EFFECT MENU The Effect menu lets you create stencils,"freeze"the background,and define planes for the purposes of perspective drawing. STENCIL You create a stencil of an image by "locking" the colors that comprise that image. This allows you tp paint around the image without painting on it,as though it were protected by a stencil or frisket. Additionally,a stencil will apply to the brush when it is captured. Whatever colors in the brush which were locked when the stencil was made become transparent in the brush. MAKE..(Keyboard Equivalent:~,directly below the ESC key) This displays the Make Stencil requester. You can reposition the requester anywhere on the sceen by dragging it by the bar at its top. To make a stencil: Click the colors to use in creating the stencil with the left mouse button. You can select colors by clicking in the palette display in the requester or by clicking the colors on-screen(including the onscreen palette). When you have clicked all the colors you want to protect,click Make. The colors you select define a mask that protects an area from being painted. The shape of the stencil is what is created and saved,not the color information,which means you can change the colors of a "stenciled" shape,and still retain the stencil. If you have several animation frames,DeluxePaint automatically remakes the stencil as you move from one frame to the next,either manually or while using the Move requester. CLEAR clears the current color selections in the requester. INVERT inverts the current color selections. This is useful if you want to mask more colors than you want to leave unmasked. When you have a stencil active,an "S" appears in the Menu Bar. MAKE STENCIL LOCKED: CLEAR INVERT MAKE CANCEL FIGURE 9.26 Make Stencil requester REMAKE When you have a stencil active and you apply colors to your picture,the colors you apply are not protected,even though they may be locked in the Make Stencil requester. You can lock newly-applied colors by bringing up the Make Stencil requester and clicking Make,or by selecting Remake from the Stencil submenu. NOTE If you have several animation frames and you make a stencil,DeluxePaint automatically remakes the stencil as you move from one screen to the next. LOCK FG The Make Stencil requester lets you create stencils based on colors in the palette. By locking a color,you make it impossible to paint on that color, wherever it may be on the page. By using a combination of Fix Background(see below)and Lock FG,however,you can define a stencil by area rather than color. When you select Lock FG,you define as a stencil those areas on the page that you have painted since fixing the background,regardless of the color of those areas. REVERSE Has the same effect as clicking Invert in the Make Stencil requester(see Make, above). ON/OFF(Keyboard Equivalent:`,directly below the ESC key) Toggles the stencil on and off. This maintains the stencil but turns it off temporarily so you can paint on the protected colors. FREE Creating a stencil uses memory,even though you may have it turned off(see On/Off,above). Free deletes the stencil and deallocates the memory it was using. LOAD.. Stencils can be loaded as separate items. They are full screen only,and can be loaded only to the position they occupied when they were created. In other words,you cannot create a page larger than screen size and load the stencil into the middle of the page. The Load requester is identical to all other Load requesters(see Load in the Picture menu,earlier in this chapter). SAVE.. You can save stencils just as you can any other file,such as pictures or brushes. The Save requester for stencils is identical to those for other types of files(see Save in the Picture menu,earlier in this chapter). BACKGROUND FIX Fixes the background by "locking" the current picture,while allowing you to draw on top of it. You can erase any paint you have applied since fixing the background by clicking CLR or by painting with the right button,without fear of losing any of the background. Fixing the background uses additional memory. Note that when the background is fixed you cannot pick up any colors from that background. FREE This "unlocks" the background,so that clicking CLR will clear the entire picture. It also frees up the memory that was allocated to saving the background. PERSPECTIVE The Perspective submenu contains options for manipulating a brush in three dimensions. The following is a summary of the Perspective submenu: DO(Keyboard Equivalent:Enter) Puts you into perspective mode. Your brush is represented by a four-cell matrix which you can manipulate through keypad commands(listed later in this section). The amount of rotation for each of the three axes x,y,and z is given in degrees at the right-hand side of the menu bar. The center of perspective(ss Center, below)is indicated by a cross-hair. You can paint an image of the rotated brush at any time by clicking the left mouse button. TO EXIT PERSPECTIVE MODE,click one of the drawing tools,such as the continuous or dotted line tool. FILLSCREEN(Keyboard Equivalent:Keypad Minus) Fills the screen with the current brush,in its current state of rotation in 3D. The entire brush size(not just the opaque part)is the default size for the Perspective Fill pattern. RESET(Keyboard Equivalent:Keypad 0) Resets the brush to its original state before rotation,and returns all of the settings in the Perspective Settings requester to their defaults(see Settings, below). CENTER(Keyboard Equivalent:Keypad.Period) Allows you to set the perspective center of horizon in your perspective "landscape." When you select Center,your cursor changes into a large cross-hair. The smaller,stationary cross-hair on