With your lifeless stack of layers, we will be perfecting realism by making annotations with real aurora borealis.


STEP 10: You could skip this step and go on to STEP 13 if you are happy with what you have and you want to add color now, but this will make the effect perfect.

Click on the eyeball icon on the straight line layer, or "Layer2", to hide it, or delete the layer if you no longer find it useful. Duplicate "Layer2 copy" to make "Layer2 copy #1", set its Opacity to around 50.0% Then with "Layer2 copy #1" selected, go to Filters>Blur>Linear Motion Blur again with these recommended settings:

Length: 91.00 (or 78 < X < 136)
Angle: 90.00

10. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1711054826

STEP 11: Leftclick on "Layer2 copy". Go to Layer>Transform>Offset (Shift+Ctrl+O) and set Y: 20. It just moved down a little.

11. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1711055677


STEP 12: Duplicate "Layer2 copy #1" to make "Layer2 copy #2". Go to the Linear Motion Blur one more time with these settings:

Length: 160.0 (or 92 < X < 250.00)
Angle: 90.00

12A. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1711055203

Go to offset (Shift+Ctrl+O) and set the "Y:" to -40. Set "Layer2 copy #2" opacity to somewhere around 25.0%.

12B. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1711056433

You must be confused by now, but this next step organizes each layer by blurriness. So based on the images...

Layer2 copy #2 = 1st, most blurry layer, or the last layer we used "Linear Motion Blur" on and offset.
Layer2 copy #1 = 2nd blurriest layer, or the second layer we blurred and offset.
Layer2 copy = 3rd, least blurred layer aka the first layer we used the "Linear Motion Blur" on and offset.
Layer2 = straight (horizontal) line layer.


STEP 13: COLOR TIME! You can do research on what colors appear best for the northern lights. Go to Colors>Hue-Chroma. Choose any layer. Choose your desired hue, amount of color depth, and lightness.
I will start on the most blurred layer with these settings:

13. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1711056042

> 1st, most blurry (Layer2 copy #2)
Hue: 119.30
Chroma: 100.00
Lightness: 0.00

or this works for high altitude, violet northern lights...

> 1st, most blurry layer (Layer2 copy #2)
Hue: 119.30
Chroma: 100.00
Lightness: 0.00
Layer Opacity: 51.7%

> 2nd blurriest layer (Layer2 copy #1)
Hue: 144.10
Chroma: 100.00
Lightness: 0.00

> 3nd, least blurry layer (Layer2 copy)
Hue: 144.10
Chroma: 100.00
Lightness: 0.00
Layer Opacity: 65.9% due to excessive contrast.

13A. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1711059065

13B. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1711059854

I will go with the high altitude, violet layer. For me, this looks like a finished product. You can be creative if these colors do not match your envy.


From here, you may be done. PART 3 covers how to make this a functional texture in Hammer Editor and garry's mod.