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|O| ArcsPack-16! by Bowie J. Poag, 1/4/96 |c|C|
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| Arctangent's Pack #16 Documentation Notes |
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| :Table of contents: |
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I. Introduction
II. System Requirements
III. Startup-Pix (Images for your Amiga to display while booting)
IV. Preview-Pix (Images which give a brief overview of whats new!)
V. Patterns (Tile patterns for Workbench, MUI & LightWave 3D users)
VI. Palletes (A fine array of color sets to apply to these graphics)
VII. DockIcons (Cool launch icons for AmiDock/Toolmanager users!)
VIII. Other Stuff
I. Introduction
------------
Welcome to the wonderful wiggly-world of ArcsPack! ArcsPack represents a
incredibly wide array of ways which you, or anyone, can drastically improve
the look and appearance of their systems. With ArcsPack, anyone can give
their Workbench and/or MUI applications a makeover with a choice of nearly
7,000 possible combinations of hand-drawn tiles, patterns, and colors..
Also, dozens of beautiful startup screens for all Amiga models, and now, the
addition of digitized sound samples of differing lengths to be played while
your Amiga boots up! ArcsPack is for those who want their system to have
a sleek, guilded, polished appearance both inside and out. In addition
to other system enhancement packages like Magic Workbench and MUI, ArcsPack
is a fast and easy way to make your system absolutely shine.
In this document, you'll learn about what it takes to make any Mac
or lowly PC user's chin drop straight through the floor by giving your
system an eye-popping facelift which will set it miles above other
platforms. You're lucky you have an Amiga! ArcsPack is only available for
the Amiga community's consumption only! ArcsPack is also freeware. Its
a gift from me to you. I charge no money for it, and will accept no money
for it. However, if on the other hand you have an opening in your company
for a brilliant and incredibly modest young artist, well then... ;)
In any event, enjoy it. Its yours--So are the other 15 VOLUMES of
ArcsPack which are available worldwide via the Aminet. If you like it,
fab--Drop me a line in E-Mail, and I'll make sure you LOVE the next one.
My E-Mail address is listed at the bottom of this document. If you are
blind, stupid, horribly ignorant, or for some reason dissatisfied with the
level of quality contained in this package, please take the time to bite me.
II. System Requirements
-------------------
ArcsPack generally has no specific requirements--But for those without
an Amiga, or a hard disk, or at least a 16 color Workbench, you won't
get nearly the same amount out of this package as you could. A system
I would reccomend would be:
A) An A2000/3000 w/Graphics card (or preferably A1200/4000)
B) Workbench 3.0 or greater (For those with 2.x..UPGRADE! Its worth it!)
C) ~5MB free HD space to install this volume, or, about 50MB free space
to install this, and all previous versions of ArcsPack
D) ADPro, ImageFX, Brilliance or some image processing/paint program.
E) MagicWB and/or MUI installed.
Dont let my suggestion decieve you--You will still get a great deal
out of ArcsPack with just an 8-color Workbench on an ECS machine. :)
Infact, I dont even own an AGA machine, or a graphics card. My own
system is a "lowly" A2500HD/030 :)
Future versions of ArcsPack may require ~3-5MB free hard disk space
in order to install.
III. Startup-Pix
-----------
What are Startup-Pix? Startup-Pix are standard (usually high-res) .IFF
pictures which your Amiga displays while booting. Kinda like the "smile
screen" on newer Macs or the boring clouds you see on Windows '95..Startup
Pix are a good way to add a little color to normally dull, blank screens
while booting. There are specific screens for ALL Amiga models available
in previous versions of ArcsPack, as well as specific screens for all
common AmigaDOS versions. Instead of staring like an idiot at a blank
screen while your system boots, now you can have a glorious "AmigaDOS 3.1"
or "A2000HD/030/882" screen fade in from the darkness instead. :)
There are plenty of new utilities on the Aminet (like BootPic, StartScreen
and others) which perform the task of quietly displaying graphics during
boot-ups without disturbing other programs in your Amiga's startup-sequence.