the screen indicates the existing center. Move the large cross-hair to the new center you want and click either mouse button. Once you have set the perspective center,the position of the unrotated brush relative to that center determines the position of the perspective plane when you rotate the brush. The greater the distance above or below perspecitve center,the less pronounced the perspective effect. SETTINGS Displays the Persepective requester. When you are in Perspective mode,you can also display this requester by clicking the Grid tool with the right mouse button. PERSEPECTIVE X Y Z GRID: 32 32 32 FROM BRUSH ANGLE STEP: 90 TYPE: SCREEN BRUSH ANTI-ALIAS: NONE LOW HIGH DISPLAY: ANGLE POS CANCEL OK FIGURE 9.27 Perspective requester 215 The following options are available: GRID:You can use these edit fields to set the dimensions for a grid in three- dimensional space. When you first open the requester,the numbers in these fields correspond to the dimensions of your brush;the Z dimension automatically takes the same value as the Y dimension. It is important to remember that the entire brush size(not just the opaque part)is the default size for Perspective Grid and Perspective Fill. FROM BRUSH Clicking this button sets the X and Y grid values to correspond to the width and height of the brush. This is the quickest way to restore the perspective grid settings to the same dimensions as your brush without affecting any other settings. ANGLE STEP specifies the rotation increment used in conjunction with the Shift key and the appropriate keyboard rotation key(see Perspective Rotations,later in this section). This value defaults to 90. SCREEN,the default mode,uses the screen coordinate system when rotating the brush on the x,y,and z axes.(If you are familiar with coordinate systems,you will know this coordinate system as the Euler method,which measures all three angles of rotation from absolute zero.) BRUSH,rotates the brush relative to the current brush coordinate system. ANTI-ALIAS:Anti-aliasing smooths the jagged lines in a brush that result from rotating or shrinking it in Perspective mode. You'll get better perspective anti-aliasing if the palette contains colors in-between(as orange is between red and yellow)those at the edges beging anti-aliased. NONE,LOW and HIGH set the level of anti-aliasing used on your brush when you paint in Perspective mode. None is the default setting and applies no anti-aliasing. Low lets you eliminate some of the jagged outline on your perspective brush. The cost of removing jagged lines is painting spped,but it is still faster than smoothing out an image by hand. To use anti-aliasing,select either Low or High(see below)before you lay down the brush image. Anti-aliasing is most effective when you have reduced the size of your original brush(for example,by moving it back along the z-axis). Anti-aliasing in the High setting can be very slow if your brush or fill area is large. DISPLAY:The ANGLE and POS buttons lets you choose whether the menu bar displays the angles of rotation or the position of the brush in three dimensional space. Note that if you have Coords in the Prefs menu turned on,the menu bar shows two dimensional coordinates;be sure to turn Coords off if you want to see three dimensional coordinates. PERSPECTIVE ROTATIONS All perspective rotations are controlled through the keypad on your keyboard. -1 +1 RESET X ROTATIONS 7 8 9 Y ROTATIONS 4 5 6 Z ROTATIONS 1 2 3 RESET ALL ROTATIONS 0 PLACE CENTER . FILL SCREEN - FIGURE 9.28 Perspective rotation and settings using the keypad -ANGLE +ANGLE FIX STEP STEP AXIS X ROTATIONS 7 8 9 Y ROTATIONS 4 5 6 Z ROTATIONS 1 2 3 REST ALL ROTATIONS 0 PLACE CENTER . FILL SCREEN - FIGURE 9.29 Perspective rotation and settings using Shift with the keypad Pressing Keypad 0 resets all three axes to zero and fixes the z-axis(see below),but retains the apparent distance settings. Pressing Keypad 0 in conjunction with the Shift key resets all perspective values to the default (boot-up)state,including resetting the perspective center. OTHER PERSPECTIVE KEYBOARD COMMANDS Ctrl temporarily fixes the Y axis so that you can move the brush forward or backward in 3D space by moving the mouse forward or backward. The; and ' keys move the brush plane forward or back along its fixed axis(see below)without changing its orientation,moving it in a direction perpendicular to the brush plane. This is the same effect described in the above discussion on brush position prior to rotation. Thus,with the z-axis fixed,brush position relative to the perspective center at the moment of rotation determines the brush's distance above or below eye level. You can achieve the same effect after the brush is rotated by using the ; and ' keys move it forward or back along its z-axis. Pressing these keys with the Shift key held down results in larger increments of movement. In addition,you can modify the apparent distance from the observer by pressing the < and > keys(i.e.,the Shifted "," and "." keys). Thus,when the apparent distance is great,the perspective foreshortening is at a minimum,becoming greater as apparent distance decreases. FIXING AXES:Whenever you start in perspective mode,the z-axis(the one perpendicular to the screen)is "fixed,"that is,the mouse does not move the brush through that axis. You can selectively fix any axis,as follows: To fix the x-axis,press Shift-Keypad 9 To fix the y-axis,press Shift-Keypad 6 To fix the z-axis,press Shift-Keypad 3 As noted above,you can move along the axis that is currently fixed by using the Shifted or un-Shifted ; and ' keys(use the Shifted keys for larger increments). You can also temporarily fix the Y axis by holding down the Ctrl key.