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Text File | 1994-05-22 | 34.6 KB | 1,168 lines

******************** ******************** **** **** **** Fine Art **** **** **** ******************** ******************** Art program for Acorn Archimedes ================================ By Barry Alcock © Barry Alcock 1993/94 - All rights reserved Manual issue 1.0 22/05/94 for program Version 1.0 22/05/94 Introduction to Fine Art ======================== General ------- Fine Art is a painting program in the same vain as the !Paint application supplied with Acorn RiscOS machines. Where as the current version of !Paint has a palette of 256 colours (using 8 bit sprites) this Fine Art uses the ColourTrans module to support dithered colours as well as 15 bit sprites when used in conjunction with computer concepts ColourCard Gold product. I hope that in the future, when the hardware can fully support 24 bit colour, it will be quite easy to integrate a correct display of the required colours on screen into the program. This is because Fine Art stores colour with 24 bits of information (thats around 16.7 million colours) in the background and then uses the ColourTrans calls to update the sprite on screen. The only disadvantage with this is the speed - or rather lack of it - in redrawing pictures. This approach to an art package gives a wide scope of improvements over 'standard' art packages such as !Paint allowing for a far better control of colour than the normal select and update. Fine Art allows the user to slowly control the colour in many ways, producing subtle changes with filters, blending of colour with the pressure control and changes to contrast and brightness. Fine Art Files -------------- The Fine Art files are rather bulky as they are made up of pixels held with 32 bits of information. These 4 bytes are used for 24 bit colour support, 3 mask bits for each of the primary colours, 1 bit for storing what cutouts look like, 3 bits for the material type and 1 bit for the flood fill routine. Fine Art also supports importing and exporting of standard 8 bit sprite files, but this does not save any memory space. Using the program in this way though will save disk space (Note: Sprite files loaded into Fine Art should be in modes 13,15 or 21, but preferably mode 21, or one of Computer Concepts 16bpp screen modes.). Future releases should have extra file support including compressed 32 bit file types. Using Fine Art ============== Document Handling ================= Loading Fine Art ---------------- To load the Fine Art application you can either: - double-click on the Fine Art icon in the directory window, or - double-click on a Fine Art file icon or - drag the Fine Art icon to the icon bar. The Menus --------- The Icon menu contains: - Info about the application - Create a new picture window - Colour selection window - The edit shape/filter window - Remove current picture option - Toggle Undo Buffer on or off facility - The Quit option The Main menu contains: - File submenu - Toolbox - Colours submenu - Mask protection window - Scale option - The edit shape/filter window - The tool info screen - Select area submenu - Scratch area window - Digital Paper - Graduator editor - Undo The File submenu contains: - Info about the file - Saving in Fine Art format window - Exporting submenu - The print option The Exporting submenu contains: - Saving as a sprite The Colours submenu contains: - Main colour selection box - Small colour selector box (select palette colours only) The Select area submenu contains: - Save select area window - Remove select area contents - Copy all to select area option The Digital paper submenu contains: - Plain paper + colour submenu - Mat + colour submenu - Corrigated cardboard + colour submenu - Weave pattern + colour submenu - Rough paper + colour submenu - Tiles + colour submenu - Stonework + colour submenu - Slates + colour submenu - Rock formation + colour submenu The colour submenu contains: - White coloured paper - Black coloured paper - Red coloured paper - Green coloured paper - Blue coloured paper - Yellow coloured paper - Magenta coloured paper - Cyan coloured paper The Edit window menu contains: - Saving of Tool shapes - Loading of default tool shapes set The Colours window menu contains: - Saving of colour selections - Loading of default colour selections - Small colour selector box (select palette colours only) Starting a New Picture ---------------------- Clicking on the Fine Art icon on the icon bar or selecting the create option from the icon bar menu will bring up the Create Picture option. This window allows you to set the size of the picture in terms of cms across and down the page, and the size of the pixels to use. At the bottom of the window there are two numbers showing how much disk space the created picture will take up and how much MORE memory the application will require to edit a picture of that size. When you are happy with the size of picture you have specified click on the create icon. (Note that any extra memory the program will require will be taken from the free pool automatically if it is available) Loading