How to texture a flag (for Ray) – Part 1

Now I can't seem to find the original tutorial I was looking for, but I did find this video by Jan Kardel in German on vimeo. (Doh! Put in the link to said video.)


Lets see if my two weeks of College German in 1986 and Google translate can get the job done.


(Just a clarification. The following is what he does in the video, not what I did to make the flag ripples. Although I did use a bunch of the techniques outlined.)


Just from looking at it he is starting with a default 640 x 480 pixel image. He probably set the background as transparent and then copied the background and created a new transparent layer. So we have three layers starting from the bottom. Background (BG) – copy, which looks to have the GIMP Mascot (Wilbur?) on it; BG, which has been filled with a solid color (blue of some sort); and New Layer which is transparent and the only visible layer at the start.


Off the bat he sets the New Layer Mode to Multiply. Then uses rectangle select to select an area perpendicular to the image. Then Layer > Crop to selection, Select > None. Then Filter > Render > Clouds > Solid Noise. The settings are check all the check boxes (Randomize, Turbulent, Tilable) Detail = 5, X Size = 16, Y Size = 0.7.


We now have our striped cloud layer. Now Layer > Scale Layer to increase the size. He unlocks it and stretches it to 650 wide (10px wider than the image). He then uses the Move tool to reposition it over the image. And finally Layer > Layer to image size.


Next Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Settings: Blur Type = Linear, Length = 256, Angle = 90.


Now we make our Color BG layer visible and Bump Map it. Filter > Map > Bump Map. Settings are Bump Map = New Layer (or whatever our stretched cloud layer was called), Map Type = Linear, check all check boxes (Compensate for darkening, Invert Bump Map, Tile Bump Map), Azimuth = 135, Elevation = 55, Depth = 22.


Next he raises the Wilbur Image and runs a Filter > Map > Displacement with settings of X = 7, Y = 7, both from our “New Layer”; Displacement Mode = Cartesian, Edge Behavior = Wrap. Then Bump Map said image. All settings the same except the elevation was reduced to 53 and the depth to 14. And then the layer mode set to screen. Then the layer was duplicated which lightened its appearance.


So here is my take, modifying the techniques slightly:

I'm off to another class field trip today. I'll post the steps to do this soon. I hope this is what Ray was looking for.