What layer blend modes to do this 2 phase rivetting task ? !

[Merlin3]

Hi,

I am about to do some skinning for a flight sim and the sim has a hard coded layer for rivets, i.e we cant get at it in coding or the file to change the way its applied, which creates too heavy a rivet effect.

However some clever chap had at least managed to extract the artwork so I can see what it looks like.

I reckon if I take that layer which is rivets in shades of grey, duplicate it then ctrl i invert it, and apply a suitable blend mode to how that interacts with the basic paint scheme underneath, then when the sim applies that rivet layer, my reciprocal colours will kill its effect to some degree !  Ideally totally so they vanish.

I see the rivet layer already has 84% opacity applied to it.

So lets think of just one pixel of that rivet,  lets say it is 80% black ( the value if single pixel sample pipette samples the final shade), I invert it and get 80% white, I fuse it into the camouflage colour beneath, that 1 pixel part of the colour now goes lighter, then when the sim runs that rivet layer, as its over the lighter pixel of the camouflage scheme, it wont go darker any more, but will become the same shade as the basic camo colour.

So ...Phase 1...as said if I simply duplicate the rivet layer, then go ctrl i, what mode should I apply to that layer to get the desired result on the camo layer ? Lets call this resulting layer Camo_RivetNuke.

Phase 2. With the default rivet effect neutralised, I would need to create another layer above my Camo_RivetNuke on which I would draw black rivets, then I would adjust their opacity and blend them into Camo_RivetNuke. This blend mode would be such so that over dark green or brown they would go a lighter shade of green or brown and over a light blue or light duck egg green they would go a darker shade of the light blue or duck egg green. What blend mode would be best ?

Would I be best to fuse the ctrl i rivet layer into camo to get Camo_RivetNuke layer or could phase 2 exist with phase 1 unfused ? Latter is preferable should I need to adjust the colour scheme for when or if the sim is modified and colour handling changes.

Merlin

[S_Gans · Accepted solution]

I had to read this about 8 times to try to get a vague idea of what you're trying to accomplish, but I *think* I get it (next time, maybe some screenshots or something'd help).

For Phase  1 - if you have a grayscale image and dupe it and invert it, if you want to get at least  close to making it vanish, you'll likely find that Soft Light or Overlay will do that, as in both those blend modes, gray is neutral and doesn't show. It's hard to anticipate how it'll react with varying tints of gray, but it should be pretty close.

For Phase 2, as far as I know, there's no single blend that'll do what you want. I mean... Overlay will make darks darker and lights lighter, but it will completely depend on the color on which you're working. And, if you're using actual black (instead of a variant of gray, there's no way it'll ever lighten at all - it'd just disappear.). Here's the thought - Multiply will allow you to have your top layer darken that which is underneath - whites will disappear. Screen will do the opposite, light tones lighten that which is underneath, In multiply, black will never change, as it's absolute - you'd want dark grays in order to see an effect - opposite with screen - white will always be white, but light grays will interact. Overlay and Soft Light allow true black to darken (along with dark grays), and true white to lighten (along with light grays), but mid-tone gray will disappear.

Sounds like you may have to make a phase 3 for lightening.

Hope this helps!