Conference hydra::amiga_v1

4952.0. "Soon on your Monitors : Dpaint IV" by TRUCKS::BUSSINK_E (Erik Bussink,Fareham UK,782-2272) Fri Aug 09 1991 06:23

  
 -- NOTE: The following is a compilation of DeluxePaint 4.0's (Copyright
    1991 by Electronic Arts) new or enhanced features. They were taken from 
    a "prerelease" version demonstration of the program. No further 
    assistance can be given by the author as he observed the use of the 
    "prerelease" and is not in his posession. No responsibility whatsoever 
    will be taken by the author concerning accuracy and/or changes to the 
    final version. --
 
Dpaint IV follows in the footsteps of its earlier versions in ease of use
and productivity while adding a wide palette of new or enhanced features.
 
 A New DPaint!
 -------------
 
 After clicking the icon (which, by the way, takes a professionally-
looking approach after the more playful DPIII icon), a familiar screen
appears. You once again are asked to choose the display mode, Overscan
off, regular Overscan or maximum Overscan, NTSC or PAL standards, whether 
to swap-load or load the whole program at once, and the number of colors.
 Of course, the main change to this screen is the little button labeled
"HAM." HAM ? Yes, HAM. Dan Silva, the chief programmer, once said he'd
never include HAM mode in any version of DPaint. I guess he lied...
 
 After clicking "OK," the main DPaint screen is opened. "Oooohhhh..." you
say when you see the new buttons in the tool-bar.. Actually, they're the 
same icons; but they have that clean 3D-punch that has become the new 
fashion among all sorts of computers nowadays. Even the title bar was 
given the 3D-look.
 At first glance, nothing but the "new" icons has changed, except that
Dpaint now has it's own, very attractive, font. When you look at the
menus, however, you'll notice that you're not in Kansas anymore ....
 
 Pull-Downs and More
 -------------------
 
 The "Picture" menu became a little shorter, and that's because the
"Color" sub-menu got a menu of its own (that will be discussed later on).
Besides that, it was not changed.

 The "Brush" menu also is very similar to the DPIII menu -- but by far not
the same. You now can even have a spare brush (in addition to the spare
screen) with which you can perform an incredible function that could sell
DPIV by itself: it's called "Metamorph" and allows you to literally
"morph" one brush into another. This is accomplished by creating an anim
brush with the "Spare" brush being the first frame and the current brush
the last frame. The number of frames between those two are variable. 
 "Metamorph" lets you pseudo-fade two digitized pictures or two words. The
possibilities seem endless and it's a lot of fun to play with.
 
 The "Mode" menu didn't change at all, and it probably didn't need to,
either.
 
 The "Anim" menu wasn't changed either, except that the "Animbrush"
sub-menu was moved to the top of the menu.
 
 The "Color" menu is totally new and split up the original Palette-
requester into "Ranges" and "Mixer," the functions of which are pretty
obvious. The "Ranges"-requester allows you to modify a Range of colors
greatly -- you can even define the distance between the colors used in
the Range.
 The "Mixer" is the "Palette"-requester totally re-defined. It will multi-
task internally, meaning that the requester can be kept open so you can 
draw and change colors at the same time. It displays 32 colors of your
palette horizontally at the top of the requester, and two buttons can be
clicked to scroll up and down your total palette (if you are using HAM
mode). There are no more seperate RGB and HSV controllers; they use the
same three gadgets, and you can switch between RGB and HSV editing at the
click of a button. The most remarkable new feature is the actual mixer --
by selecting colors and painting into a small rectangular area you can
literally mix these colors to produce new colors, very similar to the 
"real" palette used by oil-paint artists.
 Most of the remaining selections are found in the DPIII "Colors"
sub-menu.

 The "Effects" menu was broadened quite a bit. Now you can select
"Lightbox" (known as "Onion-skin" as well) and see the last and next frames
of an animation in a single frame. Also, you can set the "Transperancy"
of a brush -- this is often only useful in HAM mode and allows you, to
a variable degree, see through the brush onto the underlying surface.
 Automatic anti-alias was added as well -- meaning that any brush you
paste or any stroke you draw will be automatically anti-aliased. Again,
often this is only useful in HAM mode.
 "Perspective" seemed to have been sped up a little, but it is still,
understandably, very slow on a 68000 with maximum anti-alias selected.

