Copyright 1991 L&V Productions Public Domain SHADOWMAKER Version 1.2 WHAT CAN SHADOWMAKER DO FOR YOU? If you produce Video titles or any type of Video Text generation then you need SHADOWMAKER! Are you forever creating Video shadows for your letters in DPAINT(tm) Do you need consistent professional antialiased FONT generation across all of the packages you use in your production work? SHADOWMAKER is an Intuition based Font shadow generator. In seconds you can convert your favourite Fonts into ColorFonts with Professional Video Shadows and Antialiasing built right in! ColorFonts are now BUILT IN to Workbench 2.0. All of your favourite compatible programs can now share the same Professional video shadows and antialiasing. ********************************************************************* *THIS IS A Restricted version of a commercial program. The Font SAVE* *size is RESTRICTED to 39 points and under.You may load any Font***** *up to 99 points for preview mode. All SHADOWMAKER functions are***** *enabled making this a complete and fully working program.*********** *The commercial version sells for the SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY PRICE of** *$19.99 US.(Regular Price $29.99). Offer good until May 1, 1991.****** * This includes Shipping/Handling in the Continental US and Canada.** ********************************************************************* SHADOWMAKER Program Doc File Include on the Distribution archive are the following Files: SHADOWMAKER -Add Shadows to Amiga Fonts-saves as ColorFont SHADOWMAKER.doc -This file Arp.library -Public Domain Library SHADOWMAKER.info -Icon file for Workbench 2.0 SH1.3ICON.info -Icon file for Workbench 1.3 Execept for the Arp.library, this material is the property of L & V Productions. This version is placed in the Public Domain as long as the aforementioned files are all contained within this archive. **REQUIRES** AMIGA 500 or 1000 or 2000 or 3000 with 1MEG and 1 Floppy.(1.3 WB) Arp.library in your currently ASSIGNed libs: directory Colortext wedge under 1.3(Included with WB1.3) Workbench 2.0 Compatible BEGIN DOC FILE: ***INSTALLING SHADOWMAKER*** To copy SHADOWMAKER onto your Workbench Disk, Hard Disk or wherever, simply DRAG the SHADOWMAKER Icon over to the appropriate Window. Besides the file ARP.library, there are no support files to copy other than the main program file SHADOWMAKER. ***INSTALLING the ARP.LIBRARY*** The included file Arp.Library must be in your currently assigned libs directory. To install the Arp.library into your libs directory do the following: Open a CLI window and type: assign The CLI Window will now show you a list of the FULL Paths of the current assignments. We are interested in the ":libs" PATH and the "SYS:" PATH. If these two paths are the same then you simply type copy df0:Arp.library sys:libs If the "SYS:" PATH and the "libs:" PATH are different then you must change the above CLI command accordingly. For example if the "assign" list shows "BOOT:libs" then you would type copy df0:Arp.library BOOT:libs The above series of CLI commands assumes the file Arp.library is in the Root directory on a disk in drive DF0:. Please adjust this as necessary. An ICON with colors remapped for WB 1.3 is included. You must rename this to SHADOWMAKER.info to have it work properly. ***STARTING SHADOWMAKER*** To start SHADOWMAKER simply double-click on its ICON or open a CLI window and type SHADOWMAKER . The CLI mode requires you to be logged on to the directory containing SHADOWMAKER or have previously "SETPATH"ed to the proper directory. In a moment a Window will open containing various Gadgets. The Window's "CLOSE BUTTON" may be used to quit SHADOWMAKER at any time. The Window is subdivided into 4 quarters. Each quarter or Section contains Gadgets that define/perform SHADOWMAKERS various functions. Each Gadget's Function is explained in the following sections. There are 3 Menu Items to select from. These are explained in the section ***MENU*** ************************************************************************ ***SECTION SHADOW TYPE*** This section contains the 4 Gadgets that are used to select the TYPE of shadow that you desire. *GADGET CLEAR* To clear out any previously made Shadow Type selections. *GADGET CAST* Selects CAST as the current Shadow Type. Letter FACE and SHADOW appear physically separated on the screen. