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Let's get comfortable with SuperBlade Pro.
Start with a 500 X 500 transparent image.
Add a new layer.
Selection Tool > Elipse Feather 0, Anti-alias checked, Smoothing 0
Draw an elipse about 100 pixels wide, in the upper left corner of your image.
Floodfill it with any color.
Effects > Plugins > Flaming Pear > Superblade Pro. Ack! I don't waste time, do I?
Your elipse is going to open up in a screen that looks similar to this. All kinds of adjustments, all kinds of buttons and none of them make a bit of sense, do they? No worries.
First things first... make sure Auto preview is checked under the example box so you can see your button. |
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SBP is set up to include an automatic bevel for buttons and things. That's what's on the left side of the screen.
Bevel stuff. Whoo hoo!
OK, you can do that if you want, but I suggest leaving that to something we're more comfortable with. That bevel stuff can be done with PSP's inner bevel. So, I chose the least aggressive of the settings, the mound on the bottom. You can pick what you want when you're done with this exercise... but go with me on this one. To change the shape of the bevel, click and hold down your mouse until a fly-out window comes up. Choose the bevel on the very bottom.
You can look at the choices below the Shape button and see that they are very close to the same settings as the Inner Bevel in PSP. You can set the width, bevel height, texture and other settings of your bevel in that list. SBP has many more choices than PSP's inner bevel, but you get the idea. Don't worry about them for now. |
Let's play with the middle and right side of the screen today..
Look at the little grey button at the top of the middle row. If it doesn't already say BMP, click and hold down on it until you get a fly-out window that looks like this. Check the bottom button BMP. A window will open up for you to select a texture. (See bottom example). Choose any bmp for your texture. You can change it in the next step.
Click and hold down on the top square beneath the bmp button. This allows you to pick and choose the Texture you want to use. A browser window comes up to show you icons of the bmps in your sbp folders. Scroll around until you find something that you would like to use.
For now, pick something with a stong texture design. Your texture will not be colorful. It is exactly what it says - the texture. |
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The box below the texture box is the Environment window. This is the reflection in your button. The example below shows the correlation between the texture and environment choices in the button. Play with the combinations until you come up with something that you just adore.
For those who understand the layer blend properties in PSP, the "Normal" button below the environment box gives you a very long flyout list of blend properties. Leave it on Normal for now.
The bar with the little blue button resets your settings back to a default that really looks ugly to me. Leave it alone.
 Below the blue button, you find a button with a circle and arrow on the right side of the disk.. This opens your Preset selection box. Here you find factory and other stashed presets. You can scroll through these and click on each one til you find something you like, sorta. Find a groovy preset and click OK. Now study your button. Like it? It's adjusted all the goodies all over the place, and you may just fall in love with everything except.......... something just ain't right.
Now, go back and play with texture and environment and find the setting you CANNOT live without creating. Got it? Here's mine. Yup, it's a round-about way of getting there, but you start with an idea and then you look for something similar to the idea and use someone else's settings, and go back and adjust them to suit your tastes.
This exercise has shown you basics of what those confusing buttons do. Once you have a preset similar to what you have in mind, click on the button below your preset choices and save this badboy as your first SBP preset. Give it a name like I did... Put 0 or 1 in the front of your name and description to put it at the top of your presets... name it something you will remember. I named this 0vetchcharcoal.
Here are the exact settings it took to get this preset.
Click Save... return to the main screen and click OK. You now have your first original SBP preset and a lovely elipse button in PSP.
Do not DESELECT.
Use your mover tool to move your button down to the lower left hand side of your image.
Let's do it again. Make a new layer, fill it with any color, open SBP and select your preset. Remember this button. The example looks exactly like your first one, yes? Change it.
Click and hold down the button that says NORMAL. Choose another setting. Play with them until you find something you like. You can save this preset, too, or not. For those of you making rollover buttons, this is an excellent way of doing your buttons so they are similar and the exact same size and shape.
Repeat the exercise, making 4 buttons on 4 layers and save your choices as presets.
You can save the layered image as a PSP file so you have the set of buttons you made for later use.
This ends Part One.
On to Make a SBP WebButton
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