Deluxe Paint

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Deluxe Paint
Basic data

developer Electronic Arts
Publishing year November 1985
Current  version 5.2
(1995)
operating system AmigaOS , GEM , MS-DOS , and Apple GS / OS
category Graphics software
License proprietary

Deluxe Paint , DeluxePaint or simply DPaint was a bitmap graphics drawing program originally developed by Dan Silva for Electronic Arts (EA).

The first version of Deluxe Paint was developed for the Commodore Amiga 1000 and published in November 1985. It was later ported to other platforms, for example DOS-based PCs. It was the standard program for pixel-based image processing until the beginning of the 1990s, when it was superseded by other products such as Photoshop .

history

Deluxe Paint was created as an internal development tool at Electronic Arts under the name "Prism". After the author Dan Silva added more functions, it was further developed as a flagship product that was to be introduced with the appearance of the Amiga in 1985. Immediately after publication, it was quickly adopted by the Amiga community and became the de-facto standard tool for graphics (later also for animations) for this platform. It was almost omnipresent in the development of Amiga games, animations and in the Amiga demo scene . The manufacturer of the Amiga product series, Commodore , later commissioned Electronic Arts to create version "4.5 AGA", which was compatible with the new AGA chipset of the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000 . Version 5 was the last version after Commodore went bankrupt in 1994.

Electronic Arts introduced the ILBM and ANIM file standards for graphics and animation by developing Deluxe Paint . Although these were widespread on the Amiga, they never achieved widespread acceptance among end users on other platforms, but were used heavily by companies in the games industry. Lucasarts used Deluxe Paint to develop titles such as Monkey Island and is the origin of the name of the main character " Guybrush Threepwood " from this series. Said name was derived from the name of the file in which the image data were saved: "guybrush.bbm".

Early versions were delivered with and without copy protection , the latter at a slightly higher price. The copy protection was later generally dropped. Deluxe Paint was the first product in a series of the “Electronic Arts Tools” division and was later moved to the “ICE” division (“ICE” for “Interactivity, Creativity, Education”). Other titles from this series were Amiga programs such as “Deluxe Music Construction Set”, “Deluxe Video”, and the “Studio” series of graphics programs for the Macintosh .

Commodore Amiga versions

Deluxe Paint I on an Amiga 1000
  • Deluxe Paint I (1985)
  • Deluxe Paint II (1986)
  • Deluxe Paint III (1988)
  • Deluxe Paint IV (1991)
  • Deluxe Paint 4.5 AGA (1993)
  • Deluxe Paint V (1995)

Apple IIGS

DeluxePaint II for the Apple IIGS was developed by Brent Iverson and published in 1987.

MS-DOS versions

Deluxe Paint II for PC was released in 1988 and required MS-DOS 2.0 and 640 kB of RAM. It supported CGA , EGA , MCGA , VGA , Hercules and Tandy IBM-compatible PC graphics cards.

Deluxe Paint II Enhanced was released in 1989 and required MS-DOS 2.11 with 640 kB of RAM.

Deluxe Paint II Enhanced 2.0 , released in 1994, became the most successful PC version. It was compatible with ZSoft's "PC Paintbrush" PCX graphics format. The MS-DOS conversion was also done by Brent Iverson, the advanced functions were done by Steve Shaw. It supported CGA, EGA, MCGA and VGA IBM-compatible PC graphics cards, standards from Hercules, Tandy and Amstrad , and most of the early Super VGA graphics card modes (depending on the manufacturer). This version supported a resolution of up to 800 × 600 pixel resolution with 256 (out of 262,144) colors, and 1024 × 768 with 16 colors.

Atari ST versions

Deluxe Paint ST was released in 1990. Among other things, it also supported the STE color palette of 4096 colors.

legacy

In 2015, Electronic Arts published the source code of Deluxe Paint I through the Computer History Museum .

Functions

In contrast to today's image processing programs , such as Photoshop, most graphics programs were heavily geared towards the bitmap and bitplane display of the native Amiga chipsets, and of these, Deluxe Paint was the most prominent representative.

The Amiga supports indexed colors by default . This means that the color value of a pixel was not defined by RGB values, but rather by a reference to a position (index) within a firmly defined color palette. By adjusting the colors of this palette, all pixels of the corresponding index position were automatically changed in their color value as well. Graphic artists were able to use this property by creating animations through so-called " color cycling ".

