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Kappel, scratched into its own skyline

Oct 13
3 min read

Two downloads from Poly-Peaks, one word in Scribe and one blend in Random Effects: a place's name scratched across its real skyline.

Two stacked strips of low-poly hills in navy and gold on a rose-pink sky, a thin dark line tracing each ridge, and the word Kappel scratched in dark, many-times-redrawn strokes across the middle, its two p's reaching down to the lower ridge

Kappel's skyline in rose and gold, its ridge traced in navy and the place's name scratched across both strips. Three apps, one Multiply blend, 2000 × 1414 px.

The Kappel panorama in the Poly-Peaks guide names seven hills around the village. This piece names only the place you stand in: Kappel, scratched in the Karoshirt face across the sky between the two strips.

Below is how the three layers were made and stacked, and why the blend is Multiply. The piece rests on two files you upload, so no single link rebuilds it, but this opens the relief in Poly-Peaks where it starts.

Three panels joined by a times sign and an equals sign: the rose-and-gold relief from Poly-Peaks, the ridge line with Kappel scratched over it from Scribe, and the blended result from Random Effects

The whole recipe: the relief, times the scribed ridge, equals the piece. Every panel is the same 2000 × 1414 canvas.

How this one got made

Two downloads from one panorama

Open the relief link and press Load saved panorama or Generate Panorama. It is the Kappel view from the Poly-Peaks guide with one change: in Composite, Labels is off. The one name in this piece is the one you scratch in. Tick the terms once, then download Composite (PNG).

Still in Composite, untick Polygons, tick Horizon and set Background to white. Download Composite (PNG) again (the same settings as a link). That is the ridge alone, in navy on white.

I made every Poly-Peaks layer the same size, pixel for pixel, so the layers can be stacked in another app. The line in the second file sits exactly on the top edge of the facets in the first.

Two panels side by side: the rose-and-gold low-poly relief in two strips, and the same two skylines as thin navy lines on white

The same panorama downloaded twice. The ridge line on the right traces the top edge of the relief on the left, at the same pixels.

The name, scratched over the ridge

Open Scribe and type Kappel into Text. Under Background, choose Custom image and upload the ridge PNG as Background image. Set Stroke colour to the navy of the ridge, #26547c, and press Render.

Custom image matters here. On Solid colour a tag comes out square, and Random Effects stretches a blend image to the size of the working image, so a square tag would be pulled wide. Scratched over the ridge PNG, the name comes out at 2000 × 1414 like the other two layers.

Tag size sets how much of the height the name takes; the default is 75 %. This piece uses 90 %, where the two p's reach down to the lower ridge. Download PNG under Downloads.

The ridge lines with Kappel scratched between them at three sizes: small and floating, larger with the p's touching the lower ridge, and largest with the p's crossing it

Tag size 60, 90 and 100 %. Watch the two p's: they float at 60, touch the lower ridge at 90 and cross it at 100.

Multiply lets the white fall away

Open Random Effects. Upload the relief as Upload image and the scribed ridge as Blend image (optional).

The Random Effects controls: Upload image holding the relief PNG and Blend image (optional) holding the scribed ridge PNG

The relief is the working image; the scribed ridge is what the Blend tab composites against it.

In Effects, open the Blend tab and click the Multiply tile (its name shows when you point at it), then press Apply Multiply. Multiply multiplies the two pictures pixel by pixel, so the white of the scribed file changes nothing and every dark line darkens what lies under it. Try the others first if you like: Revert last takes each one back.

The same blend three ways: an all-white picture with navy lines, a white picture with faint coloured lines, and the rose-and-gold relief with dark lines and the scratched name over it

Alpha over and Screen keep the white, so the relief disappears. Multiply drops it out and keeps the lines.

The lines do not stay navy. Multiplied into the rose they come out a deep aubergine, and over the gold hills a dark green, so the name reads as part of the picture rather than a label on it.

A close crop of the blended piece: dark scratched strokes crossing from the lower edge of the navy-gold relief, through the rose sky, to the gold ridge below

A 500 × 440 px crop at twice its size. The same navy stroke measures near-black aubergine over the sky and dark green where it meets the gold ridge.

From screen to object

Under Downloads in Random Effects, tick the terms and press PNG: the picture at the top of this post, 2000 × 1414 px. Every app in the chain signs its public PNG in the bottom-right corner. Because the three files share one size, the three signatures land on the same spot and read as one.

Other controls, one line each

  • Layers, Scatter and Wander, in Scribe, decide how many times each letter is redrawn and how far the copies drift.

  • Seed rolls a different scratch with the same settings.

  • Opacity, in the Multiply dialog, lets the scratches in more faintly.

  • Relief colours and Background, back in Poly-Peaks, change the whole palette before anything is scratched.

Your turn

Open the relief and change one thing. Type your own place into Location, or scratch a date instead of a name, and run it through the same two steps.

If you make one you like, send me what you made. I'll ask before showing it anywhere.

 
 
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