CHAPTER THREE: A GUIDED TOUR DeluxePaint has much to offer any user,whether amateur or professional. If you are new to computer graphics and to DeluxePaint,this section will introduce you to the new graphic medium through simple step-by-step exercises. Here you'll learn how to create some simple designs using the built-in brushes and tools, and how to save a picture onto a data disk. THE PAINTING SCREEN When you start up DeluxePaint and select your screen format,you are presented with the Painting Screen. Along the top of the screen you see the Title Bar and along the right side of the screen you see the Toolbox and Paint Set. Figure 3.1 The Painting Screen The area to the left of the toolbox is where you work on your pictures. This area is called the page. The normal page size is the same as the screen size, but in the next chapter you'll see that you can make the page much larger. When your page is larger than the screen,you can scoll the page by pressing the arrow(cursor)keys on the keyboard. When you use the arrow keys,think of them as moving the screen rather than the picture;pressing the down arrow moves the screen down,so it looks like the page is moving up. THE TITLE BAR The Title Bar lists the name of the program. It also lists the current brush mode,and (when you are using those options)the coordinates of the mouse and the current fill type. At the moment,this information probably doesn't mean anything to you,but as you become familiar with DeluxePaint,you'll find that the information in the Title Bar can save you a lot of time. THE MENUS The menus in DeluxePaint work just like other Amiga menus:point to the Title Bar and press the right mouse button to display the Menu Bar. Then,still holding down the mouse button,point to a menu name to open that menu. Finally, pull the highlight down to one of the menu options and release the mouse button to select that option. THE PALETTE The lower right corner of the Painting Screen contains the Palette,where you select the color you want to paint with. The number of colors in the palette depends on the screen format you are using. You'll learn more about screen formats and how they affect the number of color available when you read the next chapter,or you can skip ahead and look in the Reference under Screen Fomat in the Picture menu. THE COLOR INDICATOR Directly above the Palette is the Color Indicator,a filled circle sitting on a black rectangle. Notice that the rectangle,the first color in the Palette,and the page are all the same color. The first color in the palette(black)is the default background color. If you were to paint with the background color directly onto the background,it would appear to have no effect,as if you were putting black paint onto a black canvas. As you'll see in a moment,painting with the background color is a way of erasing an image on the page. The circle in the Color Indicator shows the foreground color. This is the color your brush paints with. You can change this color at any time by clicking one of the other shades in the Palette with the left mouse button. Try it. Move the pointer to one of the colors in the palette and click. Notice that the circle above the Palette changes to show the new foreground color. Click the other colors and see how the circle changes each time. You can do the same things with the background color,by clicking with the right mouse button. Move the pointer to one of the colors in the Palette and click the right button. Notice that although the rectangle surrounding the circle is now filled with the new background color,the painting area itself is still the old background color. This is because DeluxePaint assumes that you want to maintain the old background color as a "wash" over the new background color,and will keep it there until you clear the painting area. Try it now. Click the button labeled CLR directly above the Palette. This clears the screen of the old background color and replaces it with the new one. Before you do anything else,let's get acquainted with one of the most important tools in the Toolbox,the Undo button. Located to the left of the CLR button,the Undo button will generally "undo" your last painting action. Click Undo now to bring back the old background color. Undo reverses your last action,provided there has not been an interventing mouse click,so if you were to click CLR twice,for example,clicking Undo would not reverse the clear command. PAINTING WITH THE MOUSE Now that you've seen how to choose colors from the Palette,let's put brush to paper and create our first freeform drawing. Select a foreground and a background color by clicking with the appropriate buttons on the palette. Choose contrasting colors,such as blue for the foreground and light gray for the background. Click CLR to cover your page with the background color. Move the pointer over to the page(where it turns into a cross-hair)and, while holding down the left mouse button,draw a figue on the screen. Don't worry about quality for the moment--asquiggly line or a rough circle will do. Now press the right mouse button and draw over your first figure. Notice that the right mouse button has the effect of erasing your drawing, although what you are actually doing is painting over it with the background color. The rule here is simple:use the left mouse button for painting with the foreground color,and the right button for painting with the background color. Notice that this parallels the rule we noted above for selecting colors from the Palette:select the foreground color by clicking with the right button. Before we move on,let's scroll the page a bit so you see how this works. Draw a little scribble on the screen so you'll be able to see it move. Now press the down arrow on your keyboard to move the screen down to see lower on the page. As we mentioned