(download offline version
here)
In this tutorial I will teach you how to make lit brakelight textures in GIMP for the times you can't source lit brakelight textures for your projects
GIMP user interface In case you are not familiarized with GIMP's interface, here's a quick look to it:
- Toolbox: This is the place where are located the painting and selection tools, mostly. The foreground/background color selection is also in there.
- Tool Options: Here you can adjust the selected tool parameters.
- Layers/Channels/Paths Undo: Here you will see the images layers for edition. We´re are going to focus only on the Layers and Undo (in case you screw up).
- Brushes/Patterns/Gradients: IMO these are redundant, since they can be setted up from their respective tools. In fact, the only use I found for them was adding/editting brushes, but we won't make that kind of stuff in here right now.
The toolbars can be customized to your liking, but we're going to use the default layout for this tutorial.
Step 1: Base lightCopy this image and paste it in GIMP as a new image; this is our example file
Create a new layer (either by clicking the
New Layer button in the
Layers dialog, going to the
Layer>New Layer menu or pressing the
Ctrl+Shift+N keys) and name it
light_base.
Then choose the
Paintbrush tool in the toolbox (keyboard:
P key), choose the
2. Hardness 50 brush, set an appropiate size for it (in this case we will set it at 50) and pick a pure red color (
HSV: 0,100,100) and paint over the area you want to be lit. When you're finished, go to the Layers dialog and change the layer
Mode (in this case to
Value). It should look like this:
Step 2: Coloring the light Now we're gonna create another layer and name it
light_color. With the paintbrush we're gonna paint a slightly smaller area than the base light's with
HSV 15,100,100 color, then we paint a smaller area with
HSV 30,100,100 color. Afterwards go to
Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and set a value of around 15-20 for this one. Apply the blur and set the layer mode to
Color. It should look like this:
Step 3: The Final TouchesDuplicate the
light_color layer (
Duplicate Layer button in Layers dialog,
Layer>Duplicate menu or
Ctrl+Shift+D keys) and go to
Colors>Desaturate and choose the
Luminosity optionto turn it into grayscale, Set that layer to
Overlay mode...
...then right-click on the layer in the Layers dialog and choose
Alpha to Selection. Go to the bottom layer, copy it and then paste it,
press Ctrl+Shift+N to make it a new layer.
Now go to
Colors>Desaturate and choose the
Lightness option, then go to
Colors>Curves and make a curve like this:
Click
OK and set the layer mode to
Divide. The final result should be this:
And there it is, a convincing-looking lit brakelight texture. Just export it (
File>Export ;
Ctrl+Shift+E) to a suitable format and that's it
Additional notesDepending of your source image you might have to use other layer modes or values to achieve your desired effect; don't be afraid to experiment.
Hope this tutorial results useful to you. AJ signing out.