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| Issue 3: Candy Factory Pro Review/Tutorial | |||||||||||
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| Gary Storm puts this easy to use effects package through its paces. |
I'm no artist. I have a lot of good idea's, but when I draw, my ducks turn out like sheep. Which is why I rushed to buy Candy Factory Pro, as it lets me make even the simplest text and pictures look like works of art (well, nearly). Don't think that Candy Factory Pro is just good for web-site logos and fancy headings, as it's also a great way to put posters and cards together.
Candy Factory Pro is best used with a PPC accelerator and graphics card, but is also great for 68k (just slower).
The best way to illustrate Candy though, is to eat it, let's start munching.
Select 'New Project', and type in the size of your picture (800x600 in this case).
Select 'Windows' - 'Color Texture'. This let's you load pictures and textures on the foreground and background. Click the 'Edit' gadget so that it reads 'Background', and then click the '?' gadget. Choose your picture to load, via the lister. You won't see anything but black at first... don't panic :) Close the 'Color Texture' window to save screen-space.
Select 'Windows' - 'Materials' to bring that window up. Click the 'Edit' gadget to read 'Background'. Then click on the three lighting controllers, adynd drag the sliders all the way to the right (255 = white). Voila! - your picture is then seen, as you just turned the lights on.
The lighting controls are also handy for making a picture moodier, as you can tint it any colour(s) you want (experiment). 'Color' is the main light, and affects everything, 'Specular' is the colour of the highlights, and 'Ambient' is kind of like low mood lighting. The 'Shading' gadget is handy for different effects - try them (I like 'normal' and 'metal' the best), but we'll leave the background as 'none'. 'Glossiness' is another sort of brightness, and is useful for the lighting mode on shiny text, and 'Environment Map' is if you want to load up another texture on top of the picture/texture you already have loaded, and mix them together for even more weird and wonderful effects.
Click the '?' next to the 'Fontname' field to load and choose a nice font.
"Candy" appears in the canvas as default, so type in the word(s) you want, and press 'Return' (don't click on 'OK' yet).
You may find that the text is too bit or too small, and that's why you haven't clicked on 'OK' yet. You can drag the text around with the mouse, and change the size of it with the 'X Size' and 'Y Size' gadgets. Once it's in the position you like, press 'OK'.
When the projects loader appears, there are a lot of options to have, or not to have, depending on your purpose, background, mood etc..., and you can only find out what is best for each thing you do by trial and error. Never keep 'Maskpath' on, as it will also load any text associated with the project settings (i.e. You'll lose your new text). As a general rule, 'Glow' and 'Shadow' don't normally go together as it's unnatural, but remember... rules are made to be broken (and we have). If you're going to be putting text onto a picture you've already selected, then make sure you un-check anything to do with background ('Background material', 'Bumpmap back' and 'Background texture') or you'll lose the background picture. The other stuff can generally stay as you can play around with it, or kill it, as you wish. In this case, uncheck 'Maskpath' and all three background effects (as shown left). Press 'OK'. There, doesn't that make the text look damn funky? :)
If you want to change any of the effects, (as I did with BlueMetallic's Glow, bump and lightsource) load up their particular windows. Remember to select and leave the 'materials' window open, as you need to select between 'background' and 'object' for whichever you're manipulating via effects. Leave the 'object' (text) activated in this case.
With many of these affects, you can move the backgrounds, textures and bumpmaps around via dragging the mouse, to get them in the best position possible for your composition.
Then select 'Image' - 'Clear Image'. Load in the picture you just saved onto the background again, add your next line of text and chuck a different set of effects its way. Keep saving the image, re-loading as a background then texting and effecting to your hearts desire (or until the room on the page runs out). The best way to make sure that the text is in the right place, is to load up your image on the workbench screen via CyberShow or something, and swap between the two screens for reference, and 'Clear Image' if the text isn't quite right, as 'Add Text' will have saved your previous text and settings so that you can adjust the text minutely until you're satisfied.
Save your final piece of art by 'Project' - 'Save Image'. Click on 'Format' so that 'Truecolor' is selected, and select the format you wish. If it's JPEG, you can also select the quality to save out as. It's a pity that GIF isn't supported yet, but not the end of the world.
Once you've found a combination of settings you like, you can save them as a project of your own with whichever effects, pictures and text you wish to include, by selecting 'Project' - 'Write Project'.
It's always a good idea to load your text or object in, and then to save it at that stage, by 'Project' - 'Save Mask', just in case anything crashes.
'Inverse' is useful as it swaps the foreground with the background, to give a different effect.
You can use characters from different fonts as graphic objects... the boing balls and rings on the back cover are actually a '.' and 'o'.
'Realtime' - turn most of this off if you're working on 68k, but leave it all on for PPC. If you're going to want to use Candy Factory a lot, then you really should upgrade to a PPC and graphics card, as it makes everything so much quicker and easier, and real to the eye.
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Pros
Ultra easy to use |
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Cons
No GIF support for web graphics |