earlier,the page is normally the same size as the screen. You're able to scroll a little down and to the right now,because the Title Bar and Toolbox are hiding part of the page. PICKING COLORS FROM THE SCREEN So far you've been selecting your colors by clicking the colors in the Palette. If you like,you can also select your colors directly from the screen. This is useful if you are working on fine details,or if you are working with many shades of the same basic color. For example,if you are painting a rose and are using eight different shades of red,it might be easier to pick the color you need directly from the screen where you are working. To do this,click on the Color Indicator and move the pointer back to the screen. The pointer is labeled "Pick". Point to a color on the screen and click either the left or the right mouse button to select a new foreground or background color.(An even easier way to select a color from the screen is to use the keyboard equivalent. Press the comma(,)key to get the Pick pointer and then click a color.) Practice painting with the mouse for a while and try selecting colors from the screen. Remember,you can always click Undo to reverse your last action,or CLR to clear the screen and start afresh. As soon as you're ready,move on to the next section,where we will be examining DeluxePaint's collection of brushes and tools. THE TOOLBOX THE BUILT IN BRUSHES So far you've been painting with the single pixel brush that's selected when you first load DeluxePaint(a pixel,short for picture element,is the smallest unit observable on the screen). DeluxePaint includes ten built in brushes:four round ones,four square ones,and two made up of a number of separate pixels. The built in brushes are at the very top of the Toolbox. To select a brush,move the pointer over the brush shape and click with the left mouse button. Note that clicking a brush selected,paint as before,using the left button to draw with the brush color and the right button to draw(or erase)with the background color. In the next section we will be looking at the other drawing tools and seeing how they interact with the brushes. THE PAINTING TOOLS The ten icons below the brushes(in two columns of five)control the painting tools. Because any brush can operate with any given painting tool(except the Text tool),you have a wide variety of combinations at your fingertips. To select a tool,click it with the left mouse button. We'll describe the tools in order,moving left to right and top to bottom: THE DOTTED FREEHAND TOOL allows fast freehand drawing. No matter how fast you draw with this tool,it keeps up with you,making it ideal for sketching out a shape quickly before concentrating on the intricate details. Note,however,that the faster you go,the bigger the gaps in your drawing. Once you have roughed out a shape with the Dotted Freehand Tool,you can then refine your image using some of the other tools at your disposal. Try drawing with it using some of the other brushes to get a feeling for how it works. THE CONTINUOUS FREEHAND/FREEHAND SHAPE TOOL. Because it produces unbroken lines,but doesn't keep up with you if you draw fast,the Continuous Freehand tool is better suited for slower,more painstaking drawing. Note,however,that the smaller the brush,the better it is at keeping up. Try the Continuous Freehand tool with different brushes and see how brush size affects speed. Notice that the Continuous Freehand Tool icon has a diagonal line running from its top to its bottom left corner. This is because it is actualy two tools in one the top left one draws unbroken freehand lines,while the one at bottom right creates freehand shapes filled with the current foreground or background color. To create a filled shape: Click the lower right part of the Continuous Freehand tool and paint any shape. This time,when you release the mouse button,the shape you paint is filled with either the foreground or background color,depending on which mouse button you press when you paint the shape. If you release the mouse button before you close the shape,DeluxePaint closes the shape for you with a straight line from your cursor position to where you began the shape. THE STRAIGHT LINE TOOL lets you draw straight lines just by clicking and dragging the mouse. Here's how it works: First,click on the Straight Line tool to activate it,and then move the cross- hair to the point on the page where you would like the line to begin. Now press the left mouse button to anchor the line at that point,and,while holding the button down,drag the mouse to the point where you want the line to end. When you release the button,you have a straight line in your selected brush color and brush size. Note that you can also draw straight lines with the background color by using the right mouse button. THE CURVE TOOL draws curved lines between two points on the painting area. It works just like the Straight Line tool except that it requires an additional mouse click to complete the process. Here's how: Select the Curve tool and anchor the curve by pressing the mouse button. Drag it to the point where you want the curve to end,and release the button. Now,as you move the mouse away from the end points,you'll notice that the line is still "active,"behaving as though it were a rubber band attached to the cross-hair. Accordingly,the line will curve to follow the cross-hair wherever you drag it. As soon as the curve is the right shape,click the mouse button to freeze it at that position. With a little practice,you'll be able to make curves of any shape and size, giving you much more flexibility than any collection of plastic templates with their limited selection of shapes and sizes. Try joining a series of curves to make flowing shapes and sizes. Try joining a series of curves to make flowing shapes with changes in curve