Short-cuts to what's on this Page . . .

This page's main background is generated from a seamless tile created with SBP, using our own Preset EG-006c (see our Presets Page 1) applied once to a black image.  You will find the tile itself in the Seamless Tiles section of this Gallery.

What is a Preset?

Super BladePro has around 35 adjustable controls, with each slightly different combination of settings producing its own effect.  The merest twitch of a single control can often produce something radically different.  It would be a monumental pain if you had to adjust all the controls to the right combination of settings (never mind having to remember them) each and every time you want a particular effect.  Fortunately, and with great foresight, those splendid folk at Flaming Pear came up with the most elegant of solutions . . . PRESETS.

Very simply, a Preset is a small file which records a specific combination of control settings giving a known result.  Presets files have a .q5q or .q9q extension and are stored in SBP's 'Environments and Textures' folder.  All you have to do to use a particular Preset is to select the image you want to render, click on the 'Load Preset' button on SBP's control panel, then open the Preset's file as explained in 'Storing Presets' lower down this page.  This automatically applies the Preset's control settings to SBP; check the preview to see if you like the result, then "use it or bin it" (click 'OK' or 'Cancel') as you wish.

Where do you get Presets?

A very useful range of Presets is supplied with SPB by Flaming Pear but, given SPB's versatility, they come nowhere near tapping its full potential - as Flaming Pear will readily admit.  Happily, there are vast numbers of SBP users around the world and the good news is that many of those lovely people have been working away like stink, producing thousands of Presets.  The even better news is that they're desperate to share them with you, for free!   So log onto the net, visit their web-sites, and download any that take your fancy.

To find the magic web-sites go to Flaming Pear's SBP page (plenty of third-party links) or the Blade Pro Ring (over 200 links, although a number are dead), or go to Google - we like  Google - and search on "BladePro" or "BladePro Presets".  Here are the three links you'll need . . .

Note that Presets made with the old 'BladePro' - SBP's not-so-smart daddy - are fully compatible with SBP; however, SPB Presets do not work in the old BP.  You can differentiate very easily between the two Preset types by their file extensions.  BP Presets are .q9q files, SPB's are .q5q files.

Our Presets

While tinkering with SBP trying to get some very specific effects, we came up with one or two others which we thought were worth saving.  The next step was a little semi-serious experimentation.  One of the first things we tried (and tried, and tried, and tried . . . ) was using small-scale black-and-white repeat patterns as textures in a grey-scale monochrome environment.  This produced some very interesting and very pleasing results - all the encouragement we needed.  Well, one thing led to another and we ended up with quite a variety of Presets.

We'll probably use a few of them ourselves at some point in the future.  In the meantime, however, there's little point in leaving them to moulder away in some dark forgotten corner of our computer, unloved and unused.  Better they see the light of day and get some use by someone, somewhere (so alliterative; we feel a song coming on . . . oh no, anything but that ! ).

So, here they are, folks.  Please download as many as you like.  They're licence-free and royalty-free for non-commercial use, subject to our Terms of Use, and we retain copyright.  All we ask is that you read our Terms of Use before downloading anything - and always  keep to them after downloading.

Our Presets are presented in a series of pages, with up to 25 or so per page.  This keeps the total size of each page - and the time it takes to download into your browser - within reasonable bounds. It also has the advantage of forcing us to group the Presets in a more-or-less logical manner.  This makes life a little easier for you, we hope.

Each Preset is illustrated by an example of its output when applied to a white image - a square of 72×72 pixels.  If you apply the Presets to images of other colors, you'll get different results - play around with them and see what happens!

Downloading a Preset is a simple matter of clicking on the example of its output.  Alternatively, you can download all the Presets shown on a page - just click on the relevant download button provided.  Each download takes the form of a ZIP file which you can save to any convenient folder on your hard disk.

The texture and environment graphics used with our Presets are EXCLUDED  from the Presets' ZIP files.  We have taken this approach because the same graphics are used for many of the Presets.  If they were included in each of the Preset's ZIP file you would end up downloading the same graphics over and over again.  Instead, they are available to download in their own ZIP file - a single  file containing all  our Presets' graphics - by clicking on the 'Download Graphics' button provided on each page; you only need to do it the once!

