Glossy logo tutorial?

[socaldrum]

Is there any chance that rocknfire or truthserum could teach me how to make some of those great glossy logos that they make so well? I'm making a new league for myself and I want to make the logos in the same glossy style, but I'm a bit clueless. I have Photoshop and I know how to use it fairly well, but that's it. Thanks guys.

[cnield]

I'd love to see a how-to or a template released for this as well.

[Cardinal Rule]

I don't have Photoshop - I've done most of my stuff in Inkscape and Gimp lately - but I'm pretty sure the best way to get the "glossy" look is to add one or more layer on top of the logo that are basically a blurred white shape with a fairly high degree of opacity. This represents the "reflection" of the light source. The shape depends on the kind of light source you want. I know that's a pretty basic explanation for something that is somewhat complicated, but if you are familiar with Photoshop you may understand what I'm talking about.

I haven't done it in awhile, and my attempts were nowhere near as nice as truthserum and rocknfire make, but with some effort you may be able to come up with something you like.

[Sbufkle]

Provided your graphics editor allows you to 'overlay' an image, all you need is a master 'gloss' image you put as a top layer and ajust.

I have the luxury of having Photoshop (dont use it much) Paintshop and my favorite is Fireworks. what I can do is make a 150 x 150 overlay in different formats to see if it works with whatever other editor you have that it might be applicable to.

What this woudl be though, is just a gloss effect treating the entire logo to have a 'flat' effect, like what you see attached.

When I get a couple of minutes this weekend, Ill try to crank a few templates out that hopefully can help those without any of the editors I mentioned.

The reality is most grpahics editors have multiple ways of achieving a glossy effect!

GRAPHIC BREAKDOWN

BEFORE: Basic Graphic Before
AFTER: What Id like to offer a generic overlay gloss
ADVANCED: Just with a 5 second ajustment in Fireworks I actually BEVELLED the main windmill and the circular background for a different glossy effect. Nothign great, but shows you that it doesnt take rocket science.

[Cardinal Rule]

This is a league logo I did entirely with GIMP today - I think the key is there are many different ways to accomplish a glossy effect if you have a graphics program that lets you work with layers.

[Dr. P.R. Park III]

How did you get that glossy look with GIMP? Could you explain what you did?

[The Wolf]

Damn you guys are good. Wish I could do that.

[Cardinal Rule]

For the benefit of anyone reading this thread, the keys to what I did in GIMP is that everything is its own layer. Makes it very easy to change something later, and you can create a template to start from each time if you want. Basically, I have several layers with progressively smaller circles of different colors, topped with the art and text. Then a small, very opaque white circle in the upper left that serves as the reflection (to get that glossy look) and then top the entire logo with a very opaque light-colored full-size circle to soften everything. I also added some drop-shadows to give it more depth.

The great thing about the GIMP is that you can find lots of tutorials and instructions on the web with a bit of searching - often even multiple ways to accomplish your goals.

Here's another league logo I did with a different look.

[Sbufkle]

Geez, I never at all got around to trying to do a universal overlay.. but the reality is since I dotn use Gimp, Im not sure of its features.

Is there anyone who uses Gimp AND say Photoshop, Paintshop or Fireworks? If there is and they know a common overlay technique for Gimp AND on of the big three. I can then make one.

Since soemone mentioned tutorials, I made a few for modding other games (Graphics) I did them sepcifically for Paintshop... Id love to make a few simple ones for beginners for OOTP, but it olooks like Gimp is the main editor, so not sure if people would use it.

[Greatgrampa]

Originally Posted by Sbufkle

Geez, I never at all got around to trying to do a universal overlay.. but the reality is since I dotn use Gimp, Im not sure of its features.

Is there anyone who uses Gimp AND say Photoshop, Paintshop or Fireworks? If there is and they know a common overlay technique for Gimp AND on of the big three. I can then make one.

Since soemone mentioned tutorials, I made a few for modding other games (Graphics) I did them sepcifically for Paintshop... Id love to make a few simple ones for beginners for OOTP, but it olooks like Gimp is the main editor, so not sure if people would use it.

The reason most people here are using GIMP or Paint.net is because they are free and because they can read photoshop files and use layers. Unfortunately, for me, because this is my program of choice for graphics, Paint Shop Pro does not read photoshop and if you get an addon to it that does read photoshop it still won't bring in layers. At least none that I have found so far. I have photoshop CS3 as well but I am totally lost in that program, so basically I use a finished uniform and then add layers to it like the gentleman who is using GIMP, above. It can still accomplish the same thing except it takes a while longer doing it my way with Paintshop pro. But, I know the program so well that I can do it fairly quickly. It is just a matter of what program you enjoy using and how well you get to know its inner workings. I will never understand layers and masks in Photoshop. I have tried and failed miserably and just went back to PSP....

Anyway, good luck with your attempts. Just find a program that you can get comfortable with and use it. Gimp is a very nice program and not hard to learn, but since I already have the program I like to use, I am not going to sit down and learn a new one now...counter-productive.

[Sbufkle]

Originally Posted by Greatgrampa

Anyway, good luck with your attempts. Just find a program that you can get comfortable with and use it. Gimp is a very nice program and not hard to learn, but since I already have the program I like to use, I am not going to sit down and learn a new one now...counter-productive.

I use the PSP and Fireworks professionally for games graphics making, I actually find firworks the easist to use. Been tinkering with it for about 6 years..

[Razorblade]

I tried to copy truths style myself a while back - came up with this on paint.net.

Took me a while but I think it's a close copy; kinda like a Dolce & Banana knock off

[cnield]

Originally Posted by Razorblade

I tried to copy truths style myself a while back - came up with this on paint.net.

