HI-TECH VIDEO MONITORS
What hi-tech interface would be complete without 1 or 2 computer screens or video monitors displaying crucial tech info? This tutorial shows you how to make sci-fi computer monitors.
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HI-TECH VIDEO MONITORS |
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What hi-tech interface would be complete without 1 or 2 computer screens or video monitors displaying crucial tech info? This tutorial shows you how to make sci-fi computer monitors. |
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First, use my Dirty Metal tutorial to create a background for your monitor to go on. If you're in a hurry, just use black. |
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Choose the Rounded Rectangle Vector tool... |
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Then in the Options bar at the top of the screen, choose the Fill Pixels icon as shown here. The radius for the Rounded Rectangle sort of depends on your tastes. |
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Using the Rounded Rectangle tool, create (on a new layer) a greenish rounded rectangle. Actually, since we're going to apply a built-in style to this, color doesn't really matter. It just feels right if you start with the proper color. Duplicate this layer for later. |
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Open the Styles palette if it is not already open, and make sure you have Glass Buttons (NOT ROLLOVERS!) loaded. If not, append them to your current set. Choose one of the green styles to create a nice glass bevel around your computer monitor. When you first choose the style, you're going to get this outrageous oversize bevel. Adjust it by double clicking the "Bevel and Emboss" Effects layer in the Layers palette and adjust the size of the bevel. Also, the highlight of the bevel defaults to white, and it'll look more natural if you choose a brighter green instead. That's up to you, though. |
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Remember the duplicate you made back at the beginning? Drag it above the bevelled version in the Layers Palette. Choose the duplicate's layer, then COMMAND-CLICK (PC: CONTROL-CLICK) the duplicate to create a selection. With green as your forground color and black as your background color and the duplicate layer chosen, fill it with Clouds (under the Filter Menu, then Render sub-menu). |
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Change the cloudy duplicate's mode to Overlay in the Layer Palette. Sometimes Soften looks better, try different ones, but you want something that looks like this. What this does is lets the underlying bevelled version show through the cloudy version, but you still see the clouds and the bevels. |
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Next, create a new layer, then use ONLY ONE of the following 3 methods for creating the video screen's scan lines: 1. Fast Method 1: Use the Filter Menu/Sketch/Halftone Pattern, change Dot to Line, and make it as thin as possible, depending on resolution. OR... 2. Fast Method 2: Hide all your layers except the new one you just made. Create a thin white line on this new layer by itself. Choose the marquee tool and select the white line PLUS a little bit of blank space below it (this will be the gap between the white lines), then choose Edit Menu/Define Pattern. Call it scanline, delete the single white line you made on a layer by itself, deselect, then go to Edit Menu/Fill, choose Pattern, then choose YOUR pattern from the drop down menu (should be the last one). Click OK to accept it and your screen should fill up with white lines. OR... 3. Manual Method: With white in the foreground, use the Rectangular Marquee tool to create a thin selection on a layer by itself. OPTION-DELETE (PC: ALT-DELETE) to fill it with the foregound color (white). Next, move the selection you have down, leaving a small gap. Then repeat step 1 until you have lots of very thin white lines similar to what's shown at left. When you've got enough to cover your whole green monitor, COMMAND-CLICK it (PC: CONTROL-CLICK) the lines to create a selection, then save the selection, then hide or delete the white lines. We don't need them after we get the selection saved.
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With the selection on, choose the green monitor layer and Copy from that layer, then Paste, which creates a new layer of nothing but lines in the shape of our monitor. Note it will probably be offset from the monitor, so use the cursor keys to nudge it into place exactly on the monitor. You should have this when you're done nudging. |
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The only thing really left to do is dress it up with tech text, blueprint readouts, programming codes etc, as shown at left. You can also play around with Curves (Image Menu/Adjustments/Curves) to change the contrast of the monitor.
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| By the way, using the white lines to create a selection is a favorite technique of mine. I use shapes to cut or copy from other shapes all the time. Once you've saved the selection made from the white lines, we don't care about the white lines anymore, so they get tossed (or saved for changes later). | |
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Sample 1
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Sample 2
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Sample 3
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