-
Unexpected Error; Quitting? --- How can I
run two or more installed versions of Dogwaffle?

If you already
had some version of Dogwaffle installed
(e.g. PD Howler, PD Artist, PD Particles, old PD
Pro, free versions, Trial demos,...), and then
installed a new version, and
later tried to run the old prior version again, you
may notice that the prior version won't start
anymore.
This can be easily fixed.
If you want to keep using multiple versions, you may
need to run it as Administrator once again. Here's how
to automate that so you don't have to right-click
everytime.
If you run under Steam, look here for more
- Problem with the Temp folder? Can't Launch Dogwaffle? Run-time error '424'?
Did you see a problem error message about the Temp folder not found? Or Runtime error 424? Is Dogwaffle failing to launch?
Click here to see how to reset the Temp folder.
- Visual Studio 2010 SP1 runtimes
Some versions of Project Dogwaffle use Timosoft controls that require Visual Studio 2010 SP1 runtimes.
We do not currently install them. Most systems have them by
default. If it becomes possible, we will include them, but they do
not make v2010 available for download anymore.
The solution is to download the runtimes manually from here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8328
- Can
Dogwaffle create a Color Palette from an Image?

Yes of course, and there are
several ways to do it. Here's some
information
- with PD Pro 8.2: How to disable the GPU
Concurrency:
parallel_for_each is not supported on the
selected accelerator "CPU accelerator"
- for PD Pro 7:
You need support of SSE2
Older computers supported MMX for
multimedia acceleration. Newer computers have
added support of SSE and eventually of SSE2
for an even richer multimedia experience. PD Pro 7
(Artist edition as well as Howler edition) requires a computer chip
(Intel, AMD,...) that supports SSE2. This is
important to remember especially if you plan on
using PD Pro 7 in a Virtual machine, such as
Parallels or VMware Fusion, Dropbox or with
CrossOver, Wine or PlayOnLinux: It's not
enough to have hardware that supports SSE2..... You
also want to make sure that your VM supports it too.

- A
Previous instance of PD Pro is running
You may experience
problems with some plugins when running more than one
instance.
- Is the
Arial Narrow font missing on your system?
This
could explain why parts of the interface is
missing (words clipped off)
...and perhaps related:
- Missing
the Render button (or others), hidden by interface
elements?
- stdole2.tlb - Error
registering a file, StdOLE2 lib failed to register
- Abort / Retry / Ignore
(this
error is more commonly seen on Vista)
-
Unable
to execute file: code 740, The Requested Operation
Requires Elevation
- Using Project
Dogwaffle under Windows 7
- Using Project
Dogwaffle under Windows Vista (& Win 7 too)
-
"Runtime Error 339" - possible PSI service
interference?
- "Active X server
can't create object" or similar when running a plugin.
A previous instance of Dogwaffle or
Howler has crashed or failed to completely shut
down. Use Task Manager to shutdown any instance
of Dogwaffle.exe processes. You can launch the Task
Manager in a few ways, such as using CTRL+ALT+DEL keys
or RIGHT-CLICKING the task bar (usually at the bottom
of the screen) and selecting Task Manager.