Took me a while but I think it's a close copy; kinda like a Dolce & Banana knock off

Very nice. Would you be willing to share it with the greater mod community?

[Sbufkle]

Originally Posted by Razorblade

I tried to copy truths style myself a while back - came up with this on paint.net.

Took me a while but I think it's a close copy; kinda like a Dolce & Banana knock off

I like this oen the best of all glossy ones I have seen..

[Razorblade]

Originally Posted by cnield

Very nice. Would you be willing to share it with the greater mod community?

I will but only if it's ok with Truth, don't wanna step on any toes since it's not really my design.

[cnield]

Ok, so I just made my first attempt at knocking off rockinfire's template. I'd love to get some advice/feedback from you guys if possible.

[Cooleyvol]

If you do a search for FM logos and have PSP or Fireworks, there are some GREAT glossy templates out there.

[truthserum]

Originally Posted by cnield

Ok, so I just made my first attempt at knocking off rockinfire's template.

rock was just using my template that I sent him.

How is it the thread starter has only 1 post and has never posted again? In particular to his own thread....

knuckler asked me awhile back, to come up with a tutorial on how I made it, but I'm really not that skilled. I played around with this template for a good 5 months before I got the logo to look like a shiny button, which is what I was going for.

I saw my shiny logos on my buddy's laptop, once, and they looked like crap and have forever been turned off by them, since. They looked good on my computer...but it just killed it to see them look that bad on his comp. Couple that with WAY overusing it, I'm kinda done with this template. Luckily, I didn't delete the PSD of it, so now someone can, at least, download it and check out some of the layers on how it was accomplished.

A few things to explain about it....

Layer 7 and Layer 6 are purposely white on the template so that you can easily see them. They fix a couple of 'smudges'. Just click 'Blending Options' and then click 'Color Overlay' and then click close to the color to blend them in. Like I said, they are purposely white in the template, so that you can easily see where they are located. Layer 6 is real small and located on the top left of the logo. This brought the 'shiny' white part to the yellow edge. Layer 7...I have no idea how it came to be.....like I said, I messed with this thing a good 5 months before I got it how I liked it.

The 'gloss' layer is a couple of layers combined and if I had kept them separate, it would of been easy to see how that was accomplished. That is not the case and that knowledge it lost. Like I said, I fiddled a long time with it.

The 'gloss copy' layer is simply an extra shiny corner with the extra shade of the 'gloss' layer. Sometimes it appears their is not enough of that shine on a logo and I would add this extra 'gloss' to make it shine a little better.

The trick that made it looked rounded and like a button is in Layer 1, coupled with the shade in the 'gloss' layer. This color yellow is a real good color to shade and show contrast to get the rounded look. Click on 'Blending Options' to see what I had used to accomplish that. That's about it, I wish I explain it a little better.

You can download the template here....



Here is a link to my photobucket to see how the mlb and milb logos turned out using this shiny logo template, for those that may have never seen them. This was for the 2007 season and updated 2008 logos have not been included.

truthserum607/07 MLB logo set
truthserum607/07MiLB logo set



You can download the shiny mlb and milb logo set here....

[cnield]

Originally Posted by truthserum

rock was just using my template that I sent him.

How is it the thread starter has only 1 post and has never posted again? In particular to his own thread....

knuckler asked me awhile back, to come up with a tutorial on how I made it, but I'm really not that skilled. I played around with this template for a good 5 months before I got the logo to look like a shiny button, which is what I was going for.

I saw my shiny logos on my buddy's laptop, once, and they looked like crap and have forever been turned off by them, since. They looked good on my computer...but it just killed it to see them look that bad on his comp. Couple that with WAY overusing it, I'm kinda done with this template. Luckily, I didn't delete the PSD of it, so now someone can, at least, download it and check out some of the layers on how it was accomplished.

A few things to explain about it....

Layer 7 and Layer 6 are purposely white on the template so that you can easily see them. They fix a couple of 'smudges'. Just click 'Blending Options' and then click 'Color Overlay' and then click close to the color to blend them in. Like I said, they are purposely white in the template, so that you can easily see where they are located. Layer 6 is real small and located on the top left of the logo. This brought the 'shiny' white part to the yellow edge. Layer 7...I have no idea how it came to be.....like I said, I messed with this thing a good 5 months before I got it how I liked it.

The 'gloss' layer is a couple of layers combined and if I had kept them separate, it would of been easy to see how that was accomplished. That is not the case and that knowledge it lost. Like I said, I fiddled a long time with it.

The 'gloss copy' layer is simply an extra shiny corner with the extra shade of the 'gloss' layer. Sometimes it appears their is not enough of that shine on a logo and I would add this extra 'gloss' to make it shine a little better.

The trick that made it looked rounded and like a button is in Layer 1, coupled with the shade in the 'gloss' layer. This color yellow is a real good color to shade and show contrast to get the rounded look. Click on 'Blending Options' to see what I had used to accomplish that. That's about it, I wish I explain it a little better.

You can download the template here....



Here is a link to my photobucket to see how the mlb and milb logos turned out using this shiny logo template, for those that may have never seen them. This was for the 2007 season and updated 2008 logos have not been included.

truthserum607/07 MLB logo set
truthserum607/07MiLB logo set



You can download the shiny mlb and milb logo set here....

Wow, truthserum, thanks for stopping by! Since the glossy logo template has become the defacto standard for fictional team logos, I'm glad you're releasing how to make them. I look forward to seeing what other logo types you come up with. Thanks for helping a new logo-maker.

[Razorblade]

Thanks truth! I can now convert all my Australian logos to match your MLB ones without using my paint.net knock-off template

Heh - I was close!