*********************************************************************** Picturesque V 1.21 - 29th September 1991 - Amiga Computing - Created by Paul Burkey Using AMOS the Creator (c) Daisy Software 1991 *********************************************************************** Picturesque is a program which will let you create graphics for Games, Demos or any other programs. As well as letting you draw pictures it also lets you design sprites any size (well as big as the screen any way). Also you can use the smooth option and the spread palette similar to deluxe paint. This program was written using the great AMOS creation program so the sprites can be saved as an amos sprite bank or as an icon bank. The program took about a month to write so there is still a lot of things to add but this version is still quite complex. Thanks go to; Tony and Allison for all there support with all my amiga programming and for all the coffee. To Emma for all the patients she has in me and my toy computer. Look out for ~Magical Young Artist~ it is available now as DEJA-VU Licenseware it is great. It was written by Tony and I and is the first of many great programmes we are planning to write. Hello`s to; Kel, Maxwell, Steve, Jase, Barry and all at amiga port. This is Version 1.21 and you should have; Picturesque (main program) Picturesque.info (icon) ReadMe (these Documents use Muchmore_PP) ReadMe.info (Docs icon) *********************************************************************** Copyright notice This Version is shareware and if you find it useful or if you use it on a regular basis or even if you think it is worth developing you should regester as a user. Please tell me a little about your computer how much memory do you have. If you use AMOS what you use it for. And most important which version you have and what you would like to see in this programme when I update it. I would like to hear from anyone who has any ideas. To regester as a user and recieve the latest version please send 10 pounds. Send to, Paul Burkey Daisy Software 32 Cottage Close, Neston, South Wirral, L64 9RB I will not be held responsible for any loss of data arising from the use of this software. Every care has gone into checking this software for bugs, if you do find any please tell me as I hope to improve this program until there is nothing left to improve. *********************************************************************** Special Thanks to; Francois Lionet for The amazing AMOS which has made it possible to to design this program in such a short space of time. AMOS is certainly the best basic language I have ever used so keep up the good work. *********************************************************************** Main program; Picturesque has two main modes Painting Pictures and Painting Sprites. As a default it is set to pictures so I`ll go through the Pictures mode first. Icon Bar; All the simple tools have there own icons which are found in the icon bar at the bottom of the screen. From these icons you can draw lines ,squares ,freehand and many others. The most useful icon of all is the zoom or magnify, so I have made this option quite flexible. From the icon panel you can also clear the screen or swap to a spare screen.There is also an undo icon so that you can undo the last operation if you made a mistake.In the icon panel there is also a palette definer and paste and also a shade. The coordinates of the pointer are automatically shown on the left side of the panel as well as a memory counter. The icons are shown from left to right as; Top row; small shape, lines, freehand, line, circle, fill, paste, cut, clear, Put Bottom row; Large shape, filled square, dotted freehand, square, spray can,zoom, palette, shade, undo Tools; You have probably used many of the tools before in other painting programs so I will only briefly explain what they all do. Freehand - holding down the left mouse button will allow you to draw smooth lines. Line - holding down the left mouse button will fix one side of the line. Dragging the pointer you will be able to position the other end and then releasing the button will fix the line in place. Circle or Ellipse - you can fix the center of the circle by pressing the left mouse button then dragging the mouse will increase or decrease the size. Releasing the button will then fix the circle in place. Lines - the lines work in exactly the same way as the normal line mode but it will automatically start another line where the last line left off. You can exit this mode by choosing one of the other tools. Squares - fix one corner of the square with the mouse button held down then drag the mouse to change the size of the square then release the mouse button to stamp it down. As an added bonus you can also do rectangles! Filled squares - exactly the same a the square only it gets filled in with the current color. Dotted freehand - this will plot a single dot whenever you press the mouse button. At the moment this is the only tool that is affected by the different sized pointer tools, these can be found on the left of the icon panel there is a small and large size. You are not confined to these as the cut and paste option will allow you to use any shape you want. Shade - The shade icon allows you to just paint every other pixel. This produces a