an existing picture --------------------------- To load an existing picture just drag it onto the application icon. This will overwrite any picture currently in memory. Loading a sprite ---------------- Dragging a 256 colour sprite file to the application icon should convert the image into the fine art format. Any mask attached to the sprite will be used to set the cutout bit on the resultant picture. Loading to the select area -------------------------- It is possible to load a fine art file into the select area by dragging it to one of the fine art editing windows. This will allow the picture to be merged with the old picture. Note that the tile offset will be reset to where ever you drop the new image into the old image. Saving the picture ------------------ To save the image use any of the save options provided. Note that exporting as a sprite saves the picture that is being displayed to the screen, ie in a 16bpp mode such as 104-107 the sprite will be 16 bit where as in any other mode the sprite will be saved as either mode 13, 15 or 21. Editing the picture ------------------- Once a picture has been loaded two editing windows are displayed. These allow normal viewing of the picture as well as scaled editing. At present the scaled image does not support any more colours than the normal view. Hopefully future hardware will support 24 bit graphics and then this should not be a problem. The Toolbox =========== Main Layout ----------- There are currently four types of instruction tools in Fine Art. These are:- - Area selection - the tools - Colour selection - Colour alterations - Plot update routines These sections are split in the toolbox into four sections going down the screen. Within these groups there are two types of icon. Those that select update routines and those which are parameters. The parameters normally have a slightly darker background and are always recessed. With update routines, clicking on the icon changes the current selection to that tool. With parameters, clicking with select moves the icon on one state, clicking with adjust, moves it back one state. If you select the toolbox info window then this will describe what each icon is for. The first line shows which area selection tool is selected, the second line shows which colour selection routine is in use and the third line shows which plot routine is currently selected. The last line, the fourth, shows which tool (or parameter) is currenly under the mouse pointer The toolbox layout ------------------ The detailed descriptions that follow refer to the toolbox by the general descriptions shown below. The relative position of these descriptions relate to the position of icons in the main toolbox. ------------------------------------------------------------ .-----------------------. | N | X | T o o l s | |-----------------------| | | Pens/ | | Area selection (the tools) | Point |Brushes| Lines | -------------- | | /| /| |-------|-------|-------| | | | | | Boxes | Tri- |Circles| | /| angle| /| <=== NOTE: this mark in the |-------|-------|-------| corner of a box denotes | |finding|Picking| that the option has a | Fills | Masks |Colours| sub-toolbox, accessible | /| /| /| by pressing the menu |-------|-------|-------| button on the mouse | Start |Select | Click | while the pointer is | Points| Area | Toggle| over the icon. | /| /| | |-----------------------| |-----------------------| |Actual |Same as|Turn to| Colour selection |Palette|Current|Black &| ---------------- |Colour |Colour | White | |-------|-------|-------| |Gradu- | Set |Substi-| | ated | Masks | tute | |Colour/| /|Colour/| |---------------|-------| | Filter | Tile | | colour from |Select | | picture /| Area /| |---------------|-------| | | |Inter- | | Logic |Cut-out| active| | /| bit /| Undo | |-----------------------| |-----------------------| |Bright-|Cont- |Random-| Colour alterations | ness | rast | ness | ------------------ | /| /| /| |-----------------------| |-----------------------| |Mat- | |Mirror-| Plot update routines | erial |Press- | ing | -------------------- | Type | ure /| | '-----------------------' ------------------------------------------------------------ The toolbox in detail ===================== The area selection tools... --------------------------- Point:- This is a fine pencil tool which enables you to act on single pixels. This is simiular to the pencil tool in the !paint application. Pens:- This option has the following submenu... .