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other Shadow Types. *GADGET DROP* Selects DROP as the current Shadow Type. Letter FACE and SHADOW appear physically joined on the screen. Can be combined with ROUNDED by simply clicking/selecting ROUNDED after selecting DROP. *GADGET ROUNDED* Selects ROUNDED as the current Shadow Type. Letter FACE and SHADOW appear physically joined on the screen. Letter appears OUTLINED in a 3 pixel border. Can be combined with DROP by simply clicking/selecting ROUNDED after selecting DROP. ************************************************************************ ***SECTION SHADOW DEPTH*** This section contains the 2 Gadgets that are used to select the DEPTH of the shadow that you desire. *GADGET ARROW UP* To increase the current Shadow Depth variable. Maximum = 25. Minimum = 0. *GADGET ARROW DOWN* To decrease the current Shadow Depth variable. Maximum = 25. Minimum = 0. **MINI SECTION FONT** This subsection contains the 2 Gadgets that are used to select the FONT file you wish to work with. *GADGET LOAD* To select the current working FONT. Uses the standard ARP library File Requester. The File Requester will appear in the top left hand corner of the Window, prompting you to select the FONT you wish to use. Here the File Requester will go directly into your currently assigned FONTS directory. This is the DEFAULT BUT you may go to any Disk or Directory you wish. Once you get there go right into the actual directory of the Font you want to use. For example if you wanted DIAMOND 15, you would enter the DIAMOND directory and double click on the file 15 (MAX SIZE=99). Please make sure you have selected a FONT FILE. If by mistake a non FONT file is selected, the File Requester will reappear prompting you: "Not a Font File! Please try again". Read the Section ***HINTS,TIPS*** for an explanation of the FILE Requester. Font file sizes under 10 points or over 99 are not supported! *GADGET SAVE* To SAVE the converted Font to a Colorfont in Ram:Fonts/(name)/size. For example if you had loaded Times 24 and added a 10 point Drop Shadow, then your new converted Font would be saved to ram:fonts/Times_SH/34.24. The letters _SH are appended to the Fonts original name to signify that this is a SHADOW(_SH) converted ColorFont. The final converted height of the Font is equal to the original height + Shadow Depth. So in this case 24 + 10 = 34. The actual Font file is named 34.24 to show you that this was originally a 24 pixel tall Font and has a 10 pixel Shadow added to it. Maximum = 99 including the Shadow Depth & manual positioning of Letter FACE. For this Public Domain version, if your converted Font's final size is greater than 39, and you click on the SAVE gadget, the "ABOUT" text screen is displayed. It explains the 39 point restriction of the Font size. ************************************************************************ ***SECTION LIGHT SOURCE*** This section contains the 8 Gadgets that are used to select the DIRECTION and displacement of the light source/shadow. The 4 Arrows that form the tight square select the Light Source Direction. These are mutually exclusive, meaning only 1 of the Arrows can be active at a time. *GADGET ARROW UPPER-LEFT* Light Source is from Upper Left corner. *GADGET ARROW LOWER-LEFT* Light Source is from Lower Left corner. *GADGET ARROW UPPER-RIGHT* Light Source is from Upper Right corner. *GADGET ARROW LOWER-RIGHT* Light Source is from Lower Right corner. *GADGET ARROW UP* To Increase the Letter Face displacement along the Y axis UP. Maximum = 25. Minimum = 0. *GADGET ARROW DOWN* To Increase the Letter Face displacement along the Y axis DOWN. Maximum = 25. Minimum = 0. *GADGET ARROW LEFT* To Increase the Letter Face displacement along the X axis LEFT. Maximum = 25. Minimum = 0. *GADGET ARROW RIGHT* To Increase the Letter Face displacement along the X axis RIGHT. Maximum = 25. Minimum = 0. ********************************************************************** ***SECTION UPPER RIGHT QUADRANT*** This unlabeled section contains the Text Gadget that has the current Letter that is used in setting up/displaying your Shadow preferences. You may Click in this Gadget and change the Displayed letter at any time. ********************************************************************* ***SECTION MENU*** **Project** *ABOUT* Under the Project Menu there are 2 selections. The first Item is "ABOUT", this brings up a text window listing product information and the full company address and phone/fax numbers. To close this window simply click on either of your Mouse Buttons. *Quit* Selecting this Item will quit SHADOWMAKER, returning you to the Workbench or the CLI window you started SHADOWMAKER from. **Font** *Antialiase* ON -Turns Antialiasing ON.(default) OFF -Turns Antialiasing OFF. These two menu items are mutually exclusive, meaning you cannot select both at the same time. Only one may be "Active" at a time. Antialiasing is performed on any Pixel that is interpreted as being "Jaggie". If you own an Amiga you are probably very familiar with the Blocky appearance of lines drawn at certain angles. SHADOWMAKER Antialiases with 1 color only, Color3 of the palette. Many of the popular Amiga programs perform Antialiasing with 2 or more colors. While this produces excellent results, it limits the availabilty of your color selections for your palette. More importantly, under Workbench 2.0 and the new ECS video chips, a new Super Hi-Res display mode is available. Resolution is 1280*400(non-overscan) but is limited to a 2 bitplane, 4 color palette. This new display mode is the main reason SHADOWMAKER limits its palette to the same restrictions. For those of you that have not seen an AMIGA displaying the Super Hi-Res mode, rest assured you will want to use it for much of your basic Titleing chores. This one color Antialiasing turns a bad Font into a good Font, and a good Font into a GREAT Font!. You will be very surprised with the results. Please read the section *Color Selection* for a further discusion of SHADOWMAKER's use of the palette. ***HINTS,TIPS*** *DPAINT!!!