The Utilities Experience

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Dear XiPaint 3.1 Tester! In this package, you will find a demoversion of XiPaint 3.1. You can copy it as long as all Files are unchanged and togehter. If you use e. g. only pictures, so name the author or/and XiPaint 3.1! Where does it run? ================== * 256 Colors AA * HAM 6 * HAM 8 * Cybergraphics * Framemaster * VD2001 * PicassoII * EGS * Omnibus * Merlin (with ProDev Update) * Retina This version requiers a 68020 cpu or higer and a minimum of 2 MB RAM. Also a Harddisk is recommended. The demoversion has the following limits: - it can't save - it only loads IFF-DEEP-pictures and TARGA-pictures - it makes every some-times a line through your picture. The full-version has the following loaders/savers: Saver: Load: ----------- ------ * IFF-ILBM * IFF-ILBM * BMP * IFF-DEEP * IFF-DEEP * Datatypes * PPM * PPM * ... * PGM * PGM * SUNRASTER * SUNRASTER * TARGA * TARGA * SGI * JPEG (extrem fast!) * JPEG * IFF-YUV Installation: ============= This version runs as it is. If you want to move it to your harddisk, no assignment etc. is required. Only start before using XiPaint the program XiPrefsE to say XiPaint which Output it should use. First steps: ============ For easier operating, here are some texts from the manual: [..] 16.9 Help Shortcut: HELP Pressing HELP will give you information for the most important functions of Xi-Paint. Just place the pointer on the icon or other item you need information about and press help. Immediately a requester with the information will open. You can scroll the text with the scroll bars. You can close the help requesters by pressing the close gadget. [..] 5.1 The Xi-Paint Window Xi-Paint uses windows and menus. A window might include pain- tings (worksheets) or requesters with several options (color set- tings,shades, etc.). All windows are placed on a background (desk- top). It is not possible to work on the desktop itself. Any window can be activated by mouse click. The activated window is shown by a changed frame color. Even if the mouse pointer leaves the window, it will remain activated until you mouse click another window. 5.1.1 The Windows Utilization The window frame includes some buttons which allow varied ma- nipulations for arranging your desktop the way you'd like it. The 23 24 CHAPTER 5. BASICS following screenshot shows you such a window. Not every windows offers all the options. The headline of a new worksheet contains the text "project X". X refers to a number of your painting. If your worksheet has already been saved before, the headline shows you the entered name. The headline of a requester shows you the requester's name which also tells you its function. The headline also allows you to move the currently activated window by clicking and holding the left mouse button pressed. While moving a window just its frame is shown. It will be completely redrawn in its new position. In the top right corner there are two buttons. The right one is for straightening up the windows. If you want to put a window into the background or foreground, use the depth button. To put a window into the foreground, the concerned window can also be doubleclicked. [..] 18.2 Background menu: background shortcut: <right Amiga> <2> This feature allows you to "trace" parts of a "behind placed" pro- ject. Of course you need not place the background picture exactly 143 144 CHAPTER 18. PAINT MODES behind your project. Xi-Paint offers you special features to do so. You can assign to each project any background you want. The size is not important. The background project can be sized larger or smaller. But notice that you just can choose ONE picture as background. Activate the project you want to use as background. Thenchoose the menu feature "H-window?" (<right Amiga> <g>). The feature will be marked and the chosen window can now be used as background. It can be used as background until you close the background window or until another project is defined as back- ground. If you manipulate a project to which you have assigned a back- ground, notice that you CAN'T paint in another window. In this case nothing will happen and you need to deactivate "background" first. [..] 6.2 Important Drawing Functions After having chosen the size of the new worksheet a new paint window will open. First we want to use some simple drawing tools. Try to copy this easy line graphic. As a new tool is explained in the following pages for the first time, the shortcut will be shown in brackets. Decide for yourself if you prefer working with the mouse or on the keyboard. Using the keyboard will require more time to learn, but it will allow you greater speed and more fluency. If you need more detailed information during certain steps, i.e. for a certain requester, please look in the appropriate chapters. 6.2.1 A House Made of Rectangles and Lines Let's start with the house. First choose the rectangle tool(<r>). Now you can draw the rectangle needed for the outline. Place the mouse pointer to the position where the left top of the rectangle should be positioned, then press left mouse button.While pressing the mouse button you can pull the rectangle to the desired size. 30 CHAPTER 6. FIRST STEPS A rubber band will show your mouse moving and also the size of the rectangle. Release the button at the desired size and the rectangle will be drawn. The color will depend upon the settings in the - Paint color requester. These color settings will be explained later in this chapter. Now we can draw the windows and the door of our house. This should be done in the same way we did the outline. 6.2.2 Correcting a Mistake by UNDO If a mistake happens you can correct it by clicking the Undo button (). By pres sing it once, the last step will be undone,by pressing it twice also the last but one step will be undoneand so on. The number of possible undones just depends to theavailable memory. If pressing undo is a mistake itself you can"undo" the undone by 6.2. IMPORTANT DRAWING FUNCTIONS 31 clicking Redo button (). Just try thesefunctions by yourself by removing and "re-removing" the windowsof our line house. But there also has to be a roof for our house. For drawing it we need the line tool (<v>). But toposition the mouse pointer exact to the right position is notvery easy. 6.2.3 Precise Mouse Control by Keyboard The mouse pointer can be controled by keyboard. First move the pointer by mouse as near as possible to the position where you want to draw. Keep both amiga keys pressed and use the cursor keys to move to the exact position you want the pointer. This will happen in one point steps. After having positioned the pointer, keep the left mouse button pressed (otherwise the exact position will be lost again) and then stretch the line. You can also simulate the left button press by keyboard (<left Amiga>and <ALT>). Keep both buttons pressed and use the cur- sor keys to stretch the line. By releasing ALT the line will be fixed. The chimney can be made in the same way. The smoke and the cloud on the side can be made by freehand tool. (<d>) as well as the horizon in the background. The sun is a simple circle (<c>). 6.2.4 Saving the Project Now we have produced our first work of art. Before we continue, we need to save it. Make certain that this window is activated (the frame has a different color than the deactivated windows). Now choose from project menu "picture save as : : :"(<right Amiga> <a>). A requester will open and you can type the path and name for your picture. Xi-Paint uses the IFF DEEP format, but you also can use different formats which can be chosen in the file requester (menu bar). [..] 9.1.2 Making Your Work Easier by Brush Manipu- lation The parts we need can be created by Xi-Paint's brush manipulation. First cut out the line as a rectangular brush then press <z>. This rotates the brush abouts 90O . Now we've got the element for the vertcal line. Take care that each brush is exactly 20x20 and the element is situated in the middle of the brush. That's not very easy, but by using the magnifier it should not be a problem. If you aren't careful, you will not be able to use the positioning help we are going to use. Now we need the four arrows, for allowing curves to bend in all directions. There are two different ways to get this result. First you can use the <z> key for rotating the brush four times about 90O . And second you can use two other tools Xi-Paint offers you, which are the reflections. After taking the brush, press<y>. It reflects the brush by its vertical axis and you can insert the result to your painting. Now rotate the brush about 90o again and you will get the third arrow to use. At least you just need to press <x> which reflects the brush this time to its vertical axis. Then insert this part on the worksheet. After finishing the worksheet, save your object collection. 9.2.1 The Brush Manager To produce the tube system in a such an easy way, make sure that the brush is exa ctly sized, in this case, to 20x20. You need not cut out the brush each time you need it,just use Xi-Paint's fantastic feature, the brush manager. 48 CHAPTER 9. WORKING WITH BRUSHES 9.3 Multiple Brushes Xi-Paint enables you to manage up to 128 brushes, depending upon what number you set in the "settings"requester. The pro- gramm stores them and offers them after starting Xi-Paint. Call from"menus" menu the comand "brush..." (<right Amiga> ). A new requester will open. Use the scroller for finding the area where your tube parts are situated. Xi-Paint saves each brush you take in this "list". Therefore you will also see some older brushes, for example from our fence. 9.3.1 How the Brush Manager Works If the list is complete, Xi-Paint starts to overwrite the old brushes, beginning with the oldest one. So you might find the tubes some- where in the middle of the list. If you click the free part of the scroller the list will move further for one page. [..] 