Newbie ... Sphere Test

Hi ... from a newbie to UF and fractals .

Came across a tutorial by Velvet Glove on a marble sphere.
( thanks for all the articles Velvet Glove)

So I'm trying different things and have image below and could use some advice.

With each layer added, the layer below becomes less visible or a little duller.

My question is how would I correct this ... is this where a layer mask would be used ?

SphereTest {
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}

Hi dannac.

Part of your problem may be the darkened background you have on each layer - as you add each sphere layer this dark surround is affecting the layers below.

This slighly dark background stems from the Solid Colour setting you have on the Mapping tab - the solid colour is not zero (i.e fully transparent). If you crank the slider down to zero transparency around each sphere you then just have the coloured circle/s. The result with Normal merging is this:

Of course now your spheres are less defined which is probably not quite what you wanted either. This is where the later parts of my tutorial will show you how to add a highlight to one edge and surface shading or a drop shadow to another using masks to achieve a more 3D effect and make your sphere pop out more. Not the easiest of techniques for a newbie if you are new to masks but hopefully if you carefully follow the tutorial you will get something you can be happy with.

In this image I have added a highlight and shadow to the middle sphere for example, if that is what you are trying to do:

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}

Alternatively, for your sphere layers, you could simply change the merge mode on the Layers tab to Screen which will eliminate the dark background effect but leave you with slightly brighter spheres:

Sometimes you just have to tinker with merge modes, gradients and even masks to get the effect you want. That's part of the fun, bending UF to your will!

Hope these ideas help you on your way!

Thanks for the advice, it will surely help.

I’ll have to try the marble tutorial again ... was going good for awhile, but got stuck and could not figure what I was doing wrong.

That’s when I started fooling around with these spheres trying a few things from early part of that tutorial.

It's a good bet I'll be back with more questions, thanks.