(tm) Remember when you load DpaintIII under 1.3WB then you must have previously run the ColorText program supplied on your DpaintIII disk or with WB 1.3. When DpaintIII is loaded click with the RIGHT-MOUSE-BUTTON on the TEXT gadget. A File Requester will appear, defaulting to the currently assigned FONTS: directory. You will have to manually type in ram:fonts in this requester to set it to the proper path for your SHADOWMAKER converted FONTS. *FONTS* SHADOWMAKER works best with AMIGA compatible fonts 99 points and under. The FONTS do not have to be in the currently ASSIGNed FONTS: directory. You may load Fonts from any Disk or Directory as long as the accompanying .FONT file is in the proper directory. Because we write from Left to Right certain Shadow directions cannot be used in normal text situations. They still can come in handy though for generating special effects and Block 3D effets. A utility to overcome this situation is in development. If you find that your Shadow is overlapping the previous letters FACE then you simply rerun SHADOWMAKER. This time use the manual displacement gadgets to pull the letter FACE 1-2 pixels to the LEFT. Please remember that the finished Font file must be 99 pixels or under in height. To determine the finished Height apply the following formula: Original Height 44 Shadow Depth 14 Manual Displacement 4 Rounded 6(3 pixel deep border at both top/bottom of letter) -------------------------- TOTAL 68 If ROUNDED is selected as part of the Shadow Type then the constant of 6 pixels is added to the FINAL Height of the Font. The manual displacement is only used if you move the FACE of the letter Higher or Lower then the Shadows edges. If your FINAL height is greater then 99 you will not be able to access the Font. The converted FONT is saved in ram:FONTS/Fontname_SH/Newsize.OldSize. IE: Original Font = Times 24 Add 4 pixel deep Drop Shadow 4 -------------------------------------------------------- ram:FONTS/Times_SH/Times 28.24 As well the required ".font" file is generated. If you wish to copy this to a disk for permanent storage make sure this ".font" file is copied as well. As an example, with the file ram:fonts/Times_SH/28.24 sitting in the ram: disk and you wish to copy this to a disk in drive DF0:(your internal disk drive): 1. For ease of explanation make a SUBDIRECTORY called DF0:FONTS Open a CLI Window and type Makedir DF0:FONTS 2. Then type Copy ram:fonts df0:fonts all This will copy any and all Fonts presently in the ram: disk. This will result in the ".font" file being copied to DF0:FONTS. As well a new SUBDIRECTORY named Times_SH will be created--DF0:FONTS/Times_SH. Remember ALL Font files presently in ram: disk will be copied. If you wish to only copy a certain Font file then you will have to be more selective as in: Copy ram:FONTS/Times_SH/28.24 to DF0:FONTS/Times_SH Copy ram:FONTS/Times_SH.font to DF0:FONTS If you are running WB1.3 then remember to run the COLORTEXT program before you try to use any of the SHADOWMAKER generated FONTS. When your application loads these FONTS it should ask you if you would like to load the suggested Color values into the current Color palette. Answer yes to see the suggested values from SHADOWMAKER. You of course may choose to load/alter your color palette as you wish. ********************************************************************* *COLOR SELECTION* Color selection defaults to the Workbench 2.0 palette. These values may be changed/remapped according to the capabilities of the software program you are using with the SHADOWMAKER Fonts. Reading the color palette from Left to right Color 0 -Color0 - Background Color 1 Color1 - Front Face Color 2 Color2 - Shadow Color 3 Color3 - Antialiasing Remember not to overdrive the WHITE! For video NTSC output the WHITE RGB values should generally be at/under 12-12-12. Antialiasing of the Face and Shadow is accomplished with Color3 of the palette. Take the time to experiment with different color values and see what gives the best end results. This will vary according to the finished media of your production. Remember what looks great on your Hi-res RGB Amiga monitor may show up poorly on a NTSC television. We find that Proportionally larger amounts of BLUE tend to produce excellent results, especially if the final viewer is NTSC bound. Antialiasing of the Shadow and the Background is not performed by SHADOWMAKER. Because LIVE video varies constantly in brightness and color, Shadow