Check them out! Most are written by skilled, reputable programmers who
know what they're doing. :)
Future version of ArcsPack will have the ability to "install" this feature
directly into the startup-sequence of your machine. For the time being,
this task must be performed by you, manually. I merely supply the graphics.
Simple show programs like Mostra or ViewTek can also fulfill this purpose..
IV. Index!
------
Too impatient to sift through the patterns to find the one you like?
Then this is the place for you--In this drawer you will find several
images to preview, to give you a rough idea of whats contained in this
archive--Over 2 DOZEN patterns available in this volume for your Workbench
display, alone!
Just double-click on the icons, and MultiView will bring up a window on
your Workbench to show you.
Keep in mind, you can also tell MultiView to use its own screen when
bringing up the graphics you tell it to--Just go to its pull-down menu
and select "Use Seperate Screen" from the Window menu.
V. Patterns!
---------
Patterns are what makes ArcsPack so popular--Everything from the trippy
and psychedelic to the sublime and corporate are available here. There
are patterns and tiles of every humanly imaginable style to be found
both in this volume, as well as the 15 volumes of ArcsPack which came before
this one. The Patterns are meant to give a variety of variations on a theme;
Usually, if you like one, you'll like almost all of them. I try not to
sqeeze too much out of one paticular style, so usually several are
represented.
All of these patterns and tiles were painted by hand, by me. How did
I paint them? Well, if I told you, then I'd be out of a job. :) I take
a great deal of pleasure in painting these..Theyre fun to create and
polish off, and they look stunning in actual use. Whenever I paint,
I almost ALWAYS plugged into my stereo with my headphones on, either
listening to mods, or listening to my fabled collection of Human League,
Devo, and Kraftwerk CD's..which can often explain the bizzare filenames
these patterns and tiles have. :)
Why are they all GREY, do you ask? No, I didn't forget to color them.
The reason why they're all grey, is because it would be pointless (not to
mention incredibly stupid) for me to include 20 DIFFERENT COPIES of the
same little tile or pattern, just with different colors. ArcsPack would
be gigantic if I did it this way. Instead, the raw graphics AND the Pallete
files are ALSO given to you separately, so that you can apply the color
of your choosing to the tiles & patterns which you like best. You can
apply the colors to the graphics with any paint program, or image processing
utility such as ADPro, ImageFX, PhotoGenics, PersonalPaint, etc. Consult
the manual for the package which you have for instructions on how to
apply a color pallete to these graphics. Don't worry, its easy. :)
Future versions of ArcsPack will automate this process. Stay tuned.
VI. Palletes
--------
A wide selection of possibilities for colorizing your favorite patterns
and tiles finds its home in this drawer. Inside the Palletes drawer,
are a whole bunch of IFF/ILBM Pallete files. These tiny little files
contain all the color register information for a picture. If you load
in one of my normally-grey patterns or tiles, and then tell the program
you're using to do this to load in the Pallete file, the colors will
instantly snap themselves into place, and the screen/tile/pattern will
come alive with vibrant color. Its more fun than a barrel of Sea-Monkeys! :)
Everything from Clockwork-Orange to Pink-Panther and Grapeity-Grape Purple
are included, in every shade, of every color of the rainbow sparing the
ugly ones.
Once you've applied the Pallete to the graphics, you can save the graphics
back out again, which will now have aquired the new color scheme.
Groovy, eh? :)
VII. DockIcons
---------
The DockIcons included here in ArcsPack-15 are indexed on a big contact
sheet located in the Indexes drawer as "Index-1" .. Double-click on
it to show a grid with coordinates you can use to locate the dockicons
of your choosing.
The DockIcons are standard .iff brush maps--Meaning of course, you
can also map color to them, like any other chunk of graphics in
ArcsPack-16. :)
VIII. Other Stuff
-----------
Well, that about wraps it up--If you're having unforseen problems with
ArcsPack which you cant account for here in the documentation, drop me
a line at my email address below. Or, if you'de just like to drop me a
line and say what you'de like to see in future ArcsPacks, that would be
pretty cool too. In any event, ENJOY my work. Spread it around--make
people happy with it. If anybody charges you money for it, steal it.
Bowie J. Poag
Arctangent
E-Mail: bjp@interaccess.com
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