103 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
103 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
This is the README for The PIKAressionist
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(c) 1998, 1999 Vidar Madsen - vidar@prosalg.no
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The PIKAressionist is free software, and may be distributed
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freely, provided this file is included!
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This program comes with no warranty, whatsoever. The author
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can not be held liable for any damage caused by proper or
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improper use of this program.
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--- Introduction
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The PIKAressionist is a plug-in for the Photo and Image Kooker Application,
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a.k.a. PIKA. It can be used to create natural looking painting effects
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and similar. It can also be run in a primitive "standalone" mode.
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The current version is still a bit shaky, and is to be considered beta
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software. I'll do some serious testing, hopefully across a few more
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platforms, as soon as I can.
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The official Web-page is http://www.prosalg.no/~vidar/pikaressionist/ and
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will always contain a link to the latest released version.
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--- Compiling / Installing
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To compile (hopefully):
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make
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If you want to compile for GTK-1.1 and PIKA-1.1 instead, you will have
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to change the two variable at the top of Makefile. Possibly you would
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want to edit DEFAULTPATH as well, but that's not critical.
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To install plug-in and accompanying files:
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make install
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The plug-in installs itself under $HOME/.pika/plug-ins/ and copies a
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couple of files into the directory $HOME/.pika/pikaressionist/. The
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subdirectories 'Brushes', 'Paper' and 'Presets' will be created during
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"make install", and a few files will be added; As a minimum,
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'defaultbrush.pgm' and 'defaultpaper.pgm' under their respective
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directories. These are vanilla .PGM files, which could be edited (and
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created) with any decent program - like PIKA! :-)
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--- Standalone
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As of version 0.99 and later, the PIKAressionist can also be run
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separately from PIKA. This is primarily intended for debugging
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purposes, though, as it still needs PIKA libraries to compile. In your
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shell, type:
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pikaressionist somefile.ppm
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The image specified must be a valid PPM file. No other formats are
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supported, and probably never will.
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If you click "OK", the PPM will be replaced with the "repainted" version.
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If you "Cancel", nothing will be done to the file.
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--- File Formats
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The "normal" brushes are simply grayscale PGM files, which can be created
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with almost any program, including xv and of course PIKA. A number of
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brushes is included, so I guess a more in-depth explanation is not
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necessary. And, for those who might want to try it, PIKAressionist can
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also read GBR files, which is PIKA's native brush format. (You still
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need to copy them to the PIKAressionist's brush-directory, though. This
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will probably be fixed sometimes.)
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Version 0.99.4 introduced the concept of using "colored" brushes (although
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"pre-rendered" usually is more correct). The brushes' file format is a
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plain PPM file, but the layout is somewhat special (and kinda hard to
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explain);
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- The Red channel contains a shading map of the brush in question. Often
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it resembles the overall image more or less completely.
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- The Green channel contains a high-light map. This is a pre-defined
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image of the shiny parts of the brush. (Ordinary grayscale brushes
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have this calculated automatically with a rough emboss-ish algorithm.)
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- The Blue channel functions as a brush mask. When applying a brush
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stroke to the image, all areas colored blue in the file are first
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"blacked out" of the image.
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--- Feedback
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If you have any comments, criticism, ideas for improvement or new
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features, or if you run into problems of any sort, let me know, so that I
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can (try to) fix it for the next release! (And, if you find platform-
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dependent bugs, please try to fix them and send me a patch!)
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I'm also welcoming contributions in the form of brushes or textures! For
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this program to be valuable, it needs them... Bad! All contributions will
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be properly credited, of course.
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Good luck and happy painting!
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Vidar Madsen <vidar@prosalg.no>
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