Technical Slop

Power Distort I

Writing this down brings back a lot of memories. Back when I found Displace so confusing, I did some very controlled experiments to figure things out. This is literally step-by-step what I did all of those years ago. I took things slow, the time to understand, and then followed my nose to the next step. I eventually ended up with my very first monster technique: Power Distort.

Kind of funny how it has taken me this long to write it down. It is a monster technique and previous attempts to lay it all out have been ugly. Maybe all of the tutorials that I have prevously written were just practice for this? I can't say for sure, but it's a thought.

The formatting also kind of breaks the norm of Tech-Slop. For my longer discussions, I have been taking to writing them out at various forums in rough draft form. This allows folks to give immediate feed-back as I go. You know, helps me find the rough spots and organize my thoughts better. As I make the posts, I archive them and eventually they end up on Tech-Slop in all their glory. As such, the formatting is a bit different. That is, I'm taking the posts straight-up and making many formatting changes.

Take it slow, take it in chunks - I can't stress this enough.

Power Distort Part I.I

This one starts with Broken China. Yes, one of the very first tutorials I wrote. My first or my second - I can't remember.

Going to be using the Zoom Cube as grabitude reference, but in reverse. So, make your own and invert it. Or just build it inverted.

Pick a colour from it and build a new D-Map using that colour. For mine, just a square on a new layer with Preserve Transparency turned on. Going this route so I can easily pick a new colour from the inverted D-Map and quickly fill that square. Save it and give it a whirl.

In my quick test, Biker Chic is actually 256x256. Because of those dimensions, I used 100%/100%. There are times when you will want to use 200%/200%, but it gets really tricky. For now, use a 256x256 target and use 100%/100%.

Hopefully you can see the correlation.

Pick a different colour from the inverted Zoom Cube, update and save the simple D-Map, and Displace again using 100%/100%. You should be able to see the same correlation. Do it again and again. Keep doing it until it clicks. Then do it a few more times.

Please, do this until it makes sense. I can't stress this enough. Even if you understand the graphic, do it anyways.

Power Distort I.II

Power Distort I.II

Next little exercise is almost exactly the same thing. Almost exactly.

Just to keep things a little straight, be using the same colour as above. However, the second D-Map is a little different. Instead of the solid colour square being in the middle, it is a little bit up and to the left.

Notice the two red lines. The first red line goes from the center, or 50% grey, to the sampled colour. The second red line goes from the solid colour in the second D-Map to where it grabs from. Now, both red lines are the exact same length and direction. However, their placement is a little different. In the resulting target, the red line starts from the solid colour and not the center. The second red line is transposed based on where the solid colour is in the second D-Map.

I have no idea if what I just said makes sense. This is one of the reasons why I've held on to this technique for such a long time. I'm finally getting comfortable with my writing skills to attempt, but I'm not sure if it's enough.

Power Distort I.III

Got the hang of the above? I hope so, because it's time to reverse engineer. But first, let's talk about some numbers.

In the above, I have three different documents:
1. Reference Cube. This is the Zoom Cube, but inverted.
2. Working D-Map. So far, nothing terribly complicated. Just a bunch of 50% grey and a solid colour.
3. Biker Chic, my favorite target. She's a thing with me. Some day I'll give her own page in homage.

All three of those documents share the same working dimensions: 256x256.
Also, only been using 100%/100% when it comes time to Displace.

Earlier, I mentioned that sometimes you will want to use 200%/200%. Well, that time has come. Why higher percentage? That's a bit trickier to explain. There are two reasons, but for now only be concerned with one: the reference cube is now has the dimensions of 512x512.

Did you catch that? We'll be using a reference cube with dimensions 512x512. Since the reference cube is doubled, sampled colours will be "halved"; and, to compensate for that, the percentages are doubled.

Let's run through a simple example of this exercise.

Upper-Left
Our target with some stuff tossed in. Instead of a silly square, be using a silly circle. The green circle is where we want to pull to, and the red circle is where we want to pull from. If all goes well, Biker Chic's face will be "pulled" into the green circle.

Upper-Right
This is the reference cubed. Remember: 512x512. The center is marked, and the line in Biker Chic as been dragged in and aligned to the center. The colour at the end of the red line is sampled. I got R=179 and G=173. That is the colour that will be used in the simple D-Map.

Lower-Left
This is the final D-Map using the sampled colour. Pretty amazing, isn't it?

Lower-Right
This is what that simple D-Map does with 200%/200%. Oh, man - that is too cool! That is, believe it or not, pixel perfect. Now, there are some funky jaggies around the circle. This is due to anti-aliasing in the D-Map. Those little shades in-between will do that to ya. Sometimes it's good, as we'll see later, but sometimes it's bad.

Practice doing this.
Pick two spots in your target, and get one to "move" into the other.
Once again, I can't stress this enough.
Again, I can't stress this enough.

At the very bottom of all of this, we have my favorite equalities: 128px = 100% = brightnes 255. Once you understand that and how to manipulate them, it's all good. Believe me, once I understood this explicitly, I was very happy - drunk with power, even.

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