- PD Pro 5.1b -
how to install or upgrade step-by-step
A step-by-step guide for
updating from 5.0 or 5.1(TGE) to 5.1b can be found here
- VB 5 - Visual Basic 5 Runtimes
If for some reason the
installation of Dogwaffle fails to install and register
the VB5 runtime files (dll's), you might want to install
these separately. Microsoft offers the VB5 runtime
installer here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/180071
- PD Pro 5:
"unknown error - quitting" occasionally seen after
3.7, 4.1 or 5 updates
You may need to
(1) disable UAC;
(2)
right-click to 'Run as Administrator' (just
once);
(3)
disable the antivirus (just temporarily);
(4)
manually create a 'Temp' subfolder in the PD Pro
folder; or
(5)
all-of-the-above
If you are unable to
launch PD Pro 4.1 (or other versions) after applying
the update patch on top of 4.0 (which worked fine
before), then you probably just need to run it once as
Administrator, so that it can create a Temp subfolder
inside the folder where you installed PD Pro. If you
are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, with UAC
enabled, it is likely to prevent creation of such a
subfolder in the Program Files folders. You can either
create the Temp sub-folder manually yourself, or run
Dogwaffle as Administrator, so that it can override
UAC and create the Temp folder when it finds that it
doesn't exist yet. This is only needed once, just to
create the Temp folder for Dogwaffle. Within the
Settings options (File->Settings...) you may be
able to change the location of the Temp folder
thereafter, but at first, it will try to create one
within the installation folder of PD Pro, and UAC is
designed to prevent such a thing. We have also seen
some rare antivirus programs with 'tottal protection'
behave in ways similar to UAC, and thus even when
disabling UAC you still weren't able to create the
Temp folder where needed. In such cases you may need
to temporarily disable the antivirus program too. We
recommend that you disconnect the system from the
internet during that time.
If this doesn't fix it, you can also manually create
the Temp subfolder in the area where you installed
Dogwaffle.
- PD Pro
5: Compatibility Modes under
64-bit OSes (Win7/64)
If you're running under 64
bit Windows you may have to set the compatibility settings
up like in this screenshot.
Select the Compatibility Mode (example shown is for
Windows XP with SP3). Right-click the dogwaffle.exe
shortcut on your desktop or from the Start menu, and
select Properties, then select the Compatibility tab.
- Run in Windows XP SP3
compatible mode
- Disable Desktop
Composition to improve speed of visual
feedback/interaction
Your experience may vary, some of it is affected by
graphics drivers, perhaps. Try this.
- Icons and
buttons are flashing and/or are sluggish.
Solution: Possibly a driver or bandwidth issue.
Changing from a 32 to 16 bit screen may resolve the
issue. This may vary depending on your graphics
card's driver. Another solution may be: Go into
properties for the program (right-click->Properties),
then go to the Compatibility tab and click 'disable
desktop composition'
- .NET (dot Net)
Framework 4 required (PD Pro 5)
If
you see an error message similar to this when using
certain new plugins for Dogwaffle:
AppName: dogwaffle.exe AppVer:
4.0.0.0 ModName: unknown
then you may need to bring your system's .NET framework
up to a more recent version, at least version 4.
See more details here: dotnetframework
Learn more about PD Pro 5 here too.
- "Overflow Error code
6" under 64-bit Windows
Under
Windows XP there was no problem, but since you
switched to WIndows 7, you can't seem to create an
animation. Everytime you select the menu:
Animation -> Create...
the program exits with an error message. See
here for a work-around... CreateAnim2 plugin
- Installation Problems?
Where is the Temp folder?
The Installer for
Project Dogwaffle goes through two phases. In the
first phase, it extracts a bunch of files into a
Temp folder. One of these files is named SETUP.EXE.
In the second phase, it runs that Setup file, which
will guide you through the rest of the installation.
Depending on the state of your system, you may have
sometimes observed a problem during the second
phase. It may be that a different Setup.exe file is
found somewhere else, coming from a different
installation, a different, unrelated program, and
that one is executed instead of ours. In cases like
these, one workaround is to find the Temp folder
here all these files were extracted, and run the
SETUP.EXE file manually. So therefore, this begs the
question: where is the Temp folder?
In Windows
XP, it's
usually C:\Documents and
Settings\'username'\Local Settings\Temp
For example, if your
username is 'Peter', you will likely have a folder
like this:
C:\Documents and
Settings\Peter\Local Settings\Temp
Under Windows
Vista it is likely something like this: C:\users\'username'\AppData\Local\Temp
For
example, if your username is 'Peter', you will likely
have a folder like this:
C:\users\Peter\AppData\Local\Temp
Go to that
folder, and run the setup file from there.