11.1.1 A Multicolored Rectangle for Our Experi- ments We need a rectangle about 10 to 15 points length. But its sides need not have the same size. For painting this small of a rectangle use the magnifier. If the rectangle does not appear with the chosen shade, check if you've set the paint mode to "shade". The correct rectangle could be cut out by the brush tool (). Take care not to cut out the background around your rectangle. Turn off the magnifier. The small rectangle, filled with shade, sticks on your pointer. Now activate the tool for filled freehand lines (<W>) and activate the paint mode "as it is" (<right Amiga> <8>). Now paint an outline, similar to the one shown below: After releasing the mouse button, Xi-Paint starts to work. Depen- ding on size and re solution, Xi-Paint will need up to a few minutes. This fill also depends on the capacity of you computer. After finis- hing you'll like the result. It will be much more interesting than the picture in the manual shows. You'll see a filled object, green on the right and, if visible, blue on its left. This causes a pseudo 3D effect, which is used very often, especially by broadcasting stations. Try the different effects by yourself. 11.2. THE RELATED THEORY 59 11.1.2 Finishing Touches Set the shade requester to "2colors, vertical" and activate the filling tool (<f>). Do not forget to use the one point brush (<. >) and to set the paint mode to "shade". Now fill the red area to get a much more beautiful effect. Sometimes a five point shade can also be beautiful, just try it. 11.2 The Related Theory The above described effects look quite nice. But to really know how to use it, it's ne cessary to learn some of the theory. As already mentioned Xi-Paint doesn't always use the one point pen to fill areas. It can also use the currently selected brush. This isn't used like one piece of a mosaic, but rather each single point of the area to be filled will be drawn separately. This means that for each point of the related area, the entire brush will have to be displayed. This explains the relatively long calculating time required, even for filling a small area. Xi-Paint always starts with the top left and fills towards the bottom right. 60 CHAPTER 11. SPECIAL EFFECTS WITH BRUSHES Using this method you can create a pseudo 3-D effect. This is because the right and left border will always display the rest of the brush. If you understand the methodology involved, you'll be able to understand this aspect of Xi-Paint. Set every setting once again in the same manner as before in the freehand area set tings. This time select a filled ellipse (<E>). If you draw an ellipse this time you'll notice there is no 3-D effect, but the lower half is filled with blue and the upper half is filled with red. 11.2.1 Understanding Area Filling This continues where the previous chapter left off. You can easily recognize how Xi-Paint generates a filled ellipse. The upper half will be filled from the top left to the bottom right. The lower half will be filled from the bottom left to the upper right. We encourage you to test the other drawing tools. You'll notice right away that the results depend on the manner that Xi-Paint uses to generate specific objects. An unfilled ellipse (<e>) will be put together using 4 parts. Both of the upper sections will be drawn from the top to the bottom, and the lower will be drawn from the bottom to the top. 11.3 Some Tips To get used to the brush results choose the freehand tool (<d>). By drawing some outlines, you'll recognize the different possibilities, depending upon if you start your line on the bottom or on the top. The 3D effect will be disturbed by changing the direction. It's even more visible if you use the line tool. Draw the following four lines (use the shaded rectangle as brush and the paint mode "solid"): 11.4. NEW SHAPES USING BRUSHES 61 A physically impossible figure will appear. 11.3.1 Getting Experience The result will be different which each setting and with different drawing directions. Most of the time the 3D setting will be lost. Using the brush effects will need some planning and experience. 11.4 New Shapes Using Brushes Xi-Paint offers rectangles with angular corners. Normally that will be enough, but in certain cases you'd like to get a rectangle with rounded corners. Let's deal with how to do that. Let's create a filled, unicolor rectangle with rounded corners. 62 CHAPTER 11. SPECIAL EFFECTS WITH BRUSHES 11.4.1 A Rectangle with Rounded Corners Set the color requester the color you want your rectangle to appear. Then set the paint mode to "solid" and activate the one point brush. For a painting tool choose the filled ellipse. Now draw a circle or an ellipse. Each quarter of it will be one angle of our rectangle. Make sure that your ellipse does not become too big. The diameter should be around 20 to 30 points. Later on you'll understand why. After drawing the ellipse cut the whole ellipse, not just parts of it, out. It is unavoidable not to cut out the ellipse together with some parts of the background. That's the reason to mask it. To do so, just click, as you did with the fence, the background color in the color requester. After that the background parts can be made invisible by pressing < / >. This brush we be used to construct the rectangle with rounded corners. Select the filled rectangle tool and draw a rectangle. Dependent upon the size of the rectangle and the speed of your computer this may last up to a few minutes. 