Cyber Color V1.0 Demo - Copyright 1993 John C. Stanford This archive contains a save disabled demonstration version of Lexicor's Cyber Color object coloring utility. This version contains all the features of the commercial product, except recolored objects may not be resaved. The commercial version includes program and desk accessory versions of Cyber Color, 68882 math coprocessor support, and a printed manual. Cyber Color is available at your local dealer, or directly from Lexicor for $49.95 plus $5.00 shipping and handling. Lexicor Software Corp 1726 Francisco St. Berkley CA 94703 (510) 848-7621 Welcome to Cyber Color! Cyber Color is a three dimensional object coloring tool for editing your 3D2 format objects which then may be used with Phoenix Object Renderer, Chronos Keyframe Animator, or CAD-3D 2.0. Cyber Color allows you to change the color of any face in your object using a simple point and click interface. Objects will be displayed using their actual colors on compatible color systems. Individual faces may also be subdivided for adding finer detail. Though unrelated to the actual coloring of the object, Cyber Color also has the capability of flipping the direction of a face to repair any "holes" which may have occurred during the modeling process. Three Dimensional Objects and Terminology The 3D Objects used by Cyber Color are constructed of numerous triangular polygons, or faces. Each face is defined by the three vertex points at the corners of the face. These faces are connected together at the vertices to describe the surface of the object. One important feature of the faces is that they only have one side, which should be oriented towards the outside of the object. Many 3D rendering applications will only display the faces if their visible side is directed towards the camera. What Kinds of Objects Can be Used with Cyber Color? Cyber Color can be used to color any object saved in the 3D2 file format. 3D2 object files are created by Cyber Sculpt, CAD-3D 2.0 and many other 3D modeling utilities. Lexicor's Rosetta 3D Translator may also be used to convert many other popular object file formats to 3D2 files. About This Manual This manual assumes that you know how create and copy folders and files on your computer, run programs, and are familiar with using the mouse and the GEM graphics interface. If you are new to Atari computers you should refer to your owners manual for specific information. Using Cyber Color The Cyber Color Menus All program operations and options in Cyber Color are selected from the menu bar. CyberColor Menu The CyberColor menu contains the About Cyber Color entry for information on Cyber Color, and access to any desk accessories on your system. File Menu The File menu contains options for configuring the object display settings and for loading and saving object files. Recolor Menu The Recolor menu contains the entries for recoloring and viewing the 3D objects. Loading and Saving Files Selecting the Load item under the File menu will display the file selector for choosing a 3D2 format object file. All objects stored in the file will be loaded into memory, along with the color palette for the file. Important: Loading a new file will erase any objects currently in memory. To save your objects after recoloring them select the Save item under the File menu. The file selector will be displayed allowing you to choose the name of the 3D2 file you wish to save the objects in. Display Configuration Settings Cyber Color has several configuration options for setting how the objects will be displayed when editing their colors. All configuration options are located under the file menu. Display Resolution The Display Resolution setting controls which graphics resolution will be used to recolor and view the objects. When Cyber Color is first run this option defaults to Current Res, which will display the objects using number of colors available in the current graphics resolution. If your current resolution does not support 16 colors you may select the Current Res menu entry to switch to the ST Low Resolution setting. The menu entry will change to ST Low Res to indicate the new resolution. With this setting all objects will be drawn in ST Low resolution of 320 x 200 pixels with 16 colors. Selecting the ST Low Res menu entry will switch back to Current Res mode. Important: You cannot select ST Low resolution if you are already in a 16 color display mode, or using a Monochrome monitor on an ST or STe. You also should not select ST Low resolution if you are using an add-on graphics card. Show Edges If the Show Edges option is active the edges of all object faces will be drawn. This helps to identify the extent of individual faces and to view how they are connected. The Show Edges menu item will be checkmarked if the option is active. Selecting this menu item will toggle the option on and off. Cull Faces If the Cull Faces option is active any faces pointing away from the camera will be culled (not displayed). This will greatly improve redraw speed. If the Cull Faces option is off any back facing triangles will drawn with a cross hatch pattern in the face's color. The Cull Faces menu item will be checkmarked if the option is active. Selecting this menu item will toggle the option on and off. Fast Redraw If the Fast Redraw option is active any recolored object faces will be immediately redrawn after being colored. However the entire face will be redrawn which could cause it to overlap other faces which should lie in front of it. If the option is off Cyber Color will also redraw any overlapping faces to ensure that