Anatomy Of A Virtual

Treebeard

Following on from tiny-plant's tutorial, I present my own 'how to'.

This is how I did my virtuals. It may not be the correct way, or the easiest way, or the way you use, but it worked for me.

If you look at all my entries in the competition, you will see my learning process. The first two were a bit crude as far as bonsai style is concerned. The reason is that I had to expend most of my efforts on these two in just getting to grips with the software. On the last two virtuals I was able to devote more time to actual bonsai styling.

The first tree I did in the competition was the bunjin. I learnt a few things on that one.

The second was the driftwood. Again, learnt a bit more there, ie how to do a backdrop...

Third was the cascade. All the things I learnt on the other two, plus what I already knew helped me to put together a quite convincing image.

Last one was the informal. I thought this was my best, but I didn't count on OMC...

The software I used was Adobe photodeluxe home edition v3.0. Not for any special reason, it just came free with my scanner.

Most of the functions I will describe are more than likely available on every other paint package, just under a different description.

Regards,

TB

__________________
"Do not be hasty, that is my motto"
-JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers.
-----------------------------------
christopherguise.co.uk

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Treebeard

First I started by deleting all the un-needed backdrop from Al's supplied image. It looks white, but isn't.

I use a tool called 'colorwand', and it basically selects an irregular area nearly the same colour so that you don't have
to paint it all white or erase it.

The reason for this is that it gives me a bare skeleton of the tree, pot & stand, with a transparent background.

In the picture you can see a cropped screen-grab of the process. Note the dotted line round the tree/stand outline. Everything outside this line is deleted, in effect making it transparent. I do the same inside the stand, between the legs. I didn't do between all the little struts, but could have if it was needed...

Attached Images

colorwand.jpg (52.0 KB, 233 views)

__________________
"Do not be hasty, that is my motto"
-JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers.
-----------------------------------
christopherguise.co.uk

Treebeard

Next I find a donor tree for the composition. I trawled through dozens of images before finally going for a shimpaku. This tree had all the charateristics I wanted. Good shadow, good detail and a well defined outline, making it easier to copy across.

Unfortunately I can't remember where it came from. I've just built myself a new PC, in transferring stuff across to it some things (like favorites etc) got lost.

I then use the 'smartselect' tool to cut the foliage from the donor tree, rather than just cloning or rubberstamping. The smartselect is sort of like an auto trace tool. You just click a place near the edge of what you want, slowly follow the rough outline and the program will 'snap' to the actual outline.
The reason for this is When I paste this cut foliage, it is pasted automatically in a layer of it's own. That way, I have much more control later on when I am moving and playing around to get the look right.

Attached Images

smartselect.jpg (67.4 KB, 216 views)

__________________
"Do not be hasty, that is my motto"
-JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers.
-----------------------------------
christopherguise.co.uk

Treebeard

I then proceed to build the tree up out of re-pasted foliage, each on it's own layer.

I can flip each layer horizontally to give me a mirror image,
rotate and scale up or down the layers to give me different sizes and shapes.
The finished foliage is made from 9 different layers.

In this picture you can see on the left all the foliage all spread out.

On the right is the foliage in it's correct arrangement.

Attached Images

foliage.jpg (44.2 KB, 220 views)

__________________
"Do not be hasty, that is my motto"
-JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers.
-----------------------------------
christopherguise.co.uk

Treebeard

When I have the foliage pads I want, I 'smartselect', copy and paste a branch to thicken it.

Here you can see the original on the right, and the thickened branch on the left

Attached Images

branch.jpg (20.9 KB, 213 views)

__________________
"Do not be hasty, that is my motto"
-JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers.
-----------------------------------
christopherguise.co.uk

Treebeard

Then, because everything is in it's own layer, I can change which layers are on top of which, giving MUCH more control over the image than you would get if I'd rubberstamped everything.

I tinkered with the layers for quite a while here, to get the right look. Because things are on layers, you can get far more convincing depth, with rear foliage behind the trunk.

Here you see the tree/stand layer dragged to the top. Note the layer selection pane to the right, layer 0 is top. This puts ALL the foliage behind. Now you can see where I didn't delete the background in between the struts...

Attached Images

layer demo.jpg (58.1 KB, 211 views)

__________________
"Do not be hasty, that is my motto"
-JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers.
-----------------------------------
christopherguise.co.uk

Treebeard

In this next picture, the tree/stand layer is dragged to almost the bottom. Note the first foliage pad looks like it is in front of the trunk. This isn't what I wanted. I wanted to have the foliage enveloping the trunk, to give depth to the picture.

If you look at the layer pane, you can see 3 layers below layer 0.
Two of them are turned off (no eye next to them). The very bottom layer is not actually visible in the final image, it is behind the background!! (we all make mistakes...)

Attached Images

layer demo 2.jpg (58.8 KB, 206 views)

__________________
"Do not be hasty, that is my motto"
-JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers.
-----------------------------------
christopherguise.co.uk

Treebeard

This is the final layer selection. You can see the difference this makes. The foliage appears to have depth, not just to be flat 2D-ish.

Attached Images

layer final.jpg (58.5 KB, 201 views)

__________________
"Do not be hasty, that is my motto"
-JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers.
-----------------------------------
christopherguise.co.uk

Treebeard

When I had the tree how I wanted it, it was time for the backdrop. I set up another layer, called 'back'.

Then, In the effects menu, there is a 'lighting effects' function. Making sure the correct layer is active, I just played around with the lighting effect until I had the one I wanted. I had a specific effect in mind here, it took a little while to achieve it.

The only minor problem with the software I use it that it only allow 1 undo. This means that it take a lot longer to get what I want, because if I try one effect and then another straight after, I can't ever go back to the first one if I didn't like the second one.

Attached Images

lighting menu.jpg (58.4 KB, 195 views)

__________________
"Do not be hasty, that is my motto"
-JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers.
-----------------------------------
christopherguise.co.uk