STOS Paint
STOS Paint gives you the ability to draw and alter pictures while
still remaining within STOS Basic. It has been written in STOS
Basic, thus allowing you to potentially add new art functions to
it.
To get started, first boot up STOS Basic. Insert the STOS Paint
disc into drive A and type:
ACCNEW : ACCLOAD "PAINT.ACB"
Please note that this program will need converting if it's to be
used on a copy of STOS Basic v2.4, using the float conversion
program from the COMPILER disc.
STOS Paint will now load and run - displaying a title page. Once
this appears simply press either a key or a mouse button and you
will enter the main screen of STOS Paint. From here you can
select all the features that STOS Paint offers, using the drop-
down menus.
Choice menu
This menu contains 16 options from which the main art functions
can be found. All drawing commands behave in the following way:
* Select a function from the choice menu
* Use the mouse to position the drawing pointer
* Press on the left mouse button to begin the drawing procedure
* Keep the left mouse button pressed and move the mouse around.
Doing this will, in most cases, allow you to decide the final
appearance of the chosen shape/line
* Release the left mouse button and your shape/line will be
plotted
* In all drawing operations the right button will escape out of
the function and return back to the menu
* Pressing the UNDO key after a shape has been plotted results in
that operation being removed
The functions available are as follows:
Circle: Draws the circumference of a circle, the colour of which
can be selected from the Colour menu.
Disc: Operates the same as Circle but the whole area is filled in
with the current fill pattern.
Frame: Draws the perimeter of a rectangle.
Box: Draws and fills a rectangle
Fill: An area of colour can be changed with this option. The
colour and Fill pattern are selectable from their relevant menus.
Line: Draw a straight line from point to point
Draw: For single pixel plotting. Constant movement will produce a
free-hand style of writing.
Polymarkers: These are shapes which can be selected for painting
with. Choose your polymarker with the cursor - repeatedly
clicking on the left mouse button will increase the size, shown in
the large window.
Paint with sprites: This facility allows you to call up any bank
of sprites from the disc and transport them into your design. If,
while using a chosen sprite, you wish to return to select a new
sprite simply press the spacebar.
Ellipse: Similar to Disc but in this case there are two radii,
one for the X-axis and the other for the Y-axis.
Erase: Any size of the screen can be cleared with this option.
Select the top left section you require to delete and then drag a
box over the total area to delete. Remember UNDO if you erase
something by mistake!
Change colours: The RGB values of each colour can be altered
here.
Distort: Create a box outlining the area you wish to distort. Then
draw a second box in the position, and of the right shape, you
wish to distort into. Enlarging and reducing are capable with this
command but be careful not to overlap the two boxes.
Copy: You can define a block area on the screen to copy and then
paste it elsewhere on the screen without losing the original
image.
Rotate colours: Colours can be set to rotate through each other.
The technique uses the SHIFT command from STOS Basic. You must
select a colour to rotate from and input a speed at which they
rotate. Stop the effect by pressing the right mouse button.
Colour menu
When you pull down this menu, you'll be confronted by a display
of 16 bars, each one representing an element of the palette.
Selecting one will set the current drawing colour to the one of
your choice.
Note that if you were using a drawing operation like Fill, after
you select a colour the program goes into the Fill option again.
This is so that you can mingle colours quickly when using a specific
feature.
File menu
Storage of pictures is coped with under this menu:
Load: Allows you to load a previously saved NEOCHROME or DEGAS
(PI1) screen.
Save: The present screen can be saved to disc in either NEOCHROME
or DEGAS format.
Quit: Allows you to quit out of STOS Paint, back to the STOS
editor.
Info: Author's credits and comments
Line menu
From this menu you can alter the way in which any future lines
are drawn.
Continuous: This type of line is always solid but has a
selectable width and the ends of the lines can be rounded,
arrowed or squared. Any future lines drawn after selecting this
will have these characteristics.
Broken: Lines from this option can only be one pixel wide but
you are presented with a selection of line types to choose from.
Miscellaneous menu
Choose fill: The pattern used for the Disc and Fill command can be
changed from this option.
Mirror >: Allows an area to be reverse mirrorred from left to
right.
Mirror ^: Flips an area of the screen from top to bottom
Airbrush: There are three sizes of airbrush available to you via
this option. An airbrush slowly fills in a circle full of dots.
If you move the mouse while 'spraying' with the airbrush it
gives an effect similar to an aerosol can.
Type: With this selection, text can easily be entered onto the
screen. First select the colour of the text and the various
parameters, then position the cursor where you want to start
writing. As you type the cursor will move to the left displaying
the characters.
Magnify: This will allow you to pixel edit easily and quickly.
Use the left/right cursor keys to change the colour of the
pointers and hence your drawing. As before, left button plots a
pixel, right exits.
Cut/Paste: Similar to copy, the difference being that the image
is removed from screen as it is 'cut'. You can then paste it back
as many times as you like.
Compacting pictures
Don't forget that the screen compactor accessory - COMPACT.ACB
can reduce the size of screens by huge amounts. This accessory is
in the EXTRA.ARC file on the STOS Accessories disc, in case you
have yet to discover it.
DEMO III
This demo listing has also been supplied on the STOS Paint disc
for your own interest. The file will only work with versions of
STOS that have the new Maestro command extension (included with
the STOS Maestro sampling software).
We'd love to see any of your STOS creations. So please send them
into Mandarin and we will return any ideas and suggestions we may
have about your games.