 Finally, the "Opts" menu has a couple of new additions as well: 
"FastAdjust" speeds up brush handling in HAM mode significantly, and the
"Koords" selection was (finally) given a key-combination shortcut.

 To HAM or not to HAM
 --------------------
 
 When you select "HAM" when the program is first started (or when you
select "Screen format" from the "Picture" menu) there is a noteable 
difference in the palette display on the lower right. There is a little
button beneath the color selection with a letter and two arrows -- this
lets you scroll among the 256 selectable colors (there are still 4096
colors displayed, as when using anti-aliasing etc.).
 Of course, drawing is somewhat slower than in 2-64 color modes. When
drawing free-hand, this doesn't affect your work much, but unfortunately
picking up brushes and filling closed areas is painfully slow even with
"FastAdjust" selected (please be reminded that this was observed from
a "prerelease" of the program -- the above features will hopefully be
improved).
 The results, however, are very clear and exceed the image quality of
DigiPaint 3 and other competing HAM paint programs.


 First Impressions
 -----------------
 
 DeluxePaint IV will (like its previous versions have in the past) set 
new standards for Amiga paint programs. It has all the right components to 
be able to dominate the Amiga paint program market for all current Amiga 
modes.
 
 The DeluxePaint series is a symbol of clever combination of productive
tools, extreme ease of use and very hard work. It deserves to be attained
legally instead of pirate copies that will probably soon circulate. Please
support the programmers of DeluxePaint and your local Amiga dealer by
purchasing the program.
 
 
 -- If any minor or major new features were not included in this
    publication, it is due to the demonstration of the program and its
    lack of coverage of all aspects of the program, and/or due to the
    fact that a "prerelease" was used. --


 Deluxe Paint and all its prereleases are a trademark of Electronic Arts. 
 They are (C) Copyright 1991 by Electronic Arts. 

 This preview is (C) Copyright 1991 by Peter Baer.


    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    This is a Text files found on AB20.LARC.NASA.GOV.
    
    							Erik 
 

 I retrieved the Deluxe Paint IV demo disk from AB20 by FTPMAIL,
 and uploaded what *may or may not* be a workable version to 

 TAPE::AMIGA:[UPLOAD]DPAINTIVDEMO.DMS .

 The disclaimer is because:

 o Using FTPMAIL, as documented in this conference,
   involves appending, stripping, uudecoding etc.

 o The resulting file is a DMS, which I can't check on a VMS system.

 o I haven't yet downloaded it to my Amiga to test/try.

 If getting the file to the Amiga is easy for you, go for it.
 If it involves a lot of time and special incantations, wait
 until someone confirms the quality of the DMS archive.

 Dave

I could quickly check it out, and save people the DL time if it turns out
bad...  But, I'm not sure what .dms format is?  Is this yet another archival
tool, or a format understood by DP3, or...?

Steve - couldn't find a DMS reference with a quick search  

    Good, Steve...I'm glad you asked the question.  I was beginning to feel
    like some Bassackward fool for not knowing what DMS is.  8^)
    
    Tony

    The DMS tool is the Disk-MaSher, like LHwarp. It has 4 different mode
    of compression, light-heavy.
    
    	I'll upload DMS102.lzh on Tape::amiga:[upload]
    
    	Personnally, I get a bit confused with all those different
    compression/decompression system, therefore I stick to LHarc & DMS.
    
    						Erik Bussink
    						8.25pm local time :-\
    

    DMS file format discussed in the GODS demo note (4696.5).

    -Dom

The .dms demo-archive looks ok.  I just un-dms'ed it and it comes with
what looks to be a crippled version of DPaintIV.  Haven't had time to
really check it out, but appears to function ok.  No spiffy demo, ala
NewTek, but a version people can play with. 