11.4.2 A Frame Instead of the Filled Rectangle Let's not use the unfilled rectangle tool as the frame will be as thick as the ellipse is - an undesirable result. Before painting the frame, call the grid requester (<rightAmiga> <G>). There you can set the desired thickness of the frame. Set X and Y to the 11.4. NEW SHAPES USING BRUSHES 63 desired values. You can even set the horizontal and vertical lines to different thickness. Let's choose "3". Activate the grid by pressing "on". Do you have the ellipse brush from the prior selection? No? Then deactivate the grid again and "regenerate" it by using the brush manager. Now activate the filled rectangle tool and draw a rectangle in the desired size. A filled rectangle with rounded corners will appear. Now call the color requester and set one of the color box to the background color. Activate it as current color and choose the paint mode "solid" (<right Amiga > <1>). For a painting tool reuse the filled rectangle. Position the pointer in the left top corner, where you've started with the previous rectangle. Before drawing the new rectangle, move the mouse pointer exactly one grid position to the right and one position down. This will be easier using the keyboard by pressing <left Amiga> and using the cursor keys. After having reached the desired position press the <left ALT>. This simulates a press of the left mouse button. Keep both keys pressed and drag the rubber band using the cursor keys for the desired size. After releasing all the keys, Xi-Paint paints this second rectangle. The result will be a frame with the desired width. If you do not like the result, use "Undo" () and try it again. 64 CHAPTER 11. SPECIAL EFFECTS WITH BRUSHES 11.4.3 A Rectangle with Sloped Edges Use a rhomboid brush instead of the ellipse shaped one. This rhom- boid shape is easy to get in the grid requester. Set the grid width to 10 points. Paint again with the one point brush and now use the polygon tool (<W>). Paint a rhomboid as it is shown above. The corners should be distanced one grid position from each other. After doing that, deactivate the grid and cut out the rhomboid as brush. Mask again the background color as you did it before. The result will be a rectangle with sloped corners. If you use this brush together with very small ellipses, the result will be a strange look alike. These suggestions are just some ideas for your experimenta- tion. Play with the shades. 11.5 Escaping a Running Routine If you suspect Xi-Paint may need too long for an operation or if it's crashed, simply press <ESC>. A small requester which shows the work in progress will open and will ask you if the you want to cancel the currently running operation. If you have called the requester to get some information, just press "No". Pressing "Yes" 11.5. ESCAPING A RUNNING ROUTINE 65 will cancel the current project. To undo the changes completed, simply remove them using "UNDO." [..] Working with Fonts By using the different Xi-Paint tools and paint modes you can get several effects, which eclipse a lot of very expensive video titling programs. The following pages will give you an overview of some possible experiments. Remember to try all the possibilities by your- self. 12.1 Text with Shade This is a very effective trick. Call the color requester (<right Amiga> <C>) and assign red (255, 0, 0) and yellow (255, 255, 0) to the first two colorboxes. DON'T FORGET TO CLICK "AS- SIGN". Now open the shade requester (<right Amiga> ) and set a "two color - vertical" shade. Next call the style requester (<right Amiga> <T>) and set a big script size. Click the disk symbol and choose from the font requester a font you know to be relatively thick (try one ending with "bold" or "_B"). Set the size to a minimum of 50 points (depending upon your resolution you can also choose larger sizes). 50 point fonts are optional for 640x480 or 800x600. 67 68 CHAPTER 12. WORKING WITH FONTS Do not change the values for xdpi and ydpi and set antialiasing to "on". That's especially important for non compugraphic but common Amiga formatted fonts. Now open a new worksheet. Set the paint mode to "shade"(<right Amiga> <3>) and use the text tool <t>. It is important to use the one point pencil. A text input requester will appear. Finish your input with<enter>. The tipped letters or signs will stick as brush on the pointer and can dragged to the position you want. By pressing the left mouse button you can fix the text to your worksheet. You'll be amazed with the result. Of course you can use each possible shade. Try for example the four point shade. But how to use the shade for each individual letter or sign? 12.1.1 Shades for Individual Letters Clear the old worksheet. Set the worksheet paint mode to "solid" (>right Amiga> <1>). Now insert your text again (use the brush requester or the text tool). Now as sign to your color requester the first four boxes with red (255,0,0), yellow (255,255,0), green (0,255,0) and blue (0,0,255). In the shade requester choose 4 color shade. Check it using the preview. Now use the one point pencil and choose the paint mode "shade". Painting tool is "fill" (<f>). Now click each letter of your text. The shade will be assigned to each letter. 