20% Time: 1/16/08

Hello dear reader, this week I was able to find a few interesting things this week.  The first thing I found was a written tutorial explaining the creation of an 'exploding planet' by devv for gimp.  (Want to see more explosions?)  I know you may be thinking, “I thought you were using Photoshop?”  Well, I am.  However, I just learned that the basic principle is the same.  With some basic modifications to the process, the picture still came out pretty cool when I tried.

First, I downloaded the picture (provided by devv) of 'cracking soil‘ and spherized it twice.  Unlike gimp where you can actually wrap your pictures around a shape (and not have to deal with the outside edges afterwards) with Photoshop I had to take an extra minute or so to create a circle around the sphere one a seperate layer to get a selection around the part needed and then have to cut off all the flat outside space left. 

After inverting the colors and 'un'polarizing the picture, I was able to spend another seven minutes trying to find out if the program I was using had the all-important wind filter.  Fortunately, it did, but (of course) it was not the same.  So after a few minutes of guessing and experimenting later, I finally had what I wanted- a big streaky blue and white column.  I then had to 're'polarize the coordinates and change the coloration balance of the picture to make it look fiery.  After bluring the edges a bit, this was the end result-

One other thing that I found today was a little tutorial about making background objects disappear.  Here is the video tutorial from Juvenall from youtube.  Unfortunately, I was not able to get any pictures that I found suitable to use the technique on, I.  When I finally do get a hold of one, I’ll post it immediately.