What we really need is one of the standards bodies (ISO, ANSII, etc) to
standardize on a floppy/file-archival-system.  :^)  I'm tired of a
new format every time I turn around. :^|

DMS did complain about 1 error at the very tail end of the uncompress.
(Header Identification Error) Didn't seem to affect the floppy at all.

Steve

    Re: .6

� DMS did complain about 1 error at the very tail end of the uncompress.
� (Header Identification Error) Didn't seem to affect the floppy at all.

    Just out of curiousity, what version of DMS did you use? I was able to
    unpack it using V1.01 (built from the self-extracting archive) without
    *any* error messages (a first for me and DMS!)

    However, when attempting to unpack it using V1.02, it would abort right
    away with an "invalid info header" error, or something to that effect.
    The strange thing was that both versions would say the archive was okay
    when the "test" command was used, ala: "dms test dpaintivdemo".

    Pete

    I have extracted the DPaint demo without any error using the 
    DMS-102.lzh that can be found at CGOU01::amnew
    
    Hubert.

    
    The only problems that could occur with DMS, is if a file, is a
    No-Dos, or has some checksum 880 etc... stuff.
    (When DMS is finished, it stops automaticaly, and the Amiga think a)
    (new disk has been insert,so it will load it.		       )
    
    This even, doesn't mean there is a problem. Many disk, are supposed to
    be booted, and don't have directories.
    						Erik
    

�    The only problems that could occur with DMS, is if a file, is a
�    No-Dos, or has some checksum 880 etc... stuff.

    Never say "only"... ;^)

    I can't remember where I got this version of DMS (V1.02) but it *isn't*
    the self-extracting archive, but instead an lharc'ed version of all the
    files that break-out of DMS-102.EXE, so perhaps that's the problem.

    The "official" error is:

                 Can't find Info Header. Invalid DMS Archive.

                 Fatal Error!

    It's no big deal really since V1.01 works no problem, but I was just
    curious. I'll have a go with the copy on CGOU01::AMNEW:. FWIW, the
    Lemmimgs Demo (LEMMIMGS.DMS) returns errors with V1.02, but it at least
    unpacks and works, wheareas the DPaintIV Demo barfs without unpacking a
    single track.

    Pete

    Well, there is somewhere an DMS 1.03 around. 
    Maybe that one is alright ?
    
    		Don't look at me, I 'aint have it.
    
    						Erik

    Does anyone have a copy of 1.01 ? I've got an archive that gives the
    exact error descibed earlier and maybe 1.01 will get round it ?

    It's now on Tape::amiga:[upload]DMS101.EXE   
    
    
    				 This is the amiga autoexectraction file.
    
    					Erik

    I tried the demo and it is quite impressive.  I AM disappointed that it
    won't load pictures, either.  I would like to try it out in the
    existing pictures that I have.
    
    I'm still considering DCTV.  A review said that it had "the best paint
    program around".
    
    Tony

    I am also considering DCTV. However I would buy Dpaint first, if I did
    not already own it. Dpaint is probably the best paint program in it's
    league. DCTV gives you the ability to paint in NTCS but you will find
    this is not always the best way to go. Dpaint's animation capability
    cannot be overlooked. I would have liked to load a picture in IV but
    only to see if the braindead requestor has been fixed. I think that
    this is the only major problem I have with Dpaint. I am not sure how
    much I will be using the ham mode(I find ham paint programs hard to
    use) because cleaning up a background of a scanned pic in ham is very
    time consuming.(If you want to maintain the texture). If Dpaint IV will
    let yo grab a texture brush in ham ,and then fill with brush it would
    be great. I cruuently use Digipaint.Macropaint,and Dpaint. 
    								bill

May as well.  I'll get Dpaint first.

Thanks, Bill

Tony

    I called EA, sent in my version 3.21 DpaintIII floppies and received in
    return version 3.25 which has a 'smarter' requestor along with some
    fixes to make it run with the A3000.  With IV coming out next month I
    guess the point is moot.  :)
    
    md