Facets - Not like Justin Maller

#FocalFlareBTS

So yeah first small tutorial/breakdown on my DeviantArt. A lot of this was posted in a friend's private Discord server I'm in, so I'll copy-and-paste it here with some slight changes.

Facets

Not like Justin Maller

A paintdotnet tutorial/"RB" breakdown

In this journal I'ma go over how I made these abstract forms such as the ones in this image:

Inspiration & References

Giving credit where credit is due, these forms were inspired by the creator of the FACETS series himself, Justin Maller:

• FACETS I: https://facets.la/

• FACETS II: https://justinmaller.com/project/facets2

Also just a reminder, I do NOT condone the making of non-fungible tokens (NFT's) or any media on a blockchain. I just thought that these images from Maller looked cool enough to share. Plus, they're probably like the most overused (not in a bad way) images I've came across since 2017.

Plug-ins used

🔼Optional; 🔽Required

The following third-party adjustments, effects, and tools were used within the making of this image:

• Facet (Red Ochre) : https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/30150-facet-new-4th-oct-2014/

This tutorial is mainly for paintdotnet, but you can try to "caveman" your way into making these forms yourself using any other software you have.

Process

So basically, the secret is with the parameters of the Facet effect on some basic shapes. Yeah, crazy. I know. A plug-in used outside of its intended use for something you wanted to make going on its name.

The following parameters you should only mess with are the ones I mention below. There are some parameters which I have no idea what they do, and sadly Red Ochre hasn't provided a guide for them, so you're gonna have to experiment with this plug-in. Only if you want to though.

• Nadir
  This is the reference point to where the "bottom apex" of each cell will extrude to. This is only functional if {"No Vanishing Point":false}(*) and {"Trail to Nadir":true}* This parameter will prevent the bottom apex from forming on each cell.

• Overlay/Shading/Mix
  I don't know what this does.

• Number of Cells
  This changes the amount of cells--or crystals--each chunk will have (duh like no shit Sherlock).

• Size (Overall)
  How big the cells are in general.

• Size (Nadir Bias)
  How big the cells are toward the nadir.

• Position Randomness
  The random intensity of the position of the cells. You can fiddle around with this, but you want to keep it to where the cells aren't aligned to their existing grid.

• Apex Height Randomness
  The random intensity of the 3D y-position of the apex for each cell. You can also change this around, but keep it to where you won't notice a height difference between each cell.

Demonstration

So let's try and make those similar forms in paintdotnet.

Again, with those parameters I provided earlier with some further tweaking, I turned three circles into these crystal-like clusters. And then I just moved them around a bit and shifted the colors around.

As for the shapes--which you can also add, I used transparent colors and layered them on top of each cluster:

So back to making the example forms, I've done just that:

...followed by some effects:

And yeah, that's basically all there is to it! Now obviously this isn't a complete 1:1 ratio to Maller's facets, which is why I also subtitled this as "Not like Justin Maller". However, I thought they looked cool enough to try and imitate.

Again, this is made for paintdotnet users, but you are open to try this in any other software as well.

Now start cooking.