email comments, insults, bug reports and the like to: J.Chacho@Delphi.com Keep in mind this is a Beta, so be kind. ***********************Starting it******************************* To load Graphic Designer, double-click on the 'StartGd' icon on the workbench screen. With GD Sampler you will need to manually load and enter Toasterpaint-which is required for Graphic Designer to function. To do this, press and hold down the left Amiga key (on the left side of the space bar) and tap the 'n' key or click the 'screen-to-back' button in the upper right corner of the Graphic Designer interface. Now load the Video Toaster by double-clicking on its icon. When the Toaster is loaded, double-click on the button labeled 'Paint' to enter Toasterpaint. (This point is very important and can't be stressed enough-completely enter Toasterpaint so that the Toasterpaint interface appears on the screen.) Once you've entered Toasterpaint, press and hold down the left Amiga key and tap the 'm' key a couple of times to return to the Graphic Designer interface. ***********************The Concept:****************************** Graphic Designer came about because despite the fact that Toasterpaint has powerful features, not everyone is capable of using them to create great video graphics. So in a meager effort to allow just about anyone to make great graphics, Graphic Designer was born. Acting as a front end for Toasterpaint, Graphic Designer eases your graphic making grief by allowing you to create a rough sketch of what you want your final graphic to look like. Then when you press the 'render' button on the Graphic Designer interface, the program will first break your sketch down into individual Toasterpaint commands and then send those commands to Toasterpaint for execution. As this occurs, images will be loaded into Toasterpaint, they'll be cut-up, resized, colorize, etc. just as if you yourself were making a graphic. If your new to making graphics, you have nothing to fear. All the hard work has been taken care of. All that is left for you to do is to make a rough sketch of what you want your finished graphic to look like. Now if even the notion of making a rough sketch frightens you, fear not, because Graphic Designer has a multitude of tools to expedite sketch making. But the benefits of Graphic Designer don't end there. Because most videographers require several graphics, Graphic Designer allows you to prepare several sketches to be rendered one after the other with absolutely not human input at all. So if you require one hundred different graphics, simply create the necessary number of sketches, indicate where you want the rendered images saved on your harddrive the press the render button. The Graphic Designer interface is divided into sections to make it simple to use. The sketch pad and the area directly below the sketch pad is used to make or modify sketches, while the "gallery" and "effects" sections display the settings for individual elements. Below these sections is the scrapbook section. Extending across the width of screen, this section allows you to load previously saved sketches, insert individual elements from previously saved sketches, save sketches and delete sketches. Because sketches require little hard drive space, you are encouraged to regularly save 'works-in- progress.' The bottom section of the Graphic Designer interface contains the rendering facility as well as general purpose buttons. *********************The Sketch Pad:****************************** Selecting and Moving Elements. In the top center of the interface is the sketch pad. The sketch pad is a scaled down representation of the toasterpaint screen. In turn, an element that fills the sketch pad is representative of a full size (752 X 480) framestore or RGB in toasterpaint. The sketch pad is used to resize, move and reorder elements. To move an element you must first select it. This is accomplished by clicking on the element with the left mouse button. When you do so, the element will become highlighted (turn yellow) and move in front of the other elements. Once the element is highlighted, you can change any of the elements settings by modifying the gadgets surrounding the sketch pad. If you want to move the element, position the mouse pointer over it, then press and hold down the left mouse button. Now when you move the mouse pointer, the selected element will move with it. ***********************The Tool Bar:****************************** Located beneath the Sketch Pad is the Tool Bar. These set of buttons are used to help make life with the sketch pad a little bit easier. Press the Safe Area button if you want the Safe Video Area button indicated on the sketch pad. The Safe Video Area is the portion of any video image that is guaranteed to be seen on most televisions and monitors. (because of technical differences in these products, the edges of video images may not be visible) Press the Center Element button to center the selected element. Highlight the Lock button to prevent yourself from moving elements off the visible portion of the Sketch Pad. The Size button is used to indicate the resolution of the image assigned to selected element. The resolution is momentarily displayed in the images field and if the element is selected the size and shape of the element will change in the sketch pad to reflect the resolution of the image. To change the element type you will