First Steps Tutorial


This tutorial will give you a few ideas for making interesting and colourful backgrounds. The easiest way to create a nice looking background is to use the plasma Effect.

First, you must open a new window by selecting New/Blackpage from the Projects pull-down menu. You will then be presented with a screen size requester. Select a screen size of 320 x 256 by clicking on the appropriate box or by using the sliders. You will now have a blank page to work from, now if we go to the Windows pull-down menu and select the Effects window, on the list you will find the plasma effect, by clicking with the right mouse button on this list and selecting 'Apply' (this time with the left mousebutton) we can generate a plasma automatically. The plasma will take a little time to generate and once it has finished you will be presented with an image full of nicely blended colours.

An effect that works well with plasma images is Sharpen. To add this effect open the Modes window by selecting Mode from the Windows pull-down menu. Now select Sharpen by clicking on the word Sharpen. Once Sharpen is highlighted click on the Fill Screen button in the tool box (located in the left column, immediately above the Fix [shaped like a hammer] button ). The Fill Screen button will fill the screen with the selected mode, in this case it will Sharpen the whole image. Once the image has been sharpened fix it using the Fix button in the tool box.

The plasma will now have much greater definition. From this image you can create a stony looking texture by using the Emboss mode. Select Emboss from the modes window and turn the grey scale option on. You can do this by clicking on the Mode Options button located to the right of the Mode button in the tool box. A box will now open with the word grey scale in it, click on the button and then click OK. Now Emboss the whole screen by clicking on the fill screen button and then fix the image.

You will now have grey stony texture. If you wish to make the texture stand out, then you can sharpen it in the same way you sharpened the original plasma image. You can also change the colour of the texture to any colour of your choice.

To do this select the Tint mode from the Modes window. Next you must open the Palette window by clicking on the colour block at the top of the Toolbox. By clicking anywhere on the colour wheel you can select your desired colour, or you could select one of the preset colours in the list on the right of the palette window. The colour block in the palette window shows your currently selected colour. Once you have found the colour that you want to use click on the 'Use' button in the palette window. Don't forget to FIX after the desired effect has been achieved.

Plasma Text: This effect uses the RubThru mode to fill text with plasma colours.

Load a new blank page as before. Select Text entry from the Image menu and you will then be presented with a font requester. Click on the font button and you will be given a fonts list, select a font and corensponding size of 60 by clicking on the righthand list, typing the number 60 and pressing return also works. Now click on the OK button. You will now go back to the text editor where you will be able to add or remove your text.

A box will appear on the image which you can pick up and move around your image, to place it where you wish. When you are happy with the placement click on the OK button and after a few seconds the text you typed will appear. Select white from the palette and click on use. Now click on FIX. Select Blur mode and use it to fill the whole screen and then fix the image. Using the Clone option from the Project pull-down menu make a copy of your text image. Put the copy of the image into the alpha channel by selecting the 'Use as Alpha Channel' option from the options menu when the copy is selected. Now take your plasma image and make it the secondary image by selecting 'Use as secondary' from the options menu.

Select your original text image and change the mode to RubThru. Fill the screen. Finally fix the image and you will see that the text has changed from white to plasma.

Blue Sky: A quick way to create a sky like background is to create a plasma then select the Antique mode and fill the screen. After fixing the image select the negative mode and fill the screen again. This should leave you with a nice pastel blue and white image.

Ripple: Nice backgrounds can also be created by using the ripple effect. These look espcially good when used with the displace map mode. To create this effect make a ripple in the same way we made the palsma but this time select the Ripple effect from the effects window. Select Use As Secondary from the Options menu.

Load an image, and select DisplaceMap from the modes window. Fill the image. The ripples will displace the new image giving a very pleasant effect.

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