How to make a background wavy?

[MacKenrick]

I would like to make a background "Wavy", like a flag when the wind is blowing moderately. Any help will be greatly appreciated. I'm using PSP XI but have X9 installed on a new computer but have not used X9 at all so it's quite different from the very old XI that I am still using. Yes, I'm a dinosaur. Lol. To be a little more specific, I have a graphic of a Scottish Tartan and want to use it as a full background that looks like a flag waving in the wind. I have attached the tartan and two examples. One was made by a friend a long time ago and the other is just a generic picture of a flag waving in a mild wind. Thank you.

My Tartan

Example 1

Wavy Flag

US Flag Waving.jpg (54.27 KiB) Viewed 1189 times

[Kathy_9]

My suggestion would be to play around with the mesh warp until you get the desired effect.

[LeviFiction]

Mesh Warp tool and the Warp Brush are probably the options that will give you the most control. With the Warp Brush, use a really large brush and do simple short motions to drag areas of the image, with the Mesh Warp hold Alt or Shift as you drag a node to make it pull up on the entire line of nodes, start with a small number of nodes at first and then increase the number of rows and columns to make more minute changes. Subtlety will be the key with this.

Another option is to use the Displacement Map effect (Effects -> Distortion Effects-> displacement Map) all you need is another (preferably B&W image) of a crumpled cloth. Like this one from freepik by kjpargeter - https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/text ... position=7

What you do is you open both your Tartan image and this white Satin texture image in PSP, then go to the Displacement Map effect, and choose the White Satin image as the map (you can also just use any of the crumpled paper textures that come with PSP) I would use 2D offset as the mode, and increase the intensity until it looks how you want it to. Just play with the settings.

The last option I can recommend, get a 3D cloth simulator program. That's right, don't do it in PSP. There are 3D cloth simulation programs you can use. I used the free 3D program Blender for this example. It was pretty easy, but I have familiarity with the program. If you're interested I could do up a quick tutorial but the hardest part was moving the camera around. Essentially what you do is add a grid object to the scene, add your Tartan image as a texture on the grid object, then use the sculpt mode's cloth brush to paint in the bends. Finally rendering out the result.

[Jean-Luc]

...or use the Warp Brush with mode Push, size 450:

EDIT : Ooops, didn't see Levifiction's post.

[MacKenrick]

Thanks to all for your response. Several good suggestions and I very much appreciated the details by Levi Fiction. I'm guessing that I'm going to have to use PSP X9 to try some of these. I don't recall a Mesh or Warp tool in PSP XI. The suggestion about Displacement Map Effect sounds like a good possibility too.

[MacKenrick]

LeviFiction, While looking at the examples again, I now think that the 3D simulator program may be my best choice. It seems to make the tartan look more like real cloth that is a little rumpled. I would like to accept your kind offer of the tutorial on doing this with 3D Program Blender. Thank you so much.

[LeviFiction]

Alright. First download and install Blender - https://www.blender.org/

Here is a video (without audio as my microphone doesn't work) that shows the process I'll be describing below.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b_atCH ... sp=sharing

Blender is a full 3D modeling, animation, graphics suite of tools. So there are some configurations needed to make all of this work.

