PoserAddicts II

Good news and bad news on this one. First, good news: the GIMP is easier to use than Blender. It's a 2D graphics program, so there's just less complexity to handle.

The bad news is that there just isn't as much info in video form out there.

is not a bad reference, but it's more of an encyclopedic/index format than anything tutorial-like.

does seem a bit more newbie-friendly than Blender's.

Here's Sadly, GIMP cannot dynamically rotate brushes, but it's possible to create a rotating brush with

And for those interested in using GIMP in addition to or instead of Photoshop, you'll want to have a look at

This isn't a tutorial, but you'll definitely want when creating tiling textures. It gives vastly better results than GIMP's "make seamless" option. This alone is a good reason to have the 32 bit version installed even if you use the experimental 64 bit version (I use both). The GIMP also has a free but with Poser/DAZ items you're usually better off creating black and white bump maps instead. Be sure to have a look at the other things in the free plugin registry while you're there and see if there's anything else you might want or need.

Always remember that in addition to letting you create your own brushes, GIMP can use Photoshop brushes and read the .psd format. This means there are TONS of free or inexpensive resources to add to your workflow (be sure and check licensing on them before using in a commercial product, however; most of the free brushes on deviantart are for non-commercial use only).

Sadly, unlike the plugins, hardly anybody will allow free commercial use of their brushes. I've been very happy with pricing for commercial use of their brush packs.

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Portia is dead. -Julius Caesar

All items in were made using Blender and the GIMP. Check out these free programs today!

Oh if you find a good tut on how to create a gradient in GIMP, I'd love to see it, as the information in the manual just didn't do it for me at all.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts ~ John Wooden

OK . . . Where's my chocolate?

You mean something like ?

_________________
Portia is dead. -Julius Caesar

All items in were made using Blender and the GIMP. Check out these free programs today!

_________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts ~ John Wooden

OK . . . Where's my chocolate?

You should be able to stick to the colors you used to create the gradient by toggling the "use color from gradient" option on and off when you're using the gradient fill. Is that not working?

And yep, GIMP is a very different interface from an Adobe product. Actually I prefer it, but that's probably because I "grew up" with it so to speak (I've only used PS et al. briefly and infrequently). It being an open source program, tutorial support for it tends to be extensive but widely scattered around the web. A google search will often find a page for a specific process that won't be in a compendium or manual.

_________________
Portia is dead. -Julius Caesar

All items in were made using Blender and the GIMP. Check out these free programs today!

_________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts ~ John Wooden

OK . . . Where's my chocolate?

Hm.

How about This page says if you create a new palette and save that, you can then use the command to make the gradient pick up the saved palette.

Kinda kludgy, but it'll work for what you want to do.

I've added a link to another useful page to the first post.

_________________
Portia is dead. -Julius Caesar

All items in were made using Blender and the GIMP. Check out these free programs today!

OK, this is really weird. I just opened GIMP and decided I'd try and take the colors I wanted in my gradient and import them as a palette to see if that was better. Well, when I clicked on the gradient I had created (which by default showed up as White to Black because I think that's what it was when I last closed GIMP yesterday), the gradient showed up as the colors I had used to create it. Now that's not something I expected, but it's there, it just doesn't show up that way when I change the Foreground/Background colors to work on something else. That's a little disconcerting to say the least, but now I know it did save the colors.

BTW, thanks for the link to the Palette to Gradient info as I'm going to try that and see how that works. I'll let you know if the colors in the Gradient dialog look right that way. I can certainly create palettes first if that works better. It just surprised me to see it change to White/Black, even though when I clicked on the new gradient the colors I wanted showed up. Hmmmmm, I wonder how the GIMP developers get the gradients that come with it to show up correctly. ~scratches head~

Edited to add: OK, this is why I really hate the GIMP manual. On that page you linked to, about 2/3 of the way down, is the follow:

Palette to gradient

With this command, all the colors of the palette are used to form the current gradient which is saved in the Gradient Dialog. The created gradient is build (sp.?) with segments just as much as the number of colors on the given palette.

Unfortunately, NO WHERE in the manual does it tell you how to access that command. I checked the menu(s) accessed from the Palette dialog and don't see it anywhere. Is it a keyboard shortcut? Is it hiding somewhere else? Any enlightenment would help. I was able to import the gradient colors to a palette easily, but now I want to be able to move it back to a gradient and see how that works.

Thanks for your help. Maybe in 6 months from now (or longer) I may actually be able to use GIMP as easily as I do PSP and PS. ~sigh~

_________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts ~ John Wooden

OK . . . Where's my chocolate?

Nope, the manual is not a productive learning tool. Honestly it isn't for most of my commercial products either (the DAZ figure setup tools one sucks, for example). First rule of thumb with GIMP or Blender is always to google it first.

You right-click the palette dock and you get a list of commands. "Palette to gradient" should be on the list. I'm not having it show up on mine for some reason...

_________________
Portia is dead. -Julius Caesar

All items in were made using Blender and the GIMP. Check out these free programs today!

_________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts ~ John Wooden

OK . . . Where's my chocolate?