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Marble Rooms part 3
Created by: CarolUK

This tutorial will show you a simple way to make a marble room, with steps, pillars and windows. You can vary the number and position of all the elements in it, to make your own individual room.

We need pillars that will go almost the full height of our image, so it is easier to make one in a separate, larger, image, as we did for the floor. So open a new image, 300x500, transparent.

Use the selection tool  set at rectangle with feather 0 and antialias unchecked in the tool options palette. Double click on the selection tool so that you can specify the size of your selection precisely. Set the values as follows:

Left: 10
Right: 50
Top: 0
Bottom: 500
Custom size and position: Checked

This will give you a tall thin selection a little way in from the left of your new image. With your marble texture as the background style (PSP 6 users: make sure Pattern is the flood fill style and that the marble image is still the selected pattern), use the fill tool  and right click in this selection to fill it with the marble. Keep the pillar selected, and use Selections || Float.

Now use Effects || 3d Effects || Cutout (PSP 6 users: Now use Image || Effects || Cutout) and set the following:

Offset
Vertical: 0
Horizontal: 14
Attributes
Opacity: 61
Blur: 39
Color: Black
Fill interior with color: Unchecked
Click OK

Your pillar should look like the one to the side. (Of course a lot taller!)

There is some darker shadow at the very bottom of our pillar that we need to get rid of. (That at the top will disappear out of the image and not be seen, but the foot of the pillar will be visible). So release the selection, select a small rectangular selection that takes in the shadow at the bottom and then hit delete.

Now use Edit || Copy. Make your room the current image, make the top layer (steps 2) the current layer, and use Edit || Paste || As New Layer. Rename the layer Pillar 1.

Use the mover tool  to place the pillar to the left of your room and push it up till the bottom is about half a centimeter from the bottom of your image.

The bottom of the pillar has a very harsh line. Use the retouch tool with these tool option palette settings:

Shape: Round
Size: 8
Hardness: 67
Opacity: 100
Step: 13
Density: 100
Build up: Checked (PSP 6 users: click on the cogs to set this)
Retouch mode: Soften (PSP 6 users: click on the cogs to set this)
Paper texture: None
Sample merged: Unchecked

In versions 5 & 6 the tool type - soften here - is on a different tab in the palette, rather than on the tab with the settings.  Gently apply the tool to the very bottom of the pillar, to soften that harsh line where it joins the floor.

 

Now all we need to do to add a second pillar is use Edit || Copy followed by Edit || Paste || As New Layer, and move the pillar over to the right side of the image. Rename its layer Pillar 2. And that gives you your finished room.

The elements we have made here are simply building blocks. By changing the marble, rearranging things, using different sizes, you can get a completely different room. The various parameters I have used in the tutorial are just sizes which fit the size of image I was making here. If you make a bigger image you will want to vary all of them to suit the proportions of your room, but you know now how to do that.