Note that if
you can't find the 'Local Settings' or Temp folder
under XP, you may a configuration of Folder Options
that hides the hidden files and folders. To change
that:
- go to the Control Panel
- open Folder Options
- click the 'View' tab
- check 'Show hiden files and folders'
- while you're at it, we als recommend this:
uncheck 'hide extension of known file types'
- click OK
- Too much Lag on your TabletPC ?
If you're trying to use
Project Dogwaffle on a TabletPC (you know, one of those
oh-so cool laptops where you can draw directly on the
screen with a stylus) and you're experiencing significant
pointer cursor lag while drawing with Project Dogwaffle
(and likely other applications too) even after downloading
the latest driver from Wacom, then you may be interested
in taming tabtip.exe for the benefit of the Wacom driver's
responsiveness. Check details here:
http://www.cartoonmonkey.com/TabTip_TamerV3.htm
TabTip-Tamer
is an ESSENTIAL application that eliminates cursor
lag when using many graphics apps that utilize
Wacom's pressure sensitive Penabled pen driver on
the Tablet Pc.
- Can't
see Videos? need new Codecs?
If you can't see a video
such as from a tutorial in WM3 codec format, consider
Another great resource for
all things related to video codecs is www.codecs.com (same as
www.free-codecs.com)
- recommended tools and utilities: VirtualDub, Gspot,
Media Player Classic, ...
==> Look also for ffmpeg
at www.ffmpeg.org
- it has a built-in mpeg4 encode/decoder and copnverts to
many other formats. Great for batch/script-based
converting.
==> Look also for the XPcodecPack
(at http://www.xpcodecpack.com)
- Runtime Errors?
Did you get Runtime Error 75
during installation? Perhaps the installation suceeded for
the 4.0 version of D Pro, but failed for the 4.1 update,
with error 75? “Runtime
Error 75; Path/File access error’’
As the error indicates, something failed to install
because it couldn't access a path to a folder or a file.
The question then is: which file, or why did it fail to
access it? The answer may lie in your antivirus program,
preventing access to files belonging to the VB runtime or
anything, existing or not, in the WINDOWS or system32
folders. One solution might be to temporarily disable your
antivirus program and try installing again. Be sure to
re-enable the a/v program thereafter.
> error
401 or
others, perhaps your registry entries got corrupted. You
may want to reset (clear) the entries used by Dogwaffle,
either for just the panels, or the whole program (but
only for Dogwaffle). Learn more about the free
utility: DogClearReg
However, read also further below about Runtime
error
5
Another possibility seen in a few rare cases was that
the system ran out of Virtual memory, i.e. reached the
limit int the PC's configuration settings. Perhaps a
video game had been running and used lots of memory
still allocated by Windows or a game support utility, or
tons of websurfing with pages using Java or other memory
intensive programs were just too much for the PC? A good
thing to try is reboot if in doubt. You may also need
more RAM, or check and increase the virtual memory.
Contact us if you have questions about this.
- Problem during installation?
> install_failure
- Changing the Levels of Undo
to more than 96 MB ? > mem_maxUndo
|
HOW TO SEARCH
THIS PAGE FOR ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS: |
You can search for words in this page with
the Find...
option from your web browser's Edit...
menu, or simply by using the Control+F shortcuts.
|
Digital
Painting has never been
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|
- Viewing Controls for
working with 4-5 megapixels camera's Digital pictures
and beyond?
PD is intrinsically a bitmap
program. I won't argue the benifits of Bitmaps
vr's vector painting. Just pointing out what it
is. Much like digital photographs, to get better
quality, you'll have to work with larger images.
There are a few keyboard shortcuts you should be familiar
with for
working on larger images.
CTRL+SHIFT.... Pan
around in the image with the Left Mouse Button
or zoom
with
the Right Mouse Button.
CTRL+ALT...... Same
as CTRL+SHIFT
F3............ Zoom
to 100%
F4............ Zoom
to fit window
Home.......... Center the image
n............. Center the area
under the cursor. Use this
to center on your point of
interest.
