.__ ___________.__ .__ __
______ |__|___ ___\_ _____/| | |__|_/ |_ ____
\____ \ | |\ \/ / | __)_ | | | |\ __\_/ __ \
| |_> >| | > < | \| |__| | | | \ ___/
| __/ |__|/__/\_ \/_______ /|____/|__| |__| \___ >
|__| \/ \/ \/
(Volume 1)
HOW
TO USE STIPPLE
WITH DEGAS ELITE
ONE OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS ABOUT DEGAS ELITE ...
Everyone knows NEOchrome is the best thing, ever..! It's got hidden depths
(secret functions!). It's got the best zoom mode of any gfx program - ever..!
It's got blah blah & it's got blu blu.
So why do I love Degas so much? I was asked to point out the best parts of the
program during a lively 'discussion' with some other atarikids in #atariscne.
The strange thing is, I couldn't really come up with anything technically
outstanding, any demo-like smoothness... nothing. Degas just works for me. All I
can say is that I know how to do what I want to do in order to drop those pixels
where I want them.
If you've read cxt's file, you'll know he had the great idea to turn this
pointless (but often amusing) argument on it's head.
So here it is, one of my favourite bits of... The Design and Entertainment
Graphic Arts System (31337!).
Before we allow SH3 to continue with his article, let me (Cyclone) tell you
something about the basics of using Degas Elite. If you manage to start Degas
successfully you will see a screen filled with lots of colours, cursors and
buttons. In most cases you will get some adjustments if you double click an
object on screen. For example if you double click onto one of the colours of the
palette, you can adjust this colour in several ways. Unfortunately Degas offers
only the basic 512 colours of the plain ST palette.
However, on top of the screen you will find a menu, which acts more or less as
the command-centre of Degas Elite. You may also want to adjust some settings via
the menu, as described later in the text. To enter one of the eight drawing
screens in Degas Elite, you simply have to perform a click with the right key of
your mouse, another right click brings you back to the command screen. To select
one of the eight screens you can press the numbers 1-8 on the keyboard. It
doesn’t matter if you use the main keyboard or the numeric pad it will work
either way. And while we are talking about screens, "9" brings you right back to
the command screen. Now its about time to give the keyboard back to SH3.
_________ __ .__ .__
/ _____/_/ |_ |__|______ ______ | | ____
\_____ \ \ __\| |\____ \ \____ \ | | _/ __ \
/ \ | | | || |_> >| |_> >| |__\ ___/
/_______ / |__| |__|| __/ | __/ |____/ \___ >
\/ |__| |__| \/
Stipple?!
Stipple is rubbish..! It's like the airbrush from hell. Well, it's actually
better than Degas' Airbrush tool (using brushes rather than a fixed circle of
dots), but that tool is next to useless. So let's take a quick look at Stipple.
Stipple is great. Give it a double click, go on! Stipple lets you draw semi
-random but controlled brush points within a defined range. You can set the
range from 0 to 7 pixels away from the centre of your brush and you can slow it
down if you like... I suggest you don't. You can also use stipple with blocks
but that's not going to offer much useful.
OK, so stipple let's you draw this silly mess all over the screen.. is it really
useful? On it's own I would maybe use it once or twice a year, but the best
thing with stipple is that you can use Change with it.
Change is a very useful function. It lets you replace a colour in your picture
with the currently selected colour. But it doesn't just work on the whole
screen, it combines with other Degas functions to let you alter specific areas.
Set/Change lets you pick the colour you want to affect, then combining this with
Draw for example will allow you to paint another colour over it & only it. So
you can choose a large brush and happily re-colour sprites quite quickly. Give
it a go.
Now instead of using draw, select Stipple while you've still got Change switched
on and don't forget to use a large brush. Now you can affect a greater area even
quicker than with Draw and you can be more certain that you've not missed a bit.
I use this every day, whether it's working on sprites for a game, making a logo
or whatever. OK, it's not earth-shatteringly astounding, but this simple little
combo makes my life easier & that's why I chose to write about it here.
A round of applause for Stipple/Change! (with a big brush ;)
Cyclone is back with some additions, what I like best with the stipple function
is the ability to stipple with pattern and change activated. However since I am
a lot older than sh3 I would prefer to switch to medium speed via double
clicking onto the stipple button, but medium speed is much to slow and pretty
useless this way, it sucks. So using single clicks to stipple with another
colour works fine for me. At least it allows me to generate the patterns I
need faster than pixeling them manually with NEOchrome.
If you want further informations about Degas Elite I suggest you download the
Sewer Docs Disk 10 and 6. Disk 10 contains "Extensive Instructions" and a "Quick
Reference guide" while disk 6 contains "Hints and Tips part 2". The Sewer Doc
Disks are available from the P.H.F. site at http://www.tphf.karoo.net/sewer.htm
You can find a complete list of the disk contents at the Pompey Pirates site
at http://home.tu-clausthal.de/~ifmar/pompey/sewerdoclist.shtml . Hey Grazey,
maybe it would be an idea to update your list and btw I wonder where we could
possibly find the "Hints and Tips part 1" :).
2003-01-20 sh3-rg (with some tiny additions by Cyclone / X-Troll
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