1) When you first open Blender a splash screen will show up just click anywhere to close that
2) The default scene you should see are a camera, light, and a cube. In the upper-right hand corner you'll see an overview box called "Scene Collection" that shows these three objects listed.
3) Click on "Camera" in this box and you'll see the camera object becomes highlighted in orange.
4) Beneath the "Scene Collection" box you'll see a properties panel. This lets you set multiple different kinds of properties, and is a bit cluttered. But by default the "Object Properties" panel should be showing. It's represented by an orange square inside of another square. And will show the Location (X,Y,Z) and Rotation (X,Y,Z) of the currently selected object. In our case it'll be the camera.
5) The camera is currently pointing at an angle toward the cube, in 3D the camera is what is used to render the scene, and that angle is hard to work with. So we'll use the "Object Properties" panel to position the camera directly above the cube pointing downward. In the "Location" settings set X: 0, Y: 0, and leave Z alone.
6) Now set the Rotation properties set X:0, Y: 0, Z:0
7) Next we want to set the viewport to be looking through the camera lens. To do this click on "View" on the viewport, Camera -> Active Camera. The scene should change to now looking down on the cube.
8) Now click on the "Cube" object in the "Scene Collections" box. This will highlight the cube, we want to delete this as it's not useful to us.
9) In the Viewport click on "Object" and select "Delete" or hit the "X" key on your keyboard and confirm the action.
10) Next we want to add a Grid object. A grid is a flat plan that is split into columns and rows.
11) In the Viewport click "Add" -> "Mesh" -> "Grid"
12) At the bottom of the screen you'll see a dialog bar that says "Add Grid" click on it to open the box and show the Grid properties. I set the resolution to be 50x50 for the Grid. You won't see any changes but they are happening.
13) Next we want to scale the grid along the X axis to make it wider. In the video I do this by hitting the "S" key for scale and then the "X" key to constrain it to the X axis. Another way to do this is to go to the Object button in the Viewprot -> Transform -> Scale and then when the Scale mode is active hit "X" to constrain the scale. Hit Enter to accept the change once it's the size you want.
14) Back over to the Properties panels I click on the "Material Properties" button which looks like a shaded ball. And I hit "New Material" which will let you set the color and texture of the grid.
15) I scroll down to the "Base Color" property and click the Yellow circle next to it to open a menu. From this menu I select "Image Texture" which will use an image instead of a color.
16) Underneath the "Base Color" You'll now see an "Open" button which will let you search for the image you want to use. Select it and hit "OK" to apply the texture.
17) Back over in the viewport I turn on Material View so you can see how the image looks. I find it to be a bit too shiney so I go back to the Material Properties and turn down the value "Specular"
18) Finally I select the light in the "Scene Collection" box to highlight the light source (Without a light source the image will be black) and just like I did with the Camera I move the Location of the light to the center of the scene.
19) With the "light" selected, I open the "Object Properties" panel and change the Location: X:0 Y:0 Z: Leave alone
20) Select the "Grid" again in the "Scene Collections" box
21) Open the "Modifier Properties" panel (it's the button with a blue Wrench icon)
22) Add a Subdivision surface Modifier - this will make the distortion smoother.

We are now ready to sculpt the cloth with the cloth brush. That's a lot of steps but you'll see it's actually very quick once you're used to navigating the UI.


23) In the Viewport change the mode from Object Mode to Sculpt Mode
24) On the left you'll see a series of brushes, look for one that looks like a purple cloth draped over something.
25) Start dragging it around the grid to slowly distort it, aim for the sides and corners to help disrupt the surface even more.

By default this brush mirrors everything across the X axis so anything you do on the right will be mirrored on the left.

26) Once you're satisfied with how it looks, go to the top of the program and select "Render -> Render Image" or just hit F12 on your keyboard.
27) It'll render out the image and then you can select Image -> Save As to save out a copy of the render.

[migf1]

Haven't used Blender for ages, but I just wanted to add it now has a Cloth simulation (it was not available when I was playing with the program). It can save you the manual sculpting.

Just search for "blender cloth simulation" on youtube... for example:
1. https://youtu.be/hoyrgeyNdCo
2. https://youtu.be/h3PIlhh9ruw

PS. As a quick note, blender 2.83 is the Long Time Support version. It is the most tested version and gets only critical updates for at least a couple of years I think (meant for Studios that can't afford the usual update frenzy of blender every few months... for that you can get version 2.9x)

[LeviFiction]

Small clarification, the cloth sculpt brush is new in 2.9. so this tutorial requires the latest version of Blender. Cloth simulation using the animation features have been around for quite some time. I chose the sculpt brush as it gives me the tiniest bit more control.

[MacKenrick]

Wow! Thank you so much LeviFiction. That is fantastic. The step by step details are invaluable for someone like me. Thank you also, migf1 for the info and links. I've been using PSP since it first came out as a free program years and years ago but have only done fairly simple things with it. I started out just making simple avatars and signature graphics, then some simple graphics for email "stationery" when it was popular to make fancy scrolling and animated email stationery with music. I never did anything complicated so when I run into a problem trying to figuring out something like this, I have to try to do some searching and then come to the PSP forums and get help from the Pros. I've always appreciated the great group of people on the PSP forums. There are always people willing to help with a question.

[MacKenrick]

I just watched your video LeviFiction. There would be no way I would be able to do that without your video and your written instructions. Thank you so much for taking the time to do that for me. I downloaded the video and will print out the instruction. I'll have to wait until this evening to try it out. The weather here warmed up just enough that I can get a few last minutes "must do" things finished outside the house. I'll post my results if I'm not too embarrassed by how it turns out. Lol!