direction. THE FILL TOOL fills any enclosed shape with the current foreground or backbround color. To use the Fill tool,click the icon with the left button,move the cursor(which now looks like a paint can)to an enclosed shape,and click one of the mouse buttons. You can fill the shape with the current foreground color by clicking the left button,and with the current background color by clicking the right button,and with the current background color by clicking the right button. Note that the Fill tool fills all the way to the boundaries of an enclosed shape. If the shape is not completely enclosed(that is,if there is a hole in the perimeter), the paint will "leak" through and fill the entire page. If this ever happens, you can stop the filling process by pressing the Spacebar. This aborts the current Fill command and returns the screen to its pre-command state. The paint can spout--the part you must put inside the enclosed shape--is the small(one pixel)gap at the base of the icon. With careful maneuvering,you can fill a space as small as one pixel,so long as the point coincides with that space. THE AIRBRUSH is a full-featured airbrush with adjustable tips and nozzels. By using the Airbrush in combination with the different brushes,you can create a variety of effects,ranging from a fine one-pixel spray to a coarse spray made with the big brushes. In the following chapter we will see how to adjust the width of the spray,but for now let's try it as it is. Click the Airbush icon with the left button,and then try painting with it using the various brushes. Try it with the three-and five-pixel brushes,and then try it with the big brushes. Note that,just like a regular airbrush,if you keep the mouse button pressed without moving the mouse,the paint continues to build up in one spot. THE RECTANGLE TOOL lets you draw squares or rectangles,either unfilled or filled with the current brush or background color. Like the Continuous Freehand took,the Rectangle tool has a diagonal line running from its top right to its bottom left corner. Let's try making a few rectangles. Click the top left half of the icon with the left mouse button. Move the pointer onto the painting area(where it changes into a large cross-hair),press the left mouse button to anchor one of the corners of the rectangle,and,while holding the mouse button down,drag the mouse away from the anchor point. You can drag the mouse down and to the right(in which case the first button press anchors the rectangle's top left corner),or in any other direction you wish. In any case,the rectangle is completed as soon as you release the button. Note that it is unfilled and bordered by the current foreground color. You can also create an unfilled rectangle bordered by the background color by using the right mouse button. First,click another color on the Palette with the right mouse button,and then make a rectangle using the right mouse button. To create a filled rectangle,click the lowe right part of the Rectangle icon and repeat the procedure above. This time,the rectangles you create will be filled with either the foreground or the background color,depending on which mouse button you press when you create the rectangle. Incidentally,if you hold down the Shift key as you draw,you can constrain the rectangle so that its height and width are equal.(Note:because the Amiga's pixels are not perfectly square,"constrained" rectangles will not appear square on the screen. You can compensate for this at the printing stage,or by selecting Be Square from the Prefs menu. See the discussion in the Reference Section under Prefs menu.) THE CIRCLE TOOL works like the Rectangle tool,above: Click the top left part of the icon with the left mouse button to get an unfilled shape,or the bottom right to get a filled shape. Move to the painting area,then press and drag with the left button to create a circle with the current foreground color,or with the right mouse button to create a circle bordered or filled with the current background color. Notice that circles are painted from the center outward,so it's easy to put a circle around anything just by starting to paint from where you want the center of the circle. THE ELLIPSE TOOL works just like the Circle tool,except that it is still "active" after you release the mouse button. Try it. Click the icon with the left mouse button(remember,top left for unfilled,and bottom right for filled shapes),move the pointer to the painting area,and draw an ellipse by dragging the mouse. Now release the button. Note that even though you have released the button,the ellipse continues to change shape as you drag the mouse around. As soon as your ellipse is just the right shape and size,press down the mouse button and hold it there. Now you can rotate your ellipse until it has just the right tilt. Move your cursor around the ellipse with the mouse button still held down and watch your ellipse rotate. When it is in just the right position,release the mouse button. When you complete your ellipse,the small cross-hair changes into the large cross-hair to let you know that DeluxePaint is ready for the next ellipse. THE POLYGON TOOL lets you keep drawing straight lines until you have created a closed figure. Here's how it works: Click the Polygon tool with the left mouse button,move the cross-hair into the painting area and click the button once to anchor the starting point of your polygon,and then a second time to complete the first line,as if you were using the Straight line tool. You will notice that your cross-hair is still connected to the first line by a second straight line. Click the button again to finish that line,and so on until you have completed your polygon. The polygon is completed as soon as you click the button with the cross-hair on your starting point. If you are creating a filled