Blade Pro Lesson Two 

Applying Presets, and the Bevel Settings

Here I am again, mo fun, mo fun...

 JUST KIDDING, it's only 50 questions. 

But seriously... let's begin by making a simple beveled gold button like THIS -   

Open a 100x100 pixel image, 16 million colors, white background.   Since we are going to use the whole image to make the button, it's not necessary to select any areas within it.   However, sometimes you may need to apply the filter to only certain portions of the image, and you would make your selection first before loading Blade Pro.

Go to Effects/ Plugin Filters/ Flaming Pear/Super Blade Pro (or Blade Pro if that's what you are using)   At this point you will have the interface open, similar to the picture above (only with no garish red numbers blocking your view!)

Click on the button #6  from our numbered interface.  This opens a box like this -



 

If you do not see the folder named "environments and textures" in the Look in box, navigate to that folder, it's inside your Blade Pro folder.  Actually, on my computer, I have copied this folder and put it on the Desktop because it is a little easier to navigate to there.

Once you find the "environments and textures" folder, you will see a number of files listed with the extension .q5q, or .q9q in the case of Blade Pro.  These are the Super Blade Pro preset files, and these are the little buggers which will give you all the groovy effects (well most of the little buggers, there are also some bitmaps that are important too, but we will get to those!)

 Navigate to the file called "gold, basic.q5q" and highlight it.  That name will appear in the File Name box now, and you can click on the Open button.  The preset will now be applied to your 100x100 image in the preview window (#7 on your numbered interface) on the right side of the Blade Pro interface.  If you like what you see, hit OK and the interface will close, and your new button will be a nice beveled gold button like above.

Almost all of the preset effects within Blade Pro are extremely variable based on background color, shape, size, etc, meaning that if any of those variables change from image to image, the filter effect may be different.

Here are some examples of different images, all using the same basic gold preset. 

100x100 white fill    100x100 black fill (no visible difference)

Davy's Dingbat "m"  

You can see, particularly on the text, the direction of the light source has left dark shadows on the vertical right side of the "l's", and white highlights on the horizontal surfaces of the "S" and the "a" in particular.  These can all be changed (but that is later in the story.)   Now let's say you are not that fond of that sort of rounded look of the bevel, particularly on the button.  So here you go.... BUTTON #1 (SHAPE) - Click on that button and you will see a drop down picture menu of 13 different bevel shapes.  The basic gold preset uses the 4th one down as a standard, but you can click on any of them and apply it -  ( I think I used the 7th one down here.)      Again, if you like what you see in the preview window, hit OK .  If you don't like it, hit Cancel , which closes the interface. Or, you can just browse to another preset, try that, if you like that one, hit OK.  Just keep browsing til you find an effect you like.

Some of the bevel shapes are rounded, and some are more angular.  However, the shape of the image to which you are applying the bevel affects the final outcome, so get used to playing with this filter, you never know what you might come up with!     This is the 8th choice down, similar to #7, but the inner bevel is more cushion-shaped.  There are two slider adjustments which affect the shape of the bevel you are applying, they are Slider #12 (Radius) and Slider #13(Height.)   They will be set at Radius 25 and Height 42 when you apply the basic gold preset, but you can move them at will after that.  the original button       same button, Radius 10    same button, Radius 150 same button, Height -70  same button, Height 80 The Radius determines how wide the bevel will be, and the Height determines how high, or in some cases how deep, the bevel will be.  In the case of the Radius setting of 150 ( all the way to the right) there is no remaining "flat" edge, the entire image was turned into a pyramid.      Okay, go play with bevels now, next we do Bitmaps and Textures, happy happy joy joy!