Making Adobe Photoshop 6,7
shapes
Hi there, first off I must say I am
not a pro at this, but I figured out how to do this so
I thought I would share.
There are many short cut keys for
making this go faster but I used the window pull down
things for this tutorial.
Why do you want to make shapes well I use them for making
textures, the advantage shapes have is they are vector
graphics and don't lose there crisp lines when they are
resized.
Ok lets get started.
Open adobe Photoshop 6 or 7.
Open a new image I use a 512 by 512 size but the size
really doesn't matter.
The reason I use this size, it is what I use the most when
making graphics for Quake3Arena.
Add a new layer to this image.
Now click on the shape tool.
Next on the custom shape tool.
A few more setup things to do yet.
I want to set the options for the shape. In this case
want it to start from the center and have defined
proportions.
You will be changing these custom shape options often.
Go
ahead give them a try.
Let's look at the other options we have in the upper tool
bar.
If you hold your mouse curser over one of the symbols
it will tell you what it is.
Here's a pic showing some of them.
Use the create new shape layer option to start a custom shape
layer.
The add to and subtract from options are the ones I
use the most in creating new customs
shapes.
Lets make a new custom shape.
For this one I started with a circle shape in a light blue
color.
Note a circle shape is one of the default custom
shapes.
Should look some thing like this don't worry about the
color as that can be changed later.
Notice I have already clicked add to shape area for my
next shape.
The next shape I'm going to add to the circle. A eight
point star also a default shape.
Looks like this.
There you just made a new custom shape.
But wait - you need to save it.
Fist thing I would do is load up one of the custom shape
dir that doesn't have many shapes in it, example would be
the arrows dir.
Another pic to help out.
Now lets add your new custom shape.
To do that go to edit then define new custom
shape.
A little window will pop out this is were you add the name
of the new shape.
It should look like this.
Give it a name and click ok.
You will now notice that your new shape has been added to
the arrows dir.
Like this.
Now you need to save this new dir with your new shape in
it to a personal shape dir.
To do that. Open the shape window then hit the little
arrow to open the options then go to save shapes. Like
this.
In the next window add the name of you new custom shape
dir.
In this example I called it fps_shapes2.csh
Next I like to load a different shape dir.
Then load the one I just saved.
Next I delete all the shapes that I didn't make in this
case all the arrows.
Then I resave the shape dir to the same name.
Now I have a clean dir with only the new shape in it.
I can now save as many new shapes that I want to it.
Lets load up the new shape and subtract it from the
shape that we made in the beginning of this tutorial.
Like this.
Cool huh now we just made a new shape so lets save it to
our new dir.
Don't forget to save the dir to the same name before you
close Photoshop or the shape will be lost.
Now have fun and add and subtract (try the other options
too) to this shape and see what you can make.
I did this by adding a custom shape that I made awhile ago
to this new shape.
Lets texture this shape real quick with a layer style.
For this I used the Wow style 6 this came with the book
that I bought called Photoshop
6 Wow! Book.
I recommend this book. Very well done..
Looks like this with this quick style added.
That's it for now.
So go make some more custom shapes and then some cool
textures.
That will make mine look like crap. Ok...
Handy link to the first set of custom shapes that I made.
Here