mixed shade of the current color with the color underneath, this is very useful when you have a limited palette. Cut - This allows you to cut out any part of the screen and use it as a brush. The size is limited to 320 x 200 pixels. Please avoid cutting large sections if you are low on memory this means there in not enough room to remember what is underneath your brush as it moves around. If you are in sprite mode and you have one meg or more you can cut from a spare picture by pressing the cut icon with the right button. Paste - The paste will let you stamp down the section most recently cut out. To exit the paste mode you have to click on any other icon. Fill - When the fill icon is chosen it allows you to fill in any part of the screen with the chosen color. Spray can - This acts like an aerosol can of paint (no CFC`s of course!). There will be an option to vary the size and speed of the spray when I update it. Undo - This will reset the last operation, Useful for any mistakes. Clear - Clears the screen or sprite you are working on. This can be undone but be careful. Put - This only works in Sprite mode and is used to set the current sprite image. Zoom - This will change the icon bar at the bottom of the screen and let you chose a section of the page of sprite. Now you will see an enlarged version and a normal version on the right. Also you will see a tiny image of the whole screen bellow. using the arrows you can scroll about to find a different section or zoom in or out. This mode only uses the dotted freehand tool at the moment. If you are designing sprites you can set the Hot-Spot. Pressing the H in the icon bar will set the Hot-Spot flashing and now the right button will change the position. There is no undo for the hot-spot but you can undo the last drawing operation. Palette - You have full control of the palette. You can simply change each color in turn or spread from one color to another. also you can reverse the colours around or sort them in order (this dose change the screen colours as well). you can reset the whole range back or undo the last operation. Large and small tool - The small tool is used in almost all operations and gives a fine detailed brush. The large tool is only used in the dotted freehand mode but I will improve this section later if I think it is needed? *********************************************************************** Memory; This programme was written and Compiled on a one meg. machine but will run on a half meg computer. This programme uses up a lot of memory so if you only have a half meg computer you may not be able to design many sprites. If you have used the sprite editor supplied with amos you have probably had the same problem. Please save regularly as it may crash if there is a lack of memory. *********************************************************************** Sprites; As well as painting pictures the main reason I wrote this programme was to design sprites. I have been programing AMOS for about three months now and I am working on a game called ZOOMAWAKA. I Have been producing the graphics with the amos sprite editor which has slowed me down. It is a bit limited especially when it comes to designing large sprites. I myself will be using this programme in the future and will update it as much as I can to suit my own needs but I will be happy to listen to any ideas you can give. To turn on the sprite mode you will have to select the paint sprites option in the menus. The screen will now clear and a sprite box will appear in the top left corner of the screen. Also the size and number will appear at the bottom right. The box can now be stretched or shrunk by holding down the left mouse key outside the box and moving the bottom right corner into place, releasing the the left mouse key will set the new size. Now you are ready to edit the sprite, all the tools can be used to design your image including the zoom which is the most useful. When the first image is finished you can click on the up arrow at the bottom right of the screen to move on to the next empty box, the previous image is then saved as sprite one. If you have just started editing you will notice the word `spare` underneath the second sprite this means that this sprite is not used yet and any attempt to save the sprite bank will ignore this spare. You can still edit the spare and when you are ready to use it you simply press the put icon found in the icon bar. Now the third sprite is the spare and so on. The put icon is automatically selected when you move from one sprite to another. Note - When editing the spare sprite you can press the up arrow with the right button to PUT the sprite and move to the next. If you press the undo icon with the right button it will reset to its original state or how you found it or the last time you pressed the put icon. *********************************************************************** The Menus; When you change the colors in the palette the colours of the menu bar change as well so to help you read them you will have to move the pointer to the very top of the screen and the colours will change. Most of the menus will be quite obvious but i`ll go through them briefly. Project;-------------------- Load - You can load most Iff pictures in. You can also load in a sprite bank or an