How to Make your Own
Super Blade Pro
Presets

PSP X and X2

*NOTE*

Sometimes the links for filters change, it's difficult (and a lot of work) to
keep changing them on individual pages, so I have created a page with
links to filters and programs that I have used in my tutorials.
That way it is easier for me, because when there are changes I will
only have one page to update and hopefully better for you, because I'm
less likely to miss a page out when doing the updates :)

You will find links to filters/programs used in this tutorial Here
the link will open in a new window

For this tutorial I used:-
Corel PSP
Super Blade Pro
VM Extravaganza

some images have been made smaller to shorten file size

This tutorial was written by request (hope it's ok Ona).
It assumes that are already familiar with PSP's tools
and know how to use SuperBladePro with its own presets,
and those made by others which are available from
many wonderful sites on the web.

I want to concentrate here on showing
you how to make presets of your own.

To make a preset you need 2 .bmp files, one of which is
a seamless, greyscale image no larger than 256 x 256 for
the texture and the other is a coloured or blank image
for the environment this can be any size.

Step 1.
We will start with the texture.

If you have a seamfree tile that you want to use,
you can use that. If it is larger than 256 x 256
resize it (it can be smaller), then go to
Edit... Sharpen...and sharpen the image. If it
is a coloured image, go to Colours...Greyscale...

This is one that I made from a coloured tile

You are welcome to use this if you want to. Just
right click on it, copy, then paste as a new image
in PSP and save as a .bmp file (explained in step 3)

If you don't have a suitable image, you can use one
of the ones that came with SBP, or you can make one.
The following is a nice easy one to make.

Open a new image, I have used 200 x 200 black (you can
use any size less than 256 x 256). Make the foreground
colour of your palette white. Activate your Paintbrush
Tool and click the dropdown list of brushes at the top.

Choose a brush, it can be any shape that you want
I used these settings
Size = 60
Step = 50
Density = 100
Rotation = 0
Opacity = 100
Blend mode = Normal
Continuous = unticked
Wet look paint = unticked
You don't have to use the same, just try different sizes
and brushes until you get an effect that you like.
Yours is not going to be exactly the same as mine,
but, to give you an idea of what I mean I will show
the screenshots of mine at each step.

Step 2.
With my brush I drew a random pattern on the image.

You can use just white on the black background if
you want, or change your paintbrush colour to any
grey shades. I added a few more brush strokes in
grey and finished with a bit more white.

To finish turn it into a seamfree tile.
Go to Effects...Image Effectss... Seamless Tiling...
I used the default setting. This was my result.

There are lots of other possibilities. You could
use a white background and make your paint colours
black and grey, flood fill your background with grey
and paint with black and white, or use a normal
paintbrush to draw straight or squiggly lines, or even
pictures if you want to. You can also use psp's tools
such as kaleidoscope on your painted image.

To give you an idea of something you could
experiment with, for this one I used a white
background, drew some squiggly lines and pre-set
shapes in black and greys, then applied psp's
ripple (Effects..Geometric Effects)

Step 3.
Now that you have your greyscale image it
must be turned into a .bmp file.
Go to File...Save as...
in the dialogue box, navigate to the folder
that you are going to save your presets in.

I keep all the presets that I have downloaded
from different sites in seperate folders (named
so that I know where they came from) and all of these
folders I have put into the Environment and Textures
folder of SBP, (you can keep them anywhere you want,
this is just the most convenient for me). There is
also a folder there for my own presets.

When you have found the folder that you made for your
presets, give the file a name (make the name individual
because you don't want to overwrite any exising ones with
the same name). I called mine sg_wheels. Then click
on the 'save as file type' box and in the drop down list
choose 'Windows or OS/2 Bitmap(*.bmp)'

The image can now be closed

Step 4.
Now we need an environment.
You can use any coloured picture (black and white are
ok too), a photo or a cropped selection of a photo.
You can make your own image if you want to
That is what I am going to do next.

Open a new white image (I have used 200 x 200
again but you can use any size for this one)
I flood filled my image using a linear gradient
(foreground + background) foreground colour=#0000C0
and background=#FF4040 with an angle of 45°
and no repeats. You dont have to do the same as I
Choose your own colours, gradients, or patterns.
The screenshots are from my results, but experiment
for yourself and see what you come up with.

To add a bit more interest I then went to
Effects...Plugins...Vm Extravaganza...and applied
'Aura Detector' using the default settings.

Save as a .bmp (in the same folder as your
texture .bmp), exactly the same way as in step 3
you can close the image.

Step 5.
Now we will make a .q5q preset for SuperBladePro
(or .q9q if you are using BladePro).

Open a new image, the size isn't
important, I used 200 x 200 white.
Go to Effects...Plugins...
Flaming Pear...SuperBladePro...

To save on file size I have cropped most of
the screenshots and am only showing the
sections that I'm talking about.

The last preset that you opened will be the one
currently on screen (mine was disco ice).

We want to use the .bmp files that we just made.
As you move the mouse over the present texture .bmp
(I have arrowed this in red) it changes to a hand and
when you click with the mouse, the hand
grasps and a navigation box opens.

Navigate to the folder that you put your .bmp files
in and open the texture (greyscale) that you just made.

Step 6.
Click on the environments box (I have arrowed it in
green in the first screenshot in step 5), navigate
to your folder again, this time open the
environment that you just made.
My texture and environment are shown here.

At this point you can play around with the sliders,
shape button, colour of the lights etc.

In this tutorial I am not dealing with their effects.
If you want to know more about what they do, I can highly
recommend a tutorial written by Sally Beacham at dizteq

A great way to make presets is click on the dice
and see what random effect SBP comes up with.

When I see something that looks good but is not quite
what I want, I will try moving some of the settings,
eg adjusting size of the texture (the slider on the
checkered box just under the texture bmp).
This setting has a texture size of 72

Here I moved the texture size down to 46
but left the other settings the same

Step 7.
Once you have found something you like,
you will want to save it. Click in the
button arrowed in this screenshot

In the dialogue box, navigate to the folder where you
want to save your .q5q presets. You will need to keep
the .q5q files that you make in the same folder as as
the .bmp files that were used to make them or SBP won't
be able to find them when you try to use the preset.

Give your preset a name (make the name individual
because SBP will overwrite anything in the folder
that has the same name).

Step 8.
Here I have used the texture .bmp that I made
from my tile (in step one), but kept the same
environment that we have been using. I clicked the
dice button a few times and decided to save this one.

Here again I have used the same environment,
but this time used one of SBP's own textures,
found by clicking the button above the
texture window (circled).

The variations are endless, you can get many
new presets using the same .bmp files and when
you get tired of them just make some more.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
Thankyou to my very helpful testers
To see my other tutorials click Here

If you wish to contact me you can find an email address to use included on my Site Map
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