The Cubes
You've seen what some gradients do horizontally and vertically; you know
that channel one is horizontal and that channel two is vertical. You have
all you need to figure out what's about to follow.
For a lot of parlour tricks, I start out with one of 3 basic cubes. These
serve as a base or starting point for a lot of the stuff that I do with
Displace. I keep them tucked away on my harddrive and open them for when
I'm in the mood to explore some basic ideas. They serve me well.
I highly recommend that you make your own and fiddle with them.
Zoom Cube
This first one is what I call the Zoom Cube. I'm very affectionate with
the Zoom Cube.

I call it the Zoom Cube because it expands, or "zooms",
with two positive percentages. A lot of fun Squish Factor thing can be
done with this cube. Later on, I'll be using this one for some "advanced"
techniques.
Skew Cube
This one I call Skew Cube. Actually, this is only one of
several Skew Cubes. This one does come in several flavors, but I generally
use this particular one.

When you get to playing with this one, inverting the various
channels and mixing up the positive/negative values, some interesting
things happen. Notice the final example of 50/-50 in particular.
Rotate Cube
This is another one of my favorite cubes. While it's not
a true rotation of the target, it does rotate to an extent.

Along with the Zoom Cube, I'll be using this one for some
"advanced" techniques.
Notice the final example of 50/-50. Neat, eh? Do you have
what it takes to figure out what is going on? I hope so.
As an end to all of this, I really do hope you play with
various gradients in the two different channels. I also hope you play
with positive/negative values. While I don't expect you to totally predict
the results, I do expect you have a sneaky suspicion. You might even want
to take notes. Seriously. Remember: there are different kinds of gradients
other and Linear and you can put the Gradient tool in different kinds
of modes.
It's times like this when it really counts -
play.fiddle.learn
*Note: While the above cubes are good and all, my
examples aren't exactly right. Read about my Vicious
Lie!
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