Text Overlay Texture

Text Texture Mask

This tutorial was written in PSP 9.

First off I would like to explain how your texture works and how to make one using dingbat fonts.

Your texture works like a mask with the black acting as the transparent area and white as the visible area.

OK lets get started!!

Open a new image about 300 x 300

Flood Fill with black

Click on your text tool and select the dingbat font that you would like to use, make sure that your colour is white.

A good source of Dingbat fonts can be found at

http://www.houseoflime.com/

http://www.fontspace.com/category/dingbats?p=15

and of course there is always

http://www.dafont.com/

I used ap_justhearts font

Place your ding in various places in your image.

move some underneath and fade slightly by lowering the transparency and you should end up with something like the image below.

Once you have made your texture, goto Effects/Image Effects/Seamless tiling and hit it with the default setting or you can play until you feel happy with it.

The next step is to Export your new texture to your texture folder. File/Export/jpeg and save it to the Jasc PSP Texture folder.

You can also use various mask that you come across.

I found that a couple of Becky's masks worked quite well

http://beckyscreations.aimoo.com/Masks-1-16715

although she doesn't seem to have the ones that I used on her new site.

Some of Vix_masks also worked very well. It is just a matter of playing.

http://www.freewebs.com/vixpsp/masks.htm

If you look in your Graphics folder in your Patterns that came with your PSP you will find some awesome black and white tiles to use as well!!

Texture Flash

Now we get to the part were we will be animating the texture using the Material Palette.

OK lets start by opening a new image 500x500, you can crop it down to size once you have added all your elements to the tag.

Click on your text tool and using a fat font; I used Arbuckle.ttf type out your name at 72 (up to you) with a line width of 3-5 whichever looks nicest to you.

Place your name were you would like it, you could also place your elements in now, that way you can choose your colour scheme.

Once you have everything in place, highlight your vector name and duplicate it.

Click on your text tool and click on your name, this will open the text box, this is were it gets interesting...........:-)

Click on the Background and Fill square in the Material Palette, when the Material properties box opens put a tick in the Texture box and click on the texture box and choose your texture.

You will probably have to Scale your texture down to around 50 depending how big your texture image is.

Click on your Gradient tab and choose a gradient to use as your flash animation. I choose Rainbow. The style I used was Linear.

On your first layer make sure your gradient angle and Repeat are all on 0

Invert should not have a tick in it on this layer. Click OK.

Duplicate this layer and click on your 2nd name layer. This time put a tick in the Invert box, click OK.

Duplicate this layer and click on your 3rd name to open the Material Palette.

This time I angled the Gradient angle to 337 I played with it for awhile and this is what looked the best. Entirely up to you.

You should now have 4 layers, the bottom layer should have solid colours and the next 3 your texture overlay.

Click on your bottom layer that has the solid colour name and give it a shadow.

Animating in AS

Goto your layers and put a red x in your top 2 layers.

Now goto Edit/Copy Merged (Ctrl+Shift+C)

Open your AS then Edit/Paste as a new animation (Ctrl+V)

Back to PSP9 put a red x in your bottom name layer and uncheck your middle layer

Now goto Edit/Copy Merged (Ctrl+Shift+C)

Back to AS Edit/Paste/After current Frame (Shift+Ctrl+L)

Back to PSP9 put a red x in your middle name layer and uncheck your top layer .

Now goto Edit/Copy Merged (Ctrl+Shift+C)

Back to AS Edit/Paste/After current Frame (Shift+Ctrl+L)

Now right click on your animation and click on View Animation.

At this stage you may want to alter the speed of the animation.

Select all Frames Ctrl+A, right click on your storyboard, then Frame Properties.

I gave mine a speed of 15, however it is up to you and what you think looks good.

Examples

This example below was made using graduating colour of one colour.

There are a lot of possibilities with this effect not only with your name but also with a background.

If you space your dingbat a bit further apart you can turn it into a flying animation if you change the Scale of your texture overlay.

You can also turn it into a Floatie of sorts by rotating the texture angle. This will only work on an image that is equal on all sides, like stars or snowflakes etc.

I have run out of time to play and explore it more so I hope you all have fun with this effect.

I am looking forward to seeing your work on the General Graphics board!!

If you have any problem with my instructions please feel free to ask for help.