-----------------------------------------. | N | X | B r u s h e s | |-----------------------------------------| | || | | || Brush | | Pen ||Pencil | Brush | Spray || Shape | | || | | || | |-----------------------------------------| | | random|| | | | | | | spray || spray | spray | spray | | | | can || size |density| depth | | '-----------------------------------------' Pen:- This option can draw anti-aliased lines when used in conjenction with the pressure sensitivity option. Pencil:- This routine tries to plot the current brush shape continuously as the mouse is moved. Brush:- This is the paint brush tool, it would probably be the best art package tool available on the Arc but it can be rather jerky. I have attempted to overcome this speed problem by updating less information the faster the mouse is moved, but faster processing wouldn't go amiss. In conjunction with the pressure option this tool allows the ploting of the selected brush shape with depth. That is the pixels in the centre can be made to use the actual colour you have selected and the outer colours can be made to merge into the background. Spray:- This is referred to as being the spray can but is actually akin to the paint brush in !paint. This tool plots the selected brush shape with depth, and is ploted discreatly, providing a good spray can effect when used with the pressure parameters. It is not though your standard computerised spray can. Random spray can:- This is a more traditional type of spray can. This tool plots points on the picture using three criteria, the spray size, the spray density and the spray depth. Spray depth will only work when the pressure tool is also in operation. Lines:- This option has the following submenu... .-----------------------. | N | X | L i n e s | |-----------------------| | | Wide | | | Line | Line | Rays | | | | | '-----------------------' Line:- This is a standard line drawing routine, one wobbly line follows another while you move the mouse around the screen clicking away... Wide line:- This line drawing routine is either a wide version of the normal line routine or, when used with the pressure sensitivity option, it plots anti-alias lines. Rays:- This one plots lines from the same given point. (ie rays) Boxes:- This option has the following submenu... .-------------------------------. | N | X | B o x e s | |-------------------------------| |Joining| Full | Full |Outline| | Box | Box |Picture| Box | | | | | | '-------------------------------' Joining Box:- This is a filled rectangular shape but the last rows are not actioned so that, when used in conjunction with the pressure option, it is made easier to continue plotting more boxes without getting banding between the boxes. Full Box:- This is a filled rectangular shape including the last row. Full Picture:- This is the complete picture frame. Outline Box:- This is an outline of a rectangular shape. Triangle:- This is a filled triangle extending from the last two points chosen to the currently chosen location. Circles:- This option has the following submenu... .-----------------------. | N | X | C i r c l e s | |-----------------------| |Filled |Filled |Graded | |Ellipse|Circle |Filled | | | |Circle | '-----------------------' Filled Ellipse:- This is a solid ellipse with the previous two points being the central control points and the current point being a place on the outer edge of the ellipse. (An ellipse is a shape described by a boundary of points whos distance from the control points is always the same.) Filled Circle:- This is a solid circle with the previous point as its centre and the current point a place on its outer edge so that the distance between the two points is the circles radius. Graded filled Circle:- This is a solid circle like the ordinary filled circle but the two points are used as the new start and finish points of the graded fill. When this option is used in conjunction with the circular graded fill routine it allows drawing of proper graded circles. If the contrast option is also in use, you can also have 3D looking circles. Fills:- This option has the following submenu... .------------------------. | N | X | F i l l s | |------------------------| |Global | Local ||Degree | | Fill | Flood || of | | | Fill || Error | '------------------------' Global Fill:- This option takes all points in the picture with a simiular colour to that of the chosen point, taking into consideration the degree of error that is placed upon the action. Local Flood Fill:- This option takes all the points in the area around the chosen point which have a simiular colour to that of the chosen point, taking into consideration the degree of error. Finding Masks:- This option has the following submenu... .------------------------. | N | X | M S | |------------------------| |Search |Search || Mask | | for | for || to | |Cutouts| Masks || find | '------------------------' Search for cutouts:- This option looks for all the pixels in the picture which have the cutout bit set. This therefore can allow you to use the cutout bit to mark areas to update with the cutout bit, use this option to update the chosen area to how you want it, then use this option again to turn off the cutout bit. Search for masks:- Selects all areas in the picture which have the mask protection set to the mask setting being looked for (the mask to find). This can be a quicker way to turn off all settings of a mask or, like the cutout bit above, be used for marking area to update when mask protection has been turned off. Picking Colours:- This option has the following submenu... .