CTRL + ....... Magnify by 25%
CTRL - ....... Minify by 25%
There are other very useful shortcuts, be sure to read the
shortcuts page in the Help area.
|
- Tablet pressure data problems:
Question: I have a tablet, and it works
with other programs, but Dogwaffle doesn't recognize the
pressure. I can't make it change the size or the opacity
with pressure even though I enabled them in the checkboxes
in the Brush Settings panel. What's wrong with my tablet?
Answer:
Nothing's wrong with your tablet, and there's probably an
easy fix with the VBtablet library file. For details about
VBtablet, read the Dogwaffle VB Tablet
Support Page
|
Question: I have a Tablet PC and
Dogwaffle runs well but it doesn't seem to recognize the
pressure from the stylus. Is there a fix?
Answer: Try
the newest enhanced drivers from Wacom, it has worked for
others to fix this issue:
http://www.wacom.com/tabletpc/driver.cfm
|
|
Question:
I use the free version 1.2 which didn't have a Help file. Where can I find a recent
copy of the Help file?
There is also a
full online documentation in html form, which can be
downloaded as a single zip archive for offline
reading. You
can find the full user manual here.
|
Question:
I heard that as
programer I can make additional filters, plugins, exports
etc... where can I find the Software Developer's Kit (SDK)
and documentation of source code examples?
Answer:
The free SDK for VB programmers is here
|
|
Question:
Is there a way to Half-tone or
Dither before printing?
Answer:
Yes there are several tools
for this. In the Filter menu you'll find color controls
for dithering.
There's also a Threshold tool to force to black&white.
Here are a couple of tips for converting images to black
and white.
If you want to use threshold to make a b/w image, add a
little value noise first. This will give you a nice
dither pattern when you threshold your image, and you'll
have better control over it than simply using the 1 bit
random dither.
Use the 'expand dynamic range' option to take full
advantage of your color range before dithering down to 2
colors. Adjust your contrast before converting to 2
colors. you won't be able to do it after.
Proper contrast will make a huge difference in 2 color
images.
addendum:
You are not limited to any
specific halftone pattern. With a little
imagination, you can create any pattern and use it as a
halftone screen.
For example(and just an example)
- load an image that you want to dither down to 2
colors.
- Press j to jump to the swap buffer.
- render plasma noise with one iteration and go back to
the main buffer.
- Now combine the two buffers with the binary mode
(filters/combine menu)
This will use the plasma noise that you rendered as your
halftone pattern.
Now try it with other patterns.
Question:
How
can I apply a series of images in a spray pattern?
Answer:
There is an icon in the
Tools palette for Custom Brush selection.
Right-click it and you'll have the tool for
Chroma-keying, i.e.
turkey-basting on the desired background pixel of the
image preview and
that will be flagged as transparent. Make adjustments
with the sliders.
That's how the leaves in
the free animated brush were make. Did you see
them in the freebies collection?
Once that's done and you
have just the object you want opaque and the
rest around it is transparent, there are special FX
features in the brush
panel.
Left-click the
upper-left-most icon in the Tools palette, that's the
brush panel, showing the details of the brush. The
third tab in that window
is for special FX. Check the enabled box and select
the drop shadow mode. The
sliders there affect opacity and distance (offset) and
more.
Once you have created an
animated brush, then create any drop shadows as a post
effect. www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/freebies
has some examples.
Problem:
I purchased DogwaffleDE today and have had a
number of problems trying to
install the software.
When trying to run the
installer brought up another "extract" dialog
and when I tried to accept
the default directory, it wouldn't allow it.
I then requested to extract
to the Dogwaffle parent directory and this worked.
Working through the
installer, I accepted the default location for
installation but was notified that I was overwriting shared files.
Attempting to authorize
this caused the installer to fail. Trying a second
time, (after reboot), I
denied the overwrite and the install completed
giving me a success dialog.
