Welcome to my 3D flower tutorial! If anything's confusing please let me know! Also, i would be delighted to see anythign you make from this tutorial!

Here are examples of possible final outcomes:




Great, let's get started!

1.
Open gimp, and make a new image that's a square (i used 300 px). Set the background to transparent, and let everything else be default.

You should have this:

2. We're going to make a textured middle for our flower right now, although you could make a plain solid-colored middle by altering this step. SO... take the rectangular selection tool, and make a small selection at the bottom of the canvas and fill it with the 'java' pattern.

You should have this:

3. Now go to layer > colors > colorize.

You can use the values in the image, or play with it yourself. The end goal is to get a light-ish yellow or orange color.

You should have this:
4. Great! Now add a new transparent layer, and call it 'petals'. With 'petals' selected, use the elliptical selection tool to draw a long, thin oval.

Like this:

5. Now select two colors for your fg and bg that would look good as petals. I'm using #b57c99 for my fg and #ffd0ec for my bg. Select the gradient tool and set opacity to 100%, mode to normal, shape to radial, and the gradient to FG to BG (RBG).

Like this:

6. Now click and drag from the middle of the selected oval region to just below the top.
yay! now you have one petal done!
Should look like this:

Copy and paste this petal until its clones are lined up all accross the yellow coffee beans. To expedite this process,
I copy and paste about three of them, and then copy and paste all three. Depending on the size of the petal you drew,
you might end up with a space at the end that is too small to fit another whole petal. DO NOT shrink the petal down
or put only a fraction of a petal. Instead, stop your petals at the point where they can no longer naturally fit,
and then select the whole row of petals and use the "scale layer or selection' tool to stretch all of your petals to fit.
If you want more petals, or don't like the gaps, you can place more petals of a different length, size, or color
in between the existing petals. For the sake of making this a consice tutorial, however, I will be moving on with my
petals as-is.


Now you should have this:

7. Right click on the 'petals' layer and select 'merge down.' You should now have only one layer.

8. you should now have only one layer.
Now go to filters > map > map object

in 'Map to:' select Sphere
select transparent background
and change depth to 5.0

9. Right now you are viewing your flower from straight on. click the orientation tab.
mess around with the 'rotation' axes until your flower is at an angle that you find appealing.


10. click the 'light' tab. Right now you are probably set to 'point light.' I sort of like the unnatural shininess this
gives, but if you'd like something a little more natural, select 'Directional Light' from the drop-down menu. This evens out the shine and makes it less pronounced. If you'd like no shine at all, then go to "No light." I don't like this setting as much
because it takes the shadows away from the underside of the flower, but if you like it, then go for it.

Now you should have this:

11. lastly, click 'OK!'

Now you've got an awesome flower!


I prefer to save them as .JPG with a white background because i can't figure out how to preserve the quality in gif.
I messed up while saving this one, so it look horrible, but i think you get the idea.

SHOW ME YOUR ATTEMPTS!
C&C are extremely welcome and appreciated.

Very nice! It's a great idea and tut easy to follow! Thanks! :l:

That's really neat. I wouldn't have even thought of doing some of that to create a flower. ^.^

I'm glad you like it!

I will edit that post with outcome. Looks really simple with a nice effect. Might try to add a stem to mine.

Quote:

I prefer to save them as .JPG with a white background because i can't figure out how to preserve the quality in gif.
I messed up while saving this one, so it look horrible, but i think you get the idea.

Save as png. png allows for transparency without quality loss. Only problem is that browsers like IE6 can't handle png transparency, but that's their fault. =P

My gosh, it seems so simple yet the end effect is great. I'll try this out myself.

Yeah, my browser is stupid enough that when i saved them as png and then tried opening them in explorer, it crashed. so i resulted to .jpg. LOL

thanks for all the positive feedback, guys, i truly do hope you give it a try! I'm so excited to see what you do in terms of a stem, stefcho!

Get Firefox or Opera.

Great tut! This should be on the official list! :l:

Here's mine, I put inner petals in to fill the gaps:

wow! i love the colors you picked! That's awesome, sydney.

Thanks ClayOgre, i'll look into that.

That is indeed a great tutorial, something really of my interest.

ryvkah
I really appreciate your effort and the time you spent to write a detailed document for GT users.

Moved to Official Tutorials...

regards

thanx, ryvkah! :h:

You're welcome! Wait, i hosted the pix on the 'official hosting service' or whatever, and now they're all small!
what do i do?

...ok, i think i fixed it.

You tranfered too fast.

is good now.

Result:



(Click for bigger version).

this is really awesome. thanks for making it!

Congrats on getting it official! :l:

lol... thanks kyle,
you're welcome curly,
and great job insanity!

Variation of result (used a bit of bump-mapping and added several rows of petals).



This has given me some much needed inspiration for a new piece. Thank you. ^^

my pleasure! I love what you've done with it!

Hmmm... I have an idea. If you divide your canvas into fourths, the middle "two fourths" are what ends up on the front of the sphere.

So...you make the flower, and cut the outside two fourths and paste them onto a new layer. Map that layer to sphere. Map the middle two forths to sphere. So now you have a sort of "Front" of the flower and a "back" of the flower.

Make a new layer that is smaller than the original layer. Make a flower on that layer and map it to sphere, then put it between the "Front" and "Back" layers. You should have a flower with multiple rows of petals.

The idea is similar to the method used in the tutorial below, only with flower petals instead of a sphere within a sphere.

http://gug.sunsite.dk/tutorials/push_up2/

sounds cool! show me wht you get if you try it out!

Well, my idea of a "flower within a flower" doesn't work...cutting things in half would probably work as long as you are looking at it straight on..but if you rotate the sphere, it sort of overlaps the inside petals just a bit. Oh well..you still have a very unique idea. Excellent tutorial!!!

bummer that that didn't work out tho..

ok, i've been playing around with adding a swirl in the center, different petal sizes, layering, and spikes.
Tell me what you think: