Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

More documents

Recommendations

Info

that in a picture, relative areas usually consist of similar colours, so you can pro tect these areas by selecting the relevant colours. This same sort of thinking is also used with ArtEffect, but the execution is very different. With Dpaint you got a list of colours in the picture and which ones are in the stencil. With a 24 bit image this is obviously not practical, so instead the area masked out by your selection is shown graphically on screen with ArtEffect shading out the selected areas. Tolerances Area is determined on the colour you choose and you also have control over the tolerance levels, or how closely matching other colours have to be before they will also be selected for the stencil. You can select and de-select multiple areas using the alt and control keys. Once you have the area selected, fur ther control is provided via invert, add border, grow and shrink functions. Finally there is a feather option that fades in any effect that is applied and covers over the edge of the selected area. Anyone that The new motion blur filter in action, all the while a second filter is still working in the background Ul AND YOU-ME It seems to be common place now for Amiga pro grams to shun the standard interface in favour of the increasing number of replacement systems out there. Since version two of the Amiga's operating system arrived a new interface library has been available called CadTools. This was meant to supply the programmer with access to all the different gadget types they would ever need in one small library, which it did. Unfortunately, to implement even a simple set of but tons required you to go through the arduous process of creating a CadTool data structure for each one, and then there was the matter of then having to collect the gadgets messages afterwards. Because of the unfriendliness of CadTools many programmers took it upon themselves to produce replacement interface libraries - entirely new ones or ones that built upon the existing CadTools Amiga Computing MARCH 1997 Qhose effects Just as every other art package out there, ArtEffect has a bulging pouch of image effects ready for you to unleash on your unsuspecting pictures. Just as with Photoshop and Photogenics, ArtEffect uses a plugin system to allow filters to be updated or added to at a later date. ArtEffect uses quite a good window system in which a preview thumbnail o! the finished effect is shown and any options are available. Even though a progress bar shows how long the pre view will take to display, it would be even better if the preview was a pro gressive display. One interesting point about the effect windows is that they run asynchronously to the main pro gram. So you can open an effect, leave it open and go back to editing the main picture, and the preview will continue to be updated. All the effects are pretty much what you would expect. I was half hoping for a decent gausian blur filter but has used Photoshop will now realise that the stencil is another name for Photoshop's magic wand, and the tool in ArtEffect used to select the stencil area is called exactly that, but you get the added bonus of being able to draw on the stencil as well. As with most programs today, to get the best out of ArtEffect, you need a relatively high specification Amiga - preferably an 040 Amiga with a CyberGraphX card. With a plane old ACA or ECS machine drawing on screen with some of the fancy pens can be a laborious task, even though most of the effects and other drawing tools do work fast enough. For a first release, ArtEffect shows enor mous promise. I think it has a way to go before it can live up to the claim that it is equal to Photoshop. It has some good library. The best known, or some would say infa mous, is Magic User Interface, this provides a wealth of special gadgets and features for the pro grammer while being simple to implement To be honest the word overkill could describe MUI, every single part of it is adjustable and at the end of the day most people use the same type of fonts and gadgets. I would say the runner up in the GUI war is BGUI, another long running replacement system that takes a much more cut-down approach than MUI. It only requiring a single 100k library but still gives the programmer a simple way to create rescable, font sensitive windows and interfaces. With pro grams such as ArtEffect, DrawStudio, World Construction Set and Digital Universe all opting for these replacement interface systems, I can only see the trend continuing in the future. r bolanz e JlJI50% Shape Brightness Low 1 1 1 Execute Everything you would expect is provided by ArtEffect's filters, I just want a progressive display Jie _|32 Jo m unfortunately it is still limited to only two blur levels and was almost as slow as Photogenics'. advantages over Photogenics - excellent brush manipulation tools and functions are something that Photogenics sorely misses - and the ability to create new brushes with in ArtEffect is excellent. Personally I cannot wait for version two which we should be seeing something of by the start of February. Bottom " line Requirements RED essential BLACK recommended RTG card Product details Product ArtEffect vl .5 Supplier Blittersoft Price Tel E-mail £79.95 01908 261466 bsoft@wildnet.co.uk WWW http://blittersoft.wildnet.co.uk Scores Ease of use 92% Implementation 85% Value For Money 90% Overall 89%
Want to get connected? ,.AMITCPv4.5 DIALUP (NEW!! FULL TCP STACK] VOYAGER vl. 10 *[EXCLUSIVE!! NEW WWW CLIENT I .M1CRODOT-II [NEW MAIL AND NEWS CLIENT! .AmFTP [INDUSTRY STANDARD FTP CLIENT] Am IRC (INDUSTRY STANDARD IRC CLIENT I .AmTelnet {TELNET CLIENT - AMFTP AUTHOR!] . AmTalk [INTERNET CHAT CLIENT] .in Finger [FINGER CLIENT] AmTerm "iNEW COMMS/BBS CLIENT] FIBt EASIER cnWc? THAN ABC! Wanting to gel onto the Internet? Already connected, but frustrated with your software? NetConnect is all you need to get connected to the Internet and contains a suite of seven commercially licensed Internet appli cations. You won't find an interface as easy-lo-use as NetConnecl's! We have spoken at length to s
Page 1 and 2:
Requires Hard drive, WB3 The best S
Page 3 and 4: ZIP DRIVES Highly rated SCSI drive
Page 5 and 6: HE COVERDISKS Tiny Troops Excellent
Page 7 and 8: Orders Only 800-735-2633 Memory Upg
Page 9 and 10: VIDI Amiga 24 (RT)+ Colour Real Tim
Page 11 and 12: Qnternet on the up Online Informati
Page 13 and 14: Amiga Mice Replacement Mice £6.95
Page 15 and 16: PiLxlipn AMIGA REPLACEMENT CHIPS AN
Page 17 and 18: less than half an inch for none met
Page 19 and 20: SPECIAL OFFERS MONITORS White Knigh
Page 21 and 22: he story of the Amiga is a strange
Page 23 and 24: HOW OF SUPPORT One thing that has k
Page 25 and 26: Belgium Famous For Amiga City, Gene
Page 27 and 28: ACK1NGTHE G Emulators Unlimited con
Page 29 and 30: PageStream imported this complicate
Page 31 and 32: Why so glum chum? Amiga about to sp
Page 33 and 34: LIAGE INTERNATIONAL 36 Dye Street G
Page 35 and 36: Getting an Amiga connected In the i
Page 37 and 38: MINET 16 This is Aminet's Christmas
Page 39 and 40: Mad as a March hare, ESP takes a lo
Page 41 and 42: RAM CARDS 18-22 Sterling Way, North
Page 43 and 44: K EEP ON TRACK you may have noticed
Page 45 and 46: cott Hallam's love affair with danc
Page 47 and 48: Of you use a photocopier to make a
Page 49 and 50: Qemple of Everlasting Light You may
Page 51 and 52: Hey dude Qtoms I want to hear from
Page 53: As with most programs today, to get
Page 57 and 58: You'll probably want to re-edit scr
Page 59 and 60: Save €8! Subscribe now and not on
Page 61 and 62: A the skies with uildhall's budget
Page 63 and 64: Guildhall is to release four titles
Page 65 and 66: "I'm a control freak", Hugh Poynton
Page 67 and 68: flmiga Com- £ puling Postcode: Pay
Page 69 and 70: ACTION FEATURE INVESTIGATION HUGH P
Page 71 and 72: kidudearewcoaecUonofthebeitarcade D
Page 73 and 74: arior Ever fancied ruling the entir
Page 75 and 76: FEATURE AMIGA ACTION 175
Page 77 and 78: If all these screen shots look as i
Page 79 and 80: ami amigq LJi amig C, i Wow, Neil M
Page 81 and 82: You're cheating you are As you moy
Page 83 and 84: Phil South looks at plotting and dr
Page 85 and 86: FIXED PRICE ONLY WO.99 incl. CD32 O
Page 87 and 88: Some advice from Paul Overaa on eli
Page 89 and 90: PAXTRON CORPORATION 28 Grove St., S
Page 91 and 92: iScft SYSTEMS NEW tOW PRICES NEW lB
show all

Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?