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Floppyshop 2
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0022-3.564
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dmg-3557
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news.txt
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title.asc
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Text File
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1997-06-21
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4KB
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79 lines
∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°
∙ ∙
∙ M O N O P I X M A D E E A S Y ∙
∙ ∙
∙ or ∙
∙ ∙
∙ How I Created This Issue's Mono Loading Screen ∙
∙ ∙
∙ by John Weller ∙
∙ ∙
∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°
Before you go any further (assuming that you want to, that is....),
go to the 'Load Picture' option in the drop-down menu, open the PICTURES
folder and select SCREEN.PC3. This is the mono loading screen from this
issue. It's obviously best in mono, but colour users should be able to
get an idea of what I'm about to describe below.
This file is being written in something of a hurry, so you'll have to
pardon its shortness. I've included all the relevant details, however,
for you to understand how this particular image was put together.
The first stage was to scan two entries from my dictionary at 200 DPI
with a hand scanner. These are the 'enthusiasm' and 'news' texts that
you can see behind the titles. The scans were then loaded into Atari's
'HyperPaint 2', trimmed and tidied-up, and then had all the lettering
converted from black to a grey tone. This was done very laboriously by
selecting a suitable mono fill and filling each letter with it. There
must be an easier and less eye-straining way of doing this, but I've yet
to find it.
The two lots of grey lettering were then cut out as .IMG blocks (my
favourite file format) and saved to disc for later use.
The second stage was to design an interesting background using
HyperPaint's mono fill design option. I'd used a small floppy disc
design in a previous screen, so I thought I'd have a change this time and
draw a Smiley face. After a little experimentation, and filling a few
trial screens, I had what I needed.
The third stage was the large lettering for the title and date.
This was laid out using the 'Headline' display lettering utility
originally intended for use with 'Signum'. Just because a utility isn't
specifically intended for that use, doesn't mean that you can't use it.
The completed lettering was grabbed with the PD IMGsnap screen grabber,
saved to my work disc and then loaded into HyperPaint.
One of the many nice things about HyperPaint is its ability to have
several screens in memory at once. I reloaded the grey lettering blocks
into screens 1 and 2, the display lettering into screen 3, and used screen
4 for my paste-up screen. One thing to remember is to *always* save your
screens at every stage, and keep your original work files. That way, if
the worst happens through tiredness or a machine crash, you can always
reconstruct your picture.
The grey lettering blocks then had a grey rectangle drawn around each
of them, were cut and pasted to screen 4, and moved around until I was
satisfied with their position. I then made any last-minute adjustments
to the layout of the display lettering in screen 3, cut out all the
lettering as one large block, selected 'replace' from the 'paste mode'
option, and pasted them over the grey blocks in workscreen 4. The block
was moved around until I was satisfied that it was centred.
The fifth and final stage was to select the Smiley fill from the
mono fills option and fill the background to the screen. Voila, a
usable screen that had only taken a few hours to create. Most of the
time had been spent on filling the 'dictionary' letters, but they had
been saved to disc and would be ready for any future use.
Just because you don't have any drawing skills doesn't mean that you
can't design a picture... I'll be writing more on this theme in future
issues. Until then, Enjoy!
~~~~~eof~~~~~