polygon,it will be filled with the current foreground color if you complete the figure with a left button click,and the current background color if you complete it with a right button click. Because it can sometimes be a little tricky to end up on the exact pixel you started with,you can complete a polygon at any time by pressing the Spacebar. This automatically connects the last anchored point to the point of origin and,if it is a filled polygon,fills it with the current foreground color. Try drawing some five-pointed stars with the filled Polygon tool and see what happens. ANYTHING CAN BE A BRUSH We'll skip over the rest of the tools in the toolbox for now,except one. (The remaining tools will be covered in Chapter Four:The Elements.) The icon just below the Ellipse is the Brush Selector,a special tool that is an essential part of DeluxePaint's versatility. With the Brush Selector,anything can be a brush--any piece of artwork or text you put on the screen. To see it in action,click the Brush Selector,then move the cursor over to the painting area. Notice that your cursor is now a large cross-hair that reaches to the edges of the screen. Select one of the stars you made earlier by following the next step. Put the center of the cross-hair to the upper left of the star. Then,while holding down the left mouse button,drag the cursor to the lower right of the star,as if you were using the Rectangle tool to enclose the star in a box. Release the mouse button. When you release the mouse button,the cursor now has a copy of the star attached to it. This second star is your new brush! To stamp a star in a new location,click the left mouse button. There's no need to stop with one--go ahead and star-spangle the screen. We will be covering this powerful feature in greater depth in Chapter Four. However,there is one aspect of brush selection you should be aware of:if any parts of your brush consist of the current background color,those parts will be transparent. In other words,whenever you pick up a brush,it's as if you are picking up only the non-background colors;any background colors in the brush will remain invisible even after you change to a new background color. This means that you can create brushes with intricate outlines without fear of picking up a rectangle of the surrounding background color. Let's try one more trick. Click the Brush Selector again and select a star from the painting area,but this time use the right mouse button to drag the cross-hair over the star. Unlike the last exercise,which yielded two stars--one unmoving original,plus the one on your brush--this time you are picking up and moving just the one star. While the first feature lets you copy and move anything on the screen,the second lets you move images from one part of the screen to another,while leaving no trace behind. SAVING YOUR WORK Before we move on to the next chapter,where we'll be looking at DeluxePaint's basic elements,let's see how to save the pictures(or "files")you create. We'll begin by saving whatever you drew in the preceding sections. First,move the pointer up to the Menu Bar and to the left to the Picture Menu. Press the right mouse button to extend the menu,and then select Save. You are presented with the Save Picture requester. SAVE PICTURE SPECIFY DRIVE DRAWER LO-RES FILE DF0: DF1: RAM: SAVE CANCEL Figure 3.3. Save Picture requester Notice that the Save Picture requester is just like the Load Picture requester in almost every respect. It is through the Save Picture requester that you provide DeluxePaint with the information it needs to save your files. The bottom half of the Save Picture requester consists of the additional information DeluxePaint needs in order to save the file in its proper classification. The first of these,Drawer,tells DeluxePaint which drawer to save the file in. By using drawers to classify your pictures,you can keep related images together,in the same way you keep related papers together in one file folder. For example,the setting might be df0:lo-res,which means that the drawer exists on a disk in the internal drive("df0:")and that the drawer is named "lo-res". Directly below this box is one labeled File. This is where you enter the name of your picture the first time you save it. If you want to save your current creation,this is your chance to do so. Insert a blank,formatted disk in any drive. Click the button for the drive that contains the blank disk. Now click anywhere in the File gadget,type in the name you have chosen for your new file,and click Save. The disk drive will spin for a few moments;when the red light goes out,the file is saved. The next time you save this file(it's a good idea to save work in progress every 15 minutes or so,so that a power failure or other breakdown doesn't turn hours of work into a bitter memory),the Save Requester uses this same information,which means you won't need to type anything more unless you want to change the file name,if you want to save each version as a separate file. In that case,you would click the File gadget as before,backspace over the old filename(or over those parts you wish to change)and type in the new name. Or you could just keeping adding suffixes,such as 1,2,3,etc.,to signify succeding versions. You can specify drawer names in the same way: click in the Drawer gadget, backspace over the old name,and type in the new name. You can open any drawer already on the disk,but you cannot create one from the Save Requester. See your Amiga User Guide for information on creating new drawers. LOOKING AHEAD Before you move on to the next chapter,or off on your own to explore DeluxePaint,we want to show you a few of the interesting and powerful features of the program. You'll find more information about these features in other chapters of the manual. Perhaps this brief demonstration will