icon bank. This depends on which mode you are in. If you are in sprite mode you can load a spare picture by using load Iff and then cut from it ie. Sprite grabber (only one meg or more). Save - Save Iff pictures compacted or not compacted. Save as sprite bank or an icon bank. You can save a sprite bank as an icon bank or vice versa. Paint - Here you can change to Pictures mode or Sprites mode. Palette - This section allows you to set the default colours so that at any time you can revert back to them, this would allow you to experiment a little. Also there in a random option why you need this I don't know really? The almost random mode allows you to change the colours slightly, Some times the picture may look that bit better you never know. Format - You can change to hires or lores mode. you can change the colours from 2 to 64. Sprites - You can delete all the sprites in the bank or delete from the current sprite to the end. You can Scroll the current sprite round. you can set the default size for the spare. you can copy the current sprite to the brush. You can copy the brush to the current sprite or to all the sprites. you can shrink one sprite or all sprites to cut out the spare gaps and save memory. Copy the current sprite to the next, previous or all other sprites. It is also possible to change the speed at which the sprites are viewed when you press the up and down arrows. Picture - If you are editing a large picture you can view the whole picture on screen as a compacted version. From here you can copy the picture to the spare or swap the picture with the spare. Mode;------------------------ Draw - Normal color mode. Smooth - This only works in the freehand modes, filled square or zoom. This mode will smooth off colors if there is a close colour in the palette. I intend to improve this section when I update the programme. Disk;----------------------- Disk space left - This will allow you to see how much room is left on a disk in any drive. Create a drawer - This creates an empty drawer or folder on the disk ready for pictures or Sprites/Icons. Handy for keeping your disk tidy. Delete - This allows you to delete any file on a disk to make more space. Remember you can`t get it back so press exit if you want to cancel. Options;-------------------- Brush size - You can double or half the size of the brush or change it to any size large or small. (To conserve memory you are restricted to 320 x 200 in size so do not try to double anything bigger than 160 x 100 use the stretch instead). Brush flip - Simply to flip the brush sideways or vertical. Brush Spot - Change the hot-spot of the brush to reach those hard to reach places. Zoom - This allows you to change the default zoom power. When you are in the zoom mode you can use this by making your choice and then pressing the large zoom at the bottom of the screen. Full screen zoom - You will now have the whole screen to use without the normal size window on the right. This option can be turned on again. Zoom scroll - You can change the size of the jump when you use the arrows in zoom mode. This speeds up the scroll and is useful when you are zoomed in close. Spray can - Change the size of the spray - Four sizes. *********************************************************************** As well as the menus there are also the following keys you can use. Key`s;--------------- F10 - Remove and replace the icon bar. X - Flip the brush sideways. Y - Flip the brush vertically. D - Use default colours. J - Swap to spare. S - Shrink sprite. curs- Move screen around if it is too large *********************************************************************** Bugs- The error checking in the loading section has been taken out because of a bug so if an error dose occur I won`t tell you. Try to avoid loading Iff brushes as this sometimes causes problems. Apart from these small problems it works great. If you are using one drive then please place a disk in before you chose any of the disk operations. Last word.----- As you can see there is a lot to be done before this programme is finished. The reason it is not all done is because of memory, I wanted it to run on a half meg machine. If you do have a half meg machine you will have to go without the spare screen sorry. Do you think it should become a sprites only programme and remain half meg compatible? If you have any ideas on what should be added and what should be taken off PLEASE write and tell. Some ideas I have are. Flip through selected sprites to check animation. Text,Smudge,Pattern fill,Screen flip,Replc mode. load Iff brush. Proper Sort and Reverse in the palette. More icons in the icon bar. Rotating sprites. All that can be achieved with the AMOS sprite editor and more. Every thing you ever needed to design sprites please tell me!. These are just a few please send ideas but remember I am not trying to compete with Deluxe paint or any other paint packages just trying to take the pain out of producing graphics for games and helping to put the fun back into programming,exactly what AMOS is doing already!! Thank you for using Picturesque please send some of your work for me to see what it can do. Please register as user by sending your money so that I can carry on working on this project and have some fun as well!! See you soon! < PAUL BURKEY >