Hi everyone,
I was making snowmen for some last minute Gift Cards, when I ran into a small problem.
The snowmen look O.K. but I cant figure out how to get that subtle, grainy, sparkly texture that would make my little snowmen look more like they're made of snow. The built in Inkscape ABC >noise fill filter just doesn't look right. Is there a way I can add Random Value, or HSV noise? Is there some other way I could get the same type of effect?

Hi Inkspots,
I'm not familiar with "HSV noise", so I can't answer that part. And you may already know this, but I was going to say that you can edit filters, and even create your own. Filters menu > Filter Editor. I have to say that I've found it hard to create filters from scratch. But I've had some luck making simple adjustments to existing ones.

Anyway, you can adjust the noise (and color) and possibly get something usable. Especially I'm thinking you could do something with the Turbulence primitive. And if you haven't already, there's an amazing variety of effects in the filters that ship with Inkscape, that you could play with. Also, at OCL, look up ivan louette. He has uploaded many more there. (Let me know if you need links.)

Also, I would just say that this kind of sparkly effect is something I've not had much luck with using Inkscape. Not that it can't be done, but just would take skill and patience. Aside from the filter approach, I think you might have some luck with tiled clones. But that would be very resource intensive (need fast computer with lots of memory) probably.

If you do end up with a nice snow filter, please feel free to share

Thanks brynn,
I've had a lot of trouble trying to use the filter editor ( the colour change function doesn't seem to work in the filter editor on my Linux installation of inkscape) and I find it terribly confusing. I'll check Ivan's uploads on OCL first, hope he has something. If he doesn't have anything that helps I'll go back to trying to edit the noise fill filter. Your suggestion about adjusting turbulence may help me solve my problem. About HSV noise: Thats just a random noise effect that alters the noise hue, value, or saturation. Think of the HSV noise filter in the Gimp and you'll know what I mean. I was hoping Inkscape might have something similar. I think random noise, with a slight shift in Value would give me exactly the effect I want. I'm willing to try anything at this point, I really need to get these printed up so I can finish my gift wrapping, but I hate to print before I have a final image I'm happy with. I'll let you know how it works out, and IF I should come up with a custom filter for snow, of course I'll share it. These are very small images though, and that will make a difference.
I'm off to OCL

@Inkspots

maybe these photos could be of some help...



then I gave it a try with filters/image effects, transparent/dots transparency and here it is...

filter is applied in default size of dots, so if you apply it on smaller shape and then rescale it... dots would follow (shadings on this one^)
I made this with 3 shapes - top one is scaled, middle one as is and at the bottom solid colored shape. Few tweaks with shadings.. voilà! ,)

Maestral Thanks so much for the time and thought you put into your reply. Unfortunately I didn't see it until after I'd finished my gift cards and got my last minute gift wrapping done. I never came up with a snowy texture I liked for the snowmen, but time was running out and I had to settle for what I could do at the time.
I have tried your technique with the transparent dots filter, and I think that may be close to what I eventually came up with. (I was trying out a lot of different filters and settings in a hurry, so I'm not sure how my final effect was achieved.)Your example looks like almost exactly what I was going for. I think maybe a filter made from one of your snow images will look even better, so I'll try that out. I'll have to read-up on creating, and saving new filters for later use first, and the filter editor scares me, but having a good snow filter would make all that effort worthwhile. I don't doubt I'll be needing this again many times when doing winter scenes.

brynn
I searched OCL, beginning with Ivan's pages, but no one had posted a snow filter or anything that looked like it would work.
Sorry I haven't come up with one myself. There is a gel filter there that might be good for making glossy frosting, but no snow.
I'll start looking up resources for Learning the filter editor, and recheck the tutorials and my ebook, just as soon as I leave here.

Wow Maestral, that's a really good effort! I think if you could add some specular light, for the sparkley effect, you'd have a very convincing snow texture.

Here`s a little update... since it looks like we`ll have a New Year`s Eve without the snow, I`ve decided to make some ,)

At first, I just added new whiten shape...


but it does not look so snowy as this one might...


Both are done with the same Dots transparency effect, just with different interventions.
This time I used on basic shape.. which I think makes the whole thing more convincing.
Hope you like it and would have some fun with it!
snowball.svg
snowball1.svg

Maestral, The snow texture in your snowballs does look a bit big, but the effect is wonderful.
I think all the first one needs is a little specular lighting, or tiny sparkles and it will look like firmly packed snow.
I took the snowballs apart to see if I could figure out what you did. Sadly, I don't know Inkscape well enough to figure it out.
Can you tell us in more detail how you achieved this effect?

Thank you for posting these, I am having fun with them.

This lady colored my whole day... and not much of snow could remain while she was there ,)) but I`ll be back tomorrow.

Here it is....


Just when I had to reproduce the whole process, I figured that dots density varies and (as described above) I thought it has something to do with zoom, but after few more tryouts it appears that duplicated objects should be unlinked from original shape. Otherwise, dots density will remain the same (linked). Since I duplicated modified ellipse shape, while it was still linked to the original, dots were not in desired fashion. So, create the shape (in case of duplicating / unlink it from original) - scale it down - apply dots effect - scale up and that should be it. Amount of scaling would determine dots density.

Hope this would eliminate possible troubles in further creations of snowy textures.... and, now... shall we go out for some snowball fights?!


p.s.
It appears that I have not saved previous snowball, with pink background, so couldn`t make changes on it... but, to be honest, at the moment I don`t have an clear idea how to make just those sparkling dots.

p.p.s.
Almost forgot... wishing you a Happy New Year!

For sparkley dots, I was thinking specular lighting, like from a custom filter. I've only had limited success with filters, and none with the specular lighting primitive.