utilize the Element Type button. ********************The Element Grid Pad:***************************** To see a display of the available element types, move the mouse pointer over the Element Type button and press the right mouse button. When you do so a menu of choices will pop up. To select an element, highlight it then release the right mouse button. Your selection will be indicated on the Element Type button itself with a small icon. If the element type has subtypes, the Element Type button will be divided into a grid. Pressing different parts of the grid will produce different results. If an Element Type does not have any subtypes, the icon on the Element Type button will have a plain yellow background. Note also that some element types will appear different on the sketch pad while others will just appear as plain rectangular elements. The slant element: The slant element is basically a rectangle element that can be rotated a full 360 degrees. Keep in mind that the slant element does not actually rotate any image or blend you apply to it, it merely cuts out a diagonal shape in the image or blend. The cone element: The cone element can be positioned in four different ways. The column element: The column element can be positioned either horizontally or vertically. The inset element: The inset element is a rectangular element that, when rendered, looks like it is set into the background. The sphere element: The sphere element is a sphere. Can you imagine? The circle element: The circle element is circular. The veil element: Basically, the veil element is the same as the plain element. The only difference is that the veil element comes in only one size, full-screen 752 X 480. Why? Let's say you have a complicated sketch with several brushes and angled elements. You notice that when the sketch is rendered the image suffers from pixelization and jaggies. So you would like to blur the entire image to soften the edges. You could make a full size plain element, but it would hide all the other elements underneath it in the sketch pad. To remedy this situation, I implement a veil element that does not hide the other elements. Furthermore, to select the veil element, you have to click in the bottom left-hand corner of the sketch pad. The result is that you have easy access to the elements underneath and generally smoother sketch pad operation.-I hope. ************************The Gallery:*************************** The Gallery section is used to hold images and brushes that can be applied to elements. There are five different galleries and each can hold an unlimited number of images. The five galleries are 'images', 'brushes', 'borders','blend1', and 'blend2'. To load an image into a gallery press the appropriate gallery button, 'images' for instance. When you do so, the images requester will open. Use this requester to find images you want to load into the images gallery. As you find them, click on them to load them into the images gallery. Now, to apply an image to a selected element press the 'images' button with the RIGHT mouse button to display a gallery list, then select the image. That's it. ********************The Effects Section:**************************** The Effects section is used to apply various effects to an element. To topmost panel is used to apply a shadow to element. Clicking on different sections of the grid pad will move the element's shadow in different directions. For instance, if you were to click the bottom right corner repetitively, the element's shadow depth and angle will adjust according to where you click. Below the shadow section is the image processing panel. This section contains on/off buttons that allow you to assign different filters to elements. These filters include Emboss, Negative, Black & White, Blur and Pixeliize. Below the image processing panel is the transparency panel. This section allows you to adjust how transparent the element will be as well as what parts of the element will be transparent. **********************The Rendering Panel:************************ When you press the 'render' button, a requester opens containing buttons that allow you to modify the rendering process. Along with four buttons are two meters that indicate how much fast and chip memory you have available. If these meters are low, don't try to render. Instead check the "Getting More Ram" section below. If you would like to render the sketch without having it automatically saved to your harddrive, press 'OK" and the rendering process will begin. Otherwise press 'Cancel" and continue reading. If you would like to have Graphic Designer automatically save the finished image for you, you need to 'add' the sketch to the renderlist. You do this by pressing the 'add' button in the render panel. When you do this, a requester will pop up. In this requester, indicate where you want the finished image saved, the name you want it saved under, and the format you want it saved as (framestore or rgb), then press the 'ok' button. When you do, the requester will close and all the information you entered in the requester will appear in the render list section. Now to render the sketch and have it automatically saved, press the 'render' button. This time, when the rendering control panel opens, the 'Render What's in the Render List' will be highlighted. If this is the what you want to do press the 'ok' button to begin the rendering process.