12.2. SCRIPTS AND BRUSHES 69 12.2 Scripts and Brushes To get the most beautiful results you need a lot of practice and ex- perimentation. Copy the following methods exactly for exercising, otherwise the text might appear a little bit ugly. 12.2.1 Dealing With Text Open the color requester and assign the first four color boxes again with red, yellow, green and blue. Activate a 4 color shade. For pain- ting mode use"shade"and as tool "filled rectangle" (<R>). Then activate the magnifier because our rectangle should have exactly 8x6 points. Then choose the tool for cutting out rectangular brus- hes () and take that rectangle as brush. Avoid cutting out parts of the background. Turn off the magnifier. Choose a very fat font from the style requester - a size of at least 75 points. Set the paint mode to "solid" and activate the text tool. Insert any short text. Try inserting a space between each letter because of the fat letters. Finish your inserting with <enter> and insert the text at any place in your worksheet. The text will appear with a 70 CHAPTER 12. WORKING WITH FONTS very effective 3D effect. The result will be even more astounding, if you choose a "2 color, vertical" shade and activate the one point pen cil, the filling tool and as Paint mode "shade". Now click each letter. Well, how do you like the result?? 12.3 New Script Styles Sometimes you'll need one or two very big letters as background, for example. In this instance you'd like to get rounded off letters. Unfortunately you may not have the right font. So, what to do? 12.3.1 Letters with Rounded off or Sloped Corners By using the brushes together with text, a desired corner shape can be created. No tice that this is useful for very big letters (bigger than 150 points). Draw a circle or a rhomboid. It's size depends on the chosen letter size. For a 150 point letter use a rhomboid with 4 points or a circle with a diameter about 8 points. Cut out this brush and mask the background color (choose the background color from the color reque ster and press </>). Now set the desired font, enter your text and write it to your worksheet. You'll get your text 12.3. NEW SCRIPT STYLES 71 and the desired rounded off corners. Of course you can arrange the corner shapes however you want. You can brighten up the letters for example with a shade to add an extra touch. [..] News for XiPaint 3.1 ==================== * If you have a WACOM-Touchsensitive tablett, XiPaint 3.1 supports this via the wacom-driver from Roland Schwingel (Shareware). Please use Version 1.17. Activate the driver by selecting it in the XiPrefs-Menu. Swicht on in the mainprogram under "misc" - "Pressure-Menu" the button "Use Tablet ?". For temporary disabeling it is possible to switch the tablet off via 'ALT P' or in the "Pressure-Menu". It switches the intensity to the value from the slider. This works also with the mouse. FOR FASTER PAINTING: Set the "Pixel-Current" to a number between a quarter or a third of the pixels of a brush. Pixel Current is set in the parameters-menu. Exapmle: Your pen is 30 pixels. Set the Current to 9. This makes drawing with freehand draw "shift D" very fast. Also switch off Antialias when using a touch-sensitve tablet. The pixel-current should be an odd number because of drawing ellipses. * New Menus in the brush-queue-requester: You have now the following menus: * rotata * slant * bend * perspective * size This menus are selfexplaining. Please try them. The actual brush will be converted. If a brush has after manipulating a black border, so click on a black color-register in the color-menu and press '/', the brush will be masked to black. * Loading TARGA In the filerequester is a menu, which let you choose the file-format between multipic.library or xi-paints own formats. To load TARGA, choose it here. To load an other format, try multipic.library. In next versions XiPaint will have more formats to load. * Saving TARGA, SGI, JPEG, PPM In the filerequester is a menu, which let you choose the file-format between multipic.library or xi-paints own formats. To save TARGA, choose it here. To save an other format, try multipic.library. In next versions XiPaint will have more formats to save. * Printing out now with Studio V2.0 and Turboprint Professional 3.0 * Frame to Fields Makes from one Frame (actual project) two projects (fields). * Fields to Frame XiPaint asks two times for the Field-projects - and converts them to one Frame. * Lighttable-Menu You can choose the relation between the two pictures which are connected via a lighttable * Magnify Moving is possible with cursor keys (and shift cursor) Zooming in/out is possible with +/- * Antialiasing (Parameter-menu) * Now for one-pixel-lines, Line-Aliasfactor gives the intensity * Sizing of brushs is with or without antialiasing * New RGB-Triangle. This is CCITT conform and easier to use * To rotate pictures 90° take the shortcut <Amiga><Z> * To rotate pictures 180° take the shortcut <Amiga><Y> Have fun - and sorry for my bad english Herbert Beilschmidt & Thomas Dorn