home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Best Objectech Shareware Selections
/
UNTITLED.iso
/
boss
/
grap
/
util
/
031
/
art.doc
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-04-27
|
32KB
|
808 lines
VGA Art Studio
--------------
Version 1.00
(c) 1992 Mooose Software
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VGA Art Studio is freeware. It may be freely copied and distributed, subject to
the following conditions:
1) VGA Art Studio may not be distributed to make a profit - ie.
VGA Art Studio must not be sold or hired.
2) VGA Art Studio may not be given away as part of a commercial package
3) If VGA Art Studio is distributed, it must be a complete, unmodified
version including documentation and this set of conditions.
The copyright for VGA Art Studio is retained by Mooose Software.
There is no warranty of VGA Art Studio's suitability for any purpose.
You use this software at your own risk.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
============
VGA Art Studio is an art package for the IBM PC/AT and compatibles, designed
with both the artist and the software developer in mind. A range of features,
and a pleasant user interface make it ideal for developing nice full-screen
artwork, and its relatively straightforward file format allows software
developers to design icons, sprites, etc.. and transfer them to their own
applications. It contains features that many commercial art packages for the PC
do not, and yet once you have become acquainted with the menu/icon system, you
should find it easy to use.
VGA Art Studio was developed in C, over the course of about five months
on-and-off turbo-hacking, and the source code now runs to roughly 200K - it has
taken a lot of hard work and late-night coding sessions to complete this
package.
If you enjoy using the software, and you feel that you would like to make a
donation (to help a starving student at Bath University), then the
following address is probably the best:
Ben Stragnell
Victoria Cottage
Radway
Warwickshire
CV35 OUQ
ENGLAND
If you have any comments, criticism, problems, etc... then you can probably
reach me at :
ma1brs@gdt.bath.ac.uk
or ma1brs@uk.ac.bath.gdt (whichever!)
...but please don't get impatient about not getting a reply immediately,
(or at all!). This may well be due to circumstances beyond my control.
IMPORTANT NOTE :
This is the first release of VGA Art Studio, and it is therefore quite
likely that there are a few bugs - hopefully nothing too severe. If you
encounter any bugs in the program, then I'd be grateful if you could
drop me a line, preferably with some details about how to reproduce the
bug.
I'll try to answer problems, and listen to any sensible suggestions
or criticisms made, but I can't necessarily guarantee any help/action.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.0 Getting Started
=======================
Most of the basic options in VGA Art Studio are fairly intuitive, but
the more complex ones will *definately* require you to read certain
sections of this document. Probably the easiest way to get to grips with
the program is to print out this document, and read through it while
running the program, so you can try out the more interesting looking
options!
To use VGA Art Studio, you will require the following hardware :
o PC/AT or compatible
o VGA (or above) Graphics capability
o Microsoft (tm) or compatible mouse driver
Before running the program, you may find that you need to type MOUSE to
initialize the Microsoft (tm) mouse driver. Once the driver is enabled, you can
run VGA Art Studio by typing
ART
or
ART filename.ART
You will be presented with a title screen, and an OK button. Click
the mouse on the OK button, and you will find yourself in the main editing
screen of VGA Art Studio.
There are several items of "interest" in the main editing screen. These are :
The Title/Menu bar
This bar is initially positioned at the top of the screen, and consists of a
small button on the left, and the menu titles. Clicking on one of the menu
items will cause the appropriate dialogue to be displayed. Clicking on the
button will cause the title bar to toggle between the top and bottom of the
screen, so that you can see different parts of the picture. Pressing the SPACE
bar will toggle the title bar between being turned on and turned off.
The Palette
The palette is displayed in a box, with a special bar at the top of it,
consisting of a small button, and a bar that can be used to drag the palette
around. To move that palette, click on the bar, and hold the mouse button down
while you move the mouse to the new position - you will see the outline of the
palette box moving with the mouse. When you have chosen the new position,
release the mouse button, and the palette will be repositioned.
Clicking on the smaller button has the same effect as clicking on the Palette
heading on the title bar.
Clicking on one of the colours in the palette with the left hand mouse button
will select that colour as the "current foreground colour", which is used by
most tools for drawing. Using the right hand mouse button selects the colour as
the "current background colour", which has several uses which will be defined
later.
The Main Canvas
Clicking on the main canvas will have a number of different effects, depending
on the brush/tool currently selected. Generally, the palette and title bar will
disappear, so that you can see the whole canvas while drawing. On releasing the
mouse button, they will reappear.
The Cutout
Initially, there will be no cutout present. However, certain tools allow you to
cut out an area of the picture. This cutout then "floats" on top of the
picture, and can be manipulated in a number of different ways. See the EDIT
menu, and also section 3.0.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.0 The Menus themselves
============================
The menus themselves each deal with different aspects of manipulating the image
that is currently displayed. We shall deal with each menu in turn.
The FILE menu
-------------
This menu deals with the transfer of image files to and from disk. The
suboptions available from the FILE menu are :
NEW
Resets the screen, after allowing you to save any changes that have been made
to the picture.
OPEN
Opens a previously saved picture. A file dialogue will be displayed, containing
a list of files in the current directory, a list of sub-directories, a text
entry field containing the current file specification, and a CANCEL button. The
two lists can be scrolled by clicking the mouse button on the arrow icons. To
select a file, simply click the mouse on the appropriate name. The same applies
to selecting a new directory. If you wish to type in either a filename, or an
ambiguous file specification, click the mouse on the text entry field. You will
then be able to type a new filespec. If you decide that you do not want to load
a file, click on the CANCEL button.
On loading some pictures, you may be given the message
"Quantize first 16 colours?"
This is because some pictures may make use of the first 16 colours of the
palette, which are reserved for use by VGA Art Studio. If you reply YES to this
prompt, the best possible match for the 1st 16 colours in the picture will be
found, thus restoring almost normal colours.
SAVE
This option allows you to write a picture onto your disk. The same file
dialogue is used as for OPEN, and the whole process is fairly self-explanatory.
If you want to know about the file compression algorithm that is used, see
appendix A.
EXIT
Simply allows you to leave VGA Art Studio.
PRINT
Invokes the printer interface. See Appendix B for details.
The EDIT menu
-------------
If you have used either of the Cutout Brushes (see BRUSH menu) to cut out a
portion of the picture, there are certain things that you can do with the
cutout.
FLIP-H
This has the effect of fl