overlap problems do not occur. This can significantly slow down the redraw time however for large objects. The Fast Redraw menu item will be checkmarked if the option is active. Selecting this menu item will toggle the option on and off. Recolor Object The Recolor Object item under the Recolor menu allows you to change the face colors of an object. From here individual or multiple faces may be recolored, faces may be split or flipped, and the color palette may be changed. Selecting this menu item will display the object selector for choosing an object to edit. The Object Selector works just like the system file selector: to choose an object double click on its name in the directory window. If more than 21 objects are in memory the scroll bar may be used to view the other objects. You may only edit one object at a time in Cyber Color. Once an object has been selected the screen will clear and the object will be displayed in the center of the screen as a solid 3D form. Each visible face will be drawn in its assigned color (or a shading pattern, depending on the display resolution) without lightsource shading. The Color Palette At the top of the screen will be a row of 16 colored boxes, one for each color register. An outline and asterisk will be drawn around the leftmost entry indicating that it is the active color. The active color register will be the color used for any recoloring operation. Selecting the Active Color A new active color may be selected by clicking the left mouse button in the desired color register. The newly selected color register will be highlighted. A second method to change the active color is to hold the left shift key down while clicking the mouse on a 3D object face. The active color will change to the color register used to color that face. Changing a Color Register To change the color assigned to a color register click the right mouse button in the box for that color. The color palette editor will be displayed, allowing you to set the red, green and blue levels for the color register. The new color will be displayed in the box on the right side of the dialog. Selecting Exit will change the color register to the new color, and will also change any faces colored with that register (in all objects) to the new color. Selecting Cancel will restore the original color. Important: All objects in memory share the same color palette. Changing the color of a register will change that color for all objects in memory. Editing Shading Groups Directly below the color registers are several bands indicating which colors are grouped together in the CAD-3D color shading groups. To change a shading group position the mouse over the leftmost color of the group you wish to create. Press and hold the key while pressing the left mouse button. Dragging the mouse to the right will draw a dotted box over the colors you wish to include in the group. Releasing the left button will add the new color group to the display. Refer to your CAD-3D documentation for information on the use of color shading groups. (Shading group information is ignored by Phoenix and Chronos.) Camera Controls The selected object is displayed based on the position of the camera. This camera may be rotated horizontally and vertically around the center of the object. The current camera settings are displayed at the extreme top of the screen. The keyboard is used to changed the camera settings. The and keys may be used to rotate the display to the left and right in ten degree increments. The and keys will rotate the camera vertically by ten degrees. The <+> and <-> keys on the keyboard or numeric keypad will increase and decrease the zoom magnification. The screen will not re-draw when a camera setting has changed, but the new settings will be displayed at the top of the screen and an * will appear to indicate that changes have been made to the camera setting. This allows several camera changes to be made at once. Pressing the will redraw the object with the new camera settings. Pressing the key will abort the redraw, though the object will have already been moved to its new position. Recoloring Faces Recoloring Single Faces Clicking the left mouse button within any of the visible faces will change that face's color to the active color (the selected color at the top of the screen). The face will be redrawn in its new color. After changing a face's color it may be restored to its previous color by pressing the key. The key only operates on the most recent face selected. Important: If the Fast Redraw option is active then if a face which is changed is partially hidden by a closer face, when the face is redrawn in its new color the entire face will be drawn as if it were the closest to the camera. Pressing the will redraw the object with its previous relationship. Recoloring Multiple Faces Cyber Color offers three methods to change the color of more than one face at a time. Vertex Select - Visible Faces Holding the key down while dragging with the left mouse button creates a box which may be used to cover the vertices of one or more faces. Releasing the button will recolor every face directed towards the camera which share vertices enclosed in the box. After recoloring the object will be redrawn with its new colors. The key does not work with this function. Important: WYSI and key down while dragging with the left mouse will create a box which may be used to cover the vertices of one or more faces. Releasing the mouse button will recolor ALL faces which share vertices enclose in this box, both oriented towards and away from the camera. The key does not work for