hello this is dawn from brain blinks
calm again with part three of the Mandal
bulb 3d tutorial and this time I'm going
to talk to you about the color options
I've been a little bit afraid or
reluctant to do this part because
frankly how these colors work is still a
mystery to me I mean I can use the color
options and get some great looking
images and you know have a lot of
control over the colors but I don't
understand it well enough to tell you
that why and the wherefore of well you
know what why a certain color is going
to end up where it is on the fractal but
I'll show you what I have discovered and
hopefully they'll give you a good boost
boost booster start on your own
explorations I'm going to skip the
lighting controls for now we'll talk
about that next time but here we have
the object colors tab the ambient tab in
the background pick ambient is
controlling say like the background this
depth option is the background color if
we wanted to fade it from white to dark
blue just choose white for one and the
blue that's more of a purple we want
blue and this is the intensity of the
background color excuse me it will
interact with the fog the ambient light
in the background picture if you have
one on the background picture if you
want to load an image just click this
use an image for the background load up
an image and you can apply it as a full
frame just still image which works great
if you're just rendering a still frame
but if you're doing an animation you'll
probably want or you might want the
background to move around you know like
it was in outer space or like a sky
scene or whatever in that case you click
the as full background sphere and in 3d
you'll wrap that image around a sphere
and place your fractal in the middle of
it so when you move your camera around
it'll look it'll act realistically with
the rest now you might want to do a
little prep on your image too because
it's going to be wrapped around a sphere
if you imagine like wrapping a
basketball with a square piece of
wrapping paper and when you the middle
might look fine but when you get to the
edges it will be all scrunched up and
overlapping this scale rose to
Geographic projection can help with that
distortion but there's also some tricks
you can do in Photoshop ahead of time to
make it look real smooth on the poles
and make it look more seamless and
there's actually a nice sink to toriel
on how to do that on the fractal forums
dot-com and I'll find that and put the
link on the YouTube page over back on
the ambient tab this option the Amb is
the ambient light in the scene and that
is basically a soft even light that's
being projected from the camera so it
goes straight onto your object and you
can see now this is a totally grey
object and this is just ambient light
and these other two lights shining on it
but you can see how it colors the object
and this is the intensity of the light
being cast the ambient light setting
this is a great way to add some subtle
shading to the lighting and the colors
on your object I'm really glad there's
two options for the colors
I'm going to take those back to a more
neutral color so they don't interfere
with the rest of this
okay the fog I am just not even going to
get into that really because I haven't
used it a lot and I don't understand it
enough to tell you about it but this is
the intensity of the fog and actually if
you go this way it'll eventually turn
all white this way it kind of subtracts
the fog and almost like a negative fog
if you go to the left of course you can
change the colors these offset sliders
have to do with where the fog would
start in relation to your camera and how
intense it gets as it goes back in
relation to the camera unless this is
checked which end it's all relative to
the object you're looking at and these
have to do with how the fog colors
fall-off between foreground and
background but I'll leave that for later
when I understand it better I've already
mentioned having shadows a couple times
I think but they're pretty important too
the way I like my fractals to look and
this is a nice option here the second
reflection what it does is kind of throw
some color back into those ambient
shadows as if it was being reflected off
the surfaces back into those crevices so
you can use that to restore some detail
that might have gotten lost by using the
ambient shadows excuse me I got a frog
in my throat this is like my sixth try
on this tutorial all right here is these
buttons are preset lighting if you find
a lighting setup that you like you can
hit this lighting end colors you can hit
the M and click a square and we'll save
that light and then you can click it
again to reapply those settings to the
current fractal keep in mind though that
say I save this fractal this color
scheme here and and saved it if and I'm
just because this is pink on the outside
edges here and all dark gray in the
middle doesn't mean it that's
necessarily going to happen when I apply
this color scheme to a different fractal
that they kind of have a mind of their
own and has to how this range of colors
maps onto the fractal so but they are a
great starting point I've got quite a
few saved that I like combinations of
colors and then I can move those colors
around and arrange to get the effects
that I want you notice this one is shiny
too and that is over here on the object
tab that's the specularity slider
specular reflection and that shows how
it's shiny how much light is going to be
reflected and use these specular colors
there for every fractals there's kind of
two ranges of colors
there's the specular color up here on
top and the diffuse color the color of
the object is along the bottom go back
to a grayscale here so I can kind of try
to explain these colors sliders so what
you got here is basically a complex
range of gradient colors so it's going