Upon trying to launch the program from the
start menu, however,
resulted in the demo version being run, instead,
(this is after I
uninstalled it and rebooted). So, now I am hopelessly
lost, and gee, I was hoping
to spend the whole weekend learning this
most excellent program. Can
you make any suggestions?
Solution:
It is recommended not to
install over an older copy of the program. First try
uninstalling both, rebooting windows then installing
only the version you wish
to use.
However this has also worked for some people:
Uninstall the older version of Dogwaffle, reboot
Windows, run the "Setup"
program instead of the "install Dogwaffle" program.
Question:
Is
there a shortcut for creating buildings with rectangular
stones in
perspective with Dogwaffle?
Answer:
The closest thing I can
think of is the rubber sheet plugin that lets
you warp an image by four control points.
Question:
Is there a series of effects that can be applied
to produce
photorealistic looking rock
and stone, where shadow and highlight
are painted in real time? A
kind of 3D painting effect?
Answer:
You can experiment with
loading different paper textures and using the
drybrush features.
You can try building textures by starting with fractal
noise or the
cellular plugin, adding displacement, combining with
other textures, applying
emboss, etc.
There's also the isometric 3d plugin that can
be usefull for generating
fairly realistic stone imagery when starting with a
noise image. The
wireframe designer also has a basic rendering
capability in one of the
latter versions.
Question:
How can I run Brian Hinton's Tutorials? Every
time I try, I get java script
errors and it stops
Answer:
Don't run them from the
webpage, instead, download them and run them from your
computer.
"runtime error '5' - Invalid procedure call or
argument"
Question:
I've been having problems with Project Dogwaffle
for a few days
now. I'd open the program
and when it would come to the Buffer Size
window, I'd select the
dimensions I wanted and would click Ok..but then
a window pops up saying:
"Run-time error '5':Invalid
Procedure call or argument"
Can anyone tell me what I
am doing wrong or what's happening?
Answer:
This is possibly a
result of the registry settings for window
positions becoming corrupted.
You can run RegEdit to remove the offending entry
the settings can be found in the registry here:
- For most versions of Project Dogwaffle (incl. PD
Pro):
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA
Program Settings\dogwaffle\WindowData
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA
Program Settings\Optipuss\WindowData
Removing the entire WindowData entry is an option.
NEW! There
is now a free utility available to clear the registry
entries for Dogwaffle and PD Pro > DogClearReg
|
Question:
Hello all,
I'm rather new to
graphics programs and I'm trying to do something
that hopefully isn't too
hard. Basically I want to overlay a grid on
top of a map. I have the
map and grid in two separate jpg files, so
is there a way to combine
them together so the grid is on top? I
tried looking at the
tutorial for the alpha channel, but it left me
confused. Perhaps I am
out of my league.
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.
Answers:
Yes you can do that. Load
one image into the Main buffer, then swap to
the other and load the other image, then merge them in
multiply mode.
Assuming the grid is black lines on White background, the
merge will keep the
colors as is except where the black lines are, which will
turn the color
black.
There's probably a way also with the "Rub-through" brush.
-Philip
An easy way might be to load
the map, then load the grid as a brush,
from the brush menu/load command. Then you can key
out part of the
grid with the brush keyer - (right click on the brush
selector tool
on the tool panel to get the brush keyer) then you
can just place it
where you want and stamp it down. If the grid is a
different size
than the map, you can scale the brush from the brush menu.
Another option would be to swap screens "j" and stamp it
down by
itself and use one of the many 'Combine with swap' options
from the
filters menu.
-Dan Richie
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Question:
fieldpackpm question:
What is it and what does
it do?
Answer:
Field pack is an interlacer,
deinterlacer and video retimer.
Each frame of a television signal is is composed two
independent images called feilds. While each frame is played at
30 frames per
second, what is really happening is two feilds are playing
for each frame, at 60 fields per seconds. These fields are
interlaced, so
that 1 line is shown from the first field, then one from
the second, and so on. If you pause a television image, you may
see this in
areas of fast motion. The image appears to flicker
because the two fields are being refreshed independantly.