Now I wonder brynn, have you worked in movie industry or it`s just your natural talent for teasers?

Maestral wrote:Now I wonder brynn, have you worked in movie industry or it`s just your natural talent for teasers?

I'm not sure what you mean?

The way I understood your previous post, about specular lightning and custom effects, was like inviting me to make some additional effort in finding the way to produce those sparkles on the snowball. My previous comment was just an reflection of the acceptance. I tried to make a joke but I hope if my comment was not phrased or formulated properly, no deeper misunderstanding was achieved.

Aaah!
My comments were brief because I thought you probably understood filters much better than me. And I might have avoided confusion by actually looking at the SVG files you provided. I don't know how I missed them the first time. Maybe I will learn more from them, and try specular lighting again ("bump map" is my stumbling block, whenever I've studied in the past)

The holidays are over at last ( it makes me a little sad, but at least now I will have time to sleep once in a while)
Maestral, thanks so much for taking the time to illustrate what you did to achieve your snow texture.
I still need to go back to the manuals and guides and study more about filters and how to work with them, but there are several helpful tips in your explanations.
brynn, is there a control that might help us fake specular lighting in the filter editor? If we could just change the colour on one layer of tiny dots to bright, opaque white, and raise them to the top shouldn’t that do it? Of course the size, density, and whiteness of the dots would have to be changed for differing areas of shadow.

I intend to go on studying, since I have a lot to learn and Filters, and the Filter editor in particular don't make sense to me yet.
p.s. ( about Maestral's invitation to a snowball fight) hahhah, I'm not ready for a snowball fight...my snowballs still look more like stone, and that would really hurt if it hit you. Just give me time to build a fort, and set some traps...I mean, make snowy snowballs, and then we can try it.

I don't know Inkspots. I was actually going to put off the specular lighting thing for a while, due to my past lack of success. But I will save Maestral's file and try again. I think the dots thing that he was talking about might actually be the bump map thing that I was confused about before. But give me some time, and I'll report what I find

Edit
Ok, no, the Dots transparency is an existing filter. It's made using 3 Color Matrix primitives, which I have not yet learned how to manipulate so that I can use custom colors. And it appears not to be the bump map thing either. (For the record, I've only read about bump maps in my research on specular lighting. I haven't actually found a bump map in Inkscape.)

So I don't know how to change the color of the dots. There is plenty of info on the internet about color matrices as well, but I haven't "cracked the code" yet. I think one must need a knowledge of higher math.

I think if you just had a lot of patience, and attacked the Dots transparency with trial and error (as perhaps Maestral did?) you might eventually hit the right combination.

Edit #2
Cheers for trial and error Inkspots, if you select one of the Color Matrix primitives, then look down below, there's a dropdown menu with 4 options. If you choose the Hue Rotate option, that might be what you're looking for. You can't actually choose a color. But the slider rotates through....well I'm not sure what colors it rotates through -- perhaps hues of whatever the other color matrices' color provides. The only reason I found it, is because one of the Color Matrix primitives uses Luminance to Alpha option, which does not have that 5 x 4 grid of numbers (the color matrix). I never noticed that there were other options besides Matrix. Or you might find that any of the other 2 options (besides the actual matrix) will offer a good color choice. I've also noticed that if you hold the mouse over the dropdown menu, a tool tip appears. Now I'm anxious to look at specular lighting primitive tool tip

Edit #3
More interesting trial and error results!
I couldn't actually see any dots until I changed the zoom to anything EXCEPT 100%, AND gave the object some color. Once you do that Inkspots, I suspect you could just overlay another Dots transparency filter, maybe using a gradient for depth, and achieve the sparkley effect. And a color gradient would somewhat change the color. The dots are white, and I still don't know how to change that, except maybe with the other Color Matrix primitive options. Although I still think specular lighting would do a better job. (At first I thought the dots were just really tiny, and assumed that's why Maestral had zoomed it. But once I zoomed it, they were so big, I wondered why I didn't see them in the first place. They're definitely big enough to see at 101% and 99%, so I think it's possibly a bug with the renderer. I know that there are other bugs with the renderer with some filters. (Or maybe it needs to be pixel-snapped???)

Great snow effects! I hope one of you will do a step by step tutorial, don't need anything fancy, but a step by step of what to do would be fantastic. Those home-made filters go above my head and I get so very frustrated with them. You'all have done well!
dee

Hope this would help

Maestral
I've been busy studying, but wanted to let you and brynn know how much I appreciate your efforts in helping us create a snowy texture.
I viewed the video, but without voice it isn't much help. I'll go back and view the video again when I have the time to slow it down and try to figure out what the artist is doing. I haven't tried using the tweak tool yet, and haven't even read about it yet. I saw that you and the video creator both used the tweak tool on your snowballs, so I guess it's one more thing I will need to read-up on.

brynn
I'm still having trouble getting the filter editor figured out, but I'm trying to follow the techniques you described in your last post to this topic. I'll let you know if I get any results worth posting. Although I am still reading about the filter editor, haven't had much time to devote to it lately.

As each of us has an alter ego, I`m touched with your recognition of mine as the artist ,))
It was a bit late (2-3am) when I made the video, and my english sounded a bit odd so I added this song and maybe rushed trough the steps in this second take. I`ll do my best next time.
p.s.
Let me know if some more explanation is needed, about steps in the video.

Maestral,
Oh YOU were the artist doing the video!
I was very tired when I watched the video and I really couldn't give it the proper attention.
I'll wait until I am rested, and have time to give the video my full attention, before going back to give it another try.
If I still have any questions afterward, or find areas where explanation would be helpful, I'll be sure to let you know.
Thanks for taking the time to make a vid.