arfink
Offline
Minneapolis

I am wondering if anyone here has used/is using the Apple IIgs for art purposes? I happen to have a very nicely beefed up IIgs that's begging for something more than NTGS 2.0 (which I haven't yet totally figured out yet, nobody I know has) and Wolfenstein 3D and Crystal Quest.

So, any suggestions on programs to use? I have access to Deluxe Paint II, 8/16 Paint, and Platinum Paint, all of which seem to have their ups and downs. Of course, if nobody knows, I'll just plow ahead and report back. smile I am hoping to begin with some basic 640x200 16 color stuff, suitable for using as Finder desktop backgrounds on the IIgs, and moving on to 320x200 256 color stuff after that. I'm no expert pixeler, but this looks like it'll be pretty fun.

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City

Deluxe Paint II sounds just like an awesome option. DP is the pixelling standard forever.

arfink
Offline
Minneapolis

This is what I have been told. However, 8/16 paint looks promising for owners of unaccelerated IIgs hardware, due to it's incredibly efficient coding. I dunno, I guess I'll try 'em all. Platinum Paint has been touted as better than Deluxe Paint II by some IIgs users I know. Eh, well I guess I'll just have to try 'em. It's not like I'm going to run out of disk space any time soon. smile

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City

The thing here is about certain functionality and shortcuts. to me DP is standard, and every pixelling program, must follow its steps and control scheme. I find myself banging at stupid DP shortcut keys in Photoshop and making a fool out of myself big_smile

Why don't you get an accelerator for your IIGS? hard to find?

low-gain
Offline
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

What are the output formats of said graphics programs?

low-gain
Offline
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
akira^8GB wrote:

hard to find?


extremely, and when found.. $$$ priced  much much higher than the value of the IIgs is worth. '

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City

My uncle is a jerk, then, for giving away his tricked out IIGS for free, and not TO ME tongue

arfink
Offline
Minneapolis

Um, I would say so. Bummer. Yeah, those accelerator cards are quite rare, and can cost more than all the other IIgs parts combined these days. Well, I'll load up DP2 then, it seems to be the de-facto standard then... although I'll still try 8/16 paint and see. The manual for DP2 is 32 megabytes, and I'll probably be needing it, since I haven't ever used it.

As for the outputs of said programs... I have no clue. I know the 8/16 paint program can output in all the standard .SHR (super high-res lawl)  formats, as well as Dos 3.3 text files which can be put into Applesoft basic. SHR can be converted to other formats too.

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City

As long as you can convert to GIF or IFF you should be fine.

arfink
Offline
Minneapolis

Well, it looks as though I can convert from SHR to something else without too much difficulty. DP2 has the usual sorts of things you'd expect, but as I am no pixeling veteran or anything I can't say how faithful it is to the DP tradition. I can say that it's got the "usual" sort of performance you can expect with apps running on GS/OS 6.0.1. 8/16 Paint on the other hand... is blazingly fast. No mouse jerks, no slow redraws, nothing like that. Excellent for my pruposes, seeing as I'm not advanced enough to appreciate DP's shortcuts anyways.

Oh, and I have also found something neat: Fantavision. Animation program with simple vector graphics and... automatic tweening and transformation! On an apple IIgs! Yeah!

Last edited by arfink (Jan 27, 2010 9:47 pm)

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City

Fantavision did what Macromedia Flash stole years later and made popular big_smile

Regarding DP, from what I see, it has all the tools I am used to. Also, the menues (Mode is super useful for brush operations).
Did you check if it has a mode called "CYCLE"?
It should also have pattern fills and gradient creation/fills!


= AWESOME big_smile

Last edited by akira^8GB (Jan 27, 2010 9:56 pm)

arfink
Offline
Minneapolis

Yes, it's supposed to have color cycle mode. Haven't found it yet.

akira^8GB
Offline
New York City

You have to go to COLR RANGE (Amga-R shortcut in Amiga) and set up a color gradien.

Then when you press TAB it cycles.
You can also use the CYCLE mode in Modes.

Theta_Frost
Offline
Milwaukee, WI

Hmmmm I can check what progs I might have for this...  Also we have to compare high scores in Crystal Quest!  I'm curious if a video digitizer could be useful in this situation as well - I have one of those too.

arfink
Offline
Minneapolis

SWEET. Video digitizer= epic win. And if it gets super frustrating to use... sell it off and get a Micro Drive Turbo. smile

EDIT: and we DO need to do a score comparison on Crystal Quest. My scores aren't exactly fabulous. The guy I got my copy from has some crazy high scores I can't seem to beat, but I can go for over an hour without stopping. tongue

Last edited by arfink (Jan 30, 2010 3:59 am)

Theta_Frost
Offline
Milwaukee, WI

Woo!  I just had lots of fun with the video thing.  I took the rf from my atari 2600 and fed it into the program which has some interesting effects and I could produce some nice glitchy stuff!  However as I don't have a hardrive or anything right now I cant save images... I do have a printer though...  I played some games too and the graphics on some are really quite nice.  Like the opening screen on Bubble Ghost!  Also for another program I saw on youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBL5q7Jy … re=related

Looks interesting!  I'm fairly excited to see where IIGS art can take us!  I'll see if I have any other random floppies laying about!  smile