The challenge this month is to start with a digital image, and, using DarkTree, see how closely you can come to the painting technique shown above.  From trying this challenge already (a little), I think bright colors work the best, or at least they give a more “arty” effect.  So you might like to try preprocessing the image you intend to use in a paint program first. That’s just my opinion.

I’m including some images (below) that you are welcome to use if you like. They are from last summer’s vacation in Hawaii. I would definately brighten up the colors in a paint program if you do use one of these, although you can get some nice subtle effects by using as is.

Uh oh, I just found out that there is a bug in the Image component.  Sometimes it is flakey about loading an image.  Although the bug is fixed, the fix won’t be available until vs. 2.5. I had good luck by downloading images with the Image component as soon as possible after turning on my computer.  I do apologize.

Note: Due to space considerations, I have had to delete the large jpg files from this page! For these DarkTrees to actually produce a texture, you’ll have to import a jpg file using the image component.

Images

Comments

“Here is a challenge DarkTree done by Jeff Cantin.  Jeff sharpened the Sea Tiki image first, before creating his DarkTree. Check it out!  He has an interesting solution for getting this effect. You’ll need to download his enhanced image as well (to recreate his entry anyway).”
Leslie

 

Jeff Cantin

Jeff’s dsts file

“Here is Alain Bertrand’s DarkTree after the style of George Seurat.  He didn’t change the original image in any way, so when you get his DarkTree just use the Wailea Sunset image as is.  Or use another image altogether. This is a nice example of pointillist style of painting, I think. ”

 

Alain Bertrand

Alain’s .dsts file

“Here is my challenge offering. I used the DarkTree from the Image Sketch tutorial on the website.  I modified quite a bit, adding a bump subtree and changing component settings. I also worked the original image over in Paintshop Pro first. It would look more like a painting if I had been less timid with the changes I made there, but I’m reasonably pleased anyhow.”
Leslie

 

Grimalkin

Grimalkins .dsts file

“Here is Jane Lin’s cool challenge entry after the style of Paul Seignac. To recreate, use the Beach Tree image as is with her DarkTree.”
Leslie

“I tried different images and discovered that skies didn't look so great if they didn't have much color variation, so I tried to introduce some using Hue Rotate between the Birdshot and Image components. I was also unsatisfied with single sampling in Birdshot because each brush stroke really has some color variation. I got lazy and used Hue Rotate again and a noise mask on the final texture but still couldn't achieve the desired effect. Turbulence was used to mimic the way Signac's brush strokes vary in direction, and Froster to break up the edges of the brush stroke.”
Jane

Jane Lin

Jane’s .dsts file

“This challenge DarkTree was sent in by Matt Bolton.  He used DTT 1 to create it. You can load it into DTT 2.0, but it needs some work before it will look the way it does here. However the result is really nice. If you want to look at his tree, the image he used is Kaulapapa Park.”
Leslie

 

Matt Bolton

Matt’s .dsts file

“This is Sky Swanson’s challenge DarkTree. His DarkTree and the image he used are available, but his image mask is not included. Like Jane, Sky used Hue Rotate to vary the color a bit more.”
Leslie

Sky Swanson

Sky’s .dsts file

“Here is RorrKonn’s  challenge DarkTree. I believe he used one of his own artworks. It looks great - very colorful. Parts of it remind me of embroidary with metallic threads.
Leslie
“This Month’s Challenge was a real Challenge. I am not use to making special effects shaders for .jpgs.”
Rorr Konn

 

RorrKonn

RorrKonn’s .dsts file

Here is the final scene for January. If you click on it, you can load a larger version. I had to substitute another picture for Sky’s. Something about his DarkTree created a problem.
Some really nice work came out of this month’s challenge - congratulations to all! Comment anyone?
Grimalkin