When working with video, such as painting on or applying
filters to
a vidoe sequence, it is often important to on each field
seperately. Thus, with field pack, you can split a
video frame
sequence up into independant images. This way, you
can work on them
seperately, then re-interlace them later.
Field pack goes a little farther than just splitting the
images
though. It uses several techniques to try to
maintian as much of
the original detail as possible, instead of just
interpolating extra
lines.
Also in field pack is the ability to retime a video
sequence. This
is more involved than just creating in between frames by
blending
between neiboring frames. A sort of morphing is
applied to in-
betweens to create a more realistic looking motion.
Fieldpack first
deinterlaces the image, creating 2 seperate images, then
extrapolates another 2, leaving you with video that runs 4
times
slower. It's possible of coarse to re-interlace the
images to make
them look like normal video again, still leaving you with
a 2x slow
motion effect.
|
Question:
I've been playing with the fx brush, and I'm
having trouble
getting the anim brushes
it makes to actually paint with their animation.
I know the frames are
being built properly, because when I open
the brush manager, the
brush's thumbnail animates. But when I paint
with the brush, it uses
only the first frame.
Answer:
This is one of those anoying
ones. The problem is a limitation in
the plugin interface of 1.6. When an animbrush is
alocated for the
first time, a small structure is created with it
containing, among
other things, the direction that the animbrush plays (a
value that's
added to the frame count; 1, 2, -1, etc.) When an
animbrush is
initiated through the plugin interface, this structure is
not filled
out, leaving it at 0. The solution for now, is too
be sure you've
had an animbrush initiated either by creating or loading
one. This
will be addressed in future versions.
|
Question:
In the optipustic's configuration menu, if I put
the value of 1 into the drag
field, i can't get
anything to show up on the screen no matter how I move
the
mouse across it.
Any other value doesn't seem to cause problems. even 1.1
allows lines to show up
but 1 gives me nothing.
any reason why?
Answer:
Drag is a bit odd.
It's a value between -1 and 1 0 is no drag and
1 is 100% drag and -1 is 100% negative drag. It's
really just a
value that lets you control the global speed of particles,
including
the ability to make them do the opposite of what they're
physically
supposed to do.
|
Question:
I can't seem to get the optipustics settings
right. I'm tring to get the
particles to follow my
mouse in long flowing curves, so that i can use it to
paint hair on figures,
but either I get tight curves, or the particles follow
the mouse but in straight
lines.
Any suggestions for
settings?
Answer:
Turn the 'terminal velocity'
way up. It limmits the speed of
particles, otherwise they'd just keep accelerating - just
like in
real life. Turn 'use mouse velocity' off. Play
with the 'particles
follow mouse'
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Question:
In the optipustics configuration menu, I assumed
that max particles meant that
was the maximum ammount
that could be created. but I was able to put 100 into
max particles then put
200 into particles per emmision. Which kinda looks like
even though I said no
more than 100, I can get it to generate 200 every time
it
emits particles.
So i'm curious what the
max particles actualy refers to?
Answer:
Max particles referes to the
very maximum number of particles that
can exist. Particles per emmision referes to how
many particles are
spurted out at any one time (that is, each time the
program recieves
a mouse move event). There will be no more than max
particles.
When a particle reaches the end of its lifespan, it
becomes
available for recycling. For example, if you set max
particles and
particles per emmision both to 100, 100 particles will be
created on
the first mouse down, and no new particles will be created
until
particles reach the end of their lifespan. If you
set max particles
to 100, then set particles per emmision to 10 and lifespan
to 10,
you will have a constant stream of particles with no
breaks in
emmision.
Of course, if you have splits set to a value above 0, then
those are
taken from the available particles in circulation and the
math gets
harder.
|
Question:
How can I erase while I'm drawing?