to fade from this color to this color to
this color and you have control over how
where the colors fall in this range but
you don't have control over where this
red is going to hit or where this
section of the gradient is going to hit
that is controlled by the math formulas
and however they map that onto the
fractal but you can find the part that
you want to work on what I usually do is
start out with all gray and let's say I
wanted to make these ridges red and the
darker and the inside areas black I
could probably manage that or darker
color
so what I do what I would do is get a
red color
I usually uncheck this glue sliders that
causes all the sliders to move as if
they're attached by a rubber band or
something if you uncheck that then you
can move one independently gives you a
lot finer control so it looks like those
ridges are corresponding to the gradient
in this area here
so what I might do then is get another
red color maybe the same color if I
wanted the exact same color I could hold
my mouse over that color and hit C to
copy the color you can see down here
there's a few instructions on cutting
and pasting colors so I write you right
click on these to change the color to I
don't think I mentioned that yet
and I might do the same thing on the
other side just so I could kind of tell
where these colors are going to start
and finish on my fractal you see as I
move this to the left more of that image
is going to be red reddish orange and
also notice that because this one gray
one is far away now that it doesn't
change as much because remember it's
always doing a gradient between the gray
and the red if you want a tight band of
colors then you need to block it off
with another color or in this case I'm
going to put this great color right up
against it and now let's say let's see
what happens let's put another color in
here at yellow see if we can't find
something interesting I think it's
highlighted now another thing that's
going to affect these colors is over
here is these two sliders I want to save
this one just in case always say if you
can also save your lighting and color
options separately with this down here
the floppy disk icons will get a new
icon whose uses floppies anymore anyway
every time you see a save it's still the
fluffy disk this slider right this is
the way I kind of think about it in my
head this may be totally wrong as how it
actually works but this is the best I
can think to describe it this slider
right here corresponds to the left side
of this color range this side this
slider right here corresponds to the
right side of this color range
these is de stripping here is like a
histogram of how the colors gradient is
going to lay out on this fractal and the
darker it is the more pixels in the
image are going to be taking that color
so you can see there's more dark here so
there's going to be more action in your
colors right over here then there is on
this faded tail over here and if I move
this slider that also affects where the
colors are going to start and stop on
the image generally I kind of slide
these up against the end in the
beginning of this histogram
and then I start moving these around to
see what what color is going to match up
where
I like to start with the gray and some
strong colors just because it's a lot
easier to see what your colors are going
to you know what your colors are
affecting what areas they're affecting
I think I'll stop right there I think I
explained that is the best explanation
I've given so far today so hold my stuff
right there
so get in there and just tinker with
this stuff that's the only way to figure
out these colors I think after you start
playing with it a bit you'll start to
get a feel for it that's the only way it
worked for me also the specular colors
you can change those in the same window
here just by clicking this top color and
that will be the color of the reflection
at that point that gets controlled by
this specular color here so that's
another way even if you're not using it
for a shine effect to add in some
variation in the colors I like to add
subtle shadings and grades of color into
a computer-generated artwork it takes
out some of that plasticky feeling
sometimes
all right let's see what have I forgot
to mention these options color cycling
and color on second choice they've
changed the way the colors are laid out
on your fractal that's the best I can
say for those right now just try them
and see what happens they just change
how the colors are going to be a what
order the colors are laid out I guess is
a good description for it I don't know
color variation on Z I believe that kind
of controls how often they're this range
of gradients is going to be repeated as
it's applied to the object a higher
number and you'll get changes in your
colors more often as it progresses
through the shape and I mentioned saving
the presets I mentioned the gamma is
just overall brightness of the scene
which might come in handy I've found it
useful when I do some extreme settings
with the fog sometimes or extreme colors
I need to brighten things up or make it
darker okay I think I think I covered
everything that I can successfully
communicate to you
so I thanks a lot for listening I hope
that wasn't too rambling I hope that
gives you a good jump start on your
explorations and just get in there and
monkey with this stuff just play around
with it a grab a slider see what happens
you know you're not going to break
anything
just remember to save a lot if you're
working on something that you want to
keep and please leave some feedback if
there's anything specific you'd like me
to cover or if you're watching these
videos I'm still making them so let me
know what you want to hear about and
I'll do my best to share that
information with you
so have fun exploring and I will see you
next time bye