disco ball

[leca07]

I tried several times to create a disco ball but the results were kinda ugly. I tried by
applying patchwork and spherize filters and lightning effects but still nothing.
Everything looked so artificial. So I wonder if there's a "manual" way of its creation, I
mean no filters. Thanks in advance.

 

[PetitPal]

You could use paths to create a circle. Then create horizontal arcs down the circle and vertical arcs going across the cricle. If you make two arcs per division (so for one arc do two lines) which are a few pixels apart then this would give you a nice seperation between the disco ball 'squares'. Make a selection out of this and fill the outer bit with black and the actual 'squares' with a grey radial gradient. To get it super-shiney, copy the layer and on the uppermost one select the 'color dodge' mode and reduce the opacity a bit.

If you don't want to use paths do the same thing with the marquee tool.

My top tip for using paths / marquees for something like this is use grid lines as much as possible and snap to them! (Make aligning everything a hell of a lot easier!)

Anyway chances are this is just a pile of nonsense so let me know if you have no idea what I'm talking about, etc, and I'll try and explain better!

Good luck!

=)

PetitPal.

 

[fjp476]

I made one and it turned out pretty well. Just make a small square(say 10x10 pixels) then fill it with a radial gradient with the gradient going from white in the center to dark gray. Then control/command+click on the layer with the square on it to make it a selection. Next, choose Edit>Define Pattern. Now on a new layer make a square selection a little bigger than the disco ball you want. Then use the fill tool with pattern instead of foreground. Make sure that the pattern you created is selected and then fill. Now choose Filter>Distort>Spherize(Set the amount to 100%) and click OK. Now make a round selection(holding shift to make a perfect circle)and choose Select>Inverse and then hit delete. Theres your disco ball. You can add a few 4-pointed-star shaped white highlights of different sizes to add realism and if you really want to get crazy adjust the curves to get a chrome effect(if you do the latter, I suggest working on a copy) I hope this helps. =) Cheers~Frank

 

[leca07]

Thanks Frank for the tip 'cause the result I got was amazing, especially the curves
thing.

 

[fjp476]

Glad to help. =)