Central Dynamo Interface Tutorial
Hello again! We're almost done with the right arm area. So, let's get started.
- Locate your "red connector" layer. You either created this shape, or borrowed mine. If you didn't create it, it should be in the "Right Arm Shapes" layer set that I provided with this tutorial in the .psd file.
- Apply these Color Overlay, Gradient Overlay, and Stroke layer settings to this layer:
This is what you should have now depending on if you hide the layers you don't need yet, or not. Mine are hidden here. But, that's beside the point, just make sure your red connector looks like this:
- Now, apply these Gradient Overlay and Stroke layer style settings to "silver connector":
- Look for your "bot outlet" layer, and apply this Inner Shadow layer style to it:
- Create a new layer above bot outlet, and call it "bot outlet hlight". Load bot outlet's selection and hide the selection by hitting ctrl + h.
- Zoom in to 400%.
- Make white you foreground color. Grab the Brush tool (B). With a 5px and 0% hardness (ie: softest) brush, apply a white highlight like this:
- Gaussian blur by 1. Lower the highlight's opacity to 50%.
- Create a new layer called "bot outlet subtle hlight".
- With the selection still active (it should be hidden, from the last couple steps), contract by 1 pixel, and then give it a white stroke of 1 pixel inside.
- Deselect, and erase the bottom part of that stroked line; leaving just the right side line like this:
- Drop this layer's opacity to 70%.
- Now apply this Bevel and Emboss layer style to the "metal wire" layer:
The gloss contour I used is below: (click once on the gloss contour area in the layer styles to get to this screen)
- Create a new layer called "metal wire stroke" and give it a black stroke of 1 pixel, outside. Drop the stroke's opacity to 80%.
- Just add the "top shark fin" layer to this layer set, and you're done with the right arm!! That wasn't too bad was it?
Finishing Touches
- Duplicate the Right Arm layer set by right clicking on it and selecting Duplicate Group... (it maye be different on different versions of Photoshop)
- Rename it to "Left Arm".
- Now flip it horizontally by going to Edit -> Transform -> Flip Horizontal. Now flip it vertically.
- Drag it over to the left side, and from here it's kind of an eyeball thing. Just move it around until it looks even as the right side. Remember to nudge it with the move tool as your active tool and hit the arrows on your keyboard for pixel precision.
- You can now duplicate your Right Buttons layer set, rename it, and position it similarly. Also, don't forget to add the screens to the left hand buttons as well. You will also have to play around with the buttons themselves, since they are the same layer, and their horizontal position isn't like it should be. The top button needs to be closest to the main interface (nudged a few pixels to the right), the middle should be the farthest out, and the bottom button should be closer to the interface. Just make it look like the right side buttons, but opposite ;-). You'll have to cut and past them to do these "nudgings".
- I added an overall drop shadow, and you can do the same. Just select all the "shape/solid" layers (not the highlights, or strokes etc.) by using the ctrl + click on the thumbnails in the layers palette to keep adding all their selections to each other. Then, fill with black, deselect, create a new layer directly above the background layer and gaussian blur it. Then lower its opacity to a level you like the look of.
Here is my final result:
Thanks for completing the tutorial, and please go to the forums to give feedback and show off your creation! See you there. Also, please take a look at the other tutorials.
Sincerely,
