|
|
|
If you have a question which is not answered here, or a suggestion on how you would improve this section, please feel free to contact us at support@cloanto.com.
Yes. All commercial versions of Personal Paint can be upgraded to the latest version at a special price. Personal Paint included with the Personal Suite, and the Personal Paint bundles which are part of the Computer Combat and Amiga Magic packs can also be upgrades. All of these packages have a serial number on the software which must be indicated when ordering the upgrade. There are no other formalities: only indicate the serial number of the current version of Personal Paint when ordering the upgrade. The serial number can be found on the disk label for packages manufactured by Cloanto, on the inside cover of CD-ROMs like the Personal Suite and Personal Paint, or on the registration card for bundle packs and some other packages manufactured under license. Demonstration versions, free samples and cover disk issues of Personal Paint (which have no serial number) cannot be upgraded. The Kara Collection contains a free upgrade to Personal Paint 6.4 (and not the full program), but the serial number of the The Kara Collection itself cannot be used to upgrade to a higher version of Personal Paint: to upgrade again, please use the old Personal Paint serial number. Each serial number can be used to upgrade to a specific new version only once. When ordering the upgrade, don't forget to specify whether you want the CD-ROM version or the floppy disk edition (the differences are explained in the section on Personal Paint).
No, because the upgrade procedure involves some additional overhead for the organizations handling it. The largest distributors of Cloanto products also sell Personal Paint upgrades. In particular, companies like Schatztruhe and Digita (see the Distributors section) accept orders via mail, telephone, fax and E-mail, and ship upgrades worldwide. Companies like Amadeus, Kara Computer Graphics, Weird Science and others also carry and offer upgrades in the territories they cover.
These user interface features were introduced with Personal Paint 7, and are implemented in the "personal_req.library", which is used by Personal Paint, as well as by other Cloanto programs. Personal Paint 7 contains and installs the new library (in the local "libs" directory). If, however, an older version of the library is in use when Personal Paint 7 is run, then the menu items associated to the new features remain shadowed. To correct this, terminate the other programs using the old library, force a "FlushLibs" (type "Avail FLUSH" in the Shell) and restart Personal Paint. You can safely replace the libraries used by other programs with the newer one, which is compatible with previous versions.
This feature requires the "newicon.library", which is available from the Internet as well as from other free distribution sources such as Aminet CD-ROMs.
In Personal Paint, there are different contexts in which the available palette colors can change, at which parts of the user interface have to be redrawn in consideration of the new environment. Because the system functions that handle the drawing of certain user interface details like gadgets and borders do not support dynamic change of palette colors and drawing pens, Personal Paint has to use its own code to render many user interface objects. This means that, for example, if you have a tool like "CycleToMenu", it has no effect on Personal Paint (which, by the way, provides equivalent functionality through a specific option).
Personal Paint was already multilingual before this component was added to the operating system, so this was not an option. By using plain ASCII files, we give users full access to the user interface strings and shortcuts. Being able to make small or big changes with a standard text editor is in general very appreciated. Personal Paint uses the locale.library for other things, such as detecting the system default language when the program starts.
Yes, Personal Paint detects and uses the FPU (floating point unit, part of optional mathematical processor hardware), if present, to do things like rotating objects. However, most calculations in a graphics package like this are done using integer mathematics rather than floating point functions. Therefore, a FPU has no impact on overall performance. Personal Paint, which ships in a single executable version, is also already optimized for different microprocessors. Critical parts are optimized for execution within the cache of a 68020+. Regarding other microprocessors, such as the 68040/60, it should be kept in mind that the major performance boost comes from the improved speed and efficiency of the newer microprocessors, and not from new instructions. We recompiled Personal Paint for these microprocessors, but noticed that there was no perceivable speed improvement. Indeed, it appears that having different versions of Personal Paint optimized for the various CPUs would in part increase user satisfaction. However, this mainly psychological advantage is challenged by a reality in which we have to do considerable maintenance, support and testing for each version which we ship, and which we want to be as reliable as possible. On the other hand, as you probably know, in Personal Paint 7 some of the most performance-critical code is now in external libraries, which can easily be replaced with versions compiled for different CPU and blitter architectures. Recompilation of code for a PowerPC processor rather than a 68K CPU which would otherwise have to be emulated does indeed provide significant speed advantages. We are already working with various emerging Amiga architectures.
