IIGS Graphics in 3-D

The Apple IIGS has many capabilities that have gone untapped for over a year now.
 I have decided to open the keg by offering a method that allows the average
Apple IIGS user to create stunning 3-D graphics.  All you will need for this is
an Apple IIGS (with color monitor), a copy of DeluxePaint II (an original), and a
pair of the classic Red/Green (Red/Blue to most of us) 3-D glasses.  These are
available in numerous 3-D childrens books, as well as many toy and hobby stores.

To create your graphics, you must first prepare the artwork that you want to make
three dimensional.  The easiest way to do this is to use clip-art.  This process
requires that the clip art be monochrome, so forget about all of those fancy clip
art disks that you have, unless you have a working knowledge of how to take a
multi-color image and reduce it to a single color (black).  Many pieces of
clip-art in the public domain fit this criteria, so we will start from there.

The next step is to create the proper color palette in DeluxePaint II.  You can
bypass this step by obtaining the proper color palette from your club library. 
For those of you who are die-hard self-doers, here's how you can create it for
yourself.  Run DeluxePaint II in the 640 mode.  Next, set the second color in the
palette to red, and the third color to blue-green.  Now, draw a red circle and a
blue circle that do not overlap.  Then, with the 3-D glasses on, peering only
through the red lens, edit the second colors intensity until you cannot see it
against the white background.  (You may have to add some yellow.)  When you've
finished this, peering only through the blue lens, edit the third colors
intensity until you cannot see it against the white background.  (You will have
to keep a balance between blue and green.)  Next, peering through both lenses, 
edit the black color until it matches both of the colors you are seeing in the
circles.  Without the glasses, this will look like a dark gold color.

Now, grab (as a brush) a piece of clip art that is in black and white.  Choose
the Color mode for the brush, then choose blue-green as the color.  Position the
brush where you want the object to appear, then click the mouse.  Now, choose red
as your color.  (The brush will change to red.) Now, place the brush slightly to
left or right of the blue image on the same horizontal level.  Click the mouse so
that the red image now blots out part of the blue image.  Now, create a stencil
that only allows you to paint on red.  Now, using the same brush, choose the gold
color.  Your brush changes to this color.  Place the gold brush precisely over
the blue image; only the parts of the blue image that were covered with red will
be painted on.

Now, put on those 3-D glasses!  You may have to adjust the brightness of your
monitor to allow the best viewing.  Also, if you don't see the 3-D effect
immediately. Just relax your eyes a bit.  Look around the room.  Eat dinner with
those silly things on.  Your eyes are biologically tuned to have a high
red-yellow color balance in one eye and a high blue-green balance in the other. 
If your eyes are blue-green in the red eye and red-yellow in the blue eye, your
eyes may take a few minutes to get accustomed to the new color balance.  This
does not permanently alter your eyes!  However, you will find your eyes will get
used to this more and more easily each time.  After all, I did it; so can you! 
Now, my eyes take no time at all to adjust.  (If you wear glasses, put the 3-D
glasses on over your normal glasses.)

You can also print these images on the ImageWriter II and show them to others. 
As a final note, I must say that my experience with this type of graphics cannot
be tapped beyond the explanations in this article.  You cannot get further
information by calling or writing to me at StyleWare, because it is my
responsibility to answer questions about StyleWare products, not about the
capabilities of another company's software.

Have fun with these techniques!  I'm always interested in seeing what people do
with the information I pass around, so if you create any interesting documents,
send me a copy on disk.  Well, it's back to technical support for me!

Dale Crawford
StyleWare Technical Support Manager