A BRIEF CONVERSATION . . . |
|
Hi there. I've just installed Super BladePro. What do I do now ? |
1. |
|
Breathe a silent "thank you" to the good folk at Flaming Pear for your new *toy*. |
2. |
Flaming Pear has produced a very useful 'Super BladePro Guide'. It comes with the package so you'll find it already installed, as an HTML document, in the same folder as your SBP software. It doesn't go into a great deal of detail, but certainly enough to give you a reasonable feel for how to use SBP. Read and inwardly digest! |
3. |
Now start using SBP - learn by doing. Try out a few images of various shapes and sizes with the Presets supplied with SBP. Then do the same with some text in two or three fonts and sizes. Some results will "work" for you, others won't, but at least you'll get some idea of what SBP can do. |
|
|
Hang on, what are these "Preset" things ? |
Sorry; forgot you're new to this. SBP has around 35 adjustable controls - sliders, dials, etc. - whose settings determine the results of its use. A Preset is simply a special type of file which records a fixed combination of settings. This is how SBP "remembers" the settings for a particular effect. Presets are held in SBP as .q5q or .q9q files, which you'll find with your graphics program; just follow the folder hierarchy 'Plug-Ins' >>> 'Flaming Pear' >>> 'SuperBladePro' >>> 'Environments and Textures'. |
All you have to do to load a Preset into SBP is to click on the 'Load Preset' button (good logical name! ) in the middle of SBP's control panel - that's it on the right. A pop-up list of Presets will appear; just click on the one you want to use. |
 |
|
There's a lot more about Presets on the first of our Presets pages. You may find it helpful when you're a little more faniliar with SBP, although it does repeat some of what we say here. |
|
OK, I've done that. Now I want to create a couple of real graphics. I've a rough idea of the effects I'm after, but none of SBP's own Presets quite hit the spot. Where do we go from here ? |
You don't need to re-invent the wheel! The good news is that lots of lovely people out there in cyber-land (-space?) 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 takes your fancy (but do pay careful attention to any Terms of Use). 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. |
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 . . . |
|
   |
|
. . . and do pay attention the nice people's Terms of Use! When you've installed the new Presets into SBP, try them out. |
|
I still haven't found anything that pleases my hyper-critical eye. HELP!!! |
Now you have to get down to some real work - building your own effects with SBP. That means messing around with all those sliders, dials, buttons and whatever. Pretty daunting, huh ? Well, no, not if you know in advance roughly what each control actually does - in other words, what happens if you change it from this setting to that setting, rather than simply knowing its purpose. That's what this so-called Tutorial is all about. It covers only a few of the controls so far, but we hope to add to it as time permits (a cunning ploy to get you to visit us again! ). |
|
Read on . . . |
