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How do you "make" Aqua?

Aqua is a beautiful combination of reflection and color that I can't replicate. How is Aqua made? I want to make some Aqua buttons, etc. for a website, but I am clueless on where to begin. It almost looks like it is simehow desogned in a 3D app. Help would be appreciated. :)
[281 byte] By [os10geek] at [2007-11-15 9:13:43]
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# 1 Re: How do you "make" Aqua?
Have at it!

<a href=" http://www.realmacsoftware.com/buttonbuilder.html" target="_blank"> http://www.realmacsoftware.com/buttonbuilder.html</a>
hmurchison at 2007-11-17 13:12:38 >
# 2 Re: How do you "make" Aqua?
Yuck. Roll your own.

Been working on a <a href="http://www.grm.net/~spartian/stuff/solidsun.jpg" target="_blank">design</a> that has a few aquatic orbs in it. Essentially, Aqua is just a shape with a 0 distance inner shadow, upper reflection and the same reflection flipped vertically and blured slightly as the bottom. Apple's real aqua widgets are a bit more complicated but that's the gist of it. To make the reflection, command click on the layer to select it, make a new layer then drag the gradient cursor from the top to about 3/4 of the way down. Copy that layer, flip it, drag it down a little and blur it. Set the layer blending to overlay and play with the transparency as necessary. You may want to cut a bit off the upper reflection's bottom.
Spart at 2007-11-17 13:13:39 >
# 3 Re: How do you "make" Aqua?
Thanks. ButtonBuilder doesn't look that bad, but it seems a bit too...canned and shrinkwrapped, I guess. It should suffice. This thread is stil open for suggestions!
os10geek at 2007-11-17 13:14:37 >
# 4 Re: How do you "make" Aqua?
Use the Interface Builder application who comes installed with the Developer tools.
Defiant at 2007-11-17 13:15:41 >
# 5 Re: How do you "make" Aqua?
I'm talking about building my own, CUSTOM Aqua icons.
os10geek at 2007-11-17 13:16:39 >
# 6 Re: How do you "make" Aqua?
what the hell do you call custom?
Defiant at 2007-11-17 13:17:39 >
# 7 Re: How do you "make" Aqua?
For example, the iChat Smilies. You couldn't make those with the Interface builder.
os10geek at 2007-11-17 13:18:42 >
# 8 Re: How do you "make" Aqua?
those are not part of aqua- :rolleyes: indeed
Defiant at 2007-11-17 13:19:35 >
# 9 Re: How do you "make" Aqua?
[quote]Originally posted by os10geek:
<strong>I'm talking about building my own, CUSTOM Aqua icons.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Do you really need some prog to do it for you? Make them by hand in Photoshop, it's really not that hard.

There's a somewhat good tutorial <a href="http://www.xicons.com/articles/bice/aquatutorial.php" target="_blank">here</a>. pixeljerk used to have a better tutorial, but his website doesn't appear to be functional at the moment.
Spart at 2007-11-17 13:20:44 >
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