No, and it can easily be corrected by changing some settings. Personal Paint 7 introduces for the first time support for different CPUs (68K, PowerPC, emulators, etc.) and blitter logic through external libraries. The program itself is more refined than the previous version, and is therefore faster. If you notice a performance degradation, you are most likely using a library which is causing some functionality to be emulated. For example, blitting on a 68020 Amiga is at least 50% slower if the 68K blitting libraries are used instead of the Agnus blitter library. Obviously, this setting is not recommended, although it may be automatically selected by the program if, for example, it detects that the host graphics system does not store bitmaps in a type of RAM accessible by the Amiga blitter. Please check the instructions included with the software, and the newest libraries available in the Download section.
One aspect that many graphics enthusiasts do not immediately appreciate is that palette-based graphics is much more difficult, in complexity and computation, than true color graphics. It comes natural to think that "It uses less memory, so it must be simpler and faster..." The palette-based algorithms of Personal Paint are very advanced, but still, whenever for example the programs does some processing on a pixel, it must first look up the value of that pixel in the palette, then modify the value, and then, for that new color, either search the palette for the most similar color entry available, or apply some type of dithering. This must be done for each pixel. In true color graphics, instead, all a program needs to do is to directly access and modify the pixel color value. If you consider that Personal Paint allows for real time editing of palette-based graphics on a plain 68000 computer, you can better understand what an achievement this is. Image processing in Personal Paint has another difference, compared to some other programs. All image processing effects in Personal Paint can be edited by the user and are interpreted on the fly during execution. Other programs have most effects hard-coded, maybe even in optimized machine language code. While Personal Paint's effects are faster than those of some other programs, they could indeed be even faster if we added some hard-coded effects.
Only Amiga makes it possible... Two crucial parts of the Amiga system require bitmap data to be stored in Chip RAM: the original (Agnus) blitter chip, and the Graphics library. Personal Paint uses both. By using its own virtual memory functions, Personal Paint limits the use of Chip RAM to the objects currently being processed (for example, graphics environments, brushes and animation frames other than the current one can be stored in Fast RAM, or even on disk). If you look at the documentation included with the program and with the blitter libraries available in the Download section, you will see that Personal Paint 7 can work without using Chip RAM for its bitmaps. This is done in two steps: first, a blitting library not using the Agnus blitter must be selected (turn off "Settings/Graphics/Amiga Blitter" in Personal Paint); second, all functions of the Graphics library which require Chip RAM must be replaced with compatible functions which can work on Fast RAM. The original Amiga graphics.library does not support this, but some of the newer third-party replacement libraries (e.g. CyberGraphX from version 40.100) do. Click here for additional information.
If you are installing the floppy disk edition of Personal Paint to a hard disk, make sure that you activate the "Decompress installed program files" installation option. On the floppy disk version, Personal Paint is compressed, and because of this it temporarily uses more RAM during load. To get the maximum possible amount of RAM for Personal Paint, boot from a default Workbench, with no utilities or commodities. Disable, or reduce to a minimum, the buffers and cache RAM assigned to floppy disks, hard disk partitions and other devices. Set the Workbench screen to the smallest possible size, using only two colors. The memory indication on the Workbench title bar is not very useful, as it does not account for memory fragmentation. If you need to know how much memory is available for bitmaps, for example, type "Avail" in the Shell, and see the "Largest" fields. Personal Paint's Memory Information requester provides both accurate memory information, and options to flush certain types of buffers. Section 11.1 of the User Guide lists several other suggestions.
All native Amiga screen modes support double-buffering, which is a combination of hardware features and software functionality. Officially, on the Amiga, animation without double-buffering is not supported, but Personal Paint can do it nevertheless. This is especially useful, for example, to work with 256-color animations on older Amigas that do not support these screen depths, and using a display card that does not support double-buffering. Personal Paint can create and play animations even in screen modes which do not support double-buffering, although more complex animations might run more smoothly in double-buffering screen modes. We have determined that most third-party display cards would support some form of double-buffering in hardware. Unfortunately, in most cases the graphics drivers supplied with these cards do not provide double-buffering functionality. When creating animations in non-double-buffered modes, please keep in mind that in the IFF ANIM format, information on the default screen mode for the animation must be stored with the file. Personal Paint stores the Display ID of the current screen mode. If this is a non-double-buffering mode, some older players may fail to play the animation, especially if no other screen modes with the required number of colors are available on the target machine. Personal Paint displays a warning message to remind you of this, but the message does not indicate an error. For additional information on associating screen modes with your artwork, please refer to the document "Personal Paint for Authors".
