Digital Illusions v1.4, Beta ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ DISCLAIMER This software is provided "as is". The author assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever with respect to your use of this software. WHAT DOES IT DO? Digital Illusions is a highly professional image processing program. Not only is it capable of processing still pictures, but it will also let you create stunning animations from ordinary flat pictures using a powerful 'In between' tecnique. REQUIREMENTS You will need an Amiga with at least 1 MB RAM. This is the absolutely minimum amount of RAM, and at least 2MB is recommended! If you have only 1 MB you should not use [Quick save], [Reset from RAM] nor large pictures. The animation mode is not designed to work with that little RAM, so be careful! You can also try to close the workbench if you are running out of memory. A hardisk is also very useful when you are dealing with large animations, but Digital Illusions will work fine without one too. WHAT KIND OF PICTURES CAN BE USED? All IFF images are supported (I hope... There are some strange hybrids out there. Any problems? Let me know...) including HAM, EHB, 256 color pictures and 24 bit images (no HAM8 yet...). In fact, all images are converted to 24 bit format when loaded to ensure high image quality. You can also save your image in most formats. In the theory it is possible to load pictures up to 1024x1024 pixels (if you have enough memory), but the program has mainly been tested with 320x200 pictures. If you encounter any problems when loading pictures, try to save the same picture from another graphics program before loading it. The dpaint format should work fine, so you can load troublesome images into this program and save it again. The saved image should be all right... INSTRUCTIONS Use the left and right mousebuttons on the boxes to change settings. Image Output ------------ In this section you choose which output format your image will be rendered to. [2/4/8/16/32/EHB/HAM/24 bit/Preview] - Choose the number of colours to use. The [Preview] option will give you ultra fast rendering, but only in black and white and with no dithering. This option is ideal when you just want a quick preview. The 24 bit option will not display 24 bit pictures, even if you have the proper hardware, but is intended to be used in animation mode so all the generated frames will be saved as 24 bit IFF. This is ideal when used together with Dpaint IV AGA or other animation packages that is capable of handling 24 bit pictures. [Non Laced/Laced] - Interlace on/off. [Low Res/Hi Res] - High resolution on/off. Color control ------------- [Dither: Off/Dither: Floyd] - Dither on/off. Dithering is used to simulate more colors than there actually is on the screen. [Palette] - Will let you create your own palette. [Unloced/Locked] - If the palette is locked it will always be used during the rendering instead of the colors that Digital Illusions usually generates automatically. [Random] - Creates a palette of random colors. This effect can be quite fancy when it is used together with [Sort]. [Sort] - Left button will sort the colors from light to dark. The right mousebutton will sort from dark to light. [OK] - Confirms your choice of colors. [Copy] - Copy the current color to the one you choose. [Swap] - Swap the current color with the one you choose. [Spread] - Spread colors between the current color and the one you choose. [Cancel] - Cancels your colorchoice. [Quick Save] - Save the current 24 bit image into the undo buffer. [Quick Kill] - Erase the undo buffer. [Quick Load] - Load the image in the undo buffer. Commands -------- [Save Image] - Save the rendered picture in any desired IFF format. [Load Image] - Load an IFF picture. [Config] - Configure Digital illusions the way you want. The amount of free memory will also be displayed here. [Workbench On] - When this button is pressed workbench is still active in the background. To toggle between workbench and Digital Illusions simply press +a. If you have little memory installed in your system it is a good idea to turn off the workbench when using DI. [Turbo On] - When this button is pressed there will be no multitasking when DI needs lot of CPU time. This will speed up rendering etc. but if you intend to use multitasking while DI is doing some work in the background you should turn Turbo mode off. [Save] - Make your chosen configuration active and save it to disk. [OK] - Activate your chosen configuration and exit. [Redisplay] - Show the rendered picture. Image Operators --------------- To choose page you must click on the title bar or use the right mousebutton in the 'image operators' menu. [Scale] - Enlarge or scale down your image (includes intelligent antialiasing). [Crop Visual] - Cut out a piece of the image using the mouse. Press the right mousebutton to switch the help screen on/off. Press enter to crop the image, press ESC to cancel. [Brightness] - Choose new brightness of the image. [Filter] - Filter the red, green and blue intensities of the image. [Color to Gray] - Convert picture to gray scale (it will still be represented as 24 bit internally). [Horizontal Flip] - Flip the image horizontally. [Vertical Flip] - Flip the image vertically. [Negative] - Invert the image. This works well with [Emboss]. [Line Art] - Shows only parts with high contrasts (B/W). [Horizontal Quake] - Dissorts the horisontal lines of the image in a random manner with a defined radius. [Vertical Quake] - Dissorts the vertical lines of the image in a random manner with a defined radius. [Horizontal Wave] - Generates smooth horizontal waves with a given radius, frequency and offset. [Vertical Wave] - Generates smooth vertical waves with a given radius, frequency and offset. [Hor Deepth Wave] - Make the image look like it's been held under water with horizontal waves above (works good with animation). [Vert Deepth Wave] - Make the image look like it's been held under water with vertical waves above. [Hor Shade Wave] - Make horizontal waves with shades (works good together with horizontal waves). [Vert Shade Wave] - Make vertical waves with shades (works good together with vertical waves). [Motion Blur] - Give the impression that the image is moving in any direction. [Random Shade] - Your image will look like a disturbed TV picture. [Star] - Create one star with the mousepointer. The size of the star is calculated automaticly for you from the brightness of the image underneath. If you want a brighter star just click several times. [StarBurst] - Let the computer place stars on the brightest parts of the image. The X/Y coordinates of the stars are random, so you can use this effect in an animation to produce interesting effects. [Spiral] - Twist your picture in a spiral based manner. Neat! [Mosaic] - Pixelizes your image. [Metamorphose] - Chose another image to overlap the current. The images will be combined and works nice with animations. This is also a powerful tool when combined with some of the other operators... [Splatter] - Remove a number of pixels at random (does not check to ensure that no point is removed twice - will fix this in 2.0!) [Emboss] - Make your image look like it's been made in stone. Nice! If you want colors on this one, just combine an embossed image with the original using [Metamorphose]. If you want to invert the effect simply use [Negative]. [Explode] - Blow up your picture. Works best in animation mode. Render ------ To render the image press the button [GO!]. If you want to stop the rendering simply press and hold down both mousebuttons. This will also abort the animation process. MULTITASKING If you want to switch between the workbench and Digital Illusions simply press +. HARD DISK INSTALLATION Simply use the mouse and drag the DIGITAL_ILLUSIONS drawer icon where you want the program installed. QUIT To quit Digital Illusions just press the box in the upper left corner. HINTS If you want the extra touch of quality you can try to double the image size before you manipulate it. When you are finished, just reduce the image to normal size again. This will give you an excellent antialiasing effect. AGA PROBLEMS A bug in the programming language I used to program the Digital Illusions user interface casually trashes the screen on machines with the new AGA chipset installed. To fix this you can of course simply turn off the AGA chipset by pressing and holding both mousebuttons after a reset, but you can also hold down + a until the screen flashes. Release these buttons and you will have a perfect display if you are lucky enough to end up with the DI screen in front. If not, try again. ANIMATION --------- The real interesting aspect of Digital Illusions is the animation part. This is very simple to use, yet extremly powerful. Once you have an image ready just press the [Animation] button and the animation menu will pop up (Press the [Control] button to return). First a quick overview of the buttons on this screen: [Reset from Ram/Reset from File/No Reset] - This button indicates how, if at all, your image will be reset after each frame have been processed. The [Reset from Ram] option will copy the current image into RAM when the animation process is started. After each frame has been processed the image in RAM is copied to the current image. The [Reset from File] option is almost the same, but not so memory hungry. After each frame is processed the image is reset from the current open image file. This works fine, but it is a lot slower than the Reset from RAM option. [No Reset] means that the image is not reset after each frame is processed. This can give quite interesting results. Try it out! [Motion Blur: Off/Motion Blur: On] - This button indicates if the animation is to be motion blurred. This can be a very nice effect. [Base pic:] - This will let you choose the base picture of your animation. An animation process will create several files. One file which contains the name of all the frames and all the image files. If your base picture is called "Anim" then the script file wich contains all the names of the animation frames is saved as "Anim". The images will be saved as "Anim001", "Anim002" etc. No animation file is created. You have to generate this using Dpaint, makeanim etc. If you want to use Dpaint simply choose Load Picture from the menu. Choose the first frame and enter the number of frames in the animation. Click 'load' and your Animation will be generated for you by Dpaint. [Show Animation] - Press this button if you want to look at an animation. This animation can either be in a comressed ANIM5 form or in uncompressed frame-by-frame Digital Illusions format. If you want to show the latter you must choose the animation script file. [Save Setup] - This will save all the current animation settings. Very useful if you want to build yourself a little library of effects. [Load Setup] - This formats your harddrive and copies 24 different viruses on it. Do not come and say I didn't warn you... Just kidding. It actually loads the animation setup (surprise!). Frames ------ Choose the number of frames in your animation using the gadget labeled 'Frames'. Script ------ The script window is the heart of the animation system. Here you can create a script of operations which is to be used on each frame of the animation. Let me give you an example on how this works. Let us say that you want to create an animation of a logo waving in the wind: - Load the image. - Press [Animation]. - Find the [Horizontal Wave] button and press it. It will now be copied into your script. - Now, press the [Vertical Wave] button and it will be copied into the script. - Set the number of frames to 36. - Click on the first item in the script window (Horizontal Wave). You can now select settings for the FIRST and the LAST frame. The settings on all of the frames in between will be calculated automaticly. Press the [First] gadget (or the right mousebutton) and set the offset to 120. Click [Exit]. Note the * symbol in front of the first script line. This symbol means that the settings will change for this script item during the animation process. The offset setting will now change from 0 to 120 when the animation is created. - Do the same thing with the last script item. - Press [Base Pic:] and choose the name of your animation script file. - Press [GO!] and your animation sequence will be generated for you using the current output modus (Preview is the fastest output mode). - When the process is finished you can preview the result by using [Show Animation]. You could also have made this animation using a different tecnique, try it out yourself... Some handy tools when you want to edit the script: [Move] - Move the selected script item to a new position. [Edit] - Edit the selected script item. [Delete] - Delete the selected script item. [Clear] - Erase script. ALL THIS FOR FREE? Well, this program is shareware. This means that it's your own choice wether you want to send me some cash for all my hard work and sleepless nights. If you hate the program, it's okay. Just format the disk and chew it to pieces. On the other hand, if you find it useful and want the latest version please send £15 to the address listed below. Anyway, feel free to copy this product to your friends/enemies as long as you do not change it in any way. The files listed here MUST be included: - START (the main program) - DIGITAL_ILLUSIONS.DOC (this document) - HISTORY.DOC (The history of this product) You may also copy the examples and setup files included with the original version if you wish. Note that these are compressed with Powerpacker and can not be used directly from DI or any other drawing program in this compressed form. Now, just take a look on the new features I will add in release 2.0: - Faster processing. - Much better palette optimization (means much better image quality!). - Support for the new AGA chipset! - Faster IFF loader/saver with support for HAM8. - Animation processing (process entire animations with one touch of a button!). - Title your pictures with text (transparent, realistic shadow, outline etc.). - More effects: waterwaves (imagine your image is underwater. Digital Illusions will then let you create all sort of waves!), 3D rotations with perspective and shading + much more. - More of the routines will be converted to machine for faster processing. While you're at it, please send me bug reports. If you have comments or new ideas don't hesitate. Send it all to: Tonny Espeset Postboks 183 1301 Sandvika Norway (explains the awful English, eh?)