antialiasing can actually produce a bright ghosted outline at times. The viewers eye is constantly drawn to the Letter Face so any "jaggies" on the Shadow are generally missed. The Rounding and Drop shadow algorithms are tweaked to reduce these jaggies to a minimum. If you are supplying a solid color for the Background, simply pick a color that will naturally Antialiase the black of the shadow. Again a large Blue component seems to work well! SHADOWMAKER originally Antialiased both Face and Shadow, so there will be a utility forthcoming to allow you to set the level of Antialiasing to include the Shadow if you wish! ********************************************************************* **FILE REQUESTER** For those of you not familiar with the ARP File Requester I suggest you spend a few minutes getting aquainted with its features. Once the Requester is active, if you CLICK on or in the REQUESTER with your RIGHT mouse button, a LIST of the attached System devices appears in the File Selection Window. This enables you to easily jump from Disk or device to wherever you desire. Thanks to the people behind ARP! ********************************************************************* **CONVERSION TIMES** To convert a Font originally 44 points, 96 characters, with an 8 point Drop shadow, and an 8 point Rounded outline, with Antialiasing ON, takes approximately: 45 seconds on an AMIGA 1000 15 seconds on an Amiga 3000(25mhz) SHADOWMAKER does not "take over" the Amiga, so if you are running a task in the background your conversion times will increase. If you are experimenting with various Font sizes, turn the Antialiasing OFF until you select your final size. Then again if you are lucky enough to own a 3000(I do! hehe) who cares! ******************************************************************** If you hold down the LEFT SHIFT key while you click on any of the UP or DOWN arrows, the selected value will increase/decrease by 4 instead of 1. ********************************************************************* **END Section HINTS,TIPS** **BUGS** Certain Fonts, notably the older ZUMA Fonts, will sometimes produce less than desirable results under SHADOWMAKER. This is due to improper values in the Character-Width, Kerning, etc. tables of the fonts. The newer updated ZUMA Fonts and the AMIGA Compatible JDK fonts(Modern etc.) work extremely well. If you find any Fonts that SHADOWMAKER cannot handle please send a sample to the office. After you run SHADOWMAKER and load a new Font, Convert it and then quit the program, you will notice that you will have less FAST memory than when you started. Obviously the converted Font is saved into RAM:, but even after subtracting that amount you will still be missing some Ram. AmigaDos does not free memory used to load FONTS until it really runs into a Low-memory situation. At that time it will purge any unused libraries, fonts etc. from memory and you finally reclaim your missing memory. Sorry, but as most programmers like to say--"It's the Operating systems fault.. not mine! Font sizes under 10 points are not supported. If ROUNDED is selected as Shadow Type then a 3 pixel outline is drawn around each letter. With some Fonts this can result in a 1 pixel shadow overlap as the letters are being printed. This can be remedied by using the Manual positioning gadgets to PULL the Face of the letter to the LEFT 1 extra pixel. This will result in a 2 pixel outline border on the LEFT hand side of each letter and will solve the letter-width problem. What is needed here is the capability to increment/decrement the inter-character spacing at print time. This will be available as a Public Domain utility in the very near future. ********************************************************************* **COMING UP!** SPECIAL EFFECTS! Perspective, mirroring and rotation etc. Load any Font into a your paint program for retouching/enhancing etc. Professional Video Font Sets. Hand crafted Bitmaps for Video Production. Animate your text Alter the inter-character/kern spacing from within your favourite Paint program. SHADOWMAKER is the first part of the Flip'n Scroll project. Flip'n Scroll will be released in the next few months. It is an inexpensive Page Flipper/Scroller with many professional features. TRADEMARKS DPaintIII is trademark of Electronic Arts SHADOWMAKER is a trademark of L & V Productions Reg'd Flip'n Scroll is a trademark of L & V Productions Reg'd ***REGISTRATION*** Special Introductory Offer! Regular Price $29.99 SALE PRICE $19.99 Offer good until May 1, 1991 To purchase the commercial version simply send a cheque in the amount of $19.99 US funds to the address below. Your order will be shipped within 48 hours. Visa/Mastercard are also acceptable. L & V Productions 110 Columbus Ave Moncton, New Brunswick Canada E1A-5E4 PHONE: (506)-532-0094 FAX: (506)-859-2709 Please note We are on the EAST Coast!! Please feel free to report any bugs/suggestions to: Stephen Lebans PLINK SLEBANS