Click on the Define Brush tool until a "+" sign appears. Sections 3.1.6 and 6.9 of the User Guide.
Yes, it works that way if <Caps Lock> on the keyboard is on when you paste. Section 6.8 of the User Guide.
This usually happens in screen modes that do not support double-buffering, as well as in some particular combinations of hardware and software. Yes, we do have a few suggestions to correct this. The problem which you describe happens because for a brief moment the old frame is displayed with a new palette. In these cases, try to split the change in two frames. For example, let's assume that you wish your animation to start with a black frame, and slowly fade-in. We always recommend not to use an "all black" palette for the first frame, as this can make editing difficult. For the first frame, use a standard palette, having for example black as the first entry. Leave the frame completely black. Beginning with the second frame, you can already put the image as you want it to appear after the fade-in sequence, only that this time the palette would be completely black. Use the Storyboard to create intermediate frames, progressively revealing the fully-colored frames starting from the third frame.
Yes, but it requires two steps. A "single palette" remap mode is activated by pressing <Shift> when requesting a color-reduction. In order to color-reduce an animation, the number of colors must first be increased ("Project/Image Format/Colors"), and then reduced again. Section 6.9 of the User Guide.
Yes: set REDBITS, GREENBITS and BLUEBITS to 8 in the "Startup_1.set" settings file. Section C.3 of the User Guide.
Of course: Personal Paint takes this data from a reference icon stored in the local "PPaint_Icons" drawer. Just change that icon. There is one for pictures, one for animations, etc. Alternatively, you can leave the preset "PPView" Default Tool, and reprogram PPView to use a viewer of your choice by using SetPPView ("Utilities" drawer).
It was not possible to fit an extended color palette and the palette requester in the smaller screen resolutions. However, even when the Edit Palette requester is displayed, you can still select and pick colors both from the image and, most importantly, from the palette which is displayed under the tool bar.
Yes. Personal Paint queries the system Display Database to determine the best available screen mode when it starts, when the display settings are changed, and when an image is loaded. In theory, the system should neither contain information on screen modes that cannot be displayed, nor allow the use of such screen modes. Such a condition, if present, should be corrected by removing any inappropriate Monitor files. In general, even if you have a third-party display card which is fully supported by your monitor, and unless you explicitly remove the original Amiga Monitor entries, Personal Paint may still prefer some original Amiga screen modes because they provide a better color resolution, for example (the AGA chip set supports 24-bit palettes, whereas some display cards do not). Look at the monitor files in "Devs/Monitors": if there are any screen modes that are not supported by your hardware, move them to "Storage/Monitors". Some Amiga systems incorporate support for some 15 kHz screen modes in ROM (an not in a Monitor file). If this is the case, and your monitor cannot display these frequencies, disable the "Settings/Graphics/15 kHz Video" option in Personal Paint. If the problem affects the initial screen of Personal Paint, so that you cannot access this menu, edit the "Startup_1.set" settings file with a text editor. Personal Paint also has a "Lock Display Mode" option ("Project/Image Format") which is very useful if you prefer to always use the same screen mode, regardless of the format and screen mode information which may be best when loading a new image.
This is a known bug of several third-party Amiga graphics libraries. It affects mouse pointers (of any program) having a "hot spot" other than 0:0 (top left of the pointer), and only on AGA systems. The result is that the drawing pen is not aligned with the center of the cross-hair pointer, for example. If you experience this problem, try and boot in ECS mode, or upgrade your graphics drivers.
It looks like you have "Settings/Graphics/Clip" active. Turn it off.
