Fooling Around with Deluxe/Personal Paint on the Amiga
Fooling Around With Deluxe/Personal Paint
Originally published May 16th, 2016
*Making a Title Card in Deluxe Paint Video
*Next article
*Previous article
*Alphabetical list of writings
I actually recorded this video in December of last year for my one year YouTube anniversary. So forgive that I don't have a proper write up on this. For all new Amiga related videos I do I want to write an article I'd be proud to have read that I believe is both linked to the video as well as separate. As in for those that choose to watch the video and read the post they will get something out of both that they couldn't get from one or the other.
But it would be kind of a pain to do that in this case since the material is old. Still, I feel there's something a few people might enjoy in the video if they care to take a look.
I'm showing off one way in particular I still find use for Amiga software. In this case Deluxe and Personal Paint on the Amiga. Two top quality (better than most of the best PC paint programs for a LOOOONNNNG time and still better than a lot of the free ones) paint programs on the Amiga that I still find enjoyment and use out of.
When I do reviews on the Amiga, should the game cooperate with my screen capture program, I like to take various screenshots, mostly for use with making a good quality title card. It might be kind of sad to say it, but I spend more time than I care to admit making those things... Things that most people don't even notice and are so small as to not make the greatest difference when people look at it... That's why I've started making the first 8 seconds of my video the title card, so people are forced to see the effort I put into it. That puts a lot of extra time into the video editing process, not only for the title card, but in order to show it in the video I must first COMPLETE the card! Before I would put flying text at the start of the video for the title, process it, start uploading it, and then finish the title card before I published the video. This was much better for my lazy work ethic... haha... But because of the work I put into them I really want people to see them first thing in the video, nice a large.
I can't draw, I have little artistic ability with my hands, much to my great sadness. I always wanted to draw, the sad thing is I think I was better as a child looking back. These days I make up for that in other artistic areas. I make music, I fix various old things, improve upon them, I take 35mm pictures and 8mm movie film... And I create these opinionated reviews on YouTube. I take great time to make the videos look as close to how I see them as possible, I'm sure others might roll their eyes when they first see my videos because of my choices in achieving that... But it's true, I have an artistic mind in many areas and my videos are done to a high standard with myself.
Then there's those title cards! I have all sorts of methods to make those look good. My methods vary from system to system and topic. For the Amiga, when I can get those screenshots from my actual machine I love to open up Deluxe Paint and Personal Paint and play around. If you look back on my videos you will find many of the title cards were created straight on the Amiga with minimal editing done on modern hardware. I work on the picture on the Amiga, I convert the image from IFF to .png on the Amiga, and then I transfer it over to modern hardware. There I may only increase the canvas size to 16:9 and do a little bit of work in a paint program to fill out that 16:9 image for today's videos and YouTube's title cards. But usually the exact same picture I created on the Amiga is in 4:3 in the middle of that 16:9 picture.
I have a tremendous amount of fun doing this, it can be highly enjoyable... When I'm not in a rush of course...haha... Then it can be terribly stressful! But I just wanted to share this because this is a real modern use for this machine and it's software. You don't "have" to do it by any means, but I believe it adds a layer of authenticity. True retro bliss.
In this particular video I'm creating a title card for my very first ever review on YouTube. That video was of the Amiga educational game Discovery Spelling. A great little kids games using the Amiga's built in voice synthesizer. Games that use that just don't get enough attention, good or bad. I made that first review in December of 2014, before I had even thought up a title for the series. I only knew I wanted to mostly do reviews of old games, but with all kinds of retro things thrown in. The video after that was The You're Not Stupid Guide on installing Amiga games to hard drive. I knew right away what to call that one, best title I have. I made a title card for that video and just about every one since then... For my second full game review, Carling the Spider on the VIC-20, I thought up "Gaming Memories And Review" and named that one 1x2 for season 1, episode 2. I then went back and named Discovery 1x1. But all that time there was no title card, just a bland YouTube screenshot... This video was very special for me because I'm going back to that first video. A video that had so much emotion behind it... A man who has been in the background commenting on videos for such a long time finally creating his own.... To show them right! Because nobody else would! I no longer wanted to bitch behind the scenes, I put my money where my mouth was, and put myself out there for everyone to see. And I showed myself... Not too many game reviewers will show themselves. I chose to do it very early so everyone would have a face to go along with the talk, so it would mean more... I truly believe it helps.... Plus if you show yourself early everyone will get used to you and start to think you don't look too bad. haha.... But that first video, and quite honestly ALL my videos mean a great deal to me. I have never released a single video I didn't want to see myself... That's all I've ever promised anyone, I'm proud of every last one... EVERY LAST ONE... So here I revisit that first video and make use of fun and great Amiga paint programs. I think there's some stuff to learn for anyone paying attention... And I do believe everyone into old computers can still have fun using these Amiga paint programs, they're fantastic! And if you're making reviews, video or through the written word, I think you'll find working on the actual Amiga may even bring your work that little something extra. Even if people can't pinpoint it, they'll know there's something special about it. That they will.