-----------------------. | N | X | P i c k | |-----------------------| | Pick | Pick |Pick Se| |Palette|Primary|condary| |Colour |Colour |Colour | '-----------------------' Pick Palette Colour:- Takes the colour from under the cursor as the new palette entry. Pick primary colour:- Takes the colour from under the cursor as the new primary colour. Pick secondary colour:- Takes the colour from under the cursor as the new secondary colour. Start points:- This option has the following submenu... .-----------------------. | N | X | O f f s | |-----------------------| | Pick | Pick | Pick | | Tile |Graded |Graded | | Start |Start |Finish | '-----------------------' Pick tile start:- This option allows you to pick the offset for corner of the tile. Pick graded start:- This option allows you to set the point where the graduated colour 'fills' start. At this point the primary colour will be plotted. Pick graded finish:- This option allows you to set the point where the graduated colour 'fills' finish. At this point the seconary colour will be plotted. Select area:- This option allows you to use the select area. This option has the following submenu... .-----------------------. | N | X | S e l e c t | |-----------------------| | | Load/ | Use | | | | Save | Cutout| | | | Area | Bit? | | '-----------------------' Load/Save Area:- This toggles between loading info into the select area (an arrow pointing into the box) or plotting the select area back into the picture (an arrow pointing out of the box) Use cutout bit?:- This toggles between using the cutout bit to determine the shape of the object being plotted (black scissors) or plotting the shape with the cut-out info (red scissors) Click toggle:- This determines when things happen. If the paintbrush is dripping this means that actions are only taken if the mouse button is clicked, whereas if the paintbrush is being moved across the desk actions will be taken continuously as the mouse button is held down. Actual Palette Colour:- This takes the colour straight from the current palette entry. Same as current colour:- This takes the colour as being the same as the pixel at that time. This can be usefull for the mirroring, contrast and brightness effects. Turn to Black & White:- This takes all the colour out of the chosen pixels. Graduated Colour:- This option has the following submenu... .-----------------------. | N | X | G r a d e | |-----------------------| |Custom |Radial |Linear | |Graded |Graded |Graded | |Fill |Fill |Fill | '-----------------------' Custom graded fill:- This is not customisable but just a fill type that I came up with accidentally and liked the look of, so it stayed... Radial graded fill:- Normal graded fill between the two control points and two colours. Note that beyond the defined control points range the colours still change. Linear graded fill:- Normal linear fill between the two control points and two colours. Note that beyond the defined control points range the colours reverse back to the other control colour. Set masks:- This option has the following submenu... .------------------------. | N | X | M a s k | |------------------------| |Invert | Set || Type | | Mask | Mask || of | | | || Mask | '------------------------' Invert Mask:- Swap the mask bits Set Mask:- Set the mask bits to the currently chosen type of mask. Substitute Colour:- This option swaps any colour matching the primary colour (taking the spread into consideration) with the secondary colour. This option has the following submenu... .-------------------. | N | X | S u b | |-------------------| | | | | | |Spread | | | | | | '-------------------' Filter Colour from picture:- This option uses the currently defined filter to alter the picture. A transformation matrix such as .-----------. | 1 | | 1 4 1 | | 1 | '-----------' smooths the image out, whereas a matrix of the form .-----------. | -2 -1 | | -1 1 | | 1 2 | '-----------' detects edges. Note that in the current version of Fine Art negative numbers in the edit tools window are represented by values over 50. ie 51 means -1. This option has the following submenu... .---------------------. | N | X | F i l t e r | |---------------------| | | | | | |Filter | | | | | | '---------------------' Tile Select Area:- Tiles allow the merging of another picture into the current picture, or even merging say an outline of another picture to be merged with the current picture via a suitable filter. This therefore also gives you the ability to load the required picture file into the select area, and use this tiling tool to experiment with different filters with greater easy than by other methods. This option has the following submenu... .----------------------------------------------. | N | X | T i l e | |----------------------------------------------| | left/ | up/ |Rotate | Use || | | right | down | 90 | Filter ||Filter | | mirror| mirror|degrees| || | '----------------------------------------------' Logic:- This option has the following submenu... .-------------------------------. | N | X | L o g i c | |-------------------------------| | | | | | | AND | EOR | OR | NOT | | | | | | '-------------------------------' All these commands all perform logical bit transformations between the old colour on the picture and the new palette entry. Cut-out bit:- This option has the following submenu... .