Alpha Channels and Photoshop

Alpha Channel and Offset Filter
For my alpha channel texture I wanted to use a pattern that I could use by itself (with the background transparent) 

I used this simple flower pattern as my image

Then I created a new alpha channel and the background white, with the flowers remaining black. Of course, this was wrong (as I found out after I uploaded the texture to Second Life). I should have coloured the flowers white and the background left black because white is fully opaque and black is transparent. 

I offset the image because I was using it as a texture, but the overlapping was too obvious so I re adjusted the image and it became less obvious. Somehow the alpha channel mistake was fixed on second life to look like...

This!

Rendering Filter
I wanted use this rendering filter material for a table and some shelves to display the three journals and so I chose a bamboo fence image.

I only used a section of the original image, and took away the background to make it easier to work with.

I wanted it to look like the lighting in the room was shining down, so I used 'spotlight' and made the focus as wide as possible.

And the end result! I wanted to go a step further than this though (before uploading to second life) so I  offset the image vertically, and used an alpha channel to make the white gaps in between the bamboo completely transparent (did it right this time).   

I created a coffee table and bookshelves with this texture, and the transparency between the bamboo shoots gave me the look I wanted.

Lecture Four 

• Animation and aeronautics are two industries that have given us digital tools.
• Photography enables us to capture an image with a certain perspective - it freezes the image into a simple perspective idea.
• The computer aided Wes Jones because through it he was able to three-dimensionally twist his building the way he wanted.
• Preston Scott Cohen describes a blob as 'an exact yet vigorous form' made of many curves. "Very intricate and out of the norm."
• Continuous and Sinuous forms support fluidity and curves.
• Some new ideas/ non-traditional things the computer has enabled is to edit or develop our work, nothing is fixed or final.
• Mass customisation is creating individual and personalised products.