Changing the
Settings
Each level, the seven stroke
map levels and the media level, is selected
with the level selection
controls. Simply click on the layer you
want to change. For each level, the Media File Section
shows the file used. We'll start by ignoring
the Media level for the time being and looking
at the different stroke levels.

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Media File Section
Controls |
The Media
File Section shows the Stroke
Map .bmp file used for the selected level.
To change the stroke map file, click the
file selector button to the right of the
filename. This will show a file selector
window where you can browse your computer
for any suitable image file to use a stroke
map. NOTE: The Sketcher plugin
uses uncompressed, greyscale bitmaps for
all stroke maps and papers. Be sure you
only select valid .bmp files.
Underneath the filename is a %
Scaling slider which allows the
shrinking of the stroke map image with the
usual effect of increasing the density of
the strokes. Underneath the media
file section are controls affecting
how the stroke map is applied.

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Level Specific
Controls |
All controls set a value
as a percentage. To understand how these
work, you need to think about how the stroke
map is applied. Here's that image of the
stroke map used to create level 1 of the
previous sketch example.

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Stroke
Map (PencilA.bmp) |
Source
Intensity |
Level
1 |
You'll see that this stroke
map was applied across the whole image,
getting darker in areas of shade. The strokes
get darker from areas of lightness to areas
of shade, reaching maximum intensity by
50% grey in the source image. At maximum
stroke intensity when the strokes are darkest,
the stroke map is only rendered pale grey.
This can be represented in a graph showing
the intensity of the stroke map relative
to the image intensity.
The graph shows that
the strokes are
not rendered (invisible) where the source
image is white
the strokes are
at most rendered less than 50% intensity;
they are never black, only at most medium-pale
grey
the intensity
of the strokes gets progressively greater
(darker) from areas of white to areas
a little lighter than mid-grey in the
source image. In areas darker than this,
stroke intensity remains level
Now look at level 5 of the
same sketch...

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Stroke
Map (PencilE.bmp) |
Source
Intensity |
Level
5 |
For level 5, the stroke
map isn't applied until the source intensity
is much lower, and the gradation is smooth
from grey areas to black areas. The graph
for level 5 looks like this

This graph shows that
the strokes are
not rendered (invisible) until the source
image is darker than 50% grey
the strokes' maximum
intensity reaches 100% (black) when
rendered darkest
the intensity
of the strokes increases from areas
of grey to areas of black in the source
image
Each level can therefore
be described as a graph of blending value
for the stroke map, with a low value, a
high value, and a gradient between the two.
Trans Start
specifies the lightness of the image at
which the strokes start to be drawn (the
beginning of the gradient from the right).
In areas lighter than this percentage value
the stroke map is applied at Min
Blend intensity Trans
End specifies the intensity at
which the stroke map is applied at its maximum
level (end of the gradient on the left).
Where the source image is darker than this,
the strokes are applied to their maximum
amount, as specified in Max
Blend The Min
Blend and Max
Blend sliders determine the minimum
and maximum blending amounts of the stroke
map; how intense the strokes are rendered.
They range from 0, where the strokes are
invisible, to 100 where the strokes are
rendered 'black' or with full intensity.
Min Blend
is how much the strokes are visible in light
areas and is usually set to 0. Where Min Blend is
higher than 0, the stroke map will always
be visible to some degree. The Max Blend is
the darkest level the strokes are drawn,
set to low values where you want feint strokes
such as in the lightest areas of a sketch,
and set to higher values where you want
darker strokes.
For each level, the stroke
map and blending character can be set, resulting
in the final sketching style. Each level
can be deactivated if wanted using the tick
box underneath the level selection controls.
For example in the provided "NiceSketch.sms"
settings the seventh level is not used.
This is very useful when setting up your
own settings as you can see the result of
each level independently. |