-------------------------. | N | X | C u t O u t s | |-------------------------| | set | unset | invert| | |cut-out|cut-out|cut-out| | | bit | bit | bit | | '-------------------------' Set cut-out bit:- Set the bit which represents a cut-out shape to the select area code. Unset cut-out bit:- Remove any cut-out information from the chosen pixels. Invert cut-out bit:- Swap any cut-out information from the chosen pixels, ie if the pixels chosen where cut-out then they no longer will be and vice versa. Interactive Undo:- This takes the colour from the undo buffer of the pixels chosen, the undo buffer is updated every time a tool is chosen using the mouse select button. Brightness:- This toggles whether brightness control will be used on the new colour. This option has the following submenu... .-----------------------------. | N | X | B r i g h t n e s s | |-----------------------------| |Lighten|Darken | | | | |Colour |Colour | |Degree | | | | | | | | '-----------------------------' Lighten colour:- Increase the brightness of the new colour by the degree specified. Darken colour:- Decrease the brightness of the new colour by the degree specified. Contrast:- This toggles whether contrast control will be used on the new colour. This option has the following submenu... .---------------------------------------. | N | X | C o n t r a s t | |---------------------------------------| | raise | lower |spread |lower | Use | | dark | light |colours|colour |gradu- | |colours|colours| |spread | ator | '---------------------------------------' Raise dark colours:- This option spreads out darker colours giving them better contrast. This does have the side effect the lighter colours having their contrast reduced so that the colours can be stored within the computer. Lower light colours:- This has the opposite effect to raising dark colours. Light colours have their contrast increased and dark colours have theirs decreased. Spread colours:- This option increases the contrast of central colours taking 'space' from both light and dark colours. Lower colour spread:- This option increases the contrast of both light and dark colours leaving central colours worse off. Use graduator:- This option uses the user definable contrast graduator to manipulate the colours being updated. It works by taking the x-axis as being the input colour values and projecting them via the defined curve onto the Y-axis. The resulting values are then used as the new colour. Random-ness:- This is a setting of how much information is updated. The levels provided are 1/4 (25%), 2/4 (50%), 3/4 (75%) and 4/4 (all points). Material type:- This option allows you to change the material that is being used to update the picture. These materials produce the best results when used in conjunction with digital paper files. The material types on offer are - oil, which displays the actual colour being stored, - charcoal, which is always black, - water colours, which are slightly opaque, - graphite, which gives a rough, pencil effect, - crayon, which gives a rough and slightly opaque effect, - tipex, which is always white, - eraser, which shows the paper colour and - equal, which keeps the paper type as it was last updated. Pressure:- This toggles whether tending towards the required colour is to be used. This option has the following submenu... .-------------------------. | N | X | P r e s s u r e | |-------------------------| | .-------. | | |Current| | | |Degree | | | | | | | '-------' | |.-----------------------.| || Use | Use | Use || ||Setting|Setting|Setting|| || below | below | below || ||-------|-------|-------|| ||Change-|Change-|Change-|| || able | able | able || ||pre-set|pre-set|pre-set|| |'-----------------------'| '-------------------------' Current Degree:- This is used as a percentage of how much the old colour should be moved to the new colour. For this option to be in action the main menus pressure icon must be set so that the nib is putting pressure on the line. 'Use setting below' and 'Changable pre-set' options:- These six options allow you to set 3 pressure values for easier recalling of them. You set the numbers by clicking on the changeable pre-set icons and then select one of them by clicking on the Use setting below box above the desired level. This changes the current degree to the value in the box. Mirroring:- This option has the following submenu... .-----------------------------------------------. | N | X | U p d a t e s | |-----------------------------------------------| |Stand- |Mirror |Mirror |Mirror |Rotate |Rotate | | ard |across |across |across |around |around | |plot |X-axis |Y-axis |X/Y |X-axis |Y-axis | '-----------------------------------------------' Standard plot:- Plot just the selected pixels. Mirror across X-axis:- This mirrors any action on the left of the screen onto the right of the screen and vise-versa. Mirror across Y-axis:- This mirrors any action on the bottom of the screen onto the top of the screen and vise-versa. Mirror across X-axis and Y-axis:- This mirrors any action onto all four of the other quarters of the picture. Rotate around X-axis:- This wraps the left side to the right hand