Answer:
The method for erasing
generaly involves using the right mouse
button with the secondary paint color which is the color
that a
buffer is cleared to when you hit clear. It's a
little trickier
with a pen. If you need to toggle off the paper
texture, you can
hit the middle icon on the upper part of the tool
panel. Saves the
step of opening the paper panel.
|
Question:
How do I re-seize a custom brush?
Answer:
The best way is with the
brush manager plugin that's part of Doggybag 1.
Another option is the resample item on the brush menu.
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Question:
How do I effectively use the colour mixer. What
is really the use of it?
Answer:
Some people like to mix
their colors like they would with natural
media, and some are perfectly happy working with RGB
values. The mixure
allows you this choice.
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Question:
How do I paint on Alpha?
Answer:
First, lets define the alpha
channel. In a typical computer graphics
system, an image is contained in 32 bits per pixel, where
each
channel is 8 bits. There are 3 channels for color
(red, green, and
blue) and one for transparency. This 4th channel is
the alpha
channel. It is typically represented as a greyscale
image with black
being completely transparent and white being completely
opaque (or
the other way around)
In the case of painting programs, the alpha channel is
used as a
mask, to define where paint can be applied.
Since this is a greyscale image, we don't simple
superimpose it over
our painting because then we wouldn't be able to see what
we're
working on. Therefore, what is usually refered to as
a 'selection',
or 'Marching ants' is actually a very crude representation
of the
alpha channel. A routine that separates the
mid-point of the alpha,
(value 128) is applied to give a basic outline of the
rouph shapes in
the alpa channel. This can cause problems because
the alpha may not
contain only completely opaque and completely transparent
values. In
fact, a function is supplied that will compensate for this
case,
called 'Dynamic range' by expanding the values in the
alpha channel
so the highest value is always 255 and the lowest is
always 0
Lets go over a few alpha tools.
First, as a standard feature with all the alpha tools,
there are the
following keyboard shortcuts that modify the behavior of
the alpha
tools.
Holding the Control key is used to drag the alpha
'selection' around.
You can also use Shift and the Arrow keys to nudge the
selection by
one pixel at a time.
Holding alt while using an alpha tool lets you add to or
subtract
from the current selection depending on which mouse button
you use.
Control + 'c' copies the current 'selection' as a custom
brush.
The 'paint on Alpha' plugin lets you paint directly into
the alpha
channel like a regular buffer. Basically it copies
the alpha
channel to each channel of the main buffer, and when
you're done
painting on it, you click the 'Paint normally' button and
it gets
converted back to a single channel and copied back to your
alpha
channel, and you get your original buffer back.
I might also mention at this point, we have two tutorals
on working
with alpha tools.
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/tuts/zipped/
When you use the paint on alpha plugin, your buffer is
swapped out
with one that represents the alpha until you hit the
'paint normally'
button. Then you get your old buffer back and the
one you were
painting on gets converted to greyscale and copied to the
alpha
channel. For best results, you should paint with
black or white.
Grey areas are may not show up correctly.
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Question:
Can I save colour settings?
Answer:
You can save a set of colors
by right clicking on the mixer button at
the bottom of the tool panel. This brings up a menu
with options
like 'save wells'
There's also an option for building a new color well from
colors in
your buffer, etc.
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Question:
How do I change the color in the masked (Alpha)
area?
Answer:
You have to go back to using
the paint normal mode and select a brush
that paints normally, in case you did select one of the
predefined brushes
which paint on alpha.
Try this:
- right-click on the
built-in (predefined) brushes icon (second row
from top in Tools panel). There's a submenu for painting
on alpha, try the
soft or blobby.
Now paint of the 'desired' area, i.e. the pixels which
you'll want in
your selection. If you already had some selection in
place, e.g. from the
lasso or magic wand selection/alpha tools, this m,anual
painting will 'add'
to the selection or 'subtract' from the selection
depending on whether you use
the left or right button to paint.
Once your selection is ready, select a normal brush again,
and paint
over the selection. The mask will prevent undesired
changes. You can
right-click on the Alpha (selection) tools (3rd row in
tools panel) to see all
alpha tools such as grow or shrink ior invert alpha or
smooth etc.
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Question:
How do I get something to merge the two buffers?
Answer:
To merge the two buffers, do
this:
Right click on the upper-right-most icon in control panel.
If one image is in the main buffer and the other is in the
swap buffer.
You can have additional images in stored buffers and make
them current
(main) later to mix that in as well.
Also try the flood fill tool (right-most paint can fill on
2nd row of
tools panel). If you start from a blank white it will fill
at current color.
Right-click on the same flood fill icon to see the flood
tolerance and
the fill gradient. In the gradient panel you have a row at
top with several
modes. The will let you fill the gradient left to right,
inverse,
top-down etc... and even fill an image which is in the
brush into the window
(stretched) or even warp it to match the current
selection. So there's
another way to blend or mix an image with another. If one
is in the
Main buffer you can load the other into the brush, (e.g.
through Brush>Load
or Brush Clipboard options) and then use the opacity
slider to set the
level for the brush and fill or click to stomp it over the
main buffer etc.
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Question:
How can I put a flare over part of my image?
Answer:
But to put a flare over your
image, I'd recommend instead to apply the flare
which is in the brush, directly to the timage. Use
additive mode or multiply
mode depending on effect (instead of Default mode, which
replaces). Use opacity
slider to affect the level of the stamp effect. Use 'a' (again) for
repeeating again and
again until the desired level is there.
There's a shortcut for erasing to a color, but if the
gradient/fill mode is to erase to the brush's image it uses that, use
'q' as shortcut.
So with all in place after you rendered the flare you can
simply select
the mode in the gradient panel which warps the brush image
into the
selection (or the whole window by default) or just simply
applies it without
warping, then use the slider for opacity, then 'q' to
flood fill, then 'a' to
do it again and again as needed.
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Question:
Is it possible to use the animbrush to create an
animated arrow icon?
Answer:
Yes but typically, you would
create a traditional animation in dogwaffle,
perhaps 5 - 10 frames, and wiggle or move or turn that
arrow which you have in
the custom brush, using the brush manager too, and
advance from one frame to the
next until each frame is done. Then you could
collect them all into an animated
brush, so you could use that again in various settings and
conditions.
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Question:
Can you do Flash in Dogwaffle? Or at least
something approaching it?
Answer:
No, but you can pack AVI
files into Flash MX and there are some really
cheap tools like www.gif2swf.com which converts AVI and
packs (embeds) it
into .swf files. There are other tools out there doing
this. Check
www.tucows.com and look for Flash tools in Multimedia, I
guess.
Or do a Google search for Avi to Flash conversion or
similar
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Question:
Dogwaffle
only allows me to save it as a .dwa, and I can't view it
unless it's
in Dogwaffle. What can I do to save it in a format my
friend can see?
Answer:
Save it out as image sequnce
or if you add the doggybag #2 (free
download from www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/whatsnew)
you can save to AVI also.
If you save as Targa image sequence you will find that
many animation
programs can load that in and pack it into your target
format like Avi
or Quicktime. For example Quicktime pro can do that.
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Question:
How do I change the printing height of a
dogwaffle sketch/painting?
Answer:
Personally I like to use
Irfanview for image viewing and
printing. www.irfanview.com
- It's awesome also to set dpi info and
resample with Lanzcos and other great filters for
avoiding pixelation.
You don't even have to save to file, you can Control-C
from the main
buffer to the brush, then menu: Brush>Clipboard and
copy to the clipboard,
then Alt-Tab to a running session of Irfanview, Shift-P to
print (after
perhaps 'L' or 'R' to rotate left or right ) and then you
can find great ways
to print according to internal file info dpi or new size
settings on the
fly.
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