There are two possible reasons for this, and both are related to the use of transparency. The first involves the Amiga IBrowse software up to version 1.1, and the second appears with some PC browsers displaying some very specific animation sequences generated by the original release of Personal Paint 7.0. In general, it can be said that not all aspects of GIF animation, especially when transparency is used, are covered by the GIF89a specification. The standards in this field are set and extended by companies like Netscape and Microsoft, which do not always fully implement the specifications. If you have Personal Paint 7.0, please refer to the update available in the Download section ("AnimGIF_Update.lha"). Along with other enhancements to the GIF animation modules originally released with Personal Paint, the update offers increased compatibility with some aspects of GIF animation which are interpreted in different ways by different browsers. The Amiga IBrowse software up to version 1.1 incorrectly displays some types of GIF animation with transparency (to be precise: those in which the frame size is not constant). This can be solved by upgrading the IBrowse software. In general, we make one recommendation: if transparency is not necessary in an animated GIF, it should be disabled ("Settings/Transparency/None") before creating the anim-brush, or removed on existing anim-brushes ("Settings/Transparency/None", then "Brush/Color/New Transparency"). This prevents ambiguities, and can also considerably reduce the file size.
The Storyboard, like other parts of Personal Paint and of the Amiga operating system, relies on a carefully-designed balance of tasks having different priorities, and which run in parallel to each other. Third-party utilities like "Executive" change this balance. We have seen that while this can improve the responsiveness of some applications, it can also create problems with multi-tasked programs like Personal Paint. The Storyboard problem described here is a typical symptom of this, but functions like animation loading and change of environment may also be affected. If you are using a program like Executive, make sure that it does not modify in any way the task priorities of Personal Paint and its child tasks. The task name of Personal Paint is "PPaint".
Yes, and we advise to also use it before contacting us for support issues related to possible problems with the macros included with Personal Paint:
Please try if this also happens booting from a default Workbench configuration. If you do not have a "clean" Workbench disk to boot from, check the "S:startup-sequence" and the "S:user-startup" scripts and the "SYS:Wbstartup" directory to see what programs are launched from there. Try to remove as many programs as possible, especially commodities, screen promotion utilities and programs using DataTypes. Disable all system backdrop images. Set the printer driver to a standard system printer driver. Check the system with a good antivirus program. Then reboot your system and start Personal Paint as the first program. If you use a third-party display card, manually activate the "Project/Image Format/RTG" option in Personal Paint. If you have Enforcer, run it with the "ShowPC" option. Does the problem persist? If not, try to restore, one after the other, the features that had been disabled, and see what was causing the problem. Neither Personal Paint 6.4 nor Personal Paint 7 have any bugs known to be able to cause a crash, but it remains our goal to be compatible with all configurations around, so whatever happens, we would like to know about it. Of course, if there is something unexpected in our own software, we would like to fix it immediately. If the software error can be traced with Enforcer, please send us the first few "PC*" fields which are output by Enforcer.
It is available from RBM Computertechnik, telephone +49 5251 640646, as part of the ScanQuix package. This component allows you to treat scans as direct loads in Personal Paint, without intermediate steps (scan, save, load). Parameters can be set through an interface provided by ScanQuix.
In general, the software and manuals were designed to be used from the CD. As explained in the documentation, a "drag and drop" of the program drawer to the hard disk location is normally sufficient to install a specific piece of software. A more selective and space-efficient installation is possible for certain programs: the "SBase", "PWrite" and "PFM" drawers contain hidden directories (use "Show All" to access them) named after the language of the software: "ENG" for English, "DEU" for German, etc. To install these programs, we recommend to manually create a directory in the target location (e.g. named "SBase", "PWrite" or "PFM" ), and copy to it only the contents of the subdirectory containing the files for the desired language (e.g.: copy the contents of "PSuite:SBase/ENG" to "Work:PSuite"). To install Personal Paint, we recommend to consider manually removing some artwork files (inside "Pictures" and "Animations") after dragging and dropping the entire drawer, as they occupy a lot of space. In order to preserve the intricate hyperlinks between all the online manuals, installation of the documentation is not so immediate. Due to the high demand for this, we are considering to create an installation script, which would be made available in the Download section.
Considering that the CD-ROM contains thousands of pages in different languages for several packages, we would not be able to offer it at this price if we had to also print and keep on inventory dozens of separate printed manuals. If we did this and increased the price accordingly, this would kill the product. Therefore, we regret that this was not an option, and we appreciate your understanding.
Yes. AnimFonts use standard Amiga IFF anim-brushes. Even if your favorite software does not support direct text editing with AnimFonts, you can render the animated text with Personal Paint, and export the resulting animation as an IFF animation, an IFF anim-brush or a GIF animation.