I thought I'd post some examples of the artwork I've done with the help from the Amiga. I'll put little notes for all of them. Some of them I did almost everything on the Amiga end and some of them only minor things, but I used Deluxe Paint/Personal Paint for all of the following screenshots. Most are probably not my best by any means, you can do quite a lot these days in modern paint programs... But what they lack in quality they more than make up for in pure retro class if I do say so myself! Judge for yourselves.
^The subject of my video linked earlier. Here I took a picture drawn by a friend on modern software and converted it over to the Amiga. There I added stars in the background, and the fonts. This is the actual 320x200 4:3 picture the Amiga outputted, without 16:9 borders added.
^ I took a screenshot on my actual Amiga and edited with both Deluxe and Personal Paint. It was originally a 640x200 medium resolution shot with only 4 colors! I increased the colors to 16, added the fonts and the start of that cool blue gradient on the sides. On modern hardware I extended the 4:3 picture into 16:9 with the continued blue gradients. Had a lot of fun with this one.
^ Screenshot from actual Amiga and messed with again in both DPaint and PPaint. Added titles and dithering on fonts. Added my face on modern hardware. The Amiga end is in 4:3 but since the borders were pure purple it was easy to put it into 16:9
^ This picture also has its own video. Look up Gaming Memories And Review Deluxe Paint for that story. Here I took a shot of myself from a super8 film and transferred it over to the Amiga where I messed with it quite a bit. I had to play with the colors to get that yellow font in there but not mess up my face. Using another picture on the Amiga I pasted that floppy disk in and painted it. The left and right borders were added on modern hardware to make it into 16:9 - Probably the most fun I've had doing a title card.
^ A simple screenshot of the title screen but added some stuff here and there.
^ Had a lot of fun putting the real SimCity logo from another picture into this screenshot from the gameplay and then coloring it. I really love the way the SimCity logo came out after messing with it. Easter eggs I'm sure nobody caught is that I changed all of the text in the upper right title bar. Rather than the city name there is "Shot97". The date says September of 2015, when I released the video, and I have "$36" - Which was actually the number of subscribers I had at that time... Man it's been a slow road. Again, nifty little left/right boards added later on to put it into 16:9
^One I spent far too much time doing on the actual Amiga when I should have just done it on modern hardware... This is the combination of 3 different screenshots, each with their own color palette, making the pasting of them into the one a very tedious process. That space ship needed a lot of work and I had to be very careful with altering colors or the planet would look bad. I used the Might and Magic logo from another screenshot and put it in there. Took a lot of time to get it to look good with that color palette. But I think it turned out looking great. Rather than the left/right boarders I added a longer right boarder and started the Amiga 4:3 part on the left, so the planet would be there and space would be on the right. I love the way this one turned out.
^ Only minor work done on the Amiga for this one. Pretty much took the screenshots on the Amiga, converted them to .png through the paint programs, and then messed with them on modern hardware. This gave me the chance to put many screens in one picture and have that transparent Sierra logo. Getting those high quality screenshots was still thanks to the Amiga.
^ I thought about only doing this one on the Amiga, but felt I could tell one hell of a quick story by just using the Amiga screenshots on modern hardware, which I did. One of my best title cards I believe.
^ My most recent Amiga review. Again, several screenshots taken from my actual Amiga were converted to modern .png format by Personal Paint and transferred to my PC, where I put several elements together and blurred the sides into 16:9 - Another one of my favorites. There are other Amiga games on my channel, but for whatever reason (usually the game wouldn't let me take a screenshot) I didn't utilize the Amiga in the title card making process. I do my best to make those look as good as possible using CRT pictures in that case. As much as I love real pictures of a CRT monitor, for the purposes of a title card, I do see the beauty in that clean, crisp, well defined pixel art you get from a screenshot, and I've gotten every bit and more enjoyment out of making these cards as I did playing the games.
Deluxe Paint and Personal Paint are both must haves for any Amiga lover out there.
*Next article
*Previous article
*Alphabetical list of writings
Comments
Post a Comment