Flaming Pear Flood Manual

What it does

How to Install

Controls

Submerging people

Hints

Versions

How to Purchase

Questions

Flood

What it does

Flood creates bodies of lying water in pictures. It provides control over waves, a radiating ripple, the perspective and color of the water, and the clarity of reflections. Although it's a 2-D effect, with just a little effort it can produce some convincing results with a 3-D look.

How to install

To use this software, you need a paint program which accepts standard Photoshop 3.0 plugins.

Just put the plug-in filter into the folder where your paint program expects to find it. If you have Photoshop, the folder is Photoshop:Plugins:Filters or Photoshop:Plug-ins. You must restart Photoshop before it will notice the new plug-in. It will appear in the menus as Filters->Flaming Pear->Flood.

Most other paint programs follow a similar scheme.

If you have Paint Shop Pro: you have to create a new folder, put the plug-in filter into it, and then tell PSP to look there. In PSP's menus, choose File-> Preferences->General Program Preferences (PSP versions 5 and 6) or File->Preferences->File Locations (PSP version 7). Next, click the Plug-in Filters tab. Use a "Browse" button to choose the folder. The plugin will appear in the menus as Image->Plug-in Filters->Flaming Pear->Flood.

Controls

When you invoke Flood, a dialog box will appear:

Quick start |  |  |

If you just want to make some waves quickly, click the dice button until you see an effect you like; then click OK.

To design your own water effects, you'll need to familiarize yourself with the controls, which are arranged into three groups:

> View

> Waves

> Ripple

...and a few other controls that affect the whole image.

1. View |  |  |

Flood draws a plane of water at the bottom of the picture, and the water reflects whatever's in the top of the picture. These controls determine your view of the plane of water that Flood draws.

Horizon places the horizon; 0 is at the top of the picture and 100 is at the bottom. In the preview, the horizon shows as a dotted green line. For the most credible results you should align Flood's horizon with the real horizon in the picture.

Offset sets the location of the line about which reflections occur. In the preview, the offset shows as a dotted pink line. Offsets greater than zero prevent the water from being drawn all the way out to the horizon. This is useful when you either want water only in the foreground, or when you want to have forground objects partly submerged and correctly reflected. Instructions on how to accomplish this effect appear later in this guide.

Perpsective sets the steepness of the perspective of the water's wavy surface. It's for matching the perspective in a wide- or narrow-angle lens.

Altitude moves the camera up and down. Used together with Perspective, you can produce a view of the waves that is compatible with your original image.

original picture

green horizon and pink offset lines

different perspective and altitude

2. Waves |  |  |

These controls change the appearance of the waves.

Waviness sets the height of the waves. Zero gives a perfectly calm surface.

Complexity ranges from smooth, rolling waves to harsh choppy seas.

Brilliance sets how bright the reflections are. Zero gives dark, coffee-like water. 42 is usually a realistic watery appearance. 100 gives the total shininess of liquid mercury.

Blur makes the reflections grow blurry in the foreground. Use this to discard distracting detail in the reflections, or turn the waves off and the blur up to produce a frosted-mirror effect.

The Color Button sets the color of the water itself, which shows through in the foreground. Black and midnight blue work best.

more waviness

low complexity

high complexity

high brilliance

calm water with high blur

color button

3. Ripple |  |  |

The water can have a circular ripple, as if a stone were dropped into it. Click in the preview anywhere below the dotted-green Horizon line to get the ripple. Click above the line to remove the ripple.

Size sets the ripple's size. The ripple will shrink in the distance. However, this setting is the neither strictly the size of ripple in the scene, nor the size of the ripple onscreen. It's an arbitrary measure that's meant to be easy to use rather than physically consistent.

Height sets how strong the ripple is.

Undulation sets how many wave cycles are in the ripple. High numbers give a more complex appearance.

a ripple

a ripple with more undulation

4. Other controls |  |  |

Dice This randomizes the settings. Click it as much as you want to see different effects.

Random seed Clicking changes only the random pattern of the waves, and leaves everything else the same.

Glue mode popup menu Lets you combine the water with the underlying image in various ways. Modes other than "normal" produce special effects.

Plus, % and minus buttons: If the selected image area is larger than the preview are, these buttons will let you zoom in and out. You can also reposition the preview by dragging it around; your cursor will turn into a hand.

Auto Preview When this box is checked, the preview automatically updates whenever you move any control. Turn it off if you want to save time.

Load preset Flood comes with some presets, which are files containing settings. To load one, click this button and browse for a preset file.

Save preset When you make an effect you like, click this button to save the settings in a file.

Undo backs up one step.

Three more buttons:

OK Applies the effect to your image.

Cancel Dismisses the filter, and leaves the image unchanged.

Register Allows you to type in a registration code.

dice

random seed

load preset (top)
and save preset

undo

How to submerge people A picture of someone standing in water has to be done in two steps: one for the background, and one for the person. Load a picture of someone standing on dry land into your paint program. Duplicate the image so that the same image appears on two layers. |  | original picture |

In the bottom layer, use the cloning brush to remove the person from the scene. The part of the person that will be underwater can be ignored. Hint: if you already have two similar pictures, one with and one without the person, you can use these instead and save a step. |  | background without person |

In the top layer, erase everything to transparent except the person. This only needs to be done carefully for the portion of the person that will be above the water. |  | top layer with person |

Go back to the bottom layer and Select All. Invoke Flood, play with the controls until you like the effect, and click OK. |  | background with waves |

Go to the top layer and Select All. Invoke Flood; it will still be set to the same effect. Adjust the Offset control so that the person is submerged to a pleasing depth. Don't change the other controls. Click OK. |  | person with waves |

Make both layers visible and you should have a person standing in water. If you try to make this image in one step, the person will appear to loom gigantically from the horizon. |  | final image giantess |

Hints

The prettiest results come from scenes with a wide range of brightnesses in the sky, as well as large regions of detail like clouds, trees, and buildings.

Flood doesn't know what 3D scene is depicted in your 2D image, so it just assumes that the scene is a vertical billboard rising from the Offset line. This limitation is least troublesome if you follow these guidelines:

- use pictures that have objects only in the distance;
- the picture should be one taken along a nearly horizontal line of sight;
- when you add water, view it from a grazing angle.

Version History Version 1.0 October 2000 The first public release. |  |  |

How to Purchase

You can place an order online here. A secure server for transactions is available.

Questions

Answers to common technical questions appear on the support page, and free upgrades appear periodically on the download page.

Trouble with your order? Orders are handled by Kagi; please contact them at admin@kagi.com .

For bug reports and technical questions about the software, please write to support@flamingpear.com .