Some of our Presets use graphics from Flaming Pear, supplied either with SBP itself or in their separately-downloadable 'Extra Textures' packs.  These are NOT included in our graphics ZIP file, as you should already have them.  If you haven't got the 'Extra Textures' packs, you can download them without charge from Flaming Pear; they're well worth having.  Just go to their Downloads page (the packs are at the bottom) using this link . . .

Installing our Presets and graphics is straightforward.  Just unZIP the downloads to an appropriate folder - have a look at our comments on 'Storing Presets' below.  You'll need a suitable decompression program to do this.  If you haven't got one, and without promoting one product over another, we suggest WinZip - the one we use.  You can download an evaluation copy from WinZip Computing; use this link to visit their web site . . .

You may wonder about the naming convention we use for our Presets.  Frankly, we really couldn't be bothered with thinking up a load of deeply meaningful, 'kewl' or arty-crafty names, so we just number them - "EG-nnn" ("EG" stands for Erythos Graphics) - and use a similar system to identify our graphics.  This is the "KISS Principle" at work; "keep it simple, stupid".

Now have a look at our Presets; enjoy them and use  them . . .

CAUTION

These pages are graphics-intensive, so please give them time to load

Storing Presets

Presets and their BMP graphics are normally held in SBP's 'Environments and Textures' folder.  This is where SPB stores them when it is installed.  It is also where most Preset providers tell you to store their Presets when you unzip them, which is absolutely fine, but we have found a couple of small practical problems with this approach.  They become apparent when you have installed a considerable number of Presets from a wide variety of sources.  Firstly, it is a lot less easy to locate individual Presets when using SBP.  Secondly, and significantly, it is far more difficult to identify a Preset's originator in order to give proper acknowledgement, for example when the Preset is used to render an image used on a Web page.

We have therefore adopted a simple "variation on a theme", which you may like to try for yourself . . .

The resultant folder/file structure will look something like this . . .

This works because, when you instruct SBP to open a Preset, it always goes to the folder you last used when opening or saving a Preset.  It opens a pop-up box listing the contents of that folder - any subsidiary folders, followed by Presets, but not  graphics - asking you choose the Preset you want.  So, using the folder/file structure shown above, the pop-up box will look like this if the last Preset used was one of Flaming Pear's (i.e. from the 'Environments and Textures' folder) . . .

Let's carry this example a little further.  If you want to open one of Flaming Pear's Presets, just highlight it in the box's main section, then click on the 'Open' button.  However, if you want to use an Erythos Preset, click on the 'Erythos' folder and its  contents will be listed in the box's main section; then just find the Preset you want and open it in the usual way.

Another step . . .  Let's assume the pop-up box opens showing the 'E Z Grafix' folder.  If you want to use a Preset from a different supplier, you have to go to the 'Environments and Textures' folder.  Do this by clicking on the box's 'Up One Level' button; it's highlighted in the screen-shot above.  You can then open one of Flaming Pear's Presets (they're now listed in the box's main section) or click on the relevant supplier's folder to list their  Presets.

A final word.  Part of the process of opening a Preset is loading its Environment and Texture graphics' BMPs.  SBP does this automatically and always looks for them in the 'Environments and Textures' folder; it does not  assume they're in the folder holding the Preset.  That's why we hold all  Presets' graphics in that  folder rather than with their respective Presets - it avoids SBP getting confused and displaying "can't find ..." error messages!

Here endeth the lesson!

Making your own Presets

Let's assume you're playing around with SPB, fiddling with various control settings, and you come up with this super-duper whizz-bang effect.  You think to yourself "Gosh, I'll sure want to use that again! " or something equally restrained.  Do you hurriedly scribble down all the controls' values on a spare piece of paper, only to lose it five minutes later ?  No, you save the control settings as a Preset.  Just click SBP's 'Save Preset' control button, think up a suitably exotic name (make sure it's not the same as any other Preset on your system), save it where-ever you want to store it, and you've created your very own Preset which you can call up any time you desire!