50 Shades of Shaders.

Well... really, its more like 3 shaders. As start to learn shaders this year, I wound up looking at the different types of shaders that we can apply and the different effects we can potentially get out of them. The hard part of all that is the coding (at least for me, anyway) - however, the effects that I wish to achieve can still be looked at in Photoshop by applying filters and playing with values of the curves, levels, hue/saturation, etc. This is exactly what I did - below are "HD" and experimental filters that I tried on top of some screenshots of our current game. On the left of each image is the original; the right contains the screenshot with the filter applied.

The above filter gives a sort of comic-book vibe while still keeping the theme of the colours. This was achieved by applying a halftone pattern filter onto a duplicate layer and then adjusting the curves and brightness to satisfy the look. I then duplicated the layer again and changed the layer styles to lighter colour and linear light respectively.

Above is a sort of "HD" version of the game - for this one, I started by adjusting the levels and hue/saturation. While it did look nicer, it felt too bland. I added a Clouds layer to create some fog then made a zone where the girl can see in-game by applying a layer mask and removing the fog near her.

This final filter is what I call the "dream filter." This one was made by maxing out vibrance and changing curves around slightly. In doing so, I was able to bring out the extremely subtle colours that were hiding in the stones and creating an interesting pattern on the wall. I then duplicated the original picture and brought it to the top while changing its layer style to Colour Burn. This created the black outline that can be seen on the floor and top of the walls.

Now that the easy part is out of the way, the only thing left to do is sob to the looming horns of destruction that will be shaders. Mayhaps I will be prepared for the battle.