Fish 'n' More 2/fishmore-publicdomainlibraryvol.ii1991xetec.iso/disks/disk430.lzh/SculptTools/Fractal4D/fractal_4d_docs

Text File | 1991-01-11 | 7KB | 200 lines

January 1991            FRACTAL_4D v. 1.2



             Copyright © 1990 Bruce Thomson

                       S H A R E W A R E

   Fractal_4D is ShareWare.  No guarantee is made, expressed or
implied as to Fractal_4D's suitability for any application.  No
responsibility will be taken by the author for the results of its use
or misuse.  If you use this program then send $US10 to:



Bruce Thomson

PO Box 33116

Takapuna

Auckland

NEW ZEALAND



1.      What Does It Do?

   Fractal_4D creates objects for Sculpt 4D.  They are fractal
landscapes which can be coloured various ways.  A grid of squares is
created and can be coloured by:

 - A regular checkered pattern.

 - Spreads of colours based on the height of the square.

 - An IFF brush.

 - A mix of IFF brush and height colouring.



 2.      How Do I Use It?

  Fractal_4D runs from CLI or Workbench.  Respond to the requesters
and enter any values required..  You will need a copy of 'req.library'
in your LIBS: directory.

  Fractal_4D will first load the IFF brush if you have given one and
display it for a second.  After entering several numbers a grid of
squares will be calculated and coloured as you specify.  Your object
will be written off in ".scene" format



 3.      The Inputs.

  "Load an IFF brush?"  If you want colouring from a brush then select
the brush at this point.  The brush must be big enough to cover the
object.  The pixels match up with the top left of the brush being the
top left colour for the landscape.  If the brush is larger than the
object dimensions then that is fine but some of the brush will not be
mapped onto the object.

  "Make background colour into colour spreads?" You have the option of
using both the brush and colouring based on height.  If you have
selected both brush and height colouring then you will be asked to
enter the spreads of colours.  See below for details as it is the same
as colouring the whole landscape this way.  With both colouring types
if the brush pixel that matches up with the square is

- palette colour 0 for non-HAM pictures or

- black (0 for red, green and blue) for HAM pictures then the colour
will not come from the brush but will be calculated from the colour
level type of colouring described  below.  Mixing brush and colour
levels can give good effects.  E.g. you could overlay text onto a
realistically coloured mountain by drawing the text in a paint program
and leaving the surrounding area in the background colour (palette
colour 0).



  The grid can have separate X and Y dimensions.  Both, however, must
be a power of 2.  So you can have combinations such as 16 x 16
squares, 4 x 64 squares etc.

You will be prompted first for the X power of 2.  This can range from
0 to 6 - giving you 1 to 64 squares.

The second prompt is for the Y power of 2.  This has the same range.

A 64 x 64 square object will take 8192 faces.

If you do not give equal dimensions then the grid will be stretched to
make a square.



  If you did not specify an IFF brush then you will be asked to choose



  "Colour spreads  or checkers?" Checkers allows you to make checkered
patterns with as many checks as you please, so you could have black
and white checks such as a chess board or you could alternate between
red-green-blue, red-green-blue etc.

  "How many checkers?" Enter how many checkers you will be using -
this can range from 1 upwards.  Now for each check you will need to
choose a colour.  This is done by adjusting the colour in the pop-up
colour requester and clicking OK for each check in your list.  Modify
the colour that is highlighted when the colour requester first opens.



  Colour Levels colours the landscape based on its altitude.  Imagine
your object as a mountain range.  You will be specifying the colours
for the various altitudes.  This is done by first setting a maximum
height and then dividing the height into sections with various spreads
of colours.

  Enter the start and end altitude and then use the pop-up color
requester to define the start and end colours in that area.  It will
be coloured with a smooth range of colours calculated between the
start and end colours.  This works in a similar manner to the Spread
function in palettes such as that in DPaint.

The start colour is the colour at the bottom of that part of the range
and is the colour first highlighted on entering the palette requester.
The end colour is to its right in the palette.  Adjust them both and
then click on 'OK'.

  Do this for each section of the range and 'Cancel' when you have
completed colouring.  Values for start and end are from zero to the
maximum entered previously.  Ensure you cover all the range or parts
will be left black.



  "Maximum colour level?"

This number will depend in part on how many colour spreads you want to
have within the landscape.  I recommend giving at least 16 levels per
spread so you can get all the possible shades between the start and
end colour into the landscape.

  The distribution of the colour spreads will also affect this value.
If you want 2 spreads e.g. white (at bottom) to red (half way) and
red (half way) to black (at top) then you should allow at least 32
colour levels to spread the colours smoothly.  If you wanted white (at
bottom) to red  ( 1/4 way up) and red (1/4 up) to black (at top)
then you would need more than 32 levels as you would need to put
16 colours into the bottom quarter and then add enough extra colours
to allow the rest to take up three quarters of the available height.



  "Enter seed value for landscape"  Each landscape is different and
this number dictates its shape.  If you think you might want to create
a landscape twice then remember the number you used as its seed.  This
is an integer ( 0 to 32000)



  The object will then be calculated and the scene created.



 4.     Tips

  Don't be too worried about the colour levels maximum value when you
are using very few squares (e.g. 4 x 4) as you may be making more
colours than there are squares and you need not be too exact.

  If the brush won't fit the object then resize it first.

  You can make some very nice key frame animations by using different
colouring types or brushes.  Just make sure that the dimensions are
the same for every frame.



5.     Important Stuff.

This program is to be distributed with these docs intact and
unaltered.

   - MegaDisc can distribute it.

   - PD/Shareware libraries can distribute it if they charge no more
than 150% of Fred Fish's charges.

   - Free User Group disk magazines, etc. may distribute it.

   - Ask me if you want to distribute it packaged in any form that is
not covered above.