PDN Fanatics

First tutorial in a while, hope it comes out well

Glass Pane

What we'll be making:


Plugins:

• Alpha Mask 2.0
• Align Object (optional)

Create a new canvas, roughly 500x500.

Fill the background layer with #A5A5A5.

Add a new layer, name it BigMask.

Draw a solid black rounded rectangle in the size you want your glass peice to be. You may want to align it to the center.


Duplicate the BigMask layer twice, move one down 1px and right 1px, then move the other up 1px and left 1px. Select one of them, select all (Ctrl+A), copy (Ctrl+C), select the other duplicate layer, and apply alpha mask with the settings shown:


Rename the layer you applied the Alpha Mask to to LittleMask, and delete the other duplicate BigMask layer. You should now have three layers: Background, which is solid grey; BigMask, which is a black rounded rectangle; and LittleMask, which is a rounded rectangle 1px smaller than BigMask.

Now, uncheck both mask layers, and create a new layer above Background, and name it Glass. Fill the layer with black with the alpha set to 47. Select the BigMask layer, select all (Ctrl+A), copy (Ctrl+C), then select the Glass layer again, and apply Alpha Mask with these settings:


Add a layer above Glass and name it Ring. Fill it with white with the alpha set to 90. Apply the same Alpha Mask effect to the Ring layer (Ctrl+F), then select and copy the LittleMask layer and apply these AlphaMask settings to the Ring layer:


Now add another layer above Ring and name it RingHighlights. Duplicate this three times so we have four layers named Ring Highlights. Set your primary color to white and your secondary to fully transparent. Create a linear reflected gradient on each layer in the positions and angles shown. Note: keep them off the corners if you can.


Now we're going to cut away the areas we don't need so you can see where they're going to go specifically. You don't have to do this, it's just so you know where they are.


Next, reduce each of them to a single pixel strip on top of the white ring we have already. Merge the RingHighlight layers together.


We're almost done! Create a new layer above LittleMask, and name it ReflectionMask. Using the Line tool, draw a curve from the bottom-left corner to the top-right corner, like so:


Use the paint tool to fill in the area to the top-left of the line, like this:


Select and copy the LittleMask layer again and apply these Alpha Mask settings to the ReflectionMask layer:


Uncheck the ReflectionMask layer, and add a new layer above RingHighlights named Reflection. Set your secondary color to transparent and your primary color to white with an alpha of 120. Draw a linear gradient from the top-right of the glass to about the middle as shown. Make sure the gradient extends to at least the top-right and bottom-left corners:


Select and copy the ReflectionMask layer, and apply these Alpha Mask settings to the Reflection layer:


You're done! Feel free to tweak the opacity of the Ring layer, and you can also slide the RingHighlights around to get them just right.

Here's my final product:



How'd you do? Post your results!

Have a nice day,
~Sidneys1

nice tutorial. The out come is nice. I'll give it a go when i get some spare time

Thank you! One of my goals this year is to get better at glass and this will definitely help. Will try after I finish Garath.

Woo-hoo! I did it! I did it! *starts doing the happy dance*

My result:

Great job bryan! Anyone else tried it?

Have a nice day,
~Sidneys1

I`ve tried it but you don`t want to see the result!
I`ll have another go sometime , don`t worry.

Bryan1998 wrote:Woo-hoo! I did it! I did it! *starts doing the happy dance*

My result:

Also, just a little hint, because it looks like you did this differently, if you want to draw a biezer curve with PDN, draw a line, and then in stead of dragging the nodes normally to make a curve, grab 'em with the right mouse button and drag. This makes it a biezer curve instead of a four-point curve. You can get much smoother results this way.

Happy PDNing,
Have a nice day,
~Sidneys1

Thanks for that little PDN tip Sidney. I never knew that!

Sorry it`s taken so long but I got there in the end.
Here is mine. As well as following the tut I added a step of my own. Once the pane was finished I merged all the layers together apart from the background. I then used the AA Assistant plug in to refine the opacity, reflection and edges. It is superb for this job and produces great results. You just have to play with the settings until you get a result you like. Of course you could also duplicate the glass and used the trail plug in to add a bit of thickness as well but I never bothered here.
Anyway here it is -

Wow! Nice outcome! Must do this one too.