Edit: I just re-read your first post and realised I thought you we're trying to create a portal rather than a viewing portal. However, I hope the concepts below still help. You'll probably not need the middle layer and likely will need to tone down the effects layer and emissions. Sorry for the misreading.
Hi
kenring,
I saw this post yesterday and this is something I've never done before. I had some free time and needed a break from my usual stuff so decided to give it a shot so see if I could learn anything.
Attempt 1:
Attempt 2:
Attempt 3 (Done this morning, used the image you had above as inspiration):
Concept used:
I used a three plane concept for these:
1. The Base Image (Rear)
2. The Image Overlay (Middle)
3. The Effects (Front)
All we're standard primitive square planes 2x2 metres (although I did adjust the scale later)
1. The Base Image:
This is the contents of the portal. I setup the scene and took a square render of the image:
I tried to ensure the main focus was in the centre of the image as I'll be making the edges transparent later. I also adjusted the camera so it more wide-angled. I could've included some depth of field here, however, I forgot when rendering and it looked alright so left it. In addition, as I knew I wanted the portal blue, I included a square primitive light behind the camera to give a blue glow.
Next, in Photoshop, I created a new square image (I used 960x960) and created a basic circle filling the square with a radial fill, from white to black on a black background:
This will be used as the transparency map for the base image.
Next, in Daz, I created a primitive plane, 2x2 metres and moved and rotated so it was upright. Then, I added the First Image as the Base Colour Image in the Surfaces Tab and the Second Image as the Cut-Out Opacity Image in the Geometry section. Next, I added 50 kcd/m2 emission to the image and reduced the Glossy Layered Weight to 0. This was done to prevent any reflections on the image and lighten it up (as most portals tend to emit light):
I did a few tweaks to the opacity by changing the gradient of the second image sphere and this is how you would adjust the transparency of the image (keeping Cut Out Opacity to 1 in Daz)
2. The Overlay
I wanted the overlay to be quite watery, so I created a new plane the same size as the base image and copied it's transformations. Next, I found a bright Water texture that I had and applied to the surface and then added the same cut-out transparency image used in the base image:
Next, I positioned this just in front of the Base Image, adjusting the scale to ensure everything matched:
3. The Effects
For the effects, I created another square primitive, the same size as previously, but this time with more divisions (I went with 200 for the 2x2m square). Now comes the fun part.
I created a new image in photoshop, 960x960, black background, and two spheres, one white and one black. The white one was slightly bigger than the black and the black was over the top of the white one to create a ring. Make sure to leave enough space around the sphere
(note, I forgot to take a shot of this, so redid it hence why the size is different from below)
I then used the smudge tool with a small size to smudge the black sphere into the white and the white into the background. I then used a small brush to add sparkles around the circle, with more concentrated close to the ring:
Once I had this, I applied this as the Base Colour surface in Daz and changed to blue. I also added this as the cut out opacity.
Next, under Emission, I added the same sphere image used for the Base and Overlay and set the colour of the emission to blue. I used 3000 kcd/m2 as the strength.
Next, I took the original sphere and inverted the shading, so the background was white and centre was black:
This will be used to make the plane 3D.
Under Surfaces > Geometry, I added this image as the Displacement Strength and set it to 1. I then set the Maximum Displacement to 200.
Note, as the image is now displaced, the image can appear quite away from where the plane actually is.
Finalizing:
Next, was to position it around the Portal. You will need to scale this, as the Circles in the cut out maps are smaller than the other ones used.
Next is to place in you environment, adjusting the size and brightness of each plane as you see fit:
A few notes:
- I used a white image for the effects, you can use a coloured one to adjust the colour of the effects and replace the sphere used for the emission. I did this in my second render for the flames.
- When using the displacement for the effects, it often displaced the wrong way. You can either rotate your plane, or adjust the angle of displacement
- If the angle of the camera to the portal is too extreme, the perspective may seem off. Here, you may need to adjust the base image by stretching one side to fix the perspective.
- It can take a bit of time to get the hang of the approach, especially if you're not familiar with Photoshop (or other photo editing software). However, I would only classify myself as a beginner with it and doing this helped me learn a bit more about the program.
I hope this helps and I'm sure there are other ways of doing it. I'm sure other people might do things differently. If you have any questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer but, I would still say I'm still learning Daz but will still try and answer.