pique your curiosity enough to make you read some more. NIGHT AND DAY This section demonstrates a little of what you can do by customizing your palette. You'll see how to customize your palette. You'll see how to customize your palette in the next chapter,but for now,we'll look at one of the effects you can create. Insert the Art disk in any drive. Choose Load from the Picture menu. Click the drive button for the drive that contains the Art disk,for example,df1:. Scroll down until you see the Tutorial drawer. Click on the Tutorial drawer and load the file named Seascape. Take a few moments to examine the picture carefully. Note,for example,that the palette is different from the one we were using before. This is because the new picture comes with its own Palette,which supersedes the old one. You can revert to the default Palette at any time through a simple menu selection. Let's try it now and see what happens. Pull down the Picture menu and drag the pointer down to Change Color. When you do,you will see a secondary menu appear to the right of the selected option. With the button still held down,move the pointer to the right and down the secondary menu until the option Default Palette is highlighted,and then release the button.(In the future,we'll describe choosing from a submenu in a simpler form: Choose Change Color>Default Palette from the Picture menu.) Did you see what happened? The new Palette was replaced by the default Palette, making the picture change from night to day! If you want to restore the original Palette,choose Change Color>Restore Palette from the Picture menu. This is just one example of the many ways you can make global(and dramatic) changes to a picture with just one action. FIXING THE BACKGROUND This section shows one a very powerful feature that lets you paint on your picture without fear of accidentally messing it up. With the Seascape picture on your screen,choose Background>Fix from the Effect menu. What you have just done is remarkably simple,and yet remarkably powerful. You have fixed the picture onto the background so that it cannot be removed. Try it. Click CLR and see what happens. That's right--nothing. The picture is fixed,which means you can draw over it anyway you like. Select a thick brush and scrawl on the picture. Do it with the airbrush if you like. Then scrawl using the right mouse button and see what happens. When you have the background fixed,painting with the right mouse button is truly erasing! Note that you can paint on the picture and then fix the background again to fix the new version. You can erase everything you painted since the last fix with a single mouse click. And you can "unfix" the background as easily as you fixed it:just choose Background>Free from the Effect menu. This restores everything back to normal,so that clicking CLR clears the entire picture. We'll look more closely at this feature in the next chapter when we look at custom brushes and the way they interact with the background. Meanwhile,feel free to experiment further with this feature. Art restorers should have it so easy. We realize that you may have just started painting on a computer for the first time. But we'll take a daring leap forward to show you animating on a computer. Right now we'll show you a special kind of painting on multiple frames. Just follow the steps carefully,and you'll see some wonderful results. Choose AnimBrush>Load from the Anim menu. Insert the Animation disk in any drive and click the drive button for that drive. Click on the file named Bird and click load. When the requester closes,you'll have an animbrush of a bird attached to your cursor. An animbrush is special in that it is made up of many cels(short for cellophanes)that flip as you paint. Click the brush down once. Notice that now your brush looks different. Each time you click the button the brush moves to the next cel. Click the brush down again. Then go ahead and paint freehand across the screen to see all of the cels of the animbrush. ANIMATION FRAMES Above,we had you painting with an animbrush on a single screen. Now let's look at what happens if you paint one cel of the brush on each of several screens. This is one way to create animations in DeluxePaint III. Select light blue as your background color and clear the screen. Choose Frames>Set # from the Anim menu.(The Set Frame Count requester appears.) Enterr 20 in the Count field.(You do this by clicking at the right end of the field,backspacing over the existing number,and typing the new number.)Click OK. In a flash,you have 20 animation frames to paint on. Notice the numbers 1/20 on the left side of the Title Bar. This tells you that you are on frame 1 of 20 frames. Without further ado,let's paint! ANIMPAINTING Animpainting is simply the process of painting at the same time the animation frames flip. In most ways it is like regular painting,since DeluxePaint flips the frames for you. Select the Straight Line tool. Hold down the Left Amiga key(the Commodore key on Amiga 500's),click the button and draw out a line from left to right across the screen. When you let go of your line,you'll see DeluxePaint paint your brush on each frame of your 20 animation frames. When DeluxePaint is finished painting,press the 5 key at the top of the keyboard. You'll see the bird fly. Press the 4 key if you want to see your animation play continuously. Press Spacebar to stop the animation. IN THIS CHAPTER YOU: Painted with the mouse using several painting tools. Created custom brushes. Learned how to save your work. Took a quick peek at palette changes,fixed backgrounds,animbrushes,and animpainting. Right now you might want to take a break,but once you feel up to it,be sure to work through the next chapter,where you'll learn how to modify tools and work with many other powerful features of DeluxePaint.