Blade Pro Basics Tutorial

                 This is the Light Angle Control.These controls change the placement of light by dragging the blue dotes around. You can also change the color of the light by clicking on the one or both squares. To turn the light off completely, change the squares to black.



                 The above is the Texture Graphic Control. The small bmp square allows you to choose different textures to use in your preset by clicking on it with the left hand button and dragging the cursor to the texture you want. The texture you pick will appear in the larger box. If you want tho, you can click on the larger box and choose a bmp graphics file as your texture. I usually use bmps!

                 Texture files are height fields with white as high and black as low. These, in essence, describe the shape of the surface. If you make your own, they should be no larger than 256 by 256, otherwise BP will squeeze them to fit. This is where the texture effects in PSP 6+ can come in handy. You can use any grey scale bmp as a custom texture, but you will find in some of my presets such as bluerose2, I use color as well with success, such as my roses. But grey scale does seem to work better.

                 Below the large box is the Texture Zoom Slider. This lets you increase or decrease the texture by a factor of 16.



                 The Environment Graphic Control is located right below the Texture control. By clicking on the square you can load the bmp of your choice. BP will then produce a mirror-like reflection of that graphic in your preset. To turn off the reflection effect, make the setting for the reflection control zero. The little curved arrow is the Environment Spinner Button and pretty much does what it says. It spins the bmp around. It depends on the bmp you are using if this will have much of an effect on the preset.



                 Last but not least is the last four items.

                 Glue Mode Popup: Keep this at normal, cuz for the life of me, I can't get it to work. I need to study up on it a bit more but I can't seem to keep my interest in it going for long cuz it does nothing when i try it. Probably could use a tut all its own!

                 Randomizer: This is pretty much self explanatory. Just keep clicking on it until you get what you want. If you really like it, remember to save it. That detail follows.

                 Load Preset Button: This button loads the presets that are already save. There are presets from when you installed BP already in the environment and texture folder. But what I do is make a new folder for presets in groups of who made them or what site I got them from. For instance, all the presets I make and the graphics that go with them are in a folder called jo which is in the plugin folder, not the env and text folder. But do what is easiest for you, but try and keep them separate. When you press load, it will give you the normal looking load window and you can go to the folder you want and load the preset you want. Now here is a tricky part. If the bmp file is MORE than 8 characters prior to the dot, BP can't find them. So if you find and/or make a graphic you want to use, be sure to make the name 8 characters or less, cuz it sure saves a bit of a hassle. If the name is longer, than write down the name that BP is looking for, hit cancel then look for it manually by clicking on either the texture control or the environment control. When we make our preset, well will actually be doing that.

                 Save Preset Button: This button saves your preset. The length of the name can be as long as you want, which is a good thing here, because you can give a pretty good discription then of what the preset is with just its name.

                 Once you have gone thru this, we will move on to making our first preset. Just be sure you have downloaded and unzipped the file mention on the first page into your preset tutorial folder.

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	This is the Light Angle Control.These controls change the placement of light by dragging the blue dotes around. You can also change the color of the light by clicking on the one or both squares. To turn the light off completely, change the squares to black.



	The above is the Texture Graphic Control. The small bmp square allows you to choose different textures to use in your preset by clicking on it with the left hand button and dragging the cursor to the texture you want. The texture you pick will appear in the larger box. If you want tho, you can click on the larger box and choose a bmp graphics file as your texture. I usually use bmps!

	Texture files are height fields with white as high and black as low. These, in essence, describe the shape of the surface. If you make your own, they should be no larger than 256 by 256, otherwise BP will squeeze them to fit. This is where the texture effects in PSP 6+ can come in handy. You can use any grey scale bmp as a custom texture, but you will find in some of my presets such as bluerose2, I use color as well with success, such as my roses. But grey scale does seem to work better.

	Below the large box is the Texture Zoom Slider. This lets you increase or decrease the texture by a factor of 16.



	The Environment Graphic Control is located right below the Texture control. By clicking on the square you can load the bmp of your choice. BP will then produce a mirror-like reflection of that graphic in your preset. To turn off the reflection effect, make the setting for the reflection control zero. The little curved arrow is the Environment Spinner Button and pretty much does what it says. It spins the bmp around. It depends on the bmp you are using if this will have much of an effect on the preset.




	Last but not least is the last four items.


	Glue Mode Popup: Keep this at normal, cuz for the life of me, I can't get it to work. I need to study up on it a bit more but I can't seem to keep my interest in it going for long cuz it does nothing when i try it. Probably could use a tut all its own!


	Randomizer: This is pretty much self explanatory. Just keep clicking on it until you get what you want. If you really like it, remember to save it. That detail follows.


	Load Preset Button: This button loads the presets that are already save. There are presets from when you installed BP already in the environment and texture folder. But what I do is make a new folder for presets in groups of who made them or what site I got them from. For instance, all the presets I make and the graphics that go with them are in a folder called jo which is in the plugin folder, not the env and text folder. But do what is easiest for you, but try and keep them separate. When you press load, it will give you the normal looking load window and you can go to the folder you want and load the preset you want. Now here is a tricky part. If the bmp file is MORE than 8 characters prior to the dot, BP can't find them. So if you find and/or make a graphic you want to use, be sure to make the name 8 characters or less, cuz it sure saves a bit of a hassle. If the name is longer, than write down the name that BP is looking for, hit cancel then look for it manually by clicking on either the texture control or the environment control. When we make our preset, well will actually be doing that.


	Save Preset Button: This button saves your preset. The length of the name can be as long as you want, which is a good thing here, because you can give a pretty good discription then of what the preset is with just its name.

	Once you have gone thru this, we will move on to making our first preset. Just be sure you have downloaded and unzipped the file mention on the first page into your preset tutorial folder.