SECRET ANCIENT TECHNIQUE FOR MAKING BROKEN GREEK COLUMNS
by Chris Casady
Go into Illustrator. Make a circle. Add points (Assuming your using Illustrator 5.5 that allows you to 'add points') Under 'Filter' is the sub-menu 'Objects' which leads to 'add points'.
Do this three times to get the right number of flutes.
Then next step it gets punked.
Under Filter>Stylize>Punk is a dialogue box. A setting of 5 is about right. It will curve out each anchor point into the flutes you are looking for.
You can either stroke and fill this in Illustrator or select and copy the paths to the clipboard and do the same in photoshop. The end goal is a white column outline on a black square.
With that little sucker in your clipboard let's roll on over to Bryce.
While holding the B&W thing you just made in your clipboard open the Terrain Editor. Draw in the "Filter" window on the right a new profile for this mountain. Draw all the greys up to the top making the box black.
Hit 'apply'. You have white square. "Fractalize" once and 'reset' the Filter to draw a new greyscale profile. This time draw a slight grade across the field say, 35¼ instead of the default 45¼ angle. A straight line at a gentle angle, say 30¼ will flatten out the contrast. Hit APPLY. The fractal texture should now be low contrast. Mostly middle greys. Upper middle greys are actualy better here, especially if you want a tall column so better draw your angle in the filter profile a little bit above center. Now head for the merge area of the Terrain Editor. Hit 'paste pict'. Your clipboard should dump the column outline into the middle of the three boxes. Now you enable the radio button second from the top called: minimum. FYI this is the most magic button in this area. If your two pictures are interesting enough your results with this button can be incredible. And here is the last coo de grass. Put your mouse curser in the third box and click and hold down and drag east and west, (not up and down). Forget that slider bar under the three merge windows! The third window should interactively display for you the proper level to set for clipping the lo-con fractalized terrain with the punk column matte.
The rest should be obvious; your mountain is now a column, stretch it tall, scale it down and build yourself a temple or two right away.
