Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-07-22 | 25KB | 44 lines
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INFO
Title : VMorph v2b
Author : Lee Wilkie
Country : England
Conditions : Public Domain
Category : Application
Released : 1993
Opinion : 87%
REQUIREMENTS
Drives : 1
Memory : 1 meg.
COMPATIBILITY
A500 wb 1.3.2 : YES
A600 wb 2.05 : YES%Multi-tasks : NO - Autoboots Only -
(written in AMOS - weep!)
Display : PAL& Morphing and Warping comes to the&public domain with a program that's&extremely easy to use and produces&superb results. The cat sequence on&the front page is an example of a&morph produced with this program while&the one on the following page is a
warp.& VMorph when first run throws up a&requester asking for the start and end&pictures to morph between. These have&to be sixteen colour grey-scale lo-res&IFF images. No colour support I'm&afraid. The two images I used for the&cat-morphs started out as colour HAM&pictures taken from the Cat Slideshow&reviewed in issue 2 of APDR. These&were first reduced to lo-res using the&PD program Wasp. I then converted them&into grey-scale pictures in Deluxe&Paint by making a grey-scale palette,&(spreading all the colours in the&palette from black to white), loading&the pictures in as brushes and
re-mapping them.& Once your two pictures are loaded&you are presented with your first&picture displayed on the screen and&covered with a few horizontal and&vertical white lines and a control&panel at the bottom of the screen. The&control panel is nicely laid out with&everything controllable by the mouse.&It partially covers your picture but&can be toggled on or off by pressing&the space bar. Your second picture can&be viewed just by pressing the return
key and it also has lines on.& The horizontal and vertical lines&covering the pictures are at the heart&of the morphing and warping process.&The points where these lines meet can&be moved about with the mouse to allow&you to enclose matching areas of the&two pictures. If for example you&needed a small eye on your first&picture to grow into a large eye on&your second picture you would enclose&both eyes with the matching set of&points but they would be spaced&further apart on the second eye. Rest&assured it's easier to do than
explain.& Extra lines may be added by&clicking on the left or top of the&screen and they are then placed on&both screens. Editing is fast and very&easy and really can't be faulted.&There's no way to delete lines but&this doesn't seem to cause any&problems as any extra lines don't slow&the rendering process down and are&placed very neatly when first drawn.&It's all very slick and enjoyable to&use, once you've figured out what&you're doing, which doesn't take long.& Once you're happy with where you've&placed all the lines It's time to make&your animation. You have a choice of&how many frames you want to use and a&selection of sizes to choose from with&a full screen animation taking about&an hour per frame. So for most full&screen animations it's at least an&over-night wait. The results I'm happy&to say have proved marvellous with&both the morphing and warping. I&wanted to include an animation in the&magazine but it would have taken up&too much disk space. Subscribers can
see one on their extra PD disk.
[3m! The results I'm happy to say# have proved marvellous with both the morphing and warping.
[23m& There's one major problem here and&it's to do both with AMOS and VMorph.&With VMorph you can't save how you've&set things up so everything has to be&done in one sitting. If AMOS&multi-tasked (which it doesn't) you&could at least try your animation to&see if the results were as you wanted&them before exiting VMorph. As it is&it's a case of saving your animation,&exiting VMorph (and losing your&set-up), making your animation with&AnimBuild which is also supplied on&the disk and finally viewing your&morph or warp. I can forgive the&programmer for using AMOS but I can&never forgive the maker of AMOS for&leaving out access to the Workbench.&Grrr! AMOS aside though, VMorph's lack&of a set-up save is a major oversight.&Perhaps with the next version when it&goes colour and is in all resolutions?
Well one can hope.& With warping I found that loading&the source picture as both the start&and end pictures made it easier to&visualize how you wanted to warp the&picture. Once you know what you're&doing warping is just as easy as&morphing. This is one program where&using it is the quickest way to learn&which is just as well as the
documentation is rather sparse.& VMorph is a stunning debut for what&I think is the first Amiga morphing&program to hit the public domain. If&you want some new effects for your&pictures or anims then you must add it&to your graphics collection. Now I&wonder how much it was Michael Jackson$paid for that Black And White video?
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