I have tried to make your well explained way of using the threshold in the good and right way, and although it works right as you have done, then later I can´t get those beautiful and perfect stones shapes shown above.

So I think I will keep my filter forging inside the area that I CAN know what I am doing and understand what I have to do next and what will I need to be able to reach my goal, I will not bite off more than one can chew or said in another way, not to get into big troubles when it´s not really necessary.

This is like wanting to go the deep part of the swimming pool when you do not know how to swim, or know just slightly.

I admire and amaze of the things many of you can make and achieve using filter forge, but is not possible that I would be able to make things as well done as the ones you all create in this style.

I will keep with "normal" things

Thanks for all your help anyway and sorry for bothering with this.

Thanks uberzev, I have just had a quick look and really is much different from what I have though I now know that all the final effect is made at the end inside the result component and NOT while making the filter and your way is different than the Skybase way (which also looks very good and (sorry to say this) better stones than your uploaded version here. Although the stones made on the first post are much better than the uploaded version or any other and look perfect and beautifully shaded in different tones. But as they are dead, doesn´t matter, this ones available looks good also.

I knew in some way that your own way would be different, as you are uberzev

Is interesting to see how you have done it and the way to mask the stones is also different from the Skybase way and others I have seen on other filters

I will see what I can do with this, for example add some drop shadows to each of the stones so they look more separate and not so close together.

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Skybase wrote: Nop, they're the same. The way the stuff's being blended is different.

Yes, you are right, I wrote it wrong, is not exactly the WAY is done, I was meaning that the components are used in different way to get the result.

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SpaceRay wrote: I will see what I can do with this, for example add some drop shadows to each of the stones so they look more separate and not so close together.

Me and the bad ideas that I think I willbe able to do and then can´t do

I supposed that as adding drop shadows using a copy of the shape of the stones and then making an offset would work, BUT this would be possible if the stones were individual shapes as it happens in others filters, but there are many layer all into one, and the filter is thought in a way that you can´t add shadows as it is done now.

So I have thought an alternative, and is make 4 different layers with 4 different filters (each filter will have 1 layer of the stones in different size and variation, and then I will mix the 4 layers in Photoshop where IT HAS a very easy way to apply drop shadow and you combine them easily.

Here is using this crystals filter as glitter effect

Another way of masking in this filter than the one shown in the presets (with two images and one of them having transparent background) is to make the mask using the black color so this color will not be filled with the crystals pattern

I really missed much uberzeb as he has unusual and unique ideas and thought things in a different creative way