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he GIMP

isn’t designed to do 3D work – such tasks aregenerally left to tools like the recently open-sourced

Blender

(Jono Bacon’s tutorials are in

Linux Format

issues39-50), SoftImage’s

Maya

and SideFX Software’s

Houdini

.But not all 3D tasks require some complex tools. In this issue’sset of tutorials we’ll look at the processes for creating some basic3D shapes using

The GIMP

and how such simple shapes areprocesses can be used for meaningful work.

IMAGE CONSTRUCTION

Perspective views can turn any image into 3D artwork. All it takes is a littleorganisation, a little crafty lighting and

Michael J Hammel’s

expert tutelage...

3D Design with The GIMP

SIMPLE SHAPES: 3D CONE WITH TEXTURE

Guides

1Start with a new window with a single white background layer.Make the image square, 500x500 pixels for this example. Now addsome guides to make it easy to outline the cone. Use Guides>Center Guide if you have it, or simply place a vertical guide offset 250 pixels from the left edge. Add two more guides offset 40pixels from the top and bottom. Add two more guides 60 pixelsoffset from each side of the window. Finally, add another guide350 pixels from the top. Your canvas should look like this example(the horizontally centered guide will be there if you used Guides>Center Guide, otherwise it won’t).

Aside from a sphere, the cone is the mostsimplistic 3D shape we can make with

TheGIMP

. It requires only a little optical illusionthrough the use of a merged selection andproperly applied gradient.

On the

CD andDVD

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Triangular Selection

2Choose the Bezier Selection Toolfrom the Toolbox. Click on the guideswhere they intersect at X/Y locations250/40, 60/400, and 440/400. Besure to close the triangle by clickingon 250/40 again, then click inside theoutline to create the selection.

Cone Selection

3Select the Elliptical Selection Toolfrom the Toolbox. Starting at the guideintersection at X/Y location 60/350,hold the

Shift

key down, and thenpress and hold the left mouse buttondown. While holding the mouse buttondown, release the

Shift

key and dragthe mouse to the guide intersection at 440/450. When you release the mousebutton, the elliptical selection will bemerged with the triangular one.

Gradient

4Add a new, transparent layer to theimage. Set the foreground colour towhite and background to black (whichis opposite of the default setting).Select the Gradient Tool in the Toolbox.Click at the guide intersection at 440/40 in the upper right of theimage, then drag to the guideintersection at 60/400 in the lowerleft. This causes a lighter shade of greyon the right side of the cone and black on the lower left of the cone.

Noisify and Multiply

5Turn off the guide visibility (View>Toggle Guides). Turn on the KeepTransparency For This Layer option(see the Layers and Channels Dialog).Add noise to the image (Filters>Noise>Noisify) set to a low level: about 0.10for all channels. Duplicate this layerand set the new layer to Multiply.Reduce the new layers Opacity toabout 70%.

Colorize

6Duplicate this new layer. Set theforeground color to #cc4a00. Fill thisnew duplicate layer with this color.Remove the selection (

Ctrl-Shift-A

).Add a drop shadow (Script-FU >Shadows>Drop Shadow).

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While the cone was simple, it wasn’t exactly perfect. The top ofthe cone was a perfect point and made that part of the effectappear a bit 2D. The drop shadow (which we angled at thebottom to make the cone appear to be sitting on a table) helped,but we can do better. In this tutorial, we’ll create a box usingmultiple square pieces that we’ll align and shade with gradients toget an even better effect. This effect is just as easy as the last, butdoes require a steady hand to align the layers manually.

REAL WORLD: 3D PACKAGING

Box cover

1Start with a blank canvas at 500x500 pixels. Open an existingimage to use as the front cover of abox. Make it about 375 pixels wide.Here we’ve created a separate imagefor out cover and pasted into ourblank canvas. Move the image to theright side a bit to leave room for theside of the box we’re about to create.

13241

SIMPLE SHAPES: 3D BOX

Black square

1Start with a new canvas, preferably square – but it doesn’t have to be for this tutorial. Add a transparent layer. Select the Rectangular Selection tool from theToolbox. Create a square selection by holding downthe

Shift

key while you drag the mouse. The sizedoesn’t matter – we’ll be modifying this in a moment anyway. Fill the selection with black.

Side Perspective

2Copy and paste (

Ctrl-C

Ctrl-V

) the selection tocreate a new layer with the black square. Turn off theoriginal layers’ visibility for a moment while we work on the new layer. Double-click on the Transforms Toolfrom the Toolbox and select its Perspective Transform.Click inside the black square to show the drag boxeson the corner of the square. Drag the left side squarestoward each other and the left side. Leave the right side boxes where they are. Click on the Transformbutton. This is the left side of the box.

Side Perspective

3Paste another black square into the image as anew layer. Open the Transform Tools>Tool Optionswindow again and click on the black square. Movethe right side drag boxes toward each other a smallamount, with top box moved down more thanbottom is moved up, and in toward the left side ofthe black square. Click on the Transform button.Reduce the opacity of this layer to 70%. Move thelayer so its left edge butts up against the right sideof the previous layer. You may have to move bothlayers a bit to make them both fit in the canvasproperly. This is the front of the box.

Side Perspective

4Make sure the Foreground color is set to black, and the Background is set to white. Make theleft side of the box layer active. Drag from the left of this layer to the right using the Gradient tool. Make the front size of the box layer active, and drag the gradient from outside the right side of this layer to outside the left side of the layer. The left side will go from black to white,but the front will go from dark grey to light grey. This make the edge where the side and front meet stand out a bit more while still giving the appearance of directed lighting.

Our first design used shadows (via gradients) to simulatethe effect of three dimensions. Our second design usedthe Transform Tool to change the perspective of an object(a square) to give the appearance of depth. Lighting (viagradients) enhanced the result. Transforms are powerfultools in simulating depth in

The GIMP

, as these next tworeal-world tutorials will show. This Packaging methoddescribed here is sometimes used in

Linux Format

tocreate images of books or boxed products for reviews.

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