Deluxe Paint III added support for the Amiga's "Extra Halfbrite" mode. Other functions made it possible to paint with certain colors using stencils and to achieve effects that resembled those of a light source in 3D programs using blurring effects. Deluxe Paint III made it possible to create cell-based animations and animated brushes. The latter allowed the user to select an area of ​​an animation as an "animated brush" that could then be used for drawing during the animation. Deluxe Paint was one of the first programs to make this function possible. The function is comparable to "copy & paste", except that you could take more than one picture at the same time.

Deluxe Paint IV, which was created without the collaboration of Dan Silva as the main programmer, was seen as less elegant and crashed more often than its predecessor. Nevertheless, it included decisive new functions, such as support for the Hold-And-Modify mode , which was no longer bitplane-based. Version 4.5 AGA was released the following year, fixed the instabilities and added support for the new AGA graphics modes of the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000. In addition, the screen interface has been revised. It was available as a separately sold product and was also sold as a bundle with the Amiga.

The last version of Deluxe Paint, version 5, supported 24 bit RGB graphics. However, since only the AGA chipset was used, the 24 bit RGB image could only be used in the internal memory, while the displayed image was still working with indexed colors.

Workflow

The use of indexed colors led to a certain workflow that has not been found in many graphics programs since then. The strong link between color palette and image data made Deluxe Paint a great tool for creating bitmap-based icons, animations, and game graphics before real-color graphics became ubiquitous.

With the "[" and "]" keys you could wander through the color palette, turning index-based painting into a fast, two-handed process with mouse and keyboard. With the right mouse button you could paint with the background color (instead of opening a context menu like in today's programs).

For example, transparency could be achieved by choosing a “background” color, which was easily done by right-clicking on the palette. Colors could be locked from being changed by using a mask. Simple color animations could be created by making neighboring changes in the color palette.

Brushes could be cut out of the background using various tools. Later these could be used just like other brushes or painting tools. This functionality was easier to use than Photoshop's "stamp" tool or alpha channels that became available in later programs. Brushes could be rotated and scaled, even in 3D. After a brush was chosen, it was pinned to the mouse pointer, allowing an accurate preview of what was being drawn. Therefore, you could place brushes precisely on the pixel, in contrast to brushes in Photoshop up to version CS3, which only showed an outline.

Animations saved in the IFF ANIM format were compressed using delta coding , which only saved differences between individual frames. As a result, these animations were small and faster to play.

perception

Compute! criticized the documentation as inadequate, but stated that Deluxe Paint was a graphics program of enormous scope and flexibility.

Deluxe Paint was a commercial success for Electronic Arts.

Examples

The music video for the single Move Your Feet by the Danish duo Junior Senior was created by the artist group Shynola exclusively with the Amiga version of Deluxe Paint.

The webcomic "Unicorn Jelly" by Jennifer Diane Reitz was created over a period of three years with Deluxe Paint II, one drawing was published daily at midnight.

British writer and artist Molly Cutpurse used Deluxe Paint to create graphics used in the film Murder on the Moon (with Brigitte Nielsen ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "There is one thing that almost all game graphic designers agree on: The first choice program is called 'Deluxe Paint' by Electronic Arts." Henrik Fisch: Game programming . In: Power Play , 11/1994, p. 114.
  2. ↑ Frequently asked questions about Monkey Iceland (English)
  3. ↑ TellTale Games Forums (English)
  4. ↑ The Future Was Here (English)
  5. ↑ Deluxe Paint II on an Apple IIGS (photo)
  6. ↑ Product Comparison . In: IDG (Ed.): InfoWorld . 10, No. 49, December 5, 1988, ISSN  0199-6649 . Accessed December 29, 2014. (English)
  7. ↑ InfoWorld March 14, 1988 (English)
  8. ↑ InfoWorld November 13, 1989 (English)
  9. ↑ Entry at Atarimania (English)
  10. ↑ Len Shustek: Electronic Arts Deluxe Paint Early source code . computerhistory.org. November 12, 2013. Retrieved November 14, 2016.
  11. ↑ Lee Noel: Deluxe Paint For Amiga . In: Compute! , April 1986, p. 52, Textarchiv - Internet Archive (English)
  12. ↑ Colin Campbell: How EA lost its soul, chapter 8 . Vox Media. Archived from the original on July 16, 2015. Retrieved November 14, 2016. (English)
  13. ↑ Chris Harding interview . Archived from the original on March 24, 2006.
  14. ↑ Jennifer Diane Reitz explains the creation of "Unicorn Jelly" . Archived from the original on 2002.