[00:01 – 00:32]
Microstar SOFTWARE LTD MICROSTAR GRAPHICS EDITOR (Shareware Version) Click to Start Copyright @ 1992 Microstar Software Ltd.
Narrator: Greetings artists and visionaries. Welcome to the exciting new world of Telidon graphics. Behold the Microstar Graphics Editor. This cutting edge drawing technology is a gateway to creativity. It will allow you to render any image you have in your mind on screen. The only limit is your imagination! The following tutorial will help you get started with this powerful drawing program. Once you're familiar with it you'll be making low resolution graphics in no time.
[00:32 – 00:53]
Black screen. A small white menu panel, later referred to as the “Program Window” reads:
Draw, D
Text, T
Paint, P
Edit, E
Store, S
Xpert, X
Quit, Q
Narrator: And here we are. It may not look like much but graphic artists like yourself can use this revolutionary technology to create great things.To navigate click the buttons on top of the program window with your mouse or type the correlating keys on your keyboard.
[00:54 – 01:15]
The Drawing Options menu replaces the Program Window. This menu displays a series of white shapes with black outlines in the left column, and the same shapes are in black on the right. Below the shapes, in the same menu, are the words and coordinates:
Type
Stay
X:6 9
Y:3 4 7
Move
Narrator: Here I pressed D to view the drawing options. We will start here in the draw menu. As you can see there are lots of shapes. You can choose points or dots, lines, arches and filled or unfilled rectangles, polygons and circles.
[01:16 – 01:25]
The menu disappears. A white mouse arrow moves around the left lower part of the screen. A grey plus sign (or cross hairs) follows the mouse arrow.
Narrator: To demonstrate how to make a shape I'm going to start off with this filled polygon by left clicking. I will select the place where I will start my shape then I will continue to left click at each point of the shape. This will form an outline.
[01:26 – 01:39]
Several white, connected zig zag lines are drawn and eventually the line returns to the start, closing the outline on the spiky irregular shape.
Narrator: You can left click as many times as you want making your shape as simple or as complicated as you like. Right click to complete the operation and watch your beautiful polygon come to life.
[01:40 - 01:50]
The spiky shape fills in with white.
Narrator: Now, let's check the paint menu. Here you will see the 16 colours available.
[01:51 - 02:03]
The Paint Menu is divided into two columns. On the left side from top to bottom, the cells have:
X:2
Y:2
A blank white square with a small back dot at the bottom left. Four horizontal lines in different solid, dash or dotted configurations Mix, BG? and a check mark and ex.
The column on the right has a white “F” on a black background, a white square then an 8. A black “B” on a white background, a black square, then a 1. The number 16 has black triangle with the tip pointing up on its right, and below it are 8 colours, and 8 gradients from white to black. Below the black is the number 1 with a black triangle with the tip pointing down on its right.
Narrator: You can select one of these pre-made colours by clicking the check mark. Or you can make your own custom colour to do this. You will have to sacrifice one of the pre-made shades.
[02:04 - 02:29]
The mouse clicks on a dark grey, clicks “mix” and another menu pops up beside the Paint Menu with three columns labelled “R”, “G” and “B”. As the sliders are manipulated a coloured rectangle above RGB changes colour and below the slider, numbers beside the R, the G and the B increase or decrease.
The bottom cell reads: Trans
Narrator: Once you've selected a colour select mix. You can now see sliders that can manipulate the RGB values. I'm going to bring the red up and the green and blue down to create a nice orange. Make sure that once your colour is finalized you click the checkbox to save it.
[02:30 - 03:34]
The menu disappears, the Drawing Options return. On the first click with the mouse, the menu disappears. Several orange, connected zig zag lines are drawn above the white shape. Eventually the line returns to the start, closing the outline on the spiky irregular shape it fills in with a reddish orange. It is about half the size of the first. The Paint Menu returns. The mouse clicks the black square beside the “B”.
The Fill Menu replaces the Paint Menu.
Narrator: As you can see we are still in polygon drawing mode. So I will draw another polygon. This one will be orange. You may have noticed that in the paint menu. There are two boxes at the top labeled F and B, which stand for foreground and background. You can select a different colour for each and this takes us to the Fill menu. Your shapes do not have to be filled with just one colour. Here at the fill menu you can select a texture, a solid fill like we had selected before, vertical or horizontal lines or this crosshatch fill. I will select this crosshatch pattern and click the checkbox. Back in the paint menu. I will select new colours to appear in the foreground and background of the fill.
[03:35 - 04:04]
The indigo blue outline of a circle expands on the right. It intersects one of the white spikes from the first shape. The circle fills from bottom to top with a tight Indigo grid, or cross hatch fill, over a lavender purple background.
Narrator: Click the checkbox. Then go back to the Draw menu to choose a new shape. This filled circle will do nicely. The drawing options to the left will only produce outlines. So make sure you select the circle on the right to see the fill pattern. Now I will left click to set the first point. Move the cursor until the shape looks good then right click to complete it and watch it fill with the colours and pattern that I selected.
[04:05 - 04:45]
The Text Menu appears. It contains X and Y coordinates, numerous configurations of A’s and B’s. a Check mark and x. Options include:
Mono
Prop
ASCII
Supplm
Mosaic
Narrator: You can also add text to your masterpiece. In the text menu you can change the scale of the text right now. I will adjust the size by clicking in this white space. As you can see it grows and shrinks depending on where I click. This is a good large size. You can underline your text, use funky or mosaic characters, adjust the spacing between lines and type vertically, horizontally, upside down or backwards.
[04:46 - 05:20]
The word Telidon is typed in aqua blue on a reddish orange background. It overlays the spiky shape of the same colour.
Narrator: I will be sticking with the conventional text for now and I will click the checkbox to save my choice. Let's see what colours I will be using. I will also give my text a background back in the paint menu. I will pick orange for the background and cyan for the foreground. I think that will really pop and I will click the checkbox here. There's one more thing we need to do before typing. Go back to the draw menu and select type. Now you can left click where you would like to type and start typing. Right click to complete the operation when you're done.
[05:21 - 06:06]
The word Telidon reappears over the white spiky shape.
Narrator: This looks great. But maybe I want to adjust the placement the text using the button in the bottom left corner of the screen labeled select. Click the select button then left click somewhere around the shape or in this case, text, that you would like to move. You will see this rectangular outline form as you move your cursor around. Make sure the rectangle completely surrounds the object you would like to move before right-clicking to select. You can see that the text is now highlighted. I can now let click the shape, turning it transparent and I can use my mouse to right click a new location for the text.
[06:07 - 06:17]
The word is not deleted. The mouse clicks near the white shape. The outline of a rectangle appears around it.
Narrator: Pressing delete at the bottom of the screen while you have the shape selected will delete it. The replay button at the bottom of the screen will let you watch the process that went into your art. Each element that you created will quickly load onto the screen one at a time.
[06:28 - 07:21]
A black screen. The completed shapes and text reappear. They disappear and reappear again when the sequence is recorded. The image remains static, and the mouse appears to click options just out of the on-screen view.
Narrator: Once your original creation of Telidon graphics is complete you can save it as a video by clicking start recording to the right of the program window. Your piece will quickly reload like it did when you hit replay. Click stop recording once it's done and a small version of your piece will appear. All you have to do is now click download recording and a video will be saved onto your computer. Fill out the form below if you would like to share your artwork with other Telidon enthusiasts. The video recording of your artwork will be posted here in the Community Gallery tab, once you provide permission by filling out the form. There you have it. You are now ready to journey into the future of art and communication using Telidon.
[Video description by Shauna Jean Doherty.]