this function. Color Register Select You may also change all the faces of an object colored with one register to another. Position the mouse over the color register of the faces you wish to change and press the and keys while pressing left mouse button to cause a dotted box will appear over the color register. Drag the box you wish to color the faces with and release the mouse button. Any face which was colored with the first register will be re-assigned and colored with the second register. Subdividing Faces You may subdivide a face into three smaller individual faces by right clicking the mouse on the face. This is useful for painting finer detailed images onto the surface of an object. You may continue to subdivide faces until you reach the 3D2 format limit of 15,000 vertices and 30,000 faces, or reach the memory limits on your computer. Flipping Faces Occasionally when creating objects in Cyber Sculpt some faces will become inverted - where they are directed towards the interior of the object instead of towards the camera. These problems show up as missing faces in rendering packages and can be extremely difficult to find and repair in Cyber Sculpt. If the Cull Faces option in Cyber Color is turned off then the Flip Face option will be available. To change the orientation of a face hold the key while right clicking the mouse on the face. The face will be redraw with the opposite orientation. Faces directed away from the camera will be drawn with a broad cross hatch pattern. Important: If you suspect you have may have reversed faces in you object you should view the object from several different angles to ensure that you don't actually have a missing face instead of a reversed one. The cross hatch pattern from a face on the opposite side of the object can often look like a reversed face on the front side of the object. Help Pressing the key will display a list of all the recoloring commands. Exit Pressing the or keys will exit the editor and return to the menu. Differences Due to Color Resolution Since 3D2 objects may use up to 16 different colors, it stands to reason that Cyber Color works best when run in a resolution which can display 16 or more colors at once. However Cyber Color will work in resolutions which display fewer colors, with some minor differences. Current Resolution with 16 or More Colors Each color register will be displayed with its appropriate color. The mouse and text colors will be set for maximum contrast against the background. The background will be colored with the first color register on the left (register #0), and the face outline color will be set to the register specified in the 3D2 file for the wireframe color (usually color register #15 on the far right). ST Low Resolution This resolution functions similarly to the current resolution mode with 16 or more colors, however the edge color will always be set to the rightmost color register (#15). In this resolution you should always ensure that registers 0 and 15 use different colors so that the mouse and text will be visible. Current Resolution in Monochrome The color registers and object faces are displayed as grey scales increasing in brightness from left to right. Right clicking on a color register will still allow editing the color setting, though the actual color will not be visible. Note that the greyscales do not indicate the intensity of a particular color, but its position in the color palette. Current Resolution with 4 Colors Only two actual colors will be available to display the object. Cyber Color will attempt to match these colors to the ones used by the object. If the object used more than two colors the other colors will be displayed with greyscales as in the monochrome mode described above. To reposition the two actual colors to different color registers: position the mouse over one of the color registers which is currently displayed in its actual color. Holding the left mouse button while pressing the key will let you drag a box to cover the new color register you desire to view. Random Color Selecting the Random Color item under the Recolor menu will display the object selector for choosing an object. Each face of the selected object will be randomly assigned one of the color registers. Change Line Colors Selecting the Change Line Colors item under the Recolor menu will a dialog box for changing the CAD-3D wireframe and outline colors. Both of these values may range from 0 to 15, 0 corresponding to the leftmost color register and 15 to the rightmost register. Cyber Color uses the wireframe color register for drawing face edges when used in Current Resolution mode. View All The View All item under the Recolor menu allows displaying all objects at once in their original positions. When the menu item is selected the screen will clear and all objects in memory will be displayed. The camera settings will be displayed at the top of the screen and may be repositioned using the same controls as in the color editor. The may be used to redraw the scene and the key will abort the redraw. The or keys may be used to return to the menu bar. This option is only available in 16 color display modes. Important: View All is intended as a rough tool for visualizing how differently colored objects will interrelate. Therefore it uses a very simple cull and depth sort for displaying the objects. Because of this faces will occasionally be displayed reversed or with the wrong depth relationship to other faces. If a scene does not display properly you should view the objects from several different angles before assuming it is a problem with the objects.