side of the screen and the right hand side back to the left of the screen so the the image produced on the other side still looks the same way around as the original. Rotate around Y-axis:- Like the previous option but around the Y-axis instead of the X-axis. ------------------------------------------------------------ The colour selection boxes ========================== The colour selection box is in three sections. These are for the palette colour, the primary colour and the secondary colour. The primary and secondary colours are used for all the graded fills and the colour substitutor. You can select a colour for the current section in five ways... 1. Pick the colour from the screen or scratch pad. 2. Enter the numbers into the windows provided and click on ok. 3. Use the colour bars 4. Click select on the example colour selector on the right hand side. 5. Click select in the small example colour selector box. The colour bars work in two ways. If you click on the bar at a certain point with the select mouse button that actual colour will be chosen. If on the other hand you click on the bar with adjust, that colour gun will be changed to the chosen colour. You can place new colours in the example colour selector by clicking adjust on the required box, which will place the current colour for the current section there. There is also a small menu for this window which allows you to save the set of example colours or reload the default file. To change the default set just save a new 'palette' file back into the Fine Art application directory. To reload a colour file just drag it to a Fine Art window or the Fine Art sprite on the icon bar. Mask protections ================ The three types in this catagory are "separations", "colours in use" and "mask protections". The colour icons in this section are toggled off and on with select and adjust toggles the other two colours. Separations just change the colours on display in the window (not those being updated), so you can see any combination of red, green and blue together on screen. Note: Saving a picture as a sprite currently only saves what you can see on screen!! Colours in use changes the colours that are updated allowing you to work on only one or two types of colour. Mask protections allows you to alter which masks are in operation at any one time. ie you could mask off all colours in a particular area but you then wish to update that area, so instead of removing the mask that you may need later, just turn the mask off. Edit Tools ========== This allows you to edit both the brush shapes and the filter shapes. The current shape is shown in the top left hand corner. The 3 arrows permanently alter the way the tool looks, flipping and rotating the shape. The blank icon wipes the current tools definition. Down the right hand side there are also copies of all the shapes, the first column being the brush shapes, the second column being the filters. With brushes the numbers represent the depth of the tool. This is for use with either the paint brush or spray can and the pressure sensitivity option. The filters numbers represent waitings of pixels, which the program adds together and then if a devide factor is present (the number at the base of the window) the result is devided by this. Any number over 50 in a filter definition is taken as a negative number. This allows for edge detections, colour enhancement etc to be programed. You can also set on filters a base value to base the result around. 0% is for black, 99% is for near white and the rest is just for the greys in between... There is also a small menu for this window which allows you to save a shape set or reload the default file. To change the default set just save a new 'shapes' file back into the Fine Art application directory. To reload a shape file just drag it to a Fine Art window or the Fine Art sprite on the icon bar. Scratch pad =========== This is just a small area for mixing colours or testing out ideas in, as there can only be one picture open at a time. Currently the only way of saving anything from the scratch pad is by using the select option. All tools except copy picture to select area should work with the scratch area. Digital Paper ============= This is an 'overlay' of picture colour which does not effect the actual picture. It does though effect the sprite so you can see the paper on it. If digital paper is chosen it is stored in the FineArt file for when you re-load the picture. Graduator ========= The graduator allows you to define your own colour contrast controller. The shape of the curve produced here, when chosen acts on the colour to be updated in such a way that projecting the input colour from the base line upto the curve gives the new colour value. To alter the curve you can click anywhere in the centre of the box with select to fix the left control point and adjust to fix the right control point. Clicking on the outer edges of the box fixes a new start or end position for the curve. After a point has been changed a new bezier curve is drawn on the screen to represent the new colour transformation that will occur if it is used.