Summary of Updates to OpalPaint. NOTE: V1.1 of opalpaint will not work with v1.0 ArtistTools, DrawModes and Paper type modules. Make sure you have installed the included modules and assigned OpalPaint: correctly before attempting to use OpalPaint v1.1. Backgound Fixing Freeing The backgound can be fixed by pressing Amiga-b and freed using Amiga-B. Fixing an image saves a copy of the current image, once this copy has been made you can revert back to it at any time by hitting the trashcan gadget or pressing 'K'. This is extremely useful as an undo buffer for zap, to do this, fix the background before performing the zap, and then use to trashcan to undo the result. Note, this function requires enough memory to store another copy of the current image and is therfore memory hungry. Alpha Painting Mode Alpha paint mode allows 8 bits of transparency information to be edited for each pixel. This transparency can then be used as a transparency map when in paint mode, or picked up with a brush in paint mode, and can also saved and used in conjunction with the framegarbber genlock module as a linear key over live video. Later it will also be used for image compositing. Clicking the right mouse button on the AL gadget in the main menu brings up the Alpha Paint menu. From this menu you can determine the method of viewing the alpha channel while painting, the options available are grey scale or pattern. In grey scale mode, the alpha channel is viewed as an 8bit grey scale image, this is the fastest edit mode. Pattern mode allows you to see the original 24bit image as well as visualise the actual transparency values being painted. To achieve this, the following analogy is used. Imagine that your 24bit image is a laid on a patterned or solid coloured surface, originally you image is completely opaque so you cannot see through it to the pattern behind. As you paint transparency you rub through the image and the pattern behind the image is exposed, if you see a solid pattern then the image is completely transparent at that point. There are six available background textures, solid black, white and red as well as 3 textures. When painting in either of the transparency modes the paint pot colours are always displayed as grey scale values. A solid white corresponds to completely opaque and black, completely transparent. All of the tools available in paint mode are also available in alpha mode, gradient fills are particulary useful for creating alpha channels. Drawing modes such as invert, smooth and smear are also very important in alpha paint mode. As the Alpha channel information is always stored internally as grey scale information, only the 'V' tolerance values apply when setting tolerances for flood fills and brushcuts. The 'Delete' button in the alpha paint menu will delete the alpha channel if one exists. The 'Copy Image' button will copy the current 24bit image into its own alpha channel (the image will be converted to grey scale). ARexx OpalPaint now has 156 commands, see the seperate ARexx document for details. You should read the History.doc to see all changes. _______________________________________ | | | OpalPaint v1.2 | |_______________________________________| New ARexx commands: FindPixel Usage: FindPixel R G B Returns the coordinates of the first pixel encountered which has a colour value matching 'R G B'. Search starts at the top- left hand corner of the image. FindNextPixel Usage: FindNextPixel This command should be called only after FindPixel. Returns the coordinates of the next pixel matching the colour given in FindPixel. '-1 -1' is returned if no pixels are found. FindNextPixel can be called repeatedly until it returns '-1 -1'. DisplayStatus Usage: DisplayStatus Text This command will print 'Text' into the status bar on the main menu. 'Text' cannot be longer than 11 characters. DisplayPercent Usage: DisplayPercent Current Max Text This command will display 'text' as well as a percentage count on the status bar in the main menu. 'Current' can range from 0 to 'Max'. Max is the number of steps in an operation, and Current is the current step. For example if you have a function that takes 6 steps, you can use DisplayPercent 3 6 'Scaling:' OpalPaint will determine the percentage by calculating Current/Max * 100. In the example above, 50% would be displayed. Text cannot be longer than 7 characters. ARexx Scripts: OpalPaint now searches in OpalPaint:Rexx before Rexx:. It is advisable to place all OpalPaint Rexx scripts into OpalPaint:Rexx. Overscan Painting: Overscan painting requires AmigaDOS 2.0 or greater. Painting on a hires-interlaced-overscan screen requires 2MB of chip ram. If your system does not meet these requirements, OpalPaint will function as before (i.e. painting in non-overscan). Command Line Parameters: The command line syntax is: OpalPaint [Options] [ImageName] Where: [Options] can be: -h Open a hires page. -i Open an interlaced page. -o Open an overscan page. -pw n Set the page width. -ph n Set the page height. -q Quiet, don't display About requester (for ARexx call). examples: 1) Start OpalPaint in hires-interlaced-overscan mode. OpalPaint -h -i -o 2) Start OpalPaint with an image. OpalPaint Images24:MyPic ToolTypes: The following ToolTypes are allowable from the WorkBench: PAGEWIDTH=N Set initial page width PAGEHEIGHT=N Set initial page height HORIZRES=HIRES Open Hires page VERTRES=INTERLACED Open Interlaced page SCANWIDTH=OVERSCAN Open overscan page _______________________________________ | | | OpalPaint v1.4 | |_______________________________________| Using Marquees. The Marquee is a new addition to v1.3. The Magic Wand is used to define Marquee areas. Selecting the MagicWand icon with the Right mouse button allows the Magic Wand tolerance to be set. Clicking on the image with the left mouse button will define a marquee based on this tolerance. Multiple areas can be selected or enlarged by holding down the shift key and clicking the left mouse button again, or by clicking the right mouse button. Undo will undo the last selection made. Once the desired area has been selected, a single mouse click will fill the defined area. To abort the marquee hit the space bar or escape key. The tab key can be used to change the colour of the 'Marching Ants' display defining the Marqueed areas. The marquee will operate in the same manner in Stencil Paint mode except that the marching ants display will be replaced by a single colour outline, this colour can be changed by hitting the Tab key. New ARexx commands: MarqueeFill Usage: MarqueeFill Fill the currently active marqueed area, returns an error if a marquee is not active. KillMarquee Usage: KillMarquee Terminate the current Marquee with filling it. MagicWand Usage: MagicWand x y Start a Magic wand fill at x,y. This command can be issued several times to build up a marquee, each new call to MagicWand is equivalent to pressing the mouse button while holding down the shift key. The Marquee generated will not be filled until a 'MarqueeFill' command is issued. MagicWandCut Usage: MagicWandCut x y Defines a Marquee to be used as a brush cut area. Like MagicWand, this command can be issued many times to define multiple areas. The brush will not be cut until a 'MarqueeFill' command is issued. _______________________________________ | | | OpalPaint v1.6/7 | |_______________________________________| Online Help Online help is now provided using AmigaGuide. To get help on a particular function or requester, simply place the mouse pointer over the gadget and hit the HELP key. NOTE: Previously the HELP key brought up the About requester. The key equivalent for the About requester is now Shift-HELP. File Format options The requesters for loading and saving files have been changed. To change the load/save options, click the right mouse button the load and save gadgets. This requester will allow you to change the fileformat, as well as the sections of the image which are being saved or loaded. The 3 image component gadgets in the load menu allow individual sections of the image to be loaded. If you have 2 or more components selected, and the files contains those components, then they will be loaded. You can convert image data into stencil or Alpha data by only selecting one gadget. For instance, you can load a JPeg image into the alpha plane by selecting ONLY the alpha gadget. Likewise you could load another image into the stencil plane by only selecting the stencil gadget. Warning: The Amiga-s key now does a save without bringing up the filerequester. The Amiga-S combination will do a 'Save AS' i.e. it will bring up the file requester. Graphics Tablets. The pressure interface for graphics tablets has been rewritten. OpalPaint will now accept pressure information in the form of Extended intuition messages which are available under AmigaDOS 3.0. It will also accept pressure data using the TriMedia/Commodore standard similar to the 3.0 standard, but able to operate under AmigaDOS 2.0 and 1.3. All standard nozzles and aristtools are now scalable in size through tablet pressure. The number of parameters that can be adjusted using pressure has been increased to 5, and a seperate tablet pressure menu has been added. The menu can be accessed from the ArtistTools menu or using Amiga-T when a nozzle is selected. The pressure parameters are now saved in the opalpaint.prefs file. There are now two tablet drivers, one call WacomII.device (for wacom tablets) and another called Calcomp.device (for calcomp drawing board 2 tablets). You can only install ONE of these in your devs: